There's one with a crossbow, squinting at her, loading a packet of bolts.

Slayer.

Yvette drops the bag of magic supplies and raises her hands in a surrender.

"I surrender!" she screeches, backing up.

"That's new."

"What, the other vampires you talk to lose pattern recognition with their souls, you're the Slayer, I'm a vampire, I'm gonna die horribly if I cross you so I surrender. I haven't killed anyone and don't bite people without permission and can say both under lie detection for exactly this reason, please don't kill me thoughtlessly I am not a threat to you or anyone else."

"I acknowledge the overwhelming logic of this argument but since it is, in fact, new, I have to wonder if I'm missing something besides a way to do lie detection."

"Fair enough, is there anything I can do to assuage your doubts here?"

"I don't know, I don't come with a quiz ready to administer."

"I could give you suggestions, but I acknowledge that sort of falls into the earlier trap of suspecting this is a trap. Want to hear them anyway or have me shut up and let you think?"

"What's in the bag?"

Wince.

"Magic supplies for self defense, because I noticed Sunnydale was getting quiet and got concerned. Clearly I was on to something." She giggles a little hysterically, then stops that because it's not useful. "I'm a witch, you can shoot me if I start waving my hands or chanting Latin ominously but the surrender is still very genuine, and I have nothing I can do silently with my hands above my head before a crossbow bolt gets me."

"Kinda self defense?"

"It's a bit of a variety, the halite dust, basil, and blackberry's for warding my house against weird fallout that might be involved in someone opening the hellgate. The rest is for different ways of protecting a person, from mind altering effects or weird curses or possession, and a bit that'll help with someone trying to stab me but nothing that'll reliably hold out against someone that's stubborn about it."

"Suppose somebody has tried basic magic and can't make any of it work at all, how would you diagnose that?"

"That depends on what you did and how it didn't work, explain and I can diagnose?"

"I went through everything in the New Witch Handbook - I made the Magic Box shopkeep demo me two things before deciding not to demand my money back for it - and the crystals ritual in Sorceren and two chants in Incanting Arcane. Diddly squat."

"... Really? Those should have worked, that's really weird. Uh. You might have your power being siphoned to something else so you don't have any to use yourself, you might have some curse in place that prevents you from doing anything, you might be some kind of secret demon hybrid that combined with Slaying isn't playing nice with magic. It might not be any of those, it might be something else entirely, magic's weird and untidy and honestly kind of terrible. I'm just making guesses in the dark, I'd have to break out my magic nerd kit to give you a concrete answer."

"What would that involve?"

"Uh, for starters, peering at you through a lens thing I have at home that helps me detect magic. If that didn't get an answer, then I'd need to get other supplies and make a circle out of them, then put you in it. There would be some ominous Latin chanting, I might ask you to don some jewelry that'll record detailed analyses of what's going on with you. If that didn't get an answer, I'd have to do weirder things, but away from my laptop I couldn't tell you what they'd be, some of them are really obscure."

"What is your nonlethal means of support?"

"Freelance web design, bite shop donations, witch for hire. ... I haven't been outfitting the people you want to kill with protection baubles for money, I'm a theorist and researcher, I disentangle weird magical edge cases."

"What is a bite shop? How did you fall into that instead of the usual minimally discriminate murder?"

"Vampires do not have to kill people with our bites, and, um. How do explain this for polite company... if we want to we can make it very pleasant. So much so that some humans pay for it. Think like, vampire bite prostitution, it's close enough. I knew about the vampire food chain before I turned, I didn't think giving up the ability to say under lie detection that I hadn't killed was worth the easy snacks, find body disposal a chore, and I can steal blood from the butcher shop if I'm not feeling social. I'm amoral but I'm not stupid, minimally discriminate murder is for people that have no foresight or creativity."

"Did turning not affect your foresight or creativity at all? It sure does something to most people."

