Storiesonline.net
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                                 Kennedy
                           by Gina Marie Wylie

Copyright© 2007 by Gina Marie Wylie


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Description: Kennedy is a Potential -- a young woman with the possibility of growing up to be the Vampire Slayer. Her destiny and the fate of the world are the subject of this story. A fanfic, set in the Buffyverse.

Codes: ff fanfic teen cons
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Chapter 1: Kennedy Meets Her Watcher


Her name was Kennedy, just that and nothing more. At eight she was relatively tall, but that still meant she was just a little kid to any adult in the vicinity. Her biological father had gone away; her mother hadn't supplied the reason and he wasn't around to explain for himself. Her mother was, though, a cynical woman who was tall, elegant, dark and pretty, and she had definitely set out to marry upscale the second time.

Kennedy had kept her father's last name and tossed out the one her mother had given her at birth. There was more, Kennedy was sure, than what she'd been told, but even when she asked, she was told she wouldn't understand. That frustrated her because there were a lot of things in her world she didn't understand. Kennedy was patient. Understanding would come in time, and in the meantime, even what knowledge she had was useful for all sorts of things.

Her stepfather was Peter Stuyvesant, the billionaire. He wasn't a bad person, not really, and her stepsister, Victoria, wasn't a bad person either. It was just that they just weren't Kennedy's sort of people. Her stepfather's family had been rich when the Mayflower hit land and they'd prospered as much as anyone in the New World. He was smug and confident, a mind that could best be described as adamantine solidity: nothing could touch it or penetrate it that wasn't already there.

Her stepsister was a chip off the old diamond; her nose firmly in the air, happy so long as things were just so, and of course, when she was getting her way. Everyone else lived at one end of the house in Scarsdale, while Kennedy lived at the other -- she'd been seven when she made up her mind about that.

Her real father had left Kennedy a number of pithy sayings, one of which she found useful in a surprising number of situations: "Nothing results in a quicker decision than an abrupt assertion of certitude." Kennedy didn't always get things she wanted, but at least there was no waffling and dragging things out.

And so it was that when she'd started second grade she came to a smashing crash against the powers that be. Mr. Sullivan, her second grade teacher, told them his name. He'd started describing the things they were going to learn in second grade and Kennedy had been considerably disappointed. She knew how to read, after all. She'd read The Hobbit four times, The Wizard of Oz twice, and most of the other Oz books at least once.

Math was another of her favorite subjects. She knew how to add, subtract, multiply and divide; not just with a calculator, but with a pencil and paper.

And that's where the problem arose. Mr. Sullivan started writing the multiplication table on the board, starting with one times one. She had sneered at the exercise they were supposed to do: copy down what he was writing. She'd memorized the table two years before. She could do the multiplication table up to twenty times twenty rattling off the answers faster than most people could write them down.

Thus it was, when Mr. Sullivan wrote down that eleven times ten was 100, that her hand went instantly in the air. But his back was to the class and the he wrote down eleven times eleven was 111 and eleven times twelve was 122.

"Mr. Sullivan! Mr. Sullivan!" Kennedy called, wanting to fix the error.

"What?" he said, turning to the class.

"Eleven times ten isn't a hundred it's..."

"It is too!" the man said. "Now please, we don't want to confuse the other students."

"If eleven times nine is ninety-nine," Kennedy asked him, "why would eleven times ten be only one more?" It sure sounded like a reasonable question to her.

"Young lady, you will speak when recognized in this class! Then and only then! You will sit there and be quiet!"

"You have the multiplication table wrong," Kennedy told him. "I'm not going to sit here quietly and let you teach us a lie."

Maybe "lie" hadn't been the best choice for a word to describe it, she privately admitted later. It did seem inconceivable that an adult could be that stupid. Finally her behavior resulted in a trip to the office. She'd explained patiently to the principal that no, eleven times ten wasn't a hundred and he'd agreed. Then he'd gone down to the classroom, seen the offending multiplication table and hauled Mr. Sullivan outside the classroom for a private conversation.

Kennedy wasn't sure what the principal had told Mr. Sullivan, but Mr. Sullivan came back in the room and wrote the right numbers on the board. Of course, Kennedy could see his lips moving as he had to figure things out. At least he didn't count on his fingers.

After that, Mr. Sullivan had it in for her. He'd lose her homework papers; he'd forget to put the grade in his grade book, or if she had a 98, he'd reverse the numbers and make it an 89. In two weeks she went from a girl who loved school and learning to someone who loathed school and wasn't sure what the point of learning was, if it was going to make her terribly unpopular with her peers and if her teacher was going to make it extra hard for her.

Her stepfather had been slow to take her seriously, which didn't help. When he finally realized that Kennedy wasn't making things up, he started making photocopies of her homework papers and making sure Kennedy turned in a copy to the office before she went to class.

Mr. Sullivan had gone from awful to beyond awful. Finally, one day it happened.

He told her to be quiet when she was sitting quietly at her desk. She'd looked up at him, her eyes burning with contempt and hate. He'd ordered her to the office, and when she refused, tried to drag her to the door. He'd pushed her and she'd staggered. Without thinking, she applied some of that certitude her father had recommended: she punched him in his ample stomach.

Two days later her stepfather knocked on her bedroom door and asked her to come to the library. She'd gotten up and followed him docilely out her door and down the hall. Being suspended from school was turning out to be a lot of fun; she was getting to read a ton of new books.

The man standing in the library was tall and lean. Kennedy had seen a lot of men who looked tan and fit like the stranger was: they were tennis and golf instructors at the Country Club, where her mother and stepsister were members.

"Kennedy, this is Mr. Geoffrey Glastonbury. Starting at once, he will be your tutor. Mr. Glastonbury, this is my stepdaughter, Kennedy."

"Good afternoon, Miss," the man said, holding out his hand for Kennedy to shake.

She'd shaken it -- and had been surprised at how firm his grip was. Most people didn't shake eight-year-old girl's hands, and most didn't squeeze. He did. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to prove that he was a lot stronger than she was.

"It's just Kennedy," she'd told him. "I'm not a Miss."

Mr. Glastonbury had smiled at her. "It is either Miss or Ms. I'm not very fond of the latter; it sounds rude. Miss Kennedy, our names no more go naked into the world than we do."

He had a British accent, like the butler of Family Affair, she thought. That was kind of cool!

Mr. Glastonbury turned to her stepfather. "Thank you, Mr. Stuyvesant, I'll manage from here."

Kennedy watched her stepfather leave and then turned to Mr. Glastonbury, waiting expectantly for him to say something.

"Tell me, Miss Kennedy, is there something you'd rather be doing at the moment?"

"Not standing around talking to a teacher."

He grinned. "Please, Miss Kennedy. I will be polite to you, so you should be polite to me. I'm Mr. Glastonbury. Or, if you weary of anything that long, 'sir' will suffice."

She contemplated life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. She'd had her fill of teachers with Mr. Sullivan. She smiled at him. "I was dreaming last night about finding a way to touch the sky. I'd like to learn how to do that."

He smiled at her. "Odd, I have those dreams now and then, myself. Come along, Miss Kennedy."

She followed him, curious just how this was going to work. She balked when he ushered her into a car door. The car was a rather plebian Toyota Camry, and he held the door open for her.

"I've been told to never get in a car with strange men."

"Well, I'll admit to being a bit far from the center of the bell curve. Console yourself, Miss Kennedy, with the fact that I am a very singular man, however strange I might be."

She kicked herself. He'd turned her words around on her! "I think my stepfather was including singular men in particular."

"Humor me if you want to learn to touch the sky, Miss Kennedy."

Well, it was worth it, she thought. So she got in. She watched carefully how he drove; she was rather surprised when he went further north, not south, toward the City.

"White Plains, New York," he told her as they approached the town. "For now, I live there. Your stepfather tells me that I can have a room at the estate if I pass muster."

"Pinching pennies?" Kennedy asked him.

He shook his head. "Half my ancestors were Scotsmen. Their natural thriftiness has been passed down to me. Miss Kennedy, if you don't address me more formally, I will simply ignore anything you say."

Kennedy contemplated that for a second. "Yes, sir," she told him. It was hard not to giggle, because she was sure what he was going to say, then she'd do her thing and it would be so funny!

"See, Miss Kennedy, not so hard after all!"

"You're right, Mr. Throckmorton."

He ignored the mangling of his name. "Glastonbury is on what used to be an island, called the Isle of Avalon. The monastery at Glastonbury is one of the oldest in England. It was founded by that very particular Saint Patrick. Saint Bridget was a visitor. King Arthur is reputed to have died there; he and Guinevere were buried there."

"That's supposed to be a legend."

"A lot of people in Glastonbury would dispute that with you. It is certainly the oldest surviving monastery in England. It was founded about four hundred years after Christ is supposed to have died."

Kennedy decided that she wasn't going to win a battle of wits over the history of England, a place she'd heard of and had flown over once, on the way to Paris with her mother.

"Sir, there was something about learning to touch the sky."

"That's right. Tell me, Miss Kennedy, how high is the sky?"

She scoffed at that. "When you look up in the daytime, the furthest you can see is the sun. And night, you can see a lot further. The sky is whatever you want it to be."

He looked at her without speaking. After a second Kennedy threw in a grudging, "Sir."

"You'd agree, Miss Kennedy, that it's high?"

"Of course... sir."

He pulled into a driveway that led into a school. Kennedy wasn't at all happy at that. He got out and they walked a bit until they came to a gymnasium. He went in and walked up to a woman who was teaching a class of girls. The girls were older than Kennedy, engaged in bending and stretching exercises.

Mr. Glastonbury talked with the woman for a few minutes and the woman looked at Kennedy and then shook her head. Mr. Glastonbury spoke again and she said something very short.

Mr. Glastonbury came back to her. "If you would, Miss Kennedy, please come with me."

He led her a few yards off to one side of the gymnasium. There was a piece of equipment that was literally taller than Kennedy.

"That, Miss Kennedy, is a trampoline. I understand you have issues with teachers. I understand a lot more about you than you think. This is a multi-faceted lesson -- one of those facets is whether or not you will follow instructions.

"Sure, sir. Whatever you say."

He pointed upwards and Kennedy craned her neck to look way, way up. There were steel girders, maybe thirty feet in the air. "That's more than high enough to break your neck. I promise you, Miss Kennedy, I will never ask you to do something you can't. But, at least at first, you'll have to trust me. Above all, you have to know if you don't do as I say, it will stop being safe and start being dangerous."

"I understand, sir. What's this about?" She pointed at the steel girders. "That's not the sky."

He grinned. "Miss Kennedy, you were the one who said the sky is whatever you want it to be. For now, this will do. At a certain point, it doesn't matter how high the sky is -- the fall will kill you if you take a misstep. Trust me or not. If you don't, for heaven's sake tell me and we'll go home and I'll teach you more ancient history than you ever wanted to know.

"Or you can take off your shoes and I'll put you up on top, here."

Put that way, of course, there was no way Kennedy wasn't going to do it. She untied her sneakers, and then he simply picked her up and tossed her like a sack of potatoes.

She had a terrible time for the first few seconds. The piece of equipment was circular and rubbery. Every time she moved, it would either knock her down or threaten to throw her off. It took a few minutes for her to gain her balance.

"Now, Miss Kennedy, place yourself in the center," he told her.

She moved carefully. It was clear you could move on this. She was sure it was a real trampoline, and knew you had to move carefully. So, she was careful.

He saw her standing in the center and he grinned. "Now, very carefully, move up and down. Don't let your feet come away from the fabric. Get a feel for what you're doing. I can't stress too much, Miss Kennedy, that a trampoline will give you a nasty spill at the best of times, and a dangerous one if you're not careful."

She lifted her weight, without actually leaving the mat of the trampoline. It didn't take but two or three jumps before she had to find a way to stop. At first she did it by simply not moving, which worked after a fashion. Then she realized if her legs were moving down when the fabric of the mat was moving up, if she was careful, it would dampen the movement.

After a couple of minutes, she was bouncing confidently, her feet nearly leaving the mat. It was easy, once you got the rhythm. And she could stop almost instantly.

"Try lifting off a little bit, Miss Kennedy," he called. She obliged, adding a little spring to her movements. At first it was a little scary. This time she was getting four and five inches in the air and she had to be really careful to land right, or she knew she'd lose control.

"Now, slow down again. When you're back to two and three inch jumps, try sitting down. Just lift your legs and land flat on your bottom, instead of feet first."

She slowed down, and as she did, she thought about it. The angles were weird in her head. Really weird. It was all wrong, she thought. The picture in her head didn't square with what would happen if she did as he said. She wasn't going to bounce straight back up, she'd go at an angle. And from there she'd go at another angle and not very much longer after that, she'd fly off the trampoline.

It was, Kennedy thought, a very long way down to where Mr. Glastonbury was standing.

She reviewed things in her head. He hadn't told her how to sit down! This was a test! It wasn't what she thought at all! She pictured the angles in her head, sat down, bounced almost as high as she'd been, high enough to get her feet under her. She ended up stopped. The movements of the trampoline mat smoothed out quickly.

"Ah, very good, Miss Kennedy! Now, again, I want you to start jumping up and down, keeping in one place. Keep it slow, keep it careful, but if you can, gradually jump higher. When I tell you to, slow down again and stop."

That was so easy to be almost boring, Kennedy thought. She jumped very high, maybe six feet. Then she sat down, then she flipped and landed on her chest, then landed back on her feet, her momentum totally spent.

"Like that, Mr. Glastonbury?" she asked innocently.

He shook his head. "Miss Kennedy, I asked you to follow instructions. You didn't. Why should I let you continue?"

"I can see it in my head. I knew what was going to happen."

"Sir!" he barked.

She glared at him. "Sir, I know what the fuck I'm doing!"

She'd never used that word in public before and instantly regretted it.

"How typically American you are, Miss Kennedy! You make a mistake and cuss someone else out for it! I'm afraid I'm not impressed!" He pointed at her. "One last time. Do what you are told, Miss Kennedy. Jump as high as you are tall, no higher, then slow down to a stop."

He pointed to a spot a foot or so off center and she obligingly went to it and started jumping.

Only preternaturally fast reflexes kept her from flying off the trampoline. The angles were gone, nothing worked right. She managed to stop, teetering a few inches from the edge. The further from the center she'd gotten, the odder the bounces had been.

Mr. Glastonbury didn't say anything; he simply stared at her.

She grimaced. Okay, he was right. If she'd screwed up before and landed even a foot off, she'd have flown right off the trampoline and there would have been nothing she could have done to stop herself.

Without being told she started bouncing again, although this time not in the center. It was like a map appeared in her head. If she jumped that far from the center, the mat would react one way, if she jumped a little further from the center, it would react another.

She was in for another surprise the first time she bounced close to the edge. The springs stretched and hit their limits and the change in reaction nearly knocked her down. If she had been taking jumps much higher, she'd have lost control.

Finally she moved back to the center. "Okay, sir. Now what?"

"Very carefully, start jumping, staying in the center. Get comfortable with a height, make three or four jumps, and if your legs aren't too tired, jump a little higher. Take it slow, stay centered, and don't do anything else. Do you understand, Miss Kennedy?"

"Sure, sir," she told him. It was going to be a drag, she thought, having to say sir all the time. She called her stepfather by his last name and her mother was simply "mother' in all situations.

She jumped, gradually building up her height. It was utterly fascinating! She could control it. A couple of times she actually slowed down, just to reassure herself that it still worked. It did.

On one trip down Mr. Glastonbury said, "When you think you can touch the sky..." she bounced, and then when she came down again, he finished, "please stop."

It was exhilarating. Simply that, a thrill that penetrated every part of her body. And on one bounce in particular, she felt the mat springs reach their limit. It wasn't a total smash, but she could tell. And when she went back up, she realized she was as high as the rafters that had seemed so high before.

It wasn't the sky, she thought. Not the sky! But, oh so much closer! She landed, absorbing a great fraction of the jump with her legs; even so the springs were overstretched. If she'd been trying to jump higher, she'd have crashed. As it was, she was ready the next time and landed better still.

A moment later she walked over to the edge and jumped down to the gym floor. The floor seemed odd, very odd. It didn't bounce back and, for a second, she was confused. Then she grinned.

She turned to the man who was going to be her tutor. "Mr. Glastonbury, thank you very much!"



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Chapter 2: Kennedy's Renaissance


Kennedy tried to contain her excitement, but when you are eight, nearly nine, excitement is huge and the container is small.

Mr. Glastonbury was wearing a friar's robe, something that had raised a few eyebrows when they stopped for gas. Kennedy had thought about getting out of the car herself and seeing what people thought of her Robin Hood costume, but decided that there was too much chance that they would laugh.

Now, though, they were in the mountains and it was a nice day; the air was filled with the scent of warm pines and other exotic smells that she was hard put to recognize. There was a pretty lake not far away... it was, in short, a gorgeous day.

And here at their destination had she been in jeans and a t-shirt, she'd have been more conspicuous than in her Robin Hood outfit, which consisted of a dark green leotard and a brown tunic that pulled over her head and came down to her knees. There was a nice wide belt, with pretty little brass decorative devices, and a cocked hat with a turkey feather in it.

She beamed at Mr. Glastonbury. This was so much cooler than any day, ever, at school!

Renaissance Faire!

She drank in everything, the sights, the sounds, and the smells. Oh, it was so good! And she was still in the parking lot!

"Come along, Miss Kennedy," Mr. Glastonbury told her. He had pulled a long fabric case, nearly as tall as he was, out of the trunk of his car. The top was decorated with colored tassels, most of them golden.

She obediently fell in beside him as he headed for the gate. Then they were inside, and the exoticness of the day struck home more than ever when Kennedy saw a girl her own age, wearing the most elaborate dress she'd ever seen in her life.

"That must weigh a ton," she said, pointing out the girl to Mr. Glastonbury. She saw the displeasure on his face and she smiled politely. "Sir."

It was kind of an ongoing battle. She wasn't sure why he insisted on everything having a tag of respect added to it; it wasn't as if she didn't respect him. She surely did!

"Miss Kennedy, sometimes to wear spectacular clothes, you have to suffer a little. I have reason to believe she is quite content."

It was clear to Kennedy, too. The girl smiled at Kennedy and Kennedy smiled back, feeling a little frumpy in her rather plain Robin Hood outfit. Then she giggled when she remembered how much she hated dresses. That one had to be a terror, with the skirts dragging the ground!

The girl must spend her time away from the Faire getting the gown cleaned. True, the girl would practically have to stand on her head for anyone to see beneath the skirt, and there weren't likely to be many errant breezes blowing on places Kennedy would just as not have breezes blowing on... 

Kennedy decided she'd stick with Robin Hood, thank you very much! How did the girl go pee, by the way? Nope, give her practicality, any day!

Mr. Glastonbury was patiently waiting for her. Kennedy gave the other girl one last smile, and got one in return. She followed the older man then, as he made his way through the crowds, intent on some destination.

Kennedy mentally ticked him off her list of people who could be fun here. This was supposed to be educational! How was it going to be either fun or educational, if they were rushing from here to there?

"Mr. Glastonbury, where are we going?"

"Oh, a friend of mine hosts the morning archery tournament. I come occasionally and win some of his money. It's a great deal of fun, Miss Kennedy. When we get there, I'd like you to watch what I do."

Actually shooting a bow and arrow? Kennedy perked up. That would be fun!

Except of course, for the fact that there were times when Mr. Glastonbury could make the coolest, most exciting thing in the world deadly dull and boring.

He lined up with a rank of ten other people, two of them women. They fired six arrows at targets seventy paces away. Mr. Glastonbury did the best of the ten people who shot when he did, and the rest of the top three were given white ribbons to wear on their arms.

It took more than an hour to go through the entire group of people who were in the contest, giving them each a chance to shoot their six arrows. Kennedy was getting pretty bored with it, because a lot of the people couldn't shoot arrows any better than Mr. Sullivan knew his multiplication tables.

Mr. Glastonbury had been standing by her side the whole time, intently studying the archers. Finally he turned to her. "Miss Kennedy, by my watch it took eighty-one minutes for one hundred and six people to shoot in twelve groups. The number of contestants has now been reduced by seventy percent. How long do you think it will take for the next round of the competition?"

Well, Kennedy thought, a quick and dirty approximation said a tenth of eighty-one was eight and a tenth. Thus three tenths would be less than twenty-five minutes. But Mr. Glastonbury was tricky, so she smiled at him. "Sir, how many will be shooting in each round?"

"Five or six, Miss Kennedy, five being the preferred number."

So, each group took eight minutes, the second time through there would thirty-six contestants, so call it six groups of five and one of six. "Around fifty minutes, sir."

He smiled at her. "So, there's time to go pee, if you're going to need it, eh? Or perhaps you'd like to get something to drink, Miss Kennedy?"

It wasn't exactly totally gross what happened to what you ate or drank, but it was certainly a nuisance. She'd long since learned to control intake versus output, particularly when the next bathroom might be some time away.

"I'm fine, sir. Maybe after the next round."

It wasn't the nicest system in the world. Mr. Glastonbury didn't even tell her she was right. You could tell you were right, though, because if she'd been wrong, he would have told her that -- and then would have made her do it over. She never knew if she was fast or slow solving the problems, although if she was too slow, she heard about that as well.

"Who do you think will win, Miss Kennedy?"

"I don't know. There were three people in the first group who got all their arrows in the gold ring and you were one of them. It seemed to me that your arrows were closer together. But you could make a mistake, sir."

"Indeed I could, Miss Kennedy! That's why it's a competition! I could be having a bad day! The wind could gust just after I shoot! There are a million factors that go into winning and they all have to go in your favor."

A few minutes later he shot for the second time. It was not lost on Kennedy that Mr. Glastonbury was having a good day. This time, though, only the top two in each group went on to the next round.

That would put fourteen people into the third round, Kennedy figured. Except, they fooled her. In the group of six, they picked three people to go on, so there was fifteen total.

"Five groups of three, Mr. Glastonbury?" she asked when they announced the next break.

"Yes, Miss Kennedy. However, this next time, only one person from each group advances, then the last five shoot together. Up until now, I've concentrated on getting the arrows into the center, now, however, tightness of the grouping will be important. In case of a tie, the archer with the smallest group, closest to the center, wins."

An hour later, it was over and Mr. Glastonbury received a modest trophy and a silvered arrow with a golden tassel attached to it.

Kennedy looked from the trophy arrow to the bow case Mr. Glastonbury had with him. She nodded in understanding. The golden tassels were tournaments won; evidently he won a lot of tournaments!

It was fun, Kennedy thought, to stand next to the winner of the tournament! And after the crowd started to break up, Kennedy turned to her teacher. "Mr. Glastonbury, could I try it? Shoot an arrow?"

He looked at her gravely, and then reached into one of the quivers that were near the firing positions and pulled out an arrow and handed it to Kennedy. "This is a practice arrow, Miss Kennedy. It isn't weighted, it doesn't have barbs. How far do the arrows penetrate into the hay bales, Miss Kennedy, at seventy paces?"

"Half way, sir." She hefted the arrow. Going in sixteen to eighteen inches... That was all the way through someone... unless they were fat like Mr. Sullivan.

He saw her expression. "People use archery as a form of recreation, Miss Kennedy, but in fact, like firearms, bows are weapons of war, designed to kill people." He held out his hand for the arrow and she gave it back to him.

Then he handed her the bow he'd been carrying. "Miss Kennedy, stand a little ways away, and try to draw the bow. Don't let the string snap."

She pulled tentatively and found that it was easy to move the string... for about a half-inch. After that, it got harder and harder. She relaxed her hand, got a better grip on the string and tried again. This time she got it quite far back, but she was having a lot of trouble holding it.

"You should let go now, Miss Kennedy," he said in his bland, teacher's voice.

The instant she relaxed her fingers she realized it was a trick. The bowstring snapped and the pain in her left arm was excruciating. She thought she was bleeding terribly, but, instead, there was a thin red line where the string had hit her arm.

"Well, Miss Kennedy, at least you didn't drop the bow," Mr. Glastonbury told her.

"No, sir. Can I learn to shoot a bow?"

"I'd say based on the evidence, Miss Kennedy, you can. Whether or not you may will be up to your father."

She nodded; that was fair enough -- and besides, her stepfather pretty much indulged her whims.

"Later, this afternoon," Mr. Glastonbury went on, "there will be a crossbow demonstration. You may, if you wish, shoot one of those today, Miss Kennedy."

That brightened her whole day!

They went to eat lunch in a mock tavern where everyone sat crushed together at trestle tables. And, almost at once, Kennedy realized it wasn't a mock tavern, because they served beer and wine.

Partway through the meal the cute girl her own age came in with two adults, a man and a woman. After a few seconds Kennedy flushed with embarrassment. She'd been wondering who they were in relation to the girl: Duh! Her parents!

Mr. Glastonbury touched her shoulder lightly. "Miss Kennedy, are you okay?"

"I am, sir, a victim of my heritage. I saw someone my age come in accompanied by a man and a woman. For a few seconds, I was wondering who they were."

How could she explain that she almost never saw her parents together? Both of them lived their own lives and did their own things. Only rarely did those things include Kennedy.

She happened to look up and saw that the girl was looking right at her. For a second Kennedy considered walking over and punching the girl in the nose. Common sense suggested she take her time making a decision like that. And the power of observation resulted in Kennedy reaching the conclusion that the expression on the other girl's face was concern, not contempt for a crybaby.

Kennedy wiggled a bit, settling herself firmly, seeking to control her emotions.

"Miss Kennedy," Mr. Glastonbury was speaking barely above a whisper, "you are a very special young woman. You haven't begun to scratch the surface of those things you can do, in either sense. What you can do today and what you will be able to do in the future."

"If I'm so special, why am I sitting here with you, instead of like that girl, sitting with her parents?"

"That's because, Miss Kennedy, even though you don't always accord me the respect I've earned, I am different from your parents, or that girl's. They would try to protect you if harm came your way, whereas I will protect you. There is an old saying that if you give a starving man a fish today, he'll starve tomorrow. Teach the starving man to fish and he'll never starve. One thing you will learn as my pupil, Miss Kennedy, is how to protect yourself and others.

"There may be more noble professions, but I really don't care about them. I believe that protecting my students is why I exist." He smiled pleasantly, but it still sent shivers down Kennedy's spine. "I intend, Miss Kennedy, for you to learn your lessons very well. Very well indeed."

He was silent for a moment, and then nodded in the direction of the girl. "I know the young lady's mother, Miss Kennedy. The man with them isn't her father, just a friend of her mother."

They finished their meal and Mr. Glastonbury told her that he wanted to return to his car and put up the bow. Slightly bored, she followed him to the car. She'd not bothered to look inside the trunk before. Now she blinked in surprise.

The bow was the least interesting, most prosaic weapon in Mr. Glastonbury's inventory of weapons. There were swords, knives, maces, and a bunch of spiky things that Kennedy didn't know what they were. He took what looked like a miniature bow on a wooden stock out and handed it to her. "Carry that at your side, always pointed at the ground. The only time you will lift it is when I ask you to give it back. Do you understand, Miss Kennedy?"

"Mr. Glastonbury, I understand!"

He then took one of the longer swords and wrapped it around his waist. Then he took a slightly shorter sword out. It might have been shorter but even at a glance Kennedy could see it was heavier and thicker than the one around his waist. That sword he settled on his back so it stuck up over his left shoulder.

He laughed, suddenly. "I almost forgot!" He leaned inside the trunk and took out a small soft fabric bag, kind of like a purse. "Please put this over your shoulder, Miss Kennedy."

She did, and for the first time she wished she could see herself in a mirror. It was like Mr. Glastonbury could read her mind. He produced a small camera and took some pictures, then showed Kennedy how to use it, and she took some of him, and then the camera went into the fabric bag over Kennedy's shoulder.

He grinned at her after that. "Well, shall we go see what's afoot, Miss Kennedy? I suspect we could find a sword demonstration here."

"I'd like that, sir!"

He led her through the crowd. It was odd; before when he was walking carrying the bow, he'd been jostled and bumped and so had Kennedy. Walking with two huge swords, it was like he was a spaceship with defensive screens up: he walked in a bubble of isolation, with only Kennedy to keep him company.

They entered a large open field, similar to the one that the archery had been in during the morning. He spoke to a young man who was wearing chain mail at a gate, and she and Mr. Glastonbury were allowed to pass. One of the men saw him and hurried over. He too was in chain mail.

"Friar Geoffrey!" the man exclaimed, offering his hand to Mr. Glastonbury. "If I'd have known you were coming, I'd have laid on something special!"

"I was thinking that it would be a good day to get out of the house," Mr. Glastonbury told the other. "So here I am. Lady Kennedy, this is Duke Roger of Scranton, a Pennsylvania duchy. Duke Roger, my squire for today, Lady Kennedy."

The other smiled politely at Kennedy, and then moved off to talk with some of the others running the area.

Two pairs of men had been hammering at each other with swords. Both men had tall shields and mostly the swords landed on the shields; only now and then did the blades actually meet.

The duke fellow was back. "Friar Geoffrey, Sir Roger of Meade says he'd spar with you, if you like. Long swords, not the heavier sword."

"Thank you, your grace!" Mr. Glastonbury replied. "I'm obliged. I'm in your debt as always!"

It had seemed to Kennedy when she'd heard them announce the names of the last five of the archery contestants that there were a lot of "Sir This" and "Baron That" around, plus the language was rather flowery. To find it here, between individuals the way Mr. Glastonbury talked to her threw her conversations with him into sharp perspective.

Mr. Glastonbury turned to Kennedy. "Miss Kennedy, if you would, please put the quarrel bag on the ground and the crossbow atop that, then I'd be obliged if you held my other sword."

She pitched her voice low. "A second ago, I was a Lady and not a Miss."

"One doesn't demote a woman in rank when introducing her formally. In your case it was the lesser of two evils. The terms Miss and Mister aren't heard here often. Ms. never at all."

Kennedy did as she was bid, then he handed her the sword. It was heavy, ten or eleven pounds, she thought. Still, it settled into the palm of her right hand, and even though it took a bit to get her hand around the hilt, she could.

Everyone else had gone a few feet away; she was more or less by herself. She lifted the sword away from the ground, and swung it in a small circle. It moved well and the blade seemed to flow effortlessly. She thought about using two hands, but one hand just seemed right.

A boy of about sixteen appeared, a supercilious grin on his face. "Little girl, at least you know which end to hold a sword. I'd put it down now."

"The point goes in your opponent," Kennedy told the boy. She carefully moved the sword again, making sure it wasn't within feet of the obnoxious twit of a boy.

Just moving it back and forth wasn't very good, it worked better, she found, if you used a figure eight. There was the faintest hint, a whisper of sound. It rocked her to her core, that sound did. It spoke to her; it sang to her; it was the most seductive sound imaginable. She swung the sword faster, a little harder. The sword was audibly humming now. The boy had a strange look on his face; Kennedy sniffed in derision.

Mr. Glastonbury appeared and she obediently stopped swinging the sword, even before he could speak.

"Lady Kennedy," he said patiently. "Did I say you could swing that sword?"

"No, sir," she said glumly. For a second Kennedy contemplated saying something about that fact he hadn't told her not to, but she seriously doubted that was going to excuse her.

"Did I ask you not to swing the sword, Lady Kennedy?"

Kennedy frowned. That had to be a trick question. She decided that ignorance sufficed as an answer. "Sir, I don't remember you saying anything about swinging the sword."

"Well, that's because I didn't. Duke Roger has rules in his arena, Lady Kennedy. One of them is that you don't demonstrate with a blade unless you've demonstrated your knowledge to him first. Alas, he didn't mention that rule to you, either.

"I will say, Lady Kennedy, it isn't a good thing to make a man's sword sing like that: the common folk will see it and assume that it's easy." Kennedy turned to face him after Duke Roger spoke from behind her.

"Sorry, sir. I meant no offense."

Duke Roger grinned. "Do you know the name of that sword, Lady Kennedy?"

"No, sir. I wasn't aware it had a name."

"I believe, Lady Kennedy," Mr. Glastonbury spoke. Kennedy met his eyes. She was suddenly sure he was laughing. "I believe Duke Roger is referring to the type of sword."

Kennedy turned back to the duke. "No, sir. Friar Geoffrey just referred to it as the 'heavier' sword."

Duke Roger did laugh then, outright. "It's called a bastard sword, or hand-and-a-half. In truth, Lady Kennedy, many men who fight with a blade like that, use two hands."

The things Mr. Glastonbury taught had always seemed whimsical to Kennedy. A lot of history, some English, lots of math. He made her run a mile in the morning and in the evening she had little weight things she would lift for a while. "PE," he'd told her. "Physical Education."

She'd never figured it out until now. Teaching was about learning how to be an adult. What seemed arbitrary to her probably had a very good reason from Mr. Glastonbury's point of view. Even PE.

She lifted the sword a bit, just knee high, which on her wasn't that high. "It's not as heavy as the dictionary on my desk and I use that a lot!"

Duke Roger started laughing, and then looked Kennedy in the eye. "Lady Kennedy, lift the weapon until it is level with my eyes."

He was well back, so even if she dropped it, it would be her toes at risk. There was something bizarre, Kennedy thought, about an eight-year-old girl, a girl who stood four and a half feet tall, holding a sword one-handed in the face of an adult, probably close to two feet taller than she was.

After a long minute when no one spoke, Duke Roger did. "And what, Lady Kennedy, was the name of that sword again?"

"Bastard sword or hand-and-a-half, sir."

"And how do most men use it?"

"Sir, with two hands."

She couldn't help it; it just felt better moving it, than holding it still. The point began to run in a small figure eight again. It just felt so good! Her whole body tingled with the most pleasant feeling she'd ever had! It was glorious; the sword was humming once again.

"Now, Lady Kennedy," Mr. Glastonbury interrupted her thought pattern, "you are showing off. That isn't done."

She dropped the point and rested it on the ground. "It doesn't seem right, to put the point in the dirt."

Duke Roger laughed again. "Something a true squire would say, Lady Kennedy! Because I wager tonight you'll be cleaning it!"

She looked at Mr. Glastonbury, trying not to show the naked desire she felt. She wanted to sleep with the sword. She wanted to have it with her, always and always! Forever! If she did nothing else in her life, she wanted a sword like this one!

"Duke Roger, there are some duties that are lighter than a feather," Kennedy told him.

She was stunned when his own sword came out of its scabbard with a "wheep" of steel. He touched the hilt to his lips. "Spoken as a true knight, Lady Kennedy!"

Watching Mr. Glastonbury fence seemed almost anti-climactic. Kennedy had to laugh after a while; it was clear that Mr. Glastonbury was a whole lot better with the sword than he'd been with the bow.

And the sound the swords made! It was like music to her ears, the sweetest, noblest thing she could imagine. It was with deepest regret that she followed Mr. Glastonbury out of the sword area.

There was one stop, rather brief, on the way to the crossbow demonstration. The boy who'd made the sarcastic comments stepped in front of her and pushed her, hard, knocking her on her butt.

Kennedy bounced up at once and started to swing. Mr. Glastonbury was, as usual, faster, putting himself between her and the boy.

"Lady Kennedy, please, a moment, then you may feel free to apply a modest amount of certitude. Hear me out first, though."

He turned to the boy, who had been grinning at seeing Kennedy flat on her ass.

"Young man, I have no idea what you seek to accomplish, but no one in the universe is going to respect a boy pushing a girl half his age."

"She's ten or twelve!"

"Eight, although she'll soon be nine," Mr. Glastonbury said, shaking his head for emphasis. "And as bad as that is, it pales in comparison to what will happen when you lose. Apologize and walk away, sir."

He laughed at Mr. Glastonbury, who shrugged.

Kennedy stood up, having left the crossbow on the ground. "Lady Kennedy, if you would, modest certitude!"

It was too good to be true! The boy stepped towards her, his arm outstretched to push her again. Kennedy ducked a little and applied her fist to his stomach.

He grunted in pain and sagged to his knees, hugging his stomach, gasping for air.

"Young man, have a nice day," Mr. Glastonbury said. "Lady Kennedy, the crossbow."

She dipped and picked it up, then stepped past the boy. There was a temptation to swing her hip and knock him on his butt, but Mr. Glastonbury had said "modest" and he was carrying that beautiful sword, which, in theory, she might get to hold again, later.

There were two dozen people shooting crossbows at the same sort of targets the archers had used. Except there wasn't an empty field behind the hay bales, but a heavy wooden barrier.

Mr. Glastonbury explained the crossbow to her at far greater length than he'd explained bows or swords, letting her hold it while he described how it worked. Then it was her turn to actually shoot. Most of the people who were shooting had one of the staff helping them; she had Mr. Glastonbury who'd waved off the offer of help.

She hit the target with all three shots she was allowed, and by the third shot, she was in the center ring, although not by much. She could, she was sure, improve on that.

But Mr. Glastonbury asked her to come outside. "It's a little after four, Lady Kennedy. How are you doing?"

Kennedy looked up at the sky; the sun had come down quite a ways towards the horizon. Until that moment, she hadn't been aware of it. Her face was flush, she was the mildest bit dizzy; she had a slight headache and as soon as she thought about it, a nap seemed like a wonderful idea.

"Will I ever be allowed to hold your sword again, after we leave?"

"Here, I promise. But not at home, not for a while yet. We will talk about that later. Are you tired?"

"I'm exhausted. The last time I felt like this was a year ago when we were at the house in the Hamptons. I got a sunburn that made me barf." She cautiously sensed her body. "I don't think I'm going to do that this time, but I am tired, sir."

He smiled at her. He positively beamed. "Lady Kennedy, when I first came to you, you'd rather have cut off your arm than to admit fatigue or feeling less than one hundred percent. It warms the cockles of a teacher's heart to see his lessons taken to heart.

"Come, let's call it a day. The Renaissance Faire will be here most of the summer. Perhaps we can come back."

"I'd really like that... sir." She'd remembered just in time!

They walked back to the car and he brushed off her bottom before she sat on his car seat. It sort of reminded Kennedy of her mother. It was something to giggle about.

The day wasn't entirely over, though. They stopped at a scenic overlook that looked out over the Hudson River Valley. He walked a few feet away from anyone else, took out his camera and snapped a picture of Kennedy, and then she took one of him.

He looked out then, contemplating the blue distance, and the hint of ocean beyond.

Kennedy wasn't quite ready to fall asleep, but she was close.

"Miss Kennedy, there are some things I'm not ready to try to explain to you. I promise you, some day I will. But not now.

"There are things... forces, if you will, in the world that do not mean the rest of us any good at all. As obnoxious as the young man was a short while ago, he pales in comparison to the ones I'm talking about.

"Those forces prey on the innocent and the helpless. They do, however, have things they fear. Some of those things they fear far more than others. One thing they fear the most are extraordinarily capable young women, who might one day grow up to be much better than extraordinary.

"As you or I might go out of their way to quash a bug, they would do the same if they saw a girl who might grow up like that. A girl such as yourself. I'm in a position I never expected, and it's not because you are clumsy, lazy or stupid. It's because you're bright, energetic and anything but clumsy. Lady Kennedy, I'm afraid, is going to have to bank her coals. You have to go back to being a little smart, a little energetic and not nearly as able with bladed weapons or bows that shoot sharp, pointy things made of wood as you could be, except in practice.

"I promise you this, Miss Kennedy: I will train you. I will train you to the full extent of your abilities and mine, and as fast as I can teach you and as fast as you can learn."

"You'd teach me how to use a sword? Like you were doing today? Sir. Mr. Glastonbury? Would you?"

"Yes, I'd like that very much, although the sword will have to wait a bit yet." He turned away again, staring into space.

Kennedy wasn't sure how she knew it, but she thought he was sad. When he waved her back to the car, she still wasn't sure, but his eyes did look watery.

"Is there something wrong, Mr. Glastonbury?" she asked as he started the engine up.

He sighed. "Earlier, you got the quote wrong, Lady Kennedy."

Kennedy frowned. "What quote?"

"The one about how heavy duty is. The quote is actually: 'Duty is heavier than a mountain and death is lighter than a feather.'"

Kennedy contemplated that. It certainly sounded profound!

"One day, I will explain it to you. Between now and then, you will train."

"When will you explain? Sir, I don't want to make you mad, but one thing that makes me mad is adults who tell me I have to wait until I grow up for an explanation."

He sighed again and shut off the car engine. He did something on the dash and the hood popped up an inch or so. "Get out of the car, Miss Kennedy."

She got out and he led her around to the gas cap. "This is where you put in fuel," he told her. "The gasoline goes into what's called the gas tank. This one holds about fifteen gallons of gasoline."

Kennedy frowned. Nice to know, she was sure, but what had this to do with duty?

He lay down on the ground on his back and looked underneath the car. Kennedy got down with him and looked as he pointed out the gas tank. He showed her the gas line that led from the tank, forwards towards the engine.

Then he opened the hood and showed her the gas line there, until it went into the carburetor thing. Over the next ten minutes he explained the major features of a car engine and how it worked, admitting to being a little rough around the edges of the details himself.

Then they brushed each other off, and were back in the car, heading for Scarsdale.

"Miss Kennedy, does knowing how a car works help you in any way?"

Kennedy laughed. "About as much as learning that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 or what beach Bill the First was visiting in 1066."

"Knowledge is like building blocks. Knowledge learned now, can be built upon in the future. Until you have a better idea of the future, you should include as many and as diverse building blocks as you can. Alas, the functioning of the automobile will be of no particular value to you until you are about sixteen."

"I still don't understand, sir."

"Understanding is based on the building blocks. Without them, there is no foundation and either no, or worse, imperfect understanding. It's easy to misunderstand things. Like you have no clue why it's odd that an eight-year-old can hold an eleven pound sword in one hand, swing it hard and fast enough to make it hum, and then continue to hold it up for another five minutes and thirty seconds, all without a tremble."

"You make me do weights."

"Lots of people do weights, Miss Kennedy. Many of them could do the same weights their entire lives and not even be able to pick that sword up one-handed, much less swing it.

"And even if you understood the gross physical facts of why you're stronger than most people, you still don't know the context. Not in the context of the people who are at the Faire, nor in your own. It's not something you can learn overnight.

"I promise you this, Miss Kennedy. The day you reach menarche, I'll tell you everything; I'll answer all your questions."

"What's menarche, sir?"

"That's what it's called when a young girl reaches puberty and has her first period."

She looked at him and shook her head. "Period?"

He looked at her for a second and then paled. "Like I said, Miss Kennedy, there are a few things you need to learn first."

"And when do I reach this puberty thing?"

"Ten or older; there's no way I know to tell in advance exactly when it will happen."

She could tell he was a little angry, but not at her.

"Usually a girl's mother talks to her about these things."

"Mr. Glastonbury, I'm about to fall asleep. Can I ask one simple question?"

"You can; you may, Miss Kennedy."

"Can I clean the bastard sword tonight? Please, sir?"

"The care you take with your weapons, Miss Kennedy, is frequently the difference between life and death. Not only can you clean the sword, but the crossbow as well."

Kennedy grimaced. Life with Mr. Glastonbury was never what she expected!



-------

Chapter 3: Kennedy Learns the Facts of Life and Death


Kennedy celebrated her tenth birthday in style with Mr. Glastonbury at a small, hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in China Town in New York City. It was not a particular surprise to Kennedy to learn that Mr. Glastonbury spoke Chinese; it was only a surprise when she found something he didn't know.

He was unusually quiet at dinner, while Kennedy was unusually unrestrained. She didn't care, she was now ten, a double-digit age. She didn't care what other people thought, but in her mind she was no longer a little kid, she was a young person and that was very, very good!

Of course it was enormously frustrating not to have grown as much as she'd hoped, but Mr. Glastonbury assured her that she wasn't anywhere near her full growth. She could but hope!

At the end of the evening, when they were leaving the restaurant, the proprietor slipped Mr. Glastonbury a bag that Kennedy was pretty sure contained a bottle of liquor. She thought that because of the furtive way it was passed, if nothing else.

They walked to his car and he opened up Kennedy's door, but instead of letting her in to sit down, he opened the glove compartment and slid the bottle in the brown paper wrapper inside.

Then, the car door still open, he turned to her.

"I thought long and hard about what to do for your birthday. You are, Miss Kennedy, a very special young woman. It is growing more and more clear with each passing day just how special. Normally all of this would wait; I don't think that's a good idea any more."

He smiled at her. "One gift you will receive when we return home: your heart's desire."

Kennedy looked at him. She had more than one desire, but she knew which of them was most important to her. No, that wasn't true. To be treated with respect; she wanted that more than anything else. She understood that she wasn't going to be treated as a peer for a long time, but in the meantime there was respect.

"That gift, Miss Kennedy, is conditional on a promise, here and now. That you promise you will do exactly as you are told, no matter what you see, what you think, what you figure will happen. And afterwards, you will never, ever tell anyone about what you saw."

"Sure, Mr. Glastonbury."

"Don't be so glib, Miss Kennedy," he cautioned. "There is more. A friend, another special young woman, has offered to help us this evening. If you say anything, if you make any noise, if you do anything you have been told not to do, you could get her killed. Dead. Or worse."

"There's something worse than being dead?" Kennedy asked.

"You have no idea how much I wish you had appended 'sir' to what you just said," he told her. "If you have trouble with the simplest of orders, it reduces anyone's ability to trust you on something larger. Think on that, Miss Kennedy."

"Yes, sir. I understand, sir. I promise to try to be more careful, sir." Kennedy couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Mr. Glastonbury, you've been my tutor and teacher for more than two years. I can't believe you think for a second I don't have an enormous respect for you. Certainly I have more respect for you than any other adult I've ever met. I don't understand why you don't understand that."

"As I don't understand why you can't do such a simple thing as saying 'sir.' I think it's laziness, which isn't a good thing. Miss Kennedy, you must promise me. You will say and do nothing, no matter what you think is happening. The only release from this promise is my death. Do you understand that?"

"I'm having a little trouble accepting the melodrama, sir," Kennedy told him.

"Do you know what a stalking horse is, Miss Kennedy?"

"That's someone who goes in front to trip an ambush, or be the one attacked first."

"That's what my friend is going to do. All you have to do is be silent and watch, Miss Kennedy. Use your eyes, your brain and not your mouth. Be a student, not an actor."

"Okay, I'll do it. I promise, sir. Cross my heart."

He dipped into his coat and handed her something about ten inches long and about an inch in diameter that tapered to a point. "Do you know what this is, Miss Kennedy?"

"A wooden pointy thing, sir. I believe they call these 'stakes.'"

"Exactly. You take it and keep it. It won't be much help if something goes wrong, but there is always a chance."

"I thought I wasn't supposed to think or act, sir?" Kennedy didn't bother hiding her sarcasm.

"And I told you that my death releases you from your promise. Or would you, Miss Kennedy, be content to stand defenseless before that which has just killed my friend and myself?"

"And this is a defense, Mr. Glastonbury?"

"It's small, easy to hide and might possibly be a surprise. That's about as much as you can hope for. Do you understand that this isn't melodrama, Miss Kennedy? That this is real?"

"Sure, sir."

"Good. Put it in your pocket; keep your hand on it. If you need it, you'll know in plenty of time to get it out, Miss Kennedy."

He turned his back on Kennedy and started walking away. She caught up with him in a few steps and continued to hurry. Her legs were much shorter than his and he was walking fast. He went two blocks along streets that were progressively further from the beaten path... not to mention much darker.

A woman seemed to fade into existence from a shadow. Not a woman, Kennedy realized a second later. She was sixteen or seventeen.

"Kennedy, this is Amanda," Mr. Glastonbury announced.

"Hello, Amanda," Kennedy said and held out her hand to shake the other's. Her grip made Mr. Glastonbury's feel like a baby's kiss.

The woman turned and walked about ten feet ahead of them before Mr. Glastonbury followed along and Kennedy moved after him.

A half block along, a pitch black alley yawned, with only the faintest of illumination. Amanda turned into it and went just a few steps before stopping and turning to them. "You'll need to stay further back, Friar Geoffrey."

"I know. I just wanted to make one final demonstration for Miss Kennedy's edification. Look up, Miss Kennedy, directly over Amanda's head."

It took a few seconds for Kennedy to see it, but there was a fire escape ladder up there, perhaps twenty feet above the alley. It was one of those weighted ones that you could climb on from above and it would sink to the ground.

"That's about twenty feet, Miss Kennedy. Do you remember the exercise on the trampoline?"

"Yes, sir. I don't see a trampoline, though."

"Amanda, if you would, please."

The woman dipped a bit, and then swung her arms up and jumped. Kennedy's jaw dropped. The woman grasped the bottom rung of the ladder, flipped up so that her body was flat against the ladder, her head now pointing down. The ladder didn't move. Then she dropped headfirst straight down. Only just at the end, did she flip and land in a crouch.

"I was wrong about the trampoline," Kennedy said, in awe.

"No, no trampoline," Mr. Glastonbury told her. "Like I said, Amanda is special. We will talk about the different ways of being special people have, but for now just accept it."

"I saw it with my own eyes," Kennedy said, her eyes glowing with astonishment. It had to be a trick, but what a great trick!

"Now," Mr. Glastonbury said into the silence that followed, "we will become auditory black holes, Miss Kennedy."

The girl, Amanda, turned on her heel and started down the dark alley. There was a little light and even the short delay had helped Kennedy's eyes adjust. When the woman was about a hundred yards ahead, Mr. Glastonbury moved silently to follow her. Without a word, Kennedy followed at his side, taking a great deal of care to be utterly silent.

The alley seemed interminable, and then there was an intersection and even more alley. Inside Kennedy's brain her thoughts buzzed and hummed, thinking about everything she saw or sensed. There wasn't much, just Amanda a hundred yards ahead and Mr. Glastonbury a few inches to her left.

There was the slightest stir, something right on the edge of Kennedy's awareness. A dark shape appeared out of the night, directly in front of Amanda.

"I declare!" The speaker was a woman in her mid-twenties, speaking with a broad Southern accent. "Ah's done died and gun t' heaven!"

There was a nasty laugh. "Well, maybe ah's just died and gone nowheres! Lookie here! Da Slayer come to calls on me!"

"I told you that you should leave. That this wasn't a hunting ground," Amanda said levelly.

The woman facing Amanda was wearing a dress so short that the least movement revealed blue panties underneath. The woman was wearing just a thin wisp of fabric across her breasts. Her lips were garishly splashed with red lipstick, her eyes painted with eyeliner and eye shadow.

A lady of the evening, Kennedy thought. She'd read about them, sure. But the reality was a little startling. It was, in a way, a lot like Mr. Sullivan's faulty math. Impossible for Kennedy to imagine anyone dressing like that woman or wearing makeup like she was.

The woman facing Amanda looked up, beyond her, towards where Mr. Glastonbury and Kennedy had stopped. "Ah'll be jiggered! A Watcher, come to watch! And lookie der! A moppet! Oh, Slayer! What a treat ya's brought me tonight! Ah's gunna feast on you first, den ah's kills dat stupid Watcher. Later, when ah's a bit peckish, ah's 'l have that delicious tidbit ya's brought me!"

Amanda moved; it was so fast that Kennedy barely discerned it. Her fists hit the woman in the face, a sudden tattoo that rocked the other back on her feet.

But only that. For an instant the woman stared at Amanda, then she laughed. Then it must have been the pain of the blows, her face twisted into a hideous rictus of anger, and she slashed her fingernails towards Amanda.

Amanda grabbed her attacker's wrist, stepped slightly forward and rolled the woman over her hip, dropping her heavily to the ground. Amanda's hand rose and fell; Kennedy was amazed to see she had a stake too.

There was a sudden scream, abruptly cut short.

Kennedy was shaken. Amanda had just killed someone with no more compunction than Kennedy when she stepped on ants on the sidewalk. True, she flushed spiders down the toilet instead of crushing them in her shower, but that was a girl's natural fastidiousness, not compassion.

Still... this... 

Mr. Glastonbury whispered softly. "They often come in packs; they rarely travel alone. They prefer their own kind."

Out of the darkness another shape launched itself at Amanda. Amanda turned and then fell backward while lifting a foot into the other's belly. The second attacker somersaulted through the air, slamming into the bricks of a building facing the alley. In a move that Kennedy wished she could duplicate, Amanda was up, slamming a fist into the belly of yet another dark shape that came hurtling out of the darkness to attack Amanda.

A fourth appeared, slamming a heavy piece of wood into Amanda's stomach. Amanda grunted in pain as the board splintered into a million pieces. She fielded one of the pieces and drove it into the shape. The heart, Kennedy was sure.

What happened next was very, very odd. There was an instant where there was no change, then the other turned to a long dead corpse that was just a skeleton, then the corpse was dust blowing on the wind, sifting to the ground.

There was a sudden tattoo of feet, fading into the night.

Amanda came back to them, smiling. "Can you believe that, Friar Geoffrey? One of them brought more ammunition to the fight!"

"We should go," Mr. Glastonbury said. "They too could have friends."

"Yes, of course. Not mind you, that I want to go."

Kennedy was startled when Mr. Glastonbury walked up to Amanda and leaned close and kissed her cheek. "Amanda, fight thoughts like that! The idea is to live to fight another day!"

"Yes, Mommy! Watchers are all alike!"

They walked back the way they'd come, this time making no effort to be quiet or stealthy. What had seemed to take forever before went past in moments.

Amanda grinned at Kennedy when they once again reached Mr. Glastonbury's car. "You and I are half-sisters, Kennedy. Pray to God above that we never become full sisters!" She turned and ran a few steps; she kick started a motorcycle and vanished into the night, her blonde hair flying loose behind her.

Mr. Glastonbury turned to Kennedy. "Miss Kennedy, ask questions about this tomorrow, during the light of day, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then let us be getting on home and your other present."

"Do you want your stake back?"

He smiled at her, a little sadly, she thought. "No, Miss Kennedy. Put it under your pillow at night, when you sleep."

Kennedy raised an eyebrow. Fortunately her mother would never notice, but what would the housekeeper think?

They reached the house in Scarsdale; as usual the only light on was the one left by the doorman, who waited up for them. They went inside and Kennedy bowed graciously to Mr. Tiller and he bowed back.

Mr. Tiller was, in fact, someone known to Friar Geoffrey at Faire, and he'd seen to it that the older man had gained employment with Kennedy's father. Mr. Tiller might be over sixty-five, but he was a burly man, and he was always alert whenever Kennedy called on him.

Kennedy had only been back to the Faire twice, in spite of Mr. Glastonbury's original promise. And each time he'd cautioned her ahead of time about being careful not to show off. That's what he called it.

Kennedy didn't really care. When the two of them practiced, he didn't ask her to hold back. They practiced with swords and knives, bows and crossbows. All sorts of weapons. Kennedy was keenly aware that her parents knew nothing of their activities, because they were always out of the house when the practices commenced.

They walked into what her stepfather called the weight room; the one Mr. Glastonbury called the "Practice Room" instead.

He walked right over to the locked cabinet on the wall, twisted the combination and opened it. As usual, Kennedy had to admire his bravado, keeping all of that stuff under her stepfather's nose. He pulled out the long scabbard of the bastard sword, turned and went to one knee, offering it up to her with both hands, the sword horizontal to the ground.

Kennedy reached out and took it, not sure what this was about.

"I was eighteen summers," he told her, "when I finished this blade. The master blacksmith I apprenticed with told me I was foolish, it was too heavy for someone as young as I was. He was also disapproving because I'd refused to name it.

"I had, of course. You can't work on a project for more than a year without calling it something. But I knew that the name I'd given it was just part of its name; the full name was hidden from me.

"Time passed, and I used it on occasion, but as well as it fit my hand, I knew it truly belonged to another."

He lifted his eyes up and met hers. "I knew it only as 'Lady, ' you see. I was young and inexperienced; it was a heavy sword and while I spent a great deal of time learning to use it, it did take a great deal of time.

"There at Faire, when I saw you swinging it, I realized the blade's true name. Lady Kennedy. Now, Lady Kennedy, the sword is yours by right."

She didn't know what to say. How many ten-year-olds are given a bastard sword for their tenth birthday? A sword she wielded with the familiarity of an old friend?

"Friar Geoffrey, of all the things I've been given in my life, there are two things I treasure the most. You and this blade."

He stood up. "Well said, Lady Kennedy! Now, off to bed!"

She blinked in astonishment. "I don't get to practice with Lady Kennedy?"

"Not tonight. I want you to sleep. I want you to spend some time thinking about what you saw tonight. Think, Lady Kennedy, think! It is literally a matter of life and death."

"And you don't want to talk about it until tomorrow?"

He grinned. "I think, today, I will change the rules. Sprinkle your conversation with a few 'sirs, ' a few 'Friar Geoffreys' and I will be content. I will even start calling you 'Kennedy' if that's your wish. Except at Faire."

"We don't go often."

"That's because I have no courage, my Lady. But you don't have to worry about waiting until tomorrow. Because when the sun comes up, it is already the morrow."

He turned and walked away, leaving her holding the sword.

She slipped the scabbard off and swung it a few times. She grinned broadly and decided that this time, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to do as she was told. Not that she didn't plan on spending even more time practicing today!

When she awoke it was nearly noon; a little amazing that, because usually someone would have come in to wake her up earlier.

She dashed into the shower and dressed hastily. She might not have grown much, but the Robin Hood outfit no longer fit; for one thing the tunic wasn't much longer now than the skirt had been on the woman the night before.

She went out on the veranda, where she was told Mr. Glastonbury was sipping ice tea.

"Good morning, Friar Geoffrey," she told him.

"Good morn to you, Lady Kennedy. Brunch will be shortly."

"Thank you, sir."

She sat down next to him, looking at him expectantly.

He shook his head. "Kennedy, this isn't what you think it is. Did you like Amanda?"

"She's cool, really cool! When I get older I want to be like her!"

"I'm sorry to say, Kennedy, that that's entirely possible. There was a reason she wished that you and she never become sisters."

"I didn't understand."

"What sort of enemy did Amanda face last night?"

"They didn't like her. The woman called her 'The Slayer.' I guess that's a good name for Amanda, because a second later the woman was dead."

"Was she, Kennedy? Did you see the body?"

Kennedy sighed. "No, I didn't see the body. Amanda also killed one of the woman's friends. It was weird. Very weird. It looked like he turned to dust."

"The term, actually, is indeed 'dusted.' That's what happens when you slay a vampire. They turn to dust. Some of them have been dead a very long time. That woman died more than fifty years ago."

"She didn't look that old."

"When a vampire dies, Kennedy, it stops aging. Do you know what killed her fifty years ago?"

Kennedy shook her head.

"Another vampire. A vampire sucked her dry, removed all of her blood. Then, in the last seconds of life, the vampire made the woman drink of its own blood. That's called 'siring, ' the act of creating another vampire. Male and female vampires can both sire; it hasn't got anything at all to do with real fatherhood or sex."

"That's crazy!" Kennedy said. "Vampires are bogeymen! Fairy tales and stories told to scare people! They aren't real."

"Kennedy, on the shelf in your room is Will and Ariel Durant's monumental series on world history. There are a lot of stories in those books!"

"That's history, that's different."

"How is it different? I can point to things in the Durants' work that are demonstrably untrue. Research came along later and found things had happened otherwise. Does that negate the rest of their work?"

"No, sir." Kennedy spent a few seconds chewing it over in her head. "But vampires? Blood-sucking creatures of the night! Really?"

"Really. What, do you have trouble accepting what you saw with your own eyes? Trust me on this, Kennedy, but women like Amanda never, ever kill people. Ever. It would be unthinkable. Vampires? Demons? Yes. All the time, in every way."

"Then why do people think vampires and demons are fairy tales and ghost stories?"

"Vampires may not be alive in the usual sense of the word, but they are animate. They have brains, memories -- even emotions and feelings. Longings, dread -- ambition. If you were secretly trying to take over the world, and had been for tens of thousands of years -- would you let people in on the secret?"

"No, I suppose not. But then, why not just expose them?"

"How would you do that? Take their picture? You can't. You can't see them in mirrors or in photographs; nothing like that. Dust one in front of important witnesses? First, you'd have to assemble the witnesses. They'd have to believe you. Right now, Kennedy, if you tried to do that, they'd think you were insane and treat you accordingly. You'd end up in an institution where you would either go crazy or die in an 'accident.' People die routinely in hospitals; it's never a surprise."

He looked at her. "The legend says, 'Into every generation a Slayer is born.' That's not exactly true. A Slayer is a young woman, invariably between the ages of fourteen and nineteen. Usually sixteen, but now and then, older or younger. The Slayer has mystical powers. You saw that yourself, last night. Amanda jumped twenty feet into the air, did a cartwheel and landed easily. Don't try that yourself, not just yet. You can't jump that high and you wouldn't land nearly as easily.

"She took punches and kicks from her enemies. She punched and kicked them. I hope you noticed that other than a brief pain, they had little effect on either side."

"That was pretty amazing," Kennedy agreed.

"Yes. Slayers heal much faster than regular people. A Slayer, stabbed in the stomach with a knife, will stop bleeding a few seconds later. The next day the exterior signs of trauma will have gone, and the day after she will be as good as new."

"Cool!" Kennedy exclaimed.

"Uncool," he contradicted her. "That's if she's stabbed once. Oddly enough, in a fight you are losing, particularly if the vampire knows it's fighting the Slayer, you don't get stabbed once. You get stabbed a million times. They break your neck or cut off your head. They burn you up or throw you off a high enough cliff to do the trick. It's hard to kill a Slayer, but then it's also hard to kill a vampire.

"That's what Amanda meant, Kennedy, when she said she hopes you'll never be her full sister. That would mean you were the Slayer. You see, it's magic. There are a lot of Potentials, proto-slayers, Slayers in training, in the world. We, the Watchers, seek them out, help them, train them and prepare them for that day if it comes.

"When a Slayer dies, someone gets promoted. It's called being 'Chosen.' There's no way to tell in advance who it will be. Sometimes the choice is obvious, and that's what happens. Other times the choice is obvious and something else happens. There's no way to be sure until afterwards.

"The problem, you see, is young women like Amanda. You saw her; you listened to her. In six months, more likely less, she will be dead, Kennedy. Dead. She takes chances; she doesn't know how to stop or back away. If you hadn't been there last night, she'd have gone after the vampires who fled. And odds were they weren't alone. Like I said, they tend to run in packs."

"And you think I'm one of the Potentials? A proto-slayer?" Kennedy asked him.

"That's right, Miss Kennedy. You are stronger than most men and you're only ten. You can run further and faster than most men. You learn things rapidly and you almost never forget a lesson learned."

"Suppose the Slayer decides to go live on a mountaintop in Tibet?" Kennedy asked him.

"It wouldn't help. There are vampires everywhere. At the moment a Slayer dies, there is a tremendous surge of magical power. Vampires, demons, all sorts of creatures can sense it. They know a Slayer is a danger to them. They know that the easiest time to kill a Slayer is when she's just come into her power. They come in droves to do just that. Quite a few Slayers die the same day they are Chosen."

Kennedy mulled things over, recalling things she'd seen or heard. "Mr. Glastonbury, sometimes when you look at me, you seem very sad. Are you worried that I won't be Chosen? Or that I will be?"

He met her eyes. "Kennedy, the answer to that is yes."

-------

In spite of the dramatic revelations, nothing much changed. Mr. Glastonbury still taught school subjects as well as weapons, hand-to-hand combat and a brief introduction to the world of the undead. While Kennedy spent long hours in the practice room, there didn't seem to be much urgency to the instruction.

She asked Mr. Glastonbury about it and he explained that she had a lot of growing to do first, and until the whole puberty thing was behind her, her body was going to be changing rapidly, throwing off her timing and coordination. Kennedy privately thought he was a worry-wart, because she never noticed anything wrong with either. Not, of course, that she could come close to beating Mr. Glastonbury at anything except Monopoly. Trying to play Scrabble with him was like trying to play a dictionary. He knew a lot more words than she did.

Still, she was patient. She was going to grow up as fast as she grew up; there wasn't going to be much she could do about it. She got to go to Faire a couple of times a year. It wasn't exactly boring, but it wasn't as much fun as it could have been, because the only weapon she was allowed to use was a crossbow. She was as good as most adults, but not nearly as good as the top tier of archers, men like Friar Geoffrey.

On her eleventh birthday she asked about Amanda and was told she was doing well. Mr. Glastonbury seemed more intent after that, though, on swords, hand-to-hand fighting and strength-building exercises. Kennedy read in some magazine about women who worked out with weights, and saw the pictures. She was curious why she didn't look as muscle-bound as they did and asked.

"Your muscles aren't like other people's," he explained to her. "You don't need to know the details; it's all involved with hormones and whatnot." He grinned at her. "Half the time I forget some of the chemical and biological names. After a while, they all start sounding alike. It's like a car. If you put a Volkswagen engine in a Cadillac it's not very peppy. Use the regular engine and it goes quite well. Put a race car engine into the same and it is rather peppy indeed. But no matter what kind of engine it has, it still looks the same to the casual eye."

They still only went to Faire once or twice a year. On her twelfth birthday they went again, and this time her present was to be allowed to compete in a junior-level crossbow tournament, even though you were supposed to be at least thirteen to enter.

She felt smug and pleased when she won the first prize quite handily.

On the way home she started talking about the contest, shot by shot, criticizing herself about things she could have done better, or praising herself for something she'd done right. It had been a particularly long day, and Friar Geoffrey's patience didn't extend to a third retelling of the contest.

It didn't take long with nothing to do but stare out the car window before her eyes started to get heavy and her head sank down and she was asleep.



-------

Chapter 4: Kennedy and the Face in the Window


Kennedy tried not to let her chest stick out. It was, she thought, just a small embarrassment, but it was an embarrassment nonetheless. At barely thirteen she looked only slightly more like a woman than she had at ten or twelve.

She'd grown a foot, true enough. Her breasts were now visible -- at least to her mother, who'd insisted on dragging Kennedy to Macy's to buy bras. Afterwards, Kennedy was struggling with the changes to her body and the only advice in her universe was coming from Mr. Glastonbury or Dr. Juanita Grace, the OB-GYN Mr. Glastonbury had taken her to. Her mother, though, hadn't felt constrained by reality or anything else. Kennedy's mother had lectured her long and diligently about the dangers of "giving in to lust" and "allowing hormones free rein."

Once again Kennedy spent a second trying to cast out her personal demons. This was Faire, not the usual one, but another. Even so, there were a lot of familiar faces. She tried not to pat herself on the back. Hers was a familiar face, at least to some.

Duke Roger had laughed when she stood before him, at the Muster for Constables. "I see you still don't know how to hold a bastard sword, Lady Kennedy!"

She'd grinned and made Lady Kennedy hum for him, still using just one hand. "Indeed so, your Grace. My apologies for strength and skill!"

It had been the duke himself who had pinned the sprig of holly leaves on her shoulder, showing she was one of the Lord Marshal's constables for the Faire. Nothing else mattered, not really. Then he'd told her she was assigned the petting zoo and Kennedy wondered if there was anything she could to do get recognition from adults as to what she could do.

Yes, Friar Geoffrey was forever warning her about the dangers of "the nail that sticks up," but she was careful not to show what she could really do. And, if the truth be known, if vampires decided that a thirteen-year-old who could deal with a bastard sword one-handed was a mortal enemy -- well, she'd deal with that as she dealt with everything else that had come her way during her life.

The last three years hadn't been easy. There had been a lot of practice, a lot of classroom work. One thing she learned was that Amanda had been hurt a few weeks after Kennedy had met her. She had a broken leg, a broken arm, some broken ribs and a broken jaw, Mr. Glastonbury told Kennedy.

He'd watched her expression and Kennedy tried not to let it bother her. "It sounds bad; it would be bad for you or I. For Amanda, it means a couple of days in bed, a few more days taking it easy, and in a week or ten days, she'll be fit again."

"That's amazing!" Kennedy had said at the time.

"A Slayer heals faster than just about anyone -- about the same rate as a vampire does, in fact."

Kennedy had asked a question then that had been on her mind a lot. "Why don't you teach me about guns? Why swords, bows and stakes?"

"Do you know what happens when you shoot a vampire in the heart with a firearm?" Mr. Glastonbury asked.

She shook her head.

"You irritate it. Shoot it square between the eyes and you'll really get it irritated. You can kill a vampire by using a wooden stake through the heart, by lopping its head off, or dousing it with holy water. You can push one into sunlight and it will burn up if you can keep it there. Guns and bullets, however, are pretty well useless."

She'd nodded. And later, Mr. Glastonbury had reported that there had been some good fallout from Amanda's injuries: it had given her pause to think and afterwards, she wasn't as eager to rush into battle.

That had ended, though, two weeks before today and was the reason she was at Faire. Mr. Glastonbury had handed her the newspaper clipping that was only a short paragraph. "Miss Amanda Jorgenson of Queens was found beaten and strangled to death last night in an alley off Times Square. Robbery was thought to be the motive."

Kennedy had never seen Amanda but the one time. But Amanda was someone she'd thought about often, someone Kennedy dreamed about pretty often as well.

Mr. Glastonbury had watched Kennedy for a few minutes, and then shrugged. "The new Slayer is Chinese; she lives in Shanghai."

The message was clear, Kennedy had thought, she was almost old enough to go from "Potential" to "Chosen." But it wasn't her turn yet.

She'd spent a week, barely eating, practicing by rote, with no appetite even for practice. Mr. Glastonbury had suggested a trip to Faire as a possible antidote to her doldrums. She'd jumped at the chance.

Kennedy sighed one last time, and then looked at the clock tower. It was a little before noon. Friar Geoffrey had already won an archery contest in the morning and was now teaching a class of eager beginners the fine points of drawing a longbow. Kennedy had begged off, saying she was hungry. Of late, any time she said she was hungry, he was only too willing to see that she had something to eat.

She was supposed to be sitting down in the Inn right now, feeding her face instead of standing over a wishing well, with nothing to wish for except impossibilities.

She turned abruptly, intent on getting something to eat, before her shift at the zoo, which started at one.

Kennedy nearly ran into a girl her own age, the girls' hair elegantly coifed, wearing a dress that was stunningly beautiful.

The words out of her mouth came without conscious thought. "I remember you!" Kennedy told the girl.

The girl was now shorter than Kennedy; her hair was darker brown.

She smiled at Kennedy. "You have the advantage of me, then. I'm afraid I don't remember you at all, much less your name."

Kennedy stifled the urge to giggle. "Well, actually, a couple of years ago I saw you at a Faire. I remember your face and your dress."

The girl stretched out her hand towards Kennedy's waist, but didn't touch the sword hanging there. "That's real, isn't it? You're really a constable?"

"It's real and I am a constable." Kennedy couldn't stop her grimace. "I protect the petting zoo."

"My real father is a man with a very long memory," the girl said, "one of his favorite stories is the time the rabbit attacked President Jimmy Carter."

Kennedy laughed. "I'll have to ask about that one, because I've never heard it. Did the Secret Service protect the President?"

"My father said they were in a rowboat and rapidly retreated."

The girl waved at the fountain. "I was going to make a wish, then see if I can eat something without dripping anything on my mother's latest masterwork."

"I was going that way myself," Kennedy said. She stuck out her hand. "I'm Kennedy. Lady Kennedy, at Faire."

The girl shook her hand. "I'm Harriet the Over-dressed... er, Lady Harriet, according to my mother. I'd rather be plain Harriet Scrivener."

Harriet tossed a quarter into the well and watched it sink. She turned to Kennedy. "Do you know what I wished for?"

Kennedy shook her head.

"That the next dress my mother makes for me is as light as a feather and I can get in and out of it in less than twenty minutes."

Kennedy couldn't help it; she started giggling.

"What?" Harriet asked.

"Oh, I remember something else from the first time I saw you. I hate dresses; I really hate them. I was wearing pretty much what I'm wearing now, although leotards instead of buckskin pants. A tunic top. I wondered how you went to the bathroom."

"I eat at Faire; I don't drink anything for a day before. Pee?" She shuddered.

"The porta-potties are pretty bad," Kennedy agreed.

They went into the Inn and had lunch, talking animatedly.

Then it was time for Kennedy to go on duty, while Harriet had to return to her mother's booth. Harriet's mother sold dresses like the one Harriet wore, which wasn't exactly a surprise.

Kennedy showed up at the petting zoo, relieving a young man of sixteen or seventeen who looked disgusted. "This place smells! The animals are the ones we let in! You'll spend your time keeping the animals safe from the brats!"

He was, Kennedy soon learned, exactly right. As the day warmed, the smell rose. The animals seemed to ignore it, but as for the kids, too many of them were crabby and irritable. By four in the afternoon she was totally wilted. Still, she'd kept the animals safe.

The two animal handlers began bundling the critters up early, and so by four there was nothing left. She started off, intent on finding Friar Geoffrey, who she supposed would be finishing the crossbow demonstration.

Except she could see him, a hundred yards away, talking to Duke Roger, the two of them slowly walking towards her. Well, at least neither of them had shown up to check up on her, actually on the job!

Someone touched her arm and she turned to look.

It was a short, dumpy man, wearing a blue business suit; just a little out of place. "Excuse me, Miss. Is your name Kennedy?" he asked.

"Who wants to know?" Kennedy replied, her hand dropping to the hilt of Lady Kennedy, the sword.

The man produced a leather wallet and flashed a badge for an instant at her. "I'm Special Agent Tom Larkin, FBI, Miss. You are Miss Kennedy, are you not?" The badge had been visible only partially, for a fraction of a second.

"Lady Kennedy," she corrected him. "Now, let's see the badge again, only slower. Do you have any ID?"

He took the leather wallet out and showed her the badge, and then his ID card. Kennedy was very proud of herself. Friar Geoffrey and Duke Roger had closed the distance in quick time.

Kennedy nodded to Friar Geoffrey. "Friar, this man says he's an FBI agent. He wants to talk to me."

It was Duke Roger who held out his hand. "Sir, your ID?"

"And who might you be?" the FBI agent inquired.

"Duke Roger, also known as Sergeant Roger Stiles, Pennsylvania State Police. The Sterling Corporation contracts with me for security services at the Faire. ID, sir."

The FBI agent produced the leather wallet again and showed it to Duke Roger. This time he made no effort to see how fast he could do it.

"Now, if you're satisfied, if you could give me a moment alone to ask Miss Kennedy a few questions..."

Duke Roger laughed. "I'm sorry, Special Agent Larkin, but I wasn't born yesterday. There is absolutely no way I'm going to allow you a moment alone with a thirteen-year-old girl. That's just not going to happen. In any case, Friar Geoffrey is her guardian. I'd rather listen myself, but one of us, for sure."

The FBI agent turned to Friar Geoffrey. "Friar Geoffrey?"

"Yes," Mr. Glastonbury said. "I too must insist on accompanying Miss Kennedy if you wish to ask her any questions. If it's more than one or two, or if this is in regard to a criminal matter, you will have to leave and see Miss Kennedy's stepfather."

"I've talked to him already; that's how I knew where to come. I have his permission to talk to her alone."

"In writing of course?" Duke Roger asked.

The FBI agent glared at Duke Roger for a second, then turned to Mr. Glastonbury. "You're English, right? Do you know a Richard Glennie?"

"Yes, I know Richard," Mr. Glastonbury told the FBI agent.

"Do you happen to know Mr. Glennie's current whereabouts?"

"Yes. He returned home a few days ago. He's in Salisbury, England."

"And do you know why he left the country so abruptly?"

Mr. Glastonbury looked at the agent coldly. "His pupil was murdered. He'd known her for years and years. He was very distraught at her death."

"You understand, it looks bad in a murder investigation when someone abruptly leaves the country."

Mr. Glastonbury's eyes narrowed slightly. "As I recall, Mr. Glennie was giving a lecture at the Natural History Museum the night of the murder, to an audience of about five hundred people. And that he left for England a week after Amanda's funeral."

"I never said he was a suspect; I said it looked bad."

"What is it you want?" Mr. Glastonbury asked the FBI agent.

"Well, I'm going to leave you my card. Call the number on it and we'll arrange an interview for you."

The FBI agent handed him a card, then turned to Kennedy. "Miss Kennedy, how did you know Amanda Jorgenson?"

"I met her once. We said about ten words. It was more than three years ago."

"Can you explain a note in her day-planner that read 'Meet Fr. G and Kennedy, 8:00 at Han's'? With your phone number?"

"We met, we talked; it was my birthday."

"What did you talk about?" the agent insisted.

"It was nearly three years ago!" Kennedy was furious.

The agent turned to Mr. Glastonbury. "And you, sir. Did you know Amanda Jorgenson?"

"I met her just the once. Mr. Glennie and I are professional colleagues. She was going to be in the area and she brought some teaching materials from Mr. Glennie for me to use. As Miss Kennedy has already told you twice, that was thirty-six months and twelve days ago."

"And this Hans?"

"Han's," Mr. Glastonbury corrected him. "It's a Cantonese restaurant in China Town in New York. It was Miss Kennedy's birthday."

"An odd place for a birthday dinner."

Duke Roger spoke up. "Special Agent Larkin, I'm going to file an official letter of complaint. In nearly twenty years of law enforcement I've never heard anyone ask such stupid, pointless questions of someone who could not possibly be involved in a crime. Insulting questions that seem to slur everyone you talk to. Friar Geoffrey, do you know what this is about?"

"Amanda Jorgenson was beaten and strangled a few weeks ago. I am at a loss why the FBI would be investigating a routine homicide in New York City."

"And you had nothing to do with it?"

"No. Nor did Lady Kennedy. Nor, in fact, did Richard Glennie. As I said, he was lecturing at the Natural History Museum because he's one of the world's leading authorities on migratory birds. The Museum has been begging him for years to come and talk to their members. He was devastated when his student was killed. Absolutely devastated."

The FBI agent gestured at Kennedy's sword. "May I look at that?"

"No," Kennedy told him.

"Please, I insist..." the agent reached his hand towards the hilt, only to have Kennedy knock it away.

Duke Roger pulled a whistle from around his neck and blew lustily on it.

Almost instantly, half a dozen constables swarmed to the call.

"Escort this gentleman off the property," Duke Roger told them. "He is an armed FBI agent, but he is no longer welcome here. When he gets in his vehicle, take the license number and post it with the parking lot folks. Make sure he actually leaves the property."

The FBI agent went peacefully, seemingly unconcerned and unfazed about what had happened.

"It is a tried and overused technique in interrogation," Duke Roger said, shaking his head sadly, "to anger the subject, in the hopes they will blurt out something useful."

"I would like to remind you that Lady Kennedy was ten the one and only time she met Amanda Jorgenson. Richard and I have been friends for years; we often talk about our pupils. He was as proud of his as I'm proud of mine. But that was the only time I met her, myself. She ran an errand at the request of a friend. I swear, Duke Roger, neither of us had anything to do with what happened to her."

The duke nodded. He glanced around. The entire course of events had taken place just a few steps from the petting zoo. Now that it was closed, people were mostly hurrying past, intent on other destinations and paying them no attention at all.

"Geoffrey, I say this as a friend, but I too have memories. One of which is an eight-year-old girl making a bastard sword sing, one-handed."

"She's wiry strong," Mr. Glastonbury muttered.

"I also remember a time, eight years ago, when I was a corporal. We were chasing a trio of men who strangled, murdered and mutilated people. Mostly young women, but when the killing mood was on them, no one was safe. They'd killed two dozen people in three days. We tracked them to a warehouse in an older section of Pittsburgh. Twenty of us took the door, Geoffrey. Twenty young cops, armed with pistols and shotguns, wearing vests and helmets.

"I watched a dozen rounds hit one of the perps and she just laughed and jumped into the middle of a group of three officers. She ripped their throats out in an eye blink. I pumped four solid shots from my 12-guage into her. She backhanded me, but I got my head down in time and took it on my helmet. It knocked me dizzy. I went down and should have died there.

"But out of the blue, there was a sound that you know so well, Geoffrey. The sound of a crossbow bolt going past my ear. I saw it hit her in the chest. For an instant she had the oddest look. Then it was the most awful thing I've ever seen. Her skin turned to dust, then her bones turned to dust and then she was tendrils of dust, drifting on the wind.

"I caught a glimpse of my rescuer. Sixteen, I'd say," he met Mr. Glastonbury's eyes. "Wiry strong, I'd have to agree. She knocked one of the perps clear across the warehouse. He cratered one of the concrete walls. Then she stuck a piece of wood in the heart of a third perp and he too was gone; dust. The fourth one came at her swinging six feet of chain. It takes longer to describe her ducking under the swing and coming up, sword in hand, and lopping off the bastard's head that it did at the time. More dust.

"I started to get up, to say thanks if nothing else. Except the one who'd cratered the wall was back, lunging at her with a knife. She turned and struck, taking his head off too. She grinned at me, turned and sprinted away.

"No one outside saw her. Only three of the ten of us still alive inside that warehouse saw her. Officially, we killed the perps, at great loss of life.

"One last thing, Geoffrey."

"Duke Roger," Mr. Glastonbury's voice sounded sad.

"The perp who nearly killed me, the one who killed three of my brother officers? I'd watched her being loaded into a body bag, her throat torn open, her body totally drained of blood, two days before. She had been their first victim."

"I guess if you work as a peace officer, you see a lot of strange things in your career," Mr. Glastonbury told Duke Roger.

"Sure, of course. Very strange. None of us who saw that girl talked about it. What would have been the point? Oh, and the official report says we killed three bad guys there. They also hushed up a stink from the parents of the first victim, whose body had gone missing."

"There are a lot of very sick people out there, Duke Roger," Kennedy's teacher said.

"I admit to being a tiny bit curious about why the Feds are looking into the dead girl," the duke said, his voice now as bland as it normally was.

"Of late, I've heard from a few -- friends -- who say that it would appear that someone at some level in the government has decided that perhaps things aren't as they seem. Another friend said that after the Cold War ended, the Russian KGB opened a lot of their archives. There were, she told me, quite a number of very scary stories in there."

A movement in the corner of Kennedy's eye caught her attention. For an instant she saw Harriet Scrivener looking through the window of the Play House, close to the path and not very far away. Close enough, Kennedy thought, to have heard some or maybe all of what had been said. The two men, though, had their backs to Harriet.

"I think I'd like to get something to drink," Kennedy said evenly. "I've been smelling animal -- ah, animals -- all afternoon."

"Good idea," Mr. Glastonbury said.

"There are things I should be doing," Duke Roger agreed. "Let me know if there's anything you need, Lady Kennedy. Anything at all."

It took a while, but finally Mr. Glastonbury was talking to an older man, discussing the best kind of glue to use for fletching arrows. Kennedy waved at the door and he nodded that she could go.

She went out and headed for Dressmaker Alley, where it wasn't hard to find Harriet. Harriet met Kennedy's eyes, but quickly looked away.

"Harriet, would you like to go see some sword demonstrations?"

Harriet waved at Kennedy's sword. "You?"

"Me? I'm just a little girl! No one wants to see someone my age showing off with a toy sword."

Harriet raised an eyebrow, but agreed.

They walked for several hundred yards, not talking.

"I don't know how much you heard," Kennedy said quietly.

"Everything," Harriet admitted. "I saw that man touch you. I hid, ready to scream if he tried to grab you. After that, I heard -- everything."

"Did you understand what we were talking about?"

"It took a bit," Harriet replied, her face serious. "Then I realized the subject was more what you weren't saying."

"Do you understand why no one spoke about those subjects, directly?"

"Because no one would believe any of it."

"Exactly. Except that's only half the reason. Because there are those who would understand and whose existence depends on living in secret and who would do anything at all to make sure their existence stays secret."

Harriet paled. "I was going to tell you I watched, I promise you, I was going to tell you. I moved so that you would see me."

"At first, I didn't believe the stories either. Then I saw it with my own eyes," Kennedy told Harriet. "That's when I became a believer. I saw someone turn to dust, just like Duke Roger described. Do you understand that if you tell anyone, you're risking their life, the lives of their family, your life, the lives of your family and me and everyone in my family as well?"

"I keep trying to tell myself you were rehearsing for a skit."

"Well, don't even tell yourself that much," Kennedy said, grinning.

Harriet looked at Kennedy for a long moment. "Can I tell you a secret? Not about anything like that? Personal?"

Kennedy shrugged. Keeping secrets was supposed to be a girl thing; a thing most girls didn't do well. She herself had told herself a million times that nothing would ever pass her lips unless the person needed to know it.

"Until this afternoon at the wishing well... Usually I wish my mother would stop making me dresses or stop making me wear them, just like I said. Today I looked up and said, 'Please God, can I have just one friend?'" Harriet smiled, her face pale. "That's why I was where I was. I was going to come and talk to you after your stint in the petting zoo. I figured if anyone needed a friend, it would be someone who just spent the entire afternoon with farm animals and little kids."

Kennedy nodded. "I guess I'm luckier than you. I have a true friend in Mr. Glastonbury. But he wasn't much help when I had my first period. Instead, the only person I could halfway talk to was a woman who's nearly sixty, my OB doctor."

Harriet shrieked with laughter.

"It wasn't even a little funny," Kennedy said, trying to maintain her dignity.

"Oh, you should have said the GYN part, not the OB part. Obstetrics is the medical specialty having to do with having babies and pregnancy in general. Gynecology is the specialty for women's issues."

"See, like I said, there are some things my teacher is just a little -- awkward about -- when it comes to passing out information about certain subjects."

"You should have had it during sex ed in school, at least," Harriet told Kennedy.

Kennedy shook her head. "I'm afraid back in second grade I had some issues with my teacher's knowledge of the multiplication tables. Now I'm home schooled. Mr. Glastonbury has been my tutor ever since then."

Harriet nodded. "Sometimes I doodle dress designs," she looked apologetic. "I mean, I live dress designing, twenty-four/seven; my mother never stops either. There are nights I do nothing but dream of dresses."

Kennedy smiled, not wanting to even hint about some of the things she dreamed about lately.

Harriet glanced at Kennedy. "How come I don't see you more often at Faire? I mean, we're here every day, and we go to one Faire or another most of the spring, summer and fall."

