There are no drunk people in this alley, actually, although it's definitely the right area of town for them. Instead, there's a teenage girl leaning against a wall playing a Game Boy, and there's a young-looking man in an old bomber jacket. 

     "Hey," says the man. "This isn't a great place to be out after dark, you know."

The teenage girl angles her screen just so, in the light of the nearest streetlight. It takes her half a second to confirm that he has no reflection.

She punches him.

As he turns the corner, he sees the outline of the man in the jacket approaching a teenage girl. Fearing he's going to lose another one, he picks up the pace, hoping to get the jump on the creature before he notices him there.

He comes to a halt in shock and surprise as the girl punches the vampire in the face. He freezes for a moment, unsure of what to do, squeezing the stake in his hand.

She punches the vampire a couple more times, then grabs the jacket and steps around behind the vampire so that she can pull it off and toss it down the alley. She succeeds at this, actually, but the vampire manages to punch her back before she can hit him again.

She's a lot less fazed by this than a normal human ought to be. She knocks the vampire to the ground and pulls out a stake.

He's even more surprised when she lands a few more blows on the vampire. This is not something he's used to seeing. He snaps back to reality when the vampire lands a punch on her and moves forward to help, but she already has him on the ground. He pulls out his stake and makes a move to dust the vamp.

- well this random person is just gonna dust her vamp then that's - fine? Probably? Now there is a dusted vampire. She probably could have done it first, but she moved to pin him before she moved to stake him. That's how it goes, sometimes. She blinks at the random person. 

"Well. I guess I don't have to tell you you didn't see anything."

The blood is pounding in his ears, even though he barely did anything. This... girl did most of the work.

"N-no. And I don't suppose you'd be convinced that he was just a run-of-the-mill criminal type," he says, looking down at the stake in her hand. He hides his own up his sleeve, checking the alley to see if anyone else noticed.

"Can I... walk you home, miss? Though I guess you probably don't need it."

He doesn't know what to do. This wasn't part of his training.

"Nah, I'm good." She heads off to grab the jacket. Since it wasn't in contact with the vampire when it dusted, it's still around, unlike the rest of his clothes. She starts rifling through the pockets.

"So what're you? Independent vampire hunter?"

He watches her grab the jacket. It's cool looking, but too small for him.

"What? No. I um... I wouldn't say 'independent,' really." He pauses. He can't just come out and say who he is and what he's working for. Most people would freak out. He figures she's probably not "most people," but still. "But I do hunt vampires though. And other stuff, probably."

"Probably?"

He isn't the best conversationalist.

"I just meant... I haven't really hunted anything else yet. But will, assuming there are some around." He tries to deflect a little onto her. "And what about you? Who are you? Vampire fighting isn't exactly something most girls spend their time doing."

"Most girls would die."

She puts the jacket on and takes a wallet out of one pocket. She checks how much money she's earned. Looks like maybe a hundred dollars? She can probably stretch that for a while.

"Actually, most anyone would die. You might live longer in a different line of work."

He watches her check the wallet. It's from the way she counts the money that every bill matters to her. He reaches into one of his many pockets and pulls out a hundred dollar bill and holds it out, offering it to her.

"A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever," he mutters to himself. "You might be right, but I didn't exactly chose this line of work. And I don't really intend to change."

She frowns at the hundred dollar bill. She does not take it.

"What chose you, then?"

"For making my job tonight a lot easier and safer," he says, still holding it out and ignoring her question. "Who knows what might have happened if you weren't here?"

It's meant partly as a joke. He really hopes it doesn't sound like he's mocking her.

She thinks about it.

"Fine," she sighs, and takes the money. "Only 'cause I pinned him, though, I don't need help or anything."

"Of course not," he nods. "Anyway, you never answered my question. How'd you end up in the vampire dusting business? It's not exactly a common one. For anyone."

"I didn't choose it either. Just sorta happens to some people."

He nods again. "Yeah... I get that."

