"I cannot believe we're stuck in New Jersey," Tahani grumbled, flopping into the horrid polyester rented couch that furnished the living room in their new flat. "I wanted to go to New York!"

"The Council's nervous," Chidi said. He had that particular placid quality to his voice that meant he was nervous, in turn, about the Council.

"And so they're starving out one of their Slayers, who saves the world for them on a regular basis?"

"Tahani. They're not starving us out." Chidi waved a hand around the admittedly comfortable hotel room. "This is all we really need, and besides, it's time we focused on -"

Tahani groaned.

"Patrolling." Chidi's implacable tone had come to be its own kind of harbinger of doom. "You've been gun-shy since Italy, and you won't tell me why."

"Gun-shy is hardly the term."

"Stake-shy, then." His voice gentled a bit. "I haven't written about it, and I haven't reported it to the Council. I know what we saw was disturbing to both of us. But..."

But, Tahani thought, tick-tock, because even in the brave new world, there were only a handful of Slayers and the Council couldn't spare a lazy one.

She repressed the shiver that went down her spine as best as she could. "I'll go tomorrow night, I promise. I've been...processing it. What I saw."

"I think you mean you've been processing what I did," said the darkness in the room's far corner.

Tahani was too practiced at being frightened to scream. She did, however, pull a knife out and hop over the bed, landing on the balls of her feet and holding the knife to Vicki's throat. "You have ten seconds to explain why I shouldn't kill you."

When Vicki spoke, hellfire threaded through her voice. "I don't think you want to break a bargain with the Demon of the Seal, Tahani."

Ten months still. What had they been thinking? She put the knife away. "Why are you here? I can still kick you out, even if I can't dispatch you to hell quite yet."

"Believe me, there's not much worth sticking around up here for." Vicki eyed Chidi. "Well, mostly."

Thinking of that - eugh. "Answer the question, demon."

"You can call me Vicki, you know." She sat down on the hotel room's only couch. "Heard the Council's breathing down your neck."

"Who, exactly, did you hear that from?"

"Chidi, just now. You should really put up better protections if you're going to be here for awhile."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tahani ground out. "My standing within the Council is none of your business."

"No, it is, though." Vicki twisted up her face. For a moment Tahani tensed, thinking - oh, who knew, that rats might pop out of her eyes, maybe. But in the end she only said, "I owe you an apology."

Tahani waited for the words to make sense. When they continued to be utterly nonsensical, she put her hand on her knife again.

"Oh, stop that. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead."

Vicki, not being human, didn't understand Tahani's problem. She knew how powerful Vicki was - she was, in fact, intimately acquainted with the potency of her power. It was the very idea of her own helplessness that kept her hand on the knife.

"Fine. Well, I'm sorry. I'd been imprisoned for awhile, and I tend to favor the...dramatic means of accomplishing a goal." She directed an unnervingly charming smile at Chidi. "Some people told me it might have been a little offputting."

"Tahani's had nightmares for weeks." Chidi spoke with the kind of mild tone that meant he was furious. "I guess that didn't figure into your plans. Or maybe it did. Slayers aren't popular with your kind."

"I can respect a fellow tool of the divine," Vicki said. "Ah, but you don't like when I call her that."

"I'm standing right here!" Tahani said. But Chidi didn't remove his eyes from Vicki.

"Someone got to you," Chidi said. "But people on our side tend to be more subtle than that. Who was it?"

"Don't tell me you haven't guessed."

"I have my theories. I have theories about a lot of things. But my priority is protecting and helping Tahani, and right now, you're in my way."

"A vampire we both know," Vicki said. "I haven't been in this dimension in several thousand years; that should narrow it down for you."

Eleanor. "No," Tahani said. "No. Absolutely not. She's trying to make trouble."

Vicki raised a single eyebrow, clearly amused.

"Tahani," Chidi said. "I can handle this."

"Oh, and let her keep mocking you? Please." Tahani advanced on Vicki. "If you're in contact with that two-bit big-bad wannabe, tell her to leave me alone. This whole thing, including you, that was her idea. And now she wants to pretend she's sorry? Get out. Tell her she can go back to hell for all I care."

It was a good speech, she thought, but Vicki only watched her with one of those maddening half-smiles, then said to Chidi, "I don't really care about the Slayers, to be honest. Those kinds of infantry battles aren't my priority - and if the world became overrun with demons again, well, they can use the Seal as easily as humans. More easily." She lifted a shoulder in a delicate shrug. "But I was looking into you two. You're an interesting duo. And I got more information, yes, from Eleanor. So here I am. Sorry. I'd like to hang out." She looked between the two of them. "How was that? Good, right? I got some coaching."