"Mr. Glastonbury rations me," Kennedy told her. "It's why I don't demonstrate. What we talked about earlier."

"Maybe you should just come and have fun, instead of demonstrating," Harriet asked.

Kennedy sighed. "You have to understand that the thing I like to do best in the world is swing Lady Kennedy. Lady Kennedy is my sword's name."

Kennedy decided Harriet probably wouldn't be too thrilled about hearing her next couple of choices of fun things to do.

Kennedy smiled at her new friend. "Just what does one do for fun at Faire?"

Kennedy was startled when Harriet blushed.

"I meant, besides go around and look at things," Kennedy said, wondering why Harriet's face was still red and flushed.

"I've done that," Kennedy continued. "Some of the people can sing okay, some of the plays are okay, too. But a lot of it -- I mean, you see it once and after that it gets kind of old."

Kennedy lowered her voice. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, or anyone else's, but Faire is nice to go to now and then, but gosh, who would want to live like this?"

Harriet giggled then. "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what? There are a lot of things I know, more that I don't know. I'm always interested in learning something new."

"My mother and father don't much like each other. My father never, ever, comes to Faire," Harriet told Kennedy. "So it's no big deal when we come on Friday afternoon and stay until Monday morning." Harriet waved towards a thick clump of trees.

"Over there is the Faire Village, the real one, the one for people who live at Faire. I mean, we aren't the only people who camp out the entire time Faire is here. Even more people stay the weekend, the vendors and others. After things close down at six, we all go to the village, get something to eat, and then -- well, it's pretty much a party until late that night, early the next morning. You'll notice a lot of the performers don't put in an appearance until after noon; that's because they're hung over."

Kennedy shook her head. She'd read descriptions of hangovers; why would anyone do that to themselves? Why would that make Harriet blush?

Harriet met her eyes. "Kennedy, it's sex, drugs and rock and roll. Well, not much of that last, but there's a lot of music. More sex, a fair amount of drugs, mostly alcohol and marijuana."

Kennedy decided to focus on the safest topic. "Drugs have to be the stupidest thing."

Harriet shrugged. "Kennedy, people come to Faire to forget their mundane lives. They drink; they carouse and get wasted, mostly on pot and booze. In all the years I've come with my mother, in all the nights we've spent at Faire, she's never slept alone. Guys come, guys go; some last longer than others. It's just the way it is, do you understand?"

"Men living lives of quiet desperation," Kennedy said, her voice a bare whisper.

Harriet nodded. "Women, too."

"And here I am, thirteen years old, with a pig-sticker bigger than what most guys carry," Kennedy said, laughing. "What does that make me?"

"Pig-sticker toter, par-excellence?" Harriet offered. The two dissolved in gales of laughter.

Kennedy stuck out her hand. "Friends?"

"Friends!" Harriet was quite emphatic.

Kennedy looked at the weapons demonstration area. A smile crawled across her face. "Would you like to see me use a sword?"

"Sure," Harriet said. "But I thought..."

"With swords," Kennedy told her. "Friar Geoffrey never said anything about bamboo sticks. Come along."

Two men were fencing. They wore Japanese armor; the "swords" were bamboo.

Kennedy grinned. So, there were advantages to reading the schedule!

She felt someone touch her shoulder. She turned to see Friar Geoffrey. He hefted a bundle in his hand. "Would you believe it, Lady Kennedy? I found your kendo armor in the trunk?"

She smiled. "Do you read minds, sir?"

"No, put sometimes hearts are easy enough to read. For once, let go."

He turned and walked over to the Arms Master and started talking to him, waving at Kennedy. She ignored them, confident of Friar Geoffrey's ability to get whatever he wanted and instead started donning the armor. She handed Lady Kennedy to Harriet. "Don't drop her!"

Harriet hefted the sword. "My God! This weighs a ton!"

"Only eleven pounds."

"Eleven pounds is nearly half a cat litter bag! I can barely move one!"

"Sometime, have Duke Roger explain what I do wrong when I hold Lady Kennedy," Kennedy told her.

Kennedy finished putting on the armor, but left the mask off. She carried it under her arm, trailing her kendo stick in her left hand.

She walked up to where Friar Geoffrey was finishing up with the Arms Master.

"He's called Duke Roger," Friar Geoffrey explained to Kennedy. "The other guy won't fight a girl."

Kennedy turned to the guy and stuck out her tongue. He pointedly turned his back on her. The second fighter pulled his mask off. He was, she thought, perhaps fifty. Japanese, and very, very fit.

"You are a cheeky young woman," the old man told her.

"Your student will one day stand on a tournament floor and backside a woman, letting her win. I might be cheeky, but he is foolish."

The old man had no expression. Instead, he turned to the Arms Master and rattled off a couple of dozen words of staccato Japanese. The Arms Master shrugged. "Master, this is not my decision. This is the Lord Marshal's."

A few minutes later Duke Roger arrived, listened to the explanation and grinned and bowed to the Japanese man. "Master Shimazu, Friar Geoffrey... I don't suppose I can sell tickets?"

Friar Geoffrey shook his head.

Duke Roger looked perplexed. "I can't just let this go, you understand, Friar Geoffrey. Master Shimazu is one of the top ten Kendo masters in the entire world. It's in his contract: any time he fights, everyone has to know. I'm going to have to send criers out, spreading the word. It will be, Friar, very public. Please, let me a make a buck or two off it."

"Sometimes, Duke Roger, birds must be allowed to fly to their fullest abilities. There is risk, you understand, driving down the road? Crossing the street?"

"I understand."

"Send out the criers then, but don't charge admission. Say an hour?"

Duke Roger looked at the old Japanese who shook his head.

Duke Roger sighed audibly. "Master Shimazu?"

"I will fight no student who doesn't know the katas."

Kennedy laughed, tossed her helmet to Friar Geoffrey and started, doing them backwards, last to first, last move to first move.

For a second, the old man looked upset, then, evidently, he realized what she was doing and he merely looked like he'd sucked on a particularly sour pickle.

"You look," Master Shimazu told her, "like a Great Auk, woman. The moves are in the order they are, so that one moves smoothly from one to the next."

"Wasn't I smooth?" Kennedy asked, trying to be innocent.

"You are a very cheeky young woman. Your sensei should have taught you better."

"The cheekiness is mine alone," Kennedy said. "Now please, tell Duke Roger if I am competent to -- practice -- with you."

Master Shimazu turned to Duke Roger and bobbed his head. "Let it be so. Three quarters of an hour."

Kennedy turned to Harriet. "Are you going to get in trouble with your mom?"

"No, it was getting late. There's not much business at this time of day and none of it serious. It takes quite a while to do a proper fitting. People who come now have no idea what's involved. She has plenty of stuff for the likes of them."

After a bit Kennedy looked at Friar Geoffrey. "Any words of advice?"

"What Daniel-san's sensei told him. 'Win, don't lose.'"

Kennedy smirked. "It's only a demonstration."

"Think that and it will be lose-lose."

When the time came, it went more or less as Kennedy expected. There are two forms of Kendo. The demonstration set of moves, where there is a predetermined winner and loser and then there was a tournament mode where skill determines the outcome.

She'd never cared for the former, but Friar Geoffrey had taught the forms to her and so she followed along, moving a fraction faster than she should. Master Shimazu kept pace, so it was not a big deal. And of course, he won.

Instead of a moment's respite, she flowed straight into a set where she would win. Master Shimazu didn't seem surprised, and if anything, picked up the pace another notch.

He segued into another win for himself, only much faster. Kennedy smiled slightly, moved still faster and the two of them held it until the end. She moved into another pattern and was only mildly surprised when he picked up the pace again. She decided that enough was enough, and she speeded up to the max.

How could someone his age move so fast? For as fast as she was, he was just as fast.

Still, at the end he stepped back and bowed to her, which she returned.

The audience, on the other hand, had evidently been holding their breaths as well as their applause. The sound was loud and deafening.

Kennedy smiled at the Master and he smiled back. Demonstration Kendo is just that. It was meant to be done briskly and efficiently, with only the most stylized touches at the end of each set. It was supposed to be flashy and exciting for spectators to watch.

The Master's voice was whisper soft. "Have you recovered enough to continue, student?"

"You stopped, not me!" Kennedy told him.

"Ah! I had not wanted to take advantage of your age!"

"And I had," Kennedy whispered.

He grinned, bowed, and came ready.

That was, she knew, a signal that this time it was a match. They weren't fighting in a proper Kendo ring, but both of them knew the boundaries.

In spite of all the warnings she'd had, she was unprepared for how quickly he touched her the first time. She pulled back, regrouped and went forward far more cautiously. It took him almost twice as long to touch her. A good ten seconds.

Kennedy pulled back to prepare for the next point. Evidently, this was to be three of five. Usually, it was two of three.

She watched his every move, stared hard at his eyes, waiting for his attack.

It was beyond humiliating, she saw him twist and start to thrust and she countered, twisting to start her own attack -- and met his Kendo stick with her shoulder as she started her move. Less than two seconds!

He bowed to her and she replied, coming as close to the ground with her forehead as she could. He held out his hand, American style to shake hands, very un-Japanese. She stepped forward and clasped his hand.

His words were once again whisper soft. "Your first error was a student's error. Not many students learn the katas; fewer learn them well. Of those, few bother to learn to do them backwards and fewer still learn to do them well. Thus, you told me I faced a formidable opponent.

"Your second, your largest mistake, was to assume since I'm old, that I fight like an old man."

"You fight very well, Master! Far better than me!"

"And then, there was the final mistake, which wasn't your doing. The Arms Master told me you hold your regular sword wrong. And when he laughed, I asked him to explain."

He backed up a bit and bowed again, this time nearly as deeply as Kennedy had.

"Lady Kennedy, do you have a sword?" he said loudly enough for the parking lot attendants to hear.

"Yes, Master."

"I'm not fond of iron or steel, student, but I have some curiosity! Please, may I look at it?"

Kennedy turned and retrieved Lady Kennedy from Harriet and handed her to the master. "My sword, Master, is a she, not an it. Lady Kennedy."

He nodded and took the sword with both hands and swung it. He grimaced after a few seconds. "Very heavy, Lady Kennedy!"

Kennedy took the sword and was unable not to let vanity command her. She started swinging her sword one-handed. The trick she was going to try was something she'd practiced alone, sure that Friar Geoffrey would oppose it. She'd been able to make Lady Kennedy sing the first time she'd held her in her hand. Now, Lady Kennedy sang "Garry Owen."

It still wasn't very good and you needed a lot of imagination to pick out the tune, but it was music to Kennedy's ears.

The people realized the demonstration was over and started clapping.

Master Shimazu fixed Kennedy with a cold, hard stare. Then he grinned and bowed to the audience. For a second, she was offended that a master would try to hog all the credit.

But she stopped her errant thoughts. She'd seen him fight with her own eyes. He was quick and competent. He did not take more advantage than was needed. In short, he wasn't a hog. So, what was this?

There was quite a bit of clapping and cheering, and then the crowd began to break up.

Friar Geoffrey joined them and Kennedy had to admit that while Kendo armor wasn't all that heavy, it got that way after a hard practice!

Master Shimazu was staring at her, his eyes bright. Friar Geoffrey looked at him, a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

"Many years ago, twenty-five, to be precise, I fought another such as Lady Kennedy. She fought rings around me; I was humiliated as I'd never been before or since.

"Yet, it was not my master who was angry at me, it was hers at her. I could not bear to listen to such a magnificent fighter belittled so! I faced her sensei and told him to his face that he was wrong.

"He turned to me, Lady Kennedy, and told me that my master taught me how to play; he taught his student how to live and that if I wasn't smart enough to know the difference, to take it up with my sensei."

He sighed. "I went to my sensei and explained to him what I'd been told. He hit me, Lady Kennedy. For the first and last time during my time with him. He was upset, you see, that I didn't know the difference between pretend fighting and the real thing.

"After that, I became a much better student. A year later I went to my sensei and told him I wanted a rematch with the young woman." His eyes held Kennedy's. "He told me that the other master's student had been killed in a fight and that afterwards, her master committed seppuku. That I was to keep my tongue still in my mouth from one full moon to the next."

He grinned at me. "As you can probably tell, that was a particularly taxing punishment!"

Without a word, he suddenly bowed again, this time his head, Kennedy swore, touched the ground. Then he was up and gone a second later.

Kennedy was quiet while Friar Geoffrey gathered up their gear. She helped him carry it to the car and he gestured to her seat.

Kennedy met his eye. "Could we stay the night? In the village?"

He sighed. "Lady Kennedy, the lessons you learn in the village on a night like this one, will never help you in a fight."

"Friar Geoffrey, will I always be fighting?"

"No," he replied honestly. "Even if Chosen, there are times you rest."

"I made a friend today," Kennedy told him. "I'd like to talk to her some more. She will be in the village."

"Sex, drugs and rock and roll, Lady Kennedy."

Kennedy smiled at him. "That's what Harriet said, Friar Geoffrey."

"What exactly did she say?" he asked.

"A fair amount of sex, if rock and roll means music, a lot of that. Drugs... some of that as well, but I gathered that it was mostly alcohol."

"Harriet Scrivener is correct, Lady Kennedy. The question you have to ask yourself, are any of those things you want to learn and is now the time?"

"Friar Geoffrey, if not now, when? If I've met a friend, why not now?"

"Is she that kind of friend?" he asked quietly.

Kennedy was confused for a second, and then shook her head. "I don't know what you mean, Friar."

He laughed. "Friars like me, Lady Kennedy, are a dime a dozen. Celibacy is not my long suit, although I pretty much keep my pants zipped when I'm a Watcher. I know Harriet's mother, Lady Kennedy, from before I met you. I know her quite well, actually."

Kennedy opened her mouth to say something, and then realized he'd deftly changed the subject. He was really good at that!

"What did you mean?" Kennedy asked patiently.

"Men and women make love," he told her.

Kennedy wanted to be rude. She had a mother, two fathers and a stepsister! Was she supposed to be ignorant of that?

"Men and men make love," Friar Geoffrey went on. "I could point out a half dozen examples here today, but I don't believe it's my business to notice nor is it for me to pass on my observations."

"Queers," Kennedy said, suddenly understanding.

"Homosexuals, anyway," he replied. "A lot of people think Englishmen are all ponces. Queers, you call them. It's not true."

Kennedy shrugged. "Not a problem with me!"

"Lady Kennedy, men and women. Men and men. Guess what else?"

Kennedy started to open her mouth again and snapped it shut, the words left unsaid.

"Women and women," Friar Geoffrey answered, sounding like he was trying to help.

"So, once again, Lady Kennedy, what kind of friend is she?"

"You are a man," she told him, coldly furious. "And I am a woman. No sex. Okay, I was stupid and ignorant -- but that didn't give you the right to even think that about Harriet or me!"

"Then, I will pick up a phone and call your father and tell him we've decided to stay the night. On one condition: you promise me there will be no sex and no drugs."

"Drugs," Kennedy said with assurance, "are one thing I'll never touch! I'm not old enough for the other!"

She was startled when he swept her leg, knocking her off her feet. Kennedy struggled, and he planted a hand firmly against her shoulder, pushing her flat on her back. He ran a hand deliberately over one of her small, uncomfortable breasts.

"Tell me, Kennedy, what's that I feel?"

She heaved, trying to get him off her. It didn't work.

"You know what it is!" she told him, embarrassed and angry.

"In the vernacular, it's called a tit. It's something girls have that boys rub and that's one of the things that makes sex enjoyable -- for her. If you have tits, odds are, you've found that rubbing between your legs is pleasant."

Kennedy blushed, startled and surprised. How did Friar Geoffrey know all these personal things about her? She didn't even talk about them with the doctor!

He got up, warily, as if expecting to be attacked. Instead, Kennedy was still thinking about what he'd said.

"So, Lady Kennedy. Music is fine; sing or play an instrument until you drop. Sex? Promise me you won't. Drugs? The same!"

"Yes, I promise. I only look stupid, Mr. Glastonbury. I try to keep that look short."

Kennedy met his eyes. "So, I promise you. No sex, no drugs."

"Coke, tea and coffee are okay on the drug front," he told her. "Nothing stronger."

Kennedy curled back onto herself. He knew a great deal about things she'd experimented with! She'd cut back on caffeine of late; once she knew what to look for, she could feel it in her body.

He reached out and touched her cheek. "Lady Kennedy, drugs are just plain stupid, as you said. Sex... Lady Kennedy, now is the time to think about sex. A quick tumble! Ah! That's the thing! But think about what you'd bring to any relationship, no matter who with!

"If you're Chosen... well, there was a woman a few years ago who was a mother and a Slayer. Her six-year-old son watched Bloody William kill his mother. Any loved one, Lady Kennedy, becomes a target, if you're Chosen. Watchers are trained for that. Family and friends aren't. They die, Lady Kennedy. Most of them die.

"It's always been war, since the time of the First Slayer! They will use any weapon against you that they can! They will do anything to shake your confidence, trash your self-image and confidence -- whatever it takes. Slayers aren't celibate, but they don't form lasting relationships. It's death, do you understand, Lady Kennedy? For your partner and, like as not, for you, too?"

Kennedy didn't know what to say, so she closed her mouth and did a lot of thinking while they ate dinner.

The village was like Faire, but unlike it at the same time. The same costumes, the same people -- but the attitudes and conversations were almost night and day different. Now they were relaxing, she realized, and this was just who they wanted to be. Not their regular selves, not the persona they put on for the tourists, but what they wanted to be.

Then Harriet joined them and Kennedy talked to her for quite a while.

It was almost midnight, about as late as Kennedy ever normally stayed up, when she heard an angry voice say something about how quarterstaffs were the most lethal hand weapon on a battlefield. She laughed at that, but kept it inside.

Unfortunately for the young man who'd said that about quarterstaffs, hardly anyone else said anything polite in response. Most of the men in that area were constables and they all laughed at him.

"I win my fights," the voice repeated, "even against swords."

"That's because they are pretend fights," the duke told the boy.

Kennedy had turned around to watch, curious what was going to happen.

"Not to mention just against other quarterstaffs and a few of the poorer sword fighters."

"What do you mean 'the poorer sword fighters?'" The young man was a little on the large, heavy side, with pale blue eyes and a flaming mop of red hair. "I fight all comers!"

With a start, Kennedy recognized him from long ago, just as she had recognized Harriet. He was the bully who'd knocked her on her butt!

"I mean," the duke said, "that only the poorer fighters do it without armor and a shield. A man in armor and a shield would simply step close, let you hit his shield with your staff and then he'd run you through. Or as close as we allow here."

"I've noticed a couple of times you've come away with bloody knuckles," another man said. He too was large and red-haired. "There's a reason, cousin, that last month I demoted you from first to second cousin. I'm thinking I need to demote you again. Sixteenth cousin, maybe."

"To be removed at once," the duke said with a laugh, "unless he shows more respect for the men of steel!"

There was more laughter.

"At least I could beat a little guy with a bamboo stick!"

Kennedy wasn't sure why she spoke up, but she did. "Actually, there are three sticks, that are tied together."

The young stared at Kennedy and exploded again. "Now I'm being lectured by a kid!"

"At least you didn't say little," the duke said with a laughed. "You probably don't recognize Lady Kennedy without her gear, but it was she was sparring with Master Shimazu there at the end."

The bully looked at Kennedy and shook his head. "She doesn't even have tits! What a joke!"

Kennedy saw the duke's face darken with anger, but Friar Geoffrey was faster.

"Duke, that one has offended my student's honor. I demand satisfaction."

The duke looked at Friar Geoffrey and suddenly smiled wickedly. "What is it you wish?"

Friar Geoffrey rose and faced the young man. "Are you strong, sir?"

"Strong? Of course I'm strong!"

"My student may not fight for blood, young man. I won't have it. Would you be willing to engage in a test of strength? Yours against hers?"

There were murmurs from the crowd, a lot of whispers.

"She's a girl!"

The one older guy, who was evidently a cousin of the young man, laughed. "You should have thought of that before you insulted her. I'll act as the poor bastard's second. What do you want, Friar Geoffrey?"

"May I have the loan of your sword, Sir Roger? If you would, hand your sword and scabbard to Sir Cuchulain." The duke handed his sword over to the cousin.

"Lady Kennedy, please, your sword. Would you give it to Sir Cuchulain?"

Kennedy didn't like it, but she did.

"Sir Cuchulain, which blade is heavier?"

Kennedy knew the answer to that question: Lady Kennedy. And sure enough, that was the one the Sir Cuchulain held up.

"Thus, if I give this sword to Lady Kennedy, and the lighter to the Sixteenth Cousin, if he is truly stronger, then he should be able to hold it ready for longer than Lady Kennedy. Is that not right?"

"You want to give to give Sixteenth Cousin the lighter sword?" Sir Cuchulain queried.

"Exactly. I wouldn't want anyone to say I gave an advantage to my student."

"Well, what is it that you wish, then, for a contest?"

Friar Geoffrey smiled. "Nothing, Sir Cuchulain. Each party will simply hold their swords as if they were ready to fight. Whoever lets their blade fall first is the loser. If, after ten minutes, neither has won we call it a draw and honor is satisfied."

The young man bristled. "Hey! I'm the one challenged! I get to pick the weapon!"

The duke grinned. "And I am the Lord Marshal, I have to agree to the terms of any dispute of honor. I believe Friar Geoffrey's terms are fair. Is there any dispute?"

"But don't I get to choose?"

"Of course," the duke said pleasantly. "And I get to say no, if I don't like the terms. I like Friar Geoffrey's terms, although I do have mild qualms about the idea of you dropping my sword."

Sir Cuchulain leaned close to his cousin and whispered in his ear. Kennedy knew what the message was: he could choose whatever weapon he wanted, but until he got to Friar Geoffrey's terms, the answer would be no.

It was, Kennedy was surprised to find, a very short contest. The young man held the sword out, his arm fully extended. She looked first at Friar Geoffrey, then Duke Roger when she simply came ready, her arm cocked. Neither of them said anything. Lady Kennedy was thrust forward, but her sword was at a forty-five degree angle, in line with Kennedy's forearm only. She could and did hold that position for hours, as she practiced.

After about a minute, the sword in the young man's hand was moving in circles. Belatedly, he looked at Kennedy and realized he was holding the sword wrong. Another minute and it was over.

"My student's honor has been satisfied," Friar Geoffrey told the duke.

"Then mine is, too," the duke responded. He turned to the young man. "Remember one thing, young man. Lady Kennedy wears a sprig of holly, proclaiming that she is one of my constables. Had she not been satisfied, about now, you and I would be lining up and you'd receive a demonstration that would settle the whole 'quarterstaff versus sword' question in your mind for all time."

There were titters from the crowd, then a wholesale movement to refilling wine and beer mugs and the party continued on as before.

"That was incredible," Harriet told Kennedy when she sat down.

"I thought it would be a tie," Kennedy told her. "But he didn't know how to hold a sword."

Friar Geoffrey had returned and was resuming his position next to Kennedy. "Ah, Lady Kennedy! You have to learn to check the odds! If you'd looked at his wrists, you'd have known, too, how it would end."

"His wrists?" Harriet asked. "What do his wrists have to do with how strong he is?"

"Because," Kennedy told Harriet, "he was holding the sword wrong. I could probably have held a sword that way for ten minutes, but I'd have sore muscles later."

"His wrists are bony and skinny," Friar Geoffrey agreed.

From the darkness, a woman appeared, carrying two mugs, filled with beer. "Geoffrey, old friend! I even remembered your favorite poison!"

Kennedy grinned, recognizing Harriet's mother.

"Come, Friar, walk with me!"

Mr. Glastonbury looked at the woman, who was, Kennedy thought, about her own mother's age. She was sort of pretty. Kennedy suppressed giggles when she realized what was happening.

Friar Geoffrey rose, and then beckoned to Kennedy. He leaned close, his voice the softest whisper. "Hypocrisy is the bane of our existence."

"Friar, go ye and sin," Kennedy said, unable to keep a degree of chortle out of her voice.

Kennedy watched the two adults vanish into the darkness.

Next to her Harriet stirred. "I'm sorry, Lady Kennedy."

"Sorry about what?"

"You know. You know what they're going to do."

Kennedy smiled. "Friar Geoffrey said he's known your mother for a long time. Longer than he's known me. However, while I might know the words for what they are going to do, it's not something I've done myself. Or look forward to in the near future."

"Aren't you a little curious?" Harriet asked.

"A little," Kennedy admitted. "But I'm in no rush to learn the gory details."

Harriet sat still for a few minutes, staring into a fire, not far away. Eventually she spoke to herself, "I've never been sure what I want."

Harriet suddenly turned to face Kennedy. "What are you doing this summer?"

"Me? Practice, practice, practice. Oh, and being tutored. Lots of tutoring, lots of practice."

"Do you ever do anything else? My mom is sending me to a summer camp the last week of July, the first week of August."

Kennedy realized that a quick answer would be wrong. The question was really a two-parter, with the second part not at all what it seemed.

"What kind of camp?" Kennedy asked, deciding that having more information would never hurt when deciding what to do.

"It's a camp in the mountains. They alternate two weeks for all girls, two weeks for all boys and two weeks mixed. Mom doesn't let me go to the mixed camps. There's hiking and swimming, all kinds of games. There's a lake with boats and things. It's a lot of fun. Different than this, but still fun."

"Friar Geoffrey rations me on Faire. He thinks it's too much of a good thing."

There was a short silence and Kennedy could see Harriet's eyes were on her. Kennedy smiled. "You want me to see if I can go to the same camp?"

"Yeah. I've never had a friend. Camp isn't much fun without a friend."

Kennedy reached out and touched Harriet's hand. "I've learned a lot today. Most important of all is how nice it is to have a friend. I'll ask. If my parents say no, I'll cry and carry on."

Harriet nodded towards the darkness where Mr. Glastonbury and her mother had vanished earlier. "Friar Geoffrey?"

"Will be another matter entirely. I will just have to take it slow and easy with him."

Later, Kennedy lay in her sleeping bag, staring up at the stars. It was, she was sure, just an innocent thing, but after she and Harriet had settled down together, Harriet had leaned close and brushed Kennedy's cheek with her lips. Harriet had said good night and was asleep in a few minutes.

Kennedy looked around in the dark. The fires were dying down; the singing was softer, but bawdier. There weren't nearly as many people out and about. This was, she knew, the time her enemies naturally hunted. This was the time of day where the greatest danger lay.

A vampire could swoop down out of the darkness and kill Kennedy while she was sleeping. It could kill Harriet, too. And if they were really unlucky, it might mean something beyond death.

Kennedy reached down and wrapped her hand around Lady Kennedy's hilt. She would be as ready as she could be.

Once again the trip home from Faire was a time of let down. The excitement and fun, a new friend, had left Kennedy happy and content.

Mr. Glastonbury seemed intent on being silent, and for a change she felt the same way. What were they going to say when she asked to go to summer camp with Harriet? What did the kiss Harriet gave her mean? So many things to think about!

She drifted off to sleep, a smile on her face.

Kennedy heard a woman scream in pain and fear, then swear in a language she didn't understand, but sounded a lot like the Chinese she heard at Friar Geoffrey's favorite Chinese restaurant. There was another scream, this time muffled, as if the woman was trying not to cry out in fear or pain.

Kennedy looked down and saw the stake driven into her stomach; she turned her head slightly and saw the ruin that was her right arm, hacked nearly off. She had time to lift her eyes and see the axe blade coming at her throat. She lifted her head, defiant.

There was darkness then, for some ageless time. She was drifting, floating, with no connection to anything. Abruptly, the world snapped back into focus.

The light hurt her eyes. It was hot desert, and the sand was nearly pure white, and the glare the came from the sand made everything look like the blue-white actinic light that comes from a welder.

She slit her eyes, squinching them nearly shut. Something moved, a shadow across her face and she looked up.

The woman before her was short, black, covered with swirls and spirals painted in white on her body. It was hard to tell with all the paint, but Kennedy wasn't sure if the woman was wearing any clothes at all.

The woman stared at her, then reached out and grabbed Kennedy's arm, hard fingers probing her muscles. The black woman grunted and then, without warning, she slapped at Kennedy.

Kennedy blocked the blow, only to have the other's hand grab hers. Kennedy had thought she was strong, but now she learned the true meaning of strength. The woman stared into Kennedy's eyes, then sniffed and shook her head.

Abruptly, there was another girl standing a few feet away. She was wearing a cheerleader's outfit, right down to the pom-poms. The girl looked around and said, "Fer sure! Dude! What's with this?"

The black woman nodded, waved her hands at the other girl, a pretty blonde, Kennedy thought, probably about sixteen. The other girl vanished. The black woman turned to go and saw Kennedy was still there.

A scowl crossed the woman's face and she waved her hand at Kennedy in dismissal.

Mr. Glastonbury was shaking Kennedy. "Kennedy! Wake up! We're home! You have to walk to the house by yourself."

Kennedy hastily composed herself. "Sorry, I dozed off."

She managed the walk from the car and went straight to her bedroom, pretending fatigue, but thinking hard. She resolved, finally, that she would talk about it with Mr. Glastonbury in the light of day. She had always thought of herself as brave, but experiencing death in such a grisly fashion was something she needed to process. Something like that, after all was going to be her fate.



-------

Chapter 5: Kennedy Goes to Camp


The next morning Kennedy was waiting for Mr. Glastonbury when he came into the practice room.

"Sir," Kennedy asked diffidently, "did a Slayer die last night?"

He looked at her curiously. "Yes. The Watchers Council let me know early this morning. Why?"

"I felt her die. It was like I was her. Then I was in this other place..."

"They would have told me if you'd been Chosen," Mr. Glastonbury mused aloud.

"I think I was only half-chosen, sir. Some black woman, I mean, she was really old, looked at me and kicked me out and brought in this other girl. A cheerleader. If she doesn't live in Los Angeles, she used to, because she sounds like a Valley Girl."

"You are a little on the young side to be Chosen."

"I don't think I was strong enough. I'm going to need to practice extra hard!"

"That's never hurt anyone!" he said with a chuckle.

"Oh, Harriet wants to know if I could go to summer camp with her. I'd really like that."

"You ask your stepfather, and then I'll do what I can to see that it happens."

She nodded, and then turned the morning practice, ferociously intent. That wasn't going to happen to her! Not if she could do something about it! And she could! She had more time!

Later Mr. Glastonbury confirmed that there was a new Slayer, living in California. He was quite upset that the girl hadn't had a Watcher. "Sometimes Potentials can sort of slip in under the radar. That's usually not a good thing. But someone is on the way."

-------

It was, Kennedy thought, one of the few times she'd seen an "all-hands" event regarding herself. Not only was Mr. Glastonbury present when she was to set off for camp, so were both her parents, plus Harriet's mother, only Kennedy's stepsister Victoria was absent.

Kennedy's lip curled in mild disgust at her mother's comment the evening before. "Have a good time, dear. You'll have a lot more fun if you do what I would do. Of course, if you do that, I'd probably have to spank you when you get back."

Kennedy thought that was hilariously funny, considering her mother's earlier warnings about boys and hormones.

Some might think her mother was talking about sex, but Kennedy was sure that the idea of sex with other girls never occurred to her mother. No, her mother was talking about running amuck, breaking all of the rules and getting into trouble the usual way.

Not to mention her mother wasn't taking into account that now she and her daughter, even if Kennedy only stood five six, stood eye-to-eye and she would have no luck at all trying to turn Kennedy over her knee.

If the truth be known, none of the usual fears kids had about going to camp really mattered to Kennedy. The only thing she had the least qualm about being away for two weeks was that she was going to be parted from Lady Kennedy for longer than she'd ever been before, since the first time she held her in her hand. Parting with her parents was the normal state of affairs. Much as she liked Mr. Glastonbury, she wasn't entirely unhappy that she'd have a couple of weeks out from under his watchful eye. It was stupid, she was sure, to miss a sword more than people -- but that's how she felt.

She shouldered her backpack and tugged on her wheelie suitcase and joined the line of other girls getting ready to board the bus. She'd been mildly disappointed that Harriet had been assigned to a different bus, but that would only last for six or seven hours. Like the other girls ahead of her and behind her, she stuffed her bags in the bus's baggage compartment and then climbed up the steps and found a seat.

A few seconds later a girl about a year older than Kennedy sat down next to her. The girl was about the same height as Kennedy, but heavier boned and, Kennedy was sure, ate much more and exercised much less. That, and of course, she was wearing a dress that could be best described as a shapeless black sack.

The girl gave Kennedy a morose once-over, and then she reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out Atlas Shrugged. Kennedy couldn't help giggling. There was nowhere on her body she could hide a book that size without it being obvious!

The girl glared at Kennedy. "Don't you dare laugh at me! I'm Wicca! Laugh at me and I'll turn you into an obnoxious toad!"

Kennedy frowned. "Wicca's your name? That's one I never heard before. I'm Kennedy."

"Wicca isn't who I am, it's what I am. Wicca, you know, the religion."

Kennedy shrugged. "Actually, no, I've never heard of that religion. Is it anything like Episcopalian?"

The girl seemed about to explode. Kennedy sighed inwardly. This wasn't quite how she'd pictured meeting other girls.

"I'm sorry I laughed," Kennedy told the dumpy girl. "And I was laughing more at myself than you. I don't even own a dress, do you understand? I never had the least desire to wear one; I never saw any need to. My teacher says I need to get out in the world more. I kind of thought he was blowing smoke. Now I find there are things you can do with a dress that you can't do with jeans and a blouse."

"You talk a lot, don't you?" the girl said.

Actually, Kennedy thought, the answer to that was no. "I was trying to be polite. I'm not very good at it, normally. I didn't mean to upset you."

"Well, most Christians think Wiccans are pagan. They're right."

"That's nice to know," Kennedy replied. "Like I said, I'm Kennedy. What's your name?"

"Ruby Goldberg. And if you make fun of my name I'll turn you into a nasty smelling, obnoxious toad."

"I won't make fun of your name if you stop threatening me every few seconds."

The girl looked around them. There were a number of conversations, but everyone was sitting down. The bus driver looked ready to go, but there was a woman in the door of the bus talking to someone outside.

"Look, I don't want to be here, okay? I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Don't expect joy and cartwheels from me. My mother is making me go to camp."

Kennedy kept her face straight. Ruby was about as likely to be able to do a cartwheel as that guy at Faire had been to hold a sword ready longer than Kennedy.

"I have a friend on one of the other buses," Kennedy told Ruby. "It's my first time away from home, so it's all new for me."

"Well, I don't make friends. I don't want to be here. Leave me alone."

"Sure," Kennedy said.

It was odd, Kennedy thought. She wanted to make friends because she had exactly two in the entire universe. Well, maybe she could count Duke Roger, too. And if you included him, there were a couple of others she liked at Faire. Hopefully they liked her as well. And Harriet was new, no matter how long they'd talked at Faire, no matter how much time they'd spent on the phone since.

The bus door closed and the woman who'd been talking was now standing in the aisle looking down the length of the bus. She nodded to the driver and the driver spoke into a microphone. In a few seconds, the bus was in motion, following the others.

The woman picked up another microphone. "I'm Charlotte Tangier, one of the cabin counselors. We have about a six and a half hour drive ahead of us, so get comfortable. Please, for your safety, remain seated unless you need to use the restroom at the back of the bus."

She was, Kennedy saw, about thirty, blonde and tanned. She looked fit, a veritable blossom of buxom good health. She was wearing jeans and a "Camp Wanakena" sweatshirt.

"Just to remind you, Camp Wanakena is in upstate New York, in the Adirondack mountains. It can be safely said that Wanakena isn't near much of anything. The single exception to that is that it's near Cranberry Lake, which is certainly pretty to look at.

"You all received Camp Wanakena's information packet; you all signed a contract promising certain behavior. I'm here to see you all have a good time at the camp. I'm not your mommy, daddy or nanny. You will find your counselors easy to get along with, so long as you stay within the rules. If you mess up in a small way we'll explain the rules to you one more time. Do it a second time or do something really stupid and you'll be returned to your home.

"There will be not quite two hundred young ladies at this session. Most of you will have a good time, particularly if you avail yourselves of the many forms of recreation that are on offer. The single worst offense at Camp Wanakena is ruining someone else's experience. You don't want to do it.

"This is the end of the lecture. At Camp Wanakena, our director will speak to you about housekeeping things, cabin assignments and the like. She will introduce you to the staff and tell you how to sign up for activities."

The woman grinned then. "We even have a veggie track. You go off with a counselor and some like-minded people, sit someplace peaceful and restful. You can read, talk quietly or simply take in the scenery. I know I'm going to have a good two weeks, I hope you all do too."

She sat down then and Kennedy nodded to herself. Could it be that she was finally getting to the age where adults would start taking her seriously? From the counselor's statements, maybe it was true.

After a bit, the sheer boring scenery of driving down the interstate palled. Kennedy started running through a series of dynamic exercises that didn't require any movement.

She'd been exercising for a few minutes when Ruby nudged her. "Stop fidgeting! The bathroom's in the back! I can't read with you fidgeting!"

"I am not fidgeting," Kennedy told her. "I'm exercising. Sorry if it bugs you." Kennedy returned to her exercises.

"What part of 'don't bug me' didn't you understand?" Ruby said, raising her voice. "Sit still!"

Kennedy contemplated Ruby for a few seconds, then looked down the length of the bus. Charlotte Tangier was sitting in the seat opposite the driver; it looked like she was reading too. It would not do to turn Ruby into a bug splat on the windshield in the first half hour of the trip to camp.

She looked out the window of the bus. In a couple of hours they'd be in the mountains north of Albany. In the meantime, there was just town after town along the highway.

She was sitting on the left hand side of the bus, at a window. If she hadn't been sitting there, if she hadn't been looking out just at that moment, she wouldn't have seen it.

A big SUV was in the far left lane, moving much faster than the bus. It was just a flash, someone in the passenger seat of the SUV turning away to talk to the driver. She mentally played the scene over and over again in her mind. She was 99% certain the man in the passenger seat was the FBI agent that had bothered her at Faire. Everything else that happened to her that day had pretty much blotted him out of her memory until this instant.

She could be wrong or it could just be coincidence. But she remembered that Mr. Glastonbury had inquired of her parents and the other staff at home. There had been no FBI agent that had visited them. Not that they knew of. "Let me know if you see him again," Mr. Glastonbury had told her.

"Excuse me," Kennedy said to Ruby. "I need to get up."

Ruby snickered. "I thought you said you didn't have to pee."

"Please," Kennedy said, keeping her voice mild. She got up and squeezed past the other, and turned towards the front of the bus.

She stopped next to Charlotte who looked up at Kennedy. "Yes?" the older woman said.

"Are we going to stop for lunch?" That seemed a reasonable question to Kennedy. They'd started at ten in the morning, the trip was supposed to be six or seven hours.

The woman nodded, a slightly embarrassed expression on her face. "Yes. I'm sorry, I should have mentioned it earlier."

"No problem," Kennedy told her. "I was curious, is all."

"We stop near Saratoga Springs around one o'clock. There's a McDonald's and a Wendy's next to each other."

"Thanks," Kennedy said and started to turn away.

"What's your name?" the woman asked.

"Kennedy," Kennedy replied.

"Ah, the girl with only one name! You gave the computer a hiccup! It wants at least two!"

Kennedy was aware that the woman was staring at her breasts. Kennedy waited a second, but there was no further comment, so she turned and headed back to her seat.

Even before she reached her seat, Charlotte was up and speaking into the microphone. "I was just reminded that I forgot to mention lunch. Around one we'll be stopping for a bite to eat. You will have a choice of a Wendy's or a McDonald's. As you get off the bus I'll hand you a name badge and a six dollar meal coupon. If your choice of a meal leaves you change, you can keep it. If the coupon doesn't suffice, you'll have to make up the difference yourself.

"Please remember that we'll only be stopped for forty minutes. Don't wander. Eat and return to the bus. I might add that neither of the buses will move until everyone is back aboard. You will want to be aboard in plenty of time."

Kennedy resumed her seat, to meet Ruby's disdain. "Of all the things you can do wrong, the top of the list is sucking up to counselors. Don't do it!"

Kennedy's mind flashed to an image from one of the few movies she'd seen. Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in it, and he'd been taken to another country by a bad guy. As soon as the two of them had taken a seat in the airplane, Arnold killed the guy in the seat next to him and made it look like the man was only sleeping.

Kennedy was fairly sure she couldn't get away with anything like that, but she was tempted, just a little. Certainly she contemplated it for a few seconds, and then grinned at Ruby.

"Girl, you keep threatening me. Once more, girl, and we're going to find out which is stronger: your Wicca or my kung fu. I'm a black belt," Kennedy told the other.

Kennedy looked at Ruby, feeling nothing but contempt and feeling no desire to remain polite. "I came here to make friends; you told me you don't want to." Kennedy nodded at the front of the bus. "Remember what that woman said, stupid. The worst thing you can do is ruin someone else's time. Trust me, I'm the last person you want to mess with, when it comes to ruining my two weeks. Absolute, dead last."

After that Kennedy sat still, staring out the window, a million things running through her mind, none of them important or really germane.

Eventually her bus stopped, along with the others. Kennedy debated the better course. See Harriet first or make her phone call?

Fortunately, Harriet was waving at her and then running towards her. "Isn't this fun?"

Kennedy smiled. "Well, I've had more fun. The girl I'm sitting next to on the bus doesn't want to have any fun at all. She wishes she didn't have to come."

Harriet laughed. "If I had to do this every week of the year, I might agree with her. But for two weeks a year, it's good to get away from my mother."

Kennedy waved at the two restaurants. "Do you have a preference?"

"Wendy's has square hamburgers. They, at least, are funky; neither of them tastes very good."

"I've never had either," Kennedy told her.

Harriet looked stunned. "Never?"

"Nope," Kennedy told her. "Never."

"Well, then a Big Mac. Come on."

Kennedy mentally shook her head; the logic that had produced that decision escaped her. She followed her friend into the restaurant, ordered and paid. There were a lot of other kids at the counter, and she was sure it was going to be a few minutes before they got their order. "Harriet, I need to phone home. Would you wait here for a second?"

"Sure, no problem."

Kennedy made her way to the phones, and lucked out, only having to wait a few seconds. Mr. Glastonbury didn't sound surprised at all to hear from her.

"Everything going well, Miss Kennedy?"

"That FBI guy. I'm pretty sure I saw him going north on the freeway, the same direction we are."

"You're sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Pretty sure doesn't cut it, Miss Kennedy. If you did see him, I'll be enroute in a few minutes... and canceling my personal plans for an indefinite time. Otherwise I'll be with Harriet's mother for the next two weeks."

Kennedy stopped herself from laughing with only the greatest difficulty. "Whatever. It was him, okay?"

"Do not, whatever you do, let him get you alone, or separated from the others. If you even think he's near the camp, tell one of the staff you have a stalker, posing as an FBI agent. It takes a check with FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC to verify that he's an agent. A local office won't identify him."

"I'll be careful. I'm sorry, sir."

"Kennedy, I'm not sure what the man wants. I'm not sure it would be good to find out. Be careful."

"I will," she reassured him.

She hung up and turned around. Miss Tangier was a few feet away, just coming in the restaurant. "Calling home already?" she asked Kennedy, smiling slightly.

Harriet arrived, trays in hand. "Come, sit with me, Kennedy."

Kennedy saw Charlotte Tangier's eyes run over Harriet with evident interest. For the first time, Kennedy felt a little uneasy. Still, this would be a good time to get this out of the way... 

"Miss Tangier," Kennedy started.

"Charlotte, please," the other said smoothly.

"Charlotte. A few weeks ago I was at a Renaissance Faire not far from the City. A man, saying he was an FBI agent, tried to get me to go off alone with him."

"That wouldn't have been a good idea," Charlotte said, nodding.

"Yes, ma'am. My tutor checked and told me the FBI people in New York said he wasn't one of their agents." Kennedy mentally patted herself on the back. A lie, but telling the truth at the same time! That was cool!

"And what has that to do with us, here today?"

"A while ago in the bus, I saw him in a car that passed us, heading north. I called home; they're sending someone up to the camp. In the meantime, I'd like you to tell the people at the camp about it, and not to trust anyone who shows up with a badge, don't let the man take me away without someone with me."

"We'd never!" Charlotte said with heat.

Harriet spoke up. "I wasn't far when that man was talking to Kennedy at Faire. He gave me the shivers. I hid, so I could run and scream for help if he tried to kidnap Kennedy."

"That's a good thing to do," Charlotte told her, looking at Harriet seriously. "Run if you can, scream if you can, as loudly as you can. Don't go peacefully. If a man is trying to get you alone -- well, odds are he isn't interested in playing patty-cake with you."

Charlotte waved at the tray. "I'll talk to the other counselors. You two relax and have a good time. We keep all of our campers safe and well-protected."

She walked away and Harriet and Kennedy found a table in the restaurant. "Are you having fun?" Harriet asked. "I mean, aside from seeing that man?"

"The girl sitting next to me doesn't like it when I fidget. She doesn't want to go to camp; she keeps threatening to turn me into a toad. She says she's a Wicca or something."

"A witch," Harriet told Kennedy.

Kennedy snorted. "Right! Sure! Spells and all!"

Harriet giggled. "Hey, I never said I believed in all that! I just know what it is. A lot of girls like it because they're told they are big, nasty and all-powerful -- even if they aren't. A lot of them go to Faire."

"Yeah, all that. She and I aren't getting along."

"It's just a few more hours, Kennedy. They told us we could pick who we slept with at camp; I picked you. You said you picked me."

Kennedy looked up at Harriet, a clever rejoinder on her lips. And stopped. It was "slept with" that did it, she figured a few seconds later. She knew what "sleeping with someone" meant. Charlotte Tangier had stared at Kennedy's breasts. She'd stared at Harriet's breasts. She had even, Kennedy was a little grossed out at the thought, stared at Harriet's jeans, where her legs come together.

Kennedy wasn't a prude, but she wasn't experienced either. Sexual thoughts left her profoundly uncomfortable. That hadn't been a problem back when that occurred once a year, when she was ten. It wasn't much more of a problem a year ago when it happened two or three times during the year. But lately it was threatening to become a daily occurrence. It seemed like half the things people said reminded her of sex. She'd had some pretty explicit dreams about sex as well.

Why had Harriet said it that way? She listened to Harriet rattling on about this and that, but Kennedy's mind was fixed on that "pick who we sleep with at camp," comment. Kennedy forced herself to pay attention and smile. Then it was time to get back on the busses and it was with regret that Kennedy watched Harriet walk away.

Still, it was impossible for her to miss that Harriet wasn't ugly. She was a pleasant, rather cute girl. Did she sexually stir Kennedy? Kennedy settled into her seat and thought about that, long and hard. After the first few minutes, she was embarrassed. If the answer had really been "no," she wouldn't have still been thinking about it. Thus, her mind's "no!" lacked conviction.

Kennedy lifted her eyes and looked forward in the bus, towards where Miss Tangier was sitting. There was no doubt in her mind that anything she felt, Miss Tangier -- Charlotte -- felt ten-fold. Kennedy swallowed at the thought. What should she do?

Next to Kennedy, Ruby snickered. "You're not the first girl to get her knickers twisted thinking about a counselor! Hey, they love it! Go for it, if that's what you want! She'll eat you up!" Ruby's expression suggested that the last sentence should be taken literally rather than metaphorically.

For a second Kennedy didn't know how to respond. Then she remembered her response about the FBI agent. Tell the truth, nothing but the truth and lie between your teeth!

"If your knickers are knackered," Kennedy told Ruby, "feel free to fix them. I wouldn't, if I were you, concern myself about others."

"Let me be the first to clue you in, little Miss Muffet. The counselors are here because of all the delicious little morsels running around, away from home and feeling liberated enough to try practically anything. A good many young women will return home far more sexually mature than when they left, if you get my meaning."

"Sure, Ruby, I understand. I also understand that those things are for the people involved to decide and not you and not me."

"Hey, you were curious."

"No, I wasn't," Kennedy told Ruby. "Now, be quiet."

"You and what army are going to stop me?"

"Just me, myself and my shadow," Kennedy told her. "We do just fine on our own. You and me, we'll have a chance to discuss this in great detail when we get off the bus. Prepare to bleed."

Ruby looked at Kennedy, a supercilious smile on her face. "Violence is the last refuge of incompetents. It never settles anything."

"Well, that's your theory," Kennedy said cheerfully. "I have my own. Before the day's out we'll know one way or the other who is right, won't we?"

"You're serious!" Ruby said, laughing. "If we fight one or both of us will be on our way home a little later."

"Well then, I suggest you shut your mouth and cross your fingers. I've heard all I want to hear from you; do you understand?"

"And what about the truth will make you free?"

Kennedy laughed. "Make who free? Girl, you talk entirely too much. You talk about things that are none of your business and certainly none of mine. I'm not going to deal with someone whose mouth flaps like yours."

Kennedy could sense that Ruby had reached the end of her rope. Sure enough, Ruby picked up her book and went back to reading. Kennedy didn't let any sign of her victory show on her face. Instead, she stared out the window at the passing scenery.

She focused on some of her lessons, paying only marginal attention to the outside. She had probably made a bad mistake by challenging Ruby to a fight. She was sure that Mr. Glastonbury would be quite upset. The Slayer was supposed to kill vampires and any demons that got out of hand. Save the world, now and then. Not fight with a chubby girl who had nothing good to say about anyone or anything.

There was just so much to think about, lately! She'd had her first period and had been appalled. It was uncomfortable, her timing was off badly, and it was smelly and messy. And her dreams! For two days she'd had dreams about sex that lasted all night long! It didn't matter if she woke up or stayed sleeping; it was all sex, all the time!

And how had Ruby known what she was thinking about, anyway? Her first thought was catty; maybe Ruby knew because she'd been here last year, and was one of those who'd come away more "mature." Evidently, she hadn't liked it.

Kennedy was 99% certain her mother wasn't that fond of sex. She was also 99% sure that her stepfather was. Her stepsister was never seen any more in public without a cute guy hanging on her arm. Had her stepsister "matured" sexually?

She realized that all of this was something she'd just been talking about as none of her business.

She remembered her dreams. Dreams weren't real, things happened in them that didn't make sense or weren't even possible. For instance, she'd never seen who was making love to her; she wasn't even sure if her lover had been male or female. She rewound the tape of her memory. No, that wasn't right. She was pretty sure she'd had several different lovers. She wasn't sure of their genders.

In her dreams sex had felt wonderful, and when she would wake, she could touch her breasts or between her legs and she could feel the same things she'd felt in her dreams. Perhaps not as intense, but in general, they were the same.

She looked at her reflection in the window next to her. A smile came to her face. Well, no vampire has turned her yet! Did she, Kennedy, want to kiss Harriet? She remembered the night at the Faire, when Harriet had kissed her. It was gentle and sweet and at the time Kennedy had been so jazzed about everything else, she hadn't thought about it very much.

She made a decision, then. If Harriet wanted to kiss her, she'd kiss her back. And if she wanted to touch Kennedy's breasts, she would, in turn, try her best to touch Harriet's. The rest of it, what she'd heard, what she'd read about, what she'd dreamed... that was going to wait.

And Ruby? She snorted in derision. That was never going to happen!

But there was always Charlotte Tangier to consider. What if Ruby was right, and there were others like Charlotte who looked at Kennedy and her peers as "tasty morsels?"

Kennedy smiled thinly. If Harriet had no chance beyond kisses and a few carefully controlled touches, Miss Tangier had less than no chance.

Kennedy put Charlotte down in the "to be researched" category. What she did know, though, was that she was curious about Charlotte. If nothing else, Charlotte would know a lot about how things worked, things that Kennedy could learn in her own time, but it might be a lot better to learn the right way from someone like Charlotte.

Was she breaking her oath to Mr. Glastonbury? She thought about it most carefully. No, she decided. The promise had been made in the context of Faire and the village. He'd said nothing to her about how she should behave at camp.

In fact, when she thought about it, she realized that it was another of Mr. Glastonbury's tests. He had told Kennedy about the consequences of some choices; she would have to live with the consequences of those choices. Wasn't that the definition of being grown up?

Being a Slayer was dangerous. From what he said there was a long line of dead Slayers stretching back for thousands of years that could attest to that. Her mind wandered far afield, before she snapped back to the bus.

She grinned to herself. She'd been thinking for hours! They weren't on the freeway any more, but on a highway twisting through rocky hills, covered with trees.

Charlotte had stood up again. "In a few minutes, to the left you'll see a body of water. That's Tupper Lake; we're about a half hour away from Camp Wanakena. The low eminence to the south that you see, just over the trees, is Long Tom Mountain, the one closer is Arab Mountain."

The bus arrived at a small town where another highway met theirs; crossing the top of a "T" with the road they'd been on. They turned left and continued on. "Back at the intersection, we were about half way between Lake Placid and Camp Wanakena. It won't be long now."

Kennedy made a snap decision looking at Charlotte. She was thirteen; if she was in school she'd be going to eighth grade next year. Yes, she had urges and sexy dreams. But instead of assuming she was going to do something with anyone in general or someone in particular, she was going to think about it a lot more and she was going to take her time and not let herself be rushed. In the same vein, even if it disappointed Harriet, she was going to stop at kissing.

She settled back in her seat, content.

Organized chaos -- that had to describe the camp. An hour before the bus from Buffalo arrived, then a bus from Syracuse and Utica arrived a half hour after that, and now, two from the City.

Counselors were assisting the unloading, creating long lines of bags to one side of the road, while two hundred girls from twelve to fifteen milled around talking animatedly.

Kennedy found her suitcases and deposited hers in one of the lines, then sought out Harriet. The two of them grinned at each other. It was, Kennedy thought, really cool. They could talk without words. Just a glance and a lifted eyebrow. She wasn't sure if Harriet knew that was how many books described couples who'd been long married. Able to speak without words.

Finally they were ushered into a long building that was the dining room and asked to sit at tables. Kennedy was particularly glad that she hadn't seen Ruby Goldberg since she'd gotten off the bus.

At the front were two dozen people standing to one side of a podium, a single woman at the podium. The woman at the podium tapped the microphone and the talking in the dining hall declined.

"Please, let's get quiet," she told everyone after a second. "The sooner I speak my piece, the sooner you get started on your two weeks of activities. I'm sure you would rather be doing that than listening to me."

Long before she finished her short piece, the room was still. Kennedy thought the woman was impressively regal. She stood straight; her eyes were nearly the same midnight black as her hair. It was easy to imagine her with a crown or some sort of royal tiara on her head.

"I'm Lauren Tredegar, the Director of Camp Wanakena. Some directors will tell you that their doors are always open to you. Mine isn't. My door is open from six in the morning until midnight but after that, you need to have a counselor speak for you.

"Please, the first rule of this camp is to have a good time. If you have a problem, see one of the staff. In a minute, I'll be introducing them. Remember their names and faces, please.

"We have made tentative cabin assignments. There are lists around the side of the dining hall, with the names on them. Each cabin is named after an animal: elk, bear, deer and so forth. There are placards over tables where people in those cabins will sit during meals. You will sit with your cabin mates during meals, without exception.

"We are legally obligated to keep track of you. I'm tolerably certain no one wants to be treated like a prison inmate, subject to repeated roll calls during the day... yet we must. There is a reason you are to be in your bed at lights out and at first call in the morning. The same reason you will sit with the others of your cabin at meals and will answer present during attendance taken during activities.

"We try to make it as unobtrusive as we can. With your cooperation, we will succeed. If people start behaving like idiots, making my life difficult... well, my duty to your parents to keep you safe, secure and located will outweigh my desire to see you have a good time. I can and will institute headcounts frequently during the day. It will be better for us all if you follow the rules.

"Shortly we will dismiss you to your cabins. Find your name and take your gear to your cabin. Settle in. Each cabin has a senior counselor and a junior counselor. Learn their names and faces... they are your first go-to persons if you have a problem or question.

"At six we will assemble here for dinner. At seven we will have cleared the tables and I will explain the sign up procedures for activities over the next two weeks.

"I will also listen to requests to change cabins. Ladies, you have until tomorrow at eight PM to request a change; after that the only changes will come if I send someone home.

"Rule One is to have a good time. Rule Two is don't interfere in someone else's good time. If you have a problem with another person's behavior, see one of your cabin counselors or see me."

One of the women in the group stepped forward. She was in her forties, lightly graying hair. "This is Deena Firestone. Deena is the Dean of Women, she is in charge of discipline, but that should be the least of her duties. Deena is also your ombudsman. That is, you go to her if you have a grievance against one of the staff."

Another group of the women stepped forward, a dozen of them.

"These are the cabin counselors, and these are the junior counselors." Most of the rest of the staff stepped forward. They were, Kennedy saw, younger, seventeen or eighteen she thought.

Kennedy realized suddenly that Lauren Tredegar hadn't said if she was a Miss, a Mrs. or a Ms. She grinned to herself. Mr. Glastonbury would never approve!

"Next we have Peggy Wilson, our head cook and her assistants."

A woman, followed by two men and another woman stepped forward.

"Peggy is in overall charge of meals; she has assistants to deal with specific meals."

She motioned and three bronzed young women stood forward. "This is the tennis staff; they will also have help from some of the counselors."

She followed them by introducing a half dozen other groups of instructors for soccer, swimming and a bunch of other sports. All of them were women too.

"This is Mr. Waterman, who is in charge of our boathouse."

A man stepped forward. He was short and dark, wearing a long slicker with the collar flaps turned up. He was wearing a knit cap and sunglasses, even though the sun wasn't that bright and they were indoors.

"Mr. Waterman is an old school potentate and his domain is the boathouse. We've never had a water accident at Camp Wanakena and it's solely because of Mr. Waterman's devotion to the rules. Obey him!"

The man gave a half-hearted wave, barely lifting his hand.

For Kennedy it was the oddest feeling. There was an odd feeling of nausea, her vision twisted and spun, then focused. Her eyes widened. Mr. Waterman was in one of Mr. Glastonbury's books! He was a Sofai, a water demon!

Kennedy fought an urge to come out of her seat and slay him out of hand. It was clear that something odd was going on. If no one had died in the water, then the demon couldn't be hurting people. It made Kennedy's head ache.

There were a few more introductions and Lauren Tredegar spoke a few last words. "Find your cabin assignment. Gather your luggage and take it to your cabin. Unpack; meet your cabin mates. You will do very well if you simply accept them and not try to change them. We do everything we can to see that each cabin has a varied community.

"Be back here for dinner and above all, have a good time!"

She beamed at the assembled girls, and then looked at a piece of paper. "I'd like to see the following young ladies before they go anywhere else." Then she read off a list that included Kennedy and Harriet's names.

Kennedy was surprised to see Mr. Glastonbury in Lauren's office when she and Harriet were called in first. Charlotte was also there. How had Mr. Glastonbury gotten there so fast?

Lauren looked at Kennedy for a long moment. "I have to say that coming out of the blue, I'd have taken most of the same precautions, but I'd secretly believe that this was a case of a thirteen-year-old's desire to be self-important. However, Mr. Glastonbury has confirmed the problem, and I've called your father, Miss Kennedy, and he too confirms the earlier issue."

"I just didn't want to make a mistake," Kennedy told her, standing firm.

"We won't make a mistake, I promise you. It does help to have this warning, because sometimes we see the things we want to see and not the things we should see.

"Charlotte has asked me to assign the two of you to her cabin." Lauren looked at Kennedy carefully. "Charlotte is a wonderful counselor and she does extremely well with almost any group of girls. However, typically those in her cabin are more mature than the others.

"Charlotte tells me that she believes that you two will not be out of place there."

Kennedy looked the woman in the eye. "You never said how we were to address you. Mr. Glastonbury is a bit of a fanatic on the subject."

"Lauren is fine," she told Kennedy.

Kennedy ground her teeth, since that hadn't answered her question. Worse, Mr. Glastonbury said nothing. So... 

"Lauren, I don't have a problem with moving to Charlotte's cabin, so long as she accepts that with me, she's barking up the wrong tree."

There was a sudden silence in the room.

It was Lauren who spoke first. "Rule One here is to enjoy yourself. Rule Two is not to spoil it for someone else. Kennedy, there are many infractions I will give one of you campers some slack on. My counselors know better. I assure you, that Charlotte and Amelia are very nice people who would never, ever, make you uncomfortable.

"But, as I said before, her cabin is for girls more mature than most. I would understand why you might not think you fit in there."

Kennedy looked her right in the eye. "She doesn't make me uncomfortable, I just want to save her some time."

Mr. Glastonbury actually laughed. It was a rather light laugh and obviously meant not to offend, but he did laugh.

Lauren looked him in eye and said nothing.

"Mr. Glastonbury," Kennedy said, speaking up, "the guy in charge of the boathouse, I think he's a Sofai."

"Leave him alone!"

Kennedy was surprised. Not only was it Lauren Tredegar who spoke, but Charlotte and Mr. Glastonbury.

She hadn't said anything about him being a demon, but she was pretty sure the others were letting her know they knew too.

To make it clear, Mr. Glastonbury explained. "Miss Kennedy, not all of the ones from the other side are our enemies. Some of our enemies have enemies themselves; not to mention our enemies aren't noted for making friends. There are probably fewer Sofai working for the wrong side than there are humans."

"Not that there are many Sofai left," Lauren added. "They are a gentle race, for meat eaters. They aren't that much different than we are. Mr. Waterman is particularly fond of fish, for instance."

Kennedy kept her face closed and simply shrugged.

Mr. Glastonbury spoke up, as if nothing had been said since the subject had been the FBI agent. "I'm going to be staying at the Inn in town for the next few days, doing some research. I believe that if anything happens it will be sooner rather than later.

"What I'd like to do is walk out in front of your office, Lauren, and talk to Miss Kennedy for a few minutes privately, but in full view of everyone. Then I'll leave. With luck, Miss Kennedy can have an enjoyable vacation, no matter who or what does or does not float her boat."

There were smiles from the adults, while Kennedy kept her face as expressionless as she could. Poor Harriet, though, was looking a little confused.

She walked outside with Mr. Glastonbury and they stopped well away from the building with the dining room and the office. "Face away from the camp," he told her.

She did.

"I can find no fault with what you've done so far, Miss Kennedy."

"I have a good teacher, sir."

"Indeed. One thing I have been remiss in teaching you about are the various and sundry hangers-on. There are those humans who willingly and knowingly abet the powers of darkness. They do it for a variety of reasons; some are misguided, some are abidingly evil in their own right. Slayers usually find a way to bring that sort of person to the attention of the authorities. As I said, there has rarely been a case of a Slayer killing a human.

"As well, there are people like Lauren Tredegar who, while not necessarily entirely on the side of good and right, but who hate darkness as much as anyone. She is Roma, what we call a gypsy; they have a lot of names. Gypsies treat the common law with amused contempt. They have their own reasons for doing things. We recognized each other almost instantly, Miss Kennedy. We quickly reached an understanding.

"She told me that once upon a time it was her thought to fleece rich people from the big cities. She rented a rundown camp, had some of her relatives who normally scam people about making repairs to their homes come and fix it up.

"Her original intention was to take all the registration money and leave the first night of the camp. I believe her when she tells me that she saw the happiness on most of faces that she didn't have the heart to steal that happiness. She went down to Wal-Mart and bought a lot of inexpensive food in bulk, including rice, beans and flour. She bought paper plates and plastic silverware.

"At the end of two weeks the kids were bouncing up and down with happiness. Several sets of parents told her that they would like their kids to come back the next year.

"Afterwards, she realized she'd made almost as much money as she thought she could steal. So the second year she scheduled three one week camps initially, and when they were all filled up by March, and that she would have had to turn business away otherwise, she added two more two week long camps.

"She has hired a competent staff who do most of the work. What she does is purchase things at inexpensive stores and a lot of her staff are people who might have trouble finding work, or who are like Mr. Waterman, refugees from a tragedy elsewhere.

"All of the counselors are human, not all of the staff are. You did well by not acting precipitously about Mr. Waterman."

She looked at him for a second then looked away, still concerned about the one thing most on her mind. Her voice was whisper soft. "Sex?"

"I am not the person to teach you about that, Miss Kennedy. I've taught you as much as I could in the time available about how to decide things for yourself. When you get home, you can tell me about what new lessons you learned here... or not, as the case may be. What you do here, Miss Kennedy, is yours to do.

"I received a message from the Watchers Council, the group that supports people like myself in the field. They believe that as the millennium approaches, the forces of darkness will grow in power and strength. There is nothing mystically significant about midnight, December 31st, 1999 except in people's minds. But that is a powerful force in its own right. The Council feels that there is evidence that the current crop of potential Slayers is one of the strongest ever. They feel that the magic that controls the Slayers knows there will be a great need for great Slayers.

"So, in a year and a half or so, you may find yourself chosen. You will have to be ready by then. This is just one more learning task you will have to master."

"I made up my mind on the way up here that I'm not going to do anything rash."

He chuckled. "You're a potential Slayer, Miss Kennedy. Unless you become accustomed to doing rash things, you will lose your first fight with a vampire. The trick is to balance rashness with reasoned judgment."

"I wish I had Lady Kennedy with me. All I have is that stake you give me the night I met Amanda."

"This is a summer camp for young people, Miss Kennedy. It would have caused considerable controversy if you'd showed up here with an arsenal. And most of the people here would consider your sword an arsenal in its own right."

He grinned at her and she felt better. If she had Lady Kennedy, she would have as much of an arsenal as she needed, but she could manage with the stake.

He gave her a semi-salute and walked towards his venerable Camry and drove off.



-------

Chapter 6: Kennedy at Camp


Kennedy walked back into the office after talking to Mr. Glastonbury. "Now, off with you three," Lauren told Charlotte. "Get settled in your cabin, and get ready to have an enjoyable two weeks."

Charlotte walked with them a few feet, and then waved at their suitcases, sitting lonely now, in the road. "You two get your things. I'm past due at the cabin." She pointed it out to them and hurried off.

Kennedy got hers and joined Harriet and they too started up the hill. But Harriet was more interested in talking.

"I never expected camp to be such an adventure!" Harriet told Kennedy.

"Neither did I."

"Can I ask you a personal question, Kennedy?"

"Sure, Harriet."

"What did you mean when you said that when it came to you, Charlotte is barking up the wrong tree?"

Kennedy stopped, trying to think fast. Mr. Glastonbury could say all he wanted to about needed to make rash decisions when you're fighting a vampire, but this was Harriet, her friend! The problem was Kennedy wasn't sure exactly what Harriet was asking. If Harriet was naive, she might not know at all sex with women, and all of her comments were just an innocent expression of her feelings. Or she could be asking in the full awareness of the ins and outs, as it were.

"Have you seen the way Charlotte looks at us? Me, some, but you more?"

Harriet frowned and shook her head.

"She glances at my breasts every minute or two. Yours, she stares at."

Harriet glanced at Kennedy and then looked away. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Kennedy agreed. "I was just telling her that I wasn't interested in her. Also, that girl I rode with made it pretty clear that she thought that some of the counselors did more than look."

"Oh," Harriet repeated, obviously surprised. "It wasn't like that last year."

"I think it depends on what cabin you're in and which age group you're with."

Harriet glanced at Kennedy, and her voice dropped considerably. "I think... I think I'm like her."

Kennedy remembered something from a few years before. Odd, she thought, how your mind works sometimes.

"Mr. Glastonbury told me once that the easiest kind of test question was true and false." Harriet nodded. "Followed by multiple choice and then various kinds of essay questions.

"My problem, Harriet, is in this I don't know how to answer. True, false, neither, both. I just don't know. I can't make up my mind if the answer is A, B, C or D."

"I kind of figured."

"Harriet, you're my friend, right?"

"Yes. And you're mine."

"Friends have to be honest with each other, Harriet. And the truth is that I'm a little curious about Charlotte, but don't think I should go there. I am far more curious about you, and if I go anywhere, you're the first person I'd pick."

"I've thought about it," Harriet said. "I've never actually done it... unless you count what I do by myself."

"I don't think that counts."

They arrived in front of the cabin. "Do you?" Harriet asked and then blushed.

"In my dreams. I'm terrified of doing it awake, because I'm not sure if I could stop."

Harriet giggled. "I know just what you mean!" She hitched herself up and Kennedy followed Harriet into the cabin.

Charlotte greeted them. "I'm afraid it's a long tradition at Camp Wanakena that bunks go to the first person who dibs them. There's one open towards the bathroom, there's a bottom bunk open by the front door."

Kennedy glanced at Harriet, whose eyes went towards the interior of the room. "I'll take the one by the door," Kennedy said with confidence.

"There is a number on each bunk, and around the room are closets, each with a number. You may unpack here in a bit. Right now, I'd like to introduce myself to everyone. And we can introduce ourselves as well."

She called them over to one end of the main room. There were two tables there, with space for everyone to sit.

Kennedy looked around. There was the main room in the cabin, that occupied the full width of the building, about thirty feet by thirty feet. Then there was a hallway that led back further, a hallway that wasn't centered, but offset to the left as she looked at it. At the end of the hall, she could see a door, plus it looked like the hall split north and south.

"This is the Fox Cabin," she told everyone. "I'm the cabin counselor, Charlotte Tangier." She put her hand on another girl's shoulder, standing next to her. The girl was pretty tall, red-haired and very thin. "This is my friend Amelia Newman. My friends call me Charlie, and Amelia's call her Amy.

"There is a bathroom to the right as you walk away from the main cabin. On the left is a laundry room. Beyond those, are three doors, one to the left and one to the right that have our names on them. There is a door in the middle with no name on it.

"All three of those rooms have double beds, instead of bunks. Amy and I have agreed that we are going to split the 'door open all the time' duties. Tonight Amy's door will be ajar, and if you need anything after lights out, see her. Tomorrow her door will be closed and mine will be ajar, see me. Do not go through any closed bedroom door, in this or any other cabin. You may knock if you feel you must have the attention of the person inside, but you yourself, will never open a closed door.

"You are expected to be in this cabin at all times between lights out and morning call, which is six thirty in the morning." There were groans from several of the girls.

Kennedy blinked. Her first thought was that they were a bunch of wimps, because she got up much earlier than six thirty every morning. But that led to what she did after she got up -- which was spend an hour exercising. At a guess, the cabin didn't have a weight or training room.

Charlotte continued on. "There was a code of conduct we sent to you with registration. Most of the items are common sense. Don't steal, don't even 'borrow' without permission. To be honest, for most serious infractions the punishment is a quick return home.

"Which brings me to the Fox Cabin's own Rule One. What happens in this cabin stays in this cabin. If you see or hear anything here, it stays here. You don't get sent home for gossiping, but you will be sent to another cabin. Odd thing about that, the Skunk Cabin starts each camp session empty, but there are usually two or three girls in it before it's time to go home. You will find that, like skunks in the wild, skunks are pretty much avoided at Camp Wanakena as well.

"As far as I'm concerned, so far as Amy is concerned, you are all mature adults. As mature adults we make up our own minds about things, particularly when it comes to ourselves.

"Lights out comes at ten PM Monday through Thursday nights. It's eleven thirty on Friday and Saturday and eleven on Sunday night. After lights out you have exactly sixty minutes to talk, read, do whatever you want in your bed. And yes, I mean that, too."

There were giggles and blushes from some of the girls, Kennedy noted, but most nodded sagely.

"Masturbation is what I mean, ladies. There are some things that are best done in the privacy of our bedrooms. Alas, we don't have our own bedrooms here, nor do we have much privacy. Once upon a time I was your age. At your age, there was no way I could have gone cold turkey for two weeks. I'd have had trouble managing two days.

"So, who does what, who moans the loudest, who thrashes the most... you just forget it, do you hear? I might add that in this room, there is exactly one person per bed, after lights out.

"If you wish to talk to a friend, you will come and sit at the tables and speak in lowered tones, and only for an hour. The only light will be the night-light in the bathroom.

"The cabin is to be swept each morning, the sinks and toilets scrubbed. There are towels that will be set out in the morning, and those should be used to wipe down the walls of the shower. It is very important to get a passing grade each day on the Director's Inspection.

"Why is that important?" Charlotte asked rhetorically, and then waved at the back of the cabin. "It's because of that third bedroom. Each morning I will entertain nominations for 'Foxy Lady of the Day.' You can nominate yourself or others can. If you pass the daily inspection, as a cabin, then the counselors will vote every evening, selecting an outstanding camper from each eligible cabin. Skunks, I might add, are never eligible.

"If you are the 'Foxy Lady of the Day, ' you can spend the night in the bedroom by yourself." She paused and looked around the room. "Or, you can invite a friend to join you for a sleepover. She doesn't have to be from this cabin, if you tell me at least a half hour in advance."

This time there were no giggles, but a few blushes. "What you do is your choice, do you understand? And no, just one friend."

This time there were twitters as well as giggles and blushes.

"Camp Wanakena is about having a good time for the next two weeks," Charlotte reminded them. "It isn't about embarrassing each other or ourselves. Some of you already have friends here; others of you will make new friends while you're here. Some friends are closer than others. That's the business of those friends, not anyone else.

"Pushing isn't very friendly. And I want to be very blunt here, ladies. Pushing when it comes to sex is one of the very few things you can do that will get me truly angry. Mostly when someone messes up, I feel sorry for them. Pushing, ladies, is for boys. Not us."

She looked at the dozen girls sitting at the two tables. "Have I made it clear? Is there anyone who doesn't understand what I'm talking about? Please, I realize that the urge is not to raise your hand... if that's how you feel, please, talk to Amy or me and we'll explain. Ignorance, ladies, is your greatest enemy on the road to adulthood. Ignorance is cured by education. Stupidity is usually not curable at all. Be smart."

She smiled at them and everyone nodded.

"Now, I have something not so pleasant, a special situation, unique to us this year." She gestured at Kennedy.

"This is Kennedy. Some weeks ago, a stranger, a man, tried to get her to go with him. He said he was a policeman. It was in public and Kennedy demurred until help arrived and he was sent away. It might be that he is nearby. Camp Wanakena has never had a trouble with security before, and we don't expect any trouble this time, either.

"Hopefully you all know that you don't go off with a stranger, even if he has a badge. If someone comes up and tries to talk to you or ask questions while you're here, or if you're by yourself, look around for help. Don't let them touch you, because then it's easy to grab you. Keep away from them, refuse to talk to them, and seek a crowded spot with lots of people. Scream, kick, bite, do whatever you have to if someone does grab you.

"Here at camp, it's not very likely that you'll be bothered. All of the counselors and staff have been alerted and will be watchful. Still, if anyone asks you questions about another camper, let a counselor know at once! Just use your common sense!"

She grinned at them. "We're going to have a good time these next two weeks. I encourage you, even if you're here with a friend or friends, to get to know new people.

"Shortly we'll go down to dinner, and then there will be signups for the various activities. There are two types of activities: classes and cabin teams. Classes occupy the mornings and part of the afternoons. There are also various forms of other recreational activities, like painting, photography, drama, singing -- anything you can imagine, just about. In the later afternoon, cabins that wish to can practice for a camp sports tournament to be held next week. The sports are soccer, softball and volleyball. There will be individual tournaments for tennis, ping-pong, swimming and rowing sculls on the lake. I coach soccer and softball, and if I can get at least seven of you interested we can enter the competition.

"Now, you have a little free time. Before we get up though, I'd like you each to tell us your name, where you're from and any hobbies or activities you like to do."

One by one they got up and spoke. Harriet was a mild surprise. She said her name was Harriet Scrivener, which Kennedy had always thought was her Faire name, she said she was from White Plains, which was a bit of a surprise, because Kennedy remembered her saying something different before, and then she gave her hobbies as "Dress-making and design and Ren Faire."

Then it was Kennedy's turn. "I'm Kennedy, just that, no more. I live near White Plains, mostly I like to exercise."

Harriet laughed. "Kennedy's best friend is a sword. This is the first time I've seen her without it."

Kennedy felt angry for a millisecond, because people laughed. She grinned, then. "You forget to mention I sleep with her, too."

There was more laughter and then the last few girls named themselves.

It was odd, Kennedy thought. The first girl was Anna, the second girl had been Kathy, and after that the names and faces blurred together.

Kennedy spent a few minutes talking to Harriet, and then went to unpack. When she finished, she turned around, brushing a wisp of hair from her face. Even across the room she could see the light in Harriet's eyes as she talked to Charlotte about something or other.

Kennedy felt a pang of regret looking at the two of them.

Amy appeared. It was like she sprang up from the earth. "Come, walk with me."

Kennedy debated whether or not she should, and then decided that it couldn't hurt anything.

Amy led the way outside, to the cabin's front porch. "Rule Umpteen," Amy said, as they stood at the rail. The view was spectacular, with dark woods pressing around the camp, down to the lake, that stretched off into the distance.

"Rule Umpteen is that the front porch is, before lights out and after morning call, considered part of the cabin. So you can come out here. A lot of people come out here to talk; be polite and make sure you give everyone their space."

"Sure. Why are you telling me this?"

"Two things. Do you know what a butterfly is?"

Kennedy blinked. "An insect that drinks nectar from flowers. Many are large and brightly colored... at least for insects."

"Exactly right, but modestly incomplete. Butterflies flit from flower to flower, because there isn't enough nectar in any one blossom to sustain them."

"I suppose," Kennedy said, not at all sure what the older girl's point was.

"Charlotte, Kennedy, is a butterfly. A kind, sweet, gentle, loving butterfly. She finds a dainty blossom, she laps daintily the nectar she finds there, but in a short time, one or two days, she moves on."

"And this has what to do with me?" Kennedy asked.

"It has nothing to do with you, unless it makes you uncomfortable. Harriet is curious, Kennedy. She has reached that point in her life, I think, where she's ready to find out more about herself and the rest of the world."

Kennedy nodded. "I understand." She wished Harriet well... if nothing else, it would be nice if one of them knew what they were doing. Kennedy turned to Amy.

"If she's a butterfly, what are you?"

Amy grinned. "I'm a barn swallow. I mate for life. Drab, not terribly well endowed. Oh yeah, there is something that might interest you, though."

Kennedy snorted. "You're barking up the wrong tree, too."

Amy laughed. "I'm a judo black belt. I have a terrible time here at camp finding anyone to spar with; someone told me that you are a black belt too.

"Lauren prefers it if those of us who train in the mornings, do it as a group. We have permission to get up at five thirty, assemble at six and then do warm-ups, stretching and then a run before seven. Would you be interested in joining the group?"

"Not... ?"

Amy smiled. "Kennedy, swallows mate for life. I don't mean for two weeks. Life. When I get back to New York City I have a friend I will have pined for two weeks over, and she will have pined for me and when we get together..." She laughed. "Oh, will it ever be grand and good!"

"I'm sorry," Kennedy said. "I should know better than to jump to conclusions or just assume."

"Kennedy, a good many of the girls at this camp, and the counselors as well, treat this as Mardi Gras, Carnival. A time where the usual rules are ignored. Not all of us, although it's true that two years ago I met my friend here, and that was after I'd been visited by a few butterflies."

That was clear enough, too. Butterflies: girls who changed partners often. Others evidently nested for two weeks. Others were like Amy, who kept a permanent warm spot in their heart for someone in particular. And everything in between.

"You're telling me not to be jealous about Harriet."

Amy nodded soberly. "I don't pretend to know either of you, but I've seen plenty of Harriets in my time. Girls who are desperately curious, who find a place where they can assuage their curiosity and who leap at the chance. Others are like you and I, Kennedy. We are slow, deliberate... curious, but cautious. Each of us is different, in our own way."

"Amy... I..." Kennedy was at a lost for words.

Amy chuckled. "Kennedy, when it comes to me, you're barking up the wrong tree, too."

Kennedy nearly fell down laughing. Yes, she'd been thinking just that! That she really wanted to meet someone just like Amy.

"So, shall I wake you up early tomorrow?" Amy asked Kennedy.

"I'll be awake. I never use an alarm clock."

Amy grinned. "If you were to go into the cabin and ask who needs an alarm clock, it's always the least athletic."

Kennedy shrugged. When you've done something every day for most of your life, it's second nature.

"One last little thing, back to the topic I asked you out here about. In judo, you have to be at least sixteen to even apply for a black belt."

"I don't usually tell people, okay? Because it is a hassle. But Mr. Glastonbury is certified by whoever it is that certifies tae-kwan-do teachers to decide who is a black belt. He said I was ready and so the regular panel of judges tested me. That was at the start of summer though, so it's not like I've been one for years and years."

"I've always been sensitive about my age," Amy told Kennedy, "I imagine you are, too. So I won't make any smart-ass replies that I could."

Kennedy grinned. "That's a good thing."

They went back inside and a few minutes later Harriet came and sat down next to Kennedy on her bed. Kennedy looked at her and grinned. "I thought we weren't supposed to be two to a bed?"

Harriet blushed, but then laughed. She pitched her voice very soft. "I was afraid you would be jealous that Charlotte was talking to me."

Kennedy shook her head. "Harriet, I understand curiosity. I'm that way myself about most things. Just right now, not that."

"Well, I was a little jealous of you talking to Amy."

Kennedy giggled. "Not to worry: she wanted to talk about getting me out of bed, not into it." She saw Harriet's confusion and smiled again. "The camp lets people who are athletically inclined get up early and work out before everyone else is awake. Amy wanted to know if I wanted to do that."

"Get up early? I have trouble getting up any day when I don't have school! At home during the summer I'm rarely up before nine."



-------

Chapter 7: Kennedy Gets Lost


A while later they trooped down to the dining hall. Kennedy was prepared for some pretty mediocre food after what Mr. Glastonbury had said, but evidently Lauren was spending more these days than she had at first. It wasn't up to the standards Kennedy was used to, but it was okay. Several of the other Fox cabin girls said it was a lot better than what their cafeterias at school served.

At the end of dinner, Lauren once again stood up. She went through a list of the various activities that were available; it was a surprisingly long list. Kennedy was mildly amused by the list, though. She hadn't done hardly any of the activities. Oh, Mr. Glastonbury had taught her how to swim, but rowing, softball, soccer, basketball, tennis... golf of all things! There were various outdoors type classes in animals and plants, rocks and trees.

But, for all of that, not a single session of judo or karate, no archery, fencing or kendo. Kennedy was a little bemused about the surplus of things to do that she'd never done before, and a deficit of things she was familiar with. At least she knew what her teacher would say: go with the new.

So, right after breakfast she was going to do single person sculls. She was curious about them and about Mr. Waterman. Then tennis and then the general nature class. After lunch she signed up for hiking. It was pretty clear that Charlotte wanted her to go out for soccer and baseball. Kennedy sighed a lot about that as she put her name on the sheet for those. She had never, ever, been on a team before. Again, she was quite sure what Mr. Glastonbury would have to say if he heard her grousing about it.

She finished putting her name on the last sheet, then stepped back and contemplated her schedule. It was almost funny, she thought. Here she was away from Mr. Glastonbury for two weeks, supposedly, but instead he was just down the road in town and moreover, everything she thought about, she ran past her mental image of him.

If he had been there, and if she was carrying Lady Kennedy, she'd have given him a sword salute like Duke Roger was so sparing with.

"Something's tickled your funny bone," a voice said next to Kennedy. She looked at and saw a dark young woman next to her. She was so dark-skinned that Kennedy wasn't sure what race she was.

The girl was fourteen or fifteen, black-haired and black-eyed, reminding Kennedy strongly of Lauren. Kennedy glanced at Lauren and back at the girl. The girl laughed. "Usually it takes a while for people to make the connection. Very observant! I'm Deb Saunders, poor country relation of our glorious camp director."

"I'm Kennedy," she told the other.

Deb laughed at that. "The girl with the stalker problem! I was amazed my aunt was so concerned. Usually she just makes a little voodoo doll, sticks a few pins in it, usually in personal, painful places and the problem vanishes, as it were."

Kennedy nodded and the other girl laughed.

"I'm crushed, I am. Not as bad as a gypsy curse, but not good. You don't remember me."

Kennedy looked at her and wracked her brain trying to remember the girl... and couldn't.

Deb smiled again. "Wounded to the quick, I am! I was sitting next to you at the Fox cabin dinner table a few minutes ago. But your attention was devoted to Charlie, Amy and your friend Harriet."

If Deb had been next to her at dinner, then she would have been sitting at the tables in the cabin, too. Kennedy swallowed. With the exceptions of Harriet, Charlotte and Amy, Kennedy doubted if she could recognize anyone from her cabin.

"It's my first time away from home," Kennedy apologized. "I'm home schooled and I don't get out much. To be honest, everyone's face is a blur."

"Well, I see you've got your name down for sculls. This is my fifth summer here and I tell you true, we're likely to be the only two."

"Do you know Mr. Waterman?" Kennedy asked.

Deb craned her head a little to one side. "Do his afflictions bother you?"

Afflictions? Well, that was one way to explain why a demon looked different than the people around him. "No, I was just wondering what he was like."

"If there's anything he doesn't know about small boats, it's because no one else knows it. He's a genius. When he gets done working over a scull, it's a piece of precision apparatus, as fine and as rare as a Stradivarius. Don't let his oddities throw you."

"I was curious, is all," Kennedy said.

"Curious is good," Deb replied, grinning at Kennedy. "Curious is very good."

Right then, Lauren rang a little bell and got everyone's attention. "It's a little after seven. Make sure you've got your name down for each time block for something. While you're back in your cabins freshening up, I'll be putting your names into the computer. If you don't have something you want to do, why, we'll just pick one at random for you.

"In a minute I'll dismiss you back to your cabins. I have one general comment, then an activity notice. So far you've been very good about listening until I'm finished. A few days from now, familiarity might lead you to think you can anticipate me. Don't do it. When I or any other member of our staff tells you you're dismissed, then you are -- not before. So wait until you hear me say the words.

"Last, this evening is a special evening. At eight this evening here in the dining room we'll have a mixer. That's a party where you can mix and get to meet each other. Some places have embarrassing games they play to break the ice. Me, I prefer music. So there will be music and dancing, refreshments of various sorts, a significant fraction of which contain chocolate."