He isn't really sure what to say next. "Do you have a name?" he asks after a pause.

"...do you?"

"Paul. And yours?"

"Emily." That might be awkward later, but at least if she decides she doesn't trust him, he won't have any information to go tracking down who she used to be.

"Nice to meet you, Emily. Even if the circumstances were a bit... odd.

He shifts his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. "Are you local, or just passing through or..."

She makes a noncommittal wobbly hand gesture. "Somewhere in there."

He frowns. He's not really sure what to make of this. Any of it.

"It's a hellmouth, you know. So it's kind of the place to be, if you're a vampire. Or anything else particularly drawn to portals to hell, which I understand is kind of a lot of different things."

He blinks. She knows about the Hellmouth? This night just keeps getting weirder.

"Yeah, that's... That's why I'm here, actually."

"Guess that makes sense. Kinda the place to be, if you're hunting things."

"It is," he says, a little grimly. He looks up and down the alleyway. There's no sign of anyone else.

"Speaking of," he says, turning back to her. "Do you have anything else you're tracking? This"—he kicks the pile of dust on the ground—"was my only lead for tonight." He feels weird asking this young girl where to find vampires, but she doesn't seem like it would phase her.

"Not currently. Just out looking for things that go bump in the night, mostly. Sometimes they'll take live victims back to their nests, and then you can take out multiple vampires at a time without watching anybody die, but I haven't had a ton of luck clearing the place out yet." Turns out getting leads is a lot harder, when you're working alone.

He thinks for a moment, before reaching into another pocket and pulling out a map. It looks like it's made for tourist, but none of the circles or marks on it are anything of interest to visitors to Cleveland.

"I don't know if you have somewhere else you need to be, but the information I had on this guy seemed to suggest his lair was somewhere around here," he says, pointing to a block on the map not far away from where they're standing, in the middle of a ring of red dots. "You seem like you know how to handle yourself, and I could use some backup if you'd like to help me investigate."

"Um... sure. I guess I don't have anything else to do tonight. Be better to go in more heavily armed, though, I don't have my bow on me right now." (She does not, in fact, have a bow at all anymore.) "Do you have any idea how many vampires he's got there?"

He lets out a little laugh. "I... I don't actually have mine either." It's true; his is still still on its way from Rome.

The smile disappears from his face as quickly as it appeared. "I don't know, actually. It could be empty, it could be a half dozen or more." He thinks for a moment. "Other than a bow, is there anything in particular you'd be glad to have?"

"Uh, gosh." Her dog, her mindreader, her - no use thinking about it. "Not really. Maybe a decent pair of binoculars, or something? If we could get a good angle on them. Better to know what we're heading into before we give up the element of surprise."

"Binoculars," he says with a nod. He reaches into one of his pockets...

...and pulls out a small notebook and pen. He writes down her suggestion. "Those would make things easier. Unfortunately..." It is clear he does not have binoculars with him.

"I do have these, if you think they could be useful?" He pulls several small glass bottles from somewhere on his belt and hands them to her. They each have a cross on them. "Holy water. Careful, they shatter easily. Useful when thrown. I'd give you a stake, but you seem set in that department.

She frowns at the bottles, but she takes them.

"Are we sure we want to go in tonight, if we can think of several things we'd be better off having? I guess we can at least try to find the place."

"At the very least we can scope it out. It may be empty for all we know." He looks at his map. "This way," he says, pointing down the alley and starting off.

After three long strides he stops suddenly. He turns back toward her, angling a mirror until he can see her reflection. "Sorry. I just realized I never formally checked."

"All good."

She kind of doesn't feel the need to check. But she can pretty much hear Alex glaring at her in her head, so when he turns his back to her again she angles her gameboy until she can confirm that he is, in fact, not a vampire.

She vaguely wishes that Alex were actually here to glare at her. He's not, though.

She follows the new guy.