"Abominable," Tahani said, "much like yourself, actually."

"Stop goading her," Chidi told Vicki. "If you're here in your capacity as a demon wandering freely on Earth -"

"I don't know that I'd call myself free. Would you?"

"- then you should know there are rules."

"Wrong," Vicki said, grinding her calm satisfaction through her teeth. "You can't tell me that Watcher spiel works on your usual customer."

"Why are you here!" Chidi burst out, nearly shouting.

Tahani blinked. "Good lord."

"Well, well, Chidi," Vicki all but purred. "Look at that, we're finally getting somewhere."

But Chidi wasn't intimidated - and he didn't let up, either. He looked Vicki dead in the eye and said, "You're going to give me an explanation, or I'll break the bargain. Don't think I won't. Me and my Slayer have survived worse than a minor demon's revenge."

That much was true, Tahani thought, but she'd never known Chidi to renege on an agreement like this. Vicki had whipped him into a frenzy.

Interesting. She began to edge towards the door. When neither of them so much as glanced at her, she let herself out.

The truth was that New Jersey, while reputed to be unbearable in both personality and infrastructure, provided a kind of welcome relief to Tahani. There were fewer lonely alleys here than in a lot of other places; the populace was accustomed to human crime and didn't shy away from shouting at what they assumed to be a scarred up methhead trying to rob them. People still died, of course, from vampires and demons and countless other dangers. But she didn't see quite so much helplessness in would-be victim's faces. When she rescued them, half the time they'd snap at her, "Keep walking, weirdo!"

Oh, sure, it was rude. But Tahani felt weary so often now, tired in a way that had nothing to do with macronutrients or hours of sleep. She welcomed the rudeness. It meant people were still alive.

By the time she got back to the hotel room, Vicki was long gone. Chidi sat in his usual corner, scribbling in his journal. "I went patrolling," Tahani said when he didn't look up.

"Mmm," he said. "Report?"

"Looks like you're busy writing your romantic novel about Vicki."

Chidi's head snapped up. "I'm not - that is - the aberration of a demon's bargain -"

"Chidi." Tahani held up a hand. "I didn't mean that as criticism." Well, she sort of had. Would Chidi be surprised when Vicki went in to kiss him? "I killed three vampires, saw no other unusual activity."

"Staked."

"Yes, the usual way." Chidi didn't think of it as 'killing', of course, but it wasn't his job to dispatch the creatures. Tahani briefly thought of Eleanor's hissing criticisms of her behavior at the Spigonni mansion, of her glee in sliding down piles of garbage. They might be loathsome, and technically dead, but that didn't make them un-alive.

"Good." Chidi stopped writing, finally. It was like a spell had broken: he looked suddenly stricken as he took off his glasses and massaged his temples. "I know other Slayers and other members of the Council deal with morally complex situations as well, but this feels...wrong. Strange."

"Unpredictable," Tahani said. "Yes."

"I thought your interplay with Eleanor was funny, but she's still out there, most likely killing people." Chidi pulled a face. "We let ourself get pulled into demonic nonsense. I should have known better."

"To be fair, so should I have."

"You haven't been a Slayer that long."

Tahani couldn't help but bristle at Chidi's tone. "You're the one who told me the Council used to go through Slayers in just a couple years! I think I've done rather well."

"You have, of course you have, especially given your age. I just -"

"Hey!"

"You know what I mean. But I've trained in the ways of the Council for well over ten years at this point. There's no excuse for me. I know what the books say, I know what protocol is, but..."

"But meeting the enemy in the flesh, you can't quite agree," Tahani said.

Chidi gave a tiny nod. "She's likely out there killing people, right now, as we speak. She could be the most charming person, thing, in this dimension - that wouldn't change the facts."

Tahani wasn't sure which 'she' he was talking about. She also wasn't sure it really mattered. "Yes."

He sighed and gave Tahani a wry look. "We'll keep to ourselves for the rest of this trip. We need to get back in the groove of things, clearly."

"Oh, of course," Tahani said, and left Chidi to his work.

-

The first warning appeared a week later.

She'd grown tired of New Jersey, but the Council had directed them to stay for another two months, to complete their favored three-month time period for chasing vampires away from a human population center. Word had gotten round about a Slayer in town, so she'd had to trade heeled boots for tennis shoes: the vampires ran away now.

She was pulling out a stake to dispatch one of them when he held up deathly pale hands and said, "That bitch'll betray you, you know. They always do."

Cryptic last words among vampires weren't exactly rare, but some odd instinct stayed Tahani's hand. "What bitch do you mean, exactly?"