There were titters around the room. "Yes, I know adults aren't supposed to admit to weaknesses, but chocolate is definitely a soft spot for me. Normally we don't encourage people to visit other cabins. Tonight you may, right up until a quarter of eleven, when you'll need to get back to your own cabins. Thus, you may be here, in your cabin or in the cabin of a friend this evening until fifteen minutes before lights out.

"In not quite two weeks, it will be the Saturday night before you leave. We will have another mixer. I'm willing to bet, you have even more fun then. Now, dismissed until eight o'clock, ladies."

Kennedy was mildly amused to see that Harriet walked back to the cabin with Charlotte, the two of them talking each other's ears off. Deb Saunders fell into step beside Kennedy.

"That girl is your friend, right?" Deb asked her.

"Yes, my best and only friend."

"Well, we can fix that last easily enough." Deb dropped her voice, "You understand that the staff and a good many of the campers are all sex-starved maniacs?"

Kennedy nodded. "Does that include you?"

"Hey, that comes under the heading of gossip! Not good! Yes, but not as much as some."

"And I'm curious, but not that curious," Kennedy told her.

"Here everything is at your own pace," Deb told her bluntly. "That's why there's a veggie track where you do nothing but go out in the woods and sit on a rock. Usually after the first Wednesday there's only one or two people left, and they come and go intermittently."

They arrived back at the cabin and Kennedy sat on her bed again, watching the rest of the girls in the cabin. She focused on their faces, trying to get to know them. Names would have to wait for later, she knew, but this was a part of her education that Mr. Glastonbury had left out. Even at Faire, with thousands of people milling around, you weren't expected to get to know them. She'd taken her introductions in small portions, one or two at a time. Meeting a couple of dozen people in one day and being expected to learn their names and faces... that was hard.

A few minutes later Harriet came by, and waved out to the porch. Kennedy went along, fairly confident she knew what Harriet was going to say.

"Kennedy..." Harriet's voice cracked and she blushed.

"Charlotte has asked if you'd like to spend the night with her, and you told her yes," Kennedy supplied. "That this is just for a night or two and doesn't affect anything about how you feel about me."

Harriet looked down at the ground; her voice was apologetic. "Yes."

"Harriet, I wish I was as adventurous as you. Of all the people here, I think I can say that I'm the most familiar with the advantages of individual tutoring."

"I was afraid you wouldn't understand."

"I understand, Harriet. You are someone special to me, you always will be. You were the first person to come up to me and tell me that you wanted me to be your friend. Today is the second time in my life I've met people I want to be friends with, but you were there first."

Kennedy leaned close and lightly brushed her lips along Harriet's cheek, like Harriet had done to Kennedy at Faire. "There is a special, warm place for you in my heart, Harriet. Always. You never, ever have to worry about it, okay?"

"I'm so ashamed."

"Harriet, I was proud when Mr. Glastonbury taught me to use Lady Kennedy. I was eager, I thought about her night and day, and I wanted to do nothing else. Be proud, Harriet, not sad or ashamed."

Harriet dropped her voice to something softer than a whisper. "I love you, Kennedy."

"I'm not sure what the word means," Kennedy told her, "so I don't know what to call how I feel. But you're my first and best friend, now and for always. If I had to, I'd die to protect you."

Harriet giggled. "You're a knight in shining armor; you'd do that for anyone."

Kennedy had to laugh. "Well... yes. But Mr. Glastonbury doesn't let me wear armor."

"If you meet someone nice... I won't mind either," Harriet said.

"I've already met a number of nice people," Kennedy responded. "It would be as easy as falling off a log. I'm just not ready yet."

Harriet giggled again, and again her voice was pitched very low. "It's way easier than falling off a log. You just do what that part of you so desperately wants."

A while later Charlotte led them all down the hill again.

It was pretty remarkable, how much the dining hall had changed in less than an hour. The tables were now lining the walls, instead of in rows in the middle of the room. Charlotte told them that tonight they could sit where they pleased, and Kennedy sat together with Harriet, Deb, Charlotte and Amy at a table.

After a few minutes of listening to a song that Kennedy didn't recognize, nor much like, Lauren spoke again.

"I give the same speech at the start of each camp; you'd think that after twenty-some times of giving the same speech, I'd have it memorized.

"Someone asked me a few minutes ago if you had to wear bras. And the answer to that is, it depends. A good many of you don't need one. Some of you, though, need one even if you don't realize it. I'm going to be blunt about a woman's health issue that rarely gets aired, ladies.

"When I was your age in school, the big thing was to have breasts that were big enough to slide a pencil underneath and have the pencil stay in place. At the time, I thought that was quite wonderful, because I could do that! Then my doctor took me to task for not wearing a bra.

"You know how you hold that pencil up? It's because your breast sags. What happens is that the connective tissues in a woman's breast are capable of holding up just so much weight for so long without help.

"Now, maybe you are comfortable with having to pick belly button lint off your nipples, but I never thought it was that attractive. Some of you are already sagging. Wear a bra, ladies and you won't be cured... but you won't be getting worse.

"This camp is where you get to choose what you want to do -- within limits. If you want to go around without underwear, that's your business. You will wear shoes, shorts or jeans and at least a t-shirt long enough to cover your navel. And now, back to the music!"

She put on another CD track that was recognizably a woman singing, but Kennedy still didn't like the song. "You don't like the Black-eyed Peas?" Deb asked, laughing.

"Never heard of them," Kennedy told her. "Most of the music I've heard is classical. If I understand the lyrics, I don't think I approve."

"Modern music is an acquired taste," Charlotte agreed. "But don't let Deb fool you... she has much loftier tastes."

"Sarah Brightman," Deb said. "I've got every CD of hers they've released."

Deb turned to Kennedy. "Sarah Brightman is married to Andrew Lloyd Webber who wrote musicals like Joseph, Evita, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom of the Opera."

"They were married, Deb," Charlotte told her, with emphasis on the past tense verb. "They got divorced a few years ago."

"I pretend it didn't happen. Andrew Lloyd Webber is brilliant, simply a brilliant composer. And he wrote the music just for her to sing; I mean, it was designed for her voice. Why would you want divorce someone who wrote music like that for you?"

"It takes all kinds," Charlotte said. "Actually, the thought of marrying anyone leaves me kind of dizzy."

"Well, men..." Harriet said.

Charlotte patted Harriet's hand fondly. "Dear heart, marry anyone, anyone at all. Maybe some day I'll want to settle down, but for now, I'm content to be a butterfly."

Harriet looked a little embarrassed, and Kennedy gave her hand a little squeeze of encouragement. "At least you could think of something to say," Kennedy whispered into Harriet's ear. That brought a giggle from Harriet.

"And here, I thought I didn't have a jealous bone in my body," Charlotte laughed. "But anyone who can bring a quick smile and a giggle is someone to be jealous of!"

Kennedy decided that the other was pulling her leg. "I just told her that at least she could think of something to say. I don't suppose we can steer the conversation around to Bach? Beethoven? Mozart?"

There were more laughs. After a bit, Charlotte took Harriet's hand and they went and danced. At least, that's what Kennedy assumed they were doing. There were a lot of gyrations and the music beat was much faster than anything she'd ever learned from Mr. Glastonbury.

"You haven't a clue, do you?" Deb said to Kennedy.

"I thought I could dance a little, but this..." All Kennedy could do was shake her head in amazement.

"Would you dance a slow one with me?" Deb asked.

Kennedy turned to her. "You want me," she told Deb.

Deb shrugged. "I wouldn't put it quite like that, but yes."

"I'm not ready, okay?"

Deb laughed at her. "I asked you to dance, not to go to bed, Kennedy. It's fine and wonderful being bright, smart, intelligent and all of that. But use some common sense, sometimes. Now and again, people mean what they say. When you try to read hidden meanings into everything people say, you're going to be clueless what they actually mean, about who they really are.

"Sure, I want to dance with you so I can get to know you better. So you can get to know me better. I also like to dance. And yes, I've thought about you and me... but that's down the road a ways, for me as well as you. In case it's escaped your attention, if someone my age has sex with someone your age, that's rape. They'd try me as an adult and I could spend a good long time in prison. Thanks, but no thanks!"

Kennedy's first thought was to retort that that didn't seem to worry Charlotte. But the sudden realization came that Harriet wouldn't tell anyone about it, even if they tortured her. And Kennedy had no intentions about telling anyone about her own experiences, when she finally got around to having those sorts of experiences. So her first thought about Charlotte was wrong, her first thought about Deb was wrong.

"As near as I can tell," Kennedy said after a minute, "I become totally unhinged when the subject comes up."

Deb leaned close and whispered into Kennedy's ear. "That's what it does. When you consider the objective facts of love-making, where and what you kiss, where your tongue and fingers go, all of the various fluids involved -- it's gross. If sex didn't make us all a little unhinged, we'd grow up to be spinsters who've never known the joy of sex."

And some did that, Kennedy realized. Well, she'd had periods, she had worked out often enough that a little sweat didn't bother her. But Deb was right about the rest.

"Ah! A slow dance! One thing about my aunt! She's as unhinged as the rest of us!"

Deb grabbed Kennedy's hand, and a moment later they were on the dance floor. Kennedy had paid only half a mind to the dancing, but once she was out among the other dancers a great truth dawned on her: everyone in the dining room was a woman. Everyone dancing was a woman.

And as soon as the music started, the lights dimmed and some of the couples became quite passionate. Kennedy spent most of the first part of the dance watching everyone else, amazed at what people would do in public. Truly amazing!

When she finally focused on Deb, she realized that she'd made a mistake. Deb had been focused on Kennedy since they'd left the table. They were dancing with their breasts in light contact and Kennedy's nipples were painfully hard. Not only that, the feeling between her legs that so often graced her dreams was present and more than curious. Quite a bit more than curious.

Deb grinned. "My, when you focus on something, the rest of the world goes away."

"Sorry."

Deb lightly dragged her breasts across Kennedy's again. "Do you want me to stop?"

Kennedy could barely manage a weak laugh. "Damned if I know!"

"Well, let's just say that I know my aunt and this song. You're saved the choice!"

The music came to a stop and the lights came back up.

There were, Kennedy noted, a lot of flushed faces in the room, including people who had just been sitting on the sidelines, watching.

To Kennedy's surprise, they went back to the table and sat and talked for a while longer and then Deb smiled at her. "Up for another dance?"

"There's another slow one coming?" Charlotte asked.

"Mmm, next," Deb told her.

"Come along, Harriet, let's see if we can dance sedately as well as all carried away."

The two of them got up, and Kennedy met Deb's eyes. Her stomach and points south did a little loop. "Sure, why not?"

They too got up and walked towards the dance floor. Kennedy, even in the throes of hormonal turmoil, wasn't able to put her curiosity about everything in general away. "Is there some sort of cue? So you know when the slow ones come?"

Deb shook her head. "My aunt is a very capable computer user. Smart, rarely needs to be shown how to do something more than once. But I'm the computer nerd of the family. Some of whom have high hopes for me." She glanced around and lowered her voice. "My relatives expect that some day I will push a key and all the ATMs in the world will gush money into their waiting arms."

Kennedy grimaced. Maybe gypsies weren't as romantic as the stories said!

"In this case, Lauren had me mix the CD's for tonight, and burn them for her. I give her a list of songs and she adds and subtracts; then I arrange the sequence. Sort of like a disk jockey."

The music started and the lights dimmed. It seemed to Kennedy that they were even dimmer than before. Deb pulled Kennedy close, their breasts pressing together. This time, Kennedy realized that there wasn't even a pretence of dancing, they stood rooted in one spot, breasts in contact.

Deb's tongue traced a damp line along Kennedy's ear. "Like I said before," she whispered into Kennedy's ear a second later, "do you want me to stop?"

Kennedy was forlorn and totally unsure. "I still don't know," she replied softly.

Deb's tongue curled inside Kennedy's ear, sending shivers up and down Kennedy's spine... every last shiver taking root between her legs.

"Kennedy, I respect you, okay? But 'maybe' doesn't really cut it. I swear, if you say the word, I'll back off."

Kennedy was speechless, unable to think. Then Deb's hips pressed lightly against Kennedy's and she couldn't help it; it felt wonderful and she pressed back.

Deb's hands slid down Kennedy's back and cupped her bottom and pulled them together into tighter contact, and then her lips touched down on Kennedy's.

In the next several seconds, Kennedy learned some important lessons that would stay with her the rest of her life. First and foremost, being kissed in real life was like holding Lady Kennedy in real life: magnificent. And while she'd had any number of sexy dreams, so had she dreamed about fighting real fights with Lady Kennedy. There was no comparison between dream fights and practice. And there was no comparison between dream kisses and the real practice.

The moment seemed to stretch timelessly, there didn't seem to be any passage of time. Only Deb pulling back finally and smiling at her.

"Gosh!" Kennedy said, still stunned. And the swirl of hormones in her body was raging like the worst Nor'easter that she'd ever seen.

"Come," Deb said, and once again they retraced their way back to the table.

Charlotte and Harriet joined them a few minutes later. "Harriet says she's feeling tired," Charlotte told them. "I think I'll walk with her back to the cabin."

There were only a few left at the table, Kennedy saw.

Deb grinned at her. "Two more fast dances, then two more slow ones, then Lauren's final announcements, and then a very long slow dance and that's it. May I have that next slow dance?"

"Yes," Kennedy said. Why lie about it to herself, much less anyone else? It was crystal clear what was going to happen, sooner rather than later. She contemplated running up the hill after Harriet and telling her she'd changed her mind. But who would that be fair to? Harriet or Charlotte? Not likely! Just Kennedy, who was the one who made the situation after all.

When it was time this time Kennedy didn't hesitate, but lowered her mouth to Deb's. She tried to contain herself, knowing that her eagerness was a weakness. For a second she looked around. It was dim and she couldn't really see faces around her. But there were maybe twenty couples on the dance floor, including at least one counselor and a couple of the junior counselors who were locked in passionate embraces with girls like Kennedy.

However her contemplation of "everyone is doing it" changed when Deb's hands moved along Kennedy's side, until her thumbs rode over Kennedy's small breasts. If kissing in your dreams was a pale shadow of the real thing, having your breasts caressed in a dream didn't register at all on the meter, compared to having someone's fingers actually stimulating you.

Kennedy reached up and put her hands on Deb's head and pulled them tightly together for the mother of all kisses. A few minutes later the music slowed and Kennedy's heart continued to hammer.

She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Lauren. "May I cut in?"

"Sure, auntie," Deb said, and walked away.

Lauren put her arms around Kennedy's shoulders, a much more sedate pose than Deb's a minute before.

"Settling in?" Lauren asked.

Kennedy considered the odds that Lauren hadn't seen what she and Deb were doing was zero. "Yes, I don't have any complaints."

"That's good, that's why we do this."

Once again Kennedy was tempted to mention what Mr. Glastonbury had said, but the hormones were still buzzing through her body. At least, Kennedy thought, Lauren's breasts were shoulder high on her, and weren't pressing directly against hers.

They danced for a bit, talking about Kennedy's impressions of the camp; it was hard, Kennedy found, to discuss it without mentioning her latest personal revelations, but she found that like most things, with practice she got better.

Then Lauren applied gentle pressure, pulling Kennedy close. She brought her mouth up next to Kennedy's ear. "Dear Kennedy, you are a wonderful young woman. And I like to think of myself as a canny judge of character. You, dear, are a butterfly."

"I'm not much of anything just yet," Kennedy told her honestly.

"Yes, but with a little patience that will change soon. Deb will understand, Charlotte will. Harriet will be able to adapt, although for her it will take a bit longer. Be patient!"

"With Harriet? Always."

"Good! Ruby Goldberg was nattering away at me earlier about how mean and nasty and rude you were to her on the bus. I'm afraid I know Ruby rather well. I reminded her of that. I'm not a saint, Kennedy, do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Well, two last thoughts. Ruby has a terrible weakness. After about two seconds of someone rubbing her breasts, the only words she remembers are 'yes' and 'more.' And, if you can still think rationally by then, I wouldn't mind if your butterfly flitted my way sometime towards the end of next week."

Somehow a second later when they let go, Lauren's hand brushed the front of Kennedy's jeans, as they turned around. Kennedy could just shake her head in wonder.

Sure enough, Lauren said a few words, mostly encouragement to have a good time. Kennedy studied the faces of the people around her. It was clear that these people were enjoying themselves.

Deb reappeared, and when the lights went down for the last dance, Kennedy surrendered herself to the moment and to Deb's intentions, whatever they were.

Breasts, it turned out were high on Deb's list of priorities, which Kennedy was only too happy to provide. And when Deb led Kennedy's hands to her own breasts, it seemed rude not to rub back.

And when Deb's fingers pressed between Kennedy's legs, she pressed back, wishing the two of them could be alone for a week on a desert island, instead of standing in the middle of two dozen others.

Kennedy let out a soft sigh as she had a mild orgasm. In the next few seconds as she calmed down, she heard more than one similar sigh. It was a temptation to look more closely at the people around her, but she fought the temptation, keeping her eyes on Deb.

Deb leaned close again, and again laved Kennedy's ear. "My aunt likes to leave people with two things," she told Kennedy. "While I'm not planning on leaving, I do have two things for you. First, now you know why the Saturday night dances are so popular. Tonight, maybe a third of the girls, ah, got in the spirit of things. Next Saturday it will be two thirds, and the last Saturday, nine of ten."

"And the ones who don't want to dance?"

"There will be Scrabble in the crafts room both nights. Scrabble and Monopoly."

Kennedy giggled.

Deb smiled at her, as the lights came back up for the last time. "And, this night and the last night of camp are the only two nights Lauren doesn't caution everyone to go straight back to their cabins and not to get lost in the bushes. Every other night, she'll mention it, I promise."

"I'm not sure I understand," Kennedy said.

"You will in a few minutes when we get lost on the way back to the cabin."

"I never get lost," Kennedy said, more confused than ever.

"Girl, you need to work on those deductive powers, or people are going to spend the rest of your life teasing you. It's related to the reason why there's more than an hour before we have to be back in the cabin to get ready for lights out."

However, there was one small hurdle to cross. Those still present when the lights went back up were set at once to clean up the dining room. As soon as that was done, they helped tug tables back where they belonged. It didn't take very long, as most of the campers had been quite tidy and the tables weren't that heavy.

They started up the hill and after a few steps, Deb stopped, looking behind them. "Would you look at that!"

There was amazement and wonder in her voice, not fear, so Kennedy just turned around. They had gotten enough elevation over the lake that they could see the moon rising, a tiny sliver of silver that gleamed a shining path across the lake that seemed to lead right to the camp's dock.

"And people wonder why our ancestors worshiped the sun, moon and stars!" Deb murmured.

"It's beautiful!" Kennedy responded. It was, too. It was easily the prettiest sight she'd ever seen with her own eyes.

"Come, let's see if we can find a better spot to see from!" Deb said. At first Kennedy resisted, because where they were was ideal. The she remembered the talk of getting lost and grinned. She had no idea what came next, but at least she wasn't going to be that kind of lost.

There was a faint path that Deb followed, but clear enough for Kennedy to see. They were close to a clump of bushes when, ahead of them, they could hear a soft gasp and then a giggle.

They went another forty or fifty feet past that clump, and then through a small passage in the bushes, into a small clearing about five or six feet across, with tall dark pines along one side, heavy bushes along the other.

Without a word, Deb took Kennedy in her arms and gently kissed her. It wasn't at all the hot passion of earlier. "Can I tell you a secret, a deep, dark secret?" Deb asked.

"Sure, I don't tell secrets. Not big ones, not little ones, none at all."

"My aunt is dark and mysterious; that's as it should be, because she is dark and mysterious. She can do things that most people can't -- not all of them white arts. Do you know what I mean?"

"I've heard of white and black magic," Kennedy said carefully. "I always thought it was a crock. But I've seen things..."

"Exactly. Things that the usual explanations don't cover at all. Things that defy explanation if you stick to mundane words and theories."

"I still reserve judgment on that," Kennedy told her. "I've come to believe what I see, but I still have a healthy streak of skepticism."

"Well, the proof is in the pudding, Kennedy. My aunt can see inside people's hearts. There is no one better at judging a person's net worth, in all senses of the term, than she is. She, like the rest of my family, think I'm a stunted child without talents.

"That's because the talent I possess is the one they value the most. If you tell anyone, and if they heard about it, I'd become a virtual slave. I'd be kept under lock and key for the rest of my life."

"Why?" Kennedy asked, mystified.

"Because I have the Second Sight," Deb said simply. A second later when Kennedy hadn't reacted, Deb giggled. "It's a simpler world you live in Kennedy. Now and then when I see people, places, things, I can see things about them. Their past, sometimes. Mostly, their future."

Kennedy raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "It's true," Deb said with a giggle. "Do you know what my aunt's last words will be, in the moment between her last breath and her death?"

Kennedy wasn't sure that she wanted to know.

"She says, 'Who would have thought that I would live this long?' She's well over a hundred when she says that."

"That's like a daydream."

"Is it? Kennedy, you don't know it today, but you are a Carnival girl who nests. You will be your entire life and no, I have no idea how long that is or what you say at the end. I usually only get one vision per person. I have tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night with you. Tuesday afternoon you will seek to heal a person's soul and Tuesday night will be the last time we kiss."

Kennedy shook her head. "I think I'm going to be like Amy. I'm going to find someone and settle down."

"Sometimes Second Sight could be better described as 'Second Insight, ' Kennedy. I know your secret, you see. I will never ever tell it to anyone, because gypsies have been plagued forever by those you fight. Before the end of this year you will know the folly of staying too long with one person."

She brightened. "Enough of that! This is now, and the clock is ticking!" She pulled Kennedy tightly to her and kissed her, and Kennedy kissed back for all she was worth. She ignored Deb's fingers undoing her blouse, but it was impossible to miss the fingers that danced over her breasts moments later.

"Oh! Deb! I..."

"Hush, sweetheart! This is a time of wonder, a time of love, a time of delight. Or as they say when you step into a roller coaster: relax and enjoy!"

Kennedy giggled, then undid Deb's blouse. Her breasts were much fuller than Kennedy's, but with very small nipples; nipples that were dark and crinkled. Kennedy reached out and touched one, then the other. She laughed again. "Why does one point up and the other down?"

"My aunt says that's a sign that I don't know if I'm going to stay with girls or try boys. She's wrong there, though! I'll never be with a man!"

They kissed again and this time bare breasts, nipple to nipple rubbed across each other. And when Deb unsnapped Kennedy's jeans, she pushed them down to her knees, but it wasn't possible to kick them away. A moment later Deb's hand slid inside Kennedy's panties, rubbing across the few sparse hairs that graced her pubes, and then rubbed her clit.

It was exquisitely beautiful, electrifying and glorious all at the same time. They kissed again, breast to breast, with Deb's finger now plunging deep inside Kennedy, and Kennedy rode that finger from one orgasm to the next, each better than the one before.

Finally Kennedy could take no more, her knees were trembling and shaking, and the only way she could stand up was to hold onto Deb.

"Deb... words can't say what I feel."

"Pretty good, eh? Now you know the biggest truth of all, Kennedy. Adults want us to hold off from sex as long as we can. It's for two reasons: one, is who would want to do anything else if they had a choice?"

"Yes!" Kennedy said with a laugh.

"That and you realize that while sex is great and wonderful, tomorrow in the cold light of day, you'll realize that you should have done it sooner, not later. My aunt swears there is another phase, particularly if you mess up and get pregnant -- where you realize maybe adults aren't the total idiots they seem to be. Like I said, I never plan on making that mistake."

"Deb, I like Harriet, I do. I like her a lot. But this... this is all I could ever want or imagine!"

Deb leaned down and kissed one of Kennedy's breasts for several seconds, before standing back up. "Girl, we only have about fifteen minutes before we have to go in. But, trust me about this: this was an appetizer, a snack, a part of foreplay that leads to the real McCoy. Now, I know you don't have any idea of what to do, but I would really, really like it if you'd finger me like I did you."

So Kennedy did just that, right down to the kissing and breast rubbing. It was amusing, she thought after a few minutes. She'd found a position where her finger could move in and out of Deb's place, rubbing her clit on the way. And at the same time, Kennedy's wrist pressed back against her own place, and it was like an electric connection permanently buzzing her clit between her legs.

From below came a loud whistle, like what a football referee used, Kennedy thought. Deb reached down and held Kennedy's hand. "That, my sweet, was just what I needed!" Deb said, breathing hard. "And the whistle is my aunt's way of telling us that we have to get back to the cabin."

They hastily pulled their clothes together, then quickly walked back to the path and then up to the cabin. Amy simply checked them all off her list as they came in.



-------

Chapter 8: Kennedy at the Races


Amy spoke to them before lights out. "A final word, ladies. One person to a bed. In a few minutes it will be eleven and the lights will go out. After lights out, the front porch stops being part of the cabin; you will have to be inside. You may sit at the tables and read, talk or whatever, so long as it's quiet.

"Remember the three monkeys' motto: you see nothing, you hear nothing and you say nothing. Who is with who, doing what is none of your business. Don't make a fuss. If you have a problem, tonight is the night to bring them to me. You are wasting your time if you think I'll share my bed with you. Get dressed for bed, now. You have five more minutes."

Someone spoke up. "What if we sleep bare at home?"

"Then get undressed for bed. If there is anyone here who is body shy, get over it. Tomorrow there are six shower heads for nearly a dozen of you. There are six washbasins and six pots. The stalls have doors, and that's all the privacy you're going to get. If certain things bother you, curl up in bed and pull your blanket over your head and cover your ears with your pillows. There's a reason everyone has two pillows." There were guffaws around the room at that.

A few minutes later Amy came out of her room, wearing a sheer teddy nightgown. Kennedy's eyes almost popped out of her head. Deb's breasts were nice, but they were grapefruit hemispheres with tiny nipples. Amy's breasts were like Kennedy's: smaller and well-shaped. Kennedy was surprised at the pang that ran through her body when she looked at Amy.

Deb came up and blew in her ear. "I'd say a penny for your thoughts, but for some things you don't even need to spend that much!"

"She's pretty," Kennedy said defensively.

"She is indeed. And she's taken as well."

"I know. I like going to the sea coast and looking at the ocean; I can watch the waves for hours. Watching Amy is like that."

"And me?"

Kennedy dropped her voice. "With you I prefer to think of things more active."

Deb nodded at the tables, where there were already two couples sitting, openly making out. "The question is, how much of an exhibitionist are you willing to be?"

"Making out is no problem," Kennedy said confidently.

Deb giggled. "Kennedy, that's more appetizers; more than one girl has lost her virginity at these tables."

"With people watching?" Kennedy's voice went very high, almost a squeak.

"With people watching," Amy agreed. "But it's up to you, Kennedy. Whatever you are comfortable with."

"What are you comfortable with, Deb?"

Deb met her eyes and held them. "Kennedy, unless one or the other of us gets an outstanding camper award and the keys to paradise, this is all we'll have. Even if we both win, it will only be twice. This isn't my first time and you're not the first person I've been with. There's not much I haven't done at this table or another like it."

Kennedy looked back at her and smiled slightly. "I sleep bare at home."

"So do I... Why don't we go get ready for bed? Bring a towel, though."

"A towel?" Kennedy asked.

"You didn't notice your rather damp fingers earlier?" Deb kidded her.

"Well..." she had and had just put it down to experience.

"A towel. The others will get upset if you sit bare on the seats otherwise. You gave me some damp fingers as well, dear."

Kennedy nodded.

In a minute she had her towel and nothing else. It seemed to her if she had the nerve to do what Deb wanted, then it wasn't going to make any difference if she was dressed or not.

What followed was a mixture of confusing emotions. Joy, bliss, discovery... even a little voyeurism. At first they kissed, as passionately as earlier, and then Deb began to play with Kennedy's breasts which led to Kennedy doing the same thing in return. Kennedy was expecting to feel Deb's fingers again, stroking her clit and plunging inside her.

What actually happened was that Deb pulled back and smiled at Kennedy, then slid off the seat and crouched in front of Kennedy, spreading her legs. Deb's tongue traced a damp line over her inner thighs, mildly ticklish.

The worst part for Kennedy was that there was no one to kiss, no one to caress within reach.

She opened her eyes and first looked down at Deb, who was staring intently at Kennedy's most private places. Kennedy was bemused, not understanding why Deb was so fascinated.

It was then Kennedy that lifted her eyes and looked around, though, and the greatest revelation was revealed. They were one of four couples at the table. If you counted Charlotte and Harriet in Charlotte's room, it meant that ten of the fourteen people in the cabin were having sex, just then.

And it was pretty clear that the overwhelmingly favorite position was the one Kennedy and Deb were using: one person crouching in front of the other. When Deb's tongue ran roughly over her clit, Kennedy understood perfectly why it was popular. Fingers were rarely as rough as the tongue, and the roughness felt exquisitely wonderful.

For a few seconds Kennedy concentrated on what she was feeling, and then opened her eyes to check out the last couple. It was an odd position, and Kennedy wasn't sure if any of the positions were very comfortable. The other two were sitting next to each other and one had her leg draped over the other's. As a result hands could easily reach pussies, lips could meet, and an occasional hand would caress a breast.

Watching someone kissing another girl between her legs was interesting, but not nearly as interesting as watching the girl being kissed. The faces were wreathed with smiles, their eyes were closed and heads thrown back, obviously pleasured and happy.

Do I look like that, she wondered? Deb's tongue pressed inside Kennedy and she couldn't think, only feel. When her orgasm subsided, she knew the answer to her own question: yes!

With that, she stopped thinking again, and reached down and tugged Deb back up, where Kennedy kissed her as hard as one person can kiss another. And when the kiss had both of them humming with pleasure, Kennedy pressed her friend into position as she slid down to her knees.

Kennedy had been aware of a strange taste in her mouth after kissing Deb. And when she drew close to the apex of Deb's legs, she recognized the same general muskiness that she'd tasted before. That was what she tasted like! It was bizarre and kinky, Kennedy thought, to know what you tasted like down there! But it wasn't bad and Deb tasted just fine and her moans spurred Kennedy on.

She had only the dimmest idea of what to do. It had been clear the Deb was right, she'd done it before and thus was experienced. Kennedy wasn't experienced, but she more than made up for that with enthusiasm.

All too soon, Amy coughed in the doorway. "Okay ladies, time to get some sleep."

Kennedy got up from her position, with Deb offering a hand. They smiled at each other, then Kennedy walked with Deb, whose bed was closer to the tables than Kennedy's. "That was nice," Deb whispered.

"Yes."

"Tomorrow during the day we're supposed to be nice, smiling cherubs without a sexual thought in our heads. But there's tomorrow night!"

Kennedy grinned. "I'm getting up early to work out. I'll think of you!"

"Ladies," Amy called softly from the hall, "bed!"

Kennedy went to her own bed and settled in. She was surprisingly tired, and she smiled to herself as the memories of the day flooded through her mind. Evidently making love was a good aerobic exercise. Her brain held one thought as she drifted away on soft clouds. Tonight I was made love to, and I made love to someone that I didn't know at dinner time.

It seemed like only an instant had passed when she opened her eyes again. She grinned to herself. She'd had a couple of glasses of punch last night and for the first time in a long time she wasn't sure if she could make it until morning.

Trying to be as quiet as she could, she got up and padded down the hallway between bunks to the bathroom.

She finished and went to wash her hands; another girl was standing at one of the wash basins doing the same thing. "Sticky fingers," the girl said, her voice a soft whisper.

Kennedy nodded, then remembered that the girl was the one who had the bunk above her. And who hadn't been one of the other couples. She was, Kennedy realized, saying she'd masturbated.

The girl smiled at her. "I'm Karen Spence."

"Upstairs on my bunk bed," Kennedy said, remembering her. Finally, someone she could remember!

"Yeah! You and Deb were hot tonight! I love to watch someone's first time."

Kennedy blushed, but the other girl laughed. Karen leaned close, her lips an inch from Kennedy's ear. "In a few days if you want to expand your horizons, think of me, sweetie! I'll be thinking of you!"

Kennedy smiled and said in a quiet whisper, "And before today I thought I was the only one who thought about sex 24/7."

"Not even close, sweetie! And if you think girls are bad, you need to get naked with some guys; any guy. Promise them sex and they'll do anything for you at all!"

Kennedy shrugged. "I'm not sure I want to make anyone do anything."

Karen giggled. "You make me a little crazy girl; there is nothing I like better than bare pubes. A mouthful of hair is all right if you must, but I'm not a cat and spitting up furballs isn't my favorite thing."

Kennedy blushed. She had almost no hair between her legs, while Deb had considerably more, although it was neatly trimmed away from her labia. Thinking about Deb brought pangs to Kennedy's mid-section. She looked at Karen and saw Karen was staring between Kennedy's legs. After a second her eyes lifted and met Kennedy's. Again Karen leaned close. "Sweetie, care to expand those horizons right now?"

Kennedy swallowed. What about Deb? What about Harriet? Why was she aching with need inside her, confusing her in more ways than she thought possible?

Karen's voice was so soft and seductive! "Say the word, Kennedy, and I'll give you a nice smile to start the day!"

Kennedy considered moving away, but her body was demanding something different. She nodded slightly, unsure of her voice. Karen leaned close and kissed Kennedy's neck, while her hand slid over her stomach. "Relax, enjoy, think about nothing else, let me do this for you," Karen whispered. "We don't have much time, they'll be upset with us if we're caught."

Karen's touch was completely different than Deb's, her finger inside Kennedy didn't just rub, it explored. And then Karen found a spot inside Kennedy that made her gasp lightly, right on the edge of an orgasm. Karen seemed to know that she'd found something interesting and her finger now moved to the magic spot and rubbed repeatedly.

Sensations blasted through Kennedy, even sharper than the ones Deb had produced. She trembled and shook for a few seconds, then Karen stopped, pulling her hand away from Kennedy. "Mmmmm," Karen whispered. "Gooey fingers again!

"Smile for me tomorrow," Karen whispered, then she vanished back into the main room of the cabin.

Kennedy stood with her legs trembling, as if she'd run for miles and miles. Her breathing was in ragged gasps, and she felt flush. She turned and looked at herself in the mirror. What kind of person had she become? A while ago she was marveling at making love to someone she'd known for a few hours. Now she'd let a girl finger her, a girl whose name she had learned a minute before she let her do it! And Kennedy had wanted it! She wanted her to do it!

She went back to her bunk, glancing at Karen as she got close. Karen's eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep already. Still, Kennedy smiled for her and got into her bunk. The instant her head hit the pillow she was asleep herself.

Amy woke her up a few hours later. "Kennedy, time to get up!"

Kennedy blinked in surprise, looking around. She'd forgotten to get up! That had never happened before! Not ever!

She apologized and got her things for the shower. Amy was already under one of the shower heads when Kennedy got there, soaping all over. Kennedy found she had trouble keeping her eyes off Amy, particularly her breasts. Still, a few times Kennedy glanced at her pubic hair as well, which Amy had trimmed into two lines, thin at the ends, thicker in the middle, that came down towards her labia like eyebrows over her eyes.

Amy met Kennedy's eyes, her eyes alight with mirth. "I'd have thought you had enough last night to last you for a while."

Kennedy sighed. "I never did it before. I don't know what to say; it isn't at all like I imagined. For one thing, I have trouble wanting to do anything else."

"You'll be okay in a day or two, trust me," Amy said. "Once the joy and wonder settle into perspective, you realize that eating is good too. And when you admit that eating is good, you find other things you'll do instead of making love. But you're right: the cravings never go away. I have a grandmother in her seventies and she tells dirty jokes."

"I'm sorry about not getting up on time," Kennedy told her.

"Don't worry about it. Right now, concentrate on getting washed, not my pussy. Then we'll run off some of that energy!"

They did just that. There were only a dozen girls from the entire camp who showed up for stretching exercises, then a mile run. Amy explained to the other girls, including Kennedy. "This path is the boundary line. You'll see a fence to your right as we run, except when we're down by the lake. Going past that boundary without permission is the biggest no-no here, no matter what Lauren said last night.

"People have sweet-talked her into second chances for sneaking between cabins, fornicating in the showers and the like. Even accidentally raining on someone's parade. But not for leaving camp."

When they finished their run, they did some more exercises. Kennedy missed her weights and other apparatus, she missed standing in front of a mirror and swinging Lady Kennedy for half an hour or hour, as time permitted.

Then back for another quick shower, then getting ready for breakfast.

She walked with Deb, although she did smile for Karen first. They reached the part of the path where you could see out over the lake, and Deb stopped, letting everyone else go ahead. Harriet grinned at Kennedy as she and Charlotte went by, but Charlotte didn't say anything.

"Did you like last night?" Deb asked.

Kennedy wanted to hug her. "I loved last night, you don't have to ask. I promise."

"Good. Look, I'm not blind and I'm not stupid. I'm not mad or upset with you, and I swear I never will be. But there are quite a few of the others who are looking at you and licking their lips. I've been there myself, Kennedy, I know what it's like. After a while, you'll take someone up on the offer. That's who you are, Kennedy. Don't be ashamed of it. I'm a little like that, just not as much. When you move on, don't worry about me; I have no intention of being celibate the rest of the two weeks."

"It seems like betrayal to already be planning on not being with each other."

"Kennedy, you live half the state away from me. I know -- I looked you up in the camp records. After these two weeks the next likely time we'll see each other is next year. And next year I'll be a counselor. One thing my dear aunt doesn't like is a counselor who spends two weeks with just one of the girls. Zero or many is her philosophy. I'm not sure why it matters, but it does to her." She nodded at the dining hall. "Come on, we don't want to be late. If we're too late, we'll get stuck with cleanup again."

A half dozen girls came in after them, and Deb was right: Lauren picked them to clean up after the morning meal.

There were a few more announcements, then they went back to the cabins for a few minutes to make sure it was clean and neat. That didn't take long, and when they were done, Kennedy went out on the porch, looking over the trees and a trace of blue lake in the near distance.

Harriet came and stood next to her. "Do you think I'm a rat for last night?" Harriet asked straight out.

Kennedy turned to her. "I said I wouldn't be upset. Besides, I'm a total hypocrite. Because I was made love to last night and made love back to her. I'm still amazed that I would do something like that with someone I'd just met."

"It was easier, I think," Harriet said, looking at the trees herself. "At least for me. There were no concerns about 'Am I going to ruin my friendship' and all of that."

Kennedy thought about that. She'd certainly shown no shyness herself last night. Not with Deb, not with Karen.

"I found something else about myself last night," Harriet said, dropping her voice.

Kennedy arched an eyebrow in question and Harriet continued to whisper. "I learned about butterflies and nesters, carnival girls and quickies."

Kennedy nodded; she'd learned about most of those herself.

"I think I'm going to be a carnival girl," Harriet told Kennedy. "Someone who, the rest of the year, is reserved and shy, maybe one lover, but no more. But here, for the two weeks of camp... I'm going to pig out."

"Mr. Glastonbury has said maybe a million times that it isn't good for people like me to make permanent attachments, because it's dangerous for them and dangerous for me. Honestly, he's more concerned about the danger for me... but I'm not him. I care about my friends."

"Well, you tell Mr. Glastonbury to start taking you on more Faire days. You and I can share a tent and..." She grinned. "We can show each other what we've learned."

"Harriet, you are my first and best friend, that's never going to change, no matter what. All I can do with Mr. Glastonbury is ask. It's true my stepfather is his boss, but it's just about impossible to get Mr. Glastonbury to do something he doesn't want to."

"Well, you said something once about crying."

Kennedy laughed. "That works on my father. Mr. Glastonbury gives me Siskel and Ebert thumbs up or down on my performance."

"Bummer!" The two of them shared a laugh, and then it was time for the first morning activity period.

Mr. Waterman had two sculls sitting on the ground in front of the boathouse when Deb and Kennedy walked up. He looked at Deb and nodded. "Strong enough! Very good!" He motioned at Kennedy. "New girl, let me feel muscles." He held up his arm and flexed it, like a muscle builder would do. At least that was what Kennedy interpreted his actions to be, because he was wearing heavy gloves, a long slicker and a nor'easter hat.

She flexed for him and he ran his finger over her arm. He nodded and gestured at the closest scull. "Lift boat."

Kennedy walked up to it and considered it for a second. It was close to thirty feet long, she thought. Obviously you didn't pick it up at one end. She picked it up in the middle, lifted it a few inches, saw how it balanced, put it back down and shifted her grip and lifted it easily. For something so big, it was surprisingly light.

Mr. Waterman grunted. "You, girl," he waved at Deb. "You show how lift, how carry, how to put boat in water."

Kennedy watched Deb launch the boat, then when Mr. Waterman gestured, she launched hers the same way.

"Get in boat," he told Deb. Again Kennedy watched as she got in, then further as she started adjusting things.

"Now, you. Go slow, be careful. Boat tip over, you get cold, wet."

Kennedy did just that, getting in slowly and carefully. Mr. Waterman simply hopped into the lake next to the little pier. The water was, Kennedy saw, maybe three feet deep, if that.

Mr. Waterman walked around her scull until he was standing next to her. He tapped one small outrigger on the side he was on. "Training wheels, like bicycle!"

Kennedy contemplated mentioning she'd never ridden a bike, then decided it didn't matter. The concept of training wheels wasn't hard to figure out, either. He showed her what everything was and how to adjust things for herself.

Finally he grunted. "Ready to row?"

Kennedy nodded, looking along the pier to where Deb was patiently waiting. "Yes, I'm ready."

"Follow older girl. Go slow, go steady, feel the boat. Go hundred yards, turn around and come back."

Kennedy looked around. "Is there a rudder? I don't see one."

"Steer with oar. Slow down with oar. Only thing you don't do with oar is fall in lake. You do that yourself." He had an odd, barking laugh that was, Kennedy found, mildly infectious and she ended up giggling.

"I won't fall in."

He grinned and waved at Deb.

Deb started off slowly, pulling away from the pier. Mr. Waterman tugged on Kennedy's boat, getting it further away from pier. "Next time, one go in water, then you go in water. Use end of pier, easier to do with oars."

Kennedy nodded, and carefully dug in with one oar, and found herself curving towards the pier. He reached out and stopped boat. "Other oar. Use oar on side you want to turn toward."

Kennedy grimaced. Okay, so it wasn't immediately intuitive. But, if she could figure out a trampoline, she could figure out a scull. She moved steadily, learning that it didn't take much difference in the pull on the oars to change directions. After a minute or so, she was cutting a nice, clean, and above all, straight line through the water. Deb swept into a turn ahead of her, curving further out into the lake. Kennedy dug in with her right oar and turned much more quickly than Deb had.

She laughed at herself. If she didn't have training wheels, right then she'd have been communing with the fishes about going too fast through the turn.

She pulled in alongside Deb, this time outboard of the pier. Mr. Watermen grunted. "Very good. Now, again, row a few hundred yards this way." He pointed at Kennedy's hands. "Sore?"

She shook her head. An oar was a lot smoother than Lady Kennedy's hilt. No problem at all!

So she and Deb rowed along the shore of the lake. Kennedy was aware that Deb was slowly going faster, but she didn't have to struggle even a tiny bit to keep up. Her turn was much better and she wouldn't have needed training wheels.

As a joke, Kennedy pulled a little further out towards the lake, and then dug harder, sailing past Deb just before they reached the pier.

Again, it was embarrassing because, Deb stopped at the pier while Kennedy went flying past where she was supposed to stop. She slowed and turned and came back. Instead of Mr. Waterman being angry, he was walking back from the boathouse with a scull like hers, except longer and even thinner.

"Girls want race?"

Deb laughed. "Not hardly." She turned to Kennedy. "No one has come close to beating Mr. Waterman."

"How far?" Kennedy asked.

Mr. Waterman pointed. "Rock. Laser say, .95 mile from end of dock. There, turn and come back." He leaned down and tossed something to Kennedy. It was a piece of blue rope, about six feet long. "Put in boat. Use for tow when poop out half way."

He pointed to Deb. "You, girl. Row more. Need more practice. Forgot much."

Deb frowned. "I practice twice a month."

"Need better practice, move arms wrong, move legs wrong, don't sit straight. Watch me. Watch other girl. She sit straight, move legs okay, move arms very good. Maybe good race!"

He pointed again, still talking to Deb. "Go twenty yards from dock, make start line with scull." He turned to Kennedy. "Line front of boat with her boat, understand? I say go, and we go."

"I understand," Kennedy told him.

They lined up and he said quietly, "Go!"

And so Kennedy went. She knew she was being stupid and showing off. She had never rowed that far, she had no idea of how to pace herself in a boat. Of course she ran and worked out. She knew pretty much the signs when she was getting tired. She would watch her breathing, and when it got to the point it was the same as when she was jogging, she'd leave it there.

In the short time she'd thought about it, Mr. Waterman was perhaps twenty yards ahead of her and getting further away with each stroke of his oars. She pulled harder, then harder still, ratcheting things up slowly. He was perhaps two hundred yards ahead when the distance between them stopped going up and started going down.

Kennedy snorted. She was barely breathing hard! She pulled harder, then realized that she was pulling about as hard as she could. Which meant she had to pull more often. She grinned and lowered the pull and increased the speed. She moved even more quickly through the water.

She reached her sweet spot and saw the distance was falling steadily. She judged the distance to the rock, and smiled. She'd be a little behind him at the rock, and way out in front before they were halfway back.

She relaxed and simply enjoyed the morning sun, the rush of the water and the air past her. Her muscles were working well and she felt uninhibited and free. She giggled then. Well, she was pretty inhibited, actually, because as much as she wanted to make love, there was no way to row like this and make love.

She watched Mr. Waterman as he put his scull into a turn around the rock. He turned more quickly than Kennedy did, leaning away from the turn. Oh! To offset the pull, Kennedy thought. There was no way to do it that way herself, because she'd slowed down too much.

She'd been about twenty yards behind Mr. Waterman when he started the turn, and about a hundred yards behind when she lined up afterwards.

She smiled to herself. It had been less than ten minutes! She could go all day like this! She sped up and started gaining on him again. Half way, she thought, she'd pass him halfway. Better to do it sooner rather than later. And what if had a little in reserve? She grinned at that. She had a bottomless pit of energy available.

It was glorious, she thought. Not as fine as swinging Lady Kennedy, but more fun than just about anything else. Well, except sex and that was still new.

She pulled still harder and faster, just as she saw he was doing the same thing. She grinned and pushed up to her best. She was still overtaking him, but it was much slower. She looked ahead. A quarter mile.

She grit her teeth and went even faster still, her mind a blur of oars and muscles, just the exertion and always, always her eyes were on her goal. They flashed past the end of the pier. Mr. Waterman put his oars up and started to coast. Kennedy did the same thing. A foot, she thought. She'd gotten within a foot of beating him.

Losing wasn't new to her. Mr. Glastonbury was always challenging her to contests, mostly with him. Whether it was bows, crossbows, swords, lifting weights or simply running, he always won. And Kennedy was confident that someday she'd beat him -- it just hadn't happened yet.

She curved back to the dock and Mr. Waterman hopped out and into the water, lifted his boat over his shoulder. "Enough, I think," he told Kennedy. "Get out of boat, into water, lift boat, carry to boathouse. I show how to wipe down."



-------

Chapter 9: Kennedy and the Sheriff


Kennedy's first clue that something was wrong was when she pressed down to lift up from the boat. Her shoulders and arms hurt. When she lifted the boat, beads of sweat popped out on her forehead and she fought not to drop the boat. Her back screamed in pain, her arms, shoulders... even her legs were in agony.

She gritted her teeth and straightened up, the boat on her shoulder. Mr. Waterman's scull was floating loose a few feet away; he was nowhere to be seen. Kennedy's eyes came to light on a shape she knew and loathed. Agent Larkin!

She put her boat back into the water and hopped up on the pier, the pain forgotten. Larkin had his arm around Deb's throat, her arm twisted behind her back.

"This time, Miss Kennedy, I will get some answers," he told her.

"Let her go or I'll break every bone in your body," Kennedy told him, her voice low and full of menace.

"Yeah, I imagine you could, couldn't you? How is that, little girl?"

Deb took a deep breath, preparatory to screaming, Kennedy thought.

The FBI agent twisted her arm and Deb grunted with pain. "I told you, girl, be quiet, be good and I won't hurt you. Otherwise I will," Larkin told Deb.

"Last chance," Kennedy told him, moving closer.

She heard gravel crunching, a lot of gravel, something heavy and fast. A police car shot around the corner, lights flashing, but the engine and sirens off. It slid to a hard stop, spitting gravel and dust.

A man in a tan police uniform was out of the car, resting his forearms on the hood, a large pistol in his hands, pointed at the FBI agent.

"Let the girl go, easy now!"

"I'm a Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent, officer. This is official business."

"Let the girl go!" the policeman's voice was granite hard, and obviously not interested in a discussion.

In the distance were sirens now, several sirens.

Larkin let Deb's arm drop and he pushed her roughly away.

"I told you, I'm a Special Agent of the FBI, I have my ID..." he started to reach into his coat pocket.

"Mister, the instant I can't see that hand, you'll eat a 9mm slug. And since I'll have already shot you once, why, I'll do it a couple more times, to make sure you don't sue me for excessive force. Lock your hands behind your head!"

Larkin glared at the policeman. "I promise you, we won't forget this!"

"What pumpkin patch did you hatch in?" the cop said. "You had one arm around the girl's throat, her arm twisted behind her and were dragging her towards the boathouse. If I shoot you, I'll pick up the last half dozen people in the county who voted against me in the last election."

"Look, I talked to the office, they gave me permission to talk to the young woman. I was showing her a judo hold."

"Yeah, then why did Lauren Tredegar make the call herself, eh?"

Two more police cars arrived, this time engines roaring, sirens wailing. Three more policemen spilled out of them, pistols ready.

"Sergeant, this man says he's an FBI agent. Likely that means he's got a gun and a badge. Give Jim your weapon and then pat him down. Don't get between me and him."

A few minutes later Mr. Larkin was handcuffed, still protesting loudly. Kennedy was holding Deb, who was shaken and scared.

The first policeman, who was evidently the police chief, came back. "Mr. Larkin..." he started to say.

"Special Agent Tom Larkin, FBI Special Agent," the prisoner said.

"Well, funny thing about that, Mr. Larkin. The SAC in New York says he wishes he'd never heard about you, because every time he does it's a new complaint. Usually, he says, that when an agent from another jurisdiction comes to his, they check in with the local office. You, evidently, don't do that. He says, so far as he knows, you work out of Washington, but Washington refuses to tell him why or on what."

There was a lot of back and forth for a few minutes; the police were doing unknowable things. Deputies were going around interviewing people, although Kennedy and Deb were strangely exempt.

Then they were together again, everyone at once, the Sheriff talking.

"When I apprised the New York FBI Special Agent in Charge of the facts, that is, with my own eyes I saw Larkin with his arm around a teenage girl's throat, her arm twisted behind her back and was attempting to drag her into a darkened building, well, I'm afraid he told me that officially all he can say is that Larkin was an FBI agent the last time someone complained, but he doesn't know if he is here on official business or for some other reason.

"Larkin has demanded that we talk to Washington, to confirm his status. That call is still pending.

"State law requires me to verify the ID of anyone claiming to be a Federal Bureau of Investigations Special Agent, stating the New York City SAC is my contact. As I said before, he failed to provide that verification. In any case, it is moot. Larkin is under arrest for the attempted rape of a young girl, older than twelve and younger than eighteen."

The sheriff turned to Deb. "Miss, I'm sorry, I really am, but we're going to need to ask you some questions in a formal interview." He met Lauren's eyes.

"Miss Tredegar, I'd like to get in touch with the parents of these young women. I can't legally interview either of them until they are here."

"Deb is my niece, Sheriff Roberts. I can stand in for her family; I have a power of attorney from them. I'm afraid her father is rather old school and so are her uncles. It would be better to let this blow over for a few days, and then I'll tell them."

"Ma'am, this isn't going to blow over in a few days. I saw him, Miss Tredegar. You are going to have to call them."

"But he's an FBI agent, I heard what you said a few minutes ago."

"I don't care if he's Santa Claus," the sheriff said. "I saw him myself. Child rape and even attempted child rape is a serious class one felony, and I can guarantee you the county prosecutor will demand that he be held without bail, 'cause that's the state law. Judge Oleskowitz is a bit of a hardnose, particularly with three granddaughters and two grown daughters."

"But he's an FBI agent..." Lauren repeated.

"Still doesn't excuse it, ma'am." He turned to Kennedy. "Miss Kennedy?"

"Yes, sir."

"I talked to your tutor yesterday, he said I could ask you about what happened the first time, but like Miss Saunders I can't ask about what happened here unless your parents are present. Still, I need as much as possible to hold the man. Off the record, then, Miss Kennedy, this Agent Larkin tried to get you to go off with him once before? Alone?"

"Yes, sir. It wasn't really possible, not at the Renaissance Faire. My tutor showed up and the Grand Marshal of the Faire, he's a sergeant in the Pennsylvania State Police, did as well. The Grand Marshal's constables made Mr. Larkin leave."

The policeman turned to Lauren. "It's called 'pattern of behavior, ' Lauren. I would be remiss in my duties to let someone with that kind of pattern of behavior loose. So would the county prosecutor and Judge Oleskowitz. All of us have to stand for election, you understand?" He nodded at Kennedy, "With her testimony, if we check some of the other complaints against him and find similar stories, that man is looking at ten to twenty years in prison."

"For twisting my arm?" Even Deb seemed surprised.

"No, for what was next. For some things, we don't need a road map."

"He wanted to ask Kennedy questions. He told me that if I was quiet, he wouldn't hurt me. But then he told Kennedy that if she didn't answer his questions, he'd hurt me."

"Miss, there will be time enough for all of the questions we have, shortly. First we have to assemble all the parties. Tomorrow, I expect. Or maybe the day after, if his lawyer has to come from Washington. I'll keep you posted, Lauren."

"Thank you, Sheriff. I'm sorry about all this..." Lauren told him.

He shook his head. "Lauren, you did the right thing. Your niece did the right thing. Young Miss Kennedy did the right thing... everyone did the right thing except this Larkin person. I was told in advance about the possibility of a problem. You called me when you saw a stranger sneaking through the camp. I was having coffee down at the restaurant, so I was close to hand. We changed our patrol schedules to make sure there were always a couple of cars close. Piece of cake!"

The police left with their chief leading the parade of cars, Larkin handcuffed in the back of one of the cars.

Lauren shooed people away, trying to get things back on schedule. Kennedy turned, prepared to get her boat out of the water. Both of the sculls were gone.

She blinked, wondering just how Mr. Waterman had put away two thirty foot sculls without anyone seeing him. And he must have seen Agent Larkin as they got close to the dock.

"I should finish my lesson," Kennedy said to Lauren. She saw the woman look at her strangely.

"Wait a second," she turned to Deb. "He grabbed you; I understand that. Did he touch you, bother you, try to molest you?"

"Well, yeah, he touched me. But not intimately. Please, don't tell my father about this. He'd just go..."

"Yes, I know what he'd do." She looked around. "Deb, I'm going to ask a favor of you. I don't want you to lie, do you understand? But unless they ask you something specific about Kennedy, don't say anything about her at all. Not a bit. I'll get the lawyer here and he'll talk to you, but he'll tell you the same thing. Keep your answers short and direct to the question. Volunteer nothing. Leave Kennedy out of this if you can. If you must, say the very least that you can."

"Why?"

Lauren shook her head. "Please, Deb, if you ask questions and I answer them, then you may be asked questions that you know the answers to. This is about the People, dear. Better if you don't have to lie."

"And ignorance is better?"

Lauren sighed. "You already know some answers, and you know the weight the People place on keeping the knowledge safe. There is much more that you don't know in the same vein, so to speak."

Kennedy picked up on that and stuck out her tongue at Lauren.

Lauren laughed and said softly, "Promises, promises."

Kennedy shook her head, but she was laughing too.

"You two are so mysterious!" Deb said in frustration.

"Kennedy, I will leave it to you to explain it to Deb. Or not. But not for a few days."

Kennedy saw Mr. Waterman standing a few feet away. He was very good, she realized at coming and going without being seen.

"Kennedy, please, I have a terrible bump of curiosity!"

Kennedy took a step forward to her and took her hand. "If you ask me again, I will say a little. Not very much, because there isn't much to say. Listen to your aunt, Deb."

"Please, Kennedy. He had me by the throat. You owe me for that."

"No, I don't," Kennedy said roughly. "I owe him for that. And he better not be in a position where I can collect any time soon."

She looked at Deb for a long second, then waved at Mr. Waterman. "Do you know who he is? I mean, really, what he is?"

Deb paled. "I can't talk about it, Kennedy. I'm sorry. That's personal, private business."

"I saw him and my first instinct was to lop off his head with my sword."

"Your sword?" Deb shook her head confused. "You have a sword?"

"Not with me, which I really regret. If I ever come here again, I'm going to need to think of an excuse to keep her with me."

"Your sword is a her?"

Kennedy smiled. "Yes, for all that's she's a bastard sword."

Deb blinked suddenly and her mouth opened wide in shock. "Oh. A sword?"

Kennedy nodded. "I did bring a stake; they're easier to conceal in your luggage."

"A stake! You're..." her voice trailed away.

"Not real," Mr. Waterman said. "Close, but not yet. Not real. Real, and Waterman not come close in race. Young one, I teach you many good things. How to sit straighter, how to move feet, legs. Very sore, eh?"

"Very sore," Kennedy agreed.

"Wait," he said, and vanished into the boathouse.

Deb stared at Kennedy. "I never was sure about the stories, not until I met Mr. Waterman. Even then... it's hard to believe."

"In the three years since I saw a vampire turn to dust and blow away in the wind," Kennedy said bluntly, "I've tried a dozen explanations in my mind to explain what I saw. Mr. Glastonbury is not going to be happy with me about all this."

In fact, Kennedy was amazed he wasn't there already.

Mr. Waterman returned with a water glass and handed it and two white pills to Kennedy. Kennedy looked at the pills. "They look like aspirin," she said with a laugh.

"Aspirin good for muscles aches. Take."

Kennedy laughed harder and took them.

It was nearly lunchtime and Lauren had Deb and Kennedy sit in her office, just resting. "Don't talk, don't do anything. Relax, unwind. Meditation is extremely good at a time like this."

Kennedy smiled. About six months before she asked Mr. Glastonbury why, with all of his mystical teaching, he'd not tried to teach her how to meditate.

"Miss Kennedy, there are some tasks even Hercules would not undertake. Teaching someone your age even the merest hint of patience is one of those. True meditation? Not possible!"

So of course, she'd practiced trying to meditate ever since. She was pretty sure he was trying to be clever, to get her to learn how on her own.

So, she did just that. She folded her legs underneath her and let her heartbeat slow, turned inward and drifted.

It was very relaxing to do this she found, and there were times that even a few minutes meditating were as good as several hours of sleep.

Suddenly the world twisted and she was falling. Startled she put her hands out to stop the fall. She thumped painfully onto the floor, a graceless sprawl.

Deb was outraged. "He saw you and walked over and just pushed you over!" She turned to Mr. Glastonbury and shook her finger at him. "What kind of teacher are you?"

"A teacher with a responsibility to his student. You can sleep with one eye open. You meditate for however long you've decided to in advance, ignoring what's going on around you."

"And here," Kennedy said, picking herself painfully off the floor, "I thought you were just being clever when you said there was no point in teaching meditation to thirteen-year-olds."

"That, too. If you were sixteen I'd have explained it more like this."

He turned to Deb and looked at her for a moment, then turned back to Kennedy and studied her for a moment.

Not possible! Kennedy thought. He couldn't look at them and tell!

"Miss Kennedy, I left something of yours in Lauren Tredegar's office closet. It looks like an old cane, and will look like that so long as your hand isn't on the hilt. I'm going home now."

"Home?" Kennedy asked, surprised.

"Yes. The sheriff assures me that the sun is more likely to explode than for Larkin to get out of jail any time soon. The sheriff is an interesting man, a very interesting man. He got a search warrant for Larkin's hotel room and his car; while he was at it, he got a subpoena for all the New York FBI office's records about complaints against Larkin. That will be served tomorrow. I wish I could be there; I expect there will be some real fireworks."

"Why do you say that?" Kennedy asked.

He grinned. "An exasperated boss might say some things in the heat of the moment to a fellow law enforcement professional than what he should have said. Actually producing the records that could send an FBI agent up the river... well, like as not those records will be in the shredder later today, as soon as he realizes that they are serious here.

"It was true with both Nixon and Reagan: what their minions did wasn't good, but it was the cover-up that put people in jail and ended Nixon's presidency and came close to costing Reagan his."

He waved at her. "And why are you moving so funny?"

"Because I raced Mr. Waterman this morning in a scull."

"I hope being soundly trounced taught you something."

"What taught me something was losing by a foot. I learned that rowing and all the other exercises I do use mutually exclusive sets of muscles."

"It hurts, does it?"

"Yes, sir, it hurts. Mr. Waterman was quite accommodating and very sympathetic. He gave me two aspirin."

"And you took them?"

"Yes, why not? I'm feeling much better." She stretched her legs. In fact, her legs hardly hurt at all. "I banged up my knees pretty good and now they hardly hurt. I can't feel the muscle aches at all."

He stared at her intently, then knelt and looked at her knees. "So," he announced. Kennedy had no idea what he meant.

He stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head. "I'll talk to you when you get home. Try to stay out of trouble between now and then."

"Which is why you left me my sword in the closet?" Kennedy said, grasping at the contradiction.

"I said try to stay out of trouble. That you will actually do it -- not very likely."

He grinned. "Tell Harriet I talked to her mother last night, and I'll talk to her some more tomorrow night. She's well."

"So is Harriet."

He left then with a casual wave.

"Come, girls, you need to get lunch," Lauren told them.

They got up and went and joined their table. Lunch was just getting started, but once Deb was present there were a continual stream of questions directed at her. At first Kennedy was a little miffed, then she realized it was probably for the best.

After lunch they went up to the cabin and everyone clustered around Deb, wanting to dissect her story in every detail. It was, Kennedy thought as she sat on her bed watching, a little funny. Moreover, it was clear the Deb had taken her aunt's admonition literally, and was telling the story sans Kennedy.

Karen came and sat down next to Kennedy. "Aren't you interested?" she asked Kennedy. "She's your friend."

"I have an advantage the rest of you don't have," Kennedy told her.

"What's that?"

"I was six feet away trying to figure out a way to distract him so I could try to get Deb away from him. Then the sheriff guy was there and anything I did would have only have been in the way."

"Both of you, then, are taking it very well."

Kennedy shrugged. "I'm not sure what he wanted. I'd think a guy who was going to rape someone would grope her a time or two when he had his arm around her. He didn't. Deb stayed cool; I stayed cool. That's the extent of it. If it had looked like he was really going to hurt her..." Kennedy's voice trailed off.

This was something she had to ask Mr. Glastonbury about. Okay, not harming innocent people, or even pain in the bottoms like Ruby, was easy to understand. But Mr. Glastonbury had said the dark forces had human allies. What about them?

Kennedy shucked out of her jeans and looked at her knees. Earlier they had felt like raw wounds. Now there was nothing but a fading bruise on the outside of each knee that looked three or four days old. She went and got a fresh pair of jeans, since she'd been in the lake. It was a very green lake, she thought. Then she smiled. No wonder Mr. Waterman could come and go -- he was a water demon! He could swim as well as any fish, in water as opaque as coffee!

She worked her arms and shoulders. There was no pain, none. What had Mr. Glastonbury said several times about Slayers? That they took injuries that would put a normal person in the hospital and were good as new in a couple of days. She remembered the blows that the vampires had hit Amanda with. She should have been crushed, bones broken, her flesh badly bruised. She'd ignored it, as if it didn't matter at all. Was it because it didn't matter at all?

Then it was time for the first afternoon activity and that was hiking. Kennedy put on a good pair of boots and assembled with the group in front of the office. She glanced at the building, remembering that Lady Kennedy was in there. She felt enormously better and vowed that before the day was out she was going to wrap her hand around the hilt of her sword and let her sing a song or two. Garry Owen still wasn't very good, but it didn't matter.

The woman in charge of the group introduced herself. "I'm Steffie Owens, the counselor from Nightingale cabin. With me, my trusty junior counselor, Cindy Parks."

Steffie was tall and thin, burned brown by the sun. Her hair was bleached blonde by the sun as well. "Usually I'm a California surfer girl, but a friend got me this gig here. I've never been to New York before, so try to remember I have no idea what a New York minute is."

There were laughs and Kennedy looked at the second counselor. She was short, maybe four and a half feet tall. She had flaming red hair and was wearing a pack that was taller than she was.

Steffie waved at her assistant. "Cindy is going from here to Outward Bound in Colorado for the advanced rock climbing class. If any of you want to feel puny, offer to carry her pack. Don't expect to carry it far because, quite literally, it's filled with rocks."

She waved around them. "We are two point one miles from Janack's Landing, over the ridge there. There's a trail of sorts, and later this week we'll make it a better trail. Two point one miles out and back, four and a fifth miles, total. We have an hour.

"Please, I can walk until I drop, snooze for fifteen minutes and walk another couple of hours. If I let Cindy set the pace, she'd run it and be back here in half an hour. We'll take it relatively slow today, and use the entire hour. Stick with us and before you leave, four miles will be a warm-up you can do in half an hour."

Kennedy doubted if she would have any problems. She ran further than that faster than that and she wasn't carrying a pack. She glanced around to see who else was in the hiking group. She stopped when she saw Ruby. Just what she needed!

And Ruby saw Kennedy was looking at her and flipped Kennedy a bird. Wonderful! Just wonderful! Larkin in the morning and Goldberg in the afternoon! A wonderful bookend for the day!

Ruby went to the head of the line, so Kennedy dropped back towards the rear. In no time, the leaders were getting further away, while a couple of the girls lagged. Kennedy realized that Cindy wasn't happy with the laggards, and was grouchy and sarcastic, which seemed to make the two girls go slower, not faster.

Kennedy spoke to Cindy. "Look, why don't you go a bit ahead, walk fast... just a hundred yards or so, so you can see us. Turn around and walk fast back, pass us and go another hundred yards..."

Cindy snorted. "You're what, fourteen?"

"Thirteen," Kennedy admitted.

"Oh, that's so much better! Yeah! I'll just leave these two clueless morons with a thirteen-year-old. Look, girl, the pay here isn't much, but what I earn this summer pays for Outward Bound. If I get bounced from here, the next camp will probably let me go, too. Thanks, but no thanks!"

"I'm not saying leave; I'm simply saying a hundred yards, something you can run in fifteen seconds, easy."

"Look, I don't need a thirteen-year-old telling me how to do my job, okay? Next time Steffie can have the rear. I can deal with tweedle-dumb and tweedle-dumber."

"Maybe you wouldn't have to deal with them if you spoke nicely to them. Maybe they're just yanking your chain."

"You're pretty big for your britches, girl."

"Compared to you, I am."

Kennedy was sure that was going to upset the other girl and it did.

"Why don't you carry my pack, smart ass?"

One of the two girls spoke up, addressing Kennedy. "She's a dyke; you don't want anything to do with her."

"What's a dyke?" Kennedy asked.

The two girls started laughing.

"I like feminine girls," Cindy told Kennedy. "And dumb and dumber just got themselves skunked, because we don't talk about what happens in our cabins, do we?"

The two paled suddenly.

"Frankly," Kennedy said, remembering a movie line, "I don't give a damn. They are stupid, Cindy, I agree. But I don't think mean vicious low lifes should be skunks. Is there a rat cabin?"

Cindy thought that was funny. "We're wasting time. Steffie will think I'm a goof-off if we don't get a lot further a lot faster than we're going now. Please, I'll forget it. Just get your asses in gear."

The two girls exchanged glances and set off at a jog.

"Well, can you run as well as you talk?" Cindy said to Kennedy.

"Sure, you should join us in the morning to work out."

Cindy laughed. "Gosh, run a mile... gosh wow! I run eight miles in the morning and eight more in the evening. I get to do that because I'm a growed-up counselor. That's why I've got these damn rocks in my pack. Now, either run or I'll kick your ass."

Kennedy smiled and turned and started running. She quickly passed the other two, caught up to the rear of Steffie's main group, turned around and came back, falling in next to Cindy.

"Piece of cake," Kennedy said. "I only run five miles in the mornings, but if I take longer than thirty minutes, my tutor gets on my case, and I have to try again before dinner, plus my usual five miles then, too."

Cindy laughed. "Don't you just love coaches!"

Kennedy contemplated reminding Cindy that she didn't have a coach, she had a tutor, but Cindy speeded up and they rapidly overhauled the main group well before they reached their destination. It was an unprepossessing wooden landing, with a covered shelter a few feet away.

They stopped and Steffie announced, "You have five minutes. We are, so far, just barely going to make it. I'd like to think we can pick up the pace a little on the way back."

She gestured to Cindy and the two of them walked a short ways off and talked.

The two girls had been talking between themselves, now they made a beeline for Ruby. "How are they hanging, Goldberg?" one of them said loudly.

"You're the only girl I know who wears baggy dresses so she can hide not only her fat ass, her fat tits, but the public library!"

"Go fuck yourself!" Ruby said angrily. "Leave me alone!"

Kennedy was up and walking forward. "You know, Ruby, you and I never hit it off on the bus."

"Go fuck yourself, too!"

"I just wanted it clear that we're not friends."

Kennedy turned to the two girls. "Leave. Close your mouths and be good little girls."

"You're a regular buttinsky," said the taller and blonder of the pair. "Why don't you go fuck yourself?"

"Because I don't need to cuss to talk to people. In fact, hearing you cuss tickles my memory about skunks a few minutes ago. Leave."

"You and what army, pipsqueak?"

"I don't need an army, I just remembered about Dutch terrain features. You know, dikes, like the ones Hans Brinker or someone put his finger in. I think I'll tell Steffie where I heard the word and in what context."

Without warning the girl swung at Kennedy.

For Kennedy it was a big laugh. The other swung like a girl. Mr. Glastonbury, when they boxed, didn't punch like a girl and Kennedy was pretty sure from the occasional punch she landed, he didn't think she punched like a girl, either.

She waited what seemed like forever for the fist to get close, then she caught it, twisted and put out her foot. The girl was unable to help herself and tripped over the foot and sprawled in the forest debris. When she got up she was blazing mad and lunged at Kennedy, only to be brought up short when Steffie stepped between them.

The other girl pointed at Kennedy. "She hit me!"

Steffie looked around and pointed to one of the older girls. "Marjorie?"

"No one hit anyone. Beth tried to punch the kid, and the kid pushed the punch off line. Then Beth tripped and fell. Before that, Beth's mouth was going and going, like the energizer bunny. Marilyn's too. Saying, way, way too much!"

Steffie turned to the two girls. "I asked Cindy flat out what happened back there on the trail, with a warning that if I ever learned something different happened she'd be out of here faster that a speeding bullet. This is my first time here, but Lauren Tredegar and I are relations, distant relations, but still family.

"You two have violated every major rule in the camp. When we get back, you'll go to the office. The local cab driver just loves girls like you. They get to take you home and the cab fare will cost your parents hundreds of dollars."

"We'll run away!" Beth said, laughing at Steffie.

"Oh, look, a brown bear," Steffie said pointing towards the forest. Kennedy and everyone else looked. The bear was looking at them, curious and interested. It was standing on the verge of the forest, not thirty feet away.

There were startled shrieks, but the fact was, unless you wanted to hop into the lake and start swimming, the bear was between them and every place else.

"Now, now, girls!" Steffie said, her voice calming. "He's more afraid of us than you are of him. If you just keep calm, he'll go away." She took a step forward. "Begone bear! I command you! Earth, Wind, Water, Fire! Begone!"

The bear seemed to sniff in derision, then turned and walked back into the forest. Steffie turned around after a second and smiled at Beth. "You can run away now; I believe the coast is clear."

"That's okay!" the two girls chorused.

"We're wasting time. Cindy, you set a brisk pace for the return."

Cindy grinned, then made an obvious detour around where the bear had disappeared and the others followed.



-------

Chapter 10: Kennedy and the Witch


Steffie turned to Kennedy after the others were gone. "I know you're Kennedy."

"It's not like it's a secret," Kennedy told her.

"No, it's not. It was odd how fast people forget who was the target of the stalker."

"The others are getting ahead."

"And have as much chance of beating the two of us to camp as they have of flying to the moon this week. Please, walk with me."

Kennedy followed the other, who was keeping the pace deliberately slow. "You did wrong just now."

"How do you mean? I didn't hurt her. I didn't hit her. I just dumped her on the ground."

"Not that; before, with Cindy. There are some things you can't let go; do you understand? The camp works because everyone believes what Lauren preaches -- what happens in your cabin stays in your cabin. That's the true rule one, but it's not exactly one she can advertise publicly, so we counselors do it privately. Now and then, there are girls who don't understand. This is the best time to weed them out.

"Please, I know it is difficult for someone of your age to take adults and their rules seriously, but you of all people should have learned by now how important those rules can be."

Kennedy looked at the woman warily. Mr. Glastonbury had stressed the importance of not letting anyone know exactly what she was capable of. Harriet had come close to learning, and now that she was with other people it was like there was no way to keep a secret.

Steffie kept talking. "Lauren calls all new counselors in during their first free period, asking questions about how things went, offering suggestions and tips for how to deal with problems.

"Lauren's an odd person, someone that the Roma don't understand. There are taxes, you understand, even among us. A portion of your 'take' goes to the King. Every year Lauren sends him a prodigious amount of money. He thinks she has set up a highly successful scam of rich New Englanders and he laughs and smiles when he sees how much she has sent. It has never occurred to him, as it never occurred to me, that she actually earns the money.

"Anyway, we were sitting there, talking about this and that when we saw you set off with Mr. Waterman. Now there's a surprise, Mr. Waterman! His people and ours go way back, and I understand that. It was just a surprise, you understand, to see him here. All Lauren told me was that you were a very cocky, very strong young woman and that Mr. Waterman was going to teach you some humility. Trust me, that was one of the most exciting races I've ever seen. Poor Lauren didn't know who to root for!

"Then we saw that slimy worm sneaking towards the boathouse. She went to call the sheriff, another stunning surprise that would have caused half the family to faint, while I want to rally more immediate help. You didn't know it, but there were people all around you. There was no way he was getting out of here with you or anyone else."

"Thank you," Kennedy said, not knowing what else to say.

"Kennedy, aside from anything else, we'd protect any girl in the camp, even Beth and Marilyn, from a threat like that. We go the extra mile, and then keep on going, to keep you safe. And then there's you, who is beyond special. Like Mr. Waterman and his people, we have other friends, people who have helped us over the years, and people who have helped us in return. And we have enemies. In our case, a particular enemy who hates us with a passion that passes understanding.

"The United States is the Land of Opportunity ... unless you are Roma. Here our enemies go out of their way to kill us. So we value our allies; it's a battle to the death, and we know which side people like you are on."

"I'm not like ... well, as Mr. Waterman said, I'm not real."

"We understand. I personally think it is a cruel thing, the whole idea. Yes, you have special and wonderful gifts and if you achieve the pinnacle, even more special and wonderful gifts. Then you get killed. It is the bitterest of cups, Kennedy. If you are chosen, you die. If you aren't, the abilities start to fade by the time you hit twenty and are gone a few years later. A wilted flower. A good many such as yourself then find an enemy and fight a final battle, unable to bear life without her gifts."

Kennedy didn't know what to say; which seemed to be happening a lot. "Was the bear real?"

Steffie laughed. "Bear? Him?" she gestured and Kennedy could see the bear again, standing just on the edge of the forest.

"It's called a glamour, a spell to make something look different. And that's really what I wanted to talk to you about. I put the spell on your sword. It's not a complicated spell, it's not exhausting, so when you grip it, the spell is broken. I agree with Lauren, that the sword should stay hidden, if possible. So, let me know if you touch it and I'll put the spell back."

Kennedy nodded. Witches and spells. How weird! She had thought they were just stories; evidently, like vampires, a lot of people weren't telling the truth about what was going on. The logical question, then, was what else was true among the things she'd dismissed as fable and fantasy?

Then she looked at Steffie. "One reason I want to see Lady Kennedy is because I'm curious about magic. On the way up here, Ruby Goldberg was telling me she was a Wicca and was going to cast a spell on me and all that. I just laughed."

"Mostly, such people are those who can't do magic and who desperately wish they could. There are some, though, including some of the Wiccans, who are quite powerful. You have to be careful. I would be careful around Ruby, in particular, if I were you."

"Why? Is she really a witch, like she says?"

"Kennedy, you know things that other people don't. You've seen things that are flatly impossible. And you believe, do you not?"

"That or write myself off as a nut."

"Yes. There are all sorts of people in this world, Kennedy. Some good, some bad, some evil. There is a vast chasm between bad and evil, no matter what you and others think. Ruby has an aura around her ... one I don't know how to read. One that Lauren doesn't know how to read. Be careful around her."

Kennedy nodded. Then Steffie picked up the pace until they were running free and easy through the forest. "I love to run," Steffie told her.

"Me too. Practically anything physical."

"Love?"

Kennedy gulped. "I'm trying to control myself."

"Kennedy, I don't have Second Sight, but I'm not senseless. You are like a flame, burning bright, lighting up the landscape around you. You affect all of us nearby. I will not make your life in the next few days more difficult than it will be, as you discover that side of yourself."

"Gosh, thanks," Kennedy said bitterly.

"No problemo!" Steffie said, laughing as she ran.

It was clear Steffie knew exactly where they were, what she was doing and where she was going and how fast. They caught up to the rear of the group just before they started down the ridge to camp.

Then it was soccer practice with Charlotte and Amy leading and eight of them from the cabin following, including Harriet, Deb and Karen. Kennedy was totally embarrassed when Charlotte asked if anyone hadn't played before and hers was the only hand to go up.

During the next hour, Kennedy made a huge mental note to ask Mr. Glastonbury about team sports and why he'd never taught them to her. She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but it would be nice to be sure.

Then it was softball time and again Kennedy was the only one who'd never played in her life. For the first twenty minutes, she was set with Harriet and they played catch, tossing a softball back and forth.

In twenty minutes Kennedy grew comfortable with a glove and the ball, although she was fairly sure that Harriet didn't know much about how to throw a baseball.

Then Charlotte came to see how much they had learned, and it was clear Harriet wasn't very good. Kennedy, while better, had grown used to the soft throws Harriet made. Charlotte did not throw soft.

Again, Kennedy adjusted, this time more rapidly.

Then they had batting practice, where Amy would throw a ball, and the batters were supposed to hit it. To Kennedy it seemed a silly, pointless exercise. She had an aluminum bat, and unless the pitch was over her head or rolling in the dirt or way, way away, she could hit it. And when it was close, right down the middle, she could hit it really well.

Kennedy wasn't exhausted when they quit for the day, but she was certainly tired. She stood under the shower, ignoring everyone else around her, basking in the relaxing spray. She washed her hair as well; it wasn't very long and she knew it would dry quickly.

She fell in next to Deb. "How are you, really, Deb?"

"I was a little scared, but I knew my aunt was calling out the family. I'm not as sensitive as some as to where they are, but I knew they were coming. And then you came and I knew everything was going to be okay." She dropped her voice, "I could see it, you understand?"

Kennedy understood. A couple of things snapped into focus and Kennedy tugged Deb off to the side of the path. "Would you do me a huge favor?"

"Sure, just about anything."

"I want you to meet someone. A girl. I'm worried about her. If you could ... well, you know..."

"I know," Deb said. "Sure, Kennedy. No problem. You just can't tell anyone."

"There were two girls on the hike this afternoon. They said stuff in front me they shouldn't. I don't think we'll see them again."

"Oh! Aunt Lauren thinks that rule is the most important."

"I think she's right," Kennedy said.

Kennedy led the way inside, and stopped, looking around. She saw Ruby sitting at the table headed by Steffie. Kennedy walked up to the table and stopped next to Ruby. Ruby looked at Kennedy, then at Deb.

"Ruby, this is my friend, Deb. Yesterday at this time, I hadn't met her. And now we're friends. If you let it happen, Ruby, you can make friends, too."

Ruby looked at the two of them, shrugged and dipped a hand in pocket and pulled out a thick book, opened it and put her nose in it. Red Storm Rising? What was that about?

Still, Kennedy went to their table and sat down.

After dinner, Lauren was up again. "Our activity for tonight is a bonfire, with songs. There is a stack of music and lyrics by the door, take a copy when you leave, if you want. You don't have to sing, but the more who do, the more fun it is.

"Some of you who have attended this or other camps may feel like this is boring, old-fashioned, stupid and a lot of other things. That's fine, you're welcome to your opinion. If you feel strongly enough about it, on most nights, we'll have the activity room open, with board games and cards. Just keep your opinions to yourselves. And yes, for those of you at the bonfire, there will be marshmallows! The bonfire will start at eight and run until nine thirty. This is a weeknight and you have an early lights out."

Most of the others left, except Kennedy, Harriet and Deb. Kennedy happened to catch Steffie's eye. She nodded towards the office and Kennedy held up a single finger.

"What was that?" Deb asked.

"Want to see my sword?"

"Is that something like etchings?" Deb joked.

Harriet smiled and said quietly, "Deb, they call people like us queers. But we aren't nearly as queer as Kennedy and her sword!"

Kennedy stuck her tongue out and the other two laughed. A few minutes later they went into Lauren's office. She was sipping tea, munching a piece of cherry cobbler that had been for dessert and talking to Steffie.

"This one time, Kennedy," Lauren told her. "After this, you'll need a better reason than showing off to your friends."

She got up and opened a coat closet and waved at the contents. Kennedy walked up and saw three canes in a small container in the rear corner. Without hesitation, she picked up Lady Kennedy, enjoying the feel of the hilt in her hand once again.

One instant it was a cane, and then she was Lady Kennedy again and Kennedy felt herself whole and complete. She lifted the sword and waved with her other hand at her friends. "Stand a little back."

Lady Kennedy began to sing; it wasn't like anything Kennedy had done before. This time the hum seemed to be words right on the edge of understanding, but not quite understandable. Kennedy lost herself for a few moments, then sobered and stopped.

"Sorry, I get carried away," she apologized to the others.

"Jesus and Mary, sweet mother of God!" Steffie said, shaken. "I've heard the stories ... who hasn't? And you're just ... in waiting?"

Kennedy nodded. "A spare bulb, maybe needed, maybe not."

"Uncle Ferinc prides himself on his ability with a sword," Lauren said. "I've seen him demonstrate. Ferinc has a ways to go, yet."

Lauren shook her head, shaking cobwebs away. "I talked to the sheriff before dinner. He thinks it well be at four o'clock tomorrow. It will be an official deposition, Deb. There will be a lawyer from the county, another for Mr. Larkin and I've called in my attorney and Uncle Ferinc will be there for your family. Please, at one, come to the office. Kennedy, you come in at two.

"I talked briefly with Mr. Glastonbury and he told me something disquieting. He talked with a policeman from Pennsylvania who thinks the government might have become interested in what's going on again. The government's interest fades in and out, depending on who's in power, and what they think of the situation. Usually, the arts are laughed at, disbelieved and anyone who talks about them is drummed out of the bureaucracy. Maybe now they are interested, and maybe, Mr. Glastonbury says, they are getting a little desperate, and are willing to do stupid things. Certainly that man today was stupid, because he was in clear view of half the camp when he was trying to sneak down to the boathouse."

"I don't think he cared," Kennedy said.

"Evidently not. Nonetheless, we will do what we can. Now, you girls head up the hill and get ready for the bonfire."

"Yes, Lauren," Kennedy said, speaking for all of them.

Harriet grinned as they got outside. "I am going to run up. I want to talk to Charlotte!"

She dashed off, while Deb and Kennedy walked more sedately up the hill.

"Did you see anything with Ruby?" Kennedy asked, harking back to her early concerns.

"If I'd have known who you wanted me to see, I'd have saved us the trip. Tomorrow afternoon, Kennedy, you will make her come. And tomorrow evening, at the very end, you will kiss me and tell me that you know I understand, and that it is something you have to do, because otherwise she's going to crash and burn.

"Kennedy, I do understand, I swear. Please, my sweet, never doubt it for a minute."

"It would be -- rude -- to tell you what you should think," Kennedy said, stopping in surprise.

Deb giggled. "Half the girls in this camp, if you had been with them and told them that, would hate you for the rest of their lives. A good half of the rest would wonder what you were talking about, because they never explain when they leave ... they just leave, no matter how much heartbreak that causes.

"Kennedy, I love you. But as much as I love you, as much as you love me, we are just two ships passing in the night. There is no way the two of us can be together after next week. It's not going to happen. And Kennedy, one reason you will do it is because I'm going to tell you right now that if you don't go to her, if she does crash and burn, she will hurt other people. A lot of people. She is a fragile reed, Kennedy. If she snaps, it will be awful beyond words. Tomorrow you can show her a better way. You can pull her back from the awful pit she stands on the edge of."

"What sort of person am I, who will sacrifice a friend for someone who hates me?"

Deb grabbed Kennedy's hand. "You are, dear heart, a saint. Between now and then you learn what I already know: I'm your friend for life. You and me, Kennedy. Never doubt me for a second, because I'll never doubt you. All the good superheroes, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, they all leave their loves behind to rescue people. Why? Because it's the right thing to do! Don't worry about me!"

They got ready for the evening's festivities, and at one point, Harriet pulled Kennedy out on the porch. "I've been talking to Charlotte."

Kennedy smiled at her.

"I met this girl earlier today, when we were playing tennis. Tonight, she and I are going to sit together. You promise you're not going to hate me?" Harriet said.

"I will never hate you, Harriet and I will never be jealous." Kennedy dropped her voice. "Deb says that after tomorrow night, she'll be moving on, too. And so will I."

Harriet nodded. "We're curious is all. At least that's what I think. We're safe here, we can have sex with people we just met and it's not a risk. I suppose you can break your heart here, or maybe break someone else's, but it really is like Carnival where you party at night and don't have to remember the next day."