"Uh, no? It took out my empathy, morality, some of my social skills, and rearranged my priorities, but I'm plenty forethoughtful and creative."

"What do you charge for witching?"

"Depends on the job, for you I'm totally willing to give you a few freebies in the name of not dying. If you make a habit of coming to me, I'll starting having you pay for materials I use and time. I charge less for novelty and more for tedium, anywhere from thirty bucks an hour to three hundred or more."

"I'm not going to charge you for not killing you, that seems like it would set up really bad incentives for me, I will not kill you because you seem plausibly harmless and I am separately in the market for magic consultation. Although you wouldn't believe how poorly this gig pays."

Yvette lets out a breath of relief. "Thanks."

She tentatively lets her hands drop. "Humans don't send donations into a GoFundMe for their underaged protector? No wonder there's an apocalypse every year."

"Well, I'm not common knowledge."

Shrug. "Yeah. But you see my point. It's inefficient and it's stupid."

"I noticed."

"I bet. To be fair, the other side's not any better. Do you know how many idiots want to actually destroy the world?"

"I haven't been doing this that long, what's the bad news."

"Uh. My yearly apocalypse joke was semi-serious. There are lots of idiots that want to destroy the world, and no, I do not know why."

"Great."

"Yep. Luck with that. Want a protection charm?"

"I would love one. Can I verify it without being able to do magic? Maybe the Magic Box clerk would hold it in escrow or something, check it over. Not that you don't seem nice in an amoral way."

"Yeah, sure, we can use the Magic Box clerk as a proxy, I think. And yep, no offense taken, I'm a scary vampire, bleh."

Snort.

Smirk. "Permission to pick up my magical groceries? And what kind of protection charm do you want, some of them do different things. If you want a guarantee that it'll work I'm going to want to know what's up with why you can't magic, it might factor in."

"I'm really curious about that anyway, magic would be much more my speed than sharp objects. What are my options?"

"So you're probably going to want something permanent, which means you'll need to pick a branch that plays well with stuff that'll stack on top of it in emergencies. Do you want the magic to prevent bad things from happening entirely, or mitigate the bad things that do happen to you? There are some things that will clarify Slayer senses, some things that will make projectiles tend to miss, some things that will do healing, some things that allay attention so you can sneak more effectively... basically, when you think of how you want to be kept safe, what comes to mind? Ideally the thing I make will work with how you work."

"...I might not have Slayer senses."

Blink.

"Uh? Have you had prophetic nightmares? I hear there's prophetic nightmares."

"No. I did not have any prophetic nightmares and a Power that Is showed up in my bedroom to tell me I was supposed to."

"... What weirdness is going on with you I am so curious now."

"Me too!"

"Maybe some kind of family line thing? Do you know if any family members have done anything related to magic...?"

"Pretty sure they have not."

"Have you upset any witches, stumbled upon any weird ritual sites at times of power, equinoxes or full moons or solar eclipses or the like...?"

"Not yet, not as far as I know."

"Aaaaugh magic is usually obnoxiously obvious when it does something, what is going on with you, come home with me I want to study you!"

"What, right now?"

"Yes right now, do I strike you as a woman who does not commit to her goals?"

Snort. "How far away do you live?"

"It's about two miles and change from here, I can give you the address if you want to leave a note with a friend or a Watcher or something?"

"A who?"

"... Seriously? Am I your education in all things Slayer? How long have you been a Slayer, this is sad. A Watcher's... okay imagine a conspiracy that knows of and equips a Slayer, finds her to help with her education and training. Now imagine that, but shittier. Way, way shittier. A Watcher is a representative from that group, out to keep you alive as long as possible."

"Month and a half. Wow, I'm glad I didn't shoot you."

"Yes, be. I am amoral and totally out for my own survival but I am at least fucking competent, a month and a half and you don't have a Watcher, that's appalling."

"Is it surprising enough to be mysterious."