"The one pushing in on Grasso's turf. You know who I mean. You think you can control a little would-be underworld sheriff? Think again." He giggled.

His hand was also moving, though, in a clear bid to knock the stake away. Right, then. She staked him, then stood, dusting herself off.

She hadn't heard the name 'Grasso' before, so she said it to the next three vampires she encountered. Two of them snarled and gave no information. The third sneered and said, "Why do you think there's so many of us, princess?"

"Because vermin always comes in where it's not wanted," Tahani snapped, before kicking the vamp in the head and sending him heart-first onto a broken wood pallet.

That night, she opened her report to Chidi by saying, "This isn't the typical maintenance visit." She described what she'd seen: increased numbers of vamps, odd rumors, and the apparent fame of Grasso. "Probably some kind of vampire mob boss, right?"

"Maybe," Chidi said. "They do enjoy congregating, consolidating power. I'll ask the Council to look into it."

"One of them said something's coming. A turf war? Something worse?"

"It's always something." Chidi sighed. "Get some sleep. I'll call the Council later, see if they have any information."

It struck Tahani as supremely unfair that the Council got to keep traditional office hours, but she knew better than to protest. She spent the time she usually used for meditation mulling over the puzzle: who, exactly, did the vampires of Newark think she was working with?

Meditation brought no answers, and neither did the Council. The next night found Tahani in Newark's second-oldest cemetery, playing the interrogator.

"I think we both know you know who Grasso is," she told the vamp she had pinned under her boot. "I don't actually enjoy torture, and I certainly have no desire to start snipping your nails off, or -"

"Blinding me with hot irons?" The vamp made a face, wiggling in his awful pleather jacket. "Honestly, lady, you're weird even for a Slayer. I told you I don't know anything."

"I've been reliably informed that Grasso's famous in these parts."

"By a guy you killed, I'm guessing."

"And vampires are congregating here for a reason, and I want -" she pressed down on his chest a little harder - "to be done with this charade. Where. Is. Grasso."

The vampire stared at her, his wide yellow eyes rimmed with bright red, sickly burst vessels. After a long moment, he said, "Okay, seriously, I gotta spill, I'm in town from Cincinnati, I just wanted to play the slots down in Atlantic City, I don't know -"

She staked him.

Her neck prickled even as his ashes swirled in the air. She whirled around, and the vampire who'd been leaning against a tree and watching clapped her hands.

The first thing Tahani noticed was the vampire's height: she wasn't quite as short as Eleanor, but Tahani had easily half a head on her. She wore her blonde hair very closely cropped to her head, and her skin was so white it shone in the cemetary's security lights.

She didn't look like Eleanor, not really. But somehow, looking at her, Tahani thought she saw a similarity.

Then the vampire said, "Hi, sweetie," and ran forward, kissing Tahani square on the lips - and Tahani understood.

Desire.

The vampire kissed like someone who was accustomed to kissing strangers. Tahani had - Tahani had been a flirt, before. Pre-Chidi, pre-destiny. But she'd never kissed that much, and since she began training and patrolling, well, opportunities had been limited.

This vampire kissed with an odd desperation. Clearly she was used to this sort of thing, yet she was clumsy, too, her hands shaking as she touched Tahani's hair, her unnecessary breath coming a bit too quickly as she bit Tahani's lip just slightly too hard.

It was the imperfection of the illusion that allowed Tahani to step back, to say, "Who are you?"

"She's taken everything from me," the vampire said. "And so now I seek out my death, as I knew I would always have to, for as long as the Old Ones roam the Earth."

"I don't mean to alarm you, but you're really not speaking sense."

The vampire smiled, sharp, and stepped back into open air, spreading her arms. She changed into her fang-face and said, "There are two children playing in the park a block away - up past their bedtimes, poor dear. A couple is having a distraught argument in that brick house across the street; the husband will come out here soon. An old woman is napping in that yellow house at the intersection, and there's a drunk passed out in the Honda parked across the street from us."

Tahani understood the message; she wasn't an idiot. And yet, heart racing, lips still tingling, she hesitated.

No. No. She was a Slayer. The power roared through her, and she reared back, staking the vampire as it held its arms wide.

It only occurred to her later, after she reported to Chidi, showered, and relaxed with some meditation, that she'd helped precipitate a suicide.

She needed to find the nest, she thought the next night. This was supposed to have been a relatively uneventful trip. Nothing about being the Slayer could really be relied upon to be uneventful, but damn it, she wanted a break between large-scale mystical-disaster types of events. She wanted an even bigger break between moments where she stared up at the night sky and half-hoped she'd finally be taken out, granted peace that Slayers never got during their time on Earth.