"I'm not sure I can forget," Kennedy told her. "I'm making friends, and it's not just people I'm having sex with. It's an odd, interesting, wonderful feeling. Sex just makes it much, much better."

"Doesn't it though!" Harriet exclaimed and the two laughed.

Deb came and joined them, and Harriet excused herself.

"Tell me something, Deb," Kennedy asked, "It seems like the nightly activities so far are designed to give us time together with people we like. What's different about tonight?"

"Nothing, pretty much. Well, I mean, no one is going to be running and telling on you if you smooch someone. But it has to be relatively low key or one of the counselors will nudge you. It's a chance to get to know people, meet people. To expand your horizons."

"Ah, expanding horizons!" Karen said, coming up behind them. Karen inserted herself neatly between Kennedy and Deb, putting her arms around both of their waists. "Nothing is better than expanded horizons!"

"Do you know Karen?" Kennedy asked Deb, past Karen. "She's on my upper bunk."

"I know Karen, don't I?" Deb said.

"Oh yes, in many, many ways we know each other."

Kennedy understood that; it meant that in some prior year the two had been lovers.

Karen continued on, speaking lightly. "Rumor has it that the Foxy Lady of the day is going to be our good friend Deb, here."

Deb shrugged. "I haven't been told."

"You know how it works," Karen replied. "Lauren will announce it at the fire tonight." She turned to Kennedy. "Did you know that if you are camper of the day for your cabin, you can invite someone from another cabin to 'use your bed' while you have that wonderfully nice bed of your own?"

Kennedy nodded; she knew that.

"Do you really think it will be me?" Deb asked, obviously excited.

"Oh yes, yes indeed! You were the stalwart young woman who kept her cool when the stalker grabbed you and tried to drag you away to work his sordid plans on your body. I'm thinking, though, that you'll probably not have to go outside the cabin to invite someone to join you."

Deb looked and Kennedy, her eyes bright. "Absolutely right!"

"Well," Karen said, "I'd like to offer you a mild proposition. Just for old times sake, not to mention new times sake. Along about two or so in the morning, I sneak in and join you. We all know what a pain it is to wake up at two or three in the morning, horny enough to climb the walls, and our partner is slumbering and surly when awoken. I am a night person, I usually go to bed at dawn on the weekends and sleep the day away."

"My aunt is really hard on kinky sex," Deb said. "I'm not sure where she would stand on a three-some."

"Well, I was more talking about serially, as needed. A socially useful function. But a three-some would be interesting. I've only done that once before. With Lauren and another girl."

"What about Kennedy?" Deb asked.

Kennedy lifted an eyebrow. The question was indicative that Deb didn't have a problem with the idea.

"Well, I'm sure by now you've figured out Kennedy is a butterfly."

Deb nodded, but Kennedy spoke up quickly. "Actually, now that I've had it explained, I think I'm a Carnival girl."

"Even better," Karen said. "Even better. I'll sneak in later and you can tell me what you decide. If nothing else, maybe I can just sleep with you. It would be nice to be able to spend a few hours where I don't have recurring nightmares about falling out of bed."

She squeezed Kennedy's wrist, turned and was gone.

"Did you ever read the book, Lord of the Flies?" Deb asked Kennedy.

Kennedy shook her head.

"It's about a planeload of boys that get cast away on a desert island. They kind of go nuts, reverting to very primitive behavior. That's sort of like Camp Wanakena; we pretend we're stranded on a desert island and for two weeks -- half or two thirds of the camp turns into sex maniacs."

Deb grinned at Kennedy. "And trust me about this, Kennedy, of all the people I've known, when Karen fingers you, you find out what coming is all about! She even leaves the counselors weak-kneed and shaking after just a few minutes."

Kennedy asked curiously, "Are you saying you want to?"

"I'm saying I won't mind if you don't mind. It's not that you're not a good lover, Kennedy, but when it comes to the art of finger-fucking, Karen is in a class by herself!"

Was it a betrayal of Deb not to tell her that Kennedy already knew that? Or just common sense to keep her mouth shut and not fill in details that weren't important?

Kennedy reached over and put her arm around Deb's shoulder, then let her hand run down her friend's back, arriving at her bottom. Kennedy whispered, "I guess I am turning into a sex maniac. It sounds sexy, three girls in a bed."

"It does, doesn't it?" The two grinned at each other.

Kennedy found the whole campfire thing bizarre. She'd never roasted a marshmallow before, and after burning her fingers on the first two, wasn't sure why she would want to do it again. Then there was the singing and the songs. Kumbaya? Really? All of the songs seemed to emphasize peace and happiness and seemed totally out of step with the real world, even if you didn't include the forces of darkness and evil.

On the other hand, Deb sat behind her on a log, while Kennedy sat on the ground in front of her, and eventually Kennedy leaned back against Deb's legs, and Deb put her arms around Kennedy's neck. True, part of the reason Kennedy liked it was that every now and then Deb would play with her breasts for a few seconds, more teasing than anything else. It was certainly having a dramatic effect on her libido, enough for Kennedy to drop her plan on standing up and singing a rendition of one of the Faire songs about wine, women and song.

At the start of the festivities Lauren stood up and read a list of girls who had been selected "Camper of the Day" in all but one of the cabins. The one cabin where no one was selected was Nightingale cabin, Steffie's, where the two campers had been sent home in the afternoon. Ruby's cabin, Kennedy knew. And, as Karen had said, Deb was picked from their cabin.

Kennedy could see Ruby across the fire, sitting a little ways apart from everyone else, carefully toasting marshmallow after marshmallow and reading by firelight, talking to no one.

Deb leaned close and whispered in Kennedy's ear. "Penny for your thoughts."

Kennedy remembered meeting Harriet and smiled. Kennedy reached up to where Deb was currently resting her fingers, a little off to the side of each of Kennedy's breasts, and moved them slightly and pressed them down.

Deb laughed heartily. "Oh, that's what you're thinking eh? Well, patience. In about two and a half minutes, we're all going to be sent packing."

And it was true. There was one more song and Lauren wished them all a pleasant evening. "And remember, you are to go straight to your cabins! Do not get lost in the bushes! Do not stray!"

Again Kennedy smiled inwardly. It seemed as if everyone knew about the rules and the exceptions to the rules. Facilitating the campers at times, and other times keeping them in check. It must be a delicate balance.

They got up and Deb spent a few minutes brushing off Kennedy's bottom, which was interesting, and then they walked briskly towards the cabin.

Inside Charlotte was waiting for Deb, handing her a key with a big plastic decoration attached to it. "The rules are simple. You may have a guest sleep over. In the morning, strip off the sheets and put them in the laundry bag in the bathroom, then make the bed with the fresh sheets provided. Make sure the room is clean and neat when you leave, lock the door and give the key to me before seven AM."

Deb took it and grinned, tossing the key in the air. The comments from the other girls were good-natured, Kennedy thought, although there was a strong tinge of jealous wistfulness as well. At one point, Karen caught Deb's eye and Karen lifted an eyebrow. Deb nodded and Karen nodded in return. Just like that, Kennedy thought, and I'm set to do something else wild and crazy!

She couldn't even stick to Mr. Glastonbury's request to try to stay out of trouble for twelve hours!

They got ready for bed, then for an hour after lights out, they kissed and touched. It was mild, gentle and sweet and Kennedy reveled in the simplicity and calmness she felt.

One second she was relaxed and happy; the next she opened her eyes. There was a warm body curled up in front of her, another behind her. From the soft, rhythmic breathing on both sides of her, she knew they were both asleep.

Kennedy felt terrible embarrassment that she'd fallen asleep before things had gotten steamy. Sure it had been nice, but was it sex? She reached around the girl in front of her and decided it was Karen. Kennedy cupped her breast and rested her head on Karen's shoulder. It might as well have been a Mickey Finn; she was asleep again a second later.

When she awoke, it was because Karen was getting up. Karen kissed her hard, then kissed Deb hard, then stole quietly outside. It was, Kennedy saw, a little before five. In a few minutes Amy would appear.

"Deb..." Kennedy said, her voice failing her.

"Kennedy, we had this discussion already, right? Nothing has changed."

"But nothing happened either!" Kennedy said, frustrated.

Deb kissed her soundly. "Kennedy, dear heart, for an hour or so we kissed and caressed each other. I've never, ever, been happier. I mean it. Please, don't feel badly about last night."

It was an easy thing to say, harder in practice. Amy knocked seconds later and again they showered, talking about what sort of exercises they liked best to warm-up; then the group did their morning run and Kennedy ran much harder than the others, lapping them.

Harder still, was rowing. Mr. Waterman had two boats in the water when Kennedy and Deb showed up. "Today, one, then other, practice knees. Kennedy good, until tires, then very bad. Deb not good."

He was in the water next to Kennedy's scull and proceeded to lift it out of the water with her in it. "Now, go through motions."

Kennedy did a few repetitions, and then he put her back in the water. "Now again, just move shoulders and knees, not oars."

She rowed, and his hands were on her lower thighs, moving them in the rhythm he wanted. It wasn't much of a change, but Kennedy was sure that it would pay off over time. Then he worked with Deb and finally, the two of them rowed a sedate half mile; a quarter mile out and back.

When they returned to the boat house, Mr. Waterman was nowhere to be found and Deb showed Kennedy how to take the scull out of the water and carry it inside, and then rub it down.



-------

Chapter 11: Kennedy's Ruby Tuesday


As Kennedy was finishing up with her racing scull, she heard a funny, startled sound from Deb and turned to see what it was. A man was standing a few feet inside the door of the boat house, watching the two of them. At least, Kennedy thought, it wasn't Agent Larkin.

"Uncle Ferinc!" Deb said, obviously upset.

"Niece, please go busy yourself elsewhere for a time. I will talk to you after lunch."

Kennedy wasn't sure how old he was. He looked at times to be older than her father, other times as young as Mr. Glastonbury. Except Kennedy was sure that Mr. Glastonbury was older than he looked, because several times her tutor had spoken in the past tense as if he'd been at events long before.

Ferinc was dressed well, although Kennedy thought the undone trench coat was a little melodramatic. His nose was huge, his skin was dusky, his eyes brown and piercing.

"So, Miss Kennedy. I talked with your Watcher yesterday. He seemed in a hurry to return to his doxie -- not the sort of behavior I've heard of Watchers engaging in before."

"Perhaps he was as horny as the girls in this camp," Kennedy said. She blinked then, aware that those words weren't her own volition. Her eyes flamed with anger.

He held up a hand like a traffic policeman. "Yes, it's true. I laid a geas on you to tell me the truth. Please note that you sensed it at once, and right now, that part of my magic is ... feeling a painful pinch. I promise I won't do it again."

"I don't have any magic," she told him.

He smiled. "No ... and yes. Please, there isn't much time and young or old, sparring with the likes of you will leave lumps and sore spots on my aging body. Miss Kennedy, the Roma owe people like you a debt of gratitude that knows no bounds. I am fully aware of what passed yesterday. There was no way you'd have left my niece while there was still breath left in your body."

"That you have right!"

"Then be assured of this as well: that is how we pay our debts, we Roma. Unto the last breath in our bodies. Melodramatic, but true. We will do everything in our power to keep you out of this. As the saying goes, the fix is in." He grinned at her.

"Okay," Kennedy said, not knowing what else to say.

"One little favor, before I take my leave, day after tomorrow. You and I should spend a few moments together with our blades. Practice, you know. Spectators limited to you and the Roma. A half dozen. It will be a salutatory lesson to all."

"Why is that?" Kennedy asked, curious.

"Because they think I'm a genius with a blade. Perhaps, in the regular world, I am. But you and I, Miss Kennedy, don't belong to the regular world."

"Why should I believe you?"

He grinned. "If I was dark, my family would sense it, almost at once. Deb, of course, first. Then Steffie, then Lauren. All of them try to deny their ability when it comes to Second Sight." He tapped the side of his head. "But you can't hide from another with it. Our King is more short-sighted than most -- but that is our politics, and of no interest to such as you.

"Besides, every time I come to visit Lauren I am reduced to laughter. Do you have any idea how hard it is to scam our king? That my baby sister does it by telling the truth is the most wonderful joke! After this is over, people will be telling this story a thousand years from now. And maybe, just maybe, we might get a king whose claim to fame isn't who his mother slept with."

Kennedy's mind was running in a thousand different directions. It quickly realized the conundrum in the last sentence. "I thought kings..." she paused, unsure how to say it.

"True, Miss Kennedy, very true. However, like your people, we ignore such things in polite company. Now you know far too much about the politics of the Roma. Please, you reflected the geas back on me. Have a heart!"

"I didn't do anything!"

He smiled as if he knew she was lying through her teeth instead of just confused.

Mr. Waterman appeared at Kennedy's elbow. "Roma, do you know seaweed?"

Ferinc grinned. "Not as intimately as I'm about to, am I?"

"No. Now go."

Ferinc turned to go and abruptly sprawled forward, going face down, hard. Only at the last second did he catch himself before his face splatted on the ground.

He rose and bowed to Mr. Waterman, waving the piece of sea weed that had brought him low. "Don't trust hospitality too far, Waterman," Ferinc told the demon.

Mr. Waterman sniffed in derision and Ferinc turned and, this time, managed to escape with his dignity.

"Why did you do that?" Kennedy asked, mystified.

"He and I once loved the same woman. As is the way of the world, she chose someone else entirely. But that hasn't stopped the hard feelings."

"I'm not even going to ask how long ago that was, but I bet it wasn't yesterday."

"Forty-three years," Mr. Waterman said, nodding.

"Yeah, well that was before my parents were alive. Maybe it's time for you guys to give it a rest."

He smiled. "A hundred or so years ago, the Roma caught Angelus, one of the worst of the vampires. They cursed him terribly. One of their nastiest spells. Angelus had been killing gypsies for a couple of hundred years by then. They gave him a soul, so that he would know the depths of evil he'd plumbed.

"Irony, Miss Kennedy, is that they thought in a week, perhaps two at most, he'd kill himself, going mad with grief and guilt. Instead, here it is today and they have a vampire on their hands who goes around saving people and doing good, trying to redeem himself as contrition for his past sins. They created him and now they can't unmake him. Ironic, yes?"

Kennedy could only shrug. How do you make heads or tails of a war that was thousands of years old, and that involved practically everyone, even if practically no one knew about it? But it was clear what Mr. Waterman's point was: Angelus had killed for centuries and had never been forgotten or forgiven. They'd done what they did, and now a century later they talked about it as Mr. Glastonbury talked about current events.

She went to lunch with the others in her cabin, then Debbie went to see her uncle while Kennedy went to the hiking group.

"Today," Steffie told the group, "we're not quite so many as we were yesterday. Does anyone not understand why that happened?"

There was no sound, several of the girls were looking at the ground. "Good!" Steffie said with false cheerfulness. "Then we'll never talk about it again, and no one will ever be that brain-dead again."

She waved at the camp. "Yesterday we hiked more or less cross country. Today we'll do something more difficult. It's a mile and a third to town, the same amount back. We'll hike along the road.

"I'll not kid you; this is dangerous. All it takes is one clueless driver to mow us all down. We will be walking on the wrong side of the road, so we can see them coming. Anytime there is a vehicle of any sort coming at us from any direction, you'll pay attention to it and be ready to get out of its way if it becomes necessary. Odds are, it won't be a problem -- but it only takes one clueless idiot to spoil the rest of your life.

"Oh, and one other thing: you will find that walking on asphalt isn't nearly as nice as walking on dirt and forest litter."

She set off at brisk pace, everyone keeping up this time. Still, Kennedy hung back and walked just in front of Cindy. Cindy didn't say anything; she just walked along without expression, her oversize pack jutting up over her head.

They'd gone halfway when Ruby pulled up. She sat down on a rock near the road and started to take off her boot. Cindy came up and stood next to her. "What's the problem?"

Ruby sounded exasperated and angry. "I didn't want to stop; I swear, I didn't want to stop. But I have a rock in my boot and..." Kennedy saw the other girl close her eyes and start leaking tears. "I'm not a wuss. I can do this!"

She opened her eyes and looked at Cindy. "I can do this! I can! I'll just be a second."

Bravado was gone; threats were gone. Kennedy waved at the leg Ruby had been favoring. "Let's see what you did."

"I'm fine, really."

Cindy had been around the block as well. "Ruby, girl, you can do one of two things. Take off your boot and show me, or join Kennedy and I as we run to catch up."

Ruby closed her eyes, squinching them shut with frustration. There were even more tears, Kennedy saw.

Without a word, Ruby unlaced her boot, then pulled off her sock. Kennedy saw the brown stains and so did Cindy. Both of them stared stonily at the ruin that was Ruby's foot.

"Girl, I'm not going to bother to ask how you could walk on that." Cindy turned to Kennedy. "Steffie said to treat you like another junior counselor. I don't know about that. The two of you go back to camp. It's not that far."

She spoke to Ruby. "You need to keep your weight off that foot. Not just some of the time, but all of the time. Lean on Kennedy; use her as a crutch. Hop."

Ruby looked at Kennedy then at Cindy. "She's too tall. I could do it with you."

"And I can't leave Steffie out here with that many campers without an assistant."

"I can carry her, it's not a problem," Kennedy told her.

Cindy nodded. "Yeah, that'll work. A fireman's carry works best. She hangs on your back. Not hard at all."

Kennedy shook her head. "No, I'll just carry her in my arms."

"It's half a mile girl, and Ruby isn't dainty fluff like me."

Kennedy smiled. "Maybe not to you, but to me, she's like a dandelion puff."

Cindy frowned. "Pick her up then," she waved at Ruby.

Kennedy promptly scooped up Ruby, holding her easily.

"Well, try it. If nothing else she can lean on you until we get back. Someone can spell you then."

Kennedy nodded and Cindy started after the rest, while Kennedy looked both ways, then crossed the two lanes of asphalt and started walking back to camp.

"It would be easier," Kennedy said after a second, "if you put your arm around my neck."

Ruby sniffed. "I'm not stupid! I'm not like that, okay? I was, but I gave it up!"

"Whatever, easy or hard makes no difference to me," Kennedy said and continued along.

They'd been going for ten minutes and the camp gate was in sight, when Ruby said something Kennedy couldn't understand. "What was that?"

"I hate you, do you understand? You can help me, you can do whatever you want, but I still hate you."

Kennedy chuckled. "That hate and five bucks will buy you a cup of coffee at any Starbuck's. It's nothing to me."

"You said you wanted to make friends! I'm your enemy!"

Again Kennedy laughed. "Ruby, you have no idea who my enemies are. If you did, you'd hide under your bed, with your teeth chattering. Yeah, I want to make friends. But there are hundreds of girls at the camp, and I'm not going to meet most of them, much less make friends with them. I'm spending my time with those I know."

"Fucking."

"Ruby, I'm sorry your first year wasn't what you expected or wanted. But you have to understand that was your experience. Not mine, not that of most of the other girls who come here. Why not just be quiet and let us have a good time? If you want to have a bad time, that's your choice. Leave the rest of us alone."

"Yeah, and if you didn't want to fuck me, tell me why you want me to put my arm around your neck?"

"Because if your arm was around my neck, I could run back to camp and we'd have been there ten minutes ago. I might be younger than you, but that doesn't stop me from taking even the smallest responsibility seriously. I will get you back to camp, safe and sound."

They walked a little further and Kennedy finally broke the silence. "How come no threats this time? No spells, no geases, none of that?"

Ruby laughed. "It's one thing to play around on the bus. My mother would totally freak if she found that gypsies run the camp. A couple of years ago she had a gypsy palm reader read my future. The old woman mumbled for a very long time, I mean, more than an hour; nothing she said made sense. My mother yelled at her to sober up, and either say something sensible or give us our money back.

"That old gypsy woman laughed at her. 'Your daughter will be a great hero. Or a great evil. Either is in her heart. You though, you have a small heart. Go away. I don't want your money.'"

My mother started yelling at her, screaming at her, awful words. Words like I hear at school. You know what the old lady did?"

"Not a clue," Kennedy told Ruby.

"She said, 'Begone the begonias!' and then waved her hands. When we got home Mom's prize begonia bed was dead. I mean, not just a little wilted, but stone cold dead. Nothing she has been able to do in the last two years will get anything to grow there, not even weeds."

She looked at Kennedy. "I want to be a witch. I do. I figured, where there's gypsies, there's magic. So I came back, even though I hate it."

"Why do you hate it, Ruby?" Kennedy thought it was a simple question. She had a lot to learn, she found, about what a simple question truly was.

"Go fuck yourself! You want to fuck me! You are all alike!"

"Ruby, I wish I had a tape recorder so I could play back your words," Kennedy said patiently. "No one wants to sleep with you because you're like a porcupine. All spines and hate. I'm sorry about whatever happened before, Ruby, but I'm not going to fuck you; I'm not even going to try. I like sweet and cuddly friends!"

"What happened before? A girl made love to me. It was different; it was nice, wonderful and beautiful. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. Then she told me she was a butterfly and I had to understand that it was time for her to find another flower.

"I cried, do you understand? The bitch fucked me and then went to someone else! A slut! Do you understand? She was a slut! And then this other girl was sympathetic, she listened to me and assured me that she was something else. And we made love and it was even better than before."

She was silent then as Kennedy steadily carried her. "Then what happened?"

"Then camp came to an end. She lived a long ways away. We talked a few times on the phone; we exchanged emails. Then she said she'd found a friend who went to her school and hoped I understood."

Kennedy was silent after Ruby had her say. Finally Kennedy stopped for a second. "Well, you'll never like me then, not at all. They call the first kind of girl a butterfly. The second a nester. Me, I'm a Carnival girl."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ruby demanded.

"Butterflies change partners a little less often than you change socks, Ruby. Nesters don't change partners, not here -- and I understand, maybe not later, but I understand how it could be hard to be faithful to someone one far away that you rarely or never see."

"Not if you love them!"

Kennedy sighed. "Ruby, if you know what love is, let me know, because I haven't a clue about it. I feel urges in my body towards people. Some more than others, and none at all towards some. Love? I have no idea about love whatsoever. I like my friend, Harriet. She was my first ever friend. We kissed goodnight once, for about a second. I kissed her on the cheek yesterday. I don't think that counts. We don't live close together, but we talk on the phone, we send letters and emails. I don't think anything will ever shake our friendship.

"You didn't say what a Carnival girl is," Ruby returned to her theme.

"Someone who doesn't even think about tomorrow," Kennedy said. "Love today, no heed for tomorrow, much less the day after."

"Put me down!" Ruby demanded.

Kennedy obliged. Ruby was furious, Kennedy saw. "You're not trying to seduce me?"

"No," Kennedy said. No matter what Deb said, she wasn't.

"And all you're doing is carrying me back to camp because my foot's messed up?"

"That's right."

"And you don't secretly have the hots for my body?"

Kennedy shrugged. Not!

She realized Ruby had a funny look on her face. "What are you thinking, Ruby?"

"I'm thinking maybe it should be me fucking you, you know, eh?"

Kennedy laughed. "Ruby, a gypsy laid a geas on me earlier today; I was supposed to tell him the truth. I did once, then blew it back at him. I have no idea how I did that, or even, for that matter if I did it, because I have only his word for it.

"Ruby, you couldn't force me to list my little finger on your best day, on my worst."

Ruby spun and started running into the forest, away from the road. She got a dozen steps, and ended up leaning against a tree, her face twisted in pain, balancing on one foot. Kennedy took her time, deliberately walking up to her. "What was that about?"

"I want to die. I want to run and run and run and never stop. Except my foot hurts too fucking much." Ruby slowly slid down the tree until she was sitting on the ground.

Kennedy smiled at her. "You know what, Ruby?"

"What?"

Kennedy reached down her hand and took Ruby's wrist and hauled her upright. Kennedy put her hands on the other girl's waist and lifted, then leaned her against a tree. Kennedy waved at the tree. "Think of it as a support structure."

Ruby said something that didn't sound very nice.

"You know what I think?" Kennedy finally said, looking at Ruby.

"Who the fuck cares what you think?" Ruby replied.

"You do. You know what your problem is? You want someone, anyone, to love you. But you don't dare even try to be loveable, in case someone actually tries, because you have no confidence in your judgment or theirs; you're afraid they'll leave you again."

Kennedy leaned close and brushed her lips over Ruby's. Ruby stared at Kennedy, her eyes wild.

"I'm a Carnival girl, Ruby. But for you, I offer a blue light special: say the word and I'll stick with you forever. A true nester. I'll swear I'll never take another lover until you tell me to get lost. How's that for a vote of confidence?"

"Where do you live?"

"Near White Plains, but I can, if I need to, be driven anywhere in New York state, if I want, any time I want."

"Why?"

Kennedy laughed. "Because it's the right thing to do. You don't trust anyone, do you? Me, I've learned to rely on the people around me. I need to talk to my teacher to hear what he says about if it's possible. But he's a resourceful fellow and I suspect it is."

"You'll tell everyone about us!"

Kennedy smiled to herself when Ruby said that. Girl, Kennedy thought, you just gave away the farm.

"No, I'm going to ask my teacher which is right: relying on those I know or others."

Ruby looked confused. "I don't understand."

"With luck," Kennedy told her, dragging her lips over Ruby's again, "you'll never find out. It's not something you ever want to know."

Ruby lifted her lips and kissed back. In a few seconds, tongues were entwined. Kennedy was the first to go past kissing, popping the snap on Ruby's jeans, then sliding her hand inside the other girl's panties. Ruby moaned and Kennedy slid her finger inside Ruby, stroking the walls of her vagina. Ruby moaned again, then sighed loudly.

Kennedy was surprised. Ruby had come with a fraction of the effort of any other girl she'd met.

Ruby confirmed that a second later, when she stopped Kennedy's hand from pursuing a second orgasm.

"Now you know my secret."

Kennedy shook her head. "Now, I have no clue."

"How easy it is to make me come. Rub my breasts, rub my pussy and a few seconds later, I come. I cry sometimes, scared that a boy will find out. Kennedy, I don't know how to say no!"

"Well," Kennedy said with a laugh, "you don't have to say no to me. But we'll see if there's something we can do about it."

"You'll tell on me!"

"Ruby, if you want to do this again with me, people will notice. I won't have to tell anyone, you don't have to say anything -- they'll see."

Ruby started crying. "I don't deserve a nice person like you, do I?"

"Ruby, it's not a question of deserve, okay? It's about people who care about each other. Tonight, Ruby, I don't know what's on the schedule, but I'll be a step behind you, okay?"

"You will?" It seemed like the idea was a stunning surprise to Ruby.

"I will. Look, there's this other girl. Tonight, I swear, I'll kiss her and that's all. One kiss; not terribly long. I just can't leave without something, you understand?"

"You'd do that for me?"

"Ruby, if we become lovers, we'll be partners, do you understand? I'm not going to dominate you and you're not going to dominate me. Together, do you understand? Equals."

Ruby nodded her head as if Kennedy was talking the highest treason, but one she wanted to have a part in.

In the distance, Kennedy heard voices. With a start she looked at her watch! It had been a half hour!

"The others are coming, Ruby, and we're going to have to appear."

"I had to pee," Ruby said with sudden assurance.

Kennedy shook her head. "You wanted to talk, okay?"

Ruby looked at her and shook her head. "Someone will guess!"

"Ruby, people may or may not. Who cares? I don't. You shouldn't. This is our business, between you and me. I swear to you the girl I've been with is okay with my leaving."

"And I wasn't with anyone," Ruby mused.

"That's right. Ruby, I don't lie, okay? Not ever, not even about the smallest thing. I may not tell people all I know, but I don't lie."

"That's stupid."

"It's who I am, Ruby. You have to take the good with the bad."

Ruby snapped her jeans together, zipped them up and Kennedy went out to the road.

Steffie and the rest caught up in a few seconds.

"I sort of expected you to be further along," Steffie said, sounding like it was no big deal.

"We had a little chat," Kennedy told her.

"Chat, eh?" Cindy said.

Steffie turned on Cindy. "I know what you're going to say next, girl! You say that, and you'll be the next one out of here!"

"Just agreeing," Cindy said, suddenly pale.

"Think! Do you understand thinking?"

"I'm learning," Cindy said. "Let's just say when you think you've seen everything, there it is again, slapping you in the face, telling you haven't seen anything yet."

"Which should tell you to keep an open mind," Kennedy interjected.

"We're running a few minutes late," Steffie said. "Kennedy has an appointment in the office at two, on the dot. Let's hustle, ladies!"

Kennedy picked Ruby up and this time and then hustled a lot. Ruby was a little worse for the wear before they got to camp. Kennedy carried her to the office, and the woman who was the nurse was fetched.

The nurse tut-tutted over the ruin the stone had left on Ruby's foot, then set to work.

"I have to go," Kennedy told Ruby. "This is about yesterday. I'll wave to you at dinner. What's on the schedule for tonight?"

"Friday is talent night. Tonight we get together and decide what we're going to do. Either this Friday or next Friday, you have to go on stage and perform something."

"Cool," Kennedy said, not having a clue what she could do.

The discussion with the lawyer was short -- the surprise was that the lawyer was Ferinc. Ferinc told her that Mr. Glastonbury and her parents had agreed to let him represent her. Then he told Kennedy to tell the truth, volunteer nothing and keep her answers short and simple. Since that was the advice she'd gotten from Mr. Glastonbury, Kennedy agreed.

Then it was time to cool her heels. Deb was in the same room, and both had been cautioned not to speak to each other. Finally, Deb was called in and was gone for nearly an hour, before it was Kennedy's turn.

When she was called in, Ferinc was there, and an attorney from the FBI and the man who was evidently the county prosecutor, plus the sheriff and Lauren.

There was an exchange of papers; the only surprise was the one Ferinc put in front of Kennedy. "Miss Kennedy's parents have agreed that I may represent her. As an attorney duly licensed to practice law in the State of New York."

It was the local prosecutor who demurred. "She should have a parent or guardian here."

"Miss Kennedy's father is in Atlanta on business, her mother is in Europe. If any of the parties should decide not to accept me, we'll reschedule when one of them can be back. You'll have to pay their round trip air fares. First class fares, I might add, because they travel no other way."

"No, this is fine with me," the county prosecutor came right back. The government attorney merely sneered.

"Miss Kennedy, if you would, describe the events yesterday."

Kennedy simply said she had been rowing on the lake, and when she'd returned to the boat house, she'd seen Larkin holding Deb. Then Kennedy described the sheriff's arrival and that of his deputies. It took ten minutes.

The only question that was hard was when the prosecutor asked her why she hadn't done anything. "I was thinking about what to do," Kennedy told them. "I didn't want Deb to get hurt, and I was just about to start screaming when I heard tires crunching gravel. I already told you about the sheriff."

The prosecutor waved at the government lawyer, who got his turn to ask questions. "Miss Kennedy, did Special Agent Larkin do anything that you thought indicated something other than a peace officer doing his duty?"

She'd been told to keep her answers short, to volunteer nothing. But she didn't like Larkin, she didn't like his lawyer and so she looked the lawyer in the eyes. "Mr. Larkin had his arm around Deb's throat, not lower. When he and I talked at the Faire, he seemed fascinated by my chest. Whenever he could, that's where he looked. He upset my teacher and Sir Roger, the head of security for the Faire. They threw Larkin out."

"Special Agent Larkin."

It was too easy, it required no thought at all and slipped right out. "I never saw anything special about him at all."

A few minutes after five, there was a meeting in Lauren's office with Lauren, Ferinc, Deb and Kennedy.

Ferinc seemed to be in charge. "I must say that went very well, very well indeed. I will talk with you individually about improvements, should this come to trial, which I'm not sure will happen. I got the distinct impression that Mr. Larkin is going to be asked to fall on his sword."

"Fall on his sword?" Lauren asked. "Surely not literally?"

"This is the government we're talking about. It's a special miracle that they don't seem likely to go to the mat for the man. No, his metaphorical sword. They will get him to accept a plea bargain, then lean heavily on the county to agree. To maintain the FBI's good name, of course. The man will get a year or so of jail time, plus would join the list of registered sex offenders. Odds are that if anyone in prison finds out he's ex-FBI, he'll be dead within a few days."

He looked at Kennedy. "You understand, of course, that I will personally see to it that everyone in the prison yard knows who he is in his first hour of his first day there."

Kennedy met his eye. "I'm not supposed to hurt people," she told him. "But I plan on finding out what I'm supposed to do with men like Larkin."

Ferinc surprised her when he nodded. "That's between you and your Watcher, I won't speak to it."

He looked at the others. "At this point in time, there's not going to be much happening, so far as you are concerned. There will be legal motions from both sides, requesting this and that. Larkin will be arraigned tomorrow, and the prosecutor has said they will ask that he be held without bail. The government attorney is planning on contesting that, of course, but I understand that the sheriff fed the judge some of the stuff from the Randy Weaver thing in Idaho, not so long ago. The locals there arrested some of the FBI agents involved, even though they were officially on duty, and charged them with murder. It's still in the courts, but those agents are in jail and will stay in jail, until the trial."

"Anything for me?" Lauren asked.

"No, continue business as usual. I'll tell the king that the statists tried to harass you and that I, of course, saved the day. He will have someone checking the wire service stories, to keep him abreast of the situation. It will be in no one's interest for this to make the wire services.

"Alas, this will make the wire services. The FBI office in New York City foolishly tried to contest the search warrant for their premises, and the local police were called in and the search took place. They actually caught someone shredding pertinent documents. There will be reporters, although I predict not many. Be calm, be cool, tell them that the case is still being investigated and that you have no comment at all. Do not talk to strangers, even if they're asking you about the weather or the ravenous mosquitoes." As he said that, he slapped his neck.

"I'll stay through Saturday morning. If anything is going to happen, it will happen before then. By then, the news cycle will have moved on and there should be no problems."

"Will we have to come back?" Kennedy asked.

"It's possible, but unlikely. As I said, the most likely thing is that Agent Larkin will accept a plea bargain. He would be crazy to go to trial on this. You saw him with Deb's hand twisted behind her back, another arm around her throat. The sheriff and Deb reported it as well. In that Pennsylvania State Police officer's report that he filed, he mention the man's fascination with Kennedy's breasts. There are literally a dozen complaints against the man, almost all involving young women he attempted to take liberties with.

"Further, the FBI SAC in New York talked about other complaints from young women or their families. The police won't say if they got any of those affidavits, but probably not. Even so, if any of those people come forward it will be hard for the FBI to deal with.

"This is open and shut, a virtual slam dunk. On the other hand, the legal system is the legal system. It can surprise you. So I will track things carefully and I assure you all, that one way or another, Larkin will never bother another young woman again."

It was, Kennedy thought, a little scary. Several times Ferinc had said that he would see that Larkin was going to be placed in mortal peril of his life. Ferinc's last comment was a simple statement that come what may, Larkin was dead.

She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Kennedy," Ferinc spoke to her.

Kennedy lifted her head.

"Your job is to save the innocent; to protect all the rest of us from the forces of darkness."

"If I'm Chosen."

"Whatever. I have Second Sight, girl. So do others here. You will be a Slayer. The odd thing, though, is that normally I'd know that because I'd see your death. I swear to you, Kennedy, I don't see your death."

"I don't either," Deb added. "I had a flash once, of Kennedy sitting in front of a half dozen young women, teaching them how to be Slayers. She's old and gray ... but she can still kick some serious butt!"

"Since everyone is casting caution to the winds," Lauren said, "I only know is that Kennedy dies holding the hand of the person she loves the most." She touched Kennedy's hand. "I have black Second Sight, Kennedy. I couldn't see clearly, but my impression was that you were old."

Kennedy felt a lump in her throat. Why were they telling her this?

"For courage, Kennedy," Ferinc said. "I don't see much, but I know you don't go unscathed. It's a bitter pill, girl. A very bitter pill."

"If it's all the same to you all," Kennedy said, her voice unsteady, "I'd just as soon skip all of this."

Ferinc laughed. "As any rational person would! So many people think Second Sight must be fun! You know the results of baseball and football games! You know if the stock market, and even individual stocks, are going to be up or down. But that pales when you pass someone on the street and see them mangled in a car crash within the week. Or shriveled and in agony, dying from cancer.

"Gifts, as you well know, Kennedy, come with costs. Nothing is cheap."

"What are you going to tell Mr. Glastonbury? My parents?"

He chuckled. "The truth, of course! You understand that one of my duties is to send them copies of your affidavit that was filed today? They will read it and your father will be enraged and he too will add to pressure to see that Larkin stays behind bars. Mr. Glastonbury ... again, that is between you and your Watcher. Watchers, you see, are exempt from Second Sight."

"Exempt?"

"Oh yes! To put it mildly, their lives are confusing! There is powerful magic there! Very powerful! Again, you have to take that up with him! None of the Roma would dream of interfering even in the smallest way between a Watcher and those they watch."

"And you're not?"

"No, I'm just providing legal cover. That works."

"You said you wanted to spar."

"Yes, Friday night, I think; more public than I first thought. Did you see the movie The Princess Bride?"

Kennedy shook her head.

"We will perform a scene from the movie. Where the Dread Pirate Roberts fights Inigo Montoya. Lots of sword fighting there! You can be the Dread Pirate Roberta."

Lauren sniggered, then doubled over with laughter. Even Deb was laughing.

"My name is Kennedy," she told him.

"Yes, I know. But that's not a mild, pleasant, safe name. The original character was the Dread Pirate Roberts. Not exactly the usual name you would bestow on a dread pirate."

Kennedy nodded. Ferinc was right about that.

"We will go over it tonight," Ferinc said. "You will have the use of your sword."

Kennedy nodded, grateful. Then she grimaced. How was she supposed to tell Ruby that the true love of her life was a hand-and-a-half bastard sword? That of all the lovers Kennedy had met in the last few days, it was Lady Kennedy she would rather have her hand around?

She and Deb went up the hill to get ready for dinner. Deb grinned as they walked. "Did it happen?"

Kennedy wished she had a different answer. "Yes. I got the impression when you were talking it wasn't consensual. It was."

Deb blinked. "What I saw was a little rough."

"In that case, Deb, you don't have twenty-twenty foresight, because it happened because we both wanted it to happen."

She was surprised when Deb grabbed her arm and kissed her cheek. "Cool! That's so cool!"

"Why's that?" Kennedy asked. "I just made one of your predictions come out wrong."

"You think I want things to come out the way I see them most of time? Lauren is right; normally what I see is death, that's more than half the time. You have no idea how much it means to me to have someone's future turn out not the way I saw it! It's a big thing!"

Kennedy saw Deb's eyes widen. "What?"

"In my dreams, that was the last kiss I give you ... except I always thought it was late at night. Kennedy, my love, do what you want tonight!"

Dinner went quickly enough, then they went back to the cabins. At least she'd had a chance to smile at Ruby.

Then they went back to the main hall and Lauren explained talent night. "You don't have to participate this week, but if you don't, you will have to next week. Next week we'll have some plays with a lot of one-line speaking parts for those not otherwise participating. If you're shy and bashful, I'd get it over with! If not this week, then certainly next week!"

Then they broke up with people milling around. They'd been given an hour to discuss things, then an hour to rehearse, then a half hour to munch ice cream before having to go up to their cabins.

Ferinc promptly sought out Kennedy and handed her Lady Kennedy. Kennedy sighed with pleasure, feeling the familiar hilt in her hand. Ruby appeared, and waved at Lady Kennedy. "What's that?"

"A bastard sword. Hand-and-a-half," Kennedy explained.

Ferinc came up with what looked like a classic broadsword. Ruby looked at him and frowned. "You're old!"

Ferinc laughed. "You bet! Now, here, Kennedy, are your lines!" he handed Kennedy a typewritten page. Ferinc's eyes gleamed when he looked at Ruby. "You, girl, do you want to help us?"

"Help with what?" Ruby asked.

"Our skit. You can be Master Mind. You know, from The Princess Bride."

"You mean the guy who was forever saying 'You can't possibly figure this out?'"

"That one."

"I'm a girl."

"And Kennedy will be the Dread Pirate Roberta, while I am Inigo Montoya."

Ruby swallowed. "You won't really try to kill Kennedy, will you?"

"No, of course not! But we will make pretty sounds with our swords and everyone will be impressed."

They bent their heads over the page and Kennedy had to laugh. Most of her lines were simple, while Ferinc's weren't much more so. The complex lines were Ruby's, but there weren't many of them.

Eventually Ferinc suggested they go outside.

Ruby blinked. "Lauren said we had to stay inside."

"Oh, we'll ask first," he told her. And sure enough he did ask and they received permission.

They ran through the lines a few more times and it was pretty easy. Then Ferinc nodded and Kennedy knew that this time they'd cross blades.

It was, she thought, very much like kendo. He would swing and she would swing and their blades would meet. They fought at long arm's length, so that there was no way for the blades to hit anything but an arm, and of course, they were careful and there was no risk to speak of.

But what music they played together! He was very good, no doubt about it! Their swords banged and clashed, and he would leap and bound, and she would move with him, always ready. Long before they finished everyone in camp was gathered to watch. They finished the swordplay and Inigo Montoya was left behind by the Dread Pirate Roberta, and the clueless Master Mind once again was scratching her head, wondering how her perfect plan had failed.

There were cheers and applause and Ferinc made a sweeping bow. Kennedy was more restrained, and Ruby just stood with a crazy smile on her face.

Later, they were assembled for ice cream, but first Lauren was to announce the camper of the day.

"Usually, camper of the day goes to someone who had done something particularly good. Today, I want to do something special. Yesterday, some girls from Nightingale Cabin said some nasty things about some of their fellow campers. Nasty, hurtful things.

"Most of us, I think, have been the butt of something like that; it's no fun. Today, someone from Nightingale Cabin was trying very hard, too hard. She's limping tonight because she wanted to do better for her cabin. Ruby Goldberg is Nightingale Cabin's camper of the day. For standing up to the girls yesterday, and for recognizing today that she'd walked too far!"

There were a few claps, then more as Kennedy clapped loudly.

Then the usual other girls, including Karen from Kennedy's cabin. Then there was ice cream and Kennedy sat next to Ruby, having congratulated her on winning the contest for the day.

Ruby blushed. "Kennedy, would you sleep over?"

Kennedy grinned. "Of course! What are friends for?"

"You have friends ... I just have people who hate me a little, and a lot more who hate me a lot."

"Ruby, remember earlier? All the clapping for our skit? They didn't boo you, you know. They were clapping for you, too."

"For you and that guy."

Kennedy grinned. "Do you understand that 'that guy' is one of the boss gypsies? He has more magic in his little finger than both of us combined?"

Her lips formed an "O" of surprise.

That night Kennedy carried a few items to the Nightingale cabin. She grinned at Steffie, then at Cindy, then followed Ruby inside the third bedroom.

"I didn't think you'd come," Ruby said, her voice trembling.

Kennedy giggled. "Ruby, you came earlier. Now I'm going to make you come again and again. And I'd surely like it if you'd make me come, while we're at it."

Two hours later, Ruby was lying on her side, smiling and asleep. Kennedy leaned down and kissed her, grinning. "No complaints, girl," Kennedy murmured into the night. "None at all."

They fingered each other as the sun came up, and a little later Kennedy left Ruby, still asleep, for her morning run.

The days passed in a whirl; then it was Friday and she repeated the scene they'd practiced with Ruby and Ferinc, and it was still impressive. He shook her hand Saturday morning and left.

Saturday was another social dance and while Kennedy wanted to turn down most of the dance requests, she couldn't turn them all down. And Ruby had requests to dance with others, too. She'd become more placid, less acid and acerbic -- although no one was going to mistake her as friendly for a while yet.

One girl in particular really put the moves on Ruby, doing everything, including groping her on the dance floor, trying to get Ruby to go with her. Ruby just smiled because that night, Kennedy was Camper of the Day, and they'd gone to the bedroom in the Fox cabin and had sex all night long, laughing and giggling.

The last few days of camp passed in a blur. There wasn't always time to make love, but there was almost always time for hugs and kisses. And the last morning, before the busses arrived, Kennedy hugged and kissed each one of her new friends, pleased beyond words.

Harriet was last, and they'd hugged and kissed, and Harriet had groped Kennedy, which resulted in both of them breaking out in giggles. "I'll be seeing you!" Harriet told Kennedy.

"Not if I don't see you first!" The two of them hugged each other tightly again, before moving off to their respective busses.

One more thing Kennedy learned on the trip home about long skirts like Ruby favored: you could sneak your hand underneath and pleasure someone and hardly anyone noticed.

To Kennedy's surprise, only Mr. Glastonbury was waiting for her when they got to White Plains. She had time to hug Harriet one last time, hug Ruby one last time, and then she sat next to Mr. Glastonbury for the last few minutes of her trip home.

"You had a good time?" he asked.

"Yes, of course."

"Do you know the largest downside to reaching maturity?"

She thought for a second, then looked at him. He was paying attention to the road, with no expression on his face.

"What is the biggest downside of reaching maturity, sir?" she asked finally, admitting she had no clue.

"As a child, if you mess up, it's usually you who suffers alone. When adults screw up, they often take their friends and family with them."

Kennedy contemplated that for the rest of the trip home, then later, late at night. It was, she realized, the first time in nearly two weeks when someone else wasn't going to help her feel pleasure. For a few seconds she felt unreasoning anger about Mr. Glastonbury's dark statement. She was careful! She was strong! She'd never let her friends be hurt!

Except where were her friends? Close to hand, so she could step in and intervene? No, they were dozens, or more, miles away. Like when Amanda was killed, she'd be far away and in no position even to know, much less to help if they got in trouble. As a lesson, it was a good one. As a human being, it reduced Kennedy to tears.



-------

Chapter 12: Kennedy Loses a Friend


Kennedy bounced out of bed the day after she got back from camp and all but ran downstairs, then threw herself into her exercises.

Mr. Glastonbury arrived a few moments later, a tray with a coffee cup and some toast in hand. He watched her for a few moments, then picked up the paper and started reading it.

Kennedy finished her usual set, feeling not the least tired. Yes! There is magic and there is magic! Ferinc and those others had theirs and she had hers!

She plunked herself down opposite Mr. Glastonbury. "We need to talk," she told him. It wasn't a question.

"Do we?"

"Yes. What, sir, do I do about a dark human? One as evil as any vampire or demon?"

"You are not their judge, Kennedy. You can stop them, but you can't hurt them ... at least not lethal hurt. Modest amounts of certitude."

"Could you explain why I can't kill someone as evil as say, Adolf Hitler, but I can kill some demon who might be as innocuous as Mr. Waterman?"

"Well, first off, you've made an unwarranted assumption about Mr. Waterman, one that you know for a personal fact isn't true. He's not on the side of evil; he's on ours. This is called 'using judgment.' It isn't the long suit of most teenagers. Still, one hopes that one's teaching isn't totally wasted.

"True evil, other dimensional demons, our own vampires and werewolves aren't the same as a living, breathing human beings. They're dead. Cut a vampire and it isn't going to bleed to death. Cut a werewolf and it will bleed. You'll want to be careful of that blood, because if your bare skin touches it, the next thing you know, you'll be one of them.

"There are a few werewolves who've managed to control their lust for human flesh. You'll know it if you ever meet one.

"But the bottom line is that vampires don't have souls and werewolves rarely do."

"So, I'm not a judge of the living, I'm the executioner of those already dead?"

"Lady Kennedy, you speak of the duties of a Slayer. You aren't a Slayer and may never be one."

"But that's the essence of it, right?"

"Yes."

"Did I show off too much at camp?"

"No."

Kennedy lifted an eyebrow, expecting a different answer.

"Why not?"

"You only used Lady Kennedy twice, for the play. Everyone, except you, knew the story you played a scene from. Everyone laughed. No one takes anything seriously that they laugh at."

"And why have you never taught me a team sport? I do pretty good at those."

He met her eyes. "For the first time in quite some time, Miss Kennedy, I'm alarmed. You haven't used 'sir' but once to me since you sat down. You haven't the wit to understand why meditation is bad, or why slaying isn't a team sport. It seems that I've taught you nothing at all."

Kennedy had been unprepared for his anger. "You've taught me several sports, sir."

"True. Archery, swordsmanship, unarmed combat, various martial arts. Miss Kennedy, would you say your schedule has been easy or busy? Empty or full?"

That was easy enough and the answer, of course, was why she was being stupid. "Full. You didn't want me wasting my time and it's not easy."

"Such sports are, at best, diversions. I could have taught you chess, too. To learn any of those sports well you'd have had to devote considerable time to that study. Time you don't have. It's why you don't play a musical instrument."

"Is that why I don't ride a bicycle?" She was a little angry with that.

"Miss Kennedy, contemplate a battle against a vampire with you mounted on your bicycle. Or your skateboard or your ice skates. I've taught you to swim, because you never know when a battle will end up in the water."

She sat fuming. "And I'm just supposed to supinely let you guide me in all of this? Following by rote anything you try to teach me?"

"That, Miss Kennedy, is what students do."

"And yet, there you sit, wondering why Slayers always die! Tell me, Mr. Smarty-pants-Glastonbury, why do you think your methods work, when they've failed every single time? Or has a Slayer ever died of old age?"

"Because we are always looking for new ways, new techniques. Slayers live longer these days, Miss Kennedy."

"I'm sure Amanda appreciates that! She was what, eighteen? Her Watcher gave her what? A couple of years?"

He waved at the door to the room. "If you like, I'll leave."

Kennedy moved then, without thought, without preparation, filled to the brim with anger. She went across the table, tackling him in his chair. She sat on his chest, her knees forcing his shoulders to the ground. "Yield!" she commanded.

He twisted and bucked at the same time. She hit him in the chest with the flat of her hand, careful not to break anything, but leaving him gasping for breath. "Yield, I say!"

He tried to gouge her eyes and she slapped his hands away. Her next stroke against him was blocked, and then he heaved again, catching Kennedy by surprise, when his legs wrapped around her upper torso and pulled her away from him.

She flipped away, coming up as he was trying a leg sweep. She coldly stepped forward, caught his leg and spilled him on his butt. His leg jerked out of her grip and he came up at her, launching a full bore punching attack, an attack that would have crushed most tae-kwan-do opponents. She blocked what she could and let the rest bounce harmlessly away.

It went around and around, a dizzying spiral of punch and counter-punch, blows landed, blows missed. Finally, nearly exhausted, she was once again on his chest, her knees pressing his arms down, her hand on his throat, sufficient pressure to have brought him to stillness.

"I suppose," he said conversationally, "that this means you now think you're the cock of the walk; the big bad dude who lives here. That you no longer have to follow any rules whatsoever."

"Don't be silly," she told him. "It means that for the first time in what, five years? I beat you in a fair fight. You expected me to pay attention, each and every time you beat me. Why is it you want to ignore me, now that I've beaten you? Why do you want to run me down? Does it make you feel better?"

He reached up slowly, carefully and put the mildest pressure against her hand, pushing it away from his throat. Kennedy let up and rocked back, coming to her feet. "You offered me your hand a thousand times," she told him, holding out hers.

He reached out and took it. It was clear, Kennedy thought, that both of them were wary of the other trying a trick. She hauled him to his feet.

"What do you want, Miss Kennedy?"

"A little respect. Not much beyond that. Mr. Glastonbury, I've respected you since the first day we met. You don't approve of the way I show it ... and I've never approved of the way you wanted me to show it. Let's call it a draw."

"No, Miss Kennedy. Call me what you will; you will always be either Miss Kennedy or Lady Kennedy to me. Don't tell me what to think or do."

She bobbed her head. "My friend Ruby lives in Tarrytown. I'd like to find a way to see her at least once a month and more often if possible."

His regard was steady.

Kennedy couldn't help blushing. "Not always," she told him. "But now and then would be nice."

He chuckled.

"I want to go to Faire more often. I want the 'sex' part of the rules lifted. I'm comfortable with the drug rules. You can throw in music rules, because as near as I can tell, I sing about as well as a lark farts."

He inclined his head, regarding her, then nodded.

"Mr. Glastonbury, this isn't my question, but Harriet's. Are you serious about her mother?"

He laughed. "This once, you can ask a question like that of me. I'll answer it regardless of how I feel about personal questions. After the answer you can ask another personal question and we will do this again. You will not always catch me on a bad day."

"Okay."

"Then, no. Then again, Harriet's mother is not serious either."

Kennedy nodded. "Harriet is worried."

Mr. Glastonbury shrugged. "At one point or another, her parents' marriage is going to come unglued. The first time I was ignorant of it. This time I just turned a blind eye to it. Sometimes, Miss Kennedy, you are a breath of fresh air, a new and unique insight on things that others -- including myself -- have made too complicated. I think Harriet's situation is as complicated as is possible. After the last two weeks, it's clear to me that it's not going to turn out well. I expressed my dismay, and I was told ... well, let's just say that I'm not welcome any more."

"I still want you for my tutor," Kennedy told him. "Sir."

He laughed. "Miss Kennedy, you really have no concept of duty at all, yet, do you? That's all right, because you understand what is required sufficiently."

Kennedy sketched a bow. "I'm going to get a shower, then breakfast."

"Fine. In an hour, we'll start on a bestiary of demons. It was pure luck you knew what a Sofai was. I will fix that gap in your education, quicker than quick."

Something about what he said made Kennedy frown. She remembered a hundred times before that he favored the phrase "lickety-split." It was almost enough to double her over with laughter, because he obviously understood that the phrase now had a new meaning.

She stopped, going to another subject she'd been thinking about. "That reminds me, sir. I had no idea what a The Princess Bride was or why everyone laughed uproariously through the entire sword battle that I fought with Ferinc. I felt like I was in a fog, battling unseen, unknown opponents. I'd appreciate it, sir, if henceforth we can include some pop culture in my curriculum."

For the first time in her memory, he made a rude gesture at her, but he was laughing.

-------

Three weeks later, Kennedy lay on her stomach in a tent, with the post on one side of her, then Harriet, while Ruby was just inches away, touching her shoulder on the other side. The three girls had had their chins in their hands, watching the revelry of Faire village.

Harriet sighed. "In two weeks, school starts."

"Me too," Ruby added.

Ruby giggled after a second. "Lucky Kennedy! No school for her!"

Kennedy laughed at that. "Ruby, you have it backwards! You had the summer off; I had the two weeks of camp off. The rest of the year, I'm in school. Every day, six days a week. Seven, sometimes, because Mr. Glastonbury doesn't always take his days off. He told my father he's saving up for a two week visit to England this fall. My father thinks he's stupid, because he'd just give him the time off without having to save up days."

"So, what did you learn this summer after camp?" Harriet asked.

Kennedy shook her head, not wanting to talk about demon clans. "Well, I asked, and I read Cervantes Don Quixote and now I'm reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I watched the movie ThePrincess Bride and a few others."

"My mother would freak if I read Atlas Shrugged!" Harriet said with a laugh.

"It was the first book I saw Ruby reading," Kennedy admitted. "I was curious. Mr. Glastonbury said that I can read Red Storm Rising some other time." Actually, he'd said a number of things, mostly unflattering about how the Cold War had turned out and that Kennedy would be better off reading the lotto winning numbers than Red Storm Rising.

Kennedy reached out and started feeling up Ruby, until she found what the other had hidden under her skirt. Kennedy pulled the thick tome out. "War and Peace?" Kennedy asked, when she held up the cover to the firelight.

Ruby giggled. "You cheated! You tickled me!" For the next several minutes their play got very romantic.

Harriet sighed. "I think I'm going to roll over and go to sleep."

"Don't make too much noise rolling over," Kennedy told her. She knew her friend well!

Harriet stuck her tongue out, but laughed as well.

Kennedy and Ruby resumed their position as they had been, chins in hand, looking at the adults carrying on around the main campfire.

"What do you think?" Kennedy finally asked, breaking the silence.

"Of Faire?"

"Yes."

"When you first told me about it, I thought it was a bunch of grownups with some serious mental problems, wishing they were living in the Middle Ages. I got here and looked around. They are a bunch of grownups who wish they lived in another time. Rationally, it makes no sense. Life back then was nasty, brutish and short, particularly if you were a woman who wanted kids or a man who was a soldier.

"They really aren't rational, either," Ruby concluded. "But when I think about it, I wonder who among us is?" She leaned a little towards Kennedy and nudged her shoulder with her own. "I don't know why you love me. I'm not cute; I'm not as smart as you or Harriet. I can't sew, I can't swing a sword, and while I could probably swing those bamboo sticks of yours, I couldn't do it nearly as good as you. I shot a bow and arrow and hit the target next to mine, but the arrow wasn't going very fast, and it just sort of sagged there in the target.

"Yet, you do love me, because here we are."

"Yes!" Kennedy said, sneaking a peck at Ruby's ear.

There was a stir a few feet away and Kennedy looked up, a little embarrassed to be caught kissing Ruby. Caught kissing anyone.

Duke Roger appeared from the dark.

"Are you awake, Lady Kennedy?"

"Awake, even altogether dressed," she said, hoping to preclude his speculation on what she and Ruby were doing.

"Please, we have a situation back in the Faire area. I think you could help."

Kennedy snaked out of the artificial fur blanket she'd bought just to bring to Faire and stood up. She reached back and got Lady Kennedy from where she'd been laying on the other side of Ruby.

Sir Roger cleared his throat. "This isn't dangerous, Lady Kennedy. Friar Geoffrey would string me up higher than high if I even suggested something dangerous."

Kennedy inclined her head. She wasn't surprised to hear that, not at all. She put Lady Kennedy down where she'd been laying a moment before.

Sir Roger went on. "We have a couple of pairs of constables who patrol the Faire area after we close for the day." He saw her intent look and he grinned. "You have to be a badged peace officer, Lady Kennedy, sorry.

"Anyway, one pair just called in from over by the petting zoo; they can hear what sounds like a small child, probably a girl, crying. They've tried to find her, but it's clear, they say, that she's hiding from them. I'd just as soon as you left Lady Kennedy behind, this time. I don't want the kid more frightened than he or she already is."

Kennedy considered it. This would be the first time in years she'd gone anywhere at Faire without Lady Kennedy hanging over her shoulder. She chuckled. Sir Roger was right, though. The Faire area could be pretty scary, late at night, with strangers looking for you.

Harriet hissed and Lady Kennedy turned to her. "Come close," Harriet demanded. "Give us a kiss."

Kennedy got down on her knees, and Harriet actually pulled a little back, forcing Kennedy to move closer still to the tent. Harriet leaned a little forward and put her hand in the fur near Kennedy's. "Maybe some of that stuff from the gypsies rubbed off on me, Kennedy. Please, take this," she whispered. She slid her hand forward and Kennedy saw the stake Friar Geoffrey had given her so long ago, that until a few seconds ago had been under her pillow.

Kennedy moved her own hand and pulled the stake up, and slid it up the sleeve of her tunic as she stood. Without a word, Sir Roger set off, moving rapidly through the night.

Kennedy was used to Mr. Glastonbury doing the same thing; he never made allowances for her shorter stride, expecting her to match his.

They reached the familiar area of the petting zoo and he slowed down. A man waved to him and Kennedy followed Duke Roger over towards the Play House. There was a low, whispered conversation.

The man said quietly, "I'm pretty sure it's a girl, and young. I haven't been able to get a good look at her, but she's small and now and then you can hear soft sobs. When we try to get close, she slips away." The man waved at the area beyond the Play House. "That slopes down to the ravine, and it's fairly heavily overgrown. I don't want her to trip and fall in the brush in the dark, so I backed off."

"You did good. Kennedy, please, if you would, see if you can talk her out."

Kennedy nodded and started forward. The other man, who hadn't said anything up until then spoke softly, "Blacker than the depths of hell back there, girl! No light, lots of brush. Be careful!"

She nodded her thanks, and for the first time realized he was black. That was interesting all by itself. She made a mental note to find him and talk to him afterwards. She'd never talked to anyone like him before.

She walked just past the Play House. There was about ten yards of bushes before the ground started to slant down towards a ravine that led steeply down to the lake. It was rocky and overgrown and Kennedy had never been down there.

She moved a little further, then said in a conversational voice, "Hi! I'm Kennedy. I'm a girl just like you. I just turned thirteen a few months ago. So I guess that makes me kind of old now. I can understand being lost and scared, but no one here is trying to hurt you. If you say something, I'll help you up, and we'll get you back with your parents."

She stopped talking and listened. There was a rustle of cloth about twenty feet ahead of her, close to the ravine, but no other sound. "We're really here to help," Kennedy went on, speaking now in that direction. "We'll see you safe and home in no time! Please, come to me, or call and I'll come to you."

There was a soft murmur of sound, then a clear word. "Help!" There was kind of a squeak at the end, like the speaker was hurt. Kennedy moved slowly forward, peering around carefully in the dark.

She reached the place where the ground broke sharply down and she considered what to do next. The voice seemed to be the same distance ahead of her as before when she heard it again. "I'm so thirsty! I'm hungry! I'm so hungry and thirsty! Help me! Please, help me!"

Kennedy rocked back on her heels. This was all wrong. She could sense it. It was just plain wrong. With cold certainty, she knew that if she went forward she'd be going into a trap. She considered running back to the others, but what could she say? "Sorry, I lost my nerve?"

She sniffed in derision.

"Girl, I can't see you and it's dark and steep down there. Head uphill and I'll help you."

"I fell; I hurt my leg. Ow! It hurts!"

Kennedy rolled her eyes. That was so wrong! Duke Roger would understand if she went back and whispered her suspicions to him. Friar Geoffrey would know the truth of it! Yet she hesitated. The smart thing to do would be to go back and get help.

She took a few steps forward, and stood carefully on the now steeply pitching hillside. There was a more substantial than most scrub tree to her left. The ground was more open to the right of the tree, but it was much steeper that way. The easiest path would be just a bit away from the tree.

Kennedy slid the stake out of her sleeve and held it in her hand, and then took a few more steps forward. "I still can't see you," Kennedy said, her voice softer. "Talk to me some more."

"I'm here!" the voice said from ahead, past the tree, lost in the darkness. "I hurt my knee! Ow! Ow!"

Kennedy was tempted to laugh or say something about how stupid the other sounded. But then she remembered some of the girls from camp. None of them had been this stupid -- but a couple came pretty close!

She took another few steps further, stopping just short of the tree. She mentally prepared herself, while continuing to scan the pools of darkness that surrounded her.

"Help! Help! I'm slipping!" the high voice said, sounding desperate. Mentally Kennedy gave the other a Siskel and Ebert two thumbs down on her performance.

She laughed then and stepped forward until she was past the tree. The ground was much steeper ahead of her. There was a rock about fifteen feet below her, maybe twenty-five feet away, plus loads of snags and bushes.

It was an important lesson she learned then. One second she was scanning the area carefully, the next she was tumbling head over heels down the hill, with a powerful arm around her throat, choking her, and a second later she felt the bite of fangs as whoever had landed on her back sought a midnight snack.

Frantic, she adjusted her tumble and a fraction of a second later she slammed into the rock -- back first. The impact jarred her through and through, and whoever was on her back grunted in pain.

She broke loose from its grip and spun around. The other lunged at her, still just a dark shape in the night. A small dark shape, maybe three feet tall. She no longer had compunctions about a fair fight. She kicked the other in what was undoubtedly its face. There was another grunt of pain, then it had a rock-hard grip on her ankle and was twisting it.

Kennedy realized that if she fought against the grip, it would break her ankle, so instead, she went with the motion, twirled and kicked out with her other foot, connecting with her attacker's ribs.

"Who the fuck are you?" a high pitched, but male, voice exclaimed in exasperation.

Kennedy's hand with the stake stabbed out and connected with its chest. "Better than you," she said quietly. For the first time she got a glimpse of the face, locked in the horrid rictus that she'd seen once before. Then it was dust and she was laying cold and alone near the bottom of the ravine, bleeding from a dozen cuts, with bruises and bumps everywhere.

She shook herself, remembering what Mr. Glastonbury had said before about how they usually hunted in packs. She went up the hill fairly quickly, but didn't see any signs of life or unlife.

She walked up to Sir Roger. "Duke Roger, I found a rabbit caught in some vines down there. It was pretty exhausted, but now and then it would make some very weird sounds."

He looked at her hard. "And?"

"I freed it. It's gone. There's no girl down there. There never was. The sounds, Sir Roger, were really weird, and I couldn't tell exactly where they were coming from. If I hadn't tripped and fallen and landed next to it, I'd never have found it."

The black constable nodded. "Something like that happened to me. We live up in the mountains. My daughter's cat got out once and went up a tree down by the stream. We could hear it crying for days, as we searched for it. Finally we used binoculars to search each tree from all sides. Finally found the little thing. I had to call a tree service to get it down."

"A rabbit?" the other constable said, frowning. "I'm sure it was child! I could hear her crying!"

The black constable shrugged. "The sound a rabbit makes when a fox gets it ... it tears your heart right out. Sounds like a baby's cry of pain."

"Come along, Lady Kennedy. You need to get those cuts and bruises tended to," Duke Roger told her.

She followed along behind him, back to the village. The doctor was called and he came and cleaned and applied bandages. "Mostly cuts and scrapes," he told Friar Geoffrey who finally appeared before he finished. "Two punctures to the neck, but they are flesh wounds. A bush, I think. They're not serious."

Friar Geoffrey lifted his eyes and gave Duke Roger a withering glance. The duke returned it stonily.

The doctor pronounced himself satisfied and Kennedy bounced to her feet. "I'm fine," she announced to all and sundry. "I think it was the same bunny that attacked President Carter." That brought smiles to some of the older people nearby and blank looks of puzzlement from everyone else.

"Come with me, Lady Kennedy," Duke Roger said, "I'd like your full report. I have to write up a formal incident statement for the Faire sponsors."

She went off a few yards from everyone else, with Friar Geoffrey following behind.

"You're sure there's no lost child?" he asked as soon as they were clear.

"It wasn't a child. A midget or a dwarf with a high pitched voice. Once upon a time it was a man, but not lately."

Duke Roger's throat worked. "And then?"

"It came at me from behind. I was faster than it, stronger than it and more clever than it. It wasn't much of a fight."

Friar Geoffrey looked at Duke Roger. "We track all vampire stories, do you understand? So far as we know, no child has ever been sired. No one is sure why, but it's clear a child would have a serious handicap as a vampire, particularly when it came to feeding. Not many people are willing to let someone climb on a crate to kiss them ... and that would be about the only way a small child could feed."

"It was hungry and thirsty," Kennedy said, nodding. "I'm sure it was alone."

Again Friar Geoffrey nodded in understanding. "I think, sometime in the past, probably the recent past, a midget or dwarf irritated a vampire. God, they love torture! They love to make their victim's lives absolute hell! Siring a vampire that couldn't feed easily -- that would be something that a vamp like Bloody Bill would do. Or his consort, Drusilla."

Duke Roger grimaced. "So long as you're sure that tomorrow I'm not going to find a small body down in that ravine. I'm going to have to send people down to look, just to be sure."

"Tell them to be careful," Friar Geoffrey told him. "But I don't think there will be a problem."

Duke Roger drew steel and gave another sword salute to Kennedy. "If not for you, tonight one of those creatures would have been here, hunting. And there are many children present during the day."

The blade returned to its scabbard and he turned and walked away into the night.

"Am I in trouble?" Kennedy asked of her tutor.

He sighed. "No. Roger asked me first. Like him, my only thought was for the lost child. I wish you would have called for help, but then you couldn't very well, could you?"

"I thought about it, sir. I weighed what I should do carefully. I was sure it was an ambush. I'm upset with myself because I never realized it was behind me."

"Lady Kennedy, the essence of an ambush is to attack from an unexpected direction. Now that you've been ambushed, I'm willing to bet you'll be a lot more careful in the future!"

"Yes, sir!" Kennedy exclaimed.

He reached out to her, gripped her shoulders and spun her around, pointing her back towards her tent. She felt a gentle smack on her bottom. "Get some sleep, Lady Kennedy!"

She walked back to the tent and crawled under the fur. Ruby woke up sleepily, then started, seeing the bandages on Kennedy's arms and shoulders. "Gosh!"

"I fell into the ravine," Kennedy told her. "It's not as bad as it looks."

Harriet cracked an eye. "And the lost girl?"

"There was no lost girl. It was a small rabbit, caught in some vines. They make a lot of noise. I set it free."

"You should have brought it back!" Ruby exclaimed. "You could have taken care of it! Nursed it back to health!"

Kennedy hated to lie, but there was no choice. "I'm sorry, Ruby. All I saw was a wild animal. I didn't think I'd be doing it a favor imprisoning it again, no matter how pleasant the prison might have been. So I set it free."

"In the morning, I'm going to see if I can find and help it!" Ruby said firmly.

Kennedy kissed her on the cheek. "Remember, Ruby dearest, I'm a little better at athletics than you, and I went crashing down the hill. If you go, be sure to take me with you, and we'll promise to be most careful!"

Ruby leaned close and kissed Kennedy hard. "Is that a promise?"

"That's a promise, Ruby. Now, I'm sorry to say, I'm tired and bruised from head to toe. What I'd like to do is wrap my arms around you and get some sleep."

Ruby grinned. "You'll tickle you know what?"

Kennedy chuckled. "In the morning, girl! Right now, I ache all over!"

Ruby obligingly rolled over on her side, and Kennedy spooned in behind her, pulling the fur blanket over the top of them. She wrapped her hand around Ruby's breast and kissed her neck. Within minutes, the two were asleep.

Dawn seemed to come earlier than expected. They talked for a while, then the three girls headed down for a shower.

Kennedy was lathering up, only to see that Ruby was looking at her strangely. "What?" Kennedy asked, laughing.

"You said you were bruised from head to toe," Ruby told her. She waved at Kennedy. "All I see are a lot of old bruises. Who's hitting you, Kennedy?"

Kennedy tried to stay focused. "Ruby, I train a lot. It's hard training, serious training. Sometimes you get bruised; that's just how things are."

"And last night? What about that?"

Kennedy grimaced. "I heal fast. I always have. I took an aspirin," she added, remembering Mr. Waterman.

Ruby jerked away. "You're lying!"

"Don't be silly, Ruby," Kennedy said quietly. "Go ask Duke Roger about last night. I told him what happened. I told Mr. Glastonbury. It was the Faire doctor who put stuff on the cuts and bruises. Trust me, Ruby, if I was lying, they'd tell on me."

Unless, of course, she was lying as she had to.

Ruby wasn't sure, and for the rest of the day, she stared at Kennedy every few seconds. Finally, late in the day, Kennedy dragged Ruby back to the shower.

"Do you remember those bruises from this morning?" she asked Ruby, trying to be as polite as she could. Ruby nodded yes.

Kennedy stripped naked. "I told you: I heal fast." Kennedy learned another important lesson then: when people don't understand "this," they don't understand "that," either. Ruby could find no sign of bruises, and that was, for Ruby, confirmation enough.

"You lied to me! You look me in the eye and tell me you told me the truth!"

"Ruby, I told you what I remember, okay? It was dark and I was a little scared, I..."

"You? Scared?" Ruby sniffed in anger. "Now I know you're lying!" With that she left in a huff.

Later Harriet sat next to Kennedy. "I don't know what to say, Kennedy."

"Nothing would be good right now. But it's too late. How can I explain this? If I tell her the truth, she could get killed! I can't imagine you facing a vampire. Ruby?" Kennedy's voice trailed away.

"Thanks for the vote of no confidence," Harriet replied. "Not that I think you're wrong, but there are times you should credit your friends with some guts."

Kennedy's attention was almost entirely on Ruby, who was now standing a couple of hundred yards away, sitting down, book in hand, ignoring everyone around her. It had been Kennedy who had invited her friend to Faire. And it was quite clear that Ruby had even more trouble with Faire than she had riding on the bus to summer camp.

Kennedy sighed with disappointment. How far should you go to pull someone back from the brink? How many times should you intervene before writing someone off as a hopeless case?

Kennedy ground her teeth, for the first time in her life. You don't give up on friends! How far would she go for Harriet? To the death! Why was she caviling at just telling Ruby she was full of shit?

She laughed at herself. Because it was easier to die, than to tell someone she was full of shit! Particularly if it was a friend.

Later, at dinner, Ruby made it clear to everyone. "I want to go home!" she announced.

Kennedy met Mr. Glastonbury's eyes and gave a most reluctant nod.

"Lady Gemma," Friar Roger started, only to be interrupted.

"Lady Gemma! What a crock! I'm Ruby Goldberg and I'm not ashamed of it! You people live in a fantasy world! You're nutcases!"

Mr. Glastonbury nodded. "What you say is true. You have to ask yourself why you would condemn other people's illusions? Where would you be if they did the same thing to you?"

"I'd be rational!" Ruby screamed. "Take me home!"

Mr. Glastonbury and Kennedy drove her home. Ruby sat alone in the back seat, glowering at the universe. When they arrived in the middle of the night near Tarrytown, at Ruby's house, Kennedy tried one last time.

"Ruby, please."

"You lied to me!"

"Hit me yourself! You can watch the bruise form. Tomorrow morning it will look like it's a week old. Tomorrow evening, it'll be gone. Hit me, Ruby! Please!"

"You're crazy," Ruby raged.

"I'm trying to convince you that you're wrong," Kennedy told her. "What do I have to do?"

"Go fuck yourself!" With that, Ruby was out of Mr. Glastonbury's car, headed for the house, determinedly lugging her overnight bag. A second later, lights came on and Ruby vanished inside.

Kennedy turned to Mr. Glastonbury. "I don't know what to say."

"You told me, once, that you and Ruby hit it off because she had a stone in her boot."

Kennedy nodded.

"Lady Kennedy, that stone was larger than you or I, or anyone, imagined! It just plain tore her up."

"That's certainly a convenient, self-serving explanation!" Kennedy snarled at him. He just smiled and in not so long, they were back in Scarsdale.

Kennedy sat staring at the phone, hoping Ruby would call.

She never did, not even once.



-------

Chapter 13: Graduation


For a week Kennedy waited for Ruby to call, then finally realized it was pointless. At that point neither of them was going to give an inch.

She had a better day than most for a change, and when she was catching her breath after a very long exercise set, she turned to Mr. Glastonbury. "Should I call Ruby?"

He shook his head.

"What should I have done different? She kept wanting me to tell the truth. What's wrong with that? She knew perfectly well I was telling the truth about little things, not the big thing. What should I have done?" She hesitated and added softly, "Sir."

Mr. Glastonbury shrugged. "There's no real choice. If you'd told her the truth, you'd have put and her family at risk. That's not a fair thing, is it? How could you explain that you can't explain without explaining?"

She whacked the side of her head and he laughed. "Miss Kennedy, perhaps I should take you to the emergency room. I would, I think, if I knew someone who'd let you watch."

"I thought you knew everyone?" she replied lightly.

"Oh, I know people who work in emergency rooms. I just doubt if they'd agree, no matter how much they trust me. I'm as sure as I can be: the first case would be some poor sod who caught his balls in a ringer. Wouldn't that be wonderful! The patient wouldn't care to have you watching them work on him, any more than you want to see it either."

"Do guys really do that?" Kennedy asked, curious.

He nodded his head. "Miss Kennedy, sex is the most primal drive in human nature. Even the dead feel the urge! People will do the stupidest things in the name of love or sex!"

"No, you'll just have to listen to me lecture on how important it is that you understand that there are tradeoffs involved in every decision you make, from getting up to going to bed. What clothes to wear, which way to go here or there. And that's just getting breakfast!"

Kennedy smiled, shaking her head. "I think I understand. I have to weigh whether losing Ruby as a friend is a worse fate than having her possibly losing her life. Or her family dying. What about Harriet?"

"What about Harriet? Harriet is very different from Ruby. I think Ruby is smarter in many ways, but Harriet has more common sense, more tenacity, and a far, far larger bump of curiosity. Do you understand that Harriet will never ask you if you're lying? She'll listen to what you say, judge it, and then judge if the reason for your lie might be justified."

Kennedy nodded. He had the essence of Harriet down to a "T."

"She'll die, you understand, if you become the Slayer."

Kennedy looked up at Mr. Glastonbury, her face suddenly pale.

"Is it really that black?"

"Yes."

"And my parents? My stepsister?"

"Toast."

"You?"

He shrugged. "Usually the Watcher dies first. I've survived twice when my student died. It's not something I'm proud of."

"You seem okay with the idea of your death," Kennedy spoke softly.

"Lady Kennedy, we all die. It's part and parcel of being born. Working with Slayers and Potentials ... it's the finest job a person can have. That it's more dangerous than coal mining ... well, my grandfather was a coal miner in the pits of Wales.

"He scrimped and got my father a position as a law clerk in London. That cost a pretty penny! My father wanted me to be a doctor, and when I finished boarding school, he sent me to the Continent to study. So many distractions I had! Wine, women, song ... and rebellion in the streets! I was an easily distracted youth and took to all of them with a verve. It's a pity I can't hold my liquor, can't sing a note, and have terrible luck with women. Still, I was a dab hand at organizing a revolution, and when we got going good, I became a fair soldier and a better blacksmith."

Something about the way he said it struck Kennedy as odd. "Just how many times have you been a Watcher?"

His eyes met hers. "Do you really want to know, Lady Kennedy?"

"Yes, Mr. Glastonbury, I do."

"I went to Paris in the summer of 1847. The kettle was already bubbling and by spring of 1848 it was at a roiling boil. I've worked with two Slayers and twenty-one Potentials. The appointments have averaged slightly less than six years each. I spent a decade in training and a year or two between postings."

Kennedy swallowed. "I must say, for someone whose two hundredth birthday is just around the corner, you don't look it. How does that work?"

"I'm not supposed to say anything beyond 'very powerful magic.'" He laughed. "Of course, if you consider how to boil a living frog, it's fairly obvious."

Kennedy nodded. Obviously, a riddle. She'd said it, too! How very odd!

He bounced up, picking up a kendo stick. "Ready to get spanked?"

She cast a fond, longing glace at Lady Kennedy, but she'd already spent half the morning swinging her.

They had hardly gotten started when there was a startled gasp from the door to the practice room. They stopped and both turned. Kennedy's mother was standing there, looking confused.

"What is that? You're beating each other with sticks?"

"It's a form of fencing, ma'am. It'll be an Olympic sport in a few years. Miss Kennedy, is, I think, good enough to compete."

"Yes, I suppose. Whatever." Her mother turned to Kennedy. "Your stepfather has been injured in a traffic accident."

"Is he okay?"

"He has several broken bones, as does his chauffer. However his mistress was killed instantly, as was her bastard child. The stupid woman was carrying him in her arms."

Kennedy wanted to pound on the side of her head, trying to get the water out that was messing up her hearing. Her mother spoke the announcement like she was reporting the weather.

"I'll be going to the hospital later this evening. He's in Mass Gen, up in Boston. You can come if you wish, but I'd understand if you didn't want to."

Kennedy was about to say she'd pass, thanks, when she saw Mr. Glastonbury make a minute shake of the head. He wanted her to go? She shrugged. There were worse things, she supposed.

When her mother went to the hospital, she didn't go like a normal person would. She drove them a short distance to a private airfield, where they boarded a helicopter for the hop to Boston. They were met by a Mercedes and whisked to the hospital.

To put it modestly, it was a very uncomfortable visit. Her father was clearly devastated, and Kennedy didn't think it was because he had a broken arm and broken hip. But he couldn't very well publicly grieve for his dead lover and his dead son, and Kennedy's mother wasn't about to bring them up.

Finally it was over and they were back in the Mercedes, headed for the helicopter and the ride back to Scarsdale. She drowsed in the car, barely woke up to walk to the helicopter, and leaned her head immediately against a head rest and was asleep before they even got into the air.

When they were back at the house her mother didn't get out of the car. "I'm going to spend a few days in Boston, dear. Then I'm due in Palm Beach. Dear, you look very stupid at your age, playing pretend swords with sticks."

Then her mother was gone. Kennedy found Mr. Glastonbury sitting in the study, his feet up, reading a book. She had intended to tell him about the trip, but something came up as she started towards him.

This time she was awake when it came.

It hit her like a lightning bolt out of the blue. She choked and gagged, gasping for breath, feeling the strong hands forcing her face down into the pool of water. No matter how much she fought and struggled, second by second her universe contracted until finally it went out of existence. It was one of the worst moments in her life.

She sagged to her knees, breathing in ragged gasps, barely able to retain consciousness herself.

Mr. Glastonbury was out of his chair and at her side like a bullet.

By then, it was over. "Miss Kennedy?"

She looked at him; she was pale and trembling. She tried to control her voice. "There'll be a new Slayer tonight. That cheerleader Valley girl just drowned."

He stared at her in astonishment. "How could you possibly know that?"

"I don't know. I knew about the one before. It's going to be a real trial, if I keep seeing their deaths. I'm not going to have any confidence at all, come the day."

"Well, hopefully the next Slayer will be more circumspect as well as more careful. That California girl was a terror!"

"What do you mean?" Kennedy asked, trying to use the time to regain her composure. It was clear Mr. Glastonbury was trying to distract her as well.

"Last spring, at her prom, a horde of vampires attacked her and the school. She killed them all ... but burned down half the school getting it done. They expelled her."

He paused and shook his head. "The Powers That Be sent her to a place called Sunnydale, north of Los Angeles. There's a place called the Hell Mouth nearby. As the millennium draws nearer, there is going to be more and more activity there."

"I thought that year 2000 stuff was all junk?"

"It is. But then, what was special about December 7th, 1940? Nothing! It wasn't a special day until the Japanese made it that way a year later. The same thing with June 6th, 1944, when Eisenhower decided to invade France that day. Just because a date doesn't appear to have any significance to you, it may have to others. Demons are famous, you understand, for having anniversaries just about any old day they please. It's like the old saw: 'It's always someone's birthday.'"

"I'm okay now," Kennedy told him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Glastonbury."

He laughed. "Miss Kennedy, twice now you've experienced someone dying. Having trouble with that, having a physical reaction to that, isn't unexpected. You just rest, and I'll call the Watchers Council and see what I can learn."

She nodded and then spoke the other thought on her mind. "This time, there was no old woman. Just the vision of her dying."

"Honestly, Miss Kennedy, this is all a surprise. I have no idea what to expect, nor, in fact, does the Watchers Council."

He helped her to a couch, then went to fetch a glass of orange juice. She accepted it gratefully, and while she sat sipping it. Mr. Glastonbury smiled at her, then hastened away, headed for the telephone.

He was gone for quite a while, more than an hour. Finally he returned and sat down next to her on the couch. He faced her and spoke seriously.

"I don't know what to say; this is all most irregular. Highly irregular. Nothing like this has ever happened before."

"What hasn't happened? Someone seeing a Slayer when she dies?"

"That too. Do you understand that there's powerful magic locked into the person who becomes the Slayer? When a Slayer dies, those forces are set in motion. The new Slayer, for instance, lives in the Caribbean area; exactly where, I'm not sure."

"Is that odd?" Kennedy asked, unsure of what was unusual about that.

"What's unusual is that the girl in California had a friend nearby. She was killed by a demon, not a vampire. He put her face down in a pool of water and held her down until she drowned."

"That part," Kennedy said with some force, "I knew about."

"Yes. Well, like I said, there was a friend there and he gave her mouth to mouth resuscitation. After a few minutes, she started breathing again. She's alive. For the first time in history, there are two Slayers alive at once."

"Mr. Glastonbury ... how many potential Slayers are there?"

"No one really knows for sure. We have seers who can sense the stronger ones. Sometimes, like the California girl, we couldn't sense her at all, not until she was Chosen. Hundreds, for sure. More, certainly.

"I have a suggestion."

"What?"

"Get in touch with both of the Slayers' Watchers. Have them drown their Slayers. After she's been out for a minute or two, give her mouth-to-mouth. Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four -- in no time, you'd have an army of Slayers and the vampires of the world would be in disarray and defeated."

He looked at her for a moment then shook his head. "I can't tell if you're joking or if you're just being callously cruel. A Watcher could never harm his or her student. Never. Kill them? Impossible! Good night, Miss Kennedy. I hope you can't sleep at all."

In the distance came the faint sound of breaking glass. Kennedy's heart went thump in her chest, while Mr. Glastonbury simply stood up. "The practice room," he said evenly. The practice room was in the other direction from the sounds.

They walked quickly there and he handed her a stake and Lady Kennedy, and then took an axe for himself.

There were two vampires. Not finding her in her bed, they were prowling through the house. One of them lifted a pistol and shot at Kennedy. She turned when she saw him lift the weapon and felt the wind as the bullet passed. Then Lady Kennedy swung in one of those figure-eights she practiced so often. The gun and the hand holding it clattered to the floor, and a second later the head started to follow it, but then it was dust, as was the rest of the vampire.

Mr. Glastonbury had locked blades with the other one, who had something like an axe as well. Lady Kennedy sheared through the heavy ash of the handle, then looped back and took that head as well. There was another explosion of dust.

Kennedy coughed, fanning the air. "Housekeeper is going to get very upset at the mess in here."

"It's like fairy dust. It'll be gone shortly."

"What if there are more than two?"

"I doubt it. I don't know why they came here, though. I've heard of vampires coming after a new Slayer right away, but never against a Potential."

"Like I said, except for being there when the Slayer was killed, this time I didn't see the new Slayer or that woman."

"That woman is the First Slayer. She comes visiting on occasion. The real problem is that this means they know who you are and where you live. They'll be keeping an eye on you from now on."

"Why, if I'm not the Slayer?"

"I think you're still too young, Lady Kennedy."

"Too young? Do I not bleed like a woman? Did I not kill two vamps in a minute? I'm too young?" her voice rose, but she managed to get a grip on her temper.

"Miss Kennedy, I don't make the rules -- that old black woman does, along with the Council of Elders or whatever they were. Council of Shamans, maybe. Then there's the Watchers Council.

"The dark powers will send someone to look in on you; probably one of their human stooges and they'll realize why you weren't Chosen. It's one of their weaknesses: if you aren't the Slayer, they pretty much consider you to be just another person. Not that some of them won't try, mind you, but nothing concerted."

