The vampire ran through the chill green expanse of the cemetery, a thick mist rolling over the grass and curling off the gravestones as if it were a creature feeding on the night. The tombstones stood gaunt and solemn, the dead undisturbed and quiet in this particular cemetery - what with Sunnydale under the rule of Kamotj, the demon-vampire who had bettered the Master some years ago, cemeteries were no longer the favoured hang-outs of the local bloodsuckers. This vampire was running scared, however. Vampires generally speaking do not run scared, unless they definitively believed in the possibility that the 'Slayer' was out to get them. Most vampires in Sunnydale laughed this off - a slayer hadn't been seen in the Hellmouth for years. Well, not since Faith. But she was gone. It was more a spook story to keep the rest of them in line, and most vampires got the heebie-jeebies sufficiently about the legendary girl born once in a generation to not mess with what could kill them. The slayer was worth being scared of indeed, but there were other things that could be just as scary. This particular creature ran from one of those things. He stopped with a staggering skid in front of a large marble mausoleum, cherubs glistening with the condensation of the settling fog. His yellow cat-like eyes looked sharply from left to right, and then right to left, deciding on a direction to run in. The vampire settled on the left route, and continued its terrified sprint down the aisle of stones. For it was terrified. Well, maybe less terrified and more 'oh god, something behind me is about to kill me', but as far as it goes the two emotions are pretty much indivisible. He was a new vampire, he knew little about the world, he was brutal and yet foolish - foolish enough not to realise that vampires were not always infallible. The vampire continued to run, making hard grunting noises as he saw the gate up ahead, the wrought iron looming closer and closer with every step...
A crossbow bolt snapped into his left shoulder, he roared with an animalistic cry and stumbled, but regained his footing and continued to run. The crossbow bolt hurt, it thought, but if that was the best he could do-
Another crossbow bolt thudded into the right shoulder, inciting yet another cry of agony. He reached the gate, preparing to yank it open and sprint out into the safety of the dark streets where more of his brothers and sisters stalked. However, as he reached the gate, he hit something hard and unwieldy. He bounced off, falling to the ground. The vampire looked up in confusion at the gate, staggered to his feet and lunged for the bolt that kept the cemetery shut. His hands bounced off an invisible barrier, a wall of air that was preventing him from going any further. He growled in annoyance and sprang into the air, not bothering with the gate this time. However, as he reached the apex of his trajectory just above the gate, he felt himself fly against the same barrier, and with a startled cry he tumbled to the grass. He hit the ground heavily, his soulless mind realising with grim simplicity that it had been a trap all along.
"I don't like to do this kind of thing you know" the soft voice said "But you deserve everything that's coming to you."
He spun around with a growl of surprise to see a girl dressed in black but with flame red hair looking at him in a slightly mournful way. Then he felt searing hot pain as the bolt of lightning forked towards him, sending him flying backwards through the air. Before he died, the vampire was aware of the stake puncturing through his back. In a moment, he exploded into a brown cloud of ash and smoke.
Xander Harris lowered the stake, sighing slightly as Willow Rosenberg, his best friend since they had crawled around in pyjamas and played doctors and nurses in his lonely room, walked up to him and smiled quizzically.
"I think we're done for tonight" she said "We'd better get home - Kamotj gets pretty ooh-aah-I-hate-those-demon-hunters when his babies go missing."
"I suppose" Xander replied, as the two began to sedately walk in the opposite direction from the gate, not keen to make their presence felt too heavily "But I would have liked to have clocked up that ever elusive dozen in a night."
"Maybe someday, if we start early maybe?" she arched an eyebrow.
He smirked, re-sheathing the stake in the utility belt he'd stolen from a gun-shop maybe four years ago. That had been a long time ago, he reflected. Xander didn't like to reflect too much, although he had been getting more broody lately - perhaps as a result of the war on vampires he and Willow fought. It was difficult and painful, the two maintaining sleeping clocks almost like those of the demons they fought. Xander was the 'pointy-man' as Willow jokingly tagged him, the man with the stakes, the crossbow and the holy water. He also knew martial arts, initially tutored but then largely self-taught as their allies had been whittled down one by one. He'd taken time out to teach Willow some too; even if she was a Witch, he had told her, knowing how to clock a demon a hard one in the nose could be useful in a close-quarters situation. Somehow and for some strange reason, they had survived. The two high school nerds, one a good shot with the crossbow and the stake and the other a practicing and quite powerful witch made an effective couple as far as dusting the resident demons went.
They were demon hunters. Hardened and very, very tough.