She couldn't think that way. She couldn't. But...

Interrogating the vampires clearly wasn't working, in addition to tending making Tahani feel queasy, so she moved on to her next strategy: good old detective work. Before her family had more or less abandoned her, Tahani's sister had always had considerable criticism for what she saw as Tahani's lack of deductive skills. "This is why you only got into two Ivies," she'd said as she painted with the proprietary shade of navy she'd pilfered from John Galliano's dressing room. Tahani had always bristled at such accusations, but she felt strongly that she could have used another brain just now, as she canvassed Newark and tried to suss out just where this mysterious vampire's nest might be.

At least no other vampires tried to kiss her. It was important to acknowledge the small mercies, she told herself.

She'd almost decided to give up for the night when she saw her first clue: an adult vampire dressed in a puffy old-fashioned skirt knocking on a worn wooden door in a careful rhythm.

Tahani crossed the street, doing her best to look casual, and slipped into the shadows of the alley next to the door. The vampire knocked again, a little more emphatically this time, in the same pattern.

The jangle of a doorknob, then: "Don't come 'round here again," said a child.

Tahani couldn't stop herself from wincing, forcing her hands not to curl into fists.

The adult vampire said, "I don't want to come in. I want you to send her a message for me."

"Speak quick, or you'll be sorry."

The vampire's tones turned deadly, furious - and perfectly, horribly clear. "Tell Eleanor Shellstrop that she'll give up the nest she's stolen and return it to the rightful heirs of Grasso, or this city will burn."

-

It couldn't be.

It couldn't be, it couldn't be, but of course it was. 'Shellstrop' wasn't exactly a common name, and vampires weren't so numerous that she could blithely assume coincidence. The simplest explanation was that the Eleanor who now controlled this nest, who controlled children, was the Eleanor Tahani had recently left.

The Eleanor she'd been - distracted - by.

Damn. Hell. Fuck.

"Fuck," she said. A rat scuttled out of the dumpster, running past her shoe. "Oh, fuck you too," she muttered at it.

No use cursing the rat, really; it was probably perfectly happy with its life of turgid, trash-filled splendor. She had to focus on the problem at hand. The short, blonde, annoying problem, likely hanging out on the third floor, in a throne perhaps, while her vampiric child slaves -

"Tahani? What are you doing out here?"

Tahani wasn't proud of it: she screamed. Eleanor's voice was mere inches from her head. By the time she'd whirled around with a stake out, Eleanor had propped the first floor window open and was staring at Tahani with a perfectly blank face.

"If you're done with your freakout, I asked a question."

"I'm - I was working!"

"Clearly." Eleanor eyed Tahani's stake with no small amount of chagrin, and an irritating lack of fear.

"I could stake you right now," Tahani said. "Tell me why you think I shouldn't."

"Aside from the fact that I have higher ground and a window and reach and speed on you, and could break your neck before you fixed, like, any of that?"

Heat flared in Tahani, a shiver of - what, exactly? Fear? Arousal? Ugh. She tightened her grip on the stake. "You're using children. That's disgusting. You must know I'll stop you."

"Stop me from doing what?" But Eleanor was smart, regardless of her other failings. Tahani watched the realization come over her. "Oh, come on! You seriously think -"

"I'm coming back with reinforcements," Tahani said, even though she had no idea what that might constitute. She turned on her heel and walked out of the alley.

She heard the window slam behind her. A moment later, Eleanor was next to her. "Okay, first of all, lame-o asshole move, making assumptions like that! Where do you think you get off -"

Tahani punched her, sending her flying, and kept walking.

"Hey! I'm talking to you." Two steps, and Eleanor'd caught up again. "You're a real - you know, other Slayers have been a lot nicer. You could even call them open-minded."

Tahani was absolutely, positively, swear on her ancestors, not going to ask Eleanor about previous Slayers. "They're also all dead," she said instead. "And so the mantle passes to me, as the ancient magic dictates."

Eleanor snorted. "Come on, we all know about the mumbo-jumbo that witch worked in California. You're not that special anymore."

She very nearly stumbled. "How do you know that?"

"You'd be surprised at what I know."

"Ugh."

She'd begun to hope that if she just kept walking, Eleanor would leave her alone. But Eleanor's sense of timing and sociopathy were apparently more keenly developed than that. She followed silently down several streets, through two alleys, and even stood aside as Tahani staked a vamp. She didn't speak until Tahani was stepping through the revolving door of the motel.

Then she said, "You're still an asshole."

"You won't be able to enter my room," Tahani said, "so I'm not sure what you think you're accomplishing, here."