He waved towards the back of the house. "Now, I'm going to call 9-1-1 and tell them that I frightened off two prowlers." He grinned at her. "Miss Kennedy, Watchers are known to be very protective of their students and most of us are quite handy with weapons. I am not as handy as you."

She suffered, for a few hours, the indignity of the police coming, going through the house and asking inane questions. Kennedy wished one of them had been Duke Roger; she was pretty sure he wouldn't be asking stupid questions.

-------

A few days later Kennedy was sitting on the veranda, a book in one hand, orange juice in the other when the new maid appeared. The maid walked past Kennedy and stood, looking out over the garden.

Kennedy grinned, knowing exactly what the message was. Mother was home and was already pissing off the staff.

Out in the garden, Ethan fired up the tractor. That was a surprise; that had to mean her stepfather was home as well. Both together? That didn't bode well, Kennedy was sure.

A few minutes later Mr. Glastonbury appeared, wearing a coat and tie. Kennedy grimaced, trying not to let the distaste for his caving in so cavalierly to her parents show on her face. "Miss Kennedy, your parents are in the library. They would like to talk to you."

She looked at him, all of her words frozen in her mouth. Mr. Glastonbury was no fool: he could read tea leaves as well as any seeress. This wasn't good at all.

She decided that she would cling to one item of familiarity and scooped up the juice glass as she stood and followed him down to the library.

Her father was sitting on one of the sofas reading papers clipped together. He had one arm in a cast and something weird on his hip. He was studiously ignoring his wife.

Kennedy had punted enough times in her life to recognize it when someone else was doing it.

Her mother, though, was standing in the middle of the room. "Kennedy."

Kennedy inclined her head. At least her mother had learned the futility of using her real name!

"I was upset the other day when I saw you playing with sticks with your tutor."

"It's called kendo, mother," Kennedy said evenly. "It's going to be an Olympic sport."

"Kennedy, this is me. Do you understand? Lie to me at your peril. Kendo is not even on the candidate list."

"Sorry, mother, I must have made a mistake. Perhaps it's sabers."

"Don't be absurd, Kennedy! Your father and I have been talking. We're concerned about your social skills. We have decided that at least for the coming school year, you will attend public high school in White Plains."

"Mother, if there is one thing I've learned since second grade is the value of good teachers. Mr. Glastonbury is a solid teacher, who knows his subjects. In all honesty, I don't think this is a wise choice."

"Well, you can say and think what you want, Kennedy, but this next year you will go to White Plains."

Kennedy contemplated that, than remembered that's where Harriet went. "It's your choice, mother. However, in the off-chance you are wrong, do you really want to dismiss the tutor who has spent so many years bringing me along?"

"No, of course not. But, that said, if I think you're slacking so you can go back to things the way they were, I'll dismiss him out of hand."

"Mother, you can say anything about me that you like -- just don't suggest I'd slack to make you unhappy. That's simply nutty. I will be doing my very best on the last day of my life and every day from now to then."

Her mother wasn't stupid and could read the clear context of what she'd said: "It's not like you count for much."

"You need, dear, to develop more social skills."

"Mother, at camp last summer I was the star of a play. They asked me back for next year and told me I could be a junior counselor. Usually you have to be seventeen for that. At the Renaissance Faire, they trust the animal petting zoo to my guidance. I don't know how you define social skills, but those matter to me. I'm proud of each and every one of them."

"Dear," her stepfather said, speaking mildly to Kennedy's mother, "I believe we're finished here."

Kennedy looked at him in surprise. She'd said about ten words to him since his accident. He was a different person than he'd been before. This was, well, kind was a good word for it.

Her mother frowned, no doubt intending to be meaningful but mostly she looked dumb. She turned and stalked out.

Her stepfather nodded to Mr. Glastonbury.

"Not only do you control my stepdaughter, but her mother as well. Kudos, sir, kudos!" A moment later an attendant arrived and he was wheeled away.

Mr. Glastonbury grinned at Kennedy after her parents were both gone. "That went better than I expected."

"Public school?" Kennedy asked. "Are you crazy? Boys? Stupid teachers who don't know their multiplication tables? Classes in bowling!"

"Girls, Lady Kennedy. Girls! Harriet, in particular. I do believe that most high school teachers have learned their multiplication tables. I assure you, if we find even one weak on the subject, I will let you loose on him or her, to instill the proper respect for scholarship. Do you know how to bowl?"

"I thought bowling was one of those sports you didn't feel any need to teach me, because they would detract from time more useful in other areas."

"I lied."

The two of them traded grins, knowing that the discussion had gone from serious to sarcastic.

"And I should just go along?" Kennedy asked.

"It's not that big of a thing. The California Slayer goes to high school. The latest Slayer has been sent to join her. It should be interesting."

-------

Kennedy contemplated the thought of high school, then went into her room and called Harriet.

After a short exchange of pleasantries, Harriet asked, "Ruby hasn't called?"

"No," Kennedy said, then sighed. "Mr. Glastonbury says it's for the best."

"What about you and me?" Harriet asked softly.

"That's what I called about. My parents have decided that I should go to high school. In fact, White Plains High School."

There was a moment of silence on the other end. "Wow! Together at last!"

"Harriet, they've come for me once already."

"Oh no!"

"Mr. Glastonbury thinks it was a mistake and they aren't likely to be back, but..."

"Yeah," Harriet said sadly. "I don't honestly know what to say."

"Tell me I'm your friend, even if every time I see you I'm risking your life."

"No matter what, Kennedy! You and me!"



-------

Chapter 14: New Friends


Two days later Kennedy stood next to Harriet, looking up at the granite facing of the high school. "This is weird," Kennedy whispered to Harriet.

Harriet laughed. "You have no idea. Fortunately, you aren't likely to be intimidated by anyone who makes fun of the fact that you haven't been in school before."

Kennedy slapped one fist into her other palm. "Modest displays of certitude!"

Harriet nearly convulsed with laughter. "Kennedy, approach this like you did the first day of camp. Take it easy; take it slow. Let things happen!"

Kennedy cast a sidelong glance at her friend. That would be, Harriet, the day you decided to spend the night with our counselor. That was the night I spent time with not one, but two different girls. Do you really want me to take it that easy?

Harriet waved at tall skinny girl hurrying towards the entrance. "That's Alicia Grundig. She wants to be the grade point leader of the class. Think of Ruby, only cubed."

"I don't know how to take that," Kennedy admitted.

"Queer as us, chip on her shoulder, persecuted, smart as a person can be."

Kennedy lowered her voice. "I'm not queer; I'm not strange or weird. Eccentric, perhaps."

Harriet patted Kennedy's arm. "Relax and try to adjust. To these people you are going to be a queer duck. If they find out how literally true that is, your life will be much more difficult. You don't want to get expelled for fighting."

Kennedy laughed. "I got expelled the last time for being right when the teacher was wrong."

"Put a sock in it, Kennedy," Harriet said seriously. "Things are different here. You will want to take it slow at first. It's like finding your footing in a sword fight."

That got Kennedy's attention. "I will go slow. I also left Lady Kennedy at home." She grinned at Harriet. "Still, I'm not going to listen to teachers who try to teach me wrong; I'm not going to kowtow to bullies."

"Trust me, Kennedy, bullies do it much better in high school. Those sorts of people have had years to learn how to game the system. You never did. If you tangle with them, you'll be the one in trouble."

Kennedy grinned. "You forgot my native wit, my basic cleverness and above all, you've underestimated Mr. Glastonbury as a teacher."

They joined the throngs marching inside. Kennedy waved goodbye to Harriet, then went and sat down in her first class, English Grammar and Composition. The teacher's idea of a test to see where they were was by reading something from the poem "Hiawatha" by Longfellow.

To Kennedy's way of thinking, it was probably a poor test, because there were a lot of Indian names in the poem, and even good readers stumbled over them. When it came to her turn, she stood, instead of staying seated as the others did and spoke the passage from memory.

In a way, it was kind of a fake, because Mr. Glastonbury hadn't been very big about memorizing American poets -- he far preferred her to learn English poetry, and she was quite sure if she stayed his student long enough, she'd know all of Shakespeare by heart. But "Hiawatha" was one of three American poems she'd learned and by far the longest.

The teacher picked up right away that she wasn't reading the passage; most of the class didn't until she sat back down and still didn't bother to open the booklet that had been passed out for the reading.

After everyone had a chance to read, the teacher asked if there were any volunteers. A few people held up their hands and eventually Kennedy held up hers. When she stood, the teacher smiled at her. "Do you know the whole poem?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Chapter 15, from the top, the first eight lines."

Kennedy smiled and said,

"In those days the Evil Spirits, 
All the Manitos of mischief, 
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom, 
And his love for Chibiabos, 
Jealous of their faithful friendship, 
And their noble words and actions, 
Made at length a league against them, 
To molest them and destroy them."

The teacher smiled at her. "And what's the title of Chapter 21?"

"The White Man's Foot."

"And which white man's foot is Wordsworth talking about?"

"It's Longfellow, ma'am; Wadsworth was his middle name. The White Man's Foot was a kind of flower."

"And how did you come to memorize the poem?"

"My tutor thinks only a few American poems are worthy of the name. There are only two others I know by heart. Ask me something about Shakespeare and I'm on top of it! Jonson, Chaucer, all those guys."

"Your tutor?"

Kennedy decided to get it out of the way. "I'm a Scarsdale girl, ma'am. Tutored from second grade to now. Thrown upon the tender mercies of public education to learn how to socialize."

The teacher laughed and waved for her to sit down.

The rest of the day, though, was deadly dull. Kennedy and Harriet had different lunch periods, different classes. It was mildly frustrating that she didn't get a chance to see Harriet until after the last bell.

"Well," Harriet asked, "how was your first day?"

"In English we were supposed to read aloud. The teacher picked one of three American poems I knew by heart. By force, I kept myself from tap dancing and juggling and just kept to reciting the words. Although I thought it would cause more of a stir because I knew it by heart."

"Kennedy, if you were to do something radically against the rules, the word would go around the school before the end of the next period. Do something well in class? It never gets out the door."

"That seems ... perverse."

"It is perverse, if you think the goal of school is teaching or that the students are here to learn. The real purpose of the modern American high school is to warehouse students until it's time for them to go to college. They fail almost no one; they leave that for the colleges. Odd, how it is, that so many kids think college is unfairly hard. They've been working to get college to be the same as high school: show up and you have a B average. Do all the homework and take all the tests and you'll get A's."

"Then why is that girl from this morning trying so hard to finish first?"

"Kudos, a few of them, go to whoever finishes first. For the rest of us, it's just that we finish and how well we do on the SAT."

"The SAT?"

"It's a test that seniors take in the fall. Do well on it and you go to college. Do very well on it, you get colleges calling you up, asking you to come there. Except the top tier of colleges, the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT and Caltech, places like that. Those you have to kiss bootie for, not to mention collect all the right ticket punches."

"Well, I might go to college, I suppose. It depends on whether or not I get picked."

Harriet nodded, and linked arms with Kennedy. "Well, you'll have to understand, I hope you're never picked."

"I know. It's a strange thing," Kennedy said as they walked outside. "If I get picked, I'm dead in a few years at best. If I'm not picked, I become just like you. And, if the rumors are true, the average Potential then jumps off the nearest high cliff unable to bear the disappointment."

"That doesn't sound very appetizing," Harriet said, trying to sound light.

Kennedy decided that Harriet never, ever, needed to know that twice she'd been inside someone's mind when they died.

For the next few weeks Kennedy simply did what was set out in front of her. The homework was absurdly light, and she knew that when she told Mr. Glastonbury about it, he'd find something else for her to learn. She was careful to tell him as soon as it was clear the public schools didn't much believe in out-of-class-assignments that took longer than twenty minutes.

It was, in a way, a little fatiguing. She warmed up and worked out early, before school, then once again as soon as she got home. Still, after a few weeks she'd adjusted just fine to the slightly longer hours and was content.

Then, a month into school things changed. She was walking to her locker, when ahead of her, a white boy, coldly, deliberately slammed his fist into a Hispanic boy's stomach. They were juniors, Kennedy thought.

The Hispanic boy shook off the blow, his hand dipped and she could see the knife move in a glittering arc, coming from the low attack position and quite clearly with intended malice. She took a quick step, grabbed his wrist and pulled it offline and went with the stroke.

The Hispanic boy couldn't help it. He had to flip or break his shoulder. He flipped and slammed down on his back. Kennedy put her foot on the wrist with the knife. His eyes glittered black with hate. "I'm gonna cut you, chica!"

A teacher appeared; one of the mice teachers. She'd already realized that there were teachers who were in control and those that weren't. She called the latter group "mice." Harriet thought she was being cruel.

"You, girl! Let him go! What have you done to him?"

Half a dozen of the nearest kids laughed sarcastically. Kennedy applied a bit more pressure with her foot and the knife came free. She toed it away, skidding it skittering across the floor towards the teacher.

"That's not mine," Kennedy said mildly. "If I let this guy up, he's promised to try to cut me. You won't mind if I keep a little pressure until you call one of the guards?"

There was a bit more fuss, then it was all over. Kennedy told Harriet about it later. "I was tempted to mention my pointy stick is a lot bigger than his," Kennedy joked, "but I figure it's guys with the size issues."

"And you don't?" Harriet said with a laugh. "For what it's worth, the gossip says you took the knife away from him." Harriet eyed Kennedy. "Kennedy, can I tell you something?"

"Sure, Harriet, you always can! Why would you think differently?"

"Kennedy, you put the wrong guy on the ground."

"He was going to knife the other boy!"

"The boy with the knife -- the white guy beat up his girlfriend and then raped her. The white kid wanted to show how helpless the Mexican kid was. He slugged him, knowing if the Mexican kid did anything back, it wouldn't be him getting in trouble. And that's what happened isn't it?"

"He raped a girl?" Kennedy's blood ran cold.

"Yeah. Several girls, actually. He picks someone helpless, usually Hispanic, and does his thing. Afterwards he taunts the boyfriend until he does something stupid."

"And the school lets this happen?" Kennedy was shocked to the core.

"Officially, they don't know about it. No one wants to testify against him."

Kennedy turned without a word and started jogging towards the school office. She looked around, saw a bunch of people waiting for this and that. She bellied up to the counter and a harried woman said, "You'll have to take a number."

"There was a boy today. I took a knife away from him earlier. I was replaying it in my mind, and I think I made a mistake."

The woman looked at her, a sarcastic expression on her face. "Girl, do you know that it's against the rules to strike another student? To knock him down and take something from him? That if you keep going this way, you'll be in trouble?"

"Who do I see about revising my story?" Kennedy asked coldly, ignoring the warning.

The woman looked at her sourly, and then went into an office. In a minute a man in his forties, looking trim and fit, ex-military, Kennedy thought, came out. "What's this?"

"Earlier, I thought I saw this guy trying to stick a knife into someone. Only, I kept replaying it in my mind, see? He picked it up off the floor, and was trying to hand it back to some guy in the hall. I screwed up. Suspend me, and all of that, not him."

"I'm Eric Dunbar, the Vice Principal in charge of discipline. I have two assistants, one for the women, one for the men. I've never seen you before, which just shouts that you're a new student. You remembered it, eh?"

"Yeah, it's like a film I can play in my mind. I thought I saw one thing, then, when I replayed it, I realized it was something else. You were a soldier; you know what I mean."

He looked at her coolly. "Well, it's a story. Let's see if you can convince two detectives; I'll warn you right now, it didn't work with me."

She followed him down a hall into a room where the Hispanic boy was sitting, hand-cuffed to a chair. The two policemen were talking to him, while a man that Kennedy had seen in the school halls was sitting at a desk a few feet away, listening to the questions.

Kennedy explained what she'd said before, and the lead detective just laughed. "That's just bullshit!"

"I assure you, it's not. I can remember each and every move. It's a technique my Master taught me."

He laughed. "And if you can do that, why didn't you see it at the time?"

"It happened very quick, sir. I thought I saw a threat and I reacted. It's my training, sir. Defensive only." Unless, she added under her breath, you're a vampire and then it's open season.

"Well, little honey, you just turn yourself around and walk on out of here. This isn't something you want to get involved with," the lead detective told her.

Kennedy smiled innocently. "If you say so, sir. Still, no hard feelings, eh?" she held out her hand to shake his.

Habit and custom, Mr. Glastonbury had said a million times, are your allies. Your enemies expect certain things when you move a certain way, behave a certain way. As soon as she had a solid grip on his hand, she yanked hard, putting her hip between him and his forward progress. He went ass over teakettle, landing on the ass, not the teakettle. She swept his partner's feet, bounced up and put the two pistols on the other man's desk. "Someone dropped these," she said innocently.

After a second the first policeman said, "Shit!" looking dazed. The second one was eying Kennedy warily, his hand resting on his ankle. Kennedy grinned. He had another gun in his sock! She'd seen that one on TV!

Her move was lightning quick: a kick that didn't connect with his face, but left her boot a fraction of an inch from his nose. The policeman flinched.

"Take your hand away from your ankle, sir, or contemplate how much that might have hurt," Kennedy said coldly.

The lead detective got up from the floor, took two steps and retrieved his weapon. At least he had the good sense to holster it. "You're under arrest for assaulting a police officer," he said smugly.

Kennedy held her ribs, she was laughing so hard. "Let's see, you're going to stand up in court and say that a thirteen-year-old girl, eight inches shorter than you, six inches shorter than your partner, assaulted both of you and took your weapons. My, won't that look good on your report! All before you had time to say 'Shit!'"

Mr. Dunbar laughed then. "Give it a rest, Detective Harrison! The charges and all that against Mr. Somoza have been dropped. You knew exactly what your chances were when you came in here and found out the person being assaulted was Dwight Evans. Non-existent, unless Mr. Somoza has a really bad attorney. There was never a chance Evans was going to press charges; your only other witness just recanted. I would say she has shown sufficient technical merit to justify her claim to remember each move she makes."

It took a few minutes, but at the end the boy was released from the handcuffs and the policemen left.

"Juan Baptiste," Mr. Dunbar said, speaking to the boy, still sitting, waiting for dismissal. "I understand what happened. Do you understand that you did exactly what Dwight wanted?"

"I'd have had him," he pointed to Kennedy, "if she hadn't butted in."

"And if you'd have had him, he'd have screwed you once again, Juan Baptiste. Because a knife is a poor weapon if you want to kill someone, and if you didn't kill him, he'd have seen you in jail for the rest of your life. Dwight isn't a coward, Juan; don't ever forget it."

"And yet, he keeps doing what he does."

"All you have to do is get Juanita to testify to what he did to her."

Kennedy could see the young man's face fall. "It would kill her parents, kill her, to say something like that. She's a good girl, Mr. Dunbar."

"I know, son. I know." He pointed at the door. "The two of you, get out of here. I don't want to see or hear about either of you for a long, long time. Next week, at the very least!"

Kennedy turned and walked out, but waited in the hall for the young man. "Busy?" she asked him.

"What do you care?" he said, obviously so angry, he was spitting.

"Humor me. Did you ever see that Crocodile Dundee movie where the punk pulls a knife on him, and he laughs and says, 'That's not a knife! Now this, this is a knife?' and pulls a huge blade from out of his ass?"

"Faked."

"Probably. I tell myself that I did good today, because you'd have hurt the guy, if I hadn't butted in. Mr. Dunbar was right, too. It would have been you in trouble, not this Dwight guy."

"What's it to you? In any case, it would have been enough to make the fucker bleed!"

"You don't know me and I don't know you. Come visit at my house for a few minutes. Let me show you my knife. Maybe it will impress you, maybe not. Maybe you'll listen to me, maybe not. You can always go back and just line up for jail time. It's easy, I hear, if you're a minority."

"Too fuckin' easy!"

"Well, what will it be then? Fuckin' easy and you go your way and I go mine, or mother fucking ass hard, you come to my place and listen?"

"Why should I care? Do you think I believe that you care about me? About Nita?" He spat on the ground. "Do you know your nickname at school, girl?"

Kennedy brightened. "I have a nickname?"

"Scarsdale poetry freak."

Kennedy laughed. "I take it that's not a compliment, is it?"

"Not!"

"Well, it's time to decide. My place or yours? I won't make this offer more than once."

"And what are we going to do at your place? Get it on? I love Nita, stupid! I don't get it on with anyone else, see?"

"I see just fine. And I'm gay, so if I were you, I'd try to keep me from meeting your Nita if she's cute. She is cute, right?"

He purpled and Kennedy laughed. "I'm jerking your chain. Please, yes or no?"

"And if yes, what?"

"What? We go to my house and I show you my knife. Then, if you're interested, we can sit down and figure out a way to stick something unpleasant into Dwight in such a way he's hurting afterwards and not us."

"You'd do that?"

"I won't physically hurt him," Kennedy warned. "Nor will I let you do it. But, yes. Something very, very unpleasant will happen to him."

"Okay."

Kennedy led Juan Baptiste outside and gestured for him to get in the back seat of Mr. Glastonbury's car. Mr. Glastonbury looked at Kennedy as she sat down next to him in the front seat. "I suppose you have an explanation for this?"

"He showed me his knife, sir. I'm going to show him mine."

"Size, Miss Kennedy, isn't everything." He gestured at her. "Miss Kennedy, hold out both of your arms in front of you."

She did so; it was a little crowded in the car, and she had to turn in the seat to do it. "See anything interesting, Miss Kennedy?"

She very nearly blurted out, "No!" when she saw something that was clearly what he was talking about. The sleeves of her blouse ended nearly four inches above her wrists.

She looked at him, pulled on her sleeves and got the same result. "Hmm. Is it going to be a problem that I told a policeman that I was five five a while ago and clearly, I've grown?"

"What was the policeman interested in?"

"Nothing important," Kennedy told him. "I took his gun; I took his partner's gun. Then I found that at least the partner had another hiding in his sock. I didn't think they were permitted to do that."

"They're not. You disarmed two policemen?"

"Slick as a whistle," Juan Baptiste confirmed. "She went to shake hands with the biggest asshole, and the next thing I knew, he was flying around a circle, landing on the ground, just like she did to me. About the time I stopped looking at him and turned to his partner, she was putting their guns on the vice principal's desk."

He looked at her. "That was right after she was lying for me. I don't know why she did that."

"Let's say that between the time I first met you and the second time, I talked to a friend who explained why you might have been angry and why that anger was justified. I don't regret taking away your knife, but if I'd had been aware of the circumstances, the knife would have vanished."

Kennedy waved to Mr. Glastonbury. "Now, if you would please, sir, drive us home. Juan Baptiste here can explain why he wanted to put a knife in this particular individual."

"Why should I? You say you'll help me stick it to him, but you're not going to hurt him. He hurt Nita!"

"And I'm sorry about that, but trust me, as Chaucer demonstrated seven hundred years ago, there are worse things than killing people if you want to hurt them really, really bad."

Juan Baptiste looked around as they drove, shaking his head. "You really do live in Scarsdale, don't you?"

"Why would I lie about a thing like that?" Kennedy asked him, curious.

"There's that. A lot of people would at least like to pretend they're rich."

"Well, it's my stepfather who's rich, not me. I just sponge off him, like my mother."

He looked at her and shook his head. "You're very strange, you know?"

"So I've heard," Kennedy said lightly.

They pulled up to the house, and Kennedy led the way to the practice room. She unlocked the weapons cabinet and pulled out Lady Kennedy. "Now this, this is a knife!" she said.

"Sweet Jesus!" Juan Baptiste said, and crossed himself as Lady Kennedy began to hum.

Kennedy stopped and presented the sword, hilt first, to the young man. Again he swore softly. "This is heavy!"

"It's meant to kill armored knights," Mr. Glastonbury contributed. "It's a bastard sword."

"Wow! This is cool! Still, it wasn't sword-fighting that landed me on my back! Or those two cops!"

"Miss Kennedy is an apt pupil," Mr. Glastonbury said smugly. "I agree with her that something should be done about this fellow. I agree it should be done carefully, and without hurting more than his dignity."

"He has to pay in blood, just like he did to Nita," the boy flatly told them. "I don't care what you want, what you say. If I don't think he's paid enough, I'm going to take it out of him in blood."

"What is your plan, Miss Kennedy?" Mr. Glastonbury asked, sounding reasonable.

"Still in the making. Such things require some thought and more study of the target."

Later that night Kennedy talked to Harriet on the phone, and got more details about Dwight Evans, including a half dozen names of girls rumored to have been molested by him. "How can this be going on?" Kennedy asked, shaking her head. "If everyone knows about it, it should be a simple thing to put the bastard in jail."

"It's one thing being willing to talk to someone at school about it, then there's standing in a courtroom and pointing a finger. In spite of his name, Dwight's father is the oldest son of a Mafia boss from New York. Grandpa dotes on his oldest grandson and is willing to let him do what he pleases. No one is going to testify against him. If they did, they'd find their way deep into the Jersey swamps."

Kennedy was left shaking her head and went to Mr. Glastonbury to ask questions.

"Miss Kennedy, we make jokes about modest amounts of certitude. Do you understand that some people don't believe in modesty, preferring overkill? Bullies love to intimidate people; they see the fear in someone's eyes and it's like a narcotic. Give someone like that relative immunity from consequences and you have one very dangerous young man."

He looked at her. "You said he was willing to risk a knife wound?"

Kennedy nodded. "Yes, sir. I was watching him out of the corner of my eye when it happened. He made no attempt to block the blow or stand aside."

"Then he is doubly dangerous. Do you know what they mean when they talking 'making your bones?'"

"You have to kill someone in order to become a hit man."

"It's called becoming a 'made man' and it's a lot more important than just becoming a hit man. Your reputation in that area is everything -- made men go on to be senior management, if they survive."

Kennedy mused for some time on the subject, then laid awake that night, musing some more. When she and Mr. Glastonbury were practicing the next morning, she asked him a question that had been bothering her. "Wouldn't life be a lot easier for vampires if people were more afraid of them? If they were more open, more intimidating?"

He chuckled. "When you sleep the wrong half of the day, you're a little vulnerable. Plus there are a lot more of us than there are of them. That's because if their numbers got too high, they would eat themselves out of house and home. No, they do what they do to keep the stories alive, but at the same time work to keep people from hysterical over-response, at least from their point of view.

"Back in the Middle Ages, up until a hundred or so years ago, there were frequent pogroms against them, if they got carried away somewhere. The smarter ones try to avoid that now.

"The Mafia is an even rarer breed, and they spend a good part of their time catering to the needs of various people. Illegal needs, like gambling, drugs, prostitution and some types of violence, but it's all in the 'if not them, who?' category of crime. When they make an example of someone, it's mostly for something that isn't what a fine, upstanding citizen would do, like welshing on bets or loans, a prostitute stiffing her pimp, or someone ratting on the gang.

"At a guess, Miss Kennedy, if you really want to hurt this Evans person, have someone else do it for you. I would bet the Mafia boss doesn't know about the rapes. That's bad for business. Once, they could see a young man going astray, but repeatedly? They'd recognize him as a problem and would quietly solve it."

"It's okay not to physically hurt a regular person, but I can set him up to be rubbed out by the Mob?" Kennedy asked, stunned.

"Yes! It's called 'situational ethics, ' Miss Kennedy. There would be no problem, for instance, if you had to testify in a court proceeding that would result in the defendant's execution. If he was about to go off a cliff on a motorcycle, you don't have to warn him. You could, in fact, hold up those Olympic score cards and give him four point one out of ten, for the splat he makes at the end."

"Thank you, Mr. Glastonbury, for being so candid." A second later he took advantage of her distraction thinking about the problem and tossed her six feet.

She got up and stood, stretching. She looked down and saw her trousers were well up on her ankles. "I wonder what my mother is going to say if I go clothes shopping this soon after school started?"

"Children grow, Miss Kennedy. It's the way of things."

She waved at the scale that sat, mostly unused, in the corner. "I should see how much I weigh, how tall I am."

She now weighed a hundred and twenty pounds, up a dozen pounds and she was now five eight.

At school it was slow going. She was an unknown factor, and while people might have been willing to talk to Harriet, they weren't nearly as willing to talk to Kennedy. No one talked about what happened in the hall and the common wisdom was that she'd come to Dwight's assistance, which didn't help matters.

After a week, she was getting frustrated. What was it with people, anyway? Why couldn't they accept the simple truth that she was offering to help? Juan Baptiste wasn't any help, either. He told her bluntly after he saw Kennedy talking to his girlfriend that if he ever saw her near his Nita again, he'd break her legs, then Dwight's.

On Friday when she went to her locker, she grinned at Harriet standing a few feet away. "Wish me a little luck," she told her friend.

"What are you going to do?"

"Apply modest amounts of certitude. A little here, a little there..."

Harriet looked confused, then suddenly froze, her eyes going wide.

Kennedy turned and saw Agent Larkin walking towards her. Hastily Kennedy turned back to Harriet. "Run to the office and tell Mr. Dunbar that a man you saw arrested for attempting to molest a girl at camp this summer is in the hall!"

Kennedy spun Harriet around, heading her in the right direction, while using the momentum from the push she gave her friend to put herself between Harriet and Larkin.

"Miss Kennedy, I'm FBI Special Agent Larkin, and I have some questions..."

"For God's sake," Kennedy said with exasperation, "put a sock in it! You've been trying to get me alone for months! You've been arrested, you've been charged."

"I was released."

"So you say; that sheriff upstate sounded pretty sure it would never happen."

Kennedy was talking over-loud and several kids nearby were staring curiously at them.

"Well, I was. Now please, is there an empty classroom we can talk in?"

She laughed. "Put a hand on me and I'll break every bone in your body!"

He dropped his voice. "And we both know you can't, can you?"

Running feet approached. Two of the high school's police officers and Mr. Dunbar.

For a second, Larkin's eyes were unguarded. She saw the anger and frustration in them, plus something else. With cold certainty she knew positively that letting him get her alone would mean one of the two of them would be alive afterwards. It was ... daunting.

"What's this?" Mr. Dunbar said, glaring at Agent Larkin.

"I'm FBI Special Agent Thomas Larkin," the FBI man said patiently. "I wish to interview Miss Kennedy privately."

"Do you have a warrant?" Mr. Dunbar asked.

Larkin shrugged. "I can get one if I need to."

"Liar!" Kennedy said bluntly. She turned to the two police officers. "Put your pistol on him."

"Miss..." one of them started to say.

"The next thing Larkin is going to do is say he's reaching for his badge. You're going to look like total fools if what comes out is his pistol. Better safe than sorry."

Mr. Dunbar nodded. "Harriet Scrivener is a good student. She's never been in trouble in her life; we go to the same church. If she says this Larkin person has tried for Miss Kennedy at least twice before, please, draw your weapons."

The men did so. Larkin looked even more frustrated. "Look, I'm going for my ID. Watch carefully." With two fingers he pulled his coat away, then reached inside and with two fingers pulled out the little wallet with his badge. He flashed it to them. "There! See? Special Agent Larkin, FBI."

Kennedy turned to Mr. Dunbar. "Sir, I have a standing order that if I ever see this man again, I'm to call the police, my father's lawyer and my family's representative. I will not go anywhere with this man without someone from my family present, without legal representation." She turned to the two policemen. "The last time I saw this man, he was being led away by the sheriff of whatever county Wanakena, NY is in. I suggest you check to see if this man is a fugitive."

"Don't be absurd! I'm a FBI agent. I just need a few moments alone with Miss Kennedy, that's all. You can hang around outside the door, if you want. But it's imperative I talk with her privately."

"Miss Kennedy is right, she has to have representation," Mr. Dunbar told him. "I'm sorr..." Agent Larkin's pistol appeared in his hand and he took a step towards Kennedy, placing the barrel against her forehead.

The two policemen had let their weapons fall to their sides during the discussion. Kennedy looked Larkin right in the eye. "You just made one mistake," she told him.

"I'm going to ask my questions and the hell with everything else."

He should have noticed that no one had moved; no one was really paying him any attention at all. It was his turn to have a pistol pressed against the base of his skull. "You will very, very carefully lower your weapon, or there is going to be hell to pay cleaning your brains off the ceiling," Detective Harrison said coldly.

Larkin cursed fulsomely, but lowered his weapon. One of the patrolmen grabbed it, pointing it at Larkin.

"I think," Kennedy said with a clear and calm voice, "this should once and forever clear up the matter of this man's sanity and intentions."

"Are you okay, Miss Kennedy?" Mr. Dunbar asked.

"I'm fine. Real soon now, though, you're going to have to explain to my father why I could tell you about a man who has tried to molest me multiple times and you still listened to him. You blew me off, gentlemen! You blew me off, and nearly got my head blown off! Think about what my father is going to say about that!

"And then there's the pissant rapist you let wander the halls because everyone is afraid of his grandfather! Has it ever occurred to even one of you that God specifically has a rule about using his name in vain? That maybe other people with similar titles might not like what's being done in their name either? Heh? Like Larkin here, I have questions. Odds are, I'm a lot closer to getting mine answered than Larkin is."

After that, it reminded Kennedy of camp and the fuss then. More and more police officers arrived. Kids and a few teachers were interviewed.

One nice scene was Mr. Glastonbury laying into the school principal. "I told you about Larkin! I specifically made it a point to tell you about him. I gave you copies of the police reports! I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to inform Mr. Stuyvesant about this, and I'm sure you're going to want to prepare an adequate explanation of why, even warned, this happened."

The principal was actually pale and trembling, afterwards, stuttering apologies and promises about "never again."

At one point Kennedy was alone with Mr. Glastonbury. "He snuck up on me. I never saw him coming until it was too late. Harriet saw him and I got her out of there."

"I called Ferinc, who called the sheriff of Wanakena. They are apoplectic; it turns out that they remanded Larkin to Federal custody and someone there turned him loose without bail, on his own recognizance, and without informing anyone. It's going to be nasty, I assure you. The sheriff wanted to cut a few cost corners, thinking he could trust the Feds. He wants Larkin's scalp, but if I was Larkin, I'd be real worried about Ferinc right now. That's a hard man and he's not a Slayer and has no compunction about seeing a man dead."

Kennedy nodded. "He said that, back at camp. That Larkin's stay in prison was going to be cut short."

"Well..."

There was a rap on the small conference room door, and Mr. Glastonbury opened it. It was the detective, Harrison. "I'm not an FBI special agent, but I would like a moment alone with Miss Kennedy."

Mr. Glastonbury shook his head. "How would that look?"

"It's okay, Detective. Mr. Glastonbury is my conscience. You can say anything to him that you can say to me."

"I don't have anything to say, I just have this." He handed Kennedy a business card. "On the back," the detective continued, "is a name and a place where you can usually find him."

Kennedy looked at the name and address and flipped the card over. The business card was for an exterminator. She raised an eyebrow and he laughed. "There are a number of reasons why it wouldn't be good for me to be connected with that card. I'd appreciate your absolute promise that you'll forget where you got it."

"Thanks," Kennedy said. "Next time I'll let you say 'shit' before I toss you."

He laughed. "You would, too. Then you'd toss me, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Kennedy said simply.

"I'm a black belt. I tried to fight that throw."

"I'm not supposed to be old enough to be a black belt. I noticed what you were trying, but you weren't strong enough to counter."

"You're stronger than I am."

"And you think Larkin wants to talk to me so badly, three times now, that he's risking jail because I have wet noodles for muscles?"

Mr. Glastonbury cleared his throat and Kennedy shut up.

The detective waved at the card. "I actually did try that idea you talked about once, you know. Except they wouldn't let me near him. In the movies you can get in someone's face and harass them, but in real life, they file charges, you lose your shield and pension, and you're the only one screwed. I'm sorry about those girls, Miss Kennedy, I really am. If even one of them had been willing to testify, it would be different, I swear."

She shook her head sadly.

He shrugged. "Miss Kennedy, there are times when we have to face ourselves in the mirror and admit to ourselves who we truly are. I did that. You're stronger than I am in several ways. And, while I don't have the stones to do it myself, I can surely clap and cheer and wish you the best."

He left, telling the other policemen that Kennedy could leave. They went outside, where Harriet was waiting with her mother. "Mr. Glastonbury, is Kennedy okay?"

"Yes she is, in no small part thanks to you, Harriet. Thank you very much, young lady!"

"You did good, girl!" Kennedy told her friend.

"They said he put a gun to your head," Harriet's mother said.

Kennedy laughed. "The trouble about being driven is that to achieve your goal you stop paying attention to everyone else in the hallway -- they were all watching the detective coming, his gun already out."

Kennedy realized that Mr. Glastonbury and Harriet's mother were uncomfortable meeting like this. "Now I'm going to be rude. I have an appointment that I need to get to. I'll talk to you later, Harriet, but we've got to run!"



-------

Chapter 15: Friends of Friends


Kennedy and Mr. Glastonbury walked to his car, parked in the school pickup area. There was a traffic ticket on the windshield. One of the patrolmen who'd been on duty inside the school saw them and noticed the ticket. He walked quickly over and picked it up. "I'll take care of this," he told Mr. Glastonbury. "I'm sorry, Miss. I really screwed up."

"Yep!" Kennedy agreed. "I've screwed up, Mr. Glastonbury has screwed up; God knows, Larkin is a total screw up. It's not that you make a mistake, it's what you take away from it."

Kennedy got into the car, while Mr. Glastonbury got into the driver's seat. As they got in line for the traffic light to get away from the school, she glanced at Mr. Glastonbury.

He looked right at her. "You want to go to that address on the card?"

"It's in the City. Is that a problem? It's not far from Madison Square Garden."

"Miss Kennedy, I don't know what to say about today," he was apologetic.

She looked at him quizzically. "You weren't there. You weren't supposed to be there; there's a rule about that at the school."

"Miss Kennedy, this is the third time he's come for you, and the third time I've been out of position. That's called 'striking out' in American baseball parlance, I believe."

"That's right. But you're wrong. The first time you were close enough so that I could see you and I signaled and you came in plenty of time. The second time, you weren't supposed to be there, either, but you talked to the camp and to the sheriff and they were on their toes and they stopped him.

"You can't, sir, be with me every minute of every day."

"I still feel like I'm failing you."

"Well, you're not. Let's go get some Chinese for dinner and then visit Don Bozo the Clown for dessert."

"Miss Kennedy, I have to call your father and his attorney. I managed to reach the attorney before he got to the school. We didn't need a bigger fuss than we already had and he's furious. Like everyone else, he'd been given assurances that Larkin was safely under lock and key.

"I've tried to make inquiries about who is behind Larkin and got nowhere, so I referred it to the Watchers Council and they got nowhere. When I tell them about this, I imagine they'll put some first class talent on finding out what's going on.

"I still need to talk to your father. He's in Argentina."

"Not my mother?"

"No, he's concerned for you and knows your mother isn't. He's not going to be very happy with the news."

"Well, we'll stop at the train station. I'll get tickets and you try calling him. Tell him to hold off dropping the Hammer of God on the school just yet."

"Why?"

"They tried, Mr. Glastonbury. It wasn't a very good try, but really ... it's like how I was back when I was eight. I tried really hard. But I didn't succeed all that often."

"Often enough," he reminded her. "You touched the sky."

"Close enough for government work," she growled.

The world twisted and spun, she saw a brief glimpse of a vampire's angry face and then there was a moment of excruciating pain in her neck.

It came out of nowhere. The pain lingered, but Kennedy began to sob.

Mr. Glastonbury stopped the car, well back from the station. "Oh no, not again!"

"Yes, again. I don't know which one. But one of them." Her voice cracked; she couldn't stop the sobs. That new girl was sixteen, she'd been told, as was the California Slayer.

"I'll be okay in a minute," she told him, fighting the tears and sudden rush of hormones.

"We can put this off to another time," he told her. "We'll go home and you can rest, while I talk to the Council about these issues that have come up."

Kennedy drew a deep breath and held it for a full minute. "No. I'd like some kung pao chicken. And then I really want to 'pao' someone tonight!" There was no way to describe how much she wanted to pao someone just then!

She walked into the station with the money for the tickets and stood in the short line while working her neck. By the time they were on the way, the pain had vanished, only the memory remained.

Mr. Glastonbury sat next to her, looking nervous. "What?" Kennedy asked him.

She grinned, knowing what would lift his spirits. "Mr. Glastonbury, you need to talk about how you feel."

He grimaced. "Your father will be back in Scarsdale Sunday afternoon. The lawyer will be out at the house as well and we'll have a conference about Larkin. Your father already heard from the attorney and I guess he was pretty blunt about what happens if Larkin gets loose again."

"Bummer."

"The Watchers Council, of course, knows there's a new Slayer. Who the new one is they were mum about; they always are at first. I'll find out more tomorrow."

They had a nice dinner at the same restaurant that she'd been to for her tenth birthday. There were painful memories this time that hadn't been there before.

Finally, Mr. Glastonbury drained his tea cup. "Hopefully my procrastination has given you a chance to have second thoughts."

"No, actually, the plan is pretty straightforward."

"And the plan is?"

"Get his attention, explain about his grandson, get his attention in a nice way a second time, then go home and get a good night's sleep! It's already been a long day."

"And what, if like that detective, they won't let you in to see him?"

"I'm planning on displaying a modest degree of certitude to get his attention. One way or the other."

"And what if that doesn't work?"

She laughed. "Sir, do you know what I did at lunch?"

"Not a clue, Miss Kennedy."

"I took a piece of graph paper and put the date I had my camp physical, when they said I was five feet five on it. Then I put today's date and my new height on the page. Do you know what that means for next April Fool's day?"

"No?"

"I'll be six feet tall. No fooling."

"Miss Kennedy, people have growth spurts. Four months isn't that long -- usually they last six or eight months. You'll plateau and go like you were before."

"At five eight or more?"

"I'd guess that. You'll probably still have another growth spurt later on. For what it's worth, tall girls don't often become Slayers."

"There are days when I think failing would be the luckiest day of my life."

"But I have not taught you how to fail -- if anything, I've taught you to fight back even harder after failure. Go another round!"

"That you have. If you're finished procrastinating, perhaps we can have an Italian ice for dessert. I have the address of a nice Italian restaurant we can try."

It was a ten minute walk. The evening was brisk; there was a stiff breeze with a hint of autumn chill to it. They found the restaurant, a small hole-in-wall Italian place. She walked up to the hostess's station and smiled at the small dark woman waiting there.

"I'm Kennedy, here to see Father Guido Sarducci."

The woman spoke, shaking her head. "I don't believe we have a guest with that name, miss."

"How about Don Don, boss of the bosses? I'll take him over Father Guido, any day."

She shook her head. "Please, miss, this is a quiet restaurant and our patrons appreciate this. Go someplace else."

"Well, I'm looking for the grandfather of one Dwight Evans. I have some bad news for gramps about little Don Don Dwight."

The hostess looked at Mr. Glastonbury. "The young lady is, I'm sure you understand, not herself. I'm sure you're no more fond of her acting out like this than I am. Please, she should seek help."

Kennedy did a round house kick, gently tapping the woman on her tightly-covered bottom. "Listen, how much butt do I have to kick to get someone to take me to the guy, eh?" Kennedy asked.

As if they'd been watching, six very large men appeared.

"Now we're getting someplace!" Kennedy said lightly. "Take me to your leader, earthmen!"

"Miss Kennedy..." Mr. Glastonbury murmured, cautioning her.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot. If you guys don't think you can handle a girl who just arrived at five eight, feel free to bring another half dozen guys to the party."

She didn't see who gave the high sign, but the man in the back of the group spoke in a rich baritone, "Would you come with us, please?"

"Sure, I understand please and thank you. Thanks and you're welcome."

She followed along behind the six, through the restaurant, down a narrow corridor into a small room, set up for one man to dine in. He was about sixty, still lithe and with a certain leonine charisma that made it clear who was in charge.

"You are?" the man at the table asked, after dabbing at his lips with a gleaming white napkin.

"Kennedy, sir. I've come to tell you that your grandson has been using your name in vain, sir. Dwight invokes you to all of the girls he rapes. He threatens them, their families, their friends. Also the police, the school officials ... It's quite a long laundry list of places your name is being used in vain."

"Miss Kennedy, my grandson is a teenager. He is filled with youthful high spirits. Girls are attracted to such men."

"Sir, if your grandson stuck to that sort, I'd not be here. Are you aware, sir, that the teachers at White Plains High place him by the classroom door and surround him with male students? The closest female student is twenty or thirty feet away? That Dwight gets his girls by lurking in the bushes around school, jumping out, bashing them in the teeth, usually breaking some, then raping them repeatedly, before winding down with a torrent of threats invoking you as a source of retribution?"

He studied Kennedy carefully. "Miss Kennedy, you appear to be an intelligent young woman. Has Dwight wronged you?"

"Sir, most people when I tell them my name is Kennedy want to know if it's my first or last name and what goes with it. You, sir, are one of the very few who got it right in one. Which is my way, sir, of telling you that you aren't a dummy either. So, understand this: if Dwight had tried that with me, we'd have met after his funeral."

"And who, Miss Kennedy, is this very nice, very polite fellow standing quietly behind you?"

"That's my tutor, Mr. Glastonbury. He's not my bodyguard or anything, not really. Nope, this is just me, coming to see you, with something I thought you should know. If I had 'God' in my nickname, I'd purely hate people using my name in vain."

"So you say. Why should I believe you?"

Kennedy waved at the six body guards, then pointed at the third from the left. "Bruno there, I'd say he's the biggest of the bunch, right?"

"His name isn't Bruno, it's Fatso," the Godfather told her.

"He's not very fat," Kennedy said, momentarily confused.

"It's not a waistline he was named for," the man at dinner explained.

"Ah! Sorry! I'm a little young, still. Sometimes you have to spell these things out for me! Tell me, does a fat you-know-what mean a big pair of balls as well?"

"Big enough, I'm sure," the boss said.

Kennedy kicked, connected just below the fat sausage. The man huffed and folded in the middle. Kennedy took a quick step, secured his pistol, then pulled him forward, dumping him on his face.

She ejected the pistol magazine and started to hand them to the man at the table.

"Round in the chamber, Miss Kennedy," Mr. Glastonbury reminded her.

She pulled the slide back and ejected the round.

The boss nodded at the pistol. "If you hold the trigger back, and then pull the slide back past the detent and lift up, it comes off."

Kennedy disassembled the pistol and put it on the table in front of him. "As you can see, if Dwight had come for me, we'd have met under different circumstances."

From the floor, Fatso wheezed, "She took me by surprise, boss!" However, he was still curled around his sausage.

"Dwight, sir, harassed a young Hispanic male last week. Dwight goaded him to the point where the young man drew a knife, intending to start cutting on Dwight. I was there, sir. I saw what happened. I didn't know about Dwight then. I thought he was about to be knifed, so I took the knife away from the boy who was attacking him.

"Dwight, sir, was fully prepared to take the first wound. I'm betting that his intention was to then kill his attacker so he could come here and brag that he was a made man."

"I wouldn't know anything about that. I'm an Italian-American restaurant owner. Perhaps it was just a surprise to Dwight."

"I saw him watching the knife, sir. He was waiting for his chance. He didn't think the first wound would be either serious or incapacitating. At first, my thought was that he was a deer caught in the headlights. Then I realized he was just waiting for his shot."

The man sniffed. "You're saying Dwight is not only a bully, but recklessly foolish as well."

"Yes, sir, I'd bet on both."

"I think, young Miss Kennedy, I've heard enough. Just how old are you, anyway?"

"Thirteen, sir. But you're making a serious error if you judge me by my age."

"Well, let's just say that I'm not used to thirteen-year-olds coming here and making demands of me, demeaning my grandson."

Kennedy sighed loudly, for effect. "Sir, if one wasn't enough to convince you, how about the other five?" She nodded at the five remaining guards.

He looked at her steadily. She could see when he reached his conclusion and sniffed in derision.

She had numbered her opponents, from right to left. One was on the far right, six was on the far left, four was Fatso and he was still not able to sit up.

Her intention was to make her first move between two and three. She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye as number six stepped back into the corner of the room, a pistol appearing like magic in his hand. It wasn't pointed at her though, not at first. It was pointed right where she would have gone if she had moved at once.

"But, what need is there for all the violence?" she said smoothly. "You're not a stupid man. You can believe me or not, but I'm betting it's too important not to check. And that's all it will take."

She turned to Mr. Glastonbury. "I think we're done here."

"If I was the mafia don you think I am, about now the two of you would vanish."

"If you're the mafia don I'm sure you are," Kennedy told him, "I'd want to make sure there isn't someone across the street waiting for us. Where did I get your name and address? What was I doing at school today? All sorts of questions, sir, that if I was in your shoes, I'd want answered before I did anything I might regret later."

The old man at the table nodded at number one. "Go and see if anyone is hanging around outside."

The other was back a moment later. "There's an unmarked police car across the street. I don't recognize the driver."

"By himself?"

"Yes, sir."

He turned back to Kennedy. "How old are you, girl?"

"Thirteen, sir. You're slipping, because I already told you that."

"Well, you have a civil tongue in your head which argues well for upbringing."

"My stepfather is Peter Stuyvesant of Scarsdale. Nothing but the best for his stepdaughter."

She saw the momentary crinkle of the crow's feet in the corners of his eyes as he digested her father's name.

"You are, however, full of yourself and prone to rash mistakes. I would not be surprised to hear that at some time in the future you come to a bad end."

"I think you can pretty well count on it, sir," she said, knowing she sounded a little sad. But when you've died three times, it does give you a little perspective.

"Get out of here. Please don't come back."

They left, ignoring the car parked across the street, and made their way back to Scarsdale. It was nearly midnight when they got home and Kennedy went right to bed.

She didn't sleep, though, not at first. She sat in the lotus position on her bed. First she replayed the events with Agent Larkin. She didn't think she'd ever been in real danger there; Larkin wasn't much sharper than the two patrolmen who'd lowered their weapons against him. Detective Harrison was more complicated. It had been him parked across from the restaurant earlier. Why had he come?

She replayed the scene in the mafia don's office four times. She knew now what her mistakes had been, and the Mafia guy had it right: she'd been full of herself. She'd seen six large men, and the first one she focused on really was as dumb as a stump. It had been folly for her to believe that they were all like that. She'd looked at number six a couple of times, and there had never been any expression on his face.

Would he have shot her, if she'd tried to knock them all down? Probably. At least a warning shot. She hadn't been going to hurt anyone seriously, but how could he know that?

Put it down as a learning experience and be ready to admit the mistake of not being more careful about judging opponents to Mr. Glastonbury in the morning.

She played over the momentary glimpse she had of the Slayer's death, imprinting the vampire's face in her mind. Someday, it may fall on me to kill you, she thought. I do want to be ready. And I'll be sure to tell you that I remember!

When she woke in the morning she felt fit and fine. She did a little extra running, then met Mr. Glastonbury for practice.

He'd been doing something else while she ran, she found out when she came back to the practice room. He'd occasionally used classic clothes stands as substitute dummies. He'd put old shirts on hangers to serve as targets.

This morning there were six, with one lying on the ground.

"Good morning, Miss Kennedy! Are you ready to resume where you left off last night?"

"Yes, sir. I know what I did wrong. I thought they were all as alike as peas on a pod; dumb, dumber, and so on, down the line. Number six was ready, and he took a step into the corner where the only way I could get to him was from the front and he had his firearm out and ready for that."

"Yes. And number one. What about him?"

Kennedy frowned. "Six had a gun pointing at me. I was focused on him."

"You stopped paying attention to the rest of them, in fact, Miss Kennedy. Number one pivoted towards his right, taking a half step back. Obviously you had a plan to deal with them. What would that have done to your plan?"

She shook her head, sadly. "Busted it."

"I won't say that you'll face six vampires often, but it's going to happen. They will not give you the luxury of a witty comeback and an attempt to deescalate the violence. The only saving grace is that they don't like firearms much. I'm not sure why, but they don't.

"You must learn that just because one plan has gone bad, doesn't mean that you should surrender. It takes judgment to decide what to do then. Run away to live to fight another day or maybe figure out a different way to take them."

He waved at the clothes tree on the ground. "Fatso is down. Number six," he walked over and pulled the tree back into a corner, "has attempted to fort up. Number one has turned slightly to his right and stepped back."

He moved the trees around and Kennedy nodded. "The gap between two and three should be a little wider, I was planning on going through it."

He adjusted the two clothes trees and she nodded. "I was going use a leg sweep to knock two into number one, fouling them both, then catch number three with my shoulder on my way to number five. I thought number five would have been swinging to his left, and I was going for a flat-hand punch against his left shoulder, spinning him further around. Then I was just going to punch it out with number six."

"So, how would you change it, to meet the circumstances, assuming none of them had pistols?"

"I don't think I'd do much changing, sir. Two, three and five I'd still plan on as before. Number one would be left moving in the wrong direction and there would be four men on the floor between us as I went at number six hammer and tongs. I'd have to either finish number six before he got there from my flank, or pull back a bit and see what new openings there were."

"Very good! Usually your first instinct is right, Miss Kennedy -- yours in particular. Not that you did badly last night, either. Objective reality has to be a part of every plan. You did adequately with your backing down."

"Can I ask about the Slayer?"

"Yes. It was Kendra who died -- a broken neck as you said. Angelus, it seems, has turned to the dark side again. The Watchers Council is pretty sure it was the original Slayer who broke the curse. She had sex with him."

Kennedy's jaw dropped. "A Slayer had sex with a vampire? She was raped, right?"

"No, it was consensual. Like I said, it's all very confused just now. Worse, the new Slayer is ... a very troubled young woman. Her Watcher had reported that she was brittle and unstable and unlikely to ever be chosen. Well, she was wrong and paid for it with her life. They got her, instead of the new Slayer. And then the new Slayer, her name is Faith, went through the vampires like a reaper through a wheat field. She harvested dozens of them! Now she's disappeared. She's not dead; the hope is that she's enroute to Sunnydale and the Hell Mouth."

"No Watcher, eh?" Kennedy mused. It was, she thought, maybe a little like being married for a very long time, where neither party thought any more about sex, just about the job. You get so very comfortable around your Watcher...

Later Mr. Glastonbury came onto the veranda, where she was reading a school book. "I talked to Ferinc and the lawyer on a conference call just now."

"How did Larkin get free?"

"No one will say. The FBI says it was an internal administrative matter. Everyone in the State of New York, from the governor on down, is enraged. The FBI has already applied to get him back -- the state Attorney General just laughed at them. Larkin is currently at an undisclosed maximum security prison, in solitary confinement."

"The problem I have," Kennedy told him, "is something I was thinking about last night. He's always come for me in a public venue, with lots of people around. That's really kind of stupid, don't you think? I mean it's like he's asking to be caught -- or simply not afraid of being caught."

Mr. Glastonbury's eyes sparkled with laughter. "There is always the most logical conclusion: that he's the one afraid of you, of what you can do, and wants to meet with you in public, to try to constrain what you can do to him. He wants to get the drop on you, then go private."

Kennedy shrugged. An adult, afraid of a thirteen-year-old? That was a silly notion, unless you realized that the thirteen-year-old had been Kennedy, a potential Slayer, with more than the common strength given to such as her.

"And my father will be here tomorrow afternoon," Kennedy said wistfully.

"Yes. He has an eleven o'clock meeting with the Governor, the state Attorney General and the Federal District attorney in White Plains. Ferinc says he'll be there, plus the sheriff from Wanakena and some poor vice principal from the high school. Most of those people usually don't get out of bed that early on a weekend."

"It's probably Mr. Dunbar," Kennedy commented.

"Probably. He's the best of a very puny lot."

"Do you think it was a good idea to mention my father to that guy yesterday?"

"They would have learned who he is today. Some people aren't comfortable with surprises, with people holding out critical information. Your stepfather is a serious player in his own right. For one thing, mentioning his name guaranteed that young Mr. Evans will come under some serious scrutiny."

"What if they kill him? Dwight, I mean?"

"Then Dwight's dead, Kennedy. You were right, you know. As soon as the grandfather learned what was going on, he would stop it. Maybe he'll think it hasn't gone too far to warrant the boy's death, not if it's his favorite grandson. But who knows what someone like that will do?"

"But he's human."

"You won't have killed him; his grandfather will have ordered it. Dwight has earned it. Miss Kennedy, you can lay hands on a normal person, you can kick and punch them, you can even break bones, although that's dangerous. Just no killing."

"I could make a mistake."

"So far, it's happened very rarely; there's speculation that the magic involved won't let it happen -- but it's not something you'd want to count on. You can't throw a man off a cliff, but you can certainly stand by and watch someone else toss him off."

"It sounds weird."

"You should talk to an observant Jew about the trials and tribulations of Sabbath. Do you know what a Sabbath goy is?"

Kennedy shook her head.

"Well, someone in the temple has to turn the lights on and off for services. They hire a non-Jew, a goyim, to do it. I've been asked in a hotel if I'd push the elevator buttons for a Jewish woman, because she couldn't. She really hated the new hotel electric door locks, because she has to have someone else unlock the door for her."

"I was wondering," Kennedy told him, "because my conscience is awfully silent about the ultimate fate of Dwight Evans."

-------

There was a flurry of preparations in the house, starting Saturday afternoon. Kennedy asked Mr. Glastonbury if her mother was coming but he said he didn't know. None of the staff thought so, but Kennedy knew her mother was notional. A lot of the times in the past she'd elbowed her stepfather aside when it came to dealing with Kennedy.

Sunday afternoon there was a roar of a helicopter, and her father arrived with half a dozen pencil-pushers in tow. There was a lot of this and that, and then Mr. Glastonbury appeared in her door.

"Miss Kennedy, your father has asked if you'd attend him, in his office."

She nodded and got up, glad she was wearing a decent set of cord slacks and a nice tan blouse. She regretted that she hadn't had time yet to go clothes shopping. Now that she was aware of it, she was sensitive to how badly her clothes fit.

And of course, that was the first thing he commented on. "Growing, I see, Kennedy."

"Yes, sir."

"I think maybe, what with one thing and another, it should be 'Pete' from here on out."

She blinked, but he went on. "Surely you have a clothes budget?"

"Yes, sir ... Pete. I only noticed on Friday. I was going to go today, but Mr. Glastonbury said it would be better if I were here, today."

"He's a very clever man, Mr. Glastonbury. Well, how you look is your business, Kennedy, but I've found that people who take pride in their appearance take pride in a lot of other things. Important things."

"Yes, si..." she stopped herself. "Yes, Pete. It's uncomfortable and gets in my way. Tomorrow, after school."

"Good. Now, another thing. I had a most unusual call a short while ago from a man I know only by reputation. He had a message he wanted me to pass on to you."

Kennedy swallowed as her stepfather went on. "He said you'd stopped by his place of business Friday night, with some news that he didn't find to his taste. There were harsh words exchanged, he said, entirely on his part. He wishes to apologize and hopes that you'll accept the apology from me as if it was him."

"I was abrupt, Pete. And I said things I knew he wasn't going to like."

"I gathered. He also said that he looked into the situation you'd brought to his attention about his grandson's taking God's name in vain and found that it was as you said, and that tomorrow, the young man will start his first day of classes at Martin Military Academy, in the granite hills of New Hampshire. That is, I might add, a place I know personally, having been threatened with it myself, when I was a high school freshman. It isn't a pleasant place."

"The gentleman's grandson hides in bushes, grabs girls from school, beats them up and then rapes them. Then he threatens them in his grandfather's name, saying they'll be rubbed out if they talk."

Her father grimaced. "I did many stupid things growing up, but nothing that compares to that. Taking God's name in vain -- that was your idea, right?"

"Yes." Kennedy was having a devil of a time not saying sir every sentence. Mr. Glastonbury had been a more pernicious influence on her life than she had ever imagined.

"Now to the matter at hand. This so-called FBI agent named Larkin. It's odd. They'll own up to him when he's not charged with anything, then deny him when he is. Then they turn him loose. What is going on, Kennedy?"

"Sir, he's never asked me any of the questions he says he has. He always demands to see me alone, but it's always in public. I'm not sure why. It doesn't make any kind of sense."

"And suppose I told you that at my level I know about things like vampires and demons, about vampire Slayers and all of that."

Kennedy eyed him cautiously. "There are sure a lot of stories out there, aren't there, Pete?"

"What are you? A Slayer?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm one of the second string. If a starter gets taken out, the coach might decide to send me in."

"And if that happens, in a year or two, maybe three after that, you're dead."

"Hope springs eternal, Pete."

"I imagine it does." He chuckled, shaking his head. "I'm not a fool, I know you're a fair hand with a sword. When your mother came to me about the 'kendo in the Olympics' story it was all I could do not to laugh in her face. All those years of the two of you banging around in the practice room and she never noticed."

Kennedy grimaced. All that subterfuge had failed? Why had she ever assumed that the staff, other than Mr. Glastonbury was loyal to her or him?

"So, what are we to do about Larkin?"

She thought carefully how to phrase it. "Have you met Mr. Ferinc, the lawyer for Camp Wanakena?"

"Yes, this morning. A sharp lawyer, very sharp!"

"Like the gentleman you talked to earlier, he's an old school thinker. I'm sure it will be his goal to get Mr. Larkin out of solitary and into the general prison population."

He nodded his head in admiration, Kennedy thought. "That was carefully said, Kennedy. And I understand the need for care. Is that your desire?"

"Not really, but I don't see any other alternative. He keeps popping up in public with a weapon, threatening me and my friends. Someone could get hurt. I value my friends and I don't value him."

"This is something you've thought about?"

"Yes, Pete. A lot."

"Well, I have to say I agree with you. I'll see what can be done at the meeting we'll be having tomorrow. As you seem to understand, a lot can be said by not saying anything."

"Yes."

He grinned at her.

"One last thing, Kennedy. Mr. Glastonbury has repeatedly assured me that this house is secure, even after the break-in this summer. I have taken his advice as to additional sensors and all of that. But, still, I'm concerned. I was thinking about adding permanent people here. More guards."

"Pete," she said, leaning forward, "you spoke earlier about those who I might have trouble with. They are creatures of opportunity, for the most part, but still are partly human, even if lacking in souls. They can plan. They have hopes and fears, even if we might not recognize them. If you hired twenty guards with pistols, they'd come a hundred strong with machine guns. Have a hundred men with machine guns, and they'd attack with tanks and a thousand creatures."

He nodded, his eyes curiously bright. "No wonder every time I hire a female staff member, Mr. Glastonbury finds something to disapprove of. Or the chief of staff does. Or someone. Yet he doesn't seem to have any trouble finding competent women staff." He sighed. "It's a crazy world we live in, Kennedy."

"Yes, Pete."

"And school, how's that going?"

She shrugged. "I'm the crazy girl from Scarsdale that likes poetry. What's not to like?"

"I don't recall a fondness for poetry on your part. Is it something new?"

She shook her head. "A teacher, on the first day of school, had us read from the poem 'Hiawatha.' It's one of three American poems I know by heart, so ... well, I showed off, speaking it from memory."

"I understand. No other problems?"

"Not if Dwight is off to New Hampshire."

"I have no intention of asking anyone if he actually arrives," he told her. "Some things just aren't worth knowing."

He leaned back, easing his cast and thing on his leg. He reached over and took a sip from a wine glass that Kennedy hadn't noticed before. "You are, Kennedy, refreshing. You don't seem to lie, you're not afraid to tell the truth and you're the daughter every father should be proud of."

"Thank you, sir. Pete."

"I'll assure Mr. Glastonbury that he'll remain in charge. I'll also let him take care of all the new staff hires. You understand that you will probably never see your mother or sister visit here again?"

"Yes, Pete."

"I, on the other hand, will be back. I have a pistol now that shoots little wooden bullets. The bullets have been soaked in Holy Water."

"I hope that works, Pete," she told him seriously. "But you'd be a lot better off running as far and as fast as you can."

"And leave you here to face them alone? I may be old, I might not be as trim as I once was, but I don't run away from a fight."

Kennedy got up and walked over to the fireplace, stone cold at that time of year. She took up the poker and carried it back to her stepfather and handed it to him. "Bend it, please," she asked.

He could just barely make it bow a tiny bit. Kennedy, on the other hand, literally tied it in a knot. "If enough of them come, sir, I'm going to die. If you're not as strong as I am, not as quick as I am, you'll simply end up a midnight snack."

He stared at her, then shook his head. "All my life, I've known that at some point in time I'll die. It's always been a long, long time off. Then not so long ago, I found out how mortal, how lucky, I was. I lost people near and dear to me, no further from me than you are now. When I look at this from your point of view and realize you're not advocating cowardice, but prudence ... it gives me pause for thought."

He stood up. "I need to spend some time thinking, Kennedy. I'm glad we had this talk."

"Thanks, Pete!" she told him. They shook hands and she went up to her room.

Monday the school was awash in rumors that Dwight Evans had been sent to a private school for troubled boys. Late Wednesday there was an item on the news that former FBI Agent Thomas Larkin, in custody on felony flight warrants, had been knifed to death in the prison yard at Attica prison.

Kennedy, on the other hand, had a new wardrobe by then and liked it very much when she looked at herself in the mirror. Her height wasn't the only thing that had grown.



-------

Chapter 16: Older Friends


Kennedy snapped her locker shut and turned to head off to American Lit and the start of a new school day. Juan Baptiste was leaning against the corridor wall, behind her locker door.

"Chica, you have a second?"

She inclined her head and walked over to him, ignoring the others in the bustling hallway.

"That cop, Harrison, came to me a coupla days ago, tol' me about what you did. That it was you that got Dwight sent away, that I should thank my lucky stars because if I kept on, Dwight would have fucked me even worse than he did Nita."

"This isn't news to me, Juan Baptiste," Kennedy told him evenly. "You made yourself very clear the last time. I've been a good little girl. You should try being a good little boy."

"Someone saying he was Dwight called Nita's old man, night before last, told him what he'd done to his daughter. Laughed at him, told him that his grandfather was protecting him." Juan Baptiste's expression turned grim. "Nita's little brother told me, 'cause he knew about us. He pretty much knows what happened to his sister. If I didn't make it, he'd have taken a shot. Now, well ... Nita's parents put her in a convent yesterday."

Kennedy turned pale. "That's ... awful."

"Yeah, 'cause those sisters don't give a rat fuck about why you got screwed, just that you did. You're fallen, a sinner forever more. She'll spend a year on her knees, saying her rosary, then she'll be sent someplace like Africa or South America to teach the heathen."

"Gosh, Juan Baptiste! I don't know what I can do, but I'll sure try!"

"It's bad," he agreed. "It really bites. I know where she is. Me and some friends, we're getting her out this weekend. Fuck 'em!"

"If you need a hand, let me know."

"Well, I do. Nita's old man is an asshole, her uncles are assholes, her older brother is an asshole. But that doesn't mean they don't think they're helping Nita. They're going to that man's restaurant in New York tonight. They're going to kill him."

Kennedy laughed. "Juan Baptiste, surely someone told them who he is? Surely they know they'll never get close to him?"

"They don't care. This is machismo -- being a man. Nita's blood was spilled, her honor taken. It's do or die for them. Talk isn't going to do anything, just blood will talk."

Kennedy sighed. "And you'd like me to do what?"

"Look, you talked to that guy once already. Do it again. They're assholes, yeah. But they don't deserve to die. Nita would be upset."

"You just said they wouldn't be satisfied unless blood was shed?"

"Yeah, well, you're good with your mouth. Convince them they're at the wrong door."

"Then they'd find the right door. Juan Baptiste, the old man's giving Dwight another chance. He's not going to be happy if Nita's father and other male relatives come calling. Even if they get to Dwight, that will bring about retaliation."

"You always seem to think of something."

Kennedy sighed. "I'm not a crutch, Juan Baptiste. People have to stand on their own two feet, fight their own battles."

His face fell. "It's gonna kill Nita if her old man, her brother and uncles get whacked."

"Darwin in action," she told him roughly. He spat at her feet, turned and stalked away.

She sighed again then, instead of heading to English, she turned for the office. Mr. Dunbar was standing in the outer office talking to two boys and she waved at him and went over to him.

"Sorry, guys, but I'm in kind of a rush. How much trouble do I get in if I cut a day of classes?"

He smiled at her. "You want the truth or the bullshit?"

"The truth works best for me."

"Your teachers mark you absent. Tomorrow morning, your parents get a recorded call saying you were absent today."

Kennedy blinked in astonishment. The odds of either one of her parents ever hearing about such a call was zero. Mr. Glastonbury would hear, she was sure. He was someone she could deal with.

"Well, mark me absent for the rest of the day."

"Miss Kennedy..." she'd turned away. Hearing her name, she turned back.

"Do you have an excuse?"

"Someone called Nita's father and told him about what happened to his daughter and gave them an address. That person said his name was Dwight. Call it prophylaxis."

"Can you spell the last word?"

"R-U-B-B-E-R," she came right back.

He laughed and waved for her to go. "Be careful. I assume you think you can do something?"

"I can try."

She contemplated life, liberty, school and Watchers. It wasn't a very long bus ride to the train station. She had money, she had the time, a little while later she was on the way into the City.

She got off near Madison Square Garden and walked the few blocks to the Italian restaurant. It was barely ten in the morning and the front door was locked. She could hear faint sounds coming from within, so she went looking for the back door.

The kitchen was quite busy and to her surprise, she recognized one of the men standing next to the door. "Fatso! How are they hanging?"

He glanced at her, frowned, and without hesitation, lifted a walkie-talkie to his ear and started talking into it. A few minutes later number six came into the kitchen and walked up to her.

"Leave, Miss Kennedy. You wore out your welcome the last time. This is no place for a danger junkie."

"I have a piece of news for your boss. Intelligence, if you will. Forewarned is forearmed and all that."

"Where is your friend?"

"In ignorant bliss, back home. I'm here on a peace-making mission this time. No violence, I promise."

He started to walk away and she spoke up. "Say, I know Fatso's nickname. What's yours?"

"Pipes," he replied, without really stopping or even looking back.

He too talked into a walkie-talkie, then gestured for her to come along. Kennedy fell into step next to him, as he led her through the kitchen. "That's because of the voice, right?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"I didn't think it was a description of..." she waved at his groin.

He laughed. "You like to live dangerously, girl."

"How about you and me? A little arm wrestling?"

"Girl, I cheat."

"Drat! I cheat, too! Chess?"

"Poker?"

"Sure! Stakes?"

"Strip poker?"

Kennedy laughed. "Dream on! Nickel, dime, quarter."

"Five card draw and stud, seven card stud. No wild cards."

"Sounds like fun. When's good for you?"

"We play every afternoon at one."

"Sounds good. I got fifty bucks on me, I hope that's enough because I guess asking for a marker would be a bad idea."

"Very bad. Fifty will get you in the game."

"Cool!"

In a few minutes, she was ushered into the old man's presence.

"I told you never to come back."

"You did and normally I'm pretty obedient. However, I have some intelligence for you. Something you'll want to hear."

He made a come-along gesture.

"Someone, claiming he was Dwight, called one of the abused girls' fathers night before last and told him about what he'd done to the man's daughter; graphic detail I imagine. Laughed, he did, then told them you're protecting him and gave him this address. Today that girl is in a convent and the father, older son and two of the girl's uncles have said that before the end of the day, you'll bleed for what Dwight did."

The old man grinned sardonically. "That wouldn't be a problem, with or without a warning."

"With a warning, I was rather hoping you might be willing to temper your obviously justified response."

He paused, then spoke deliberately. "You don't seem stupid. Do you understand that if it became known that I let men who intend me harm to come here, into my place of business, if I let them go away unharmed, it would be taken as carte blanche by a lot of my enemies? That I would have to spend months, perhaps years, to disabuse people of the notion that they could come here with impunity?"

"I won't pretend to tell you how to run your affairs, sir. I just know that the other day you and I talked, and while there were some hard feelings, regardless, we worked out our issues and came to what I thought was a workable agreement.

"Sir, the girl had a very bad time. I realize it's not your responsibility, sir, but the fact remains that she didn't deserve what happened to her then or since. She doesn't deserve to have her father, brother and uncles set up like clay pigeons in a shooting gallery."

Pipes spoke up. "There's a call for the girl."

Kennedy glanced at him, seeing the earpiece only at the last moment when she focused on his ear.

The old man reached over to a phone, pushed some buttons. "You're on the speaker, Miss Kennedy."

"This is Kennedy."

"Kennedy, this is Harrison. I have some news."

"If you know where to find me, I can imagine what it is."

He ignored her. "A bird whispered in Dunbar's ear this morning about Nita's father and brother. What happened to her. He called us and we went to their place, but they were already gone. Dunbar said you'd come to see him earlier, so I took a chance."

"You understand you're on a speaker," Kennedy said evenly, eyeing the old man as she spoke. The old man shrugged.

"I could tell," the detective told her. "I went to my lieutenant and he told me to back off. The captain said the same thing. My hands are tied, you understand."

"I understand."

"I was impressed about Larkin; that was well done. Your stepfather has what appears to be completely clean hands."

"He had nothing to do with it. You don't even want to go there, detective. The people who did the deed have been fighting people like you for a long time."

He laughed. "Which is like drawing a glaring neon arrow at who it was. You're a piece of work, girl!"

"You won't find anything there, either."

"Girl, something like ten guys were beating on that man at the end. Two of them had met Larkin before in the course of his professional duties. Clearly no involvement of anyone, anywhere, in that untimely death. Just jail yard revenge."

"Well, I'm going to see if I can cadge some cookies and milk here. There's a poker game later..." she paused dramatically, "for chips of course."

"Of course," the detective replied drolly. "Aren't poker games always for chips?"

"Yes. I'm hoping to learn a few things about filling an inside straight."

"I can tell you about that: hope springs eternal, but the odds are better doing almost anything else."

"Cool! I'll try to remember that. Sorry, got to go, cookie and milk time!"

She waved and the old man cut the connection.

"I don't suppose," Kennedy said, "I could get a doughnut and a glass of milk?"

"We have coffee, if you want," he told her.

Kennedy shuddered. "Caffeine, sir! Ick! Throws my timing all off! Cookies and milk, doughnuts and milk ... that's for me. I figured you were more likely to have doughnuts."

"Well, you're right." He waved at the phone. "Larkin? That was the FBI agent who has been bothering you?"

"That's the one. He died in prison last week."

"A man with a moronic attorney. The fool actually petitioned the court to have him removed from solitary, where there was some slight chance he might live. He was and he didn't."

"You seem to be right current with current events, sir!" Kennedy said brightly.

"Girl, sarcasm is amusing for a little while. Then it gets old."

"Sir, threatening to kill everyone isn't amusing, and it's old the first time you hear it."

"Miss Kennedy, I have a personal question for you," he asked.

"Whatever, I don't promise to answer those."

"Like your stepfather, I'm not totally ignorant. We discussed you, when we both realized that we knew the nature of who you are and what you do. It's not something I get involved in, you understand?"

"Of course. Good deeds? You probably flunked that class in first grade and haven't taken it since."

"Let's just say that it's hard to get good help these days, particularly when it comes to special assignments like that. Pipes here, he faced some of those once. He put forty-five rounds into one of them with an AK-47. Pissed it off, something fierce."

"Bullets do that," Kennedy agreed with him, "piss them off."

Pipes spoke up. "It's a little hard to take, when you see someone shrug off that many rounds, kill two men on your crew and keep coming for you. Still, I had my job to do, and I did it."

Kennedy parsed that. Evidently his job hadn't been to hang around or to kill vampires.

"I've fought them," Kennedy told him. "Once it was a short little guy, a midget, I think. Even though I was pretty sure what it was, it still ambushed me from behind. I got lucky."

"A little guy?" Pipes said.

Kennedy wasn't stupid. She saw his eyes narrow, his whole body tauten, his gaze focus on her.

"Yeah. He cut my neck with his fangs, but I did a flip and landed midget-side-down. Then, well -- wooden stakes work a lot better than AK-47s."

"Crunchy," Pipes whispered. "I wondered where he went. He wasn't one of the bodies we found the next day."

"The consensus was that he'd pissed off a vampire someplace," Kennedy said the word without hesitation, "because someone as short as he was would have a hard time feeding on an adult."

"Crunchy was a dwarf, who wore a crucifix around his neck. I heard someone scream, over in his direction, but afterwards, I thought it was him, not someone else. One of the other guys who got out said he thought Crunchy stuck his silver crucifix down one of their throats."

Kennedy grimaced. Way too much information! "That might work," she agreed. And would have really pissed off the vamp with the sore throat, to be sure.

"And you killed him?" Pipes said, his voice low and hard.

"I killed it, not him," Kennedy said, trying to remind him. "It wasn't human any more, he had no more soul than a TV set. It's called 'dusting.' Stick one with a wooden stake in the heart and they turn to a fine dust."

"This is all nice," the old man told her, "but not the issue. Some stupid pacos are the issue." He pointed at Kennedy. "You think you are so smart, so good! Well, it will all be on your shoulders. Talk, tap dance, perform whatever miracles you want. Convince them not to bother me. The first time I'm bothered, threatened, hassled ... or if any of my people are, I'll step on them. Cops or no cops."

He grinned at Kennedy. "Mi casa is mi casa, you understand? Nobody comes into my house and messes with me and mine!"

"I understand."

"So, do you have a plan?" Pipes asked.

"Of course. I'll check out the situation and come up with something that works, once I have a better idea what they're up to."

She smiled at them. "Now, can we get back to the subject of food? I'm a growing girl and need sustenance."

The old man waved at Pipes. "You see to it. Keep her in the restaurant. I have things to do."

Kennedy smiled and thanked him, then sat with Pipes, Fatso and one of the others known as "Pistol" in the restaurant while she had cookies and milk. The cookies were unfamiliar, but tasty. The milk was refreshing.

A little before eleven, they opened the front door of the restaurant and a couple of people came in. They seemed to be well known to the staff and vice-versa, and after a second, Kennedy ignored them.

One of the big guys from the back came up to Pipes and leaned over and whispered in his ear. Pipes nodded, and waved towards the office. "Get the others."

The man nodded and left.

Pipes turned to Kennedy. "Four men of Hispanic appearance are coming down the street, carrying baseball bats."

Kennedy perked up. "Bats? Good! I learned how to play softball this summer. I really don't know much about team sports and I'm always looking to expand my education."

"So, do you have a plan now?" Pipes said, sounding sarcastic.

"Oh yes, baseball bats! Piece of cake! A simple discussion of choices. One from column A, that's me. Six from column B, that's you and yours, all to find out what's behind door number one. No problem!"

She gestured towards the back, where the other four big guys were now visible. "You go over there and I'll work the door."

"This isn't funny," Pipes said. "You make it sound like a joke."

"It's not a joke. I know that," Kennedy told him. "It's brainless, you see? I can say it, but I'm not distracted."

"Well, if nothing else, you can always talk people to death."

Kennedy got up and faced the door. "You see, that's the problem. I can't hurt people, not really. Talk is all I have."

She walked forward and timed it pretty good, standing where the hostess would normally stand. The hostess was at the cash register, without any expression on her face. No doubt remembering the tap on her butt. Kennedy grinned at her. The woman had a cute butt.

The door opened and the four men came in. Three older men, and it was easy to see which was Nita's father. The fourth was a younger man, who had to be Nita's older brother.

"Good morning," Kennedy said cheerfully. "I'd like to talk to you, sir, about your daughter Juanita."

"Get out of the way, girl," he said, hefting his bat. "We have business here."

"You think you have business here. You're wrong about that. I'd like to sit down and talk; maybe you guys would like some coffee? We'll talk about your daughter."

He took a step forward, but Kennedy didn't move. He was now less than a foot away from her. "Move out of the way, girl!"

Kennedy held up her hands. "Are you just brain dead stupid or what? Just what do you expect to find here, eh? You have me and these," she wiggled her hands. "Or those gents, back there," she pointed at Pipes and the others, standing quietly, lined up, silently waiting for events to unfold.

"Those guys each have a 9mm pistol, and if I remember my teacher right, each of those have like fifteen or sixteen bullets in the clip, plus another up the spout. That's like 22 shots at each of you. Now please, let's be sensible. Talk to me. What do you want?"

"A man named Febreeze," Nita's father said.

Kennedy frowned. "Say what?"

"Febreeze. I got a call this guy is protecting the bastard that raped my daughter."

"Sir, do you realize that you were set up? The caller expected you to walk in here, just like you did, and confront Mr. Febreeze. Except, sir, Febreeze is a kind of laundry detergent, not someone's name. The man whose place this is has a totally different name."

She paused for effect. "An Italian name, sir. Think stereotypical Italian."

"If he's the guy protecting the bastard who raped my daughter, he's a dead man."

Kennedy sighed in exasperation. "Sir, you really need to think. Before you get to that man, you'll have to go through me and these." Once more she wiggled her empty hands. "If you get through me, you'll face those rather large gentlemen in the back with the automatic pistols.

"Look, lose the bats. Sit down and we'll talk. If, at the end, you're still upset, you can still get yourself killed, if that's what you want."

He moved, putting the bat on his shoulder. "Get out of the way, girl. We're not here for you."

"Yes, you are. Last warning, sir: use the bat or lose it."

He laughed nastily. The laugh was cut off short when Kennedy punched with her open palm, slamming into the heel of the bat. It shot out of the man's hand and slapped into a drapery, inches from a window.

One of the two uncles started to swing his bat at Kennedy, but the swing was from a bad position and he wasn't swinging very hard. She caught the bulk of the bat with both her hands, twisted and it came free. There was plenty of time for her to use it to meet the second uncle's swing.

She couldn't do much more than push the other bat offline, but like Batsman Number Two, he hadn't swung very hard. Nita's father stepped forward and Kennedy jabbed him in the solar plexus with the heel of the bat, but not very hard. She let the last of the momentum of the move allow her hands to slide along the bat, so she could get a grip at the sweet spot on the bat handle.

Uncle Number Two had wound up for another swing and this time she met power with power. There was a shattering crash as both bats exploded, sending a shower of wooden splinters in all directions. All four men flinched, which let Kennedy turn to Nita's brother.

"Lose the bat." Each word was said with deliberate force, separated by a second or so. When he didn't move right away, Kennedy snapped a kick out, the heel of her boot landing on the small of the bat handle, still hanging limply at the young man's side. It shot out of his hand and ended up inches from his father's.

"Sit!" Kennedy commanded.

Inwardly, she cursed being a woman for the first time, because uncle number one was stepping forward, trying to grapple with her. She dumped him on his ass, then she was behind the three still standing. Two quick punches into the back of the knees put the father and uncle number two on the ground. She stood up and glared at the Nita's brother.

"Maybe you all want to take a few seconds down there on the floor to think," she told them. "I mean, I'm comfortable sitting on the floor, if that's what you want, but most people find chairs a better option."

"What do you want?" growled the patriarch.

"To talk. Are you really as stupid as you seem? I took the four of you. A couple of weeks ago, I got just one of those six guys. Wise up!"

A minute later, she was sitting facing Nita's father. "So, talk!" he said, obviously furious.

"Two things for you to contemplate. Where is your daughter today?"

"She has lost her honor! She's with the church. She will find redemption in Jesus Christ."

"She lost her virginity, sir. A guy leaped out of the bushes and beat her bloody and raped her. He didn't attack her honor -- he attacked her. He didn't hurt her honor -- he hurt her. And you, you stupid moron, what do you think someone being put away like that thinks you've done to them? Do you think she's cheering? Do you think she's happy? Do you seriously think a church is more effective than a loving, caring family of living people to support you?

"The boy who took my daughter's honor has to pay!"

"That," Kennedy said, "is the second thing. Tell me, sir, if your son," she waved to his son. "If he had a son, and you found out that your grandson had raped someone -- would you show up at your son's house with baseball bats to beat both of them to death?"

"What's that got to do with my daughter?"

Kennedy shook her head, having trouble imagining how anyone could be so dim. "What would you do to your grandson, if you found he'd raped a girl? Kill him or send him off to a very, very unpleasant place?"

"Pop!" the son said, "Listen to her! I told you this was stupid!"

"It's more than stupid," Kennedy told him. "There is no Febreeze, like I said. There is a very hard man in the back, and someone just tried to screw him over. Because if you'd come in here with baseball bats, without warning, they'd have shot you down like dogs. Self-defense, to be sure. Their self-defense. If any of you survived, you'd be in jail, charged with felony murder for the deaths of any of the others.

"And if the man in the back messed up, why, he might go to jail, too. More likely, he'd have to suffer a lot of publicity, bad publicity; something he doesn't want.

"You'll have to take my word for it, but if you turn around and walk out that door, shortly afterwards your bats are going to disappear ... and like as not, they'll have company, because the grandson has gone from a non-performing asset to a definite liability."

"Pop!" the young man said loudly, "For God's sake! Listen to her!"

"And listen to one more thing. Your daughter didn't come to you about her troubles, whereas if I'd been raped my father would have been the second person to know. Because I know I can trust him to put the maximum amount of legal hurt on the guy who did it. You, sir, your daughter didn't trust you ... and you've proven why. You might want to think about trust, sir, because from where she's sitting right now, I suspect her first vow wasn't chastity, and that not only won't she ever trust you again, she'll never speak to you again, either."

He stared at Kennedy, clearly at a loss. She felt a movement behind her and wasn't surprised to hear Pipes. "Sir, the term for this is someone played you for a chump. No one got hurt here, so no harm, no foul. If I were you, I'd listen to Miss Kennedy and concern yourself about your daughter."

Uncle number two spoke angrily, "I think the bitch broke my wrist!"

Kennedy chortled. "I think you missed his message, dude! No one got hurt here. Trip on the sidewalk just outside, if you must, but if I were you, I'd wait for a few blocks."

She could see the man look at Pipes, at the men, still standing silently at the back of the restaurant. He looked around at the half dozen customers who were calmly eating or having coffee, ignoring them.

With a curse, he got up and stalked out the door, followed shortly by the other three. Two of the waitresses and a bus boy appeared and started cleaning up the mess left by the two bats. Pistol grabbed the two whole ones and vanished towards the kitchen.

"Poker?" Kennedy asked, trying to look innocent. "Could one of you explain the rules to me, so I'll have a head start for later?"