They didn't use the term demon 'slayers', because for some reason it seemed inappropriate. The stories they had heard of the slayer, a girl so powerful she alone could face the demons and vampires with a minimum of help were of near reverential significance. Therefore, giving themselves a title that was almost of holy importance in a human community that was small, terrified and largely divided was not a good way of garnering popularity.
"I loved the barrier thing," Xander said as they emerged from the other side of the cemetery and into the street that ran alongside it, glistening from the fog "That was great. You shoulda seen his face; that was a real kojak moment"
"Well, I practice sometimes" she said, shrugging in that Willow-esque way that she had retained in her behaviour. Old habits died hard; these days the pair found very little to laugh about.
"Sometimes." Xander said flatly, stopping for a moment "Will, you can fire bolt of lightning without flinching, I have doubts that 'sometimes' is the maximum volume of practice you engage in."
Again, Willow shrugged.
They rounded the corner of Clarkson Avenue and then picked their way through the burnt out cars and down the rows of suburb houses in varying states of disrepair. People did still live there, Xander knew, but they never left their houses at this time. When the sun went down, nobody left.
"Watch the border" Willow said, smiling thinly as they stepped over the grass and over the fence of the house that they occupied. Well technically they occupied the basement, but in a way it was still 'their home'. In the underground basement, they were safe - the magicks that Willow cast protected the entrances and there was even a magickal border that, if walked over by a member of the undead, set off the mental alarms that Willow needed to hear to get them out of the basement as quickly as possible. A car that was disguised but functional was hidden in the back garden under a slime green tarpaulin that wasn't a superb disguise during the day, but did the job at night when Vamps were nearly always around.
They silently snuck through the thin area between each building, and towards the basement entrance. The thick pair of wooden trapdoors were kept padlocked. But Willow briskly withdrew a key, muttered a few words to temporarily dispel the protection spell, and unlocked it. Xander bowed slightly and indicated down the dank steps.
"You first, my lady."
Willow shook her head in a show of amusement, and headed down the slippery steps towards the door at the bottom. Yellowish light glowed thinly under the crack. Xander shut the trapdoor behind him, and locked it from the inside. After a moment, the protection spell kicked in again, and their entrance was locked in every way possible. Their home was actually a very large basement, with a room leading off that they designated their sleeping rooms, actually little more than curtains hanging around roll-mats. Still, it made them feel like they had a proper home. Their food supplies were well stocked in the tiny kitchen area that stood opposite the appropriately designated lounge area. It wasn't much, Willow and Xander thought almost in unison, but it was their home. Xander trotted down the steps to where Willow stood, tapping her foot with a trace of dry humour. He smirked slightly as he twisted the door handle and rolled in with the door. Instinctively, he put his hands up. Dawn stood there with the crossbow, her seventeen-year old face darkly serious as Willow and Xander entered...and then it broke into a gleaming smile.
"You're back!" she exclaimed joyfully, and ran up to both of them, hugging them hard as a bear.
"Whoa, Dawnster - we haven't been gone long!" Xander said, smiling.
"Xander, time always goes slower when you're a teenager, remember?" Willow said looking at her best friend, smiling with the Willow smile that came out in times of great comfort.
Dawn's glowing face was cheerful as cheerful could be.
"Sorry, I just got worried...you were out for hours. I get worried when you're gone."
Her face fell slightly, the horrifying thought of losing her family, that being Xander and Willow, almost too much to bear. Whose child she was they hadn't been sure; all they'd known was a little girl who had memories of being with her family, and was confused as to why they weren't there. Despite only being fifteen at the time, nobody else seemed prepared to look after her - if she had had any parents, she didn't now. This parent role had forced them to mature their own roles at a rapid rate, giving them little other choice than to give Dawn role models. She deserved more than destitution.
She was a spark of humanity, one that was tough and as dangerous as they could be sometimes but nonetheless she was the reason Willow and Xander hadn't developed a thick layer of callousness that usually gave Demon Hunters their name.
"I was wondering when you'd let me come with you one night?" Dawn asked hopefully, as Xander slung his jacket onto the coat-stand by the door. Willow, who was in mid-undress from the Kevlar armour and her jacket, felt a gulp settling in her throat. This conversation again. They had had it with Dawn maybe twenty-five times in the last two months, and neither of those times had ended with it happily.
The shuffling of feet gave Dawn a slightly sour expression.
"Don't tell me. I'm too young and I might get hurt. Remix the old tune, I'm seventeen now!" she looked at Xander accusatorily "You train me every day in hand to hand and my shot with a crossbow" then she turned to Willow "You give me basic magic training and protection charms - but for what?"
Xander sighed.
