Buffy blinked, even shook her head a bit. "I'm sorry?"

"You should be," Blaylock told her. "But, let's move on, shall we? You may deliver the paper whenever you like, Buffy. But for each weekday that pa.s.ses, you will lose ten points. The weekend you may have off. As of midnight tonight, Wednesday, you will begin with a ninety. Midnight tomorrow, an eighty, and Monday, a seventy. If you should decide to surrender, take your lumps, and simply never deliver the paper, I guarantee you will fail this course.

Buffy could only stare at him.

"Now you may sit."

Mochaccinos with Buffy had been a huge disappointment for Willow. After her last cla.s.s of the day let out that afternoon, Willow had walked with her to the Espresso Pump and did her best to keep things relaxed and fun. It was supposed to be a best friend thing, a just-girls thing. But Buffy had been so ticked off by her soc professor's humiliating her, and so frustrated with herself, that it had been a tense, awkward hour together.

Willow had tried to tell her that it was an honest mistake, that anyone might have made it. But Buffy was being so hard on herself lately, holding herself to such an impossible standard, that nothing Willow said seemed to make her feel any better.

It killed Willow not to be able to help.

If she's so set on doing everything herself, what does she need me for?Willow thought sadly.

But it wasn't only sadness that she felt. As she walked across campus to the house Oz shared with some other students, she was frustrated and angry as well. Somebody had to have a talk with Buffy. She was pretty sure that somebody was going to have to be her. But unless she could make Buffy listen, it would do no good. And the truth was, n.o.body could reallymake Buffy do anything.

With a wince of pain, she touched the bone-deep bruise on her cheek and sighed.

Troubled, she rapped on the front door of the house where Oz lived. It was opened by a silent, towering guy with whom Willow had never exchanged a word and who bore the peculiar name of Moon. Not that, as a girl dating a guy named Oz who also happened to be a werewolf, she had any real problem with peculiar, but she kinda thought a housemate named Moon was more than a little ironic, all things considered.

"Hey," she said, by way of greeting and thank you.

Moon raised his eyebrows and shook a finger at her, though whether in welcome or disapproval she did not know. Then he walked off, leaving Willow to find her way upstairs on her own. In his room Oz sat on the floor with a fat-bellied acoustic guitar on his lap, working a complicated series of chords that were proof that he was a more talented musician than he would ever admit.

"Hey," Willow said softly as she entered the room.

Oz glanced up and grunted in surprise. His normally impa.s.sive face twitched enough that Willow could almost have said he had made an expression. Not that henever made expressions - she'd made him smile often enough - it was simply that they were rare.

"Nice shiner." Oz kept strumming but he missed a note as he said it.

"Woke Buffy up this morning. She was having a nightmare, I guess. Not something I'm all aching to do again. And, okay, best friend and all, so I forgave her, right? Kinda part of the gig. But then later she was just so . . . I don't know. Off?"

Oz studied her with great concern.

Willow went and sat on the floor next to him. Oz watched her and began to strum something soft and sweet, a blues riff she'd heard him play before. Just keeping his fingers busy.He probably doesn't even know he's playing, Willow thought.

"I mean, I know all this adjusting is hard for her. But, h.e.l.lo? She's not the only one here. Okay, not exactly out on patrol myself every night, or doomed to die in combat with the forces of darkness, so Buffy does get extra credit. That still doesn't mean she has to be so tense."

Willow paused and looked over at Oz, who had stopped playing. A tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

"You're her best friend," he said.

"I know," Willow replied with a frown. "But it's not that simple."

"Why not?"

Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Grumpily, Willow narrowed her gaze and stared at him.

Then she sighed.

"I know, I know. That means I have to be the cutter of much slack. Which I do! Often! And . . . in this case, maybe not so much. Yes, I'm kinda irked. And not just about the bruise. But I'm also worried.

She's putting too much pressure on herself. Superman's got the whole superhero/Clark Kent thing pretty much down, but, h.e.l.lo, comic book character!"

"Next you'll tell me Santa's not real."

"You mock," Willow said grimly, "but I'm serious. I'm guessing this whole Martha Stewart perfection kick is backlash after high school. It must be freaking her out that she has so little control over her life.

Even this morning, she's got something cooking . . . 'cause I can always smell something Slayerish cooking . . . but she doesn't want to let anyone in. She has to handle it all herself. Part of the brand-new Buffy mantra. She must feel so alone."