Pipes chuckled. "Miss Kennedy, if you don't stop, we'll give you a nickname ourselves."

"I don't think 'Mine's bigger than yours' would work, it's too long," Kennedy kidded.

"Miss Kennedy, you slay me," he said quietly.

She jerked, then shook her head. "Call me that in public and you've killed me, my family and maybe all of you, including your boss."

His eyes flashed with anger. "It is infamia! Infamia! That such things exist!"

Kennedy put her elbow on the table, gestured at the seat opposite her. "I won't cheat if you won't."

He sat down and took her hand in his. The others gathered around. Fatso laughed. "Take her down hard, Pipes! Then I want a piece of the action!"

Kennedy smiled at Pipes a second later, as she felt his grip. "So, you do know how to cheat."

"Yes."

Fatso waved. "So, Pipes, put her away! Don't go easy on her! I won't!"

Pipes looked up at him, his hand unmoving on the table. "Fatso, how many times have you beat me, eh?"

Fatso shut his mouth.

"The fact is she's going easy on me. She could put me down anytime she wants."

His knuckles cracked against the table. "See?"

"Gimme a shot!" Fatso demanded. "I ain't afraid of putting down a skirt!"

Kennedy laughed and lifted a jeans-clad leg. "No skirts here. Have a seat, Fatso."

He sat down as soon as Pipes moved to one side. He held us hand up and Kennedy gripped it. "Ready?" she asked. That was a joke, of course, as he'd started squeezing her fingers the instant he had them in his grip. Kennedy squeezed in turn.

One second he was smiling, then his face was contorted in pain and he was moaning and groaning. "God! Stop! Stop! I give! Uncle! What the fuck was that?"

She slammed his hand down on the table. "That, Fatso, is the difference between winning and winning going away."

Fatso was rubbing his hand, his face beet red. Not so much from anger, but that too, but because it really, really hurt.

"Now, back to the topic d'jour," Kennedy said, "Anyone want to explain the rules of poker to me?"

She had a fine lunch, and then shortly afterwards she called Mr. Glastonbury to tell him where she was. "Well, do take care, Kennedy. I'm disappointed that you missed a day of school."

She sniffed in derision. "Sir, I could miss the entire year and have gotten more out of your instruction in an hour in the morning."

"Well, don't do anything foolish."

"These nice fellows have promised to teach me poker after lunch. They seem to think I already know how to play."

"It's a stupid game. It's all about odds."

"Then why do some people consistently win?"

"Because some people consistently do poorly. And how did your mission go?"

"We played a little ball, sir. No pistols, I'm happy to say. It went much better than the last time."

"And a happy result?"

"No, sir, no one is happy. I'll talk to you later about it."

"Well, like I said, be careful."

"I will, sir."

She hung up and Pipes waved at the phone. "How come you're respectful and not sarcastic with him?"

"Well, he's been my teacher for six years. He's heard it all before. Also, until a few months ago, every time we sparred he'd thump me good. Now, at least sometimes, I can land one on him. I respond as well as anyone to pain."

"And you really don't know the rules to poker?"

"No, sir, I don't. A little, just a little."

"It's just Pipes."

"Pipes, my tutor doesn't think I should waste time on things he doesn't think are important. The first time I ever played baseball or soccer was this summer at camp. I got to row a single scull. That is so cool! I love it! But, you know, it's not going to help me if I get promoted. So it's recreation, you understand?"

"That's pretty damn cold."

"I've seen boxing matches. I had to watch them, you understand? It's like that, Pipes. Except if I get nominated, the vampires don't have to go through a formal challenge process to qualify. They just have to show up, any time of the day or night and I have to fight them. They get to bring their friends too and I have to fight them as well. At some point or other, I'll make a mistake. I nearly made one the other day. And please, don't tell me you wouldn't have shot if I'd taken out a couple of the guys."

"It would have been into the wall."

She lifted an eyebrow, but he shook his head. "No, really. Two words: plausible deniability. You don't have it, if it happens right in front of you."

So, he taught her the rules to poker. "And in fairness," he went on, "let me say this: bluff."

"Bluff?"

"Yep. People lie. It would be a dull, dull game if everyone just bet the odds. So people bluff. They bluff up, they bluff down. They try to fake it so you think they have a better hand than they really do, so you'll let them have the pot. Then there's bluffing down where you pretend to have a poor hand and get everyone else to put good money after bad."

"It would seem to me, you could tell pretty quick who was bluffing."

"Well, that's true ... but just remember if you think someone actually has a poorer hand than they're hinting, you have to pay to see it. And of course, if they're sandbagging, they are only too happy to rub your nose in what they really have."

Kennedy nodded. Fifty dollars? If she lost she would have to ask for more, but it wasn't a big thing. No one had ever told her "no" when she asked for money. She had figured out at a very early age that money was something someone else acquired and if she spent it, she was spending something that didn't belong to her. So she was careful. Which wasn't to say she hadn't indulged a whim or two in her life.

She had a nice lunch, wonderful ravioli that just melted in her mouth. It was nicely spicy, just perfect. She was daubing at her mouth when a very large man came in. Not so much tall, as rotund. He came up to the table Kennedy was sitting at, with Pipes a few feet away, also daubing his lips.

"Pipes! Poker! Poker!"

"Don Valentine! Please, join us! The ravioli, sir, is exquisite!"

The big man gave Kennedy a glance and grinned. "Nice job, earlier."

Kennedy blinked, then shook her head. "I'm a schoolgirl. I don't have a day job."

The man laughed, an awesome thing that set rolls of fat jiggling. "Good, very good!"

"Miss Kennedy, sir, wants to learn poker," Pipes told him.

The man laughed again. "Pipes! That's the oldest scam in the book! What is she? Fifteen? Sixteen? Ha! Probably learned playing strip poker with her brothers!"

Pipes laughed easily. "I'm not going there, sir!"

Kennedy smiled thinly. "I don't have any brothers, just one stepsister. I am, sir, the crazy girl from Scarsdale who likes poetry. And I'm thirteen."

Two more men in suits came in and walked up to Pipes. "Afternoon," said the thinner, more dapper one of the pair.

"Sir, would you care to join us? Miss Kennedy has earned a poker lesson."

The dapper one of the duo bowed to Kennedy. "Nickel, dime, quarter, I understand."

"Fifty dollar table stakes," Pipes expanded, nodding.

The dapper fellow nodded at Kennedy. "Sometimes, young lady, we lose track of our roots. It's good to get a reality check now and then. I'm in."

The other man laughed. "You know me: I'd play for matchsticks, if I couldn't play for anything else."

Pipes nodded. "Kennedy, this is Don Valentine." He gestured at the big man. "The well-dressed fellow is Carlo Vecchio. He doesn't like to be called Don. The nice gentleman with him is Don Juan." He nudged Kennedy with his shoulder. "Like Fatso, his name is deserved."

Don Juan smiled at Pipes, then grinned at Kennedy. "Four guys with bats, eh? Pretty good!"

"Sir, the national sport of Mexico is soccer, not baseball. They were out of their league."

Everyone at the table roared with laughter.

Kennedy knew she should be terrified, that these were men who routinely dealt out death to anyone who got in their way. She felt comfortable, at home with them. It was a very, very odd feeling. Rationally, how could she have anything in common with these men?

Then it came to her. They routinely dealt out death to those who got in their way. And what did Slayers do, eh? The targets might be different, the reasons might be different, but there was something under their skin, something inherent in people who did what they had to do.

With a sudden insight, she realized that these men probably killed with more compunction than she did. They had to worry about consequences, and so far as she knew, no one had ever made an issue about a dead vampire. She could deal death, at least the partial death she offered, with impunity. Duke Roger hadn't said it, but it was clear. The Slayer he'd met had killed and left. No one had done anything about it; no one said anything about it.

Duke Roger, she was sure, would report his own grandmother for jay-walking. Yet he hadn't bothered to report a Slayer. Why? Because the Slayer hadn't killed anything, anyone, worth reporting. Maybe the men these fellows killed were different, but she was sure they took more care in what they did than what she did. It was sobering.

A blonde young man came into the restaurant and headed for the table. He was the next youngest person in the room, except for Kennedy. He sat down next to Pipes. "Pops! You have any of that ravioli left?"

"Of course, Dennis."

Pipes waved and someone went to fetch a plate.

The young man grinned at Kennedy. "Pops! I don't know if I can deal with a mother younger than I am!"

"Not possible," Pipes said, with Kennedy joining the impromptu duet.

Don Valentine laughed the loudest. "Dennis! Offer to play baseball with the young woman! I'd pay good money to see the result!"

Kennedy smiled softly, remembering the lectures about bluffing. "Sir, I have only a passing familiarity with playing ball. Maybe arm-wrestling?"

The young man, Dennis, grinned. "I can take her, easily!"

"Dennis," Pipes interjected, "she beat me."

All eyes at the table turned to Kennedy.

Dennis just grinned and put his hand on the table.

Kennedy rolled her eyes and looked at Pipes. "Okay, you guys suffer from machismo, macho and all that. I don't. I'm queer, you understand? And I don't like to show off."

Pipes patted her hand, lying on the table. "Surely, you have been well educated. It would be a waste, Miss Kennedy, if you didn't share that education with the needy."

Everyone around the table except Dennis was smiling. Kennedy sighed, reached out and gripped Dennis' hand. He started the finger-mashing and she slapped his wrist on the table.

Dennis looked at his hand, then at her. "I wasn't ready."

Pipes and Don Valentine were the only ones who didn't snicker.

Don Valentine was rude. "Dennis, you are my godson. Please, don't reflect badly on that relationship."

Dennis put his hand up once again. "I'm ready, now."

Kennedy didn't waste any more time. She put her hand around his and squeezed. His eyes bulged, his brow beetled, then he jerked his hand away with a curse.

Don Valentine was brisk. "Dennis, do you really think the girl bought her way into this table with fifty dollars?"

Kennedy smiled. "I hope that wasn't the hand you push your money out with."

Carlo spoke up. "I'm ready for some poker; talk is just that. Poker is the measure of who we are." He looked at Dennis. "Capiche?"

"Yes, sir!"

Pipes waved and one of the waitresses brought some decks of cards. He opened one, then proceeded to put on an amazing display of card handling. When he finished, he looked at Kennedy. "That was good, eh?"

"Yes it was. Very pretty."

"I could have cheated with any of these cards," he told her bluntly. He waved around the table. "These gentleman don't like cheats. They don't like them at all, none of us do."

Kennedy shook her head. "As if!"

"I'm good. They're as good or better. Just so you know."

"I told you, the only card game I learned before this was my stepsister taught me 'Go Fish' when I was six. She did cheat."

He shuffled the deck a few more times and spread the cards on the table. The servers and bus boys were busy cleaning off dishes, except Dennis' ravioli plate. Everyone reached out and took a card, so Kennedy did as well.

"High card has the deal," Pipes announced. She was pretty sure that his comment had been for her.

She flipped over a king of hearts and a few minutes, she was awkwardly trying to shuffle. "Just three times," Pipes told her, "after that, a perfect shuffle starts reordering the deck back to its original state. Seven perfect shuffles and the cards are where they were when you started."

Kennedy slid a nickel out and said, "Five card draw." She dealt everyone five cards. She looked at her cards and grimaced. She laughed; her expression would have been visible to everyone. She had two face cards and three smaller ones. Dennis was the first to bet, and he slid out a quarter, gaining a glare from Don Valentine. It came around to her, and it would have cost her forty-five cents to stay in. "Fold," she announced.

A few seconds later the pot was right and she dealt out the necessary cards to those who had stayed in. She learned that evidently Dennis liked to bluff, and more importantly, when he flipped over his three kings, none of the others showed what they had, they turned their cards face down and pushed them in, conceding the pot.

Dennis announced seven card stud and dealt two down cards, followed by one up. Everyone only looked after they got their third card, so Kennedy held off peeking herself. She wanted to laugh, but had learned her lesson, and showed no sign of it. She had three fours. There was some passionate betting, and she limited herself to calling the bets. The next round didn't improve her hand, but added a face card, a king, to the mix.

The next rounds went quickly, and again, she limited herself to calling. There was a lot of talk around the table: about anything else except the cards and the game. Politics, weather, sports scores were all fair game. Finally the last down card was passed. She peeked at hers and grinned again. A second king! A full house!

The only person who stayed in was Dennis and he raised her three times, which was the limit. He seemed to take his loss with good grace and started talking about the Yankees while Kennedy raked in the pot.

She looked around the table. Everyone was, so far as she could tell, ignoring her. Except everything she knew about poker said it had to be the exception, not the case. Why had Dennis been the only one in at the end?

With sudden cold certainty, Kennedy realized that there had to have been tell-tale signs she'd given the others, even if they hadn't been conscious on her part. The only one who stayed in was someone who couldn't read her, or didn't believe her.

The next hand was five card stud, and while she could see the game offered some interesting possibilities, once more she had nothing, so she folded after her fourth card.

She studied the others during the course of the hand. Dennis was the clearest read. His neck throbbed when he was plotting. After two hands where his neck throbbed, Kennedy wrote him off as fodder for the others.

Don Valentine, she realized after the next hand, was almost as easy a read. There was no expression on his face, but his index finger tapped his cards when he didn't have anything.

By then she realized that Dennis was a fish -- what they called someone who was easy to net. And that while Don Valentine didn't show much, he showed enough to guarantee he lost all the important hands -- or simply didn't win them as well as he could have.

Pipes dealt, it would be her turn again next. He dealt five card draw and she looked at her cards. She had two face cards and three smaller ones. She decided that she was mildly optimistic and pushed three cards out, after she called her way into staying with the pot.

She had to admit, she was startled by the cards she drew. A pair of fours, and a six. Still, she smiled slightly, then covered it up. Dennis stayed in for the first round, but she raised a quarter.

He looked at her, shrugged and folded. Don Valentine folded, and it was up to Pipes. He looked at his cards, then at Kennedy, then he folded. She raked in the coins, not having to show her cards. That was good! Very good!

Hand after hand flowed. She managed to keep even, pretty much. Dennis was an easy mark and she watched the others whipsaw him, including both Don Valentine and Pipes. She was pretty sure that they'd told the truth. Godfather and father father.

Finally, it was nearly four in the afternoon. She'd said she had to leave then and so had everyone else. She read books where the last poker hand was barn-burner. She had crummy cards and since Dennis had dealt the hand, she was last to bet. She looked at her cards, and dropped them. "Fold."

A few minutes later Carlos won the pot, and then there was a short session talking, then Pipes touched Kennedy's shoulder. "I'm supposed to see that you get to the subway safe."

"Thanks, Pipes, but I'm okay."

He laughed. "Humor me. It's not my personal choice."

The others at the table, except Dennis laughed. Pipes laughed as well. "You promise to protect me if a you-know-what comes, right?"

She looked at him seriously. "That's what I do."

She could see the question on Dennis' face, but ignored him.

They walked outside, heading towards the subway. "I'll ride with you, a few stops," Pipes told her.

She grinned. "As if!"

"You never know. I wish, Kennedy, I understood you. There were times today that I ached. I swear it, I ached. I wish you were mine."

"I'm too young to be your kid," she said, trying to sound jocular, knowing that's not what he meant.

"That wasn't what I was thinking," he confirmed.

"Well, I'm gay."

"You said that. And I'm happily married. But still, here I am anyway, making sure."

"Pipes, I'll be okay."

"And I have my orders. Miss Kennedy, please! Cooperate!

"Yes," she said glumly.

She boarded the subway, and shortly thereafter, the train was clickety-clacking down the track. Pipes wanted to talk about classical music, and they found they liked a lot of the same composers. Then he smiled at her, waved and stepped off the train.



-------

Chapter 17: This is War!


Kennedy walked the mile or so to the house, arriving a little before six. Mr. Glastonbury wanted a blow-by-blow account of the battle with the bats, then a summary of the poker game. "So, did you win a great deal?"

"No, as near as I can tell, I lost fifteen cents. A couple of the others at the table did well. Pipes and that Carlos fellow. Dennis and Don Valentine did the worst."

"And some of them have heard of Slayers?"

"Yes, sir. The older ones for sure. Dennis didn't know. I wondered why they invited me. I think it was to take my measure."

"Probably," Mr. Glastonbury said. "It's the easiest explanation."

A few days later Kennedy ran into Juan Baptiste at school. "How did the rescue go?"

"She came back before we had to do it. Someone beat up her old man, her uncles and her brother. Whoever it was did a good job of beating some sense into them." He gave her a significant look that said he knew who'd talked to them.

"There's nothing you or I can do," Kennedy told him, "nothing that we can say to Nita that will make what happened hurt one whit less. What we can do is provide support, encouragement and let her know that she's not alone."

Juan Baptiste smiled slightly, turned and started away.

"Juan Baptiste," Kennedy called after him. He turned and looked back at Kennedy.

"Dwight's family thought things over and decided he needed a better understanding of Spanish culture, so he could understand the foolishness of his actions. They changed his enrollment to a military school in northern Argentina."

Juan Baptiste blinked in surprise.

"There are no cell phones, there," Kennedy went on. "In fact, there's only one phone at the school at all and it's in the headmaster's office."

Juan Baptiste grinned and give her a thumbs up, and walked away.

After that, the days fell by the wayside, one by one. Kennedy saw Harriet frequently at school and they talked about all sorts of things, but they didn't even hold hands. The week before Thanksgiving Pipes called and invited Kennedy for another poker game on the Friday after Thanksgiving and she agreed to go.

A few days later, on Saturday morning, Kennedy and Mr. Glastonbury were sitting on the veranda, watching drizzle a few feet away, while sipping on orange juice. They were getting close to calling it quits when the maid came out and spoke to Mr. Glastonbury.

"Sir, Miss Stuyvesant has arrived. She has luggage, several bags."

"Well, make sure she knows when lunch and dinner are."

Kennedy met his eyes and he shrugged. "I have no idea. Your father said he told her not to come."

When they sat down to dinner, Kennedy's stepsister, Victoria, joined them. Kennedy nodded, not planning on saying anything. Her sister virtually never said anything to Kennedy, anyway. Kennedy had long since given up bothering.

However her stepsister had other intentions. "Tell me, little stepsister," Victoria asked, as she was sawing away at her steak, "what have you told father? He told me not to come here any more. That it was dangerous."

Kennedy grimaced. "I've made a few enemies."

"You? Miss nobody?" she sniffed in derision. "I heard you were going to White Plains High, so I went to one of my friends, who has a sister there. She seems to think you tangled with some Mafia types. I just had to see for myself."

"Actually, that thing with the Mafia is sorted out. I went and played poker with some of them. I'll be going back next Friday to play some of them again."

"I just can't picture you playing poker with a bunch of Mafia button men," she said, laughing up a storm.

"They aren't button men," Kennedy corrected her stepsister. "A couple of dons, a couple of others I think are maybe what's that word?"

"Consigliore," Mr. Glastonbury supplied.

"Yeah, top advisors. Those guys."

"Then why is father so sure that it's dangerous here?"

"Well, I'm your poor relation, remember?" Kennedy told her. "I do things wholesale, where you're comfortable with upscale retail."

Her stepsister flipped her a bird. "Is it dangerous, or not?"

"Not today," Kennedy replied honestly. "But ... well, it's not something I can predict. In the long term, it's not safe."

"So, would I be in danger if I stayed here for a couple of weeks, so I can be close to the City during the holiday season?"

"No more than you'll be on the way to and from there." Kennedy told her.

"I still can't figure it. Who would want to hurt you? Why would they give a shit about me?"

Kennedy met her sister's eyes. "Because, Victoria, they don't give a shit about you. You might be in their way, in which case they'd kill you without a second thought. They might decide to use you to get inside ... then they'd kill you after you'd done what they wanted you to do."

"And you're not going to tell me who?"

"Victoria, you can't look at them and tell who they are. They look just like anyone you pass on the street. Not until it's too late ... but knowing then really is too late."

"And you can tell, right?"

Kennedy shook her head. "Probably not. Not until it's too late."

Victoria waved at Mr. Glastonbury. "And you're Kennedy's bodyguard?"

"I'm Miss Kennedy's tutor, Miss Stuyvesant. I have taught Miss Kennedy a few things about self-defense and personal combat. Like you, Miss, I wouldn't figure significantly if the worst happened."

"And the staff? That really frosts my plate! Some of them have worked for the family for years!"

Mr. Glastonbury shook his head. "They are all ex-military or special operations. They are paid very well."

"Even the cute maid?"

"She was medically retired from the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad. She wanted a sponsor to allow her to come to the US and your father offered to do it. She knows the risks."

"Flying Squad?"

"Something like an American SWAT team, with a typically British twist."

Kennedy waved a fork in her sister's direction. "I'd like to go back and revisit something you said a second ago, about the 'cute maid.'"

Victoria raised an eyebrow. "I said that? Imagine that!" She grinned sardonically at Kennedy. "Don't think you can threaten to out me; I got kicked out of Swarthmore for doing it with a friend in the library. A girlfriend, if you get my drift."

"Victoria, you have your life and I have mine. I've never told on you about anything."

"And I haven't ratted you out either, okay? You think I never peeked into that room downstairs to see what you were doing so early in the morning? Your mother was really pissed about you telling her you were practicing for Olympic kendo ... and there is no such thing. You raised her social hopes enormously. She wasn't at all happy about it."

"Victoria, I respect my mother every bit as much as you respect her. Which is to say, not at all."

Her sister chewed on her steak for a bit, then shook her head. "Imagine! I used to think you were shy, retiring, someone who would be a good candidate for a nunnery."

"I don't think they'd take me," Kennedy said. "Like you, I have certain tastes they would disapprove of."

Victoria's eyes narrowed. "Like me, eh?"

"The maid really is cute. Too old for me, but cute."

Victoria laughed lightly. "Being over eighteen, Kennedy! That's the ticket! You can chase anyone you want who is also over eighteen. A hunting license!"

"It'll be a while for me," Kennedy told her.

"Sounds like you had a lot of fun at summer camp."

"Yes, and at other times and places."

Victoria laughed again. "God! The picture I have of you in my head is all wrong! Well, cool! I'm going to stay a few weeks. I may or may not chase the maid. Do you have a problem with that?"

She was talking to Kennedy, which was a first in Kennedy's experience. "Victoria, just so long as you understand that if something happens I'm going to be doing what I have to do to personally stay alive. Everyone else in this house is an adult and is supposed to be able to take care of themselves."

"But it's not likely to happen tomorrow?"

"No. Nor today. But it's impossible to say just when."

"Well, you just pretend I'm not here, okay?"

"Business as usual," Kennedy told her. "Sure."

"Miss Stuyvesant," Mr. Glastonbury broke his silence, "I am not your father, mother, nor anyone of importance. What you do is your business, but it will be of use to you, if, before you go out, that you tell one of the staff where you're going and when you'll be back. And if something were to change, if you would call the house again with the change."

"And if I don't feel like having my whereabouts monitored?"

"As I said, it's up to you. You will find it impossible to enter the house after dark until someone lets you in."

"The key worked well enough this morning."

"Just before dark the outer gates are shut and locked, and the house is locked down. Someone will come and let you in, if you message us."

"In other words, I get someone out of bed."

"You'd get someone out of bed, regardless."

"You could give me the key."

"Your father would have to authorize that. Since he didn't give me one either, I wouldn't hold out much hope in your shoes. In any case, if someone uses a key to enter after hours, the alarms sound."

"But not during the day, eh?"

"No."

"Bogeymen, evidently."

"Something like that," Mr. Glastonbury replied.

"Well, like I said, pretend I'm not here."

"No problem," Kennedy told her. The two young women traded cold smiles.

Thanksgiving was a nice meal, with Mr. Glastonbury doing the majority of the cooking and all of serving. Everyone else, including all of those on the staff and their families, were present and had a good time.

Afterwards, Kennedy retired to her room with a plate of pumpkin pie, liberally daubed with whipped cream. There was a knock and she got up, thinking it was one of the staff come to give the obligatory thanks to their host. Instead, it was Victoria.

"May I come in, Kennedy?"

"Sure," she said and waved at the bed.

Victoria laughed. "Forget it."

Kennedy smiled nastily. "Sister mine, that's the only other place to sit in my room. I'm eating pie at my desk; I never eat in bed. I like soft flannel sheets that aren't crunchy."

She flashed on the vampire she'd killed. He'd once been named Crunchy, too. Odd, how the mind works!

Victoria reminded her. She walked over and sat on Kennedy's bed, all very proper and lady-like in her evening dress. Kennedy had giggled when she'd seen the dress. Thanksgiving dinner had been a "formal" meal at the house, which meant that people wore slacks and shirts with collars, shoes and had their hair combed. Some of the women had dressed up to the extent of slacks; most of the men had been in dockers.

"I want to come with you tomorrow, when you go play poker."

Kennedy just laughed and shook her head. "The two times I've been, there's a bunch of tables in the front of the restaurant, where the guards sit. Well away from the game. I have no idea what they talk about there, but I don't think you'd like the conversation much."

"I want to sit at the table."

Again Kennedy shook her head. "Victoria, there are six or seven people at that table, period. All the seats have undoubtedly been sold out for weeks."

"Sold out?"

"I'm like a mascot, I think. We see things the same way."

Victoria paled. "You see things the same way as they do? They're hoodlums! They kill people! They beat them up! They sell drugs, women ... they lie, steal, cheat..."

"And Pete's business interests are entirely legitimate and above board."

"Pete? You mean father?"

"That's the man," Kennedy agreed.

"How dare you! He's your stepfather! You can't address him like that! I certainly don't!"

Kennedy smiled sardonically at her. "Do you do what he asks of you?"

"Well ... yeah. Most of the time."

"Well, he asked me to start calling him Pete."

Victoria shook her head. "I keep hearing this and it just doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense!"

"Do you remember summers in the Hamptons? We'd go down to the beach and look at the bird tracks in the wet sand and try to guess what bird had left which track."

"Kennedy," Victoria said patiently, "I was cheating. I was watching what birds were walking where."

"And I wasn't?" Kennedy asked reasonably. "Still, it's a useful paradigm for what you need to do now: watch carefully, see what's leaving tracks and check out what you think and remember it for the future."

"I want to go with you tomorrow. You can try to go without me, but I'll just follow you."

Kennedy grinned. "I was going to take the train."

Victoria grimaced. "I'll follow you."

It was Kennedy's turn to grimace. She could see the look in Victoria's eyes. The insatiable bump of curiosity.

"Do you know how to play poker?"

"I've played it a few times."

"We'll go over the rules and odds. It'll be nickel, dime, quarter with fifty dollar table stakes limit. There are other rules, I'll cover those, too." She waved at her phone. "I can pick that up and ask, you understand? You can't tell them anything."

"The Mafia?" Victoria shuddered.

Kennedy was patient. "Victoria, you used to like guys a lot. It would be a really, really bad idea to go, hoping to pick up someone. To add a little more spice of danger to your life."

"I don't go that way any more at all."

"So, will you listen to me? Do what I say?"

"Sure. I just want to know what it's like."

"Like I said, I can ask."

She picked up the phone and dialed the number from memory. "Pipes, Kennedy."

"Yes, Kennedy. Don't tell me you ate too much today and can't make it tomorrow?"

"No, nothing like that. I have a huge favor to ask. My sister wants to play tomorrow. I was thinking, maybe you could do Dennis a favor and spare him from another shearing."

Pipes laughed. "That's not a problem. Just so you know what you're asking?"

"Like I said, my sister."

"Sure, Kennedy. Does she know the rules?"

"I'll give her a review," Kennedy promised him.

"Fine. One o'clock?"

"I was thinking noon, if there's going to be ravioli."

Again he chuckled. "I taught the chef the recipe. It was my mother's! He always makes it if Dennis or I are going to be there."

"That's it, then. Tomorrow at noon."

"Don't forget your pocketbook!"

She hung up and looked at Victoria. "It's set. Do you understand that they trust me? That if you don't show up tomorrow, they'll think ill of you and your father, not me?"

"That's not fair."

Kennedy laughed. "Like I said, they know me. So I suggest you get lots of sleep. Read up on poker rules. Five card draw, five and seven card stud, no wild cards."

"No blackjack? I play blackjack a lot at Atlantic City and Vegas."

"No blackjack, no craps tables or roulette. No slot machines, no bingo games. Just three different kinds of poker."

"Cool! I'll be ready to go at ten."

"The men will mostly be wearing coats and ties. They don't have a problem with my showing up in slacks and a nice blouse. The weather forecast has a possibility of snow, so wear something comfortable, but warm on your feet, a utilitarian coat."

"I don't need a lesson on how to dress from my little stepsister."

Kennedy stood up and walked over to Victoria. "Stand up."

Victoria stood up. "Victoria, who is looking down on whom?"

Victoria eyed her. "God isn't fair, either. And you're probably still growing, too."

"Three inches this summer, another inch this fall. Now I'm five nine. Mr. Glastonbury thinks another inch or two before I stop."

"A giantess. Well, I better go get my beauty sleep if I'm supposed to be up that early."

Kennedy repressed a sneer. She'd have been up for hours by then, worked out, done some running, had breakfast and spent some time with the books.

Victoria wore black cord slacks, a corn-stalk yellow blouse, with a simple gold chain around her neck. Kennedy just had polyester slacks and a light blue blouse, without adornment. Both wore woolen coats over their clothes.

They reached the restaurant without adventure a little before noon and the hostess took them towards the back, where Pipes was sitting, talking to Don Valentine. They smiled at Victoria when Kennedy made the introductions, then the two girls joined the men at the table for lunch. It was the same delightful ravioli as the last time and Kennedy polished off her plate with gusto.

Victoria shook her head. "If I ate like you, Kennedy, I'd look like the Goodyear blimp."

Pipes nodded. "I too have to do a lot of exercising to pay for the sins of the holiday culinary season."

Later, they played poker. On the first hand, Victoria maxed every raise, like the worst rube poker player. Kennedy was embarrassed, particularly when all the men stayed with her. Victoria took only one card, which Carlos dealt with his studied blank face.

Again, the raises maxed out in the second round. Kennedy had long since moved to the sidelines, thinking her sister was going to embarrass her terribly. She might have, if it hadn't been for the four eights she'd drawn in her hand to begin with.

A little after three in the afternoon, Carlos and Don Valentine were tapped out, Pipes was teetering and Kennedy had lost half her money. And it was all in front of Victoria.

Pipes waved his hand airily. "I want to leave with some shreds of dignity, how about we call it quits?"

Don Valentine laughed. "And why couldn't you have decided that while I still had some money left, eh?"

He nodded to Victoria. "You play poker very well, young woman. It's refreshing to meet someone who can beat Kennedy at something."

"It's true I got kicked out of Swarthmore for hanky-panky in the library. That was the last straw. The first couple of straws were poker games in my dorm room that lasted for days. My father taught me how to play."

Don Valentine smiled. "Ah! That explains it! I played with him once in Monte Carlo. The stakes were a little higher, but he also left me with just my pants."

There were mild laughs around the table. Kennedy and Victoria left after that.

It was something Kennedy noticed. If they'd left any later, they'd have gone home in the dark. She seriously doubted if Pipes had chosen to stop just then because he was getting tapped out.

"Shocked, Kennedy, that I didn't embarrass you?" Victoria told her when they were seated on the subway.

"No, not shocked. And in any case, it would have been you that you would have embarrassed, not me. They are great believers in personal responsibility."

"That it would. So next time, cut me a little slack, okay? I might not be as old as you, but that doesn't mean I'm a fool."

Kennedy stared at her stepsister. The odds that Victoria had misstated her thought about their relative ages was low. Victoria waved towards the back of the train. "And you can tell that Pipes fellow, I don't need a babysitter, either."

Kennedy turned and looked through the door. Pipes was sitting with his back to her, reading a paper, but there was no doubt who it was.

"Come," Kennedy said, and stood up.

There were no seats around Pipes, so Kennedy grabbed one of the straps. "Evening, Pipes."

"Evening, Kennedy. I don't think it's going to snow."

"Nope, but it is going to rain.

"What are you doing here?" Kennedy asked bluntly.

"Why, that would be going home. I also live in Scarsdale. True, sometimes I have a car, but traffic into the City at this time of the year can be a little crazy."

"Neither Victoria nor I need our hands held."

Pipes waved behind them. Kennedy turned and a rather dirty man had his penis out, stroking it, obviously drooling at the two young women.

Kennedy was still debating what to do when Victoria stepped forward. "Want a free hand job?" she asked the man.

He positively beamed. She reached down, grabbed his equipment and twisted everything violently ninety degrees to the left. He screamed. Victoria ostentatiously wiped her hand on his shirt and stepped back.

"I've never given a guy a hand job before, Victoria," Kennedy said evenly. "But, now that I know how to do it, I think I'll be good to go for the future."

Kennedy saw a movement behind her again, out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw a man slip a pair of silver bracelets onto the homeless man's hand, while a second man was reading him his rights.

"One of the nice things about traveling under police surveillance is that the response time on petty crime is very good," Pipes said with a grin. "Plus, Mayor Guiliani and Commissioner Parks have done a very important thing, with their zero tolerance concept."

Victoria looked at the two cops, one now holding onto the prisoner. She turned back to Pipes. "Am I now a known associate?"

"Oh, yes. As soon as Miss Kennedy came in the door of the restaurant the first time, she went on the list, and since you're family, you're there, too."

"Pipes, what do you do on New Year's Eve?" Kennedy asked.

"My wife and I are calm, rational people. Dennis likes to go out and party, but usually my wife and I stay in."

"Come to the house; we'll have a party. I just got the idea, so you're the first person I've invited. Invite anyone else you want, but bring your wife."

"Miss Kennedy, you're the person who thinks a coke is a drug-overdose."

"True, true. But there are all sorts of fruit juices I drink. Water, let's not forget purity of essence!"

He guffawed. "I'll ask. Probably."

"Not many, just a few special friends. You and your wife would be welcome; Dennis..."

"Like I said, Dennis has his own parties he goes to. It's not a problem."

Kennedy turned to Victoria. "Invite some of your friends."

"Safety?"

Kennedy's eyes went to the two plainclothes policemen. Victoria laughed. "That works, doesn't it?"

"Actually, push come to shove, probably not. But it won't hurt."

Mr. Glastonbury didn't seem upset, but then again, Thanksgiving dinner had been his idea.

Again days rushed past. School was a total waste of time in the two weeks before winter break. Teacher expectations of their students went to zero; students could care less what was being said in class.

In retaliation, Kennedy spent two extra hours a day tutoring with Mr. Glastonbury. She wasn't sure why, but after a few days, she was fine again, not tired at all. It seemed grossly unfair, that she was ready for ever more school work and everyone else was ready for less, even Harriet.

Kennedy invited Harriet to the party, and she'd agreed. Kennedy wanted to invite Harriet's mother too, and Harriet had rolled her eyes. "She has a new boyfriend. You'd have to invite him, too."

"That's okay."

Harriet was a little dubious, but Kennedy trusted Mr. Glastonbury not to make a scene.

Christmas day dawned, white enough for government work, but not so white as to hinder anything. In spite of fate, karma and destiny, Kennedy was aware she was a young, teenage girl. The thought of her first party of her own, filled her with a great deal of excitement.

Then the countdown began to New Year's Eve. Victoria announced her intention of departing for, as she put it, "not greener climes, but green climes. Preferably with swaying palm trees." That was scheduled for a few days after the party.

Mr. Glastonbury let Kennedy plan the music, the refreshments, the food; it was a great deal of fun.

The first fly in the ointment was a phone call from Pipes on Tuesday, before the party on Thursday night. "Miss Kennedy, about my friend's domestic issues."

"What about them?"

"It would seem that Dwight went missing on Christmas Day. There was a delay because the headmaster of the school was murdered, along with a couple of students. It took a while to involve the police and then contact the families."

"Do you think he's coming here? That's a very long distance to come."

"Our friends are keeping an eye on things, but a return to New York state would not be an unreasonable assumption. It is almost certain that the young man associates you with many of his problems."

"Well, you know me. I'd far prefer for his family to deal with it."

"As they shall. My friend wanted to be sure you were aware of the problem."

"My father hired a half dozen extra guards for the party."

"And I too shall bring a few as well, plus my usual entourage."

"That should take care of any problems."

"I agree. I will see you Thursday evening."

"Bring an appetite! There's no ravioli on the menu, but I think you'll like what's there."

"I look forward to it; my wife, too!"

A day later, almost at the same hour, the cute maid appeared. "Miss Kennedy, a phone call for you."

Kennedy had seen her sister and the maid in some very deep ... conversations.

Kennedy took the phone.

"Kennedy."

"Miss Kennedy, this is Marion Goldberg, Ruby's mother. I know this is the holiday season and all, but has Ruby talked to you lately? Have you seen her?"

"No, Mrs. Goldberg. We had a fight last summer. Since then, I haven't seen or heard from her. She won't talk to me."

"Well, she's run away. She's been more and more upset these last few days. She's had a simply terrible time this year at school." There was a hesitation. "She put on a little weight and the other children were quite cruel. Ruby was very distraught, saying over and over again, that she should have believed you, trusted you. Last night I went shopping and when I came home, she was gone."

"I wish she had talked to me, too, Mrs. Goldberg," Kennedy told her.

"Please, would you call me if you hear from her?"

"Yes! I hope she comes here, Mrs. Goldberg. I really like Ruby and I want nothing more than to be her friend."

Again there was a hesitation. "Ruby told me what kind of friends you were."

Kennedy sighed. "The best kind."

"I don't care about that! I'm worried about her! She left here with her backpack, but I don't think she has much money. I'm afraid she might have spent the night outside."

"I'll see if I can find her, Mrs. Goldberg, I promise. And if I do, I'll call you instantly."

"Thank you, Miss Kennedy, I appreciate this."

Kennedy went and told Mr. Glastonbury about the new problem.

He simply shrugged. "Miss Kennedy, people are people. Sometimes you can stay friends with someone through the worst situation imaginable, and they love you, even if you were of no help or actually messed them up. Other times you can say 'Good morning' wrong and earn someone's undying enmity. You have to be careful about how you go about assigning responsibility to events."

"I understand."

The morning of the party dawned crystal clear and cold, leaving Kennedy to cross her fingers and hope that Ruby hadn't spent the last two nights outside, because it had been dangerously cold. Then her daily routine ran afoul of party preparations and before she knew it, she was caught up in the whirl of pre-party activities with no time to think.

Victoria appeared a little after six and took Kennedy in hand, picking her outfit for the night. At least, Kennedy thought later, Victoria had understood that a dress just wasn't going to fly. Earrings, though, and a small star sapphire pendant around her neck, a blue blouse that was the exact color of the sapphire, dark tan slacks with a thin belt, the same color as her slacks. Kennedy looked at her shoes and smiled. She'd told Victoria no heels.

They had compromised with a pair of elegant dark boots that had an inch of heel.

Mr. Glastonbury said she was lovely, and a short while Harriet and her mother arrived, sans boyfriend. After that Kennedy and Harriet were inseparable as more and more guests arrived.

Pipes, when he arrived, presented his wife to Kennedy. "Kennedy, this is my wife, Cynthia Pipes."

Kennedy looked at her, then at him. "Pipes?"

Cynthia laughed lightly. She was tall and dark, nearly as tall as her husband. "I used to sing for La Scala. The first time I heard Pipes' baritone, I nick-named him. Then he went and had his name changed the day we applied for the wedding license." She grinned. "I can take a joke as well as the next person. I can dish it out, too, so I agreed."

Kennedy nodded, but inwardly shaking her head. These nice people were Mafia villains? It had never made sense, not ever.

Shortly afterward Ferinc appeared. She'd invited several of the people from camp including Lauren, Charlotte, Deb. The only one who'd RSVPed had been Ferinc and she hadn't invited him.

"Ferinc!" she said, surprised how glad she was to see him.

"Miss Kennedy. I am here to make apologies for the others. Our family has a special celebration; none of them could get away." He grinned slightly and bowed to her. "I, on the other hand, make my own rules."

It was a pleasant evening, with much interesting conversation, and not just between Kennedy and her guests, but between her guests. Just what had Pipes said that had made Ferinc laugh?

A little before eleven the cute maid appeared next to Kennedy. "Miss Kennedy, there is a young woman at the front door, who says she's your friend."

Kennedy started to say something, then frowned. "How did she get past the gate?"

"I don't know. I tried to call the guards there and I didn't get a response. I've passed the word to be alert."

Harriet tugged at Kennedy's hand. "It might be Ruby, Kennedy."

"It might be. But the call should have come from the gate house, not the front door."

She spotted Pipes, talking to Mr. Glastonbury. She went to them quickly. "We have a problem, sir," she said, speaking to Mr. Glastonbury. She saw him turn his head slightly and focus on something.

Kennedy turned and saw Ruby across the ballroom. "A real bad problem," Kennedy said out of the corner of her mouth. "Harriet, stick with Pipes and Mr. Glastonbury."

Ruby was wearing a down jacket and stocking cap. She'd looked around and saw Kennedy, smiled slightly and slung her pack off her back and down to the floor.

Kennedy walked quickly towards her. "Ruby! Nice to see you!"

Ruby looked like she wanted to cry. "I had to talk to you, Kennedy."

"Well, sure! You know me! I like to talk too much! Come on in. Would you like something to eat or drink?"

Ruby looked around at the people. "Your parents are having a party."

Kennedy nodded. "Well, I am, anyway. I would have invited you, Ruby, if I thought you wanted to come."

Ruby sighed. "I know. I've been an awful bitch, haven't I?"

"I understand, Ruby. I'm sorry I didn't explain things better."

"I understand it now, I think." She reached out her hand and Kennedy took it. "Hold me, Kennedy."

Kennedy wrapped her arms around Ruby and hugged her. After a minute, Ruby pushed back. "This year ... I really lost it, Kennedy. I just didn't care any more. And the others, at school ... they just got worse and worse.

"You were the only one, Kennedy. The only one who believed in me. And I threw it all away because I couldn't accept that you heal fast."

"I wasn't always truthful, Ruby," Kennedy told her. "I'm not proud of it, but sometimes there are things that just need to be fibbed about."

She met Kennedy's eye. "Yeah, I know. I met one reason yesterday. He hurt me, Kennedy."

"I'm so sorry, Ruby."

"I was going to do something awful at school," Ruby told her. "I'm smart! I snuck over to a construction site and stole a whole bunch of dynamite. I was going to blow them all up. Then, when I was standing in the basement of the high school, about to set the fuse ... I started thinking about you and how nice you'd been to me. Not just ... you know..."

"I know," Kennedy said gently. "I loved you. And not just for that."

"I decided to bring the stuff here; I was sure you would know how to do something with it so no one got hurt. I was scared to just dump it any where."

"You did the right thing, Ruby," Kennedy told her, still holding Ruby lightly in her arms.

"I met this guy; he was coming here, too. He hurt me. He's making me do things. He told me that I had to come in and talk to you first; he didn't care about what. If I didn't, he said he'd kill you and everyone else here. He can do it, Kennedy! He's really strong; he's really mean!"

Kennedy met Ruby's eyes. "Is the stuff in your back pack?"

Ruby shook her head, looking confused. "He said he didn't need it, that he didn't want it. He made me throw it away."

Kennedy saw movement in the shadows, then she saw Dwight appear, his arm around Cynthia Pipes' throat.

Kennedy had just enough time to register what she was seeing when there was a single loud crack and Dwight shook his head. Pipes had his pistol out; he'd fired. There was a different sort of crack: bone breaking and Cynthia was dead, just like that, sprawling on the ground in front of Dwight.

Dwight took two quick steps and grabbed Ruby from Kennedy's arms and yanked her to him, again his arm going around the girl's neck.

"That's never going to work again, Pipes," Dwight told Kennedy's friend, who was staring in shock at his dead wife.

"Now, I have a few words for Kennedy here. If any of you are still here when I'm finished, I'll eat you, too!"

He moved his hand, cupping one of Ruby's breasts. "Let's hear it again, baby! What do you want, eh?" He rubbed her hard and Ruby choked and gagged.

"Please, oh please stop! I'll do what ever you want! Oh please! Please! Don't hurt anyone!"

Kennedy remembered what Lauren had told her once about Ruby; Kennedy saw red. Dwight laughed nastily.

"Yeah, like that! I fucked her over and over again. All night long! Half the morning! Another couple of times while we waited for it to get dark! The stupid cunt thinks I love her!" He broke Ruby's neck with as little compunction as he'd killed Pipes' wife. But now his face was contorted in the fashion of the vampires.

Kennedy reached out and pulled Ruby away from him. She looked at the lifeless face, at hopes and dreams dashed forever. She looked at Dwight, aware that he thought she was going to go ballistic, over the top.

"Stupid queer!" he said with venom, taking Kennedy's arm. "I'm going to love eating you!"

Kennedy looked at his hand on her arm and realized that Dwight might have heard about Kennedy being the author of his troubles, but he hadn't heard anything more about her.

"You were stupid alive," she told him. "Now that you're a vamp, your brains have turned to sawdust." She shifted and the grip was now hers on him. Without effort she lifted him up and spinning him around. She then slung him underhanded, about twenty feet, where he slammed head-first against one of the marble-facade walls. His head and neck cracked, stunning him.

She took two steps to one side, lashed out with her foot, splintering the heavy wooden leg of one of the drink-and-food laden tables. She reached down and pulled the leg away from the table, ignoring the table spilling its contents to the floor.

She stalked over to Dwight, who was just starting to try to clear his head. She put her foot down on his chest and pushed hard. "Do you know why vamps are going to lose?" she asked conversationally, as she put the table leg on his chest over his heart and leaned on it a bit. It was four inches on a side, and the end against Dwight was the broken end.

"With you, you're dead. An evolutionary dead end. Some of us are weak, some of us are stupid, but we can learn from our mistakes. Tell me, Dwight, obviously you have some new playmates. Did they ever tell you about the one thing that makes your sort afraid of bumps in the night?"

"Slayers?" He cackled. "They're both in California."

"Yeah, that's true, Dwight. But they have a junior league." She pressed down hard and he started to scream as he realized what was going to happen. It wasn't a very long scream.

She threw the table leg away and walked over to Ruby and sank down next to her, holding her hand. Deb's words came to her, about Ruby's fate.

Damn fate! Damn them all! She wiped a tear away from her eye. Screw Watchers, the Watchers Council, screw Slayers, screw the rules! From here on, it was personal! Kennedy versus the demons! This was war!



-------

Chapter 18: After the Math


Kennedy finally let go of Ruby's cold hand and stood up. Pipes was crouched next to his wife, doing what Kennedy had been doing -- crying and holding her hand.

She looked around the room. Victoria was being sick in a corner, heaving over and over again, uncontrollably. Harriet was pale and trembling, sitting next to her mother, who must have fainted, as she was lying on the ground.

Mr. Glastonbury was standing with a phone in his hand, talking into it. She curled her lip in distaste. It had been clear, really, from the first: Watchers had their own agenda.

Kennedy saw Pipes stand up and head to her. He was blunt. "We have to come up with a story."

Kennedy met his eyes. "We can't blame it on Dwight, can we? No body, so we'd have to say he escaped. That wouldn't be good for your friend."

"No." His eyes went to his wife.

"Kennedy, it never occurred to me that he was something different. I thought he was just using Cynthia to get close to you." He swallowed. "I had permission to take any clear shot at him. I never thought..."

"Pipes," Kennedy said softly. He looked at her, his eyes haunted.

"These things are evil. He was no more the grandson of your friend than the table I broke was my father's daughter. They are unspeakably evil and cruel. Cynthia was dead the instant he had his arm around her throat. They like to kill your loved ones in front of you, particularly if you think you're still in control of the situation.

"It was the same with Ruby. The reason he brought her here alive was to hurt me by killing her in front of me."

"What can we say?"

It rather shook Kennedy that he was at a loss for options. "Don't lie about anything important, of course. Dwight was wearing black clothes, he had a ski-mask pulled up; we just tell them it was pulled down and didn't recognize him. We say there were several of them, and that they were here for my father and left when they realized he wasn't here."

"That's stupid," Pipes said. "Only professionals would attempt something like that, and they'd have known he wasn't here."

"You know that; I know that. What little experience I have with the police is that they will grasp at a familiar explanation, even if it makes no sense."

Mr. Glastonbury joined them. "I can't get any of the guards. Not at the front gate, not at the front door. You understand I had to call the police?"

"I understand," Kennedy and Pipes chorused.

The cute maid staggered into the room, her left arm hanging uselessly at her side; she was covered with blood.

"I'm sorry, sir," she told Mr. Glastonbury. "I think there was only one. Even though I was told what to expect..." She shook her head, nearly in tears. "He hit me, sir. He used one of those things they use to smash in doors. The only reason I'm alive is I'd just slipped in a pool of Nigel's blood when he swung that thing at me."

"That's okay, Annie. Sit down, woman! Rest. Help is on the way."

The cute maid, Annie, looked around the room, taking in the bodies and Victoria, still bent over, pale and shaking. She looked away. "This isn't going to be good, sir."

"No. Masked men, several of them, attacked the house. You saw at least one. Just tell it like you saw, do you understand?"

She laughed bitterly. "I saw a man shot repeatedly, I saw him kill one guard after another. He'd have killed me if I hadn't slipped. It was like we were snowflakes and he was an elephant charging through them. It was as if we were of no account. We were of no account. I've never felt so helpless, so impotent, in my life."

"Miss Kennedy put paid to his account," Mr. Glastonbury told her softly.

Annie stared at Kennedy. Then her face turned pale, her eyes rolled up and it was all they could do to ease her down without hurting her worse than she was.

"Ferinc!" Kennedy exclaimed. "Has anyone seen Ferinc?"

However before she could look for him or see to anyone, the first police officer entered the room. He had his gun out; he looked terrified.

"What happened?" the cop asked. His eyes went to the two bodies on the floor.

"We were attacked," Pipes told him. "Guys in black ... they wanted Mr. Stuyvesant -- but he wasn't here."

More and more police arrived. Around one in the morning one of those who arrived was Detective Harrison from White Plains. He looked around the scene. Pipes and Kennedy had covered Ruby and Cynthia with tablecloths, even though the first police officers on the scene had threatened them. Pipes had laughed at them; Kennedy had just glared at them.

Detective Harrison conferred with a Scarsdale detective, then he and a third detective came to where Kennedy was standing, separate from the others. In fairness, police officers had been assigned to each person present, and they were all separated.

"Miss Kennedy," Detective Harrison said politely. The other detective raised an eyebrow.

"Detective Harrison."

"What happened?"

"At least one, and I assume from what I've heard, more than one, man dressed in black appeared. They took hostages and killed them. After the second one, they decided we really were telling the truth about my father not being here. They left."

The Scarsdale detective held up a plastic bag with a pistol cartridge in it.

"Mr. Pipes," Kennedy told him. "One of them killed his wife. He couldn't shoot until they tried to leave. I saw the one who'd killed his wife wince, but I don't know if he was actually hit. He moved fast enough after that."

"And you recognized no one?" the Scarsdale detective asked.

"They were wearing dark clothes and ski masks," Kennedy told him. "At least the one I had a good look at did."

She drew herself up. "No one wants to tell me what's happened outside this room. We had guards; they were my father's employees, some of them are my friends. I'm responsible for them. What's happened?"

The Scarsdale cop waved at Victoria, who was facing the wall, so she didn't have to look at the room. "And Victoria Stuyvesant?"

"She's indisposed," Kennedy said gently.

"I find it odd that you aren't," the Scarsdale detective said.

Detective Harrison put his hand on Kennedy's arm before she could wind up to set the record straight. "Miss Kennedy, four policemen are dead, three from New York and one off duty officer from Scarsdale hired for security. Five more security people died near your front door. There's one woman seriously injured; her shoulder is broken."

"And the trail of carnage stops here," the local detective said.

Kennedy allowed Detective Harrison to hold her back, even if her instinct was rage.

"You stupid shit," Kennedy told him. "Two women died in this room tonight and you have the balls to stand there and tell me the carnage stopped here?"

"Heinrich!" Harrison exclaimed. "Take a hike! I know you're senior and have jurisdiction and all that, but make a fuss, and I'll take everyone from White Plains home with me. Back off!"

The man left and Detective Harrison spoke softly. "There's a dead teenaged girl, another adult female. Do you know their names?"

"Cynthia Pipes, Pipes' wife. Ruby Goldberg. I met her at camp this summer..."

It was too much. For Christ sakes, she was thirteen! Kennedy broke down, sobbing for Ruby, for Cynthia, for all the others.

It took some time for her to settle down. Probably it was the oddity of being comforted by a hard-boiled police detective that finally penetrated where nothing else had.

"Detective Harrison," Kennedy told him, drawing herself up. "Please, I beg of you. I have Ruby's phone number and address. Please, please -- she was all her mother had. Find her rabbi in Tarrytown, be gentle as you can when you tell her mother. Please, do this right."

He grimaced. "Okay. She was a little bit of mystery, as she didn't have any ID."

"She ran away from home to come here," Kennedy told him, meeting his eyes.

"Now what?" she asked. "I'm pretty sure my father was informed."

"He's here now, but they won't let him in. His lawyer is on the way, too. Actually, from the description, a platoon of lawyers."

"There was a man named Ferinc here. I haven't seen him since this happened."

"He's on his way to the hospital. Evidently he tangled with them on their way in."

"Is he okay?"

"Well enough, considering what happened to the others. A broken leg," the detective supplied. He looked around and handed Kennedy a note, trying not to be obvious about it. "He said to give you this."

She carefully unfolded it and read the words there. "Dumpster, Arco station, Dobbs Ferry exit, near Tarrytown." At first she didn't understand, then she did.

"Detective Harrison, have I ever lied to you?"

He came right back. "Have you ever told me the truth?"

"I've never lied to you, ever. Truth, sir? Truth is that there was a plan to bomb a high school in Tarrytown, sir. I don't know who had the plan. This is where the explosives were dumped when the plotters decided to come here instead."

She handed him the note back.

He met her eyes. "There was a bulletin a few days ago about forty pounds of dynamite and detonators stolen from a site near Tarrytown."

"It's from a very reliable source, sir."

"I'd say wait here, but then you're going to do that anyway, aren't you?"

"Pretty much."

He waved at Pipes, standing a few feet away. "I told them who he is. They didn't believe me. He is, they tell me, a respected local citizen, active in civic groups. His wife played in the university symphony and sang for several local choirs. So does he."

"My biological father left me with a number of aphorisms. Most have taken some experience before I've come to understand what he meant. Now I know what he meant when he said, 'You can lead a donkey to water, but when it comes to making it drink, it's still an ass.'"

The detective laughed. "Stay cool, girl! Stay safe. I have some people I know in Tarrytown. I'll take care of this."

He vanished.

A few minutes later, her father came in. He saw Kennedy and she nodded to him and jerked her chin towards Victoria. He nodded in understanding and went to his biological daughter.

They lifted Ruby up and moved her to a gurney, and Kennedy started towards her. A policeman moved to interpose himself in front of her. "Sorry, miss. It's not permitted."

She rolled him off her hip and continued on. Another cop pulled his pistol. "Stop!"

She was unthinking again. Her foot snapped up, hitting his hand, a whole lot harder than she'd hit Juanita's father's hand. The pistol skittered across the marble floor of the room, fetching up sixty feet away.

She stood next to Ruby, then reached down and touched her forehead, even though it was shrouded in a rubberized body bag. "Sorry, girl. I never, ever, wanted this."

There was a lot of commotion, but a lot of senior police officials were there, screaming at their men to holster their weapons. Kennedy was amused to see her stepfather in front of the one police officer cradling his arm. "By all means, file charges against my daughter! Sue her in civil court! By all means, bring it onto my turf and not yours!"

The man paled.

Pipes walked over to his wife's body and laid his head down on her breast.

There was a swirl by the door and someone else came in. Dennis Pipes and the old man who was Pipes' friend. The two of them walked across the room with every eye on them. Dennis touched the plastic bag and looked up at his father.

"Sir?"

"I'm sorry, Dennis."

"It wasn't your fault, so I've been told."

He didn't sound very convinced, Kennedy thought.

Pipes didn't say anything, but the old man walked up to Pipes and hugged him hard. "If there is fault here, it is mine," he announced.

Hours later, the sun was coming up and Kennedy sat stock still on the veranda, staring at the broken clouds, ignoring the chill morning. Mr. Glastonbury appeared and sat down next to her.

"Miss Kennedy."

"I can't stay here any more. None of these people deserved what happened to them."

"Where would you live, Miss Kennedy? Some apartment building? A house in some suburb? Just where would you go where you won't have neighbors? Rural America? Do you think that will keep those you see safe? They'll come at you through the landlord, the waitress at the diner, the clerk at the grocery store, the gas station attendant..."

"Eleven people are dead, sir. Eleven. Ruby, Cynthia. All those others!"

Her father appeared, a glass of juice in his hand. "Kennedy, back in World War Two, generals planned landings in Africa, Sicily, Italy and France. All through the Pacific. Hundreds of thousands of our soldiers died in those landings; millions of our enemies. It's not pleasant to put someone in harm's way, but we have the salve to our conscience that their service was voluntary. And I swear to you, as will Mr. Glastonbury, that none of them were ignorant of the danger they might face."

"Tell that to Victoria."

"I can't. She's already gone. Hawaii, I think. I've got people with her; some of them are professionals. I think she'll be okay, she was just startled. I don't think she believed us. I didn't stint on my warnings and I doubt if you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Mr. Glastonbury said there was just one of them."

"I'm not sure 'just one' means anything when it comes to these creatures."

"I heard you say that once before. And, I'm sorry to say, I pretty much ignored you. Mr. Glastonbury struck me as earnest and over-protective; not bad things in a man with his job description. It never occurred to me that both of you were low-balling the threat."

"Well, now you know, sir," Mr. Glastonbury told her father.

"Yes, now I know." He lifted the juice glass. "Kennedy, the only member of the staff who hasn't quit is in the hospital; I expect I'll hear from her in due course. I had to fetch this myself."

"I'm sorry, sir ... Pete."

"Kennedy, you have to understand one thing about people, something Mr. Glastonbury appears to have been remiss about teaching you. We'll have a new staff by this evening. I promise you, not one will be ignorant of what they might face or about what happened here yesterday. I will have to turn people away."

"That's crazy," Kennedy said without thinking.

Mr. Glastonbury cleared his throat. "Mr. Stuyvesant is correct, Miss Kennedy. People always think they're better than the last poor sod who had the duty. That it won't happen to them, because they are smarter, stronger and faster ... luckier, too. Besides, they're going to be well paid."

"Is there going to be a problem about the policeman I hit?" Kennedy asked.

Her father grinned. "No. He has three broken fingers and a broken wrist. I heard the dressing down his captain gave him, for pulling a weapon on a bereaved. That was the captain's phrasing. A bereaved."

"And the rest?" Kennedy asked.

"Mr. Glastonbury explained your logic, later. You have good instincts, Kennedy. You were exactly right. They heard from a dozen witnesses, who more or less agreed that they saw one man in black. Some said he wore a ski-mask, other said he had a stocking cap, but it wasn't pulled down, others said it was. The physical descriptions were all over the place."

"Miss Kennedy," Mr. Glastonbury interjected, "Harriet Scrivener described the man she saw as about five feet tall, dark-skinned, probably black, with kinky hair."

Harriet had lied to the police?

"Harriet's mother said there were at least six men, that there was a lot of gunfire and she thought she'd been shot. Kennedy, I doubt if she'd have lied about what she thought she saw."

Kennedy rolled her eyes. Harriet deserved a big hug! Then it hit her. A big hug that would put another nail in Harriet's coffin!

Kennedy put her head down on the table, trying hard to keep control.

A few moments later, it was her father who shook her lightly. She turned to look, and saw past him, where Detective Harrison stood.

She sat up, willing her emotions to calm down.

"May I have a moment with Miss Kennedy in private?" the detective asked.

Her father's voice was angry. "I've heard this before and I don't like it!"

"Pete! He's okay. Particularly if he can stand there in the alternate sun and shade we're having this morning. Detective, there is nothing you have to say that either my father or Mr. Glastonbury can't hear."

"Tarrytown says they recovered the package intact ... about two minutes ahead of a sanitation truck. That would have been a mess! They are treating it as an anonymous tip, with no hint that the package ever got close to delivery."

"Package?" her father asked.

"Forty pounds of dynamite," Kennedy said. "Ruby was sick and tired of the bullies at her school. She reconsidered when she was there, ready to do it. She was going to bring the stuff here, confident that I could find a way of disposing of it safely. Except Dwight made her toss it, because he didn't want it."

"Dwight?" Detective Harrison's voice tightened, his gaze turned very intent. "Dwight Evans?"

"Yeah, that Dwight. For your ears only, detective. Don't waste your time looking very hard for the men who came here yesterday," Kennedy told him. "There was just one, and the one cop was right. The havoc stopped when he went for me."

"One teenage boy killed four cops, five guards, two women and injured a couple of others? And you took him down? I won't even ask what happened to the body."

"Detective," Kennedy's stepfather said, "I'm a little surprised at Kennedy's candor. But if she says it, that's the way it happened."

"Leaving out that last night she said something different?" the detective told him. He looked at Kennedy. "And Pipes? The old man? If you had killed the old man's grandson, you would be dead now."

"He told Pipes to take a shot, the first time he could. Pipes didn't know Dwight wasn't Dwight any more."

"Dwight wasn't Dwight?" Detective Harrison asked, clearly confused.

"Detective Harrison," Kennedy told him, "you've earned the truth. But I assure you, you'd be better off this morning watching football."

"Dwight Evans was here? And you killed him? And the old man hasn't sent his troops?"

"I told you, he asked Pipes to shoot Dwight, if he got the chance. Pipes thought he had the chance. Right now, Pipes is torn between the truth: knowing his wife was already dead, no matter what he did, or what actually happened. He took the shot."

"And missed? He's supposed to be good."

"In some ways," Kennedy admitted, "he's better than me. No, he hit Dwight in the skull. However, Dwight no longer cared."

"Hopped up on drugs? Christ! The things I've seen..." his voice trailed away as he contemplated the trio facing him, who were silent. "He wasn't on drugs?"

"He was one of the undead," Mr. Glastonbury told him, "a vampire, to be particular. A cruel, evil creature without a soul, without the least trace of compassion or humanity left in him."

"And Miss Kennedy killed him? What did she do with the body?"

Kennedy's father laughed. "Detective! Please! There was no body! Surely you've seen vampire movies! They turn to dust!"

"And you expect me to believe this?"

Kennedy turned to Mr. Glastonbury. "Sir, please, would you fetch Lady Kennedy? I'd take my juice glass off the table if I were you, Pete."

A moment later Mr. Glastonbury was back, while her father was sipping from his juice. Kennedy waved for Mr. Glastonbury to give the sword to the detective.

"A great honking sword," the detective said, as he reached for it. He hefted it. "Heavy, too!"

"It's called a bastard sword," Kennedy said, her voice muted. "Or a hand and a half." Mr. Glastonbury took it from the detective, then whipped around and tossed Lady Kennedy to Kennedy, the sword spinning in a glittering wheel.

Kennedy took her in one hand and without pause started whipping Lady Kennedy around in figure-8s. This wasn't anything like Garry Owen, this was "Death to all vampires!" It wasn't a beehive hum, it was the sound of a bullroarer at full voice.

After a few seconds Kennedy changed the motion and Lady Kennedy came over her head and she brought the sword down on the table. The tablecloth kept the splinters down, but the sword clove the table cleanly in two.

Kennedy recovered and Lady Kennedy was back on her shoulder before the two halves tottered and fell.

She turned to Detective Harrison. "Right now, I'm one very upset young woman. A vampire killed someone I cared a very great deal about. He also killed the wife of a friend, plus a lot of people whose job was to keep me and my friends safe. I'm extremely upset."

"And why are you telling me this?" the detective asked.

"I just told you. I'm upset. I'm supposed to stay home, learning my lessons. Well, that was the fourth vampire I've killed, all by myself. I swear to you all, here and now, it won't be the last." She looked at Detective Harrison. "The day I leave a body, feel free to apply the law to me just as you would to anyone else. When there's no body ... cut me some slack."

The detective turned to Kennedy's father. "I'm an honest cop. I know, that's one of those stupid phrases like 'military intelligence' that are supposed to be contradictory. I'm honest. Still, I've never minded a few short cuts, legal short cuts, when push came to shove."

He turned to Kennedy. "I won't treat you any different than anyone else."

"Detective, there were all those witnesses in the room when I killed what had been Dwight. Would you feel confident about a prosecution based on their testimony?"

"No. Like I said, I'm willing to skirt the rules. A little. Not for anything serious."

"And Dwight?" Pete Stuyvesant asked.

"Dwight was last reported in Argentina, sir. If I hear anything different, I'd have to take that into consideration."

After that, things settled down. Kennedy called Harriet, who was shaken, but practical. "You saved the rest of us. I know that."

"I also got you into it."

"Kennedy, it was Dwight! Forget it!"

On the first day of school after the holiday, Kennedy made a point of finding Juan Baptiste. He eyed her. "I was hoping you'd forgotten I existed."

"I want you to tell Nita something for me."

"What?" he was almost overtly hostile.

"No one will say it officially, but take it from me. Dwight has passed on."

"He's dead?"

"Passed on, yes."

"And you know this for sure? I'd have expected something in the paper."

"It was there. They just didn't mention Dwight."

"The kidnappers? The ones who came after your father?"

"Something like that."

He was clearly unsure, but said nothing.

When she got home that evening, Ferinc was waiting for her on the veranda.

"Are you okay?" she asked, looking at him. He had a cast on one leg and bandages on his face. He was using two canes.

"Miss Kennedy! I've never been able to justify two sword canes at once! So cool!"

"Thank you for the note."

He nodded. "She walked past me, down the hall. I knew she was the walking dead. I read what she'd thought about doing, what she did and how she felt about you. It was the least I could do in her memory."

Kennedy nodded at his injuries.

He laughed. "Second sight is a powerful tool, Miss Kennedy. It was silent on the vampire behind her. I was taken by surprise. It was all I could do to stay alive. I saw one of your people close, and I realized I could save her, too. So I did."

"Annie? Cute woman, about five six, brown hair? Peaches and cream complexion?"

"Miss Kennedy, all I see are concepts, not concrete details. I just knew someone was going to die unless I intervened. I intervened."

"Thank you."

"No problem! You killed a vampire! I helped, in my own feeble way! Our king is ecstatic! Once again the Roma have triumphed!"

Kennedy blinked in astonishment.

Ferinc laughed. "Yes, of course, there was the fact that the nearest Roma was several hundred feet away, bleeding and with several broken bones. But, hey, we were on the right side once more! He's happy to take the credit for that!"

He saluted her and left.

A few days later Pipes was standing outside the school. She didn't care who thought what. She went to him and hugged him.

He hugged her back. "I'm pleased to say that Dennis listened to my friend and he's speaking to me again."

"I'm so glad."

"You understand I feel it is my parental duty, no matter what my personal circumstances are, to shear him from some of his money. Poker? Monday is Martin Luther King Day; you won't have school."

"Is that what you really want?"

"It's what I think Cynthia would have wanted. I don't think she would want to be grieved over for weeks or months."

"You understand that I have a great big bulls-eye painted on my back?"

He waved at the school and Kennedy blushed. "My father says I still have to, at least until the end of the year."

"Yes, well, I say I'd like you to come play poker with us."

"My sister won't be there," Kennedy warned.

"She learned poker from her father, Miss Kennedy. She plays a more cutthroat game than we're used to."

Kennedy raised her eyebrow, but he just looked at her.

She looked around. "The police are much better at being unobtrusive."

He laughed. "I'm afraid my friend did that."

"Did what?"

"He asked me to lunch, at a restaurant in the World Trade Center. I had no idea he was expecting another guest, Judge Julian Schwartz. Judge Schwartz is very independent. Fiercely independent. When he saw me, he was angry at my friend. Then my friend waved around the restaurant and the judge realized my friend had two dozen policemen tailing him, and I had half again as many. There were more than fifty policemen in that restaurant."

He smiled slightly. "The judge recused himself from the matter, but let's just say that for right now the police can't come within two hundred yards of either of us."

"They were more circumspect following me. I've never seen them," Kennedy told him.

Pipes shook his head. "No, they were less circumspect with your father. Once. After that..."

"Oh!"

Poker was nice, even if the number of guards in the front of the restaurant was twice what it had been.

When Dennis sat down Kennedy said to him, "I'm sorry about your mother."

"They explained it. The old man and mine. I didn't believe it. Then Don Valentine took me aside and told me some stories. Either every man I've respected in my life is lying to me, or the world isn't at all like what I thought."

"And do you understand Kennedy's place in things?" Don Valentine spoke up.

"Yes, godfather, sir! I'm pig-headed, like my old man. But I'm not stupid!"

Kennedy looked at Pipes. "Do you suppose I could impose on you? I'd like to speak to your friend. I know he said he never wanted to see me again, but I have a proposition for him."

"I can ask. He owes me a favor."

Kennedy wanted to cry. "Please, no favors. This is between him and me. Just that. A business deal."

Pipes gave a high sign and Fatso went into the back.

A few minutes later the old man came out, walked over and took the seventh seat at the table. A moment later his money was on the table and he got his chips.

The last time she'd been here, Kennedy had tried to dissemble. Now, she simply glared at all of them, remembering Ruby.

Whenever she went head to head with the old man, she was ruthless, betting the maximum, bluffing to the max, up and down. She had good cards and he didn't, and quickly he pushed his last chip in and she called and took it.

He reached out with one, old parchment hand and covered her hand with it.

"You have no reason to love me, I know. So, what is it you want?"

Kennedy looked around the table.

"We're all friends here," the old man said evenly. "Even Dennis, who has only lately come to some understanding of the world."

"There are others like what your grandson became, sir. I want to kill them."

"You aren't," he stuttered, amazing by itself, "official are you?"

"I'm Kennedy, just that and no more," she told him bluntly. "All you need to do is point me in the right direction."

"Do you understand that after Pipes' brush with them, we went back to finish the job? That that was even more expensive? That the times I've sent men after those like my grandson became, the results have been bloody ... and those things don't bleed like we do."

"I understand, sir. I'll be the only one on the point of the stick. I just need to know where to poke."

"Cynthia was my daughter," he told her.

Kennedy's jaw dropped.

"I, for the first time in my life, have no idea what I want to do. Every instinct in my body says to take the fight back to them. I want to kill each and every one of them. Except, of course, for the fact that they are already dead, and killing them again is no simple thing."

"I can do it."

"I know you can. Dwight and Crunchy. Both people once known to me. I'll grant you Dwight was no loss. Crunchy ... he was a gentleman. He reminded me of Pipes. He was always bowing to women, opening doors, kissing their hands."

"Got him a lot of..." Dennis started to say, then sank into silence when he realized the mood of the others at the table.

"It did," the old man admitted. "But he wasn't like that at the end, was he?"

"No, sir. If I was the person he was expecting, I'd be dead."

"I had trouble with it, at first. But I keep coming back to what my own people tell me. Pipes, Don Valentine, even Carlos."

"Even Carlos?" Carlos said. His voice was lighter than the words would seem to indicate.

The old man waved a hand. "I apologize. I didn't believe you and the others when I should have. You lost people; I lost people. Fourteen. I think we killed one, right?"

"Yes, sir," Carlos told him. "I strangled him myself. And when he started twitching a second later, I broke his neck. Imagine my surprise when he didn't seem to care. He cared, though, when I cut his head off with a Buck knife. Six of my men were dead."

The old man turned to Kennedy. "So, there you have it. We've tried it. It works, but badly. A lot of good people die. Since then, we hang back and hit them when they least expect it. Dawn's good!"

"Dawn's very good!" Carlos agreed.

"Miss Kennedy, I admire your motivation, I admire your bravery, I admire everything about you. And that's why I have told none of my people to help you in this."

"To keep me safe?"

He nodded.

"Dwight came for me. I swear, sir, he wasn't the first." She paused, then looked at him, then Pipes.

"Have you ever died, sir?"

His eyes flared. "No, of course not!"

"Anyone here at the table?" she persisted in her question.

"I knew a guy who died in surgery," Don Valentine explained. "The doctors used a defibrillator to bring him back."

"Like that," Kennedy agreed. "No one?"

There were head shakes.

"The first time, I was hacked to death. I was in her head when they stabbed her, then cut off her arm, and then took off her head.

"The second time I drowned. A demon held my face down in a pool of water, until I was dead." She smiled slightly. "I'm sure Mr. Glastonbury would have kittens if I told him I'd told you, but the fact was, she wasn't truly dead, because moments later a friend gave her mouth-to-mouth. Now there are two living Slayers. He laughed when I suggested Watchers should start drowning their Slayers, then bringing them back."

Even Pipes was appalled. "That's a little much to ask of a teacher."

"I guess. On the other hand, eleven people died at my New Year's Eve Party. Guess what my preference would be?"

There was no sound.

"The third time," Kennedy picked up the narrative, "a vampire killed me just like Dwight killed Cynthia and Ruby. Snapped my neck like a dry stick."

"And the point?" the old man asked.

"You, sir, might be nervous about time and death; the rest of you might think it won't happen to you, but to the other guy. You're all good, I'm sure!

"But it's happened to me three times.

"I don't give a rat's ass what you do. You can help me or not. I don't care. Don't get in my way. I'm serious. Don't get in my way. I'd like your help, but, like I said, I don't give a rat's ass. I'm going to kill vampires. What you, what my Watcher, what my father, what anyone at all wants, is just fluffy noise, so far as I'm concerned."

"And you will die," the old man told her.

"Please! Sir! What part of what's going to happen to me don't you understand? Four times I've killed vampires. Twice within the walls of my house! I demand a plebiscite, sir! How many of you want to kill those who would bring you down inside the walls of your own house?"

She looked around. "Near as I can tell, no one wants to wait that long."

"No, none of us do," Pipes told her. "But still ... to court it..."

"Pipes! Wake up! The one time I went vamp hunting I was supposed to be a spectator. I was a spectator. I've never gone hunting them! Not ever! They came to me! Twice in my house." She pointed at the old man. "Mi casa is mi casa! I remember that!"

"I said that, yes," his voice was sad.

"Three times they've come to me! They've killed guests under my roof! Employees! Friends! People I love! Tell me true, if someone came into your house and did those things to you, would you sit back and agree with someone saying you were risking your life to take the fight back to the other guys?"

There was no sound, no movement. "So, like I said," Kennedy continued, "are you going to help or not? You guys have a lot more eyes and ears than I do."

"It would be private? You and us?" the old man asked.

"The most private. My father will object, my teacher will object. I'm pretty sure that the people who employ my teacher will object. The fact remains that I can do something you can't, except at the most prohibitive cost.

"My father made a big deal of it when he told me that all of the surviving employees had promptly quit. And that he'd have a new set by that evening, even though he was going to be very clear and candid about the risks. He was right.

"No doubt you employ people like that, as well. Nonetheless, I think you're smarter than my father. Your people are more to you than numbers on a ledger sheet, to be replaced by another face if they're killed."

Pipes spoke up. "Sir, I told you before the one word that described Kennedy best."

"Simpatico?"

"Yes, sir."

Don Valentine chuckled. "Yes!"

"I agree," Carlos added. "You can see it in her eyes. She understands business."

"I understand a little," Kennedy cautioned. "Don't go getting all over-enthusiastic. One day I realized I kill without compunction and without remorse ... and that you can't do it like that. A policeman came to visit a few days ago and I told him the truth ... like you, I'd like an edge with the authorities if I can get it. He's agreed that without a body, there is no murder. Although I'm pretty sure he was just talking about me."

They all laughed lightly.

"He told me that he'd treat me just like any other murder suspect if I left bodies. I mentioned that I killed the vampire at the party in front of a dozen people. The only person I talked to about what to say was Pipes. The rest were questioned and answered as truthfully as they could."

"I could say," Pipes told her, "that if you want to kill someone, do it in front of a lot of witnesses, just so long as there are no cameras."

"So, are you going to help or not?" Kennedy insisted.

"We will take it under advisement. Probably, at least to a degree," the old man replied.

"Thank you, sir."

Two days later Kennedy was sitting on the veranda, at the new table, sipping juice when the cute maid appeared, her arm in a sling, a heavy cast on her shoulder. "Miss Kennedy, may I get you something else?"

Kennedy did a double take. "I should be offering to help you."

The maid shook her head. "That's not how it works, Miss Kennedy. I'm paid to help you, not the other way around."

"My father said everyone quit."

She grimaced. "I had a concussion as well as a broken shoulder; by the time they got me to the hospital, I had some pressure on the brain. They put you in an induced coma to reduce the swelling. Basically I slept for nearly a fortnight. Now, though, I'm right as rain."

Kennedy eyed the sling and she giggled. "Except for the arm, though. It'll heal soon enough."

"I'm awed you came back. I'm sorry my sister isn't here."

Annie shook her head. "That was a silly thing on my part."

"Getting involved with your employer?"

Annie laughed. "No. Because we both wanted to be on top."

Kennedy blushed.

Annie smiled then turned brisk. "Well, if you don't want anything, could I say that it's a wee bit brisk here, and that perhaps you might be more comfortable inside?"

"You can say it, yes. To be honest, when I get to thinking, I don't notice."

"That's not good, Miss Kennedy, what with things the way they are. Particularly after dark."

"Fortunately the people who seem to hate me aren't fond of high powered rifles."

"All it would take is one with a fetish, Miss Kennedy."

"I suppose." She had, after all, met one with a fetish already.



The days slipped off the calendar like leaves from a tree in fall. January turned to March and March seemed to change into May overnight.

Finally Kennedy declared that she was tired of the house, that she wanted to go to Faire. Mr. Glastonbury made no demur, which Kennedy thought a little suspicious. The problem came when she told Harriet at school the next day.

Harriet sighed. "Kennedy ... please ... I love you, you know that?"

"I know that. And I love you."

"My mother, though ... she hates you with a passion and Mr. Glastonbury with at least twice the passion. She won't let me talk to you at Faire. She won't let me stay with you at Faire. She'd go crazy if she found I was still talking to you."

"I'm sorry about New Year's."

"I know. I've tried to tell her a thousand times that as terrible as it was, it was you who was hurt a million times worse than both of us combined. She just doesn't want to hear it."

"I understand, Harriet."

"Which isn't to say that I won't sneak off to the petting zoo..." The two of them shared the laugh.

That night, Kennedy sat on her bed, wondering what it was she could do. The fact remained that she was a healthy young woman and she had healthy young urges. Could she go to Faire in the same spirit she'd gone to camp? As a Carnival girl?

It seemed the best course, with the lowest risk to bystanders, Crunchy aside.

There was a gentle knock on the door and she got up and opened it. Annie smiled at her and handed her the phone. "For you, Miss Kennedy."

Kennedy nodded, wondering who it could be. She looked at Annie who was looking back at her. She realized the look. "Would you wait a moment, Annie?" she asked.

Annie nodded.

She pushed the button, and listened to a voice say, "There's a warehouse on the river, in Weehauken. The fifty-nine hundred block of Hillman. There are two of them, hiding in the warehouse. The comment is, 'They're rubes.'" The conversation ended as oddly as it began. The voice wasn't one she recognized.

She handed the phone back to Annie, thinking hard. Annie stayed put and after a second Kennedy looked at her, then asked, "Was there something else?"

"Mr. Glastonbury told me what happened to the individual who hurt me."

"He did?"

"Yes. Then he mentioned another employment opportunity that I might be interested in. One with, shall we say, very long term prospects."

Kennedy stood watching her, not saying anything.

"It's a very attractive prospect, you understand. I felt terrible about not mentioning to him that I'd already accepted such a position a year ago."

Kennedy stayed silent and the older woman laughed. "Ah, you are so very different from anyone I ever imagined! They explained people like you to me. Except ... you're not like them. You're more like the other sort."

"Annie, do you have a car?"

"Of course, Miss Kennedy."

"Are you a moderate person, Annie, or like me, subject to an occasional burst of hormones or immoderation?"

"Hormones? Definitely! I'm sorry to say, Miss Kennedy, that my father debauched me at an early age. He taught me to appreciate smooth single malt Scotch. After my second neat Scotch, I'm afraid I lose all my inhibitions."

"Considering that there's some Doublemint gum at the end of the journey, would you like to drive me someplace this evening?"

"Double the pleasure, double the fun? That Doublemint?"

"That's the stuff."

"And Mr. Glastonbury? Your father? You aren't going to heed their counsel?"

Kennedy was pretty sure that was a pointed reference to the Watchers Council.

"What about them? I'm sure they want only the best for me. I have something else I'd rather be doing tonight, than being a dutiful young woman."

"Miss Kennedy, I will help you on one condition."

"And that would be?"

"When we come back, as I'm sure we will, I'm pretty sure from my personal experience that I'll be experiencing some pretty strong hormones. I'd very much like it if you'd sit on my face."

"And my age doesn't bother you?" Kennedy asked.

"How many people have you killed?"

"None. Vampires? That's a different story. Four."

"And I shot one and it was just like I'd been told. I pissed him off. Now I have a wooden stake, a crucifix and a bottle of holy water. I am, you see, now a believer."

"Then, what say we go for a drive? We can entertain each other with war stories or whatever, later."

She turned and there was Mr. Glastonbury standing behind her, in her room. Between Kennedy and Lady Kennedy.

"Sir," she said evenly, "I was thinking it would be nice to go out for a while. Maybe Annie and I can find some ice cream. Would you like us to bring you back some?"

"Chocolate chip would be fine. So long as you promise to come back."

"Of course. Why wouldn't I?"

"She's a spy for the Watchers Council," he told her, waving at Annie.

"Of course, Friar Geoffrey. And tell me, Friar, just what of my abilities and exploits have you omitted in your reports?"

That brought him up short. "Kennedy, if you do this..."

"I might die. I know. I saw a person I love die in front of me. I saw a person a friend of mine loved for longer than I've been alive, killed in front of me. I am not precipitate, and I'm pretty sure Don Don isn't precipitate either. It's been almost five months."

"Go ahead. Do whatever you think best. Just, Miss Kennedy, if you do this, I can't help you if it goes wrong. And one day, if not today, it will go wrong."

"I know, Friar Geoffrey," she told him gently. "But if you've dealt with Slayers before you have to know why we keep going out, over and over, knowing what's at the end of the road."

"But you're not a Slayer."

"Look me in the eye and tell me how many Potentials are like me?"

"None of them. But that still doesn't mean you're a Slayer."

"No, it doesn't. I understand, sir. I swear. Now please, I have places to go and things to do before I sleep tonight."

He pulled his hand out from behind him and handed a small crossbow to Annie. "You're dead, too, if you do this. Here, take this."

"What's this?" Annie asked.

"A crossbow!" Mr. Glastonbury and Kennedy chorused together. It brought a laugh to Mr. Glastonbury and a blush to Kennedy.

"Training must be very different these days," Kennedy said, knowing what was on Mr. Glastonbury's mind.

"Evidently," he said grumpily. "Explain to her how it works, Miss Kennedy."

She did. They arrived at the warehouse a little after midnight, Kennedy cautioned Annie to stay in the car and then she went inside. Twenty minutes later, they were headed back to Scarsdale.

"Just like that?" Annie asked.

"No, not just like that. I'm afraid, much as I was looking forward to it, tonight I'm going to have to take a rain check on being intimate."

"Fucking, you mean?"

"Whatever. One of them got in a pretty good lick."

"A lick?" the woman asked.

"Yeah. The son of bitch yanked a four by four post from floor and hit me across the thighs with it. Pity, really."

"Why's that?"

"Well, I'm not very much in the mood anymore, and the stake was in my right hand, not down there halfway to my knees."

"Oh."

When they got back to the house, Mr. Glastonbury simply nodded when they came in. Kennedy managed to get to her room and Annie totally freaked when she saw the cuts and bruises. "You have to go to the hospital!"

"No. For this, Annie, you have to trust me." She reached out and gripped the woman's shoulder. "This is what killed Ruby. I told her I'd tumbled down a gully and I really did have cuts and bruises all over. In the morning all that was left were a few fading marks. She thought I'd lied so I wouldn't have to make love to her."

Kennedy waved at her legs. "As you can see, right now, I can't."

"Good God, girl! You have to see a doctor! Maybe Mr. Glastonbury or your father has one you can see privately!"

"No, I don't need a doctor. What I need is some of that ice cream we fetched, then I need a good night's sleep. Tomorrow night, you can sit on my face, and if I'm up to it, I can sit on yours and a whole lot of hormones will get released."

Annie was reluctant to leave her, but Kennedy insisted. Kennedy did sit for half an hour on the edge of her tub, wrapping bandages on her legs, but they were already much better. She slept in a lounger and in the morning her legs felt almost normal.

Annie, concerned, looked in. Like anyone, she had trouble believing her eyes. "They're old bruises!"

"Old, but still tender. I swear, Annie, I'll be fine tonight."

Mr. Glastonbury demanded to see the injury as well, a little later. Kennedy simply hauled down her jeans, heedless of his proprieties and let him look.

"What did you do wrong?" he asked, back to his usual self.

"I'm not sure what I could have done differently. I knocked him back and he came at me again and much as I wanted to slip him a stake, like I'd already done to his girlfriend, it wasn't possible. He slammed into a four by four support and broke it. He came up swinging with the support. It was impossible to even break the blow."

"Next time, you'll want to spend a few milliseconds studying an area of combat, looking for anything that could conceivably be used as a weapon against you. Then make sure when you throw someone, that you throw them nowhere near the ammunition."

She laughed. "Sure, a few milliseconds. No problem. And now, what about Faire?"

"What about Faire? I suppose you could beg off with your injury."

"No, I'm not about to do that. I'm not grounded am I? I'm not in trouble for breaking all the rules?"

"No." He dropped his voice. "Until this last year, I reported as I should. Since then, well, things have been filtered. I wasn't very clever about that ... Annie showed up a few weeks later."

"Well, do be sure to start sending them the full truth, everything."

"Is that what you want?"