He quickly and quietly makes his way through the city, sticking to side streets and alleyways as much as he can. Every few moments he checks to make sure Emily is following him. He also keeps an eye out for vampires and other things that go bump in the night.

Finally, after almost half an hour of walking, he stops. When she catches up to him he points to the building across the street. It appears to be an empty warehouse on the riverfront. "There. That seems to be more or less the..." he pauses, as though searching for a word "...epicenter of the attacks from the past three weeks, as near as I can tell."

"Mmm. How sure are you that it's that specific building?"

"Very little." He doesn't see any point in lying to her, especially if she's risking her life to help him. "But of the seven attacks I traced to the vamp we dusted earlier, all are spread out around here, and two more nearby. And this seems to be the most likely candidate," he says, scanning up and down the street. It seems empty.

"Thoughts?"

Honestly she's mostly thinking that this is way harder without super hearing.

"Well... if there are other vamps in the nest, it's pretty costly to leave them there too long; they might kill again tomorrow night, and if their leader's gone, they might move to an area that they expect to be safer, at which point we won't be very easily able to find them again.

"On the other hand, if there might be more than one or two, we don't want to just charge in. Better to check whether we can get more information on who's inside. Of course we have to do it quietly, or they'll hear us."

He nods in agreement. "Quietly," he says, softly, almost to himself. He scans the building to see if there are any obvious ways to scout it out before looking back down at the girl next to him frowning. He can't in good conscience make her go first, even if she seems to know how to handle herself.

"Alright.You stay here and keep an eye out. I'll check it out and see if there are any windows or unlocked doors that I can take a look through as quietly as I can. If I'm not back in ten minutes, get yourself somewhere safe." He takes a deep breath, scans the street again, crosses himself, and draws the sword from under his coat before silently crossing the street to try and find a way to look inside.

- yeah that seems like a bad idea? She's gonna try to stop him before he heads out alone.

"Do you - actually know how to handle yourself in a fight against a vampire? Because I don't want you to, like, die, and no offense, but most people can't."

He's surprised. It's obvious she knows how to handle herself with a vamp, but she's clearly younger and smaller than him. He raises an eyebrow, trying to fight off his sense of annoyance.

"Yeah? I mean, I'm not a grizzled veteran or anything, but I've fought several and I'm still in one piece, more or less."

He's trying to sound more confident than he is. It's true that he's fought vampires before, but that doesn't mean he's cocky about it.

"All it takes is one."

He grimaces and grips his sword tighter. "I try not to overthink it," he says.

Before she can say anything else, he crosses himself again and heads toward the building, quietly checking for windows or an unlocked door.

She's gonna be so mad at herself if he dies, but she doesn't follow. It's possible he knows what he's doing. She doesn't really buy it, but - well, it's not like she has any right to stop him from risking his life. She keeps watch, silently straining to hear anything suspicious.

The building's doors all appear to be locked. There are some dust-covered windows, though. Something person-shaped is moving inside, though it's too dark to see very much of them.

It occurs to him that it will be pretty embarrassing if he dies now, but shakes the thought off. He can tell there are people inside. Or, at least, people shaped creatures. There are at least... two, three? inside, and no obvious way in. He really wishes he had his crossbow. After a few moments, he creeps back to Emily.

"It looks like two or three vampires. Doors are locked. If there was a good way to take them by surprise I'd say we go for it, but as it stands..." He trails off. He's not sure if they can take three vamps between them, but doesn't want to seem afraid in front of this girl.

Hmm.

The annoying thing is, she's like, ninety percent sure she can take three vampires, especially if the boss is dead. But Alex would be really upset if he knew she was making a habit of doing things with a one-in-ten chance of getting her killed. She does one in twenty, maybe, sometimes, because she doesn't really care enough about dying, but - if it does get back to him that she's dead, she kind of wants to have only given him reason to be sad, and not also reason to be disappointed.

She was really kind of a dumbass for leaving Sunnydale without her bow.

