”So I reckon you’re what—seventeen?” He threw a punch at her, sneering all the time. “Mite young to be out beatin’ up the baddies, dont’cha think?”

Buffy didn’t waste her time responding, she simply threw another punch. This vamp was really starting to get on her nerves. Not only had she fought him for three nights straight and still not dusted him, but every time they fought, he tried to banter with her. It pissed her off.

Punch, kick, duck, punch—he should have been dead by now. They always were.

So why the hell wasn’t he dust yet?

She’d never encountered anything like it before. He knew everything she was going to do—that was the only explanation. And to be honest, she wasn’t sure how she was going to survive this fight.

...

She’d finally kicked his ass. In fact, she was raising her stake to dust him when he wheezed out, “Wait.”

Dream-Buffy waited, just like she had in real life.

But, unlike in real life, Dream-Vamp looked into her eyes. “Need to tell you somethin’.” He stood up and dusted off his pants. “Somethin’s comin’,” he told her. “’S big and it‘s partly my fault. ‘m gonna need your help.”

She stared at him. This wasn’t how it had gone. In real life, she’d...well, she didn’t like to remember that. But this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. “My help with what?” she asked, voice quavering ever so slightly.

“In Eur—“ he began, but a deafening sound interrupted him: BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

She could feel herself being pulled back to wakefulness. Just before she entered the real world again, she head him yell, “Dammit! I paid good money for this!” Her last image was of him fading away, storming at some entity she couldn’t see.

~*~

Buffy sat up in her bed, gasping, fighting to get control of herself. She shouldn’t have dreamed about that. And the fact that her dream was so far removed from reality freaked her out.

Actually, she wasn’t supposed to dream at all, except for prophetic ones. Her Watcher had long ago told her that she must school her mind to empty it of all fanciful dreams. It could interfere with true dreams. For years, she’d spent most nights cushioned by nothing but blackness. And now this. She felt panic start to rise in her system. Was she losing control? Was she starting to crack, the way her Watcher had always warned she would?

What if...she hesitated in her thoughts. What if that dream had been real?

No. There was no way that vampire would ever ask her for help. Well, actually, there was no way any vamp would as her for help, but the idea of him even entertaining the idea was laughable.

And yet...

”I paid good money for this!"

She had good discipline. In the three years since her Watcher had began training her, she’d never let a dream slip through.

She ought to call her Watcher about it. That was what Slayers did when something happened that they didn’t understand. But calling him would mean admitting what she’d done, which she could never do. No, she was going to have to figure this out on her own.

It was a rather frightening thought.

Frightening, but necessary. Buffy frowned into the late afternoon light. What should she do?

To tell the truth, it was a bit hard to think so early. Her sleep was always restless, since her body still rebelled against her when it came to sleeping during the day, so she usually woke up tired. Today, she was exhausted, which led support to the whole it-was-prophetic theory...although the idea that he might play an important role in her future was shudder-worthy.

Buffy sighed and rolled her head on her shoulders from side-to-side, trying to get rid of the crick in her neck. She would have loved to sit there all frickin’ night and try to figure out the problem, but she had work to do.

She’d gotten a job at a fast food place downtown. It wasn’t exactly the most fun place in the world, and it was teeming with humans—but Slayers didn’t have fun, and in order to do their duty properly, they had to make sacrifices. She reminded herself firmly of that as she got ready to go. Two months ago she wouldn’t have dared bemoan anything relating to her duty as a Slayer. It was funny how ever since that librarian had started harassing her, she’d been thinking about these things more and more...

No. Duty. Your duty is all there is. She had to remember that. Forgetting it could mean death.

She finished getting dressed and grabbed her bag. It was small, but there was room for two stakes and a vial of holy water, which was plenty for a well-trained Slayer—and Buffy was very well-trained.

“Time for work,” she muttered, and left.

The Doublemeat Palace was teeming with people, as usual. Carrying a tray past a table of high-schoolers, Buffy made a face. They were so uninformed, so naive, so...childish.

But she was their age. That was what puzzled her. They were so different from her, but in years they matched.