"Listen, fucknugget, I'm immortal. I can wait outside your door. And I'm happy to, if you plan on spreading the news that I'm - what is it you think I'm doing, actually? Enslaving children?"

Eleanor said the last bit a little too loudly; she might not've noticed the glances they got from patrons sitting at the bar, but Tahani did. "Not here," she hissed, and grabbed Eleanor's hand, pasting a smile on her face as she half dragged Eleanor down the hall and into the - blessedly empty - gym.

"If I have to stake you, I will," Tahani said, but of course that was a very poor way to go about resolving a conflict. "No, I'm -" Wait, she wasn't sorry! Eleanor was using children, turning them, for perfidious reasons! How could she possibly think of anything else, even with Eleanor standing at her, looking at her with hurt eyes?

She shook her head. "No. I will. I promise you, I will. And if you're trying to put me under thrall, you should know it won't work."

"I'm not trying," Eleanor said. "But I am going to just tell you, it's seriously a dick move to not even investigate my business before you condemn it."

"I'm sorry, you must have forgotten: you're a vampire."

"Oh, like that means anything. People are terrible too, I didn't see you accusing the asshole behind the check-in counter of killing kids."

"Vampires are demons! You literally have a demon inside of you!"

"Better a demon than a heartless bitch masquerading as a Slayer!"

Tahani recoiled. She couldn't help it. Eleanor couldn't have conceived of a better shot at Tahani if she'd studied her for years.

"Being a Slayer is my job," she finally managed to say. "My job, and my duty. If you have a better explanation, you're welcome to tell me."

Eleanor stared at her in murderous silence. For a horrible moment, Tahani's mind went straight to the gutter.

She imagined taking hold of Eleanor's face, letting her fingers bite into that sharp jawline. She imagined twisting her fingers, throwing her across the room. Her face burned and her heart raced; she wanted so much, terribly, undeniably.

It was the terror that made her move to step back, trying to get distance, perspective - anything that would make her remember and care about how much of a threat Eleanor was. But even as she moved, Eleanor reached out and grabbed her. Her fingers were shockingly cold and stronger than steel. Tahani had no hope of resisting.

It should have been repulsive. Eleanor might be cute, in her way, but she was a vampire, a particularly loathsome one. But - oh, God, God. It wasn't repulsive at all.

At first Eleanor was gentle, so much so that it took a moment for Tahani to realize she was giving Tahani a chance to escape. As soon as Tahani stepped forward, though, Eleanor moved with her impossible speed, pinning Tahani against the wall of the gym, tugging at her hair. Her height suddenly didn't matter: she had Tahani dead to rights, holding her arms against the wall with twin implacable grips on her biceps. And Tahani burned with desire, with need, all her wits fleeing as she bit Eleanor's lip, licked into her mouth, desperate for more.

It wasn't until Eleanor leaned back that she realized the odd whispering she heard was herself, saying over and over, "Please, please, please."

For a moment, Eleanor only looked at her. Her eyes gleamed in the hotel's fluorescent lights; no sweat marred her brow. She wasn't bothering to breathe.

Then she shook her head, too quickly for Tahani to track. Her vampire teeth shone in the light, too.

"Go upstairs," she said, voice made thick and inhuman by her rearranged jaw. "If you want to see what I'm doing, come by tomorrow. After sundown, obviously."

She moved so quickly then that she might as well have disappeared. Tahani had never seen a vampire with speed like that before; she wasn't eager to repeat the experience.

It took her long, long moments of deep breathing until she could convince herself to go upstairs. When Chidi gave her his I Know Something Happened look, she only smiled wanly and said, "I'll tell you tomorrow, I promise."

Then, of course, she didn't tell him. How could she? They'd done their best not to talk about romantic entanglements. Tahani found Chidi charming, and of course he was dedicated to his work, but he didn't quite understand how things had been for Tahani before he'd found her, and what she might want from a relationship. He'd once screwed up his face and said, "One of my colleagues told me having hos in different area codes might be good for me? We don't talk much anymore."

He was all but celibate, flirtations with Vicki aside, and he very much did not get it. And so Tahani told him she'd seen disturbingly young vampires and didn't mention Eleanor at all. She noted his suspicion when she suited up to go patrolling much earlier than she normally would have, but she brushed off his not-quite-question with a false smile and made her escape.

She found the rowhouse again as though it had a homing beacon. She walked up to the front door this time, knocking the pattern she'd memorized the day before. A window in the door opened and suspicious, small - young - eyes stared at her.

The child vampire behind the door huffed loudly. "Robert, what did Miss Shellstrop say about the Slayer?"