"What can they do? Rescind my Double Ought number?"

Annie started choking and Mr. Glastonbury smiled thinly.

A while later she was whisked off to school.

What used to be Mr. Glastonbury hauling her there in his car had turned into a major operation. There were three cars and she rode in a random car each time.

That morning she was delivered to school and she saw Pipes standing near the entrance. She hopped out without the usual rigmarole and went to him.

One of the policemen headed towards them. Instead of saying something hostile, he held his hand out to Pipes. "Mr. Pipes, I know you've probably heard this a thousand times, but I'm truly sorry your wife was killed. My wife and I have prayed for her many times."

"Leroy, I appreciate it, I really do."

The black officer grinned. "I joined the choir just so I could hear an angel sing."

"She was that! And you, Leroy, you're one of the finest tenors I've ever heard."

Kennedy saw Leroy glance at her, saw a minute shake of Pipes' head. So, something was up ... what?

"Pipes," Kennedy said evenly.

Pipes glanced at the policeman, then it was like they were alone. "A friend last night said he saw you were limping."

"I stubbed my toe, sir." She did a little tap dance routine. "Gone today."

"Just checking."

"I understand."

"I'd like you to come to the restaurant on June 4th. A Saturday afternoon, about four. Dinner, then a little poker. My friend wants some of his money back."

"Sure, Pipes, I'm free. That's graduation night, but not me. I have a few years to go yet."

"I'll see you then."

He left and Kennedy eyed the policeman. He looked away. Kennedy laughed lightly. "Do you know how humiliating it would be if I were to knock you down where you stand and then tickle you until you cried uncle and told me what I want to know?"

"It's not what I'm getting paid for," he replied softly. He glanced around, but Pipes was well away and getting further. "I sing with the choir here in town. Cynthia..." his voice trailed away. "She really did sing like an angel. We've put together a tribute for her that evening. At a guess, you'll be here, not there, that evening. Pipes is the Toastmaster."

"Thanks, I owe you."

"Pay me back by making sure he never, ever finds out I told you."

Kennedy sighed. "Leroy..."

"What, Kennedy?"

"He knows you. Thus, he knows what you'll do and say. So the reason he left us together was so that I wouldn't stuff extra poker money in my sock for that day."

"You really beat the old man?"

"It was a good day for me, a bad one for him. Poker can be like that."

"Sure!" he said with a laugh. "Whatever you say!"

It was a beautiful concert and she professed surprise at being Pipes' special guest.

Afterwards, she was standing with Mr. Glastonbury when the policeman, Leroy, showed up again. It was pretty clear from the brightness of his eyes that he'd rather freely sampled the champagne.

"Miss Kennedy, please, I want to say thanks," he told her.

"Why thank me? I just sat and applauded the beautiful music those of you on stage put together."

He shook his head. "I saw them. All the made men, all the big guys. They would come up and..." his eyes glittered.

"You killed the bastard who did for Cynthia, didn't you?"

Kennedy shook her head. "I wish I could say that."

He sniffed. "I know, I'm a cop! That's okay. I know what I saw! Those aren't nice guys. They don't have a junior league! I've seen it before, when they come to pay their respects!"

"I'm just thirteen, closing in on fourteen, Leroy. A girl. I'm Pipes' friend. That's what it was all about."

He shook his head and walked away.

That night, it was Annie's turn to be on top, and she loved it. "You're much more aggressive tonight, dear Kennedy."

"What am I going to do next weekend at Faire?"

Annie laughed lightly. "Why, whatever comes naturally, Kennedy. You and I get along because you're content being on top part of the time. I'm getting my itches scratched, plus I'm getting to be on top some of the time. We both know the truth of it: you're a Carnival girl and I'm a party girl."

"The Watchers Council wants you back," Kennedy said with sorrow.

"Yes. I've lied in my reports; Mr. Glastonbury has lied in his as well. They have some sort of strong magic that detects that. They know you and I have grown ... close. If there's anything that upsets Nancy boys more than people like us ... I don't know what."

"Nancy boys?"

"Gay men."

"Surely not all of them?"

"No, of course not. It's a dirty secret of English society. Officially, there is no such thing. Privately, well, every time a relationship appears in public it means personal ruin for those involved. Oddly enough, they only want to know about men and could care less about women."

"I don't want anything to happen to you," Kennedy told her.

"Well, I'll hope you reconsider and start wiggling that tongue of yours again!"

When Kennedy laughed, Annie gasped, and then when Kennedy wiggled her tongue quite a bit, Annie did more than gasp.



-------

Chapter 19: Confrontations


A few days later Kennedy stood with Mr. Glastonbury at Faire, this time well before the official opening. "It seems so long ago since the first time I came to Faire," Kennedy said sadly.

"I know. You were cute in your Robin Hood costume."

"I'm tempted to visit Harriet's mother and buy one of her dresses," Kennedy told him.

"I don't think she'd sell you one. I think ... well, it was touch and go before the party."

"I know. I can hope, though."

"Kennedy, your father says, enough is enough. The risk of going to White Plains is too high. Next year ... he didn't enroll you."

"And I did," she told him. "I'm not stupid. I know the deadlines and I made sure I was covered."

"And the risk to your fellow students?"

"I've never, ever, gone to an after-school activity after dark. I never will. Ever."

"And Faire?"

She laughed. "Vampires attack a Faire campground? With all these people in armor and swords? I doubt it! They simply hated the Middle Ages!" Leaving out Crunchy, of course, but the odds were, he'd been desperate ... and probably hadn't known where he was.

Friar Geoffrey nodded and then the two of them went so Kennedy could join the Grand Marshal's muster. Duke Roger pinned on her holly leaves and she stood tall and proud as usual.

"You're looking well, Kennedy," the duke told her after the ceremony. "I'm glad, after that mess at New Year's."

She shrugged. She was about to say something about how this time there would be no Agent Larkin, when she saw a man with a holly sprig not far off, his side to her, talking to another of the constables.

Deja vu! It slammed into her, shaking her to her core.

"What?" the duke asked softly.

She waved at the man. "Do you know who he is?"

"He's a US Marshal, from the Philly office. Why?"

"I saw him once before. I can't believe I've been this stupid!"

"What, Lady Kennedy?" Friar Geoffrey asked.

"I told you I saw Larkin headed up towards the camp, last summer," she told them. "Until this second, I forgot that he wasn't driving." She waved at the US Marshal. "That man was driving."

She was unprepared for Duke Roger to start laughing. Even Mr. Glastonbury seemed nonplussed at the duke's reaction.

"What?" Kennedy asked.

"He showed me his credentials. He's soft-spoken and unassuming; he seems a little shy. He said that Faire is something his sister's son got him interested in, but he's a little embarrassed. He wanted to do something low-profile. He had the list of positions I sent to volunteers. He picked the petting zoo."

"He wants to start at the very bottom, eh?" Kennedy laughed.

"Evidently. He wanted the afternoon shift and to be put with someone experienced. Like a fool, I agreed. I never once thought about your troubles."

"I saw the Sixteenth Cousin at the muster," Kennedy told him. Again, everyone smiled.

The poor guy had to adopt that for a name, because no one would call him anything else.

Kennedy expounded, "Sixteenth Cousin would be ideal for the petting zoo in the afternoons. His fondness for the quarterstaff would mean there would be a lot fewer kids who wanted to play with his weapon."

"And you?" Duke Roger said, turning serious in an eye blink.

"Well, I suppose I could take over his patrol duties. Or, I could spare poor Sir Bartleby the morning chores at the petting zoo."

"And what would I do with Sir Bartleby?" the duke asked reasonably. Sir Bartleby was a wonderful, kind gentleman who was nearly blind and had only one leg.

"Like I said, there is the patrol," Kennedy said with a straight face.

"Well, Sir Bartleby can't patrol. I guess I'd have to give you that duty. The Sixteenth Cousin has a very short memory. Sir Cuchulain tells me that Sixteenth Cousin wants to present you a formal challenge, he and his quarterstaff against you and Lady Kennedy, unarmored, sword and quarterstaff only."

"I never fight armored," Kennedy reminded him. "Sure, if that's what the Sixteenth Cousin wants. I hope someone has reminded him of the gist of the conversation last year."

"Repeatedly. Now he wants a direct challenge. As a constable..." he looked at her. "I can't deny him. Still, it'll be Faire rules."

"I know. And I wouldn't want you to deny him," Kennedy told Duke Roger. "It's fine."

"He's spent a lot of time in the last year working with his quarterstaff," the duke warned. "He's not half bad."

"And you know for a fact that I'd cut his quarterstaff into matchsticks if I wouldn't be fighting with a scabbard on Lady Kennedy. I'd break his fingers if I wasn't supposed to be avoiding injuring him. Would he fight me bare-handed?"

"Someone told him you're a black belt."

"Drat!" Kennedy told him. "How about bows or crossbows? Darts? Bowls?"

"I'm afraid it will be quarterstaff against your scabbarded blade. I let it go the first time, but this time he's within his rights."

"For no offense at all?"

"If I assign him to the petting zoo, all will know the offense."

"Well, I could always fight the US Marshal. I could probably go all out, if he laid a hand on me, right?" Which of course, she couldn't and they all knew it.

"I don't suppose you have a kendo master again?" Kennedy asked.

"No. The featured master this time is Henri Beauchamp, the French saber and foil champion."

Kennedy brightened. "I could fight him! I'm not fond of the French."

"Why not?"

"They smell of garlic," she told Duke Roger.

"So do the Italians," Mr. Glastonbury observed.

"True, but the Italians use the garlic to enhance the flavor of olive oil, along with oregano, basil and rosemary. The French use it to cover up that they haven't had a bath this month."

"Ugh!" Duke Roger said, shaking his head, laughing hard.

"Duke Roger," Kennedy said with authority, "be glad you've never been to Germany. They're a lot like the French, except they don't use garlic."

"None of this is solving the problem, Lady Kennedy," Duke Roger told her. "I've never let anyone your age patrol. If I let you do it, I'll be petitioned by everyone less than eighteen. I'm sorry, the liability involved would be too high."

"I understand. Okay, I'll do the petting zoo with the Marshal guy. Just so long as I'm the one in charge."

Mr. Glastonbury guffawed. Duke Roger, however, nodded. "You know the ropes, Lady Kennedy. The petting zoo only sounds like an easy berth. You've learned to your chagrin who the real enemy is."

"The little tykes," she agreed. "Yep, that works. In fact ... I'll just go talk to him now."

She turned and walked away, leaving the two adults standing, gaping.

She walked up to him. She could see him psych himself up. It was truly awesome in concept that an adult felt like he had to psych himself up to talk to her.

"Marshal Bob?" she asked.

"My name is Richard," he said evenly.

"Marshal Dick! Ever so much better!" she exclaimed. "Please, I want to ask you some questions, in private if you please," she gestured a few feet away, into an area where there was no one close.

He followed along behind her, not exactly hurrying to keep up. Kennedy stopped and looked around. "Nice and private!"

She grinned at him. "What, no questions? Your bud Larkin died trying to get this close to me, wanting to ask questions. They must have got the wrong guy when they picked you for this job."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure, of course. No problem, Marshal Dick."

"I don't have a Faire name."

"Well, now you do. It's not fair, but then that's Faire. You can of course, stand up at the fire tonight and explain why it's unfair. I'm still waiting for one of those questions that were worth Larkin dying for."

"You've mistaken me for someone else."

"Oh, I don't think so," Kennedy told him. "I could call up my friend Pipes, and see what they have on you. Their files have ... well, quite a lot of otherwise unusual material."

He pulled his shoulders back. "What are you?"

"A girl, doofus."

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don't. I'm a just-barely fourteen-year-old girl from Scarsdale, New York. I just completed my freshman year of high school. I have a 4.0 average, but there's another girl who's intending on giving me a run for my money on the whole GPA thing."

"And you've killed."

Kennedy laughed. "I've never seriously hurt a living person! Don't be absurd!"

"No, the persons you killed were already dead."

"I sure hope I can quote that statement in any trial," Kennedy told him. "I'm sure it will make as much sense to a jury as it did to me."

"You know what I mean," he said, obviously frustrated.

"No, actually I haven't a clue what you mean. The last fellow like this who chased me wanting to ask questions came to a rather untimely end. Doubly so, considering the pathetic questions you've asked."

"This is a matter of National Security!"

"And I'm a fourteen-year-old girl," she reminded him. "I could be wrong, but that's not going to fly very far in a court of law."

"You know things!"

"Yes! Yes, I do! My multiplication tables! Ask my second grade teacher!"

Kennedy let her voice drop. "Now, I'm not playing games or having fun. Unless you can do a lot better than this, get out of here. There's nothing here for the likes of you."

"And your country? In its hour of need?"

She laughed. "One more time, dim-bulb: I'm a fourteen-year-old girl."

"The forces of the night are alive and well! They attack the innocent. Surely you have a duty to protect those people!"

"And tell me, Marshal Dick ... if you were to poll a hundred Americans, who would they want looking after them? Fourteen-year-old Kennedy or thirty-something Marshal Dick?"

He spluttered, but it was clear he was struggling.

"Marshal Dick, let me be very clear. I have no idea what questions you or Larkin want to ask me. Larkin died trying to ask them. You, yourself, are in severe danger of being laughed out of Faire."

"We're going to go to war against vampires and demons. Don't you want to be on the side of right?"

"Marshal Dick, you'll be joining my side, not the other way around. Do you have any idea how long people like me have been in that fight?"

She could tell he did, because he looked away.

"Go, Marshal Dick. Just take yourself out the gate, down the road and go. I tell you true, sir, you won't even be able to handle the mundane issues at the petting zoo tomorrow."

She could see his throat work, but she didn't stay to watch. She spun on her heel and walked back to Sir Roger. "I don't think he'll work out, but it's your call, sir."

Duke Roger bobbed his head, then walked over to the US Marshal. A second later the marshal was headed for the front gate.

That night in the village, the Sixteenth Cousin wanted to fight right then. Kennedy laughed. "Duke Roger is my friend. We have to wait until tomorrow, when he can sell tickets."

"I look forward to it!" he said with heat.

Kennedy laughed. "You don't! A year ago you were six inches taller than I was and had a longer reach. Today we're the same height and I have the longer reach."

"I've practiced!" he said, trying to regain ground.

"And I've done what for the last year?" she told him. "Practice, practice, practice! By all means, I hope you bet heavily on yourself. I'll be betting on myself. I expect to clean up!"

It was sudden, too fast, and not from someone Kennedy knew. She was a girl, not much older than she was. Kennedy had seen her when she'd been arguing with the Sixteenth Cousin, and when she turned away, the girl was there in her path.

Kennedy smiled -- and only at the last second did she see the knife. It impacted her abdomen and her breath whistled out.

"There! I've done to you, what you did to my brother!" the girl exclaimed.

Kennedy smiled wanly. "And who might your brother be?"

"Dwight Evans. You bitch! You killed him!"

"Actually, no. I don't suppose you asked your grandfather, your Uncle Pipes, Don Valentine, Carlos or even Dennis Pipes, about this, eh?"

"Dennis told me you killed Dwight!"

Kennedy looked down at the knife sticking out of her abdomen. Honestly, truthfully, it wasn't hurting as much as when she'd been whacked across the thighs with a huge wooden stick.

Still, both Mr. Glastonbury and Duke Roger were even now, coming forward.

She plucked the knife out of her abdomen and threw it hard against a tree, a dozen feet away. "I'm sorry, Miss, but you are simply wrong. The one and only time I faced your brother when he was alive was to stop someone from knifing him. You should have asked."

"Dennis doesn't lie!"

"I don't think you asked Dennis the right questions," Kennedy said calmly.

Both her teacher and Duke Roger were on them. "Miss Kennedy?" Mr. Glastonbury asked.

"A flesh wound," she told him. "No big. This is Dwight's sister."

Duke Roger grabbed the girl and shook her. "What? Are you nuts?"

Kennedy giggled. "Please, Duke Roger, assume she's not stupid. Just a bereaved."

"That doesn't excuse what she did!"

"A flesh wound, Lord Duke! Just that! A scratch!"

The girl tried to pull back, but got no where. "A scratch! Bitch! I stuck you good!"

Kennedy sighed. "That was Dwight's plan, you know. To let Juan Baptiste stick him. The odds that the first blow would be serious were low. Then Dwight was going to kill Juan Baptiste Somoza."

"That's my brother you're talking about!"

"Miss, and I wish I knew your name, the fact is that Dwight liked to lurk in shadows and rape girls. Maybe, as his sister, you were immune."

Kennedy could instantly see in the girl's eyes she hadn't been.

"Dwight was a bastard, but he was my brother!"

"Well, Pipes shot him and a second later Dwight killed your aunt. Then Dwight killed someone near and dear to me. Like I said, I'm uncomfortable not knowing your name. But, suffice to say, Dwight was long gone before he came to my house that night, which was why Pipes was shooting at him."

"I don't believe you!"

"Who would you believe?" Kennedy asked.

"Pardon?"

"Who could I ask to come and explain things to you? Dennis will come, I'm sure. I know Pipes will. Don Valentine? Carlos? I dunno -- your grandfather and I sort of rub each other the wrong way, but maybe he'd do. I can ask."

"Sure! Of course! You tell him what to do?"

"I said I could ask," Kennedy told her gently. "The question is, who would you trust?"

"Why aren't you dead?"

"Because no matter what you think, it was a flesh wound."

Kennedy just hoped no one was going to ask her to tap dance, because that was out. Even lifting Lady Kennedy might be a chore.

"Pipes. Or Fatso."

"Fatso? Girl! Don't you know how he came by his name?"

"Yeah."

"Fatso and I aren't friends either. How about I get him up here?"

"How could you possibly do that?"

"Duh! Because you are so full of it!"

Kennedy walked over to Friar Geoffrey, taking it slow, so that the blood didn't gush. He simply shook his head, but handed her his phone. A few moments later she was talking to Pipes, telling him of her need, but not why.

"Clarice is there? She's supposed to be in Switzerland. She goes to a private school there."

"She's here."

"Should I come?"

"No, she says Fatso will do."

It was, Kennedy thought, completely impressive, even if the antithesis of Faire. An hour later a helicopter landed in an empty section of the parking lot.

Kennedy was surprised to see Dennis Pipes with Fatso. Still, she waved at the man the girl wanted to see. "Do you know this young woman, Fatso?"

"Yes, Miss Kennedy."

Kennedy saw the girl's eyes widen when he replied.

"Would you explain to her, please, that I wasn't the person who killed her brother."

Fatso's face fell. "Miss Clarice..."

Dennis spoke up. "My father shot him in the head, before Miss Kennedy reached him."

"Pipes?" the girl had turned pale as a sheet. "He shot Dwight?"

"Miss," Fatso went on, "they told me that I was to come, but not why. I swear," he waved at Kennedy, "Miss Kennedy ... she took me twice."

Clarice Evans eyes widened. "She took you?"

"Yeah, she kicked my..." he stopped and coughed. "It hurt. Pipes, though, like always -- he stopped her. That one time. Since then, we're to help her in any way we can. Your grandfather's orders."

"My grandfather is okay with this?"

"He told us to do it, Miss."

"Clarice," Dennis said evenly.

"What, cousin?"

"I wasn't there, but your brother killed my mother. My father shot him before that, but that didn't stop him. Then Dwight went on to kill someone else. Then Miss Kennedy waded in and finished it ... and Dwight. You have to understand, that if it was up to me, I'd piss on your brother's grave?"

Clarice recoiled, startled. "Dwight? Hurt Aunt Cynthia? I don't believe it!"

"Enough!" Kennedy said. "Clarice, look Dennis in the eye and tell him your brother never raped you."

There was an instantaneous hush over the area. Clarice looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

Dennis sighed. "I never liked Dwight. I thought it was because he was pushing for things too fast. Clarice..."

She turned her head from him and walked into the night, stopping well away from any light.

Kennedy moved to stand next to her, breathing lightly, trying to be a hole in the dark.

Clarice looked at her, then went back to contemplating nothing.

Finally she sighed. "He was my brother."

"I understand. But at the end, he wasn't anything. You don't understand, but if you were to ask Dennis or Fatso flat out, they'll explain. But Clarice, before that, he liked to hurt women. He enjoyed their fear. He wanted other people to fear him. You included."

"I guess."

"It's true. I was the person who went to your grandfather and complained about Dwight using your grandfather's name in vain. I take no pride in that, beyond the fact that it stopped him from attacking anyone else."

"And yet, you killed him?"

"Not exactly. It's not an easy thing. Better, if you never learn about it. Trust Dennis, trust Fatso. Neither one has any particular reason to take my side. If you want to know, it could be your death. Just like what happened to Cynthia Pipes and my own friend, Ruby Goldberg."

"Are you threatening me?"

"No, I'm warning you. I'm a dangerous person to be around. I'm losing the battle, Clarice. They killed eleven people I knew and cared about. I've killed four of them."

"I stuck you good! I know I did!"

"You'd have stuck most people good, but not me. The bleeding has stopped. I doubt if it would stay stopped if I got very athletic, but I wasn't planning on doing anything athletic tonight. Tomorrow morning I can get a little athletic, tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to get very athletic."

"What kind of a person are you?"

"Trust me, Clarice, that's something you should ask someone else."

"What the fuck is this place, anyway? All these people dressed up like from the Middle Ages. Losers!"

"It's Renaissance Faire, Clarice. You don't have to understand it, and if you don't, none here will care very much. They won't respect you, but you can't go to the Vatican and knock the Pope and expect warm applause."

She turned to Kennedy. "That's a dig at my grandfather, right? He lives in that kind of fantasy world."

Kennedy laughed. "You haven't been a very good student. You should know by now that all animals, including people, go out of their way to make sure that they have a nice comfortable niche to live in."

"Why aren't you dead?"

"I told you, it was a scratch that isn't bleeding any more."

"And that stain down the front of your outfit? That's raspberry juice, right?"

"I never said I didn't bleed, I said the bleeding had stopped. I heal quickly. Unlike the last person I told that to, it is immaterial to me whether or not you believe me."

"My brother is dead."

"Your rapist brother is dead," Kennedy told her roughly. She waved a dozen yards away where Dennis, Fatso, Mr. Glastonbury and Duke Roger were standing in uneasy silence watching them. "I said that in front of them. You changed the subject. None of them are stupid, Clarice."

"It was only once."

Kennedy tried not to gag. "Yeah, sure, right. Just once. It only happened to the girlfriend of a guy I know once, too. Dwight smashed her in the mouth, broke some of her teeth, drew a lot of blood. Then he did his thing. Then Dwight tried to kill her boyfriend, then he tried to kill the girl's father, uncles and her oldest brother. A prince of a fellow, Dwight, before he was turned."

"Turned?"

"Girl if I say the word, you're going to regret it."

"Turned?"

"Turned into a vampire."

She laughed. "Oh yeah, right! He couldn't be seen in mirrors, avoided daylight and had to be stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake."

"I killed him with a wooden stake."

That rocked Clarice back on her heels.

"That, plus how do you think he went through all the security cameras my father had at the estate? He surprised the guards because they relied on the cameras to tell them a threat was coming ... but the threat didn't show up on the cameras. They all died. Nine of them. Men with guns, men skilled in hand-to-hand combat. He broke the bones of two others. One of them a skilled policewoman from Scotland Yard, the other a Roma. A gypsy."

"My brother was twisted about girls, but he wasn't a mass murderer."

"At the end he was a vampire. It's not their jollies they get sucking a person's blood out: that's like a glass of orange juice to them. They do, though, get their jollies scaring the bejesus out of people and then killing them."

"And you expect me, expect everyone else to believe this -- bullshit -- about my brother?"

"Pipes was there, Clarice. He shot your brother. Afterwards your grandfather came and hugged Pipes. Your grandfather and I aren't the best of friends, but since then, we've been acting in concert about certain things. You know your brother died in my house on New Year's Eve at my hands. So does your grandfather; so does Pipes, Dennis, Fatso and all the others. Please, you're not stupid. What do the police think?"

"I have no idea."

"They think kidnappers attacked our house, looking for my father. The only two of us who agreed on a story in advance were Pipes and me. Everyone else told the police what they saw. Your brother never came up."

Clarice spit and promptly regretted it, because a gust of wind blew it back on her blouse.

"So, it's true, isn't it? It's just stupid to spit into the wind?"

Kennedy had to laugh. "It is true, yes."

"And I don't have a clue and everyone has been trying to tell me that I don't have a clue, but I've been behaving clueless anyway. The worst thing is that when I heard Dwight was dead, I wanted to break out into a tap dance of joy."

"Clarice, it's true the bleeding has stopped, but I did bleed. Right now I'd like to eat a cow and drink the Niagara River."

"You should be dead."

Kennedy couldn't resist it. She'd seen the first three Karate Kid movies. It wasn't possible to pass up. She reached over and twisted Clarice's nose gently and said, "Honk!"

Clarice stepped back, startled. "What was that?"

"I'm not dead, okay? Just hungry and thirsty."

Kennedy turned and walked back to her tent, grabbed a new pair of slacks and underwear and walked briskly to the nearest port-a-pottie and changed.

When she came out, Clarice was there, a plate in her hand. "I wanted to get you a burger and fries," she told Kennedy. "You'll have to settle for fried ground beef on bread and fried potatoes."

Kennedy laughed. "We're hypocrites. Did you get one of the burgers with the sesame seed bun?" It was just a joke, and she tore into the food, ravenously hungry.

Later, both Friar Geoffrey and Duke Roger appeared at one time or the other, bearing one form of cooked beef or another. Kennedy plowed through all of it.

Clarice had been sitting silently, up until Kennedy dumped her latest plate into the trash, mostly uneaten. "If I ate like that, I'd look like a blimp."

"That's because you don't exercise nearly enough," Kennedy told her.

Fatso appeared. Kennedy laughed.

"Fatso, where's Dennis? It should be him with the duty!"

"He's talking to your teacher. Miss Clarice, your grandfather called a short while ago and asked me how you were. I told him you were talking to Miss Kennedy. He'd like you to call him. I have a phone."

"I don't want to talk to him," Clarice replied at once.

"I will," Kennedy said brightly.

Fatso looked pale. "Miss Kennedy, please..."

"Please yourself; pleasure yourself. I want to speak to him," Kennedy told Fatso.

"Yes, Miss Kennedy," the man said resignedly.

Kennedy picked up the phone. "Sir, it's Kennedy. Your granddaughter is fine, sir. She just needed some information about her brother's time at White Plains High."

"Kennedy," his voice was cold and flat. "She doesn't want to talk to me?"

"No, sir. With respect, sir, her brother knew her very well."

There was a moment's hesitation on the other end. "Do what you can, Kennedy. I'd appreciate it."

"You know how you can show that appreciation."

"I can't talk on the phone."

"I know."

"Tell Clarice we all love her."

"At this point, sir, that's not what she needs to hear. Like all of you, she was in solid denial about the problems she was having with her brother."

"And your pop-psych 101 solution? Wait! You're a high school student! You haven't taken Psychology 101!"

"You're right, sir. What could I know about being a girl that you don't? About why someone, your wife, her mother, someone, should sit down with Clarice and really explain things to her? Life at a serious, fundamental level. Not just Sammy Sperm and Ethel Egg, but all the rest of it, too. But, sir, one thing you won't have to explain to her is how to deal with gay women."

She hung up and pushed the power button.

Kennedy smiled brightly at Fatso. "He said to give us some space."

Fatso nodded and stood solidly, not daring to speak.

Clarice shook her head. "And why won't anyone have to explain about being gay to me?"

"I was going to educate you."

Clarice laughed. "In your dreams!"

"Whatever," Kennedy said with a straight face.

Clarice turned wary. "You're serious?"

"Do you think it would be wise to make that kind of joke to your grandfather?"

Clarice shook her head vehemently. She stopped, suddenly and looked at Kennedy. "Everything I've ever heard says you shouldn't be able to say these things." She looked at Fatso. "Should she be able to say these things?"

He pitched his voice low. "She's made her bones."

Clarice went deathly pale. "With my brother?"

Fatso laughed. "Well ... you gotta know, Clarice. After that night, all of us would have been shooting the next time we saw Dwight. No, she hit two guys the boss wanted whacked. They killed a couple schoolgirls and hid in a warehouse. She did for them."

Harriet appeared out of the night. "How's it going, Kennedy?"

Kennedy laughed. "Harriet, meet Dwight's sister, Clarice. Clarice, my friend Harriet."

Kennedy put some emphasis on "my friend" and after that it was kind of funny, in a sad way. Clarice shied away from Harriet and Harriet treated Clarice like a leper.

She carefully explained the joke, but learned the truth of the old saw: you only get one chance to make a first impression. The two of them would never be friends.

The next day Clarice surprised Kennedy by showing up as Kennedy headed down to the showers.

"I want to see the 'scratch, '" Clarice demanded.

Kennedy laughed. "Sure, come watch me in the shower. I'll warn you upfront though, that if you want to see mine, I'm going to want to see yours."

Clarice colored beet red. Kennedy simply turned and continued walking towards the showers. She finished her shower, sans Clarice, and went back to her tent. Clarice was there, standing silently, watching Kennedy.

Kennedy was wearing a white terry robe, and instead of going inside her tent and dressing, she picked up Lady Kennedy, which was just outside the entrance, sitting on a wooden rack. Kennedy started doing some warm-ups with the blade.

Finally she was doing one of her figure-8s, the blade humming loudly. She finally felt a pull from low down on her right side, so she slowed and finally stopped.

"Still want to check that scratch?" Kennedy asked conversationally.

Clarice shook her head. "That's a real sword, right?"

Kennedy handed Lady Kennedy to Clarice, but kept her hand on the blade, balancing her.

Clarice met Kennedy's eyes. "If I stick you with this, it'll make more than a scratch."

"As if you could!" Kennedy said with a laugh and let go. Sure enough, a second later Lady Kennedy's point was buried in the dirt.

"This is really heavy!"

"Eleven pounds," Kennedy told her. "I don't think she's all that heavy."

"She?"

"This is Lady Kennedy. The one true love of my life."

"And your 'good' friend?" Clarice asked, making air quotes.

"Harriet is my best friend, Clarice. I don't know how you live, but I've got friends where sex isn't much of a factor in our relationship. Or it's not there at all. I think I can safely say Pipes is a friend."

Kennedy retrieved her sword and put the blade over her shoulder. "Now, I need to get ready for the morning muster of the constables. If you want to find me this morning, I'll be watching Friar Geoffrey at the longbow competition. After lunch, I'll be on duty at the petting zoo. If I were you, I'd follow Harriet to her mother's booth and get a decent dress. If nothing there meets your fancy, there are other booths. Tonight they will not allow you in the Faire village dressed as you are now."

To Kennedy's surprise, Marshal Dick was back, attending the muster.

Afterwards, Duke Roger was apologetic. "Unless I have a specific reason, I just can't boot him out. I have changed his duty assignment to accompanying one of the roving patrols; he'll be a third wheel."

Kennedy nodded. "I understand."

A while later she sipped a mug of hot tea while she watched Friar Geoffrey shoot the spots off the targets. After the contest was over, she sidled up to him. "You've been practicing, haven't you?"

He laughed and nodded.

They went to lunch, and somehow, in spite of the vast crowd for the meal, Harriet and Kennedy sat across the table from each other.

Then it was time for her afternoon gig and she headed for the little paddock. Duke Roger met her. "I had to pull the plug on the marshal. Someone heard you calling him Marshal Dick yesterday, and that's what they started off calling him. Except around ten thirty that had morphed into just plain 'Dik-Dik'."

"That's a miniature antelope," Kennedy ruminated.

"And they can run really fast at the first hint of danger. Honestly, he couldn't have done the petting zoo, much less anything else. At first I was thinking he had something particular in mind, but I got him off to one side. Turns out they did a long, long brief about what all he has to face. Demons and vampires. Devils, the forces of evil. They evidently had living examples of some of the various types. It literally scared the pee out of him. He's positive that one or another variety of demon is lurking behind every bush, in every shadow or dark place."

"Gosh!"

"Yeah. I called up his supervisor, 'cause I just hated to let it go. I mean, the law enforcement community prides itself on being brothers -- that means we gossip a lot. So I called up and found out that he was sent to DC for some special project. He only comes back occasionally and yeah, they say he's got the wind up."

"Thanks, sir."

"No problem, Kennedy. How's the scratch?"

"It wasn't much of a scratch, sir. Just a red mark."

He shook his head. "And tonight it'll be gone, right?"

"Yep. I'd hate to let anything get between me and Sixteenth Cousin."

"I wouldn't mind if he left with a few bruises to remind him about the value of the heavy, sharp, pointy things that some of us wear."

"Have you ever thought of just going out empty-handed against him? Armored, of course. Let him take his best cuts?"

Duke Roger laughed. "Now that's a thought that never occurred to me. He's always going on about weapons and which is best. No weapon at all..." He grinned and bowed to Lady Kennedy.

The day wore on, not leavened with strange FBI agents or demented US Marshals; no vampires, no demons from other planes of existence. No, the demons she faced were of the two legged, human variety.

At the end of her tour she was tired and parched. She went to the constables area and found Duke Roger. "I have a suggestion, Duke Roger!" she said it loudly and formally. A dozen people turned to listen.

"We need a lion or tiger for the petting zoo; a croc would be nice. One of these times, sir, I will not be quick enough to save one of my toothless charges from dismemberment. Better if the little urchins learned to be careful, first."

"We can afford a new chicken or rabbit a lot easier than munchkin tartare."

"Oh, we just need to put them in cages along the entrance path. Just a gentle warning that some critters have teeth."

"I wish."

She laughed, and so did a lot of others, some of them, who had, at one time or another, had duty at the petting zoo.

She found Friar Geoffrey deep in a discussion with a half dozen men, mostly older, who were comparing feathers and glue for arrow fletching.

She was pretty sure that Clarice had left, but Clarice surprised Kennedy by showing up for dinner. Fatso was close by, but Dennis was closer.

After dinner everyone was headed for the Village. Kennedy tugged Clarice off to one side. "I have a little thing to do this evening. Dennis and Fatso I trust not to get excited. Can I number you among those who will take a few seconds to collect their thoughts before speaking up?"

"Are you saying I'm a hothead?"

"Yes."

"You don't mince words, do you?"

"You were the one with the mincing knife, Clarice. Let me tell you a little secret. Yes, I heal fast. Yes, it wasn't very bad. But it hurt like the devil for the first few minutes, then ached all night long. This morning it itched. It was, in short, it was damned uncomfortable. Please, I just want an assurance that next time you'll think, you'll seek out advice -- only this time actually listen to it."

"I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm glad it was just a scratch."

"Okay, fine."

Kennedy resumed her trip to the village.

"What is this little thing?"

"A duel."

Clarice stopped. "It's pretend, right?"

"Well, mostly. That's not to say he'd wouldn't like to thump me if he could. But, unlike you, he doesn't have a pointy thing for a weapon. He has a quarterstaff. He's dog meat."

"Then why do it?"

"He challenged me. It will be quick, so you'll want to watch closely."

In fact it happened so quick, Sixteenth Cousin wanted an instant replay.

People wanted time to get their favorite beverages, then to find good seats. When Kennedy heard the odds being bantered around about who was going to win, she grimaced. Sixteenth Cousin was never going to forget this.

Friar Geoffrey made the obligatory visit to a young man who acting as the Sixteenth Cousin's second to ask if there was any way to settle the affair without a duel and was told "no" in no uncertain terms.

So Kennedy stood there, Lady Kennedy in her hand, standing about six feet from Sixteenth Cousin. Duke Roger explained what few rules there were, raised his hand and said, "Fight!"

Sure enough, Sixteenth Cousin gave his quarterstaff a little toss, changing his grip from the middle to one end, then he swung it in a humming arc. Kennedy realized at the last second that if she blocked the staff with the scabbard, the scabbard would be damaged and perhaps ruined. There was one way to avoid that, so she shifted her grip on Lady Kennedy when she swung to oppose the blow. Sure enough, the quarterstaff hit the intersection of the hilt and blade, messing up the iron band that was there for the sword to rest against, but otherwise not damaging the scabbard.

And, of course, the quarterstaff flew out of Sixteenth Cousin's hands and into some bushes. Kennedy was particularly proud of herself. After the bat incident in the old man's restaurant, she was wary about where things went. She'd been planning on where the quarterstaff should end up; she'd gotten within a foot of where she'd wanted. And it was ten feet from the nearest spectator ... a good thing, because it had really flown.

Sixteenth Cousin looked at his hands, then at Kennedy and said the first words that came into his mind. He'd have done better jumping off a cliff.

"I wasn't ready."

Duke Roger took two steps forward, shaking with rage. "You weren't ready? I said fight and you struck the first blow and you stand there and tell me you weren't ready?" He was clearly furious.

"Duke Roger, a word," Kennedy announced.

The duke stood still, his chest heaving. Kennedy went and whispered in his ear for a minute. Duke Roger's eyes never left Sixteenth Cousin who was suddenly sweating. The crowd, laughing at him a minute before, were now clearly pissed.

He waved her back. "Do you have a quarterstaff that neither you nor anyone else is fond of?"

Sixteenth Cousin was wary. "Yes, sir."

"Good!" the duke said. With that the duke took a quick step towards Sixteenth Cousin and put one mailed handed to the young man's chest and pushed hard. Sixteenth Cousin went sprawling in the dirt. Duke Roger took a step forward and picked Sixteenth Cousin up bodily, his body parallel to the ground. He only lifted him a couple of feet, then dropped him, dust squirting out from beneath him, in all directions.

"Well?" Duke Roger said pleasantly.

"You want me to challenge you."

"Surely. You've insulted my honor, the honor of my constables and the intelligence of everyone watching you. Challenge me and for you, you may fight with a quarterstaff. I will face you without a weapon."

"I challenge you," Sixteenth Cousin said, trying to sound like it was no big deal.

"One more thing. Find that quarterstaff you don't cherish. Before you face me, you'll stand ready with your staff and fight Lady Kennedy who will hold her blade bare."

Sixteenth Cousin paled. "That's..."

Kennedy walked up to Duke Roger and plucked the sprig of holly from her shoulder, the one that meant quite a lot to her and handed it to him.

"My Lord, I pledge my honor that the only blow I deliver to Sixteenth Cousin will be to his pride."

Duke Roger nodded.

A moment later Kennedy faced Sixteenth Cousin again. This time he was twirling his staff, making it hum. Kennedy set Lady Kennedy to humming too, and when Duke Roger said to fight, she took a short step forward.

She'd read about John Carter of Mars and how he would "weave a web of steel" around him in a fight. That's what she did to Sixteenth Cousin. In less than two seconds she made four cuts, each taking off about a foot from either end of his staff.

He looked at his staff, now barely two feet long. "I yield," he said, his voice shaking with undisguised fear.

Sir Roger tossed him another quarterstaff, then said "Fight!" as soon as it was in Sixteenth Cousin's hand.

The young man swung a sharp blow at Duke Roger's armored head. The duke's visor was down, but an armored gauntlet stopped the blow feet away from its target. Two more quick blows were intercepted, then the duke grabbed the quarterstaff with one hand and placed his other hand close to Sixteenth Cousin's grip, taking the staff away from him. Duke Roger broke the staff in two over his knee, then again, into four pieces.

Duke Roger looked around. "Boys! More wood for the barbeque pits!" He tossed the pieces away, and then turned his back on Sixteenth Cousin and walked away.

Everyone else stood and headed back to the main area, where there was food, more drink, music and good company.

Clarice came over to Kennedy as Kennedy was checking out the damage to Lady Kennedy's scabbard. Clarice didn't say anything, she just watched what Kennedy was doing. Friar Geoffrey was optimistic that it would require only a little bending of the piece before it would be right again.

Out of the night Fatso appeared with a middle-aged man and woman, who went right to Clarice. There was a hasty discussion and then Clarice was saying goodbye.

Kennedy felt a little depressed. It had really been clear the day before that Clarice wasn't interested in broadening her horizons. Still, she'd held out a little hope ... Worse, when she got home Annie would be gone.

She went looking and found Friar Geoffrey sitting near the main bonfire singing and having a good time. He saw her and got up, and then the two of them walked some distance away from the others.

"Sorry to disturb you, Friar. If there had been a lady close by..."

"Both of us will have to rely on our best friends tonight."

She looked at him and he raised his right hand. Kennedy blushed.

"That wasn't what I wanted to talk about. Annie said the Watchers Council has some sort of magic to know if you're lying."

"They do, after a fashion. It isn't very strong magic."

"And she's gone and yet, you're still here."

He grinned. "Like I said about the strength. They were so exercised about girlfriends that they didn't look further. They have no idea you're killing vampires like a Slayer, healing like a Slayer and otherwise behaving like the Chosen One. Even if you're not."

"You're slick, sir. Very slick."

"I've had a lot more practice than Annie."

"Is she in real trouble?"

"Real trouble? No. They'll make noises like it, but the fact is that surviving even one encounter with a vampire puts you in the top one percent of fighters."

"She said she slipped."

"Ferinc said he slipped, too."

Kennedy considered that. She'd laughed at the idea of Ferinc slipping, assuming he'd taken a dive. Had Annie had the presence of mind to do the same thing? If that was the case, she was pretty smart, as well as physically tough.

"Speak of the devil," Friar Geoffrey said, nodding. Kennedy turned and saw Ferinc coming towards them.

Ferinc pulled up at the fire and looked around. "Am I out of costume?"

He was wearing, Kennedy thought, some sort of sixteenth or seventeenth century court foppery. "It's close enough," Kennedy told him. She waved. "Back to one only one sword cane?"

He shook his head. "Tomorrow is the full moon, Miss Kennedy. It's a derringer cane that fires a silver bullet."

In the distance a wolf howled. "That's really not funny," Kennedy said.

"I know, but look around you. It was a real conversation starter."

Sure enough, everyone in the village was looking around, and speaking nervously and in low tones.

"Miss Kennedy, will you be returning to the camp this summer?"

"If Mr. Waterman is still there teaching rowing."

"He's fine, just fine. We got together, drank entirely too much wine and settled our dispute. As he told you, the woman married someone else entirely. Now she's a fat shrew and hardly the reason for a blood feud."

"Well, in that case, yes, that's the plan. My father has agreed, too."

"I have a favor to ask of you, then."

"I'm in your debt, remember?" Kennedy told him. "You got hurt in my house at my party in a dispute of my instigation."

He waved his hand airily. "It was a vampire. None of that counts except that. I tried, I failed. Oddly, I lived. Now, however, the favor. It has two parts."

"Fire away."

"I have a granddaughter who is eleven now and turns twelve in three weeks. She has quite an attitude. I've convinced my son-in-law that Rosalie would do well at Lauren's camp. I'd like you to watch over her, protect her, as much as you can."

"As much as I can?" Kennedy said with a laugh.

"My granddaughter is the most powerful witch born into the Roma in a century. She is also eleven, going on twelve and very headstrong. I would like you to try to keep her from hurting someone else or herself. And yet, return her in her current virginal state."

Kennedy studied him carefully. "There's something you're not telling me." Something bigger than a bad, nasty witch.

Ferinc sighed. "Politics. My son-in-law, Lady Kennedy, is a social climber of the worst sort. He wishes one day to be king."

"I don't imagine from what all I've heard of your king that that will go over well."

"The plan is for the king to marry Rosalie on her sixteenth birthday. Then my son-in-law kills the king, his daughter is queen and is in line to take over ... with my son-in-law as regent until she is twenty-one. He doesn't say anything, but avarice has no bounds. In his plan, Rosalie will never reach her majority."

Kennedy sat back, shaking her head. "Lauren explained a little, but evidently a little wasn't a lot, was it?"

"No. There's a reason why the Roma hide in the shadows and steal for a living. No one on the planet trusts us. We certainly don't trust each other."

"And yet the king is okay with marrying your sixteen-year-old granddaughter? What does her mother say?"

"She's dead. He'll be more than fifty by Rosalie's sixteenth birthday. Of course he'll marry her. What man wouldn't?"

"You," Kennedy offered.

"If a girl said it was her choice, if I believed her ... I'd be tempted. Growing old is less than no fun; growing old alone is a terrible thing. Having someone young and vibrant to dispel your fears..."

"And just how virginal is virginal?"

"Untouched, Lady Kennedy, by man or woman."

"I can do something about men and women; I'll have less luck with the boys and girls and no luck at all with her own urges."

"Do what you can, as best as you can."

"That I can promise."

"I can bring her by tomorrow, if you like."

"Will she appreciate this?" Kennedy said waving around.

"I doubt it."

"Then, by all means, spare her. The summer will be bad enough and I'm not going to be setting a very good example."

He bowed, and then faded into the night.



-------

Chapter 20: Summer Camp Counselor


Kennedy stood in line for the busses once again. Deja vu, right? She smiled to herself. Last year she had tried to show herself as brimming over with self-confidence, while in reality she was terribly shy and nervous. Well, summer camp had fixed all of that.

To make her day perfect, she saw Ferinc with a girl in tow. The girl was supposed to be twelve now, but she looked more like eight or nine. Ferinc didn't hesitate about cutting in the line. He went right up to Kennedy and presented the young woman. "Kennedy, this is my granddaughter, Rosalie. Rosalie, this is Kennedy."

The girl gave Kennedy a quick glance and then stared, bored, into the distance. She was about five feet tall, dark skinned, dark eyes and black hair. Roma, in other words.

It was a warm morning, Kennedy thought. Really warm. What would be cool in several senses was to strip down to the buff. Hers hand went in motion, to start unbuttoning her blouse buttons.

Abruptly she felt like she'd felt the year before when Ferinc had cast some sort of truth spell on her. Her hands stopped and she glared at the young girl.

Rosalie's face was suddenly contorted, her fingers working on undoing the lowest button on her blouse. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Please say stop! Please!"

The next two buttons went and the girl was clearly panic stricken. "Oh! Please! Please! Say stop! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please! Oh no!"

The last two words came when she finished the last button on her blouse.

"Stop."

Rosalie turned away, hastily buttoning up. Kennedy raised an eyebrow and Ferinc shook his head. "I warned her."

He tossed Kennedy a salute, turned and walked away without another word.

"I hate my fucking family," Rosalie said bitterly, still facing away from Kennedy.

"Hey, at your age, I didn't like mine either. I still don't like my mother. My stepfather and my stepsister -- they're a lot nicer once I got past my hang-ups and they got past theirs. We're not bosom buddies or anything, but we can talk and get along."

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "You know what."

"I don't know. I know I don't like it when people try to get me to do things I don't want to."

"I'm supposed to be the most powerful witch of the Roma alive today."

"I'm not Roma," Kennedy explained.

"What are you?"

"Kennedy, plain and simple, except at Faire, and then I become Lady Kennedy. A little more formal, but not much."

Harriet joined them. "I don't know, Kennedy, I tried to get on the same bus, but they just wouldn't let me."

"Move to Scarsdale," Kennedy joked.

Harriet giggled. "I'll ask my mother. Sure, why not?"

"Harriet this is Rosalie, Ferinc's granddaughter. Rosalie, this is Harriet, my first and best friend."

Rosalie looked from Kennedy to Harriet and back again. "You two have done it?"

"That, Rosalie, is a question that's rude to ask at the best of times and at Camp Wanakena will get you sent home. Do you want to set some sort of record, getting sent home before you even get on the bus to go there?" Kennedy asked.

Rosalie waved airily. "No one can hear us. Don't get your panties in an uproar."

Kennedy blinked. What had she done before? She didn't cast spells, there was no incantations, ingredients, none of that. What had she done, the two times she'd broken spells?

Then she felt it. It was a bubble around them. Rosalie was looking at Kennedy with a supercilious grin. "No, this time it's not aimed at y..." her voice stopped, even though her mouth kept working. In a second Rosalie was clearly worked up again.

Harriet laughed. "Good grief! What's that?"

"She's like Ruby, only she's a real witch. She cast a spell that prevented anyone close by from hearing us. I changed it so it applies to her and no one else."

"Cool! There are times when my mom and I are sewing together and she starts talking ... Oh! What I'd give for a spell so I couldn't hear her!"

Rosalie had dipped into her backpack, pulled out pencil and paper and wrote something on it, then held it up.

"'Say Negato, '" Harriet read. "What does that mean?"

Rosalie was pointing to Kennedy, still trying vainly to speak.

"At a guess, that's how to break the spell. But evidently you can't do it. Evidently Rosalie can't either. I wonder who could do it?"

Rosalie was clearly furious.

Kennedy smiled. "I want you to write on that paper 'I will not use magic except to save someone else's life or my own life or to keep someone from harm.' Sign it, prick your thumb and seal it in blood," Kennedy told Rosalie.

Kennedy turned to Harriet. "Mr. Glastonbury has had me doing a lot of reading this spring about magic and all sorts of interesting topics. I just didn't think I had any magic. I can't levitate a pencil. I can't create a light ball. That's all supposed to be Magic 101."

"That stuff really works?"

"So I'm told." Kennedy waved at Rosalie, who was waving imperiously, but not writing. "Seems like it does, though. Probably just a few special people."

Harriet laughed. "What a novel concept! I have to get back to my bus. I think they'll let us board here soon. I'll see you at lunch!"

"Lunch. This time we have to try Wendy's."

Harriet laughed and headed for her bus.

Kennedy looked at Rosalie. "Add, 'until camp is over' how about that?"

Rosalie grimaced and quickly wrote and signed the oath. A second later she handed the sheet to Kennedy.

"Like I told my friend, I've been reading up on things. Even if this contract were to vanish in a puff of flame, it would still have force, right?"

Rosalie nodded glumly.

"Good. Negato."

"I'm going punch you in the nose!" Rosalie said firmly.

"Well, if I were you, I'd make sure that would work, too."

"It's not magic! I'm pretty strong!"

"So am I, plus I'm bigger than you are. Does your magic let you look inside things."

"If I want to. I thought I wasn't supposed to use magic?"

"Except to save yourself or someone else from harm. Have a go at my big suitcase -- and save yourself from harm."

Rosalie frowned, then looked hard at the wheelie-bag.

"I can't see what's in there. It looks like an umbrella, but it's not."

"It's Lady Kennedy, an eleven pound bastard sword. You might want to think who is stronger, someone who can swing Lady Kennedy for hours or someone who would have trouble lifting her up."

Rosalie grimaced. Abruptly, she looked beyond Kennedy. "Gosh, I'm not alone! Here comes someone else who doesn't like you either!"

Kennedy turned and saw Clarice and Pipes coming towards her.

Kennedy rolled her eyes.

"I thought you were in Switzerland or something?" Kennedy told Clarice.

"I came home early. It's not like they can tell my father I can't get credit for my classes that I had perfect marks in."

"Pipes?"

"Miss Kennedy, my friend wishes Clarice to get a slightly different view of the world. Something other than a ghetto for the very, very rich. He thought you might be able to take her in hand and see that she had a good time."

Kennedy saw Clarice go pale. "You didn't phrase that very well, Pipes. I'm already looking after Rosalie here; I'll be happy to add Clarice to the list. I'm a junior councilor; hopefully I'll have enough pull to get her into my cabin. Rosalie is already there."

"Oh, my friend set it up with the very nice woman who runs things at the camp. A free spirit, that one!"

"Rosalie is Ferinc's granddaughter. You remember -- you met him at my New Year's Eve party."

"I remember," Pipes's voice went cold and flat, his eyes turned to flint. "One of these days I'll run into him again and be able to express my sympathies for his injuries."

He turned to Clarice. "You understand the stakes, don't you?"

"School in White Plains next fall if I mess up. Loss of my credit cards, my allowance, all of that. Yeah, I understand. If I can endure nine months of academic hell, I can endure two weeks in the mountains. I won't make any trouble and I don't need a nanny." She laughed. "You don't know the temptation to mess up, though. I could do without the credit cards, if I still had my allowance. I'd cheerfully give up one or the other to go to any other school."

"And if you behave, I'll explain it to my father-in-law, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

People were loading onto the bus, and the three of them ended up at the wide seat at the back of the bus. Kennedy wondered if she was tempting fate when she sat in the middle, between them, not able to look out the windows. But Larkin was dead and Dik-dik humiliated. She didn't expect any trouble this year.

Rosalie was sitting next to the window, while Clarice was the third of the four people sitting in the rear of the bus. Another girl, roughly Clarice's age, sat next to her, and the two of them were soon involved in a conversation about make-up, music and guys. Kennedy tuned it out. Rosalie, on the other hand, was interested in looking out the window and not interested in talking at all.

Mr. Glastonbury had simply shaken her hand and wished her a good time. In a way, that left her feeling ten feet tall and ultra-proud. No cautions, no warnings. He was expecting her to behave, assumed she'd behave and had, instead of worrying, made sure she had a half dozen good history books to read.

The best news was that both Slayers had survived a near-apocalypse. In a way it was funny and ironic, all at once. The cheerleader Slayer had burned down part of her high school as a sophomore. For graduation, she'd burned her high school flat. Granted, that had been about the only way to kill a fifty-foot long snake demon, but still ... it was amusing.

What wasn't amusing was Mr. Glastonbury's story about the second Slayer. "She killed a human," he told her. "She tried to cover it up, but the Watcher turned her in to the Council. The Watchers Council, in its infinite wisdom, fired the Watcher and sent a new one. I know the lad; a stripling without experience ... and mostly lacking backbone.

"They thought the second Slayer had settled down, was following the prescribed training regimen. But she had been seduced by the dark side."

"Of the force?" Kennedy had asked, laughing at her wit.

"Of Evil. Faith has killed a whole lot more than one human now; we don't know how many. The Slayer went and took Faith out, intending to kill her. Buffy failed, but the false Slayer was severely injured, even for a Slayer. She's in a coma, and the doctors don't expect her to regain consciousness. I suspect she will, but it won't be for months. And then, odds are, she won't remember what's happened."

"But the current Slayer is well, right?"

"She's well and facing no apocalyptic threats that we know of. Go, have a good time this summer. Don't worry about these sorts of things."

So, that's what she was intending to repeat. Last year Agent Larkin had been disposed of quickly, she'd learned some things about herself and others and Ruby had been tamed and the last ten days of camp had indeed been a wonderful time in Kennedy's life.

At lunch she and Harriet spent the time together, and yes, there were touches and hand-holding. Kennedy grinned. Her times with Harriet had to be rare, but this was as good a time as any!

Clarice had made a new friend, and that girl had introduced Clarice to a circle of like-minded girls. Kennedy was fairly sure Clarice was going to fit in well. Rosalie stuck close to Kennedy, although she made it quite clear she thought being romantic with Harriet was "icky."

Kennedy had, however, been disposed to be reasonable. "If you want a babysitter, I'll babysit you. If you try my babysitting patience, I can guarantee to watch you like a hawk. That will include making your schedule match mine. You might not like that. Unless you show me you can't be trusted, I'll trust you to make your own choices."

"It's not like I can do anything on my own. Lauren Tredegar..."

"Will listen to me if I explain things to her."

"Like, she'll do something that the king or my father wouldn't like! Sure!"

"You don't know Lauren, do you? Or anything about her camp?"

"She shears rich people from their money."

"Do you know what quid pro quo means?" Kennedy asked.

"Sure. You scratch my back, I scratch yours."

"Pretty much, that's it. That's what Lauren does. Quid pro quo. The rich people give her buckets of money to let their kids come to her camp. She gives us a good time. We go home happy, the parents are happy and line up to get their kids accepted for next year."

"The king and my father told me she cheats people."

"She cheats the king and your father, not the kids, not their parents."

Rosalie's eyes bugged out. "She's cheating the king?"

"Quid pro quo, again. The king thinks she's cheating people, and she gives him a big chunk of money, more than he could explain using any other explanation. As you may have noticed, evidently he has a tiny imagination."

"He doesn't have any imagination at all! He thinks I'll sign a binding spell for him like you made me sign. You just don't want me messing with you or your friends. That's cool. But sign one with him? Ha! I'd be dead in a couple of years."

"And if you don't sign?"

"They know that whatever happens to me will happen to both of them. I expect some really clever attempts at getting that contract signed and sealed."

"You signed one for me."

"It wasn't to keep you safe, it was to keep me from hurting others. Any others. I know the difference. The king isn't going to want me to sign something like that. Oh no, he has a long, long list of people he wants me to mess with. Some small, some big."

"You seem to accept what they have planned for you."

Rosalie shook her head. "I'm not strong enough yet to stop them. Grandpa says to trust you like no other. If he's lying ... I'd rather be dead."

"He's not lying. Do you know about my party?"

The younger girl shook her head. "What party?"

"Clarice knows, Harriet knows. When we have time, I'll tell you about it. My party is where Ferinc, your grandfather, got hurt."

Harriet had been sitting quietly, eating her salad. "Do you have nightmares?" she asked Rosalie.

After a dramatic pause, Harriet went on.

"Because if you don't, after Kennedy explains, you will. I used to have baby nightmares. I could wake up from them, think of something nice and fall back asleep and the dream would be nice. Now I've seen a real nightmare. I've lived it. It wasn't Kennedy's fault; in fact, it was nearly as much my fault as anyone's. But ... it was awful. Really awful."

"Your old enemies," Kennedy said, trying to clue Rosalie in.

"My old enemies?"

"The oldest enemies of the Roma," Kennedy clarified.

Rosalie's mouth formed an "O" of surprise. "I thought those were stories."

"And I thought magic was stories, until I saw it used last summer. All sorts of things are too real for comfort."

Rosalie was silent for nearly twenty minutes, until they were called for the bus. She stood up and touched Kennedy's arm. "Grandpa told me I had to grow up fast or I wouldn't grow up at all. He throws tricks and puzzles at me. Some I can use magic on, some I have to think about. I never know which I'm supposed to use. I thought this was supposed to be about magic. Now, I guess, I need to think."

"I do a lot of that myself," Kennedy admitted.

"You think a dress design hops from your brain, down onto pattern material, then you can just cut and sew?" Harriet added.

"The next two weeks," Kennedy told them, foreclosing further discussion along the current line, "are about having a good time. We will have a good time."

After lunch it was back to the buses. Clarice was wrapped up in her new friends; Kennedy wondered how Clarice was going to handle that, because two of the girls Kennedy recognized from the year before and they'd been quite a hot couple.

Rosalie, on the other hand, was already following Kennedy's directions. It seemed as though the closer the bus got to camp the happier she was. Charlotte walked the length of the bus, stopping to talk to several people, finally reaching the end. "Kennedy, how are you?"

"Fine, Charlotte."

"Lauren has asked me if I'd be comfortable having a cabin of younger girls this year," her eyes met Kennedy's. "I told her I wasn't sure that was such a good idea. We talked about it at length and decided that it would be good to give Amy her own cabin this year. You two got along really well last year, so I'm hoping you won't be disappointed in being with Amy rather than me."

"Like I said about wrong trees," Kennedy said, "it's still true."

Charlotte laughed. "I understood that quite clearly. And who are your friends?"

"This is Rosalie, she's Ferinc's granddaughter. Do you remember him? He's the camp lawyer. He came to help Deb after that problem came up last summer."

"How do you do, young lady?" Charlotte acknowledged with a grin.

Rosalie looked at Charlotte, who was staring at Rosalie's breasts. "Charming, it isn't," Rosalie told Charlotte.

"Like Kennedy you have to understand that things at Camp Wanakena, so far as we can manage, run at your own pace. So long as you don't offend the camp rules, you can pretty much do as you please, even if it means sitting someplace out in the woods, staring at a leaf or a rock."

"Kennedy has been clear about that," Rosalie told her. "I'm going to have a good time."

"Good. And your other friend?"

Clarice gave Charlotte a withering glance and turned away to talk to one of her new friends.

"I'm not sure we're friends," Kennedy admitted. "What are the odds she could be in my cabin?"

"Nil. She's too old, Kennedy. She can be in my cabin."

Clarice turned to Charlotte. "Look, I can see it in your eyes. My grandfather is the head of one of New York's Mafia families. One phone call from me and..."

Kennedy laughed. "I thought what happened to your brother should have clued you in that he doesn't like it when you take his name in vain. Try what Rosalie did ... standing on your own two feet. I know for a fact Charlotte understands 'no' and 'stop.'"

One of the other girls leaned close and whispered urgently in Clarice's ear. Kennedy made a note to thank the girl later, because not everyone would have been comfortable talking to someone like Clarice, not after she announced to the universe who her grandfather was.

"Two years ago," Clarice said, almost spitting, "my brother came in my room the night I got home from school for Christmas. I go to school in Europe; I don't come home that often. He grabbed me, slapped me around a few times, then fucked me bowlegged, hitting me every few seconds when I objected. I told him if he ever did it again, I'd tell."

"Pity about all those other girls you could have helped if you told the first time," Kennedy said bitterly.

"Maybe. I got back to school and I was depressed and didn't give a damn about anything. Two girls from my class came into my room one night and took turns holding me down while the other used a dildo on me. 'There, ' they told me, 'that'll cheer you up!' If my counselor hadn't been a saint, I'd have killed myself."

"Nothing any of us can do," Charlotte told her seriously, "can change anything about what happened to you in the past. We can, though, show you that it wasn't the end of the world and there's hope for the future."

"Someone beat you to it," Clarice said. "But whenever I see that hungry look in someone's eyes when they look at me -- I get pissed. And I'm not going to apologize for that."

"You should be pissed and I apologize," Charlotte told her. "We're off on the wrong foot and that's not a good thing. You can change cabins if you want, but I swear I'll never bother you. Ever."

Clarice was silent. "My shrink says the stupidest thing I'm doing is getting pissed at anyone who looks at me. People are sexual, she told me. Most of them, though, want you to love them and understand you don't get love by forcing someone. No, I'll stay." She grimaced. "This is a kind of therapy, my shrink said. She said it would do me good. My uncle said the same thing, so does my grandfather, my cousin..."

Kennedy was aware that Clarice didn't mention her parents. Well, she'd have had a tough time mentioning hers most of the time, too.

Charlotte went more quickly back to her seat than she'd taken to walk the length of the bus. Clarice went back to her new friends. Kennedy watched for a few seconds, but there didn't seem to any change after Clarice had told everyone who her grandfather was.

Was it because most of the kids going to Lauren's camp really were rich kids? And so used to getting their own way, they didn't care about how "powerful" your father or grandfather was, when they had their own examples?

Then they were at camp and girls formed up as they had the last year. The main difference was that Kennedy was on the stage, this time. She saw Amy and started forward, a greeting on her lips. Amy's eyes were haunted and hollow; she looked awful, like she'd been crying for days and days.

Kennedy smiled at her and Amy managed a wan smile in return that lasted just a fraction of a second, before the look of sadness returned. Kennedy contemplated the universe and wondered just what had happened to her friend. Nothing good, she was sure.

Kennedy looked around the stage. There were a number of familiar faces, all who nodded and smiled at each other. There was a face she didn't recognize though.

The new person was a woman in her forties, blonde and rather severe in appearance. Still, her hair was cut butch short. Kennedy smiled to herself. Last year she hadn't understood the comments about dykes when Cindy had responded about the type of partner she liked. Now Kennedy did understand and she had to think the older woman was probably a dyke. Not that it was any of her business.

She'd only been paying half attention, but Lauren waved at the older woman. "Also with us this year is Professor Maggie Walsh. Dr. Walsh is a psychiatrist, working on a research project involving women's athletics. We've agreed to let her talk to each of you privately. After listening to her explanation, you can make up your own minds if you wish to participate in her study."

Kennedy stared in surprise, the words hitting a resonating chord in her mind. The bit about "talk to each of you privately" had done it. Larkin had died trying to do just that, Dik-dik probably wanted to die of embarrassment. And now Lauren had just handed someone the keys to the kingdom...

She hoped there was a simple explanation, but she had a bad feeling that there was just the one.

At the end of Lauren's speech, she gave a list of people she wanted to see afterwards. This time Amy and Kennedy headed the list.

Lauren waved the two of them into her office and then turned to Amy first. "Amy, I hate having to be blunt, but I have some serious responsibilities here. Are you going to be able to cut it?"

"I think so, Lauren."

Lauren shook her head. "Amy, that's not the answer I was looking for. We're friends; I trust you. Kennedy trusts you. Yes or no, Amy? I swear I won't hold a 'No' against you. I will hold a 'Yes' that you screw up against you."

"I don't know, okay? Monique's dead. She was mugged three weeks ago. I just want to go into a closet and cry. I can't sleep; I have trouble eating. My mother made me come."

"Would you rather just join one of the cabins as a regular camper?"

"I'm a little old for that," Amy told her.

"Sometimes, Amy, we have to make exceptions. I value you too much. I value my obligations to the other girls too much to want to make a mistake if I can avoid it."

"It's such short notice!"

Lauren giggled. "I bet Deb would be up to it."

Both Kennedy and Amy stared at Lauren. "Two really young counselors," Kennedy said, her voice barely a whisper.

"Kennedy, you're the oldest person in camp. Deb is almost as old. I don't think I'd want you in a cabin of fifteen and sixteen-year-olds, but twelve and thirteen is fine. Just fine."

"I hate letting you down, Lauren," Amy said, sounding more depressed than ever.

"Amy, there's not a one of us who has been able to go through life without some bumps. Some of us have had some pretty nasty bumps. I didn't know about Monique, I swear. My door is open for you, dear, 24/7."

"I don't need that kind of solace."

"Amy, I'll give you whatever help I can that you feel comfortable with. I'm not a monster who wants to take advantage of you while you're hurting."

Amy flushed. "I'm sorry, that was stupid."

"No, you're hurting. Amy, how about if you stay in the third bedroom in your cabin? It's not like any of the girls will need it."

"They should have the same reward as anyone else."

Kennedy spoke up. "Deb and I could share."

Lauren looked at her seriously. "I'd have to move twin beds in there."

"That's fine," Kennedy told her.

"Well, you and Amy head up to your cabin. I'll get Deb going here in a minute. There's a young woman tennis coach who said she wouldn't mind being a counselor if a slot opened up. I'll get her to replace Deb."

Amy and Kennedy walked out, and headed up the hill. They walked into the cabin and Kennedy looked around. "Why don't you go sit down, Amy."

Amy looked at her warily. "You're not going to do something stupid are you?"

"Define stupid? Is that like 'I didn't have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski?'"

Amy smiled, more wanly than ever. "You're not in charge, Kennedy."

"How well I know! But there's no reason not to explain a few basic parameters."

Kennedy turned and looked at the girls from the cabin, including Rosalie.

"My name is Kennedy. Some of you are looking at me and telling yourself, 'Hey, she's not that much older than me! I bet I can fool her every day in every way!'" Kennedy grinned. "A moment's thought would tell you that the person you're least likely to fool is someone close to your own age.

"Second, Amy Newman was supposed to be in charge. Her best friend was murdered a few weeks ago and she feels like shit. Trust me on this: if one or more of you decide to take it upon yourself to make her feel worse, you won't care at all for what sort of hell I will visit upon you. It will be even more unpleasant than hell. Trust me.

"I've been there, you know. Seven and a half months ago the girl I loved was murdered right in front of my eyes. It really bites, let me tell you. You try to make it harder on someone and I'll teach you the true meaning of hard."

Kennedy's eyes lit on the beds. The ones they'd had last year in their cabin were wooden frames, with decent mattresses. These were metal frame bunk beds with springs and what looked to be older mattresses.

Kennedy walked over to the nearest bed, and ran her fingers along the rail that was close as there was to a headpiece.

"I want you each to come up here, each and every one of you. I want you to run your fingers over the metal of the frame. Squeeze it as hard as you can."

There was no movement, so Kennedy clapped her hands, a shatteringly loud "Crack!"

"Now, girls! Move!"

They all jumped, included Amy. They came up and did as Kennedy had asked. When the last one, Rosalie, finished Kennedy walked over and squeezed it herself. "And now, again. Check it out."

She'd left indentations that fitted her fingers. Rosalie had touched it first, and then blinked in astonishment. "Shit! Wow!"

"Rosalie, we're ladies here. Watch the language unless you really want to piss me off."

It took a few seconds, but they all laughed.

"How did you do that?" Amy asked.

"Wheaties," Kennedy said with a straight face.

It was nice to see even a fleeting smile on Amy's face.

A few minutes later Deb came in and introduced herself, then they were ready to go to dinner.

At dinner, Lauren was ready with the customary announcements about activities. She concluded with, "Steffie, Cindy, Deb, Kennedy you're up first with Professor Walsh. See her as soon as dinner is concluded. She says the interviews will be short, ten or fifteen minutes, tops."

Kennedy looked at Lauren with concern. She couldn't imagine why Lauren would agree to this. The two of the Roma with Second Sight, plus Kennedy. Cindy? She liked to carry around a load of rocks. Did Walsh think she was a Potential as well? Was she? According to Mr. Glastonbury, there was no way to tell, unless she had a Watcher. Should she just up and ask?

Kennedy decided that she'd do just that -- after the interview. And before that, even, she'd have a little chat with Lauren.

A little later, she heard Steffie's comments to Lauren. "What is this? That woman? No way am I going to talk to her again! She's completely, totally bad news! She hates the Roma! She hates us!"

Cindy was gone for less than a minute, then she too came back, seething with anger. "I don't have anyone watching me! What a nutcase!"

Deb barely got into the room. She came out so fast, she looked like a cat running from a dog. She tossed a glare at Lauren, who seemed oblivious to it.

Then it was Kennedy's turn. Kennedy was amused at what had happened so far. The "ten or fifteen minute" interviews had lasted, on average, a half minute.

Professor Walsh waved her to a chair. "I'm sorry to break into your free time like this, but I think this study can be of significant importance to women's athletic programs nationally and perhaps internationally." She twittered on and on, her voice a dull monotone that was excruciatingly dull. Moreover, she used a lot of jaw-breaking words, frequently in ways that carried almost no meaning. She was fiddling with a crystal pendant in her fingers while she talked.

Kennedy yawned and laughed to herself. The woman's words were dull and stultifying to the point of being hypnotic!

With a start, she realized that's exactly what the other was looking for. Her first thought was to see if she could do with hypnosis like she could do with magic. Then she contemplated trying to fake it. What were the odds that she could fool someone who knew what they were doing?

She put the woman's words in one corner of her brain, and stared fixatedly at the other. She really was kind of cute, Kennedy thought, in a dyke-ish kind of way. Not her type at all, Kennedy thought.

"Kennedy," Professor Walsh asked, "would you turn your head to the right?"

Kennedy did as bid.

"Now, to the left."

Kennedy did that, too. She'd decided that she was no longer going to fix on Professor Walsh's breasts, but instead just look straight ahead.

"Look at my right breast."

Kennedy did that, too. Uh oh! The nipple there, originally erect, was no longer visible.

She lifted her eyes up to Professor Walsh's eyes. "What gave me away?"

The other smiled slightly. "I'd like your help in my project. I'm trying to measure comparative parameters between your personality, as demonstrated on a standardized test, and your physical abilities, as demonstrated in a decathlon."

"Maybe. Where are you a professor? What are you really studying?"

"I'm a professor of psychology at UCS. That's in California."

"And what is the S? Sacramento?"

"Sunnydale. It's a small town, north of LA."

As in the home of the Slayer and the Hell Mouth!

"Professor, I'm going to give you a piece of advice. I'm going back to my cabin in a few minutes. If you're still here in the morning, I'll call my father, Peter Stuyvesant, the billionaire. If I do that, tomorrow evening you will be on your way to New Guinea to give those tests to head hunter maidens up in the mountains.

"Get snippy, threaten me or any of that ... why, there are a few other people I'll call instead."

"You have valuable information, young woman. Information vital to the national security!"

"Professor, I know this is kind of a blind spot with you and yours, but have you ever thought of coming at this in a straightforward fashion, explaining it to my parents, then me, then asking your questions?"

"It's highly classified."

"Leave, lady. Don't you people read your own files? Larkin? Dik-dik?"

"I can't emphasize how critical this is to the national security. You in particular."

"I'm not a butterfly you can take apart," Kennedy told her.

"Nothing like that," the professor retorted angrily. But Kennedy saw the other woman avert her eyes from Kennedy as she spoke.

"What did you do to Lauren?"

"Nothing."

"Come along."

They went into the outer office. "Lauren, Professor Walsh has messed with you," Kennedy told the camp director, not sure what to say.

Lauren looked at Kennedy for a second, then shook her head. "I can't sense anything. But I can't remember anything, either." She turned and went into the outer office, talking to one of the girls that she'd lined up for 'assistants.' "Gretchen, run up the hill and fetch Steffie, please. Tell her to hurry. You too."

It was a lot shorter wait than Kennedy expected. Steffie came in and looked at Professor Walsh. Steffie waved her hand at the professor and nothing happened. "Let my aunt go," Steffie said bluntly. "I was pissed earlier. It took me a bit to wonder why someone as patently false as you could have fooled my aunt. I was a little slow, but I'm not stupid. Let her go."

"I've done nothing to her."

Steffie's eyes met Kennedy's and Kennedy simply picked the professor up around her middle, twirled her like a stick, and poked her in a waist-high metal wastebasket in Lauren's office. Head-first.

Steffie went to Lauren and looked at her, then lightly ran her fingers over Lauren's face.

Lauren suddenly blinked and twisted away, her face turning into a snarl of anger. "Let her up," she waved at the professor.

Kennedy set the professor upright and pulled the wastebasket off her head.

"Leave," Lauren told the woman. "I'll call you a cab that'll take you to the Watertown airport. The trip will be on me, woman. When you get to Watertown, fly far, far away. If I hear of you talking to one more member of my staff, I'll bring charges with credible witnesses about you groping some of the girls. Talk to even one of my campers and I'll send a wreath to your funeral."

"You can't threaten me."

Lauren turned to Steffie. "A glamour. She is to be ninety, toothless, dugs that sag to her knees, her hair going and ugly, with warts. Large warts. It should last a full lunar month from this instant. But only she can see it, when she looks in a mirror."

Steffie said a half dozen words, then more in a rhyming, lyrical chant. When she finished Steffie grinned. "Fetch a mirror, someone."

Kennedy had no idea what Professor Walsh saw in the mirror, but the woman turned pale.

"Pack your things; be quick. When the cab gets here, I'll put you on it myself, ready or not," Lauren commanded.

"You'll regret this!"

"I already do, Professor. I might also add that the next person who tries to hypnotize me is going to lose portions of their anatomy."

The professor was gone before the mixer started. Kennedy joined the girls at the cabin. "That took a while," Amy told her.

"The woman was nutzo. I mean a real perv. She likes boys."

Half the girls in the cabin roared with laughter, the other half looked clueless.

Kennedy smiled at all of them. "It's not good, getting sent home. As bad as it is for you to go, consider what it means to be an adult sent packing. It's not something you'll talk about; it's certainly not something you'll joke about."

"You did," Rosalie said reasonably.

"And I was wrong. But hey, it got you all listening. Since you were all listening, there won't be a need for everyone to speak about it again, right?"

On the way down to the mixer, Deb tugged on Kennedy's sleeve. "What happened? Really?"

"You didn't like her, right? You saw something?"

"She's not going to remain human. I don't know what she was at the end; a zombie, I think. But she's not a nice person now. Who needs that?"

"Well, she put a whammie on Lauren. Steffie fixed that. Steffie also rearranged the woman's face in a mirror." Kennedy explained that and Deb grinned.

"I was sorely disappointed when they assigned me to this cabin," Deb told Kennedy.

"Why?"

"Counselors can spend off time with each other -- if they're not cabin mates. Lauren doesn't like it if they are. It's hard to cover that up from the other girls."

Kennedy understood then. "Well, last year was nice. I have no problem waiting until two weeks from tonight, when we have our last mixer."

Deb grinned. "Funny about that ... neither do I."

The first mixer went relatively well. Kennedy danced with Rosalie who rolled her eyes and simply said "No" after that. Clarice only danced a few times -- fast dances at a far remove from her partner. The person Kennedy was really worried about was Amy.

She was listless and barely interested in anything. Afterwards, Kennedy dragged Amy out on the porch, not bothering to "get lost" on the way to the cabin. "Talk to me, Amy," Kennedy told her.

"About what? Someone I loved died. Part of me died, too."

"Just part, Amy. Not all, not even most. Do you think your friend, Monique you said her name was, would like it if you spent the rest of your life being depressed?"

"No, I don't think she'd have wanted that. But I think she would have wanted me to mourn for a little longer than a couple of weeks."

"It used to be for a year and a day," Kennedy agreed. "We've gotten a lot more casual about it, these days. Some where there has to be a happy medium."

"Whatever."

"You know Lauren's going to ask me about how you're doing. I'd really like to tell her you can cope well enough to talk to your friends. You are going to run tomorrow, right?"

"I gave that up."

"Amy! You lost a friend -- not an arm or leg. Not an eye or ear."

"You lost a friend."

"Amy, a minute after she died, I killed the guy who did it. For me, it was as simple as one-two-three."

She reared back. "You killed someone?"

"Amy, this is something you're not better off hearing."

"Is it about the stuff last year, when the guy came for Deb?"

"Amy, he came for me and got Deb instead. He's dead, too."

"You killed him?"

"No, he was in prison and the other inmates found out he was a former FBI agent. A dozen men jumped him and killed him in the prison yard."

"I'm not sure I want to understand."

"I wasn't kidding earlier about Professor Walsh -- although I might have been, because I don't know if she likes boys or girls. But the fact is, right now she's on her way to Watertown."

"Why?"

"She was lying; she tried to hypnotize Steffie, Cindy and Deb. Me, too. It didn't work on us, but it did work on Lauren, though. Lauren was -- upset."

"Lauren is weird."

"Lauren is Roma. The Roma are weird."

"Roma?"

"You bet. A gypsy."

"I've been here for four years. How come you know so much?"

"To a degree, they share my world and I share theirs. Trust me, Amy, this isn't something you want to know."

"So, why are we talking about it?"

"I'm hoping you'll understand that while you have problems, real problems, your friend is dead. Lauren needs help, Amy. I need help." Kennedy waved at the cabin. "I have a very special camper in there. There's another very special camper in Charlotte's cabin. I'm responsible for both of them, and while neither one is really malicious, they are teenage girls. You know, like us."

"I'll be twenty in another few months."

"Bummer!" Kennedy said. It was instinctive, but again Amy smiled.

"Yeah, growing up sneaks up on you. One day you have a birthday and your age no longer ends in '-teen.'"

"Like I said."

"Don't be nice to me, Kennedy, just to be nice."

"Amy, I swear to you, I never would. Last year we were friends. I thought you had cute breasts. I think you spent a little time staring at me, too. And you know what? We worked together, we had a good time and that was it. Why not this year, too?"

"Do you really mean it? No ulterior motives?"

"No ulterior motives. There's this girl I was looking at ... oh my!"

"Another cabin?"

"Yeah, another cabin."

"That makes it pretty hard."

"Ruby and I did okay."

"Yeah, you guys did. Then, I heard, you broke up."

"I lied to her. It wasn't good. I don't really blame her, even if I tried to explain."

"I can't imagine you lying to someone. Why?"

"Like I said, there are things you're better off not knowing."

"Name one?"

"Your breasts are even cuter this year than last year."

Amy guffawed. "I guess I deserved that, didn't I?"

"Yep! Amy, Ruby died because she was my friend. You lost your friend. The night Ruby died, four policemen died, five security guards and another woman. Ferinc. Do you remember Ferinc?"

"The guy with the sword, Inigo Montoya?"

"Yeah, that's him. He had a broken leg. Another woman had a broken shoulder. Eleven to your one, Amy. All because someone wanted me, in particular, dead."

"And they could come here?"

Kennedy shook her head. "I don't think so. Not in quite such a spectacular fashion. New Year's Eve was personal."

"And you have -- impersonal -- enemies?"

"Amy, we're getting into the realm of dangerous. As impersonal as you can get. Harriet was there. Her mother fainted. Now, Harriet and I aren't supposed to talk. That girl in Charlotte's cabin? Her brother and her aunt died that night. She blames me."

"Why?"

"Amy ... please ... I was stupid to bring it up."

"But you did."

Kennedy sighed. "I was thinking if I told you how much worse it was for me, you'd feel better. I think I've learned my lesson. When someone's life is bad, you can't make them feel better about it by telling them someone else had a worse time."

"That's true."

"So, forget me."

"Like I could. Try turning ugly!"

Kennedy giggled, remembering Professor Walsh.

"What's funny."

"Magic."

"Magic? I saw a girl in the dorm lift a pencil without touching it. I'm not sure how she did the trick."

"Magic, probably. It's real, Amy."

"I don't suppose there's a magic potion that makes heartache go away?"

"Only at the expense of remembering why you had the heartache in the first place."

"That's too high a price."

"Yeah."

"Kennedy?" Kennedy turned to look at Amy.

With warning, Amy's arms went around Kennedy, her lips came down on Kennedy's and she kissed Kennedy really hard.

After a minute, Amy let go and stepped back. "It felt like I was hugging an iron rod there, for the first couple of seconds," Amy mused.

"You caught me off guard," Kennedy told her honestly. "That was pretty much the last thing I was expecting. It's called 'being uptight.'"

"I'll say. Kennedy, your breasts are not only larger than last year, but cuter than ever."

She turned and walked into the cabin. Kennedy watched her go into the third bedroom and close the door behind her.

Rosalie came out. "No one got lost. Why do I think that's significant?"

"Some people are being more romantic than those of us with a good sense of direction."

"And that kiss wasn't romantic?"

"I don't think so. I think it was a statement of frustration."

"If I got kissed like that, and the person walked away, I'm pretty sure I'd be frustrated too."

"Rosalie, one thing you need to learn. It's a big world. You can't right all of the wrongs, you can't lift up every fallen fledgling, save all the lost kittens and puppies. The more you poke and pry, the more about such things you learn, the more frustrated you will become, because you won't always be able to help."

"You're saying you've tried."

"I am trying."

"Oh. And you want me to butt out."

"Gossip at Camp Wanakena is a cardinal sin. I've seen what happens to girls who get skunked."

"Skunked?"

"There's a cabin for girls who gossip, who make themselves into a pain for someone else. It's called the skunk cabin. They stink, you see."

"That's cruel."

"Of course. Gossip is cruel."

Rosalie's mouth formed an "O."

"Oops!"

"Yep. Consider yourself on notice. No gossip."

"As if! Not to anyone?"

"Not unless it affects someone in a dangerous way."

"And no magic?"

"None. Please, Rosalie, don't ask me to rescind that."

"I wasn't doing that either. I was just ... lamenting."

"Do it more quietly."

"You're so weird. If I'd spent a million years imagining what you were like, I'd never have come up with you."

"Good! But then, that's the way it is with people. They're hard to predict, and put us in a new situation and you have no idea what's going to happen."

"You let me pick whatever I wanted to do."

"Did you want any help?"

"No, of course not."

"Then, so what?"

"I figured you'd want to tell me what I could or couldn't do."

"I know the list. There's nothing on it you can't do. Thus, I have no concerns there. There are any number of other things you might do over and above those, and those I may or may not care about."

"You're really pragmatic."

"That's me," Kennedy agreed. "Concerned about results."

Deb appeared at the door. "Lights out, ladies."

They dutifully followed her inside.

Kennedy was mildly amused. As near as she could tell, only one girl masturbated in her bunk, and the people at the table actually were reading and not making out.

She gave Deb a hug and curled up in bed. As an exercise in self control, she only dreamed about pleasuring herself.



-------

Chapter 21: Duel Mundane


The next morning seemed to dawn unusually early, and it was only because Kennedy hadn't done anything strenuous that she was awake when Amy knocked on the door to their room.

The two of them joined a half dozen others, including Cindy. Kennedy laughed at Cindy's backpack. "Is it still full of rocks?"

"Five more pounds than last year." Several of the girls hefted Cindy's pack and shook their heads in wonder.

It was a good workout and Kennedy and Amy were back in the cabin before any of the other girls were stirring. They took their showers, both facing each other.

Kennedy had just finished dressing when a young girl, probably closer to twelve than thirteen, knocked lightly on the room door. Deb was off in the shower, so Kennedy went to see what she wanted.

"Could we talk?"

"Sure. I know I'm supposed to be a counselor and all, but I have a lot of trouble with names," Kennedy told her. "I've forgotten yours. If you tell me now, though, I swear I'll never, ever forget."

"Marcie."

"Okay, Marcie, can we talk here or would you like to go outside?"

"Outside."

They went through the cabin and stood on the porch. The girl was about five feet tall, red-haired and lightly freckled, a very slender build. She had clear blue eyes that wandered, looking nervously on the world.

"How can I help you?"

"Two things. Is it true about the sex?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"I was talking to an older girl last night. She wanted me to 'get lost' with her. She was pretty clear what we'd do once we got lost. She said it's not just masturbation girls do here. Sometimes it's more than just making out."

"Marcie, at Camp Wanakena we're big on personal privacy. What two people do on their own time that doesn't hurt anyone else is their business. As a general statement, yes, it's true. Some girls have sex here. That is, really, the purpose of the third bedroom."

"I didn't think it was really for sleepovers."

"Oh," Kennedy said with a small grin, "you do need to sleep or you're totally wasted the next day. Except the last night of camp, when you're going to ride the bus for hours and hours on the way back home. My, oh my, is it ever quiet on the bus going back!"

Kennedy was curious at that, because Marcie didn't blush.

"How do you know who to do it with?" Marcie asked.

Kennedy shrugged. "That's always the million dollar question, Marcie. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you hearts aren't broken here. It happens. On the other hand, Amy met her friend here at Camp Wanakena, and her death a few weeks ago really tore her up. Short or long ... I mean, we make the best judgments we can. And it's true: you won't die of a broken heart, even if it feels like you will."

"How do you ask?"

"Like anything, it's different strokes for different folks. Sometimes two people just look at each other and know what's going to happen. Sometimes it takes some romancing. Seduction, if you will. Short or quick ... but it all depends on the people involved. At camp, though, timelines are rather compressed by the short time frame."

Kennedy waved at the cabin. "Last year was my first time. The first girl just asked me. It took about two hours of dancing before there was nothing I wanted to do more."