Oz's features were deeply serious now. "But she's not alone," he said.

"No," Willow agreed. "She's not. Which, granted, is a warm and fuzzy thought, but how do I prove that to her?"

"Maybe you can't," Oz suggested. "Maybe it's something she has to learn on her own."

In the narrow cubbyhole that the woman who had rented him his apartment had deemed a kitchen, but which he had thought looked more like the galley compartment of an airplane, Rupert Giles opened the oven to peek in at the meal he was cooking. The air in the apartment was thick with the rich scents of dinner, and he smiled to himself and hummed a s.n.a.t.c.h of The Who's "Going Mobile."

Giles opened the refrigerator and reached in to touch the two bottles of Piesporter he had chilling, and was pleased to find them suitably cold. He fished about within and retrieved a block of brie, then pulled a box of crackers down from a cabinet. As he was arranging them on a plate, the doorbell buzzed.

"Hmm?" Giles muttered. He blinked and glanced at the clock on the stove. It was barely half past five, and it was quite unlike his guest to be early.

Curious, he crossed the living room and opened the door. Buffy stood on the welcome mat, the dark canvas bag she carried weapons in slung over one shoulder, and a bemused expression on her face.

"Good evening, Buffy," he said pleasantly. "What exactly do you find amusing?"

She shook her head slowly, her grin widening. "The clothesdo make the man."

Giles glanced down at himself. He'd dressed casually but with style, as always.What does she find so . . .

He blushed slightly. The ap.r.o.n that hung around his neck and was tied behind his back bore a full color image of an enraged Daffy Duck, above which were printed the words "You Want Dinner When?"

"Looks like you're expecting company," Buffy went on. "Is that why you haven't called me back?"

Giles blinked. "Sorry? You called?"

"Five times."

Troubled, he glanced across the apartment at a small corner table in the living room. An old black phone sat by an answering machine that was practically an antique. He had placed a potted plant on the table as well, and the phone and machine were partially obscured.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said as he strode across the room toward the phone. "I was out at the store early this morning, and I've been a bit distracted today. But I'm not deaf. Five times is a bit of an exaggeration, yes?"

Even as he spoke, he slid the potted plant aside and saw the red light blinking on the machine, right next to the number5.

"Five times," Buffy repeated.

With a muttered apology, Giles turned toward her and shrugged. "Either your timing was pitiful, or I'm even more distracted than I thought."

"Maybe both," Buffy suggested, smiling softly. Then her smile disappeared. "What time's your company arriving?"

Even as she spoke, Giles detected a hint of something in her voice.

"Not for a little while yet," he a.s.sured her. "Olivia's coming in for a few days and I've got dinner on, but I'm perfectly capable of talking and cooking simultaneously."

Buffy hesitated. "Don't want to cramp your style."

"By all means, cramp away," he told her as he stood aside and let her enter. "That didn't come out quite right."

"I get it," Buffy said, her tone quite droll. She walked into the living room and slid into the most comfortable chair. "So what are you cooking for your sweetie?"

Giles blinked. "Well, I'm not sure she quite qualifies as my 'sweetie,' but I've made a chicken cobbler she particularly likes." Buffy stared at him.

"It's . . . well, it's a bit chilly out, and Olivia's never been shy about her appet.i.te, so I thought -"

With a sigh, Giles folded his arms and sat on one arm of the sofa. He regarded her coolly, though quite aware that his cool was somewhat mitigated by the infuriated cartoon duck emblazoned on his chest.

"Now then. We've got trouble, I a.s.sume?"

Buffy's expression changed, darkened, as she considered the question. "With a capital 'T,' " she admitted. "I don't know if it's anything really major. Nothing that screams apocalypse or anything. Just kinda weird and I thought, y'know, that you could do some research."

Giles listened carefully to her recounting of her adventure of the previous evening, including the dream visit from Lucy Hanover. When Buffy was still taking orders from the Watchers Council, he had been her Watcher. They had both long since severed ties with the Council, Giles by their choice, Buffy by her own. Yet though she was no longer officially his responsibility, Buffy had come to mean a great deal to him. He might not be her Watcher any longer, but he still considered himself her mentor as well as her friend. She rarely needed him to provide physical backup for her any longer, but the Slayer still needed counsel, and information.

"These vampires are interesting."