"I'm no good at picking locks. I guess - if we wait until day then they'll probably be pinned, right, and then we can come back before sunset and see if we get lucky and they go out hunting one by one. And if we're not lucky, at least we won't be fighting them in an environment that they know much better than we do."

He nods. It's clear that she faced this sort of dilemma before and has thought this through. He's a bit less experienced in that regard. But she makes a good point about waiting.

"That's what I was thinking." He puts away his sword and looks around. He finds a spot against the wall with a good view of the main entrance and sits down. He stretches for a moment and then looks at her. "Have you eaten recently?" he asks. "It's been hours for me. I wonder if there's some sort of twenty-four hour market around here. You wouldn't know of any, would you?"

" - hm? Uh, there's one maybe a mile that way? Bit of a hike, but I don't think it closes."

He nods, almost to himself, before reaching inside his coat. He pulls out a couple of twenty dollar bills. "Go see if you can grab a couple of sandwiches or something hot for us to eat. Get me water, and grab whatever you want for yourself." He pauses for a second, glancing back at the building with the vampires. "And a couple of candy bars. Something with peanuts, unless you're allergic."

She almost asks him whether he's sure whether it wouldn't be safer for him to go get the snacks, and then she remembers that he doesn't know where the store is and she isn't very good at giving directions. Probably he won't head in and get himself killed.

"All right. Don't go getting into anything super dangerous by yourself, okay?"

He hopes he hasn't sent her into danger, but he thinks—hopes, even—that his job is probably the more dangerous one. He promises not to do anything dangerous or stupid, and watches her go. He hunches down, all but disappearing into the shadows as he watches the building. With nothing to do but grip his sword and keep watch, he begins to pray, waiting for the girl to come back.

The girl is unworried. Ordinary individual vampires are not really much of a problem for her, so barring some kind of organized attack, or something stronger than an ordinary vampire, she should be fine.

She runs off. She is back in twenty minutes with sandwiches, apple juice, water, and candy. She is not out of breath.

"They didn't have hot stuff still going," she says, by way of explanation.

"That's fair," he says with a nod. He accepts the sandwich, water, and candy gladly, very specifically not asking for his change back.

His eyes stay fixed on the building across the street as he eats. He doesn't say anything, but is still glad she's back. She seems confident in a way that eludes him, despite his experience. Even if it's on him to deal with the vampire problem, having her around makes him feel a bit more certain the sun will not rise on his lifeless corpse.

He glances at her. "What kind of candy did you get for yourself?" he asks with a tired smile.

...it would be cooler to have not gotten candy, but she did get candy, and it's not very cool to lie in order to seem cool. "Twix bar. Here's your change." And she holds out some dollar bills and coins to him. Because she is mostly honest and also doesn't need help right now. Mostly she needs a bow.

"Twix is good. I like peanut M&Ms myself, especially for a stakeout, but Twix is a good choice." He takes his change politely. He knows what it's like to have to live on someone else's charity, how it can feel. He doesn't press the issue.

"No activity, but I did notice there seem to be plenty of cigarette butts by the door over there. Don't seem to have been there especially long either. It might be that one of our friends has a bad habit." He chuckles, and then says after a moment. "Might be that it'll be bad for his heart, if you know what I mean." He'd like to sleep, but not until this mission is finished.

She does not laugh. "Yeah. Maybe."

She isn't really expecting anything to come of that, but sure enough, fifteen or twenty more minutes in, someone comes out of the hideout and starts fiddling with a lighter.

He stands up silently, crossing himself before pulling out his sword in his right hand, a metal crucifix in his right. He whispers to the girl "You circle around that way, I'll come at him from the right. Hopefully we can surprise him." He pauses for just a moment. "Make sure it's really a vampire before you, you know..."

As his words trail off, he takes a deep breath and silently and quickly circle around to come at the door from the shadows to its left.

She supposes that works. She can circle around.