"I don't know, maybe your magic thing is making it impossible for them to scry you and they have no other methods of finding you because they're shit, maybe there's a horrific tweed shortage in England and they're crippled by the absence. I don't know if it's leaking into mysterious territory or not because as a group they always seemed completely incompetent to me. I'm just annoyed because this is pathetic and if I were in charge of a conspiracy mine would be way better."

"I suppose they're not competent enough to pay me."

"I get the impression that the Slayer's more of a sacrificial lamb to them, to be used if useful and discarded for a new one if not. They are not up to union code, is what I'm saying."

"So I may not want to email leading tweed producers."

"You may not, no."

Sigh. "All right, which way to your place."

She points, then kneels down to collect magical groceries.

"Thataway. Just as soon as I've collected my mistimed magic groceries."

Nod.

Mistimed magical groceries are soon collected, and off they go.

"So have you been figuring out things by empirical testing, or?"

"Some use of library, some empiricism, some Power That Be In My Bedroom That One Time."

"Okay. And the clever crosses are your own creativity and foresight? I like them in like, a far off theoretical kind of way. I hate stepping on them."

"Maybe if we get along really well I will tell you the algorithm I use to place them so you can avoid them. And yes they're mine."

"Congratulations," says Yvette, dry. "To be fair, if we don't get along really well I am probably going to pack up my shit and run for the hills. Other vampires say they want to live forever and then not back it up at all, I say it and damn well mean it. So I guess it's not my problem."

"I don't kill people for annoying me, although you might find it grating if I decided I needed to check up on you a lot and we were not besties."

"I might! But that's actually not it, I didn't think you were going to kill me for annoying you, I have a sufficiently functional model of your personality to know that would be absurd. It's that Slayers are magnets for terrible shit. And I, wanting to live forever, do not want to be near terrible shit."

"How exciting. My life as a terrible shit magnet." Sigh.

"Yep. Sucks."

"I don't object to saving the world as an occupation even if it's dangerous but I object that my suite of tools with which to perform this function revolve around the enhanced ability to punch things."

"Lack of creativity and foresight of the inventors. It's a problem."

"Who do I blame that one on, do you know?"

"No idea. Someone long dead, Slaying's been around for millennia."

"Well, boo to them."

"I'd say boo to the idiots supporting a several thousand year old tradition, instead of embracing humanity's unceasing march towards a brighter future. Getting complacent with the teenage sacrifice instead of putting in the work to make, oh, I don't know. Literally anything else that's more effective. But that's just me, I don't have a stake in this fight. Unless it's in my chest. Which goes back to my unrepentant cowardice."

"I prefer ranged options to stakes, most people aren't buried with anything effective at a distance."

"Oh, come on, that wordplay was genius, don't assassinate it with pedantry!"

"It was nicely executed, I dunno about genius."

"Bah. Fine. Overlook my brilliance if you like, but when you next encounter another vampire with poor pattern recognition skills, you'll miss me and my straightforward self-centered logic."

"I assure you that the overwhelming majority of vampires I meet in the future will suffer for the comparison."

"Excellent," she says, preening a little. "Maybe they'll be motivated to gain a sliver of self awareness. It'd be good for them."

"I mean, they usually don't survive the encounter."

"Evolve or die isn't the worst method. It worked for evolution, didn't it?"

"Do vampires share traits with their sires?"

"Not that I've seen, no. Though there is something to be said for the sorts of people that vampires turn. Similar traits because the vampire appreciates that trait in a person."

"I'm not sure I want to encourage the vampire population to turn a better class of human."

"Fair enough! I really don't care either way, this is just sort of interesting to think about."

"Understood."

"So what are your long-term plans? If you've bothered to have any, anyway. Improve vampire slaying technology? Create a better global conspiracy? Get into a nice college?"

"Currently very much 'explore' undecided on nature of future of 'exploit'."

"Ah. Well, good luck beating the lifespan record, I suppose. I believe that I like you."

"I'm flattered."