Marcie nodded. "The other thing. It's terrible."

"What's terrible?"

"That girl, Rosalie."

"What about Rosalie?"

"I don't look it, but I'm Roma, too. My father owes the king a lot of money. They made me come here. I'm supposed to watch Rosalie and tell them what she does, who her friends are, particularly if they are Roma."

Kennedy sighed. "And how come you know to talk to me?" she asked quietly.

"There's someone here -- I can't tell you her name, who's Roma. I asked her what I should do. She told me that you were the best person to talk to. That you're not Roma, but you're someone any Roma can trust. I wasn't sure what she meant."

"Well, lets just say we have a lot of the same enemies. What did you think of Mr. Waterman last night?"

"The boat guy? What about him?"

Kennedy nodded. "I was curious, is all."

"He's not Roma, I'm pretty sure."

"Well, when you get a chance, talk to the girl you know. Have her explain to you about Mr. Waterman."

"He's really Roma?"

"No."

"What should I do about Rosalie?"

"Why, tell the truth of course!" Kennedy told the young girl with a laugh. "But we all know that no camper is ever going to be friends with a counselor. And of course, I wouldn't mention our more intimate activities. Don't lie. Just leave things out."

"And if the king asks if there's more?"

"Why, tell him the truth again. That there are twenty-four hours in a day and you weren't in a position to see Rosalie all the time."

Marcie looked at Kennedy. "Just like that? Lie, but tell the truth?"

"Yep! It works for me!"

"Cool!"

"If I were to find another friend of Rosalie's here, could I mention that someone has been set to watch her? I won't say who," Kennedy asked.

"It can't get back to the king! He'll kill my father. He owes the king a lot of money!"

"Do you have a mother?"

Marcie shook her head.

"Any other brothers or sisters?"

"No, it's just the two of us."

"Well, for the time being, just relax and have a good time at camp."

"Okay, thanks, Kennedy."

"No problem!"

Kennedy smiled at her, "Now, you better get a shower. Do you have to dress out for PE at school?"

"No."

"Well, if any of the girls get catty in the shower, let either Deb, Amy or me know. I didn't have a problem last year because I was taller and stronger than everyone else. Still, it was the first time I showered with other girls. I heard enough to know that sometimes they can be cruel, just by accident. When it's not an accident, it can be pretty bad."

"Because I don't have very big breasts?"

"And you're short and red-headed."

Marcie nodded. She turned to the door, took a couple of steps, then turned and grinned at Kennedy. "I really like you!"

She was gone an instant later, leaving Kennedy mildly amused.

Sure enough, Marcie sat next to Kennedy at breakfast, and when Kennedy and Deb showed up for sculls, Marcie was there too.

Mr. Waterman felt Marcie's arm, just like he did Deb's. Deb got a positive comment, "You practice more this year."

"I would at least like to think I can compete strongly enough to at least reach that damn rock, before the two of you are back at the dock."

Mr. Waterman smiled at Kennedy, who flexed her muscles for him. He ran his fingers over them and laughed. "Much, much practice!"

"Not with sculls."

"It is too bad. You could do Olympics, easy."

Kennedy filed that away.

Mr. Waterman turned to Marcie. "Small girl. Big heart, I think. Arm." He pointed to Marcie's arm.

Marcie lifted hers like she'd seen Deb and Kennedy do. But close up, she got her first good look at Mr. Waterman.

"Eek!" It was more a squeak that a scream, but instantly Marcie turned and started running. "He's not human!"

Kennedy snagged her around the middle and brought her back. "Relax, Marcie, he's just a water demon. A friendly sort. An ally of the Roma."

Marcie cast a wary glance at Deb, not at Mr. Waterman.

Kennedy dragged Marcie a dozen yards away. "They didn't tell you anything about anyone?"

"No, nothing. Just about Rosalie; I looked at her picture. She's supposed to marry the king. I can't believe that; she's almost my age! There's another girl here I know, her mother was a friend of my mother, and she's sort of looked after me since my mother died."

"Other than that, nothing?"

"No."

Kennedy saw past her, and saw Mr. Waterman drag Deb to the edge of the pier and all but throw her in the lake. "Row!" the command was a dull roar.

It was an instantaneous flashback, him picking up Deb and throwing her into the water. In that vision, Kennedy could see that Deb had been crying.

Kennedy swallowed, remembering Deb's "gift." Since she'd had one vision about Kennedy, it almost certainly had been a vision about Marcie. And the tears almost certainly indicated the nature of what she'd seen. Kennedy lifted her chin. She was batting .500 busting Deb's visions. Well, maybe .250. But she'd done it! What Deb saw wasn't entirely foreordained!

She walked over and tossed Mr. Waterman into the lake, then turned to Marcie. "Now, you toss me in. It's our get-acquainted ritual."

Marcie looked at Kennedy, the better part of a foot taller than she was. "Try," Kennedy suggested. Marcie gave a little push and Kennedy bounced up, out over the water. She had planned on a double spin, then a neat dive into the water. She'd finished the second rotation, and saw the other two standing waist-deep in the water as she started down.

Oops! She tucked into a ball and cannoned-balled into the water. When she came up, she saw that Marcie had been drenched. Good enough!

"What?" Marcie asked. "The old guys get dumped in the lake and the newbies get the lake dumped on them?"

"Something like that."

Mr. Waterman helped Marcie get into her scull, while Kennedy and Deb rowed a couple of hundred yards, keeping it easy. When they made the turn, Kennedy made a tight corner and slid in next to Deb.

"I'm not stupid," Kennedy told her. "I don't want to know, okay?"

"No, it's not okay. You have no idea how much I wish I could shut this off."

"Too much information, Deb! Surely you don't tell everyone everything you see."

"No, of course not. Never, actually. You, pretty much, are the only one. I told you what would happen if they ever found out."

"Well, watch yourself around Marcie. She's here to spy for the king."

"Oh, shit! She's a little kid!"

"And the king is a grown adult. Rosalie -- you know her?"

Deb shook her head.

"She's Roma as well. Her father has betrothed her to the king. The king is planning on using her to even a lot of scores. Her father is planning on bumping off the king, then his daughter, so he can be king in turn."

"And she's what?"

"Supposedly the strongest witch in a century."

"Oh, wonderful. Steffie's not bad."

"No, she's not. Could you see the word gets to Lauren?"

"Sure."

They returned to the dock and Marcie was making good progress. In a bit the four of them rowed in a row across, setting their pace to Marcie's. Then Mr. Waterman showed Marcie how to turn.

At least she didn't need the training wheels! Kennedy laughed at herself, trying to dispel her worries.

Then Mr. Waterman asked Deb to work with Marcie, while he and Kennedy went out on the lake for endurance training. "Kennedy not go faster than Waterman, okay?"

"Sure, no problem. I'll pace you," Kennedy told the demon.

"Good!"

They rowed a mile out into the lake. He watched her carefully, and when they turned to return he smiled. "Bought many more aspirin for Kennedy."

"We go this slow and there will be no need."

Of course slow was relative. The pace he'd set had been quite brisk.

"Other girl, she is Roma?"

"Yeah. Good things come in all sorts of packages. Do you get involved in Roma politics?"

He shook his head. "I do -- I die. That simple."

"Well, just be gentle with Marcie and be glad that you'll probably not be involved -- but she's a spy for the king."

Mr. Waterman looked at Kennedy. "My home, we drown spies."

"Well, she doesn't want to be a spy. It's that or they kill her father."

"Why tell me?"

"I understand you and Ferinc have made up. Is that widely known or private?"

He laughed. "Private. Ferinc too political. He not like king."

"Ferinc not like king even more now. The king wants to marry Ferinc's granddaughter; she is a strong witch."

"Ah! Ferinc's son-in-law is ... big fat idiot."

"Well, I just want you to know that there is a lot of politics here."

"Spies, potential queens. Yes."

"Not to mention there was a government spy. I sent her home last night."

"Waterman think he go California. Surf good in California."

"The spy went to California. I might need the help of a good man in the water. Thanks for what you did for Deb, by the way."

He looked at her, then shrugged. "Not many girls like others see her cry."

"Especially someone who'd figure out in a split second why she was crying."

"Too much politics," Mr. Waterman said sadly.

Kennedy just nodded.

He waved to his right, behind them. "Oh, look! More rowers!"

She turned to look and saw no one. When she turned back Mr. Waterman was ten yards away and accelerating. She dug in and passed him handily half way to the dock.

Still, he was right about the aspirin. When it came time for the next activity, Marcie was to go to tennis, while Deb and Kennedy had a free period. Marcie tugged on Kennedy's hand and Kennedy followed her a few feet away.

"Could I kiss you goodbye?" Marcie asked shyly.

"No," Kennedy said as tenderly as she could. "During the day, there could be guests, official visitors. So we are all good campers thinking good, healthy outdoorsy thoughts. Tonight there will be a campfire. I think you'll like that."

Marcie nodded, then smiled and scampered off towards the tennis courts. Kennedy rejoined Deb just as a young girl, one of those who assisted Lauren, appeared. "Lauren wants to see you two," she told them. She too ran ahead, as soon as the message was delivered.

"I've never understood how it is that Lauren can have so many willing assistants," Deb said as they took a more leisurely walk up the hill.

"The power of love," Kennedy said lightly.

"I guess. You and Marcie?"

"I guess. I explained a little this morning to her. Tonight, more. Then, maybe. She is cute."

"And a spy for the king."

"Who sought me out the first thing to tell me. I might add, she's smart. I think she wants to fail."

They arrived at Lauren's office and she looked at Deb. "How is Amy?"

"Kennedy talked to her last night. This morning she was much more relaxed. I think she's going to be fine."

"Anything else?"

"No, it looks like a nice bunch of girls."

"Good! That's particularly good news about Amy. That's all, unless you have something else?"

"Nope, I'm fine."

Deb left and Lauren waved at Kennedy to close the door.

"And how is it for you?"

"Well, let's see. One government spy sent packing."

"I owe you big time for that," Lauren said seriously. "We'll get back to that shortly."

"Well, then there's the king's intended bride."

"Ferinc is enraged. The only way that marriage is consummated is if he's dead."

"Yeah, I sort of figured. Then there's the spy the king sent to spy on Rosalie."

Lauren turned pale. "Another spy?"

"Yes. Marcie-I-don't-know-her-last-name."

"Rondo. Damn! She doesn't even look like Roma!"

"Well, she is. According to her, her father owes the king a great deal of money, and she either does this or the king does more than break her father's kneecaps."

"She's twelve!"

"Yeah. And has a crush on me."

There was a flash of a grin on Lauren's face. "Kennedy, you're a natural champion. Some people sense it; some people figure it out. It's who you are."

"Well, technically not yet. You understand if the day comes and I'm here, I'll be banging on your door a minute later and down the road a second after that?"

"I understand. Ferinc and I worked out a contingency plan as well."

"Well, as Mr. Waterman might say, 'this is a fine kettle of fish.'" Kennedy concluded.

Lauren reached out and pulled Kennedy close. "Just so you know, Kennedy, that I think you are a quite remarkable young lady for any number of reasons. One of those is my certainty that you're working towards a solution."

"Exactly. To be honest, what with one thing and another, I'm morally certain that when Marcie goes and reports back to the king, she and her father will vanish forever, as soon as he's sure she's done talking. I imagine, given that, the king might be fairly thorough in asking his questions."

Lauren nodded, her eyes hooded.

"I'd like to send an email later, if you have an internet hookup."

"Yes. It's not a great connection, but if it's short it won't be a problem. I'd appreciate it if you don't spread the word around that we have the ability to send and receive email."

"No problem. I'll give you more information on it as things progress. I'm aware I don't know who all on the staff are Roma. You, Deb, and Steffie are the only ones I know. I don't want to know more, but I'd appreciate it if you kept what I've said here from as many of them as you can."

"Of course." She smiled at Kennedy. "And how are you doing? Any issues besides the ones we've just talked about?"

"No, none."

"I understand you spent last night celibate."

"Yes. A one day flagellation. It's not my intention to repeat it."

She laughed. "There's an old saying. 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.' You seem to have mastered that."

"I don't think she's an enemy; I think she's a helpless twig caught up in a raging river."

"Well, just be careful. And you're right -- I don't trust all of the Roma here."

She reached out and stroked Kennedy's face. "We have a few minutes. Would you like to spend them with me?"

Kennedy met her eyes. "I don't honestly know. My hormones say yes, my body says yes, my heart says yes and my head says you're as old as my mother."

"I've never forced anyone, ever," Lauren told her. "Some girls like the attentions of a mature woman; others don't. I have to say, most of those who don't are the ones like you -- confident, self-assured and secure in their persons."

She grinned. "Although I was hoping you were too horny to care right now."

"I'm teetering on the edge."

Lauren promptly applied some pressure to Kennedy's breasts, then between her legs. Then she knelt in front of Kennedy, pulled down her jeans and did something Kennedy had never heard of or imagined: went up on her. Instead of leaning down to kiss between her legs, Lauren leaned up.

They didn't have much time, but Lauren made the most of it. When Kennedy left, she had a new bounce in her step, and she was whistling an interesting piece of music -- and she'd sent an email to her father.

At lunch, Marcie sat next to her again, and Kennedy played footsie with her under the table. It was complicated, because two other girls were also trying to do the same thing, but they were sitting across from each other.

After lunch Kennedy was now one of Steffie's assistants, as was Cindy again. There were no laggards this time, although Marcie was part of the group, and she walked next to Kennedy the entire way.

At the landing, Steffie bade everyone rest, while she called Cindy and Kennedy off a short distance, but with a good view of the others.

"Cindy and I have been talking," Steffie told Kennedy.

"Okay," Kennedy said lightly.

"But, we also see you have a fan. Is that serious?"

Kennedy shrugged. "That depends on what you mean by serious. At least one night, maybe a couple."

"We'd like to get together with you some evening. The three of us."

Kennedy raised an eyebrow. "Me?"

"Yeah, you. I've kind of explained a few things to Cindy."

"Oh, that'll make you real popular; this might not have been the best year for it."

"Whatever. Kennedy, you have to know Roma politics go back a thousand or more years. If I put my personal life on hold for it, I'd be on hold forever."

"There's that," Kennedy agreed. "But still, I thought it wasn't something Lauren liked, having both counselors in the same cabin a couple. And I didn't think she liked threesomes."

"Heh! If you hint you might possibly be open to the idea, she'll have you in one in a New York minute with one of her girls. So long as we're discreet, no one cares."

"What about it?" Cindy asked. "I kinda admit to having a wet dream or two about you wrapping your legs around me. I was watching you and Mr. Waterman this morning. God! It would be so sexy!"

"How about a tentative yes?" Kennedy said, intrigued in spite of herself. After all, she'd let a woman her mother's age go down -- or up -- on her not that long before. "I need to be sure about Marcie."

"Marcie's sweet," Steffie told Kennedy. "She doesn't deserve any of the shit those bastards are dishing out."

"So, let me learn more, okay?"

"No problem."

"We need to get going," Cindy said pragmatically.

Kennedy nodded. Cindy leaned close. "And if your friend develops a limp, like with Ruby, you could stay behind with her."

She spoke the words rapidly, barely loud enough to hear. Kennedy grinned at her.

They'd walked a hundred yards or so, when Kennedy leaned close to Marcie's ear. "Count to twenty, then tell Steffie you have a rock in your boot."

Marcie looked at her, shrugged and nodded.

Sure enough she said it and sure enough, Steffie told Kennedy to wait with her to make sure she was okay. In a few seconds the others were out of sight.

"There's nothing wrong with my boot," Marcie said.

"Marcie, the girls here at camp have been doing this for years. There are all kinds of excuses they use to get some time alone with someone." Kennedy leaned close and kissed Marcie.

Marcie was at least as shy and inexperienced as Kennedy had been a year before. Kennedy wasn't sure why that was erotic, but it was. She kissed harder and Marcie did her best to kiss back.

Kennedy didn't let it go too long, before she pulled back, and started walking hand and hand with Marcie. "I have a question for you," Kennedy asked her. "Do you know what I mean when I say butterfly, Carnival girl, nester?"

"No."

"A Carnival girl is someone who makes love to a partner as if there is no tomorrow. And, most commonly, there isn't a tomorrow, because she finds someone new the next day -- or even that same day. A butterfly is similar, but she stays around for a couple of days, then moves on. There is another kind, and I've never heard a name for it, but she and another girl hook up for camp, and then kiss goodbye and never see each other again. A nester is one who mates permanently. Amy is like that, or at least she was. Last year, she kept to herself, because her girlfriend couldn't come to camp."

"Oh. What kind of girl are you?"

"Mostly a Carnival girl. Although I did try to nest last year. To be honest, Marcie, I'm more interested in my partner's happiness ... although being my girlfriend for more than a few days can be hazardous to your health."

"I don't know what I am. It's hard to imagine -- doing that -- and then just walking away."

"Speaking from experience, the first time I went with someone else I felt like I was betraying a couple of people I'd promised. But they understood, because they had the same urges I did.

"Let me phrase this like I did with my best friend. If you tell me tomorrow that you want to be with someone else, I won't mind, even a little bit. If you don't want to leave, though, you don't have to. It's your choice."

"Shouldn't you have a choice?"

"My choice is to avoid breaking hearts as much as possible."

Marcie nodded, then waved ahead. "We should hurry and catch up."

"Sure, if you can run."

Marcie could run pretty good.

The day sped past with gratifying swiftness, until finally they were at the campfire singing songs and roasting marshmallows. Marcie was significantly better at it than Kennedy, who still had a tendency to burn her own fingers.

Kennedy glanced at Clarice, who was locked in intense conversation with a half dozen of the older girls. It wasn't lost on Kennedy that there were an odd number of girls in the group.

As for herself, it was, Kennedy thought, the height of irony. Last year, she'd sat in front of Deb at the campfire, and enjoyed being titillated and teased. Now she was sitting behind Marcie, doing the titillation.

In fact, Kennedy found herself getting impatient, because Marcie had the softest skin on her nipples that Kennedy had ever touched, and she couldn't get enough of it. Kennedy's biggest regret was that Marcie seemed shy, so she couldn't let her fingers dwell as long as she might have wished -- and Marcie wasn't camper of the day.

She wasn't at all sure how Marcie would feel about doing more than kissing at the table on the second night at camp.

Amy solved the problem neatly, though, on the way up the hill to the cabins after the campfire. "Use my room, tonight," she whispered to Kennedy.

"Okay," she told Amy. Kennedy turned to Marcie. "You go up and get the bed warm. I need to talk to Charlotte."

Kennedy made a beeline to Charlotte's cabin. The same group of girls were sitting at the table, still in intent conversation. Charlotte was talking to her junior counselor, a girl named Erica Redmond. Kennedy could see a girl sitting on Erica's room, on the bed, brushing her hair.

"Charlotte, do you have a minute?"

"Sure, Kennedy."

Clarice glared at her, but Kennedy ignored her.

"What's the gang of seven up to?" Kennedy asked.

"I don't know. I have to admit, I'm surprised; usually the grapevine would spread the word pretty quick. I expect it's pretty harmless, though."

"Probably. Would you mind if I just out-and-out asked Clarice?"

"Do you think that's the best course?"

"Probably not. On the other hand, if I was up to something, I'd respond really bad to people sneaking around poking and prying into what it was I was up to. I'd appreciate someone who came right out and asked -- even if I was going to be lying my head off."

"Is it true, that you got that professor sent home yesterday? She gave me the creeps."

"She gave everyone the creeps. She was Agent Larkin's replacement."

She blinked. "Oh! That 'I want to talk to all the girls alone!'"

Kennedy nodded. "Yep, that's it."

"Why didn't Lauren figure that out?"

"Hypnotism," Kennedy said. "The professor picked really bad last night because Deb, Steffie, Cindy and I don't hypnotize. She upset the first three and got me mad."

"Bummer!" Charlotte touched Kennedy's arm. "Harriet is coming over tomorrow night."

Kennedy smiled. "It's good when two butterflies get it on."

"I didn't want you upset."

"You won't. I mean, I spent some time with Lauren this morning."

Charlotte laughed. "So there is hope for me after all?"

"Evidently. Now, I'm going to talk to Clarice."

Kennedy simply went to Clarice and asked her to come outside. To her surprise, Clarice simply nodded and followed her out. "How is everything, Clarice?"

"Fine -- why would you think otherwise? I'm making friends."

"But they're not the sort of friends you usually make, or vice versa."

"And gays can't have straight friends? Straights can't have gay friends?"

"That's fine. What are you planning?"

She laughed. "Teasing. I hate people who look at me like some of these people do."

"You said that and I understand."

"Well, there's the talent thing Friday."

"That's true."

"Well, we're going to do a fashion show. Nightwear, if you get my drift. And I'm going to come out last in a sheer teddie that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and I'm going to have every tongue in the room hanging out. Then we're going to take a bow, and the others are going to thank me, their straight friend, who had such a great idea. They think it's a great hoot."

She stared at Kennedy. "So, babysitter, are you going to tell on me?"

"For what? Being an attractive girl? Duh! I think everyone notices. Dwight was handsome, too. Brains were lacking, but no one's perfect.

"Just one thing, Clarice."

"What?"

"You can strip down to the buff and prance around all you want, if you can think of a valid reason to do it. But you whisper one sweet nothing word of encouragement to some one you aren't serious about -- I'll call Pipes to come and get you."

"I'm not like the rest of you," Clarice said patiently.

"And I've only read about bullies and teases -- no one has ever tried it on me," Kennedy replied. "But I do know that it can be seductive just by itself. Don't. A tease broadcast to everyone, that's fine. Don't try to yank someone in particular's chain."

Clarice studied her. "You're kind of anal about that, aren't you."

"I don't like bullies, okay? Never have, never will."

"Let's see, you've read about it, but never experienced it. That makes you an expert?"

"Dwight, Clarice, was an education, just being in the same room with him, as I suspect you well know."

That shut her up -- for about thirty seconds.

"Look, tell me to my face that it's okay for all these women to be looking at me and drooling with anticipation that I'm going to hop into bed with them and fuck? That it's somehow worse to tease them?"

"It's not okay, Clarice; you're right. It's trite, but also true -- two wrongs make it worse, not right."

"I don't like people telling me what to do."

"Explain that to the old man."

"Oh, like you listen, eh?"

Kennedy laughed. "I'm still alive. A couple of times, I think it was pretty close. I'm useful; I play a decent game of poker. The fork he uses to eat with is useful, but you know what? It gets tossed out the instant he's done with it. I've learned a lot from him, but it's not the sort of lessons you want to take up casually."

"Well, I won't whisper sweet nothings in anyone's ear -- not unless I mean them. Is that okay with you?"

"That's fine."

Kennedy whirled and headed back to her cabin.

She was halfway there, when Kennedy saw someone move from one shadow to the next, intent on concealment. He was dressed in black, his face was blackened but there was no doubt in Kennedy's mind as to his gender. She continued along, as if she hadn't seen anything.

It was just a few minutes before lights out, and Marcie was on the porch, waiting for her. Kennedy went up the three steps and gave her a quick hug. While she was holding Marcie, she whispered in her ear. "Run like the wind to the office. Tell whoever you find there, 'air horn.' Don't ask questions, just when I let you go, you run, understand?"

"Sure, Kennedy."

Kennedy let her go, then waved back towards the office as if asking Marcie to run an errand. Marcie went down the steps and flew down the path.

There were four other girls on the porch, talking in a cluster. "Ladies, lights out."

There were a few minor grumbles, but they dutifully headed inside. Kennedy followed them. Amy was across the room, talking with Deb and Rosalie. "Air horn!" Kennedy called. "Leave the porch light on for me."

She turned back as Amy was hastily getting the girls into the bathroom, while Deb was dousing lights and locking the door behind Kennedy.

Kennedy planted herself in the middle of the porch, her arms folded across her chest.

Down below, an air horn sounded from the office, the emergency alert that the camp was to be locked down.

Something slapped into her shoulder and she looked at it. Oops! A dart of some sort, probably a tranquilizer dart. How stupid could she get? She'd made it simple for them!

She plucked it out, without any expectation that it would have any effect on what was going to happen next.

Sure enough, she felt a little dizzy, but she shrugged it off. She was here, damned if anyone or anything was going to get past her until she was unconscious. Of course, she thought, the problem was they wanted her. And she'd offered herself up on a silver platter.

There was no clear instant when she realized that things weren't going as she thought. She kept expecting to go down, but the longer she stood there, the better she felt. Moreover, she was aware of a faint nimbus around her. Two more darts hit her, one in the arm, one in the leg. They both bounced off.

There was a giant sigh of wind, then a stronger gust that rustled tree branches. From out in the forest someone screamed, "Oh my God! Look at that!" The sound of giant crunching footsteps and trees crashing filled the air of the camp.

At first Kennedy thought it was Steffie, for the dinosaur, but even as she thought that, she realized in her mind she could hear the Jurassic Park music. Nope! More of Rosalie's work! There were more screams, then further cries of fear and alarm.

"My weapon's jammed!" someone sobbed in frustration.

"Bug out! Bug out!" came a stentorian voice from the night. "Move it! Move..." the voice ended abruptly.

In the distance were the sound of sirens.

Kennedy essayed a small smile. No wonder vampires didn't like the Roma! They could fight back on something like even terms!

It was, of course, a zoo after that. Police arrived and spread out to search. Almost immediately, they found some badly knocked-about men, all wearing black clothing, faces blackened -- all unconscious, sporting tranquilizer darts, each and every one.

And sure enough, the first thing in the morning, Ferinc was there; Kennedy's father was there and so was Pipes. She explained what happened in about five minutes; there really wasn't much to say and she left out everything beyond dart guns.

Kennedy simply sat silently on the fringes of the adults, the only young person present. The sheriff was apologetic. "They say they are US Army Rangers, engaged in a night exercise. Evidently they landed about twenty miles off course. Evidently, in the confusion, they shot each other with tranquilizer darts."

"Standard equipment, I'm sure, for Army Rangers," Ferinc said with a straight face.

Their senior soldier was a sergeant major. He stared stonily ahead. "We were practicing a clandestine assault to capture high value targets."

Kennedy's father was rude. "If you Keystone Klowns are an example of what our taxpayer dollars are going for, then we're getting a very bad bargain."

There was a lot more back and forth, and finally, a van arrived to pick up the soldiers. Kennedy touched her father's sleeve. "Pete, I'd like to speak to the sergeant major for a moment, before they leave. You and me."

"If that's what you want."

There was a whispered conversation, then a minute later Kennedy stood next to her father, facing the grizzled soldier.

"Sergeant Major, I'm not going to speculate on whether or not this was a case of you and your men being ignorant and your superiors stupid, or a case of galloping stupidity on the part of all concerned. Larkin came at me three times, and now he's dead. Dik-dik came once, and I'm betting he wishes he never heard of me. Professor Walsh not only wishes she never heard of me, but she doesn't want to look in a mirror."

"We shot each other in the confusion," the soldier said by rote, looking straight ahead.

"Fine, wonderful. You hit me three times with your damn darts. I haven't slept a wink since. You know perfectly well what your orders were, you know what your objectives were and all of that. You don't have to say anything, you just have to listen.

"This is the sixth time the government has come for me. This time they thought they sent enough force to make it happen, but, like usual, you came up short."

He started to speak and Kennedy yelled at him. "Sergeant Major! When I want you to speak, I'll tell you! Shut up!"

He looked startled.

"Now, I was talking about stupidity and ignorance and six shots. My father is Peter Stuyvesant; he's standing right next to me. He's worth a lot of money. He's good buddies with everyone in Albany and a good many people in Washington, DC. I've had it with these intrusions in my personal life.

"I've never asked him for a personal favor, because I'm just his stepdaughter, but now I am: Pete, the next time this happens, I want someone in the government to pay a whole lot more than what's been paid up till now."

"I'm a little surprised you're willing to give them another shot."

"It's because I have a fondness for soldiers," she told him honestly. "I want to think it was ignorance that brought them here last night. I don't want them punished, unless and until the diagnosis changes to stupidity. Education cures ignorance, but stupidity is congenital. Darwin should be allowed to rule when it comes to being stupid."

"You are just so full of yourself!" the sergeant major said, spitting with anger.

"I don't think I gave him permission to talk. Did I give him permission to talk, Pete?"

"No, Kennedy," her father seemed to be willing to follow Kennedy's lead.

"Your cockamamie story fooled the cops," Kennedy said, "but you forgot I was there. Did you see any of the T-Rex's Sergeant Major?

"Did you maybe cuss a time or two about having to go up against mountains of flesh-eating muscle armed with lousy dart guns?"

His face stayed stonily blank, but there was sweat trickling down his forehead and from his neck.

"I didn't think so," Kennedy told him. "T-Rex's are movie fantasies. I'm sure no such thing will ever go in an official report. Much better to explain that you and your men stumbled around like a bunch of drunken Cub Scouts, shooting each other. High altitude parachute jumps could do that, I suppose."

The sweat turned to rivers.

"Each and every time an attempt has been made, it has failed," Kennedy told him. "And with my father as my witness, the next time, we'll take it back to you. You personally, all of your men, and then whoever is in the next bunch. Do you understand, Sergeant Major? This time you can speak."

"Fuck yourself, bitch!"

"Now who's full of himself?" Pete asked. "Tonight, Sergeant Major, was an unforced error, but the one you made just now wipes out everything my daughter has promised you. It all flies out the window. Kiss your pension goodbye. And if you say anything like that to my daughter again, it'll be your ass you can kiss goodbye."

"She's a threat to national security!"

He laughed. "She's fourteen, you moron, attending a summer camp in the mountains of upstate New York! She's surrounded by two hundred other girls! The only way she could be a threat to national security is if you and others like you have the duty. Should I be worried?"

"She's not normal!"

"Oh, and you were just a run of the mill, common, ordinary normal teenager yourself? You never smart-mouthed an adult, you never played practical jokes or pissed in the punch? Eh?"

"Last night was about a whole lot more than pissing in the punch!"

"Oh? And you are going to put that in your report? The report where you state that you were dizzy from some problem with your high altitude equipment and were seeing things. That you shot at figments of your imagination?

"Or maybe you reported that one teenage girl beat the bejesus out of a half-dozen Special Operations soldiers, leaving you sleeping it off in the woods, afterwards?"

"What's your point?" the sergeant major asked.

"Simple. No doubt you will be asked to file a report, ostensibly about what 'really' happened. If I were you, I'd think long and hard about what you want to put down in that report. 'Our HALO equipment malfunctioned' or 'A fourteen-year-old girl, one of them, took six of us down. She had help from a troop of imaginary dinosaurs.'"

Kennedy could see the awareness dawn in the man's eyes. One report would damn him in his boss's eyes. The other could very well get him killed at worst, and laughed at, at best. It really was a no-brainer, when you thought about it. Damn the bosses!

Kennedy was about to tell him he was dismissed, when her father beat her to it. "You may leave, Sergeant Major." There was no doubt he left with ill-grace.

Kennedy paid lip-service to goodbyes to Ferinc and Pipes, thanked her father slightly less perfunctorily, then headed towards the cabin at a shambling run, barely able to stay awake.

When she awoke, it was night again. Late, she thought. Deb was asleep in the bed next to her, the cabin was quiet. The problem, Kennedy realized as she stretched, was that sleeping eleven hours in the middle of the day was that she awoke in the middle of the night, wide awake.

She went in the bathroom, thinking she was going to wash her face. But she contemplated the shower and decided she really needed major work, so she stepped in and let the water rinse away the accumulated crud. Feeling marginally better, she dressed, then walked out on the porch. Technically, counselors could do this. They could, in fact, go anywhere in the camp at night they wanted.

Kennedy just wanted to smell the mountain air and let the remaining adrenaline in her system leach away. She'd been outside about twenty minutes when Rosalie moved next to her.

"Hi," Rosalie said, sounding rather timorous.

Kennedy grinned at her. "Thanks for last night."

"You're not mad?"

"Hey, I wrote the terms of the agreement, right? It's like the three laws of robotics. You did what you had to, to keep me safe. All that got hurt were a bunch of egos."

"I tried to be careful. I was afraid, though."

"Rosalie, you were too free with the magic, okay? That's bad. You can use a hammer to pry things up, to screw things up, to open a soda can ... probably even a soda bottle. All sorts of things ... but that's not what a hammer is designed for. Nails are the target."

Kennedy chuckled. "On the other hand, when you want to play Whack-a-Mole on a grand scale, hammers work just fine."

Kennedy patted Rosalie on the shoulder. "Girl, Whack-a-Mole is just fine with me when people are shooting at me."

Marcie came out and saw them talking and looked so sad. Kennedy beckoned to her. "You two should find time to talk. Marcie, you should start with why you're here. Rosalie has been learning patience; I think she can deal with it."

"I was afraid. Afraid for you; afraid for me."

"So was I," Rosalie told her.

"You?" Marcie asked, seemingly stunned. "You're a witch! Why should you be afraid? You could have turned them into mice!"

"Think about that for a second," Kennedy told Marcie. "What's wrong with that picture?"

"They wanted to hurt you. Miss Tredegar told the police that more men were here after you again. You should have turned them into mice and stepped on them."

Rosalie sighed. "Marcie, is it?" Marcie nodded. "You sound like you know something of the Roma. And me. If so, you have to know that hardly anyone likes us and absolutely no one trusts us. We lie. We lie all the time, and half of us spend our days trying to steal from everyone else, including any gullible Roma.

"So, those of us with real power are taught from the start to do nothing that would call more attention to us." She waved at the area in front of the cabin. "If I'd turned them in to mice, they would have been impossible to find. In a week, probably, they'd have been dead. They would have been gone, in any case. The statists would have gone crazy, trying to find out what happened to their people. The Roma wouldn't have liked it."

"The king sent me to spy on you and your friends," Marcie told Rosalie.

Rosalie stared at the younger girl coldly. "Wonderful."

"Rosalie, her father owes the king a lot of money. It was this or death. And in any case, you know the king better than I do. Exactly what will happen to Marcie and her father after she tells him what happened here at camp?"

Rosalie looked away.

"What do you mean?" Marcie asked.

"I mean, Marcie, you know too much. Your father will know too much. I expect they will ask questions of you in a fashion that guarantees you tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

"You say words and they sound like they make sense, but I don't understand," Marcie said, sounding forlorn.

"She means the king will torture you until he's sure he knows everything you know worth knowing, and then he'll kill the both of you," Rosalie told her.

Marcie looked at Kennedy, turned and threw up over the rail.

Kennedy went and put her arm around Marcie's shoulder.

Rosalie, from behind them, said, "I suppose I should have said it better."

Kennedy glanced at her. "Rosalie, it's not something you can pretty up."

Amy came out of the cabin. "One of the other girls ratted on you guys. Said she could hear someone out here talking."

"I'm an attractive nuisance," Kennedy said, feeling low.

"I'll say!" Amy laughed. "Look, it's late and the girls need their sleep. Right now they are all up and atwitter."

Kennedy nodded. "Are you okay, Marcie?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm scared to death, but other than that, I'm fine."

"Me, too," Kennedy told her. "Don't forget that Rosalie is looking at the same fate. Come on, let's go inside."

Inside, the girls were in their beds, but there were clearly whispered conversations going on, anyway.

Kennedy cleared her throat. "Rules are rules. It isn't that they're made to be broken, but you have to take into account why the rule exists. Last night, I thought some bad men came for me. Just me -- they probably wouldn't have hurt any of the rest of you. Probably.

"So, I saw them and sent Marcie racing down to the office to call for help. And Rosalie provided a distraction until the police could come. And I stood out there and distracted them even more.

"No one got hurt, except those men. They were arrested, but it turns out they were army soldiers, lost in the woods." Kennedy couldn't help sniggering. "Sure, they were."

She paused and got back on track. "So, yes, we went outside to talk about it, and yes, it was after lights out. The next time you find yourself scared and in need of hug, reflect on this minute and contemplate which was more important: the rule or the hugs."

"And on that note," Deb told them. "It's really lights out, ladies. No more talking."

Kennedy got hugs from both Deb and Amy. Maybe, just maybe, the hug from Amy was tighter, lasted longer, and included a kiss on the cheek.



-------

Chapter 22: Duel Arcane


Kennedy got another hour of sleep before it was time to get up, but she was awake when Amy came to wake her. They showered again, both holding each other's eyes.

"I was scared the other night," Amy told Kennedy. "Scared for you. I saw you stagger. I thought you were shot."

"It was a dart from a tranquilizer gun. It didn't work."

"I don't pretend to understand what went on, after that. I saw you standing there, so brave... but so alone. I wanted to run out and grab you and drag you back, but Deb just laughed and told me 'watch the mojo.'"

Amy shook her head. "I didn't see anything, but I heard -- weird things."

"Jurassic Park," Kennedy agreed. "Amy, I tell you true, there's an explanation for all of this and I tell you equally true you could go your entire life without knowing it and being better off for not knowing."

"Deb?"

"Deb and others," Kennedy told her.

"Rosalie and Marcie?"

"Rosalie, mostly."

"And I don't want to know about it?"

"I could lie, you know," Kennedy told her. "I tried that with Ruby, but it got her killed. I never tried it with Harriet, so... maybe that's a vote for truth. I swear to you, if you ask me, I'll tell you, but you'd be nuts to ask."

"I don't think I understand."

"Understand this. Both of us are standing here in the shower, rubbing our breasts and looking at the other. We've both been doing that for about five minutes. You have hard nipples; I have hard nipples. You really don't want a Carnival girl, Amy."

"Sometimes, Kennedy, our bodies tell us things that we don't want to hear. Like maybe there's a time to hold tight to our principles -- and other times it's carpe diem."

"Well, if we don't stop here soon, I, at least, am going to be working out with a silly-ass grin on my face."

Amy laughed, reached over and flipped the valve for Kennedy's hot water to all the way off. Kennedy jumped two feet into the air when the frigid water struck her, and came down with nipples that stuck our more than ever before -- but no silly-ass grin.

The day went normally until four o'clock, then Kennedy was called down to the office. Lauren was there, Ferinc, Mr. Glastonbury and Pipes.

Pipes spoke first. "My friend is concerned about Clarice. He was not pleased at all to hear about this latest episode. He talked to your father, Kennedy, and he has asked Mr. Glastonbury and myself to coordinate a response."

"And I speak for Lauren Tredegar," Ferinc interjected. "We too have had enough of this. When I leave here, I'm flying to Sunnydale, California, where I will visit Professor Walsh, who, we're fairly sure, has a direct link to whoever is behind this.

"I will explain to her that Camp Wanakena will join with Mr. Pipes and Mr. Stuyvesant in seeking an order in open court, forbidding agents of the government to come within a half mile of Camp Wanakena, or two hundred yards from any attendee, staff or camper. Mr. Pipes assures me that he is quite familiar with the legal forms required and that it will make such hostile visitations extremely expensive in terms of publicity and will almost certainly result in sentences for contempt for anyone involved."

"Just so long as it stops," Kennedy said darkly.

"It will," Mr. Glastonbury told her. "Have no fears, it will. Your father has made it quite clear to a half dozen US senators and two dozen congressmen that it stops or he's going to go public with what he's learned about what they're up to."

Mr. Glastonbury looked around at the others sitting around Lauren's desk. "They are running a rather empirical program, starting from scratch. They don't know the good guys from the bad guys and have ignored the advice of several people who told them to be careful. They have discovered our enemies. They can tell when they find them, because there are piles of bodies, broken lives and shattered dreams. When they come here they are humiliated and sent packing.

"Even dim bureaucrats have finally managed to put two and two together and realize that there are two sides and they need to concentrate on the opposition, not their allies. Or, at least, that's what they told Mr. Stuyvesant."

Pipes kept silent throughout. Kennedy looked at him and raised her eyebrow.

He laughed. "My friend is also upset, because he'd been assured that Miss Kennedy was not the target of any Federal investigation. However, the fact is that his influence decreases dramatically beyond the boundaries of New York City and Albany.

"On an unrelated topic, I talked to my niece at lunch. She said she was doing fine, although the air horn warning woke them all up. Then she gave a Cheshire grin. Miss Kennedy..."

"Lauren, I'd like to say a few words at dinner about decorum," Kennedy told her. Lauren looked at her, clearly wanting an explanation. Kennedy shook her head. "It's just for us, okay?"

"And Clarice?" Pipes insisted.

"She and her friends have started to prepare early for the Friday night talent show. I would advise you not to ask."

"I have to, Kennedy."

"They want to practice modeling. Think Victoria's Secret catalog stuff."

He blinked. "Oh," he said weakly. "I think I can report she's fitting in well, then?"

"I think, honestly, she's one of the saner girls here, Pipes."

Again he blinked. "I'd like to tell that to my friend. After Dwight, he's... concerned."

"Clarice is the opposite of Dwight. It's what happens when you're fed up with a certain class of attitude. It isn't anything your friend would appreciate learning about, though. Was he happy when he learned that Clarice knew the origins of Fatso's nickname?"

"No, he wasn't happy. On the other hand, he was the one who slipped."

"Yeah, well, sometimes it's not a slip, okay?"

"I'll bow to your wisdom."

Ferinc got things back on track. "I have a long drive to the airport followed by a long flight. We will do what we can to prevent any more repetitions."

"Still, it wouldn't hurt to be eternally on guard," Mr. Glastonbury told them.

"Yeah, whatever."

In a few moments, Kennedy was alone with Lauren. "Do you want to give me a preview of what you want to say tonight?"

"Sure, Lauren. We're turning into guys. It's disgusting. We drool at each other. We undress each other with our eyes. We pursue with more enthusiasm than we should. I think some of the fence-sitters are making choices based on what they think is popular, not what they really want."

"That would be a difficult topic to discuss, given that at least half the girls are more than fence-sitters. They're in the other camp. Remember, it was you who wanted Clarice in Charlotte's cabin."

"Yep. And I'm not worried about Clarice. Like I said, she's self-confident and self-sufficient. She plans on knocking a few eyes out on Friday -- and then hold them up in a mirror so they can see themselves drooling."

Lauren grimaced. Kennedy smiled at her. "Lauren, they're going to rehearse. There are, I think, a half dozen of them, who are going to go wandering around in nighties on rehearsal days. All of them are nesters who are tired of getting hit on. They want to rub people's noses in it."

"I'm not sure how that's going to work."

"Because it's a parody. It's ironic. It's going to be humiliating to the droolers when they tell everyone at the end that they aren't available."

"And what is your plan?"

"Simple. We're not guys. A nice general speech about respecting each other. Nothing about... sitting at the table in your cabin and making love to your friends."

She sighed. "Go for it. I'll think about the other, as well. You're right. I might be able to run a couple of years like that, but eventually someone would get pissed and that would, very messily, be that."

"Yep!"

"Are you really okay?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure what Rosalie did, but instead of the dart putting me to sleep I wanted to go out there and bash a few heads. I knew better, so I stayed put."

"What can I do to repay you for protecting the girls?"

Kennedy laughed. "Once, Lauren. I'm adventurous about some things once."

"I'm crushed that you could even think such a thing!" she smiled when she said it.

"Well, I need to get up to the cabin. Amy is much better, but it's supposed to be my job, too."

"See you at dinner."

It was funny, Kennedy thought later. Clarice and her friends modeled nice dresses in the rehearsal. Kennedy had no idea why someone would bring any dress, much less a nice one, to summer camp. Of course, she had the same difficulty about the concept of bringing sexy underwear, too. It was clear that Clarice and her friends were going for a major surprise.

Of course, this year there was no Ferinc and no clever idea for something Kennedy could participate in.

Marcie and Rosalie appeared half way through the evening. "We've been talking," Rosalie told Kennedy.

"Okay," Kennedy said. Marcie couldn't get in much more danger than she was already in and Rosalie wasn't in a much better position.

"We want to do something with you. Both of us."

Kennedy decided to yank their chain. "Okay," she agreed. "I'll have to ask Amy though if you can use her bed tonight, though."

She said it with as straight a face as she could.

Marcie giggled, while Rosalie blushed. "Maybe later," Rosalie said, clearing her throat. "We meant a skit or something."

"I can do many things," Kennedy told them, "but I can't sing, I can't dance, and while I can read a line, I'm not much of an actress either."

Marcie seemed the most surprised. "Surely you can think of something. You're Kennedy!"

"Kennedy, yep, that's who I am. At my high school they call me the crazy girl from Scarsdale who likes poetry. You see, in their eyes, liking poetry means you're crazy."

Deb had been a few feet away, and she cleared her throat. "Crazy girl who likes poetry, eh?"

Kennedy looked at her friend and nodded.

"Well," Deb replied, "that it just so happens I have an idea. What's really cool about it is I don't have to do much of anything. Been there, done that already."

"What do you mean, Deb?" Kennedy asked.

"A few years ago I got really carried away with water color art. I would do three to five pieces based on a theme. I did three pieces from 'Annabelle Lee.' That's a poem by Edgar Allen Poe."

Rosalie looked at Deb and decided she had to say something. "I'd think 'The Bells' or 'The Raven' would be better."

"Annabelle Lee needs a pair of lovers, a wicked kinsman and a narrator. That's four. Artwork, that's me. Five."

"What do you mean by art?" Kennedy asked.

"Oh, call them sets. Backdrops for the story."

Kennedy shrugged. "Deb, there's no way we could do even one full backdrop in the time we've got, even if we had help."

"No problem. Aunt Lauren has a projection gizmo. I can project the paintings the size of a scene flat; that's no trouble." She waved at Kennedy. "Do you know the poem?"

Kennedy shook her head.

Deb started reciting the words and Kennedy listened. When Deb finished, Kennedy nodded. "That's just great. Of course, it all depends on the visuals. There's not much scope for acting."

Deb giggled. "Which is why I thought of you, Kennedy, as narrator."

Rosalie and Marcie both giggled.

"It's always good, Deb, to be thought about," Kennedy said, trying to make it seem like she wasn't laughing too.

After the rehearsals, Deb asked Kennedy to come down to the office to see her artwork. There wasn't much to the idea, beyond a good speaking voice and decent artwork. Kennedy was impressed by the pieces, particularly because in one of them there were two lovers fleeing a demon. It was clear from the picture that the two lovers running were Rosalie and Marcie and the pursuer was Professor Walsh.

When Kennedy heard that Deb had painted the three pictures years before she met any of them people in them she was stunned. The paintings gave Kennedy a lot to think about.

When Kennedy and Deb got back to the cabin, Marcie and Rosalie were still sitting at the table, their heads down, deep in conversation.

"Want to see something magic?" Deb whispered with a giggle at the end.

"I have a feeling I know what you're talking about, Deb. Sure, go ahead. My ego will stand it."

When they were several yards from the two younger girls, Deb laughed softly. "It's going around, I guess."

"What's going around?" Kennedy asked.

"They don't see us."

Kennedy looked at Rosalie and Marcie and frowned.

Deb tugged on Kennedy's hand and pulled her back to their room. "No, it's not really magic. Hormones, Kennedy, not magic."

"You mean..." Kennedy stopped and giggled.

"Yes," Deb said, then laughed herself. "The other day, you and Mr. Waterman made a mistake about my tears."

"How?"

"I saw the two of them married. It was a gloriously beautiful church wedding, with bridesmaids and everything. They were so lovely in their dresses and they kept looking at each other the same way they are now. It's as if the rest of the world didn't exist."

"And the tears?"

Deb slapped her thigh and laughed. "I always cry at weddings."

Amy stuck her head in the room. "What are you two laughing at?"

Kennedy waved towards the main room.

Amy smiled. "Rosalie and Marcie?"

Kennedy nodded.

"Good for them! But I'm not sure why you're laughing at them."

"I'm not laughing at them, I'm laughing at kismet, fate, whatever. I'm laughing at how foolish it is to assume what someone else is thinking," Kennedy replied.

Amy nodded. "Kennedy, I know this will sound strange, but would you sleep with me tonight?"

Kennedy looked at her. "Be still, oh my heart!" Kennedy whispered, half to herself.

Deb put her hands on Kennedy's shoulder. "Go, girl."

Kennedy got up and followed Amy towards the other bedroom. Rosalie and Marcie had stopped talking, and were exchanging shy kisses and were no more aware of the rest of the universe than they'd been before. Kennedy could only smile as she remembered the year before when she and Deb had made love to each other at just such a table.

Amy closed the door behind them, then sat down on the bed cross-legged. "Can we talk, Kennedy?"

"Sure, Amy."

"I don't know what I want," Amy said baldly. "You, I think. Then I think about Monique and I want to cry. It's not even a month, and already I'm looking at someone else the same way I looked at her."

"Amy, I like you a very great deal. I thought we worked this out last year. I'm content to be your friend."

"And if I'm not content with that?"

"I'm not a very good choice for a girl who wants to nest."

"You've said that. Now, I want you to look me in the eye and tell me why you're not."

"As you may have noticed," Kennedy said dryly, "I'm a trouble magnet. Monique, from what I understand, didn't die because she was your friend."

"No, Monique's mother sent her downstairs to get some milk from a store across the street. It was in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. It was New York, but it wasn't that bad of a neighborhood. Some gang bangers were desperate for money to get high on and she had some. Ten lousy dollars!"

Kennedy reached out and touched Amy's shoulder. "Ruby died because of me, Amy. The guy who killed her brought her to me, so he could kill her in front of me. He killed his own aunt, right in front of his uncle, to hurt him as well."

"And you killed him."

"I killed him," Kennedy told her flatly. "He was gone a few seconds after he killed Ruby.

"How did you kill him?"

"Amy, we're getting to that dangerous place."

"I'm not stupid, Kennedy. I know that guy last year wanted you, not Deb. If I'd sent a woman old enough to be my grandmother packing after talking to her for a few minutes, I'd be bragging to everyone about it -- but you didn't do that. And you didn't say anything to anyone about last year, either. And those guys sneaking around the other night... They were after you, weren't they?"

"Like I said, I'm a trouble magnet.

"Do you really want me to tell you the truth? Knowing that if I do and you tell people, you could get yourself and them killed? Your family? And that the truth is something so far from what you believe that you'll have trouble accepting it?"

"So what? I don't know if I could like someone very much who kept that kind of secret from me. Even as a friend. Like I said, I'm not stupid. I know there's a lot going on at this camp besides girls getting it on with each other. I don't pretend to understand, and I make a point of not being nosey about that sort of stuff, either. But that doesn't stop me from being curious."

"And if I told you that Camp Wanakena is run by a gypsy who has convinced her fellow gypsies that she's fleecing the parents of rich kids... would you believe that?"

"Fleece how? This camp has more activities than most summer camps I've read brochures for; they pay the staff better, and the cost is very competitive. Plus, there are scholarships for inner city kids from New York. That's how Monique got here."

"Damn," Kennedy whispered. "You should have told Lauren."

"Why?"

"She'd have fixed it up so she could come last year."

"Why?"

"Why? Because Lauren is a gypsy with a soft heart, a romantic by nature. Like I said, her fellow gypsies, most of them, think she's stealing your parents blind."

"That's bizarre! Don't they do any research?"

"Amy, the average gypsy is a lying, cheating, thief who thinks that everyone else is the same way. Deb told me last year that her family is encouraging her computer studies in the hopes that one day she'll turn on the money spigot at every ATM in the country."

"That's crazy!"

"You bet. And Rosalie out there... she's a witch. So is Steffie. Except Rosalie is, so far as I can tell, a thousand times stronger than Steffie. She's engaged to the king of the gypsies, not that she had any say in it. He's planning on having her use her magic to rub out those who oppose him. Rosalie's father plans on having her rub out the king instead, so he can get himself appointed regent, then he'll rub her out and be king all by his lonesome."

"I know I'm repeating myself, but that's just plain nuts! Is it true?"

"Cross my heart, Amy, I swear."

"Magic? A witch? Two witches?"

"Did you hear Jurassic Park music the other night when those guys were here for me? Did you hear the crashing trees, the swishing of leaves as if something huge was walking through them?"

"I thought it was the wind playing tricks."

Kennedy shook her head. "It was Rosalie playing tricks."

Amy was silent. "None of that is about you, though, is it? Except peripherally."

"That's right. Tomorrow, I'll get Rosalie to show off for you. Magic is real, Amy."

"And what about you?"

"Could you describe Mr. Waterman to me?"

"You're changing the subject again."

"No, we're coming to that. First, you have to understand the world as it really is. A world where things you think are fairy tales or boogeyman stories to be told around the campfire are real."

"And what has Mr. Waterman got to do with that?"

"Sometime go down to the boathouse and ask him to take off his hat. Try not to run screaming back up the hill when he does."

"He's ugly? I figured he got burned when he was younger. That's why he doesn't show his face."

"He doesn't show his face for the reason I just said. He's a Sofai, a water demon."

"And he works here at camp? A demon?"

"That's right."

"And no one notices?"

"Well, I noticed. It's a good thing for him that I wasn't carrying my sword the first time I saw him, because I'd have lopped off his head a second later. A lot of people I admire and trust explained to me that not all demons are bad."

Amy rocked back, clearly thinking. "Are you... a demon?"

"Well, no. Still, that doesn't mean I'm like you and the rest of the girls here, either."

"You're really strong; I know that."

"Amy..." Kennedy unfolded her legs from the bed, and moved a few feet away. She crouched down, jumped up, tap-danced for a fraction of a second on the roof, a half dozen feet over her head, then landed lightly on her feet.

"Bet you can't do that!" Kennedy said with a laugh.

"No, I don't think I can," Amy said cautiously.

"Over in Charlotte's cabin is the sister of the guy who killed Ruby. She found out I terminated his existence, so she sought me out. I had no idea who she was; she walked right up to me and slid a knife into my stomach."

"Oh God! At least it wasn't too bad!"

"Amy, it was a six inch blade. It went all the way in, and made a mess. Ten minutes later I'd stopped bleeding and the wound was closed. The next morning I was pretty chipper and the next evening I fought a pretend-duel with my sword. I didn't even feel a twinge."

"That doesn't make any sense."

Kennedy sighed. "It's why Ruby and I broke up. One night at Faire, I fell down a hill. I had cuts and bruises, and there was no way I could stop the doctor they had from seeing to them. I was pretty sore and I told Ruby we couldn't make love because I hurt too much. The next morning we showered together and all she saw was a few fading bruises and what looked like scratches. She assumed I'd lied the night before, that I didn't want to make love to her any more."

"And you did?"

"Well, cut me and I bleed. Bruise me and it hurts. I enjoy making love to my willing partner. It's just that I don't bleed or hurt long, but my heart breaks as easily as anyone else's."

"What are you, then?"

"That night, I didn't fall because I slipped. I fell because a vampire leaped on my back and sank his fangs in my neck."

Amy blinked, her jaw dropped in astonishment. "You're a vampire?"

Kennedy couldn't help giggling. "No, Amy, I'm not. The technical details of how a vampire creates a new vampire are a little gory. First, they have to drain your blood. That takes a few minutes. He had about two seconds and then he was gone."

"Gone?"

"It's called 'dusting.' When you kill a vampire it's just like in the movies. Some movies. It turns to dust. That's how I could kill the vampire at my New Year's Eve party and there was no trouble. There was no body."

"Wow!"

"If I could lasso a vampire, particularly one who's been around for a while, I could ask it what it fears the most. The answer would be given as a sneer, mostly, braggadocio of the worst kind. They're not afraid of people like me! No, of course not!

"The person they fear, and they do, believe me, is called the 'Slayer.' The Vampire Slayer. There's a lot of magic involved, a lot of other things. Slayers heal fast, they are much stronger than normal. Sort of like me."

"Sort of? It sounds just like you!"

"Trust me, Amy, sort of like me. I can jump about six feet up into the air. The one Slayer I met could get up about twenty feet. I'm what's called a 'Potential.' When the current Slayer is killed, one of us Potentials gets tapped for the job. I just have more than average skills."

"Does that make it more or less likely you'll get the job?"

Kennedy shrugged. "I have no idea. About two years ago I think I was close to being promoted, but I think that the powers-that-be decided I was too young."

Amy looked at her, then reached out her hand and touched Kennedy's. "There's something you're not telling me."

Kennedy smiled. "Slayers and Potentials have folks called 'Watchers' who do just that. Watch over them. Mine is Mr. Glastonbury. I'm always telling him the same thing. He's of the opinion that there are some things even I'm better off not knowing. Like, for instance, what the record survival time for a Slayer is. The average is a couple of years, but I'm pretty sure that some of them get killed really quick. Not so long ago two vampires broke into the house to kill me. We're not sure why, but they thought I'd been Chosen as the Vampire Slayer."

"Oh, God!" Amy exclaimed.

Kennedy laughed. "Hey, I'm here telling the story! They weren't as good as I am."

"You've killed how many vampires?"

"Six now. I've been cautioned that it's bad to keep track, but so far, the experiences have been -- memorable."

"I can't believe you've killed six people! You're not like that!"

"Amy, I've never hurt a person. Well, maybe a little, but just a little. I'm not permitted, Amy. A vampire is something that used to be a person, but there's no soul. None. Everything that made a vampire human before is gone. They are cruel beyond belief, Amy. Like I said, the vampire that came to my party killed Ruby in front of me to make me feel like shit for my last few seconds on Earth. He killed my friend's wife because my friend had done what he'd been told to do, which was to ship off a bad kid to military school, and when that didn't work, to ship him off really far away."

"I need to think about this," Amy told Kennedy.

Kennedy reached out and twined her fingers with Amy's for a second. "I told you you'd not be a better person for knowing. If it's any consolation, I spend hours and hours thinking about it, most every day."

Amy smiled, but it was clear it was for show, not something she truly felt.

Without a word, Kennedy got up and turned off the light, then padded back to the bed. Kennedy undressed in the dark, then crawled under the cover. Amy reached out and rested her hand on Kennedy's shoulder.

Much later a small travel-alarm went off and Amy reached past Kennedy and turned it off. "One last question," Amy whispered. "Who knows about you?"

"Here? Deb and Harriet among us. Now you. Rosalie knows a bit, Marcie knows less. Steffie knows as much as Rosalie, Lauren knows pretty much everything, I suspect. Mr. Waterman knows a lot of stuff."

"Why them?"

"Harriet was an accident. The rest are the gypsies. They are locked in a really deadly war with the vampires that goes back a long, long time. More than a thousand years, maybe twice that. They need every ally they can get."

"So, Steffie and Rosalie are witches. How about Lauren? Deb? Marcie?"

Kennedy sighed. "For one question, this one has a lot of legs."

Amy giggled. "Okay, sorry."

"Amy, I can choose to tell you about me, because that's my choice. Steffie and Rosalie have done magic in front of the other girls, but most didn't realize what it was. Mr. Watermen is mildly contemptuous of people like you who don't notice he's different -- while at the same time, counting on it."

"That doesn't make much sense."

"How would you feel if you went out with someone and you had a new hairdo or a new shoes or new clothes and they didn't notice?"

"Oh." She laughed. "Time to get wet!"

They went in the showers, and Kennedy got her wash cloth wet and rubbed her soap over it. Before she could do anything, though, Amy was running her own wash cloth over Kennedy's breasts, then her arms and the rest of her front. "Turn around," she told Kennedy, so she did. It felt really nice, even if it was pretty clearly just a thorough washing.

In the spirit of it, Kennedy returned the washing, trying to be as impersonal as Amy had been. It was impossible, Kennedy found, when she was washing Amy's breasts not to lean down and kiss them, soap and all.

Then they ran, and the rest of the day sizzled past really fast.

After dinner, though, Kennedy was called to the office. Amy planted herself in front of Kennedy. "Are we going to be friends?"

"It's up to you."

"I know this is supposed to be private, but I'd like to come."

"Lauren said Ferinc was here. He's the camp's lawyer; he's also another gypsy. One of the boss gypsies. Amy, he was at my party. He got knocked silly and had a broken leg."

Amy grimaced. "Please," she said simply.

"Okay." Kennedy hugged Amy briefly. "If you feel moved to speak, I'd really think carefully about it."

"Sure."

Ferinc was there, along with a surprise. "Hello, Annie," Kennedy said with a grin, nodding to the cute former maid.

"Hello, Kennedy."

"Young woman," Ferinc said, gesturing at Amy, "now would be a very good time to reconsider your presence here. Annie and Kennedy were lovers."

"And Monique and I were lovers. Deb and I were lovers. So?"

Ferinc nodded. "Kennedy, evidently the Watchers Council has reconsidered Miss Brown's job assignment, in view of the recent events here."

"Except," Annie interjected, "they didn't trust me. So there's a geas on me. The first time I touch you, non-professionally as it were, I turn chartreuse."

"Chartreuse?" Kennedy asked, bemused.

"Yep, as of a shade of purple-gray."

"Chartreuse is yellow-brown," Kennedy explained.

"Baby-shit brown to be exact," Annie responded. "Yes. I'm trying to put a good face on it."

"Please," Ferinc interrupted. "I'd like to get on with this. Your father and your friend Pipes want me to ask you a question. It seems as though the recent events violated a Federal Court order, bringing Federal agents in close proximity to both you and Clarice. Clarice's grandfather and your father both feel it would be advisable to complain to the court that issued the order. That could result in a substantial fine being leveled against the Federal government.

"They could defend against it by explaining in sufficient detail what those soldiers were doing here. However that would allow discovery, the legal process of subpoenaing information from government records. It's our opinion that the government will just pay the fine, because they would never want to reveal what they were up to. Pipes and myself have the opinion that the decision to move forward on this should be up to you."

Ferinc grinned. "The statists would only print more money to pay the fine. That's not punishment, at least, not of them."

"And what did Pipes say?"

"Pipes said you were cleverer than the rest of us and to trust your instincts."

"Oh."

Amy piped up. "Discovery only happens if you file, right?"

"Yes, miss."

"It's Amy. No filing, no discovery. So, file for a dollar."

Ferinc looked at Amy intently. "Sometimes, Amy, my heritage works against me. Gypsies do not usually think in terms of a single dollar."

"Do you get to specify the fine?" Kennedy asked.

"Usually what happens is that we file a motion, asking for an obscenely high punitive amount. The government files a motion saying they are blameless and that the amount should be much less. The court decides on less, but usually still something that people take notice of.

"A dollar, eh?" Ferinc grunted, looking at Amy.

Amy nodded.

"That's very clever, young lady. Kennedy is a fine young woman. One of many ways to tell that is the quality of the people she draws around her."

"Pity about her fate," Amy said, clearly bitter.

"Her fate if chosen, Amy. If she's not chosen, something different happens," Ferinc reminded her.

"She doesn't keep her powers, does she?"

"No, historically speaking, no. However, few Potentials have a tithe of what she has. I'd hate to make a prediction about what would happen. Besides, Kennedy is Kennedy. You just know she'll do something unexpected."

"It's like watching bad Saturday morning cartoons. A dollar."

"Kennedy?" Ferinc asked.

"Sounds good to me! They do need to sweat, but the size of the possible fine won't make them sweat. And it would be our tax money they pay with. It's that discovery thing that will make them worry, right?"

"That's right."

"A dollar, then."

"And what, Kennedy, are you doing Friday night?"

"What would any self-respecting crazy girl from Scarsdale that likes poetry do on a Friday night?"

He laughed. "And Rosalie?"

"She's in love. Think Romeo and Juliet -- Montagues and Capulets."

He grimaced.

"As long as you're thinking, I'd like you to talk with Mr. Glastonbury. I don't want to go straight home. Where's this king of yours live, anyway?"

"These days, Detroit."

"Fine, get with Mr. Glastonbury, my father and anyone else who needs to be involved. After camp I want to take my friends Rosalie and Marcie home, chaperoned by my friend Pipes. I want to meet your king, face to face. Rosalie's father and Marcie's father."

"That wouldn't be wise, Kennedy," Ferinc said levelly. "He might not be a great mage or have any other talent, but as a temporal power, he is quite strong."

"No problem! I'm a fourteen-year-old girl! Rosalie and Marcie are twelve. Surely his temporal powers can deal with such as us!"

"And Pipes?"

"Oops! He's not a girl, is he? He'll lend a certain credibility to an application of modest certitude."

Ferinc stood still for a minute, then chuckled. "I've tried parsing that three times; I'm sure there's a pun or a joke in there someplace. I missed it."

"A bluff."

He smiled. "I'll ask. I expect you might have a little explaining to do to the others, though."

"No problem."

Kennedy and Amy went back outside and Kennedy took a deep breath. "I love the scent of the pines. I think I'd go crazy if I smelled it all year, but, as a change of pace, it's fine."

"What was that?"

"Like I said, the king of the gypsies and Rosalie's father have plans for her. All those plans involve either her death or her eternal servitude. It turns out I had an idea a bit ago and I'm going to run with it."

"Why?"

"They're my friends. Don't you do favors for friends?"

"You spent the night with Marcie."

"Well, I wanted to! I understand we even slept together, emphasis on the sleeping part. And it was just the one night, though. Not at all like when I was with Deb. Harriet and I have stolen a few times together. Ruby is the only person I've had an extended relationship with, and that was a few months."

"I keep telling myself it makes no rational sense to like you. You are planning a suit against the government, and if I figure right, something unpleasant for a king and the father of the bride-to-be."

"Yep, that's me. Amy, I swear, right now the only reason I'm here is because of hormones. I look at you and well... my heart flutters, my stomach does loop-de-loops and my panties get moist. The rest of me thinks this is crazy. You know -- just like your common sense is telling you."

"I love you, I think."

"I've said it to everyone else who has said those words to me. I don't know what love is. Maybe one day it will bite me and I'll know -- but not so far. It is true that I like you more than a lot. Which all means I want to curl up with you in bed tonight and make sweet, passionate love to you until the sun comes up."

"Except it's our turn to have our door open."

Kennedy blinked. "So it is! I could stand in the door all night long, looking like an ogre and scare off everyone -- except that would kind of defeat the idea of spending the night in bed with you."

"There's tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's good for me," Kennedy admitted. She didn't tell Amy that she mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that nothing would come up.

Nothing did.

They did a credible job with the poem, and if they weren't the best act of the night, that was fine with Kennedy. Not even Amy asked about the oddity of the girls in the paintings looking like the girls in the skit or the ogre a woman who'd been sent packing the first night of camp. It was, Kennedy thought, a kind of education.

She and Amy spent their nights together and slowly, as the days progressed, they grew closer together.

Amy got a chance to say hello to Mr. Waterman; Kennedy persuaded Rosalie and Marcie not to do a scene from Romeo and Juliet for the second Talent Night.

Then it was the day of departure and Kennedy hugged Harriet, she hugged Amy and Deb. Clarice was content with a handshake. Charlotte and Lauren got minor hugs. Steffie and Cindy got larger ones, even if Kennedy had never made it to their cabin.

Then they were in a limo, traveling west, not south and east. Rosalie and Marcie had never ridden in a limo before, and were excited for the first few minutes, then the fact that they'd spent the night together in the extra bedroom caught up with them and they fell asleep.

Kennedy looked at Ferinc and Pipes. "I'm surprised Mr. Glastonbury or Annie aren't here with us," she told them.

"I do believe the Watchers Council is taking a 'wait and see' attitude. I think they're afraid you're going to use violence," Ferinc told her.

"You're not going to, are you?" Pipes asked.

"I am not going to do anything to anyone," Kennedy told them. "Well, I'm going to talk to them, but that should be okay."

"It should," Ferinc agreed. "The king doesn't know you're coming. If you like, that could change before we arrive."

"No, surprises are best."

"You understand that when the king sees me, he's going to assume foul play is afoot?"

"I can't help what he thinks. I said I wanted to take Rosalie and Marcie home to meet their parents and the king, with Pipes as chaperone. I'd like you to be there, but it's optional. Hopefully the king's intelligence guys know who I am."

"Oh, they know who you are," Ferinc said drolly. "The king isn't expecting you is all."

"So, no problem then."

The drive from the camp to Watertown was longer than the flight from Watertown to Detroit. Kennedy's father had sent a jet for them, and the two younger girls got to ooh and ahh about how nice it was.

Then they rode in a much smaller limo to where Rosalie's father waited with his 'friend, ' the king of the gypsies.

As they pulled in front of a nice house in the suburbs, Rosalie spoke to Kennedy for the first time. "My grandfather said to trust you, but I want you to know, by the terms of the agreement I made with you, camp is over."

"I know," Kennedy agreed.

"I'll turn them into toads," Rosalie said darkly.

"Rosalie, you mustn't," Kennedy told her. "If you initiate something like that, it's the start of a long, dark path. There are no lights at the end of the tunnel. Be patient, okay?"

"And us?" Marcie asked, "What about us?"

"Trust is trust, Marcie."

They got out of the car and walked towards the house, Kennedy walking next to Ferinc, then the two younger girls, followed by Pipes.

A few seconds later they were ushered into the room where the king and Rosalie's father waited.

"What's this, Ferinc?" the king demanded.

"King Sylvester, this is Miss Kennedy, a Potential Vampire Slayer. She asked me to introduce her to you."

"And did you mention to her that you aren't particularly welcome?" the king said, laughing at some private joke.

There was a lot of the king to laugh, Kennedy thought. He was easily one of the most corpulent men she'd ever seen. He was at least four feet around and though he was probably in his mid-forties, he moved like a man nearing seventy.

Rosalie's father was the spitting image of his daughter, dark and intense. He stood with his arms folded, no expression on his face.

"Good afternoon, sir," Kennedy said. "I was one of the cabin counselors for Rosalie and Marcie for the last two weeks. They asked if I'd chaperone them here.

"I understand you were engaged to Rosalie, sir."

"That's right, I am."

"Sir, at camp Rosalie met Marcie here. They fell in love, mad passionate love. She requested me to be her representative in telling you that she's sorry, she'll return your ring and the presents you've given her, but the engagement is off."

"I don't think so," the king said with a nasty grin. He waved at Pipes. "Who is that?"

"His name is Pipes, sir. He's the consiglieri of one of the Five Families in New York City."

"Right!" Rosalie's father said, speaking for the first time.

There were four other men in the room, all clearly armed. One of them leaned close to the king and whispered in his ear. The pig-eyes narrowed, looking more porcine than ever.

"Why would a Mafia consiglieri trail along behind a junior assistant Vampire Slayer?" the king asked.

"Like Pipes, I work for the old man. The old man asked me to kill two men. I did. Pipes knows about that."

"Men or vampires?" the king asked. Well, no one ever said he was stupid.

"Vampires. But, as you know, vampires can be difficult to kill. Expensive, in terms of lives. The old man has a new, better way to do it."

"And this is true?" the king asked Pipes.

"Yes." Just the single word, naked and alone.

"Well, the engagement isn't broken," the king told Kennedy. "Forget it. I won't permit it."

"Sir, with all due respect, that's very old country of you. But you're not there anymore. That's not how we do things in the USA."

"Tough!" He turned to Rosalie's father. "Have her turn them into something unpleasant. Mice would be good. All of them, including the love interest."

"I won't do what you want!" Rosalie said, speaking heatedly. Marcie put her hand on Rosalie's shoulder, showing her support, standing bravely next to the woman she loved.

Rosalie's father grinned. "You will do as I command. You will do as I command. You will do as I command."

The second time he said that, Rosalie's expression had gone blank, the third time he said it, she brushed Marcie's hand away like she was batting at cobwebs. She stood, vacant-eyed, her hands at her sides. Kennedy was pretty sure she was ready to do as she was commanded.

"Turn them into mice, Rosalie," her father told her.

Kennedy prepared as best she could, as Rosalie started in with an incantation. "So mote it be!" Rosalie said, with an imperious gesture.

It wasn't like the two times before. The gates of hell were there, just inches away. Kennedy's nose twitched. She wanted to switch her tail. For an instant, before she panicked, she felt a weird compression.

She did panic, unable to help herself. She managed to keep those with her safe, but everyone else within a hundred feet shimmered and shook, then dropped to floor, mice. There was a sudden chorus of mouse-shrieks and frantic scurrying in every direction.

Rosalie blinked and looked around. "Oh my God! What have I done?" she broke down in tears and Marcie grabbed her and hugged her tight, whispering soft words of courage and comfort.

"Shit!" Ferinc said, shaking his head.

Pipes looked around the room. "My God! For a second there..."

Kennedy realized in that instant of reflection, that she'd seen something. "Pipes, are you well enough to go outside and fetch my suitcase from the limo?"

"I think so... that was weird."

He staggered, but managed to get out the door.

Ferinc looked at Kennedy. "That didn't work like you expected."

"No, and I know why. Sir, in a moment I'm going to do a little set dressing. Who would Rosalie go to, if her father was dead?"

Ferinc didn't bother to look for the mice; they'd long since scurried for cover. "My oldest sister, who hates him like poison. But until now, she had no way to get custody."

"That sounds fine."

Pipes was back with the suitcase. Kennedy popped it open and grabbed her toiletry bag. "Come with me, Rosalie," she told the girl.

Marcie moved in front of her. "No. Not without me."

"Marcie, you and I... we're special friends, yes?"

Marcie nodded.

"I swear I'm not going to hurt Rosalie, not even the littlest bit. Tomorrow she'll tell you about it, okay?"

"Okay. More magic, eh?"

"Yes, more magic. Only this time, a very special magic."

Kennedy led Rosalie down a hallway and into a bathroom. She and Rosalie were gone for the better part of twenty minutes, before they returned to the others.

"I thought her father might have a trick up his sleeve," Kennedy told them. "I'm sorry that this happened, but it was their choice."

"Set dressing?" Ferinc reminded Kennedy. "The king has any number of people who could arrive at any time."

"No problem. Stand over by the front door. Like we were grouped when we came in," she told them.

Kennedy went through the house and found the back door. She set it to lock behind her, went outside and simply ripped it from its hinges, pulling it outside. She walked through the kitchen, dropped her shoulder and ran into the refrigerator, very hard. The door was bent, there had been the sound of breaking glass inside; it looked like someone had smashed into the door, very hard. She smashed a few more things, before reaching the living room where they'd been.

She walked over to the big console TV and put her hand on the top. "You should stand to one side," Pipes warned her.

Kennedy nodded, moved and then crushed it flat, the glass and plastic from the front showering over the living room floor. She carefully walked around the debris, then waved Ferinc forward. "Just take a couple of steps inside, sir," she told him. "Step on some of the glass fragments."

He did, and then Kennedy had them all back out, and then asked Ferinc to call 9-1-1.

Then it was boring police stuff, a million questions. No, they didn't see any of the people who'd been in the house. They were bringing home Rosalie and Marcie, walked in and saw the mess in the living room. They'd called, but there hadn't been any answer. So they alerted the police.

Eventually Ferinc's sister was called and Marcie's father. The girls were sent off to recover from their "trauma" and eventually the adults and Kennedy were released.

In the limo on the way back to the airport, it was Pipes who spoke. "I've seen a vampire. I've seen one turn to dust. Still, I find I've been pretending that it wasn't really that extraordinary. Today... that was extraordinary. For a second there, I thought I was really turning into a mouse."

"Pipes, I have a favor to ask of you. When you see Mr. Glastonbury, tell him to assign me to write a thousand times: 'hubris equals mouse turds.'"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Because, Pipes, I nearly got you killed," Kennedy told him. "I've changed through time. Why not other people? Was Rosalie a full-blown witch when she was born? Or just the last few months?"

"The last few months," Ferinc said. "I thought you knew."

"Like Pipes, there are things you think you know, but don't truly understand."

"You two have lost me," Pipes spoke.

"Rosalie started her first period today," Kennedy told him. "That's what I had you bring from the limo. I wasn't due, but no girl travels without them, anyway. Pads. She was just spotting and hadn't noticed.

"If this had taken place tomorrow, if Rosalie hadn't been fighting back as hard as she could, we'd be the ones dead now."

"A woman's menarche," Ferinc said calmly, "is a powerfully significant point in her life. In all senses of the words."

"I thought you couldn't hurt people?" Pipes said. "Real people?"

"I didn't harm anyone," Kennedy said, still feeling the tremors of the close call. "They wished something on us, and I had to rush to parry. I don't have the kind of magic that could turn people into mice."

Mentally she crossed her fingers. That was going to be her story. What the Watchers Council was going to think, she had no idea. She was pretty sure her father and Mr. Glastonbury were going to be pissed, though.



-------

Chapter 23: Grounded


Kennedy walked from the jet to where Mr. Glastonbury patiently waited for her. Annie was standing by the car, her attention in every direction but hers.

"Welcome home, Miss Kennedy," her tutor said politely.

"Am I welcome?"

"Of course. I admit to being disappointed, Miss Kennedy. And if I were to characterize the extent of the disappointment, I would have to say I'm 'gravely disappointed.' You made a mistake, right?"

"Yes, sir. I nearly got four of my friends killed."

"Not the first time, though, was it?"

"No, sir."

"Well, you have to understand Slayers are always a work in progress. I don't know if there's ever been a Slayer who didn't lose any fights ... but if there ever was, I'm sure the reason she's not remembered is that she died soon after her selection."

"I still don't deal well with magic and spells; that stuff just makes my head spin. It's like I know they exist now, but I sniff in derision."

"Well, this should have resulted in your learning otherwise. Miss Kennedy, you need to get in the car."

She did, sitting in the back. Mr. Glastonbury and Annie rode up front, which, given the situation, nearly reduced Kennedy to tears.

They arrived at the house and Mr. Glastonbury shouldered one of her bags and Annie the other. "Miss Kennedy, your father will be here first thing in the morning. He wants to talk to you," Mr. Glastonbury told her.

She nodded numbly, went right up to her bed and collapsed on it. In the morning she woke early and took Lady Kennedy from her suitcase and spent two hours practicing with her.

Then Annie appeared and dipped in a curtsey. "Miss Kennedy, your father will be here in a half hour. You'll want to shower and change."

"Annie, both of us are behaving like we're walking on tacks. I swear, you don't have to."

She shrugged. "Tacks for you, high explosives for me. I am supposed to limit myself to 'professional' exchanges with you."

"Fine, be professional." Kennedy couldn't keep the hurt from her voice. The problem about good deeds and all of that was they didn't get you laid.

She walked into her father's study and he waved her into the arm chair. "Good morning, Kennedy."

"Morning, sir."

He smiled thinly. "We need to talk."

"I understand, sir."

"It's still Pete, Kennedy."

"Do you want Victoria to call you Pete?"

"No, of course not. You, Kennedy, are very nearly a professional peer. Victoria will never earn enough to pay for her credit cards."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Not exactly. Look, I don't want to mince words with you. You aren't a child, not by any means, but that doesn't mean I don't expect you to be in bed by ten, and to keep away from boys."

"The last, Pete, no problem."

He laughed. "Boys and girls. Kennedy, one of the most important lessons you learn when you start bossing people is that you have to be fair, but you also can't ignore reality. The reality here is that you are far beyond what any rational person would expect from a girl your age. Once upon a time I sought to exploit that, but you simply ignored me."

"Pete, I never noticed."

He laughed. "I suspected that. When I was a boy I read a lot of science-fiction. There was a book by John Brunner called The Long Result. In it, an alien visiting Earth had survived a commercial airliner crash. The hero thanked the alien profusely for his help with the injured survivors, then marveled at the alien's lack of desire to wreak vengeance on the terrorists who'd brought the plane down.

"It's a line that will stay with me until I die. 'When you are effectively invulnerable, you can afford to be magnanimous.'"

He smiled at the memory. "At the end of the book the hero realizes the alien, thought to be an agrarian farmer on a primitive planet, is anything but a farmer. He was, as I recall, a scientist, studying humanity. He was bio-engineered by his species for the niche he'd been in.

"That's who you are, Kennedy.

"There was another thing, too. Kenekito-madual. A nugget of truth. You, Kennedy, have access to more kenekito-maduals than I do. I recognize that. So please, one of the reasons we are here today is to discuss what we can do to stop the government's intrusion into your affairs."

"Is part of your concern about their possible intrusion into yours?"

"Of course. And your mother's, your sister's, and those of Mr. Glastonbury and Miss Brown. Everyone is involved, Kennedy."

"I'm sorry, sometimes I get so wrapped up..." She spread her hands.

"You're trying to stay alive, Kennedy. You're trying to stay a decent, sane human being. I've had this explained to me by someone other than Mr. Glastonbury. You know him. Ferinc."

"He's unusual," Kennedy said.

"Yes. And then there is Pipes. He says he admires you, because he was sure you'd use his friend's name in vain -- but you never have."

"I did use his notoriety."

"That is simple politeness, Kennedy. You were trying to give the king and that girl's father a chance to back down with grace. You have to understand that what happened was by far the more likely outcome of such a thing. Such people would never have started such a project if they were easily dissuaded."

"I know. But I can't hurt people."

"Mr. Glastonbury is a man of many talents. It's clear, however, that he thinks you skated the outskirts of the rules."

"I didn't break any rules."

"I don't think you did either, nor does Mr. Glastonbury. However, we aren't the only ones whose opinions matter. The White Plains police detective Harrison will be here after lunch. He's been asking questions and found out about Detroit."

"I'll take care of it," Kennedy said, trying to sound confident.

"Yes, I'm sure you will. But there is a problem we have; that Mr. Glastonbury and I both share. We're concerned about your desire to rush into rash decisions. Both of us feel that this is a sign of a fundamental immaturity; one that we're sure can be overcome by you easily -- when you're older.

"Therefore, Mr. Glastonbury and I have come to the conclusion that for now, you are grounded. You have become reckless. Yes, you are confident in your abilities, yes, your confidence appears to be well-founded, but there have been too many hair's-breadth escapes."

"There's someone I want to see in New York."

"No."

The single word hung naked and unadorned in the room.

"Pete, I've done some things on my own, although I've tried to consult with older, wiser heads first. Some of you encourage me a little here, a little there."

"And you're using that against us," he told her. "It's true I'm not a good parent, but that doesn't mean I haven't read books on parenting. You are trying to play us all off against each other, taking the results you like best, and ignoring the rest of us.

"One year, Kennedy. You are grounded for a year."

"I'm going to school in White Plains. If I have to run away and live on the streets, that's where I'm going to go."

"Okay. You can talk to your friends on the phone, by email or at school. I want you to look me in the eye and promise me there will be no sex for a year. There will be no further contacts with Pipes or any of those like him or Ferinc, or any of those like him, either."

Kennedy's jaw dropped. "No."

"Kennedy, do you understand that I could ask a few questions, get a few names, then go into any child welfare court in the country and get you committed to an institution? You've had how many lovers?"

She lifted her chin.

He smiled. "I never expected an answer ... but in that court you'd have to lie or face being committed for a lot longer than a year. And we would have to ask questions, under oath, of those people who are your friends."

"Pete, this isn't a good place to go. No."

From behind her she heard a soft movement she turned and looked over her shoulder and saw Mr. Glastonbury.

"Miss Kennedy, the Watchers Council has dealt with potentials and Slayers for a very long time. They have chemical preparations that will simply strip you of all of your advantages. If you don't obey, you'll go to a hospital and those drugs will be used."

Kennedy made fists, her fingernails, short as they were, cut into her palms.

She spoke carefully. "You are making a huge mistake. You are telling me that you don't trust me. The logical reverse of that is that I can't trust you. You will always think you hold a trump over my actions. That's not true."

"Miss Kennedy," Mr. Glastonbury, "the Watchers Council wants you stripped of your powers. This is a palatable alternative."

"Palatable to who? You? Them? You, Pete? I'm not stupid. I have no desire to go into a hospital. I have no desire to lose that which makes me who I am.

"So, yes, I'll agree, if you insist. If you insist, from this day forward, I'll say your names and spit. The first moment I can win my freedom, I will. And I will never, ever, trust you again. Not you, Pete, not you, Mr. Glastonbury, and never ever those idiots you call a 'Watchers Council.'"

"Miss Kennedy, you are a loose cannon," Mr. Glastonbury told her. "I know you think you can deal with these things on your own, but you can't."

"And if I was the Slayer, then what?" she said bitterly.

"You would have more leeway. Slayers are always given a great deal of slack. But, as the one Slayer in Sunnydale found out, it's not a bottomless well. At a certain point, the Council draws the line. That Slayer is a vegetable in a mental hospital today."

"Last year at camp, I learned a little about soccer. I learned a little more this year," Kennedy told them. "This is called an 'own goal.' Where you score a goal against yourself."

"Kennedy, you need to grow up some more," her stepfather said. "This is for your own good."

"If you say that one more time, the only way you'll be able to stop me from leaving this room will be lethal force. And I won't be gentle either, because all bets and restraints will be off. You want to put me in a cage and tame me. You're both fools if you think a lion changes spots in a cage."

"You're hysterical," he told her. "Please, Kennedy, you're demonstrating why this is necessary."

"And if I told you that you had to follow rules like this, you'd be just peachy keen with them, right?" Kennedy remonstrated.

"I'm an adult, with an adult's experience."

"How many times have you died, father? I've died three times. How many times have you had to kill something? I've killed six vampires. One I walked up to, held him down and shoved a table leg through his chest."

She watched them. "What? No comments? I was hoping for comments," she told them. "I could become a Slayer in the next second. Then what?"

"Kennedy, look me in the eye and agree," her stepfather demanded.

Kennedy snorted. "You don't understand, do you?"

"I understand that you are nearly unhinged, that you've become wild and, I think, a little self-destructive."

Kennedy turned to Mr. Glastonbury. "And you? What do you think?"

"Miss Kennedy, there are rules. You have to follow the rules."

"And when have I ever not followed them? You talk about me skirting the rules ... haven't you? You told me you had. You knew about Annie, too ... skirted that rule, didn't you? Did you tell the Council everything about Annie? Eh?"

He looked away. "The Council has decreed this. I cannot do anything about it."

"Fine. Tell your Watchers Council that I quit. They can ask for the time of day and I'll laugh at them. I'll accept being grounded; I will do as you say for a year. Then I'll be fifteen. That day I'll start work on getting emancipated. If that fails, the day I turn seventeen, I'm out of here. Fuck you all."

"Why don't you run away now?" Pete asked.

"I'm fourteen, moron! They'd send me back to you instantly! And what could I do, eh? Go to Pipes and get work as a button