"Meaning creepy and a little upsetting?" Buffy prodded.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, precisely that. It's not like anything I'm familiar with. If they hadn't drained that poor woman I'd be wondering if they were truly vampires at all. The energy sap you felt, and the burning eyes, sound a lot more like a demon than a vampire. I'll begin my research with those attributes, and also concentrate on their tattoos. Perhaps they belong to an order or brotherhood that requires it. It may even be the mark of their master, this Camazotz they mentioned.

"The dream you had about Lucy Hanover may or may not be connected. Either way, her coming to you like that is unusual. I imagine she must have had a powerful reason for doing so, and yet her message seems so oblique, so -"

"Annoyingly vague?" Buffy offered.

"Yes, actually," Giles admitted. "You should be extra wary in the coming days. We all should. Perhaps these vampires you met last night are the threat the ghost warned you about. This Camazotz -"

"I got a feeling there were more of them," Buffy interrupted. She shuddered a bit at the memory of the bat-faces. "A lot more."

"I won't doubt your intuition," Giles told her. He thought for a moment. "Camazotz. That does sound familiar, though I can't fathom where I've heard it before. And I really don't understand these tattoos you mentioned. Popular culture links bats to vampires, but as you well know that is only myth."

"Maybe they've seen too many movies," Buffy suggested.

Giles nodded slowly. "Anything is possible."

"I was joking," Buffy said gravely.

He raised an eyebrow, about to chide her, when the odor of burning pastry reached his nostrils.

"Oh Lord, the cobbler!"

In his frenzied rush to the kitchen, Giles rapped his knee on the coffee table and barked in pain. When he whipped open the oven and reached in, the pot holder slipped slightly in his hand and his thumb touched the baking dish. He hissed and put the dish down on the counter, where it promptly began to burn the Formica.

Giles cursed loudly as he slipped a pair of pot holders under the cobbler, too late to save the counter or his poor thumb. He ran it under lukewarm water, then stuck it into his mouth and began to suck on it.

Then he remembered Buffy.

He looked up to see her watching him with an alarmed expression.

"How bad is it?" she asked.

Embarra.s.sed, Giles plucked his thumb from his mouth. "Stings, but I'll be all right."

"I meant dinner. Is it salvageable?"

He studied the brown crust on top of the cobbler, then used a fork to break it open. "I think I'll be able to manage, yes. If I can just get some of this burnt part off the top before Olivia -"

The doorbell buzzed.

Giles closed his eyes and sighed.

"Know what?" Buffy said brightly. "I'm gonna go. Patrol. City that never sleeps, and all that? Maybe I'll find some more bat-face guys and I can, I don't know, take a picture or something for you. And . . .

so . . . you'll look into this Camazotz guy?"

"Yes. Get the door, would you?"

"No rush or anything," Buffy told him.

"I'll take care of it. I'll call when I've got something."

Buffy had reached the door. She opened it to find a surprised-looking Olivia on the other side. Giles mustered the best smile he could manage, then remembered the ap.r.o.n and quickly tore it off and tossed it across a chair.

"Olivia, hey," Buffy said. "Just leaving. You guys have a nice night." She smiled at Giles. "Have fun, you two."

Then she was gone, pulling the door shut behind her. Giles looked at Olivia. She had just come off a plane from London, and yet she seemed perfectly put together as always, in dark pants and an ivory top that seemed to make her cocoa skin even more l.u.s.trous. Her sweet smile warmed him, and he let out a long sigh.

"You're a sight for sore eyes," he told her.

"You're not so bad yourself," Olivia replied with a mischievous grin. She went to him and slipped her arms behind his back, lifting her mouth to be kissed.

He obliged.

"I'm afraid I've made a bit of a mess of dinner," Giles confessed.

Olivia's eyes sparkled. "Dinner can wait, Rupert."

Xander didn't hear the knock at first. He was sprawled on the floor in front of the television with his fist stuffed into a tub of Planters Cheese Curls. The tape in the VCR was a bootleg Hong Kong action movie calledG.o.d of Gamblers, with the too-cool-for-the-room Chow Yun-Fat in the t.i.tle role. His mind was occupied with the task of reading the English subt.i.tles that ran in yellow print across the bottom of the screen, so his visitor had to knock a few times before it caught his attention.

With a frown, he glanced up at the door, then back to the television, and he tried to pretend the knock had been in his imagination. Then it came again and he was forced to push himself up from the floor and amble to the door with his hand still stuffed into the Cheese Curls.