Slaying takes its toll. In experience, a twenty-year-old Slayer could match a hundred-year-old ordinary man. That statement was in the Handbook. When she’d read it at the tender age of sixteen, it had made Buffy proud. She was a Slayer, a girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. It was damned heavy, but the fact that whatever powers there were thought she was strong enough to handle it had meant something to fifteen-year-old Buffy.

Problem was that three years later, she wasn’t so sure. She’d seen horrifying things and done worse, and it didn’t make her proud. It should have—her Watcher told her so. How many times had she heard him say, ”You should be very proud”? But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be.

There was nothing wonderful about being a killing machine.

“Hey! Waitress!” someone yelled. For a second, it didn’t register in her brain—but when a crumpled beer can hit the side of her head, it registered. It registered rather strongly, because the whole fucking can had vampire written all over it.

Her head swiveled over to the group. They were all males, grouped around a table. Fledglings, by the look of it. How they’d escaped her scouring of this town was beyond her.

They wouldn’t escape tonight.

She set her tray down and made her way over to the table. When she arrived she smiled sweetly and said, “Can I get you guys something?”

“Yeah, a piece of that nice ass of yours,” one of them said, smirking.

Buffy narrowed her eyes. It was the stupid outfit. She could have worn normal, nonrevealing clothes, but no, her boss wanted everyone to wear a highly revealing skirt and shirt—plus the horrible hat, but to Buffy, headgear was hardly an issue.

She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a stake where a notepad should have been. “Sounds good,” she said in a soft, dangerous voice. “How about we take it outside?”

One of the vamp’s eyes narrowed. “Slayer,” he breathed. Buffy’s nostrils widened. She could practically feel the fear radiating off of him.

“Fledgling,” she shot back.

He glanced at his cronies, who muttered and shook their heads. Even though there were six of them and one of her, they didn’t want to take her on.

She let her grip on her stake tighten, indicating that they didn’t have a choice.

A few tense seconds passed before the leader put on a cocky grin. “Let’s go, then,” he said, standing up. They filed out of the door. Buffy followed expressionlessly.

As soon as they entered the alley, any facade of civility disappeared. They all came at her at once, angry but fortunately disorganized. Buffy knocked the leader to the side and staked an oncoming vamp in the chest. Dealing a punch to one, she kicked the other in the balls and quickly staked them both.

Three down, three to go. She whirled around and faced the remaining vamps, all of whom looked annoyed and thirsty. She wasn’t worried. She could handle ten fledglings and still come out unscathed.

She attacked them, pushing one into the nearby brick wall. Trash cans fell down, clanging noisily, yet no one bothered to investigate. In a town like Sunnydale, curiosity could result in death.

She grabbed the leader by his shirt and rammed a stake into his heart, whirling around to stake the other vamp who’d been about to brain her with a brick.

Now only the vampire she’d thrown against the wall remained. She walked up to him and quickly, unceremoniously, staked him in the heart.

Once she was finished, she wiped her hands on her uniform and stuck the stake back in her pocket. She was barely out of breath—they hadn’t put up much of a fight. In fact, it had been downright boring. Her Watcher would question her on it, unfortunately. She really hated reporting to—

She froze mid-thought. There it was again. That horrible, almost treasonous line of thought. She didn’t hate reporting to her Watcher. That was her duty. Her Watcher had to record all her fights for future generations’ edification. The Handbook said so.

And yet, that little voice inside her head was insisting that she hated it.

What was wrong with her? Why was being in this town making her think so radically? Buffy leaned up against the wall for support...then straightened as anger flooded through her.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” she exclaimed, kicking the wall. This was not how it was supposed to be!

“Y’know, luv, you’re s’posed to kick the vamps, not the wall. ‘S kind of your job description.”

Buffy froze. Literally. She could have sworn her heart stopped beating. She recognized that voice; she’d heard it last night.

She turned slowly, knowing what she’d see and hating it.

Platinum hair. Electric blue eyes. Long black duster. Arrogant-as-hell smirk.

It was the one vampire who’d gotten away from her:

“Spike.”

~*~