"Tall," said a child she couldn't see. "Long hair, brown skin. Oh, um, very beautiful, but very snooty."

"I am not snooty!"

Beady eyes glinted at her. "It's her," the child said. "Come in, I guess." The window slammed shut; the door creaked open. By the time she stepped through, the two young - the two - the people were gone.

Doing her level best to ignore the incessant pricking in her neck, the Slayer equivalent of a five-alarm fire, Tahani crept forward.

She made it halfway down what looked to be an entry hall when Eleanor said, "No stakeout. I'm impressed."

She didn't jump, quite, but she did go very still. "Eleanor. Where - ah." Her eyes made out a slightly lighter shadow in the recess of the stairwell.

"You'll have to forgive Darnell and Robert," Eleanor said. "They're both very young, and I don't mean in vampire years."

And of course she had the temerity to sound angry, with a hardness in her voice and a tenseness about her frame that Tahani felt positively attacked by. She'd been told to come by, hadn't she, and so here she was: it seemed fairly straightforward to her, despite Eleanor's apparent hostility.

And the children. She'd said she didn't - or she'd implied she wasn't hurting them. How, then?

No. She was here to get the full story, a task that necessitated listening. She could do that, even if Eleanor was hostile, even if she was distracting.

Even if Tahani wanted to grab her and -

"Stop that," Eleanor said. "I can hear your heartbeat, and all your...humanity." She jerked her head towards the stairs. "Master bedroom's mine, come on."

Tahani moved to stand on the far side of the room while Eleanor locked the door. The room itself held a desk that was empty but for a cheap-looking laptop, and a wide bed with a heavy wood frame and a foam mattress. "Frame's old," Eleanor said when she saw Tahani looking at it. "I'm not sure it fits out the door."

"They'd build them in the room sometimes," Tahani said. "Or so history books tell me."

Eleanor smiled in that odd way she had, like there was some kind of joke Tahani wasn't yet included in. "Of course. So, here you are, in my evil lair. Someone told you about Grasso?"

"They described him a bit, yes. Some kind of - vampire mob boss."

"Cute. No, she was more than that. And less, in some ways." Eleanor paced from the door over to the bed, then back again, never fewer than two meters from Tahani. "Grasso was very old, and a real piece of work. When we get old, we tend to start feeling again. Like the demon's being poisoned by its human shell, you get it."

Tahani absolutely did not, but she nodded all the same.

"Grasso's been in Jersey since the first brick was laid. She's had her finger in every possible moneymaking activity over the years. Manufacturing, slave-catching, boating and shipping, you name it."

"I'm sorry, did you say -"

Eleanor cut her a look, a 'don't be stupid' kind of look. "She was a bad person, okay? A bad vampire. Whatever. She owns some strip clubs around here, an online escort service. What she planned for the kids was along those lines, but less savory."

Tahani thought of what one might do with eternally young-looking vampires and fought the urge to throw up.

"Exactly," Eleanor said. "And after that whole fiasco with the bitch Seal of Damaranth, quite a few of my old contacts aren't talking to me. I don't like living in squalor, and I figured not too many people would be pissed at me sending Grasso packing, so here I am."

Tahani opened her mouth, then closed it. She had the uncomfortable suspicion that she'd wind up being hit if she asked the most obvious question.

"And no, I'm not keeping the kids for business."

"I didn't think you were -"

"You did. It's fine. Vamps, man, am I right?" Eleanor held up a fist as though waiting for a phantom fist-bump. Tahani raised hers to the thin air, and, twelve meters apart, they executed an awkward mutual salute. "Anyway, there's nothing that can be done, they're fucked when it comes to aging. They'll be like that forever, all creepy and doll-like. But I can teach them to be people who won't turn into total monsters, so." She shrugged. "Here I am."

The story had holes. Tahani wasn't so dazzled that she couldn't see that. For starters - "How are you making money, then?"

"Cybercrime," Eleanor said, like it was obvious.

"That's...nice of you."

"It's expedient. I want to settle down for a couple decades."

Tahani wondered if Eleanor realized she was a piss poor liar. Maybe she didn't care; maybe she hadn't been a vampire long enough to learn what her demonic tells were.

But Tahani believed her about the children. She didn't believe that teaching them to hack or whatever it was Eleanor was doing could really be called responsible, or teaching them morals, but they hadn't acted afraid. Which meant Tahani owed Eleanor an apology.

Ugh.

Tahani put on her best Oh Look, It's My Good Friend Gwyneth look. "I owe you an apology, then. My sincerest apology: I misjudged the situation entirely."

