"It's sort of a lot of people. Any idea where to look? If it was vampires we could check the cemeteries, see if anyone is hiding bodies out... anywhere, but I guess we have no idea whether it was a vampire attack in the first place."

"We really don't. Do you know any friends of theirs who we can ask where they were seen last?"

"Cordelia Chase picks on her sometimes? I think maybe she's friends with Xander? I don't really remember ever seeing her talking to anyone else. She's probably in a lot of Dennis's classes, I guess."

Sigh. "All right. Thanks."

"Sorry. I'm not acquaintances with every single person in the school yet."

"I'm not mad at you, I'm not disappointed in you, I don't think there's something that you reasonably could have identified as a good decision in advance that'd have changed anything. I -" he shakes his head like a horse shaking off a fly. "Do you want to go ask their friends, or do you want me to?"

"I can do it. Back in a bit."

Dennis doesn't know anything, but gives her an additional weirdness point for asking. Cordelia hasn't seen Willow, but did see Jesse at the Bronze and wants her to know that he's a tremendously uncool loser with delusions of having a shot in hell with her. Xander was going to meet Willow at the Bronze last night, and he thought she just thought better of it, but given that she was absent today he's concluded that she's probably really sick or something.

"So probably they were both at the Bronze last night," she concludes, after reporting all of this to Alex.

"What's the Bronze?"

"Oh! It's a club. Sort of the club, for high school students, since they card at the bar and not at the door. It's always crowded in the evenings so I think the vampires like it. - I'd have mentioned it before, sorry, I just assumed you knew about it - do you want to see my map of Sunnydale later - "

"Sounds good. Want to head over there and ask the staff if they left with anyone?"

"Yeah, OK. It'll be crowded, though, it's Friday night."

"Huh, so it is. Well, maybe that'll make us less memorable."

So they go to the Bronze. The staff doesn't seem to remember Willow or Jesse - some of them weren't even working last night - and also doesn't want to tell random people who other random people left with. 

At some point after sunset, the person at the door is pushed inside and the door is locked shut. Karen is asking another staff person and won't immediately notice the six vampires at the door.

Not wanting to tell them isn't much of a barrier, he'll read minds for something like this. Not remembering is a much bigger one. 

He notices the door closing and finds his way through the crowd towards Karen.

"Hi! I don't think anyone remembers."

The vampires make their way to the front of the Bronze; a few of them grab people, though they don't immediately try to kill anyone.

Might want to take one alive if we can, to get a location out of. Why don't you take down the ones who aren't holding people, less messy if you miss.

OK. Cool cool cool. She looks around to identify the vampires.

Someone kills the lights and puts a spotlight on the stage, where a vampire in game face is looking down at everyone.

"Ladies and gentlemen," says the vampire. "There is no cause for alarm."

Karen decides to make her way to the stage, actually.

They should probably work on tactical communication. That can wait, though. He scans around to make sure he knows where all the vampires are.

In her defense, the vampire on the stage isn't holding anyone. When she's near the stage, there's one vampire to her left offstage, one to her right onstage with a person, and then the one with the spotlight. Plus there's the one at the lights; she knows there are more but she doesn't know where they all are.

"Actually," says the vampire with the spotlight on him, "There is cause for alarm, it just won't do any good. Bring me the first."

She looks up and sees that the first is - oh hi Dennis.

Yeah this is not happening.

She moves. She pulls out her stake, stabs the vampire to her left, vaults onstage and stabs the one in the spotlight mid-evil-mologue, pulls the one off of Dennis and stabs her, then looks around for other vampires who need to be immediately stabbed and realizes that she can't see them because the rest of the room is dark and there is a spotlight on her. 

The whole maneuver takes about three seconds. She gives herself an A minus for murder, a C for preparedness, and an F minus for secret identity-ing.

Sorry sorry sorry, she thinks, in case Alex can hear that.

The ones at the doors hesitate and then try to open the doors when the one in the spotlight is killed. He stabs one, stabs two, clubs number three over the head hard enough to kill a human, turns around to see Karen blinking in the spotlight, turns back to club number three again.

Karen cannot actually see this. She should... probably go for whoever is controlling that spotlight? She jumps offstage and climbs the stairs. The one at the lights notices this and runs, but not fast enough; she remembers that they were supposed to take one of them alive and attempts to beat the one at the lights into a coma. She doesn't super know how to beat people into comas so she mostly just kicks the vampire in the head as hard as she can until she stops moving.

He surveys the room, satisfies himself that no one else in it is a vampire, notes that they now have two alive vampires, stakes the one he's holding, and heads over to Karen.

"Hi! Sorry about the - sorry. I got a vampire?"

People below them are mostly panicking and attempting to leave the building as quickly as possible.

"Let's get it out of here so we can get directions to wherever it's headed. I think one of the missing kids was among the vampires here tonight but not the other, does that match what you saw -"

"I don't think I got a good look at... any of them." She slings her vampire over her shoulder.