"Be. And now that I have gotten all of those disgusting warm fuzzies out of the way, do please send me whatever weird occult items you pick up after cleaning up after apocalypses, I might like to study them."

"Noted."

"Though I suppose you have only my assurances that I won't start an apocalypse of my very own with them. I assure you, I will not start an apocalypse of my very own. They are a waste of my time, I have better things to do."

"I'm getting that impression."

Yvette nods agreeably.

"Have you collected any non-Watcher support, yet? Friends that stubbornly decide to stand by you despite immense danger and the risk of a short unpleasant life? Or am I not allowed to know, being a scary vampire."

"I have not been so much with the collecting."

"You should perhaps begin. Unless you want to stop an apocalypse with your crossbow and a lot of nerve?"

"I'm not sure how to find people with useful apocalypse-stopping skills. Craigslist?"

Snort. "I wouldn't count on it. Some can be picked up by someone highly motivated. Like, say, someone with a personal interest in your survival. Some, you'd probably only find attached to interesting people that are less easy to find. Be open to making friends as you foil evil, I suppose. On top of staying alive. Perhaps visit demon bars."

"There are demon bars?"

Yvette sighs, disappointed. "Yes. There are demon bars. Where you can buy a Bloody Mary that is somewhat literal, and where you can play kitten poker. With real kittens."

"...what is the appeal of playing poker with kittens?"

"Some demons find them delicious. I don't see the appeal, personally, but many do."

"- ah, they're stakes."

"Ah? Oh, yes. Kittens are kittens, dear, I can't imagine they have the brains for poker."

"But you could never tell if they were bluffing."

"Certainly, but they're susceptible to bribery. Offer them a bit of tuna and they completely lose sight of the importance of the game."

Giggle.

"Besides, they have some trouble holding the cards. No thumbs."

"Some cats have thumbs!"

"But are they opposable?"

"Admittedly no."

"Clearly this disqualifies them for most card related tasks."

"They could use those card holder things that kids use."

"While this is correct, I also don't think demon society is quite ready for making accommodations to humans, let alone kittens."

"Yeah, we need all these pesky things like not being eaten."

"How unreasonable of you. You should take into account that you're squishy and delicious and build your preferences accordingly."

Snort.

"Though, that reminds me, Slayers do taste abnormally delicious, or so I've heard. So do keep that in mind for... Whatever you'd like to do with that information. Selling your blood or accounting for idiots that want to steal it."

"So you've heard, huh."

Eyebrow raise.

"I have not bitten anyone without their consent, so I've heard or not."

"I think advertising my existence and tastiness is probably not a lifespan-extending measure."

"Probably not!" she agrees, blithely.

"So nobody who wants me alive or wishes to credibly signal that they want that will be doing it."

"That logically follows, yes."

"Just wanted to be clear."

"Sure. But I don't actually care if you live or die, there's no incentive for me to tell anyone that you're alive and have delicious blood. What could I gain?"

"For all I know that sort of fact has a price tag."

"Oh, almost definitely. But I'm playing the long game. I don't care about scraping petty favors from the latest fool that wants to make a bid for world domination, nor money I can just as easily earn legitimately and much more safely. Admittedly, I could be bought with sufficient bribery of magical knowledge, but isn't it much easier to wait for you to kill whomever is causing trouble, then go through their stuff. Much less hassle."

"Okay."

"My priorities are very straightforward."

"I appreciate that. I want to hold you up as an example to every other vampire who lurches out of the grave thinking 'guess it's time to eat the entire football team'."

"Feel free, though perhaps do not give out my name. Some might be irrationally offended by a vampire able to get along with a Slayer, however much they logically should aspire to be me."

"Sure. - Did you actually give your name?"

"I have not."

"Are you gonna or should I make something up?"

"What would you make up?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"Well, now I have incentive to continue being cagey about my name, just out of curiosity."

"What if I'm terrible at nicknames?"