"Oh, sure, that's why you look like you're ready to Ides of March me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Stab me. Right in the back, like -" Eleanor mimed the motion.

"Technically I think Caesar was stabbed all over."

Eleanor opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head. "Whatever, man." She walked over to the bureau and pulled a crystal bottle out. "Bourbon?"

"At eleven at night?"

"Why not?" She poured herself four fingers or so, far beyond what might be considered polite. "The kids are all right. Literally, in this case. Mission accomplished, so you can go do other Slayer stuff now."

The dismissiveness burned, even though she was technically correct. She wanted to say or do something to - what, exactly?

She couldn't kiss Eleanor again, and it wouldn't be sporting to stake her. So she nodded and went downstairs, instead.

It wasn't that late yet, so she headed towards the cemetery she'd begun in last night. The night was crisp and clear, the kind of late summer day that might more accurately be called early fall. The east coast of America might be crass and full of unsavory vampires, but this particular weather sent Tahani's blood pumping, making her feel like anything was possible.

A leaf fell in front of her. She realized the incongruity too late. A sneering face appeared in front of her. "Say night-night, Slayer."

"Oh, give me a fucking -"

The chloroform absorbed the rest of her objection.

-

She felt the pressure against her arms and legs first. The rope cut into her arms at painful angles; someone had trussed her ankles very thoroughly as well, pinning them against the pointy legs of her chair. It was competent work, done by someone who'd tied people up before.

Before she even opened her eyes, she felt cold down to the bone.

A sibilant voice said, "Wake up, Slayer. Your heartbeat's changed. You humans can't hide from us."

Right, then. She obeyed, then recoiled upon seeing a green, rotting face inches from her own.

The face had once belonged to a white woman of indeterminate age. Now, the power illuminating it from within laughed at Tahani, sending waves of stench over her. "Don't be such a girl. Didn't your Watcher tell you about necromancers?"

"Magic isn't my specialty." She did her best to sound calm, unaffected. "Necromancer, you say?"

"Technically speaking, just a witch." Another uncanny laugh. "It doesn't matter. You're not my main target." The corpse stood, lurching its way across the room. Tahani squinted in the low light - then winced as the screens on the far wall all turned on at once, showing a brilliantly sunny day outside.

Who was the witch trying to trap? Chidi? He wasn't foolish enough to just come charging in. "I'm not sure what you hope to get from this. The Council has training in hostage situations. Whoever told you this was a good idea, they probably wanted to get you in over your head."

A snorting corpse was apparently a horrible thing, all phlegm and squelching. "Just sit there. I'll get what I want."

"No, seriously. I'm honestly curious. What's your plan here? You have to know that if you give me even a moment's opportunity, I'm going to escape."

"Slayers," hissed the corpse. "So arrogant, every one of you."

That wasn't the explanation Tahani wanted, though. "If I wasn't a Slayer, would you be doing this? Is it a grudge towards us specifically, or -"

"Silence!"

Tahani wouldn't have obeyed, but a peculiar magic charge ran through her, painful but not unbearable, forcing her muscles to clench and her jaw to lock tight. The corpse hadn't so much as twitched a finger; the actual witch who was driving it was still nowhere to be seen.

The display of power might not have been deadly, but by the time the feeling faded, Tahani was well and truly terrified. Even as she began straining against the ropes, looking for weak spots or mistakes, she kept her mouth firmly shut.

She expected someone to retrieve her soon enough, though she was sure it wouldn't be Chidi himself. Consequently, when one of the cameras let out a boom and went dark, she wasn't surprised. "Slayers have powerful friends," she told the corpse.

The necromancer still controlled the corpse, but it didn't answer as it slouched over to a closet and pulled out a baseball bat.

Who was coming, that the necromancer thought the corpse could damage with a bat? But she got her answer a moment later, as someone burst into the room, slamming the door behind them and throwing the heavy blanket they wore off their body.

Shock was an odd thing. Tahani had learned to ignore it, to push through and finish whatever she needed to do: strike with the stake, decapitate the demon. Kill her now-possessed friend. But here she couldn't move, and so she had nothing to distract her from the utter, overwhelming shock she felt at seeing Eleanor staring at the corpse, face twisted, vicious teeth on full display.

The corpse moved too quickly, breaking the bat under its knees. And now Tahani understood: sharp wood in both hands, laughing with the necromancer's voice.

"You know," the corpse said, "we had a bet on. No one else believed you'd be so fooled by a Slayer, and an also-ran at that. The magic almost didn't touch her. We can see it."

"Bullshit," Eleanor said. "And, sidebar, I don't care. I'm here for Tahani, not to talk to some lieutenant of the damned."