"Look Dawnie, it's not because we don't trust you or anything...its just dangerous out there. I'm just kind of raw about the idea of you coming out with us."
"He is right y'know" Willow said, helpfully "It is very dangerous out there. Lots of Vampires. Lots of Demons. Bad news."
"Only at night" Dawn scoffed "You don't let me go out on my own during the day."
"You just never know who's watching." Xander said "Not all the humans here are on our side, Dawn. They keep an eye out, and they'd jump on you - they'd do anything to appease the big boss. I mean, they do like young women."
He was glad he'd chosen the expression 'young women' - if he'd dare use the word 'kid', Dawn wouldn't speak to either of them for a month. She still seemed unimpressed.
"You can't shield me forever!" Dawn said sulkily "It sucks being the youngest."
"Not always" Willow piped up "Sometimes you get to...well...do stuff."
Willow winced as Xander gave her a flat expression that vocalized 'Good defence Will, why not telling her she can date all the attractive undead fiends in Sunnydale as an added bonus'.
"Well, thanks for the confidence boost" Dawn said, voice reeking of sarcasm "Now I'll just go and wrap myself in cotton wool until the apocalypse arrives." She stalked out of the room and into her bedroom. Xander and Willow exchanged an exhausted glance.
"Maybe she has got a point." Willow said finally, after a moments' awkward silence "Are we being too protective? When we were seventeen we were dusting vampires too."
"Yeah, but..." Xander looked a little unsettled "...she's just a baby."
Willow rolled her eyes.
"Xander, she's not our little girl anymore, you know she is a teenager, and nearly an adult - Dawn's not Dawnie anymore, she's Dawn Double Plus."
Xander flopped down in the seat, and smiled up at Willow.
"I guess I'm just too used to her being 'Little Dawn'. I forget that I'm only six years older than her."
Willow smiled at her best friend, partner in crime and reason she was still sane.
"Is this the big parental angst thing again?"
"Yeah, I guess." Xander fiddled with his brass belt buckle and his dirty white T-Shirt "We've looked after her since she was nine; is it wrong to see myself as her surrogate father?"
Willow laughed softly.
"Not at all. I mean, that would make me the mommy of the house...right?" Willow said, hopefully.
Xander leaned forward and gently patted Willow on the shoulder. Willow, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans with her lovely red hair cut short gave his shoulder a squeeze back.
"There's nobody who makes a better mom than you do Will, trust me."
Willow smiled at his encouraging words.
"I'm glad to know that." She paused, allowing her reply to sink in before adding "Besides, she's got a lot of pent up hormones she should have lot out on boys, clothes, sex, drugs and rock n' roll."
Willow then blushed immediately as her never immaculate choice of words made her want to slap her hand on her forehead.
"Sex and drugs? I'm going to have to have a word with-"
He paused and almost laughed at himself.
"I'm doing it again, huh?"
"With gusto" Willow confirmed, this time sitting on the arm of the armchair and giving him a deep hug "Paternal feelings aren't a bad thing."
We're Dawn's parents, Willow thought There's nobody else. We saved her from the creatures that killed her mother...
Dawn was aware of who her mother had been; scared this innocent little girl could be traumatised for life with no other guardians, they'd taken her in. It had been edgy at first, Willow and Xander knew next to nothing about 'parenting' as such and Dawn had been inconsolable about her mother. As time moved on however, time had healed wounds and Dawn started to see Willow and Xander as the mother and father she'd been robbed of. Seven years after finding her, she was their family. Their girl.
It was bizarre that a girl who was only six years younger than them should be considered their surrogate daughter, but she had had nobody else when she had needed role models. Many times she'd cried in the night, and many times Willow and Xander had let her sleep beside them to calm her nightmares. She was seventeen now; almost independent. It was a strange paternal shock to Xander that sometime she would eventually leave home and set up with a young-
What the hell was he thinking? In this world? It was a warzone out there. It wasn't like she'd be settling down anytime soon, Sunnydale was still in ruins. Xander knew little about the rest of the USA and what it was like at the moment. They'd been compelled to stay because of a duty that they knew they had to perform. There was no slayer around to do it for them, and thus Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg soldiered on. Since this was a world in which vampires roamed freely, it made raising Dawn difficult. It was not an ideal world for Dawn to grow up in, and they had been forced to give her an education as best they could, raiding libraries for textbooks and what with Willow being an adept teacher, Dawn was taught well. She also happened to be very bright, which helped.
"I think we'd better make some apologies to the Dawnster" Xander said, awkwardly "She's probably a bit stung about us giving her the no-go on patrolling with us."