"Hmm, I do not think I want to incentivize giving me a terrible nickname. So I will probably come up with a better one for myself that will amuse me, but perhaps not make any sense to you."

"I've never actually tried to nickname someone."

"Good luck! In my case, I recommend something complimentary."

"I was trying to come up with a Shakespeare reference but if I remember right the witches don't have names."

"Not that I recall, no. But I am not a Shakespearean expert."

"Yeah I don't have anything good. Name thyself."

She considers for a long moment.

"... Heather."

"Nice to meet you, Heather."

"Nice to meet you, too. Slayer-that-has-not-said-her-name-either."

"Let's say I'm Nikki."

"Hi, Nikki."

"And I've been sober for seventeen years, and..."

Snort. "Congratulations," she says, dryly.

"Thank you."

They come upon a small but well maintained cottage, pleasant and cheerful and downright ordinary. If the Slayer's observant, she might notice that the shutters are carefully nailed shut.

"Here we are," says 'Heather,' unlocking the front door. "I believe it's irony if I invite you in."

"It is!"

"Do please come inside," she says, lightly, "and embrace the irony."

In goes the Slayer.

The interior is well kept, nicely decorated, and ruthlessly efficient. The numerous bookshelves are well stocked with books that are either about magic or are very dedicated fantasy novels, complete with leather binding and ominous Latin titles. There's a set of shelves in the corner that could be surmised to contain various magical materials, what with the jars and the crystals and the faint smells of herbs. Everything else seems surprisingly normal - there's a kitchen over there, complete with a microwave, and a living room with a number of couches and a rug.

Her host heads towards the magic cabinet.

"I'd offer to feed you to double down on irony, but I'm afraid I only have blood in my fridge. Not very nutritious for you."

"Yeah, I'm not feeling particularly iron-deficient."

"Something to drink, then? The faucet works fine."

She continues to search through the cabinet.

"Thanks." She fills up her water bottle.

Yvette retrieves a simple glass lens.

"May I stare at you awkwardly, oh great Slayer?" she says, looking impatient and like she's only asking to prevent upsetting the Slayer by ignoring consent.

"Go for it."

She raises the lens and peers.

"... That is interesting," she murmurs. "Oh, and the inability to cast anything is incidental because it's protecting you from the mental effects and is perhaps a bit overzealous, I see. I wonder if there are magical practices it would let you do, maybe not, it might have just decided you're safer if it disallows magic entirely, hm."

"Mental effects?"

"Magic's addictive and can open you up to various nasties if you suck at it. It's a problem," she explains, absently.

"Oh."

"So it's not letting you do any magic at all, because this thing is keeping your mind very thoroughly safe."

"I suppose I appreciate the sentiment. What, ah, is it?"

"I have," she says brightly, "approximately no idea! It's very obviously tied to you and seems like you're the originator of it. It looks friendly, if a bit totalitarian, which is good, because I don't think there's anything I could possibly do to break past it. Like, at all. I'm not sure anyone could."

"...okay."

"If it's a parasitic entity out to eat your soul, good luck, because you will really need it!"

"Does my soul look nibbled?"

"Not that I can tell, but this is only the preliminary look. Doesn't display soul nibbling or the like unless it's really severe. My professional estimation is that it's probably friendly and you probably made it, but I don't offer my guarantee just yet."

"I made it?"

"Probably! It's the only thing that makes sense, with how it's structured. That or the brain parasite thing, where something's already inside there with you."

"How did I make it? When? Out of what?"

"No clue, no clue, and magic. Specifics depend on more than this lens."

"What kind of prep are you looking at to get specific?"

"Probably sitting in a circle of some kind, ominous Latin chanting, specifics pending until I have checked my laptop."

"Ooh. High tech magical assistance."

"What kind of sensible vampiric witch would I be if I completely ignored all high tech options? Of course I have a laptop for all of my magical needs."

"A vampiric witch after my own heart."