It's actually kind of hard to confirm that a vampire is a vampire for sure, when you don't have a telepath handy and they're in their human face. They're usually not in their human faces when they don't have to be, though, and when this one doesn't see anyone, he lets his go.

She doesn't waste time in going for the kill. One blow to knock him off balance and open up his stance, and then it's very easy to drive the stake through his heart.

Shouldn't get overconfident. Feels good to do things cleanly sometimes, though.

He approaches in grim silence, careful to control his breath, to not get ahead of himself. He prepares himself to act swiftly and decisively, to end this with no more than is necessary. He steps forward, sword gripped tightly in his hand and...

The girl slays the vampire right in front of him.

He's slightly shocked. Despite what happened earlier, he wasn't prepared for this much smaller young woman to so easily handle a vampire. He tries to keep his expression from revealing all the things running through his head, instead giving her a nod of respect.

"Nice," he whispers to her. "I think we wait here until anyone else in there starts to look for him when he doesn't come back. Sound good?" He moves into the shadows next to the door.

"Only one or two more inside, right? Could probably just lure them out now and slay them at the door. Less waiting that way."

She seems much more confident about facing them than he. But he nods and bangs on the door, muttering some Latin under his breath.

It is reeeeally inconvenient how this person appears to believe that he should be able to do the same things she does. This is kind of an attitude that is going to get him killed. The vast majority of fights between a vampire and a human get the human killed. But she doesn't really know how to say that he should stop comparing without, like, letting on about who she is, and even though who she is should be obvious at this point she doesn't really want to call the council down on her head. Because then she might have to run and hide behind some Quendi, and that would be really embarrassing.

There's the sound of something moving inside the building, heading towards them.

" - you should get away from the door, so they don't - "

He sees the door swing open and an ugly looking creature in a human body emerges, asking what all the damn commotion is about before being is cut off by a sword swinging through the darkness. The vampire barely ducks in time and he just misses decapitating it. "So much for surprise," he thinks to himself. The creature lunges at him, but he thrusts the large wooden crucifix in his left hand forward, making it jerk backward.

"I really hope she can take care of the other one," he thinks to himself, before pushing forward, holding out the cross to knock the vampire off balance, looking for an opportunity to finish the job.

Bad, bad, bad, she mishandled this very badly, now the totally normal human is in a hand-to-hand fight with a vampire, a vampire who is outside the building and who can run off now any time he feels like he got more than he bargained for. And if the vampires split up then she can't be sure to slay both of them while also keeping Paul safe. 

Sloppy. Way, way, way too sloppy. But she can't just sit here criticizing herself, that's worse than anything.

She circles around behind the vampire, hopefully blocking its path of escape, though the other one can run the other way away from the door if they come out in the next few seconds. She can stab him from behind if he lets his guard down attacking Paul. Which he will - crosses aren't much good if a vampire's not going to be able to run.

This is going better than he expected.

He'd hoped to get the vampire by surprise in one swing, but knew that was unlikely. But so far, it's two against one. The other vampire hasn't shown up, and this one is entirely focused on him and his sword. He sees Emily circle around behind the vamp, and takes the opportunity to lunge forward forcing it back toward her, making sure it doesn't notice the girl behind him with the stake.

She's sure he's noticed her. He's a vampire, after all, his senses are going to be much better than hers. The winning move here is probably grabbing Paul and threatening to kill him - odds are the vampire's fast enough to catch him, even with the sword - but he might not know that that's the winning move. He probably thinks he's going up against two normal humans, and might expect her to be too weak and clumsy to be a real threat. So he'll still go for Paul, but he'll go for the kill right away, probably. 

She's very focused on the vampire's movements, on any sign that he's heading for that killing blow. But the vampire falters, and takes half a step back, at which point she's able to rush forward.

The third vampire comes out of the building just as Karen is sliding her stake into the second one. She's expecting it to run, which'll be its own sort of inconvenient. Instead, she sees through the dust that the third vampire has decided to slam Paul into the wall while he's distracted.