"You're already damned, Eleanor of the Oaks."

"Oh, shut up, you pretentious piece of shit."

And then they fought.

Tahani had no hopes that Eleanor would win. The corpse throw magic at her even as it kept her physically repelled with the broken bat. Invisible claws slashed at Eleanor's shoulder; it healed almost right away the first time, but after the fourth or fifth time, the cut stayed, and Eleanor's movements began to slow.

No. No! She didn't give a fig if Eleanor was staked, but she really didn't want to stick around and find out what the necromancer had in store for her after that.

The ropes were strong and the knots were tight. She couldn't fiddle her way out of them, wouldn't have been able to if she'd spent twelve more hours trying. But she was still a Slayer.

She focused her power, concentrated as Chidi had taught her, and breathed long and slow.

Then she stood up, shattering the chair, the ropes falling to the ground.

Eleanor glanced at her and backed away - and then fell as her knees buckled, biting back a cry as she caught herself with her damaged shoulder.

Right. This had gone on long enough. Tahani walked over to the corpse, wrenching the bat from its hands. She felt magic begin to build around her, and so she took the bat and slammed it, pointy end first, into the corpse.

It fell. But as it lay on the ground, impaled and twitching about the limbs, she heard the necromancer laugh.

"Bloody lunatic," Tahani muttered. She turned to Eleanor. "Are you all right? This was really an unnecessary rescue, I promise you."

"It's my city now, this is my job." Eleanor pushed herself upright, nostrils flaring when Tahani knelt down next to her. "You should...back off."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Blood." Eleanor nodded down to Tahani's scraped-up wrists. "I'm real close to tweaking. Back up."

For a moment she thought of it: Eleanor sinking her teeth into Tahani's wrist, Tahani holding still, letting her do it. Trusting her. She knew it could feel good; why else would people sometimes give blood willingly? But -

Eleanor, feeding from her. Eleanor, bringing her to the edge, but not letting her go over. That was what she wanted: not the sensation, but the person she imagined giving it.

She was getting wet. It wouldn't do. She refocused her mind on the corpse, trying to recall every detail.

"I'm going to need to wait till nightfall," Eleanor said. "You go back to the hotel, make a report. We're gonna want an audit trail for this."

"Are you sure?"

"Just go," Eleanor snapped.

And so, for a second time, Tahani left Eleanor alone.

She hadn't been gone long enough for Chidi to send out a search party, but he knew something had happened as soon as he saw her. "You smell like a cemetery," he said. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, define it and I'll tell you." She shook her head. "A lot has happened."

Chidi eyed her with what Tahani privately thought of as his Watcher-face, careful and assessing. After a long moment, he nodded. "Get some sleep, then you can make a report. Unless the world's ending...?"

Tahani was starting to have her doubts, to be honest. "Not yet."

Six restless hours later, she sat at a table with Chidi, describing what she'd seen. "I know it's impossible, but - that body had power. Or was channeling it, I suppose, more accurately."

Chidi typed furiously. "I wouldn't say it's impossible. Improbable, certainly, but Council archives are full of impossible things. And I don't even mean the vampires."

She returned his smile half-heartedly. "In that case, something weird was going on. That corpse almost killed Eleanor."

"I know you say she's more intimidating when sober, but if a necromancer could control you, it's not surprising she could take on a single vampire."

Tahani opened her mouth, then shut it, trying to figure out how to explain. "She's stronger when she's sober," she said finally.

"You don't know the half of it, man."

Tahani jumped to see Eleanor in their doorway. She looked, Tahani couldn't help but note, much better: not as wan, not as sad. Stronger. Still pretty, in that short, weirdly young way. "How did you even get in?"

"Credible front desk staff." She held up a piece of paper. "Enough of that, though. You've got bigger problems."

"Tahani," Chidi said, very slowly, his gaze fixed on the paper. "Isn't Kamilah your sister's name?"

"Yes." Tahani stared at the cut-out letters, pasted on the page with brutal carelessness. "Yes, it is."

The message read only, KAMILAH SAYS HI. Below it was a Polaroid, showing Kamilah's loathsome, terrified face.

"Soooooo." Eleanor turned the message around. "We're really up shit creek, huh."

Tahani thought of the necromancer's magic and her throat closed up. "You could say that."

"Right." Eleanor tilted her head and regarded them both, birdlike. "Chidi, get that bitchy demon girlfriend of yours - no, don't even try to deny it, dude. You reek. Tahani?"

"Yes?"

Green eyes found hers, somehow mocking and serious, cold as ice yet warmly worried. "Where do we start?"