"Yep" Willow agreed, sadly "Poor girl. Just wish we could convince her patrol isn't as exciting as it sounds."
Xander seemed to be thinking.
"We will have to take her out, you know." He said "We're going to have to take her with us so she can learn. I don't want to do that, but we're going to have to; sometimes I feel better when I know she's close by so I know I can protect her more easily."
Willow nodded in agreement. They couldn't put it off forever.
"Shall we...take her out next time we patrol...?" Willow suggested.
"Yes please!"
The voice came from neither Willow nor Xander, but from the doorway to the sleeping areas where Dawn stood, smiling triumphantly.
"You were listening?" Xander asked incredulously.
"You taught me well" Dawn said, winking at them and clicking her tongue.
"We taught you to keep your senses alert and guard up at all times."
"Well, I am keeping my senses alert. I'm eavesdropping."
Xander and Willow just looked at each other, burning up in the face of Dawn's confident if lacking logic.
"Guess that means she takes after you." Willow said, nudging Xander.
"We did teach her well - curse that logic." Xander replied dryly.
Willow wandered over to the oven, and opened a cupboard, idly looking for a companion to what she knew lay in the small fridge.
"How does sausages and mashed potatoes sound, Dawn?" Willow asked.
Dawn looked disappointed.
"We had that yesterday."
"Break it up into twenty-four hour-long units" Xander quipped, as he went to get the sausages from the fridge "Then it seems longer."
"You're really funny, seriously." Dawn muttered as she pulled out the bag of potatoes. Food was unusually easy to acquire. Vampires believed in preserving their food supply, not destroying it, and for those reasons kept a brisk food business in Sunnydale. A lot of the time Willow and Xander stole it; they did this out of principle and economics, the principle being that they refused to buy from a supermarket as if the vampires weren't watching it with their cold dead eyes, the economics being that they had no money and that Vampires were pretty restrictive about who they chose their collaborators should sell to. As Demon Hunters, they couldn't run the risk of being recognised.
Collaborators were annoyingly frequent; trust of anybody else was another thing that had vaporised from the lives of Willow and Xander, some humans would aid you without question, others would climb over each other to sell you out.
Within half an hour, food was made and they sat down at the small table to eat. Dawn dug her fork into the mash, clearly put out by the repeat of last nights meal.
"You hungry, Dawnie?" Willow asked, trying to sound cheerful.
"Yeah, just...it's what we had last night" Dawn mumbled, putting the fork into her mouth.
"Sorry, but what's available is available." Xander said, coolly "We can't be choosy. Makes things more difficult than they already are."
Dawn immediately regretted being fussy, and looked up at Xander.
"Sorry. Sometimes I forget things aren't easy - what with the curfew and you doing...what it is you do."
Xander shrugged and gave her a half smile.
"Its okay. It could be worse."
They ate; indulging in small talk and discussing the role Dawn would play come patrol night.
"'Kay Dawn" Xander said, as he speared a sausage fragment "A few rules come tomorrow night. One, no heroics. Two, stick close to us. Three, keep the crossbow loaded at all times but for gods sake make sure it's not pointed at me or Will."
Dawn's eyes lit up.
"I get to use a crossbow? Cool!" she exclaimed.
"Enthusiasm only makes me repeat the rule about who it's pointed at." Xander said, eyeing Dawn dutifully.
"Those things have hair triggers" Willow said "Trust us Dawn, be careful with it. A few other things; when I'm going to do a spell, keep as close to me as possible - I don't want you caught in a freeze spell or anything; that could just...well...make things a little complicated."
Willow looked directly at Dawn.
"Basically, you'll freeze."
Dawn nodded, a tad pale but nonetheless showing a lot of backbone.
"What about Xander? Shouldn't he-?" Dawn began.
"I know the risks" Xander cut in "I can handle it. No worries."
Dawn seemed a little concerned, but she didn't bring it up. For years Willow and Xander had been like her brother and sister...no, mother and father. Her real sister she barely remembered. All she remembered was that her sister disappeared, saying something about 'dealing with those freaks', and she hadn't come back. After a week, the vampires came. It was a memory that had faded quite strongly as Xander and Willow had raised her...but she still remembered that her mother had died and her sister most likely in the ground with her. For those reasons she had also refused to leave; revenge was something she had tasted as Xander and Willow cut down vampire after vampire, but it would taste particularly sweet as she capped her own leeches. Dawn was looking forward to it. As she helped clear away the dishes, the three of them talking about tactics, the weather and when business was done, Star Wars, she couldn't help but feel excited; soon she would finally be getting her hands dirty.
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