He almost starts to smile as he sees the vampire in front of him make a wrong move and then suddenly turn to dust. But he's interrupted by the third vampire slamming into the wall. He lets out a low grunt of pain and surprise, but doesn't lose focus. This is what he's trained for. He's not going to let fear overcome him. Instead, he twists himself to grab onto it and try and hold it close to him so she has an opportunity to stake this one too. He knows what a vampire can do to a person in only a few seconds, but he's confident that the Kevlar padding around his neck and shoulders should keep him from getting killed long enough for Emily to finish the job.

She stabs the vampire. He growls as he crumbles into dust, and then there's nothing between her and Paul anymore.

"That was sloppy," she says, after a moment. "But I guess we're both alive, so. Congrats for now."

He nods, panting, catching his breath. "Th-thanks," he says, standing up straight and looking around. "I think that's all of them, but we should double check inside. Don't want any more surprises." The feeling of being slammed against the wall is still fresh in his mind. He glances at the door.

"Yeah, makes sense. I'm gonna go in first, okay?"

He's about to protest before he remembers how she's handled herself better than he has. He's starting to think maybe he's the one out of his depth. "Yeah," he nodes. "I'll follow."

"Kay. Watch our backs."

She gives him another second to catch his breath, and then heads in. Listens very carefully. It's pretty quiet inside; there's the occasional car outside, but she can't hear anything moving. She pushes open some doors and checks the various rooms. Empty, empty, corpse, empty. She pulls out a thinner stake, only a little wider than a pencil, and stabs through the dead person's heart without puncturing her clothes. After she fixes the clothes again, you can't tell from the outside.

"I think we got everyone who was home. It's possible that someone else was out hunting, I guess."

He follows her inside, keep careful watch to make sure no one sneaks up on them. He doesn't want to be the reason they get vamped. It would be embarrassing and deadly. Paul watches her carefully stab the corpse thorugh the heart, ensuring they're really dead.

He nods, pulling out a vial of holy water, sprinkling it around and saying a prayer. He rubs his eyes, realizing how tired he is. It's almost dawn.

"Do you have a place to stay?" he asks suddenly.

"Why."

He's glad it's dark, because his ears and face go red. "I, uh, if you needed a place is all. Or at least wanted to walk in the same direction..." He feels awkward as he realizes what he just asked her. "I'm at... I'm at St. Peter's on..." He pauses for a moment, thinking. "East 18th, I think. Or East 17th? I have it written down somewhere..."

"I'm good. But I might take the address and check back in on what else you're up to later, if you're fine with that."

He's a little stunned. She's so nonchalant about this whole thing. She's seen vampires, even if not for the first time, and seems almost apathetic. He doesn't know how to handle something like this. The added awkwardness of talking to a woman isn't lost on him. That's also not something he's practiced in some time.

"O-of course," he says, fishing through his pockets until he pulls out a notebook. He finds the page, copies the address onto another, and tears it out, handing it to her. "Ask for Father Stephen and tell him you're a friend of mine." He figures this might not really be true, but he doesn't care. He waits to see how she takes this.

She takes the paper. Blinks at him.

"Why're you staying at the church? Out of curiosity."

He blinks back at her, surprised at her question.

"Where else would I stay?" he asks, before realizing she probably doesn't have any context. "I work there."

"You know, most people don't live in churches even if they work there."

"I do know. But most people don't do what I do." He's suddenly nervous talking about this, probably because he's never done it with someone who wasn't already aware of what his life was like. But he has a feeling she probably doesn't lead a "normal" life either.

"Besides," he adds. "I'm new in town."

"I guess. Well. See you around, then?"

He nods. "Stay safe, Emily." Without waiting for her to respond, he turns and heads East. He doesn't know exactly how to get where he's going, but he knows the general direction, and once he hits the grid, he's sure he can find the church. Despite his tiredness, he tries to stay alert for anything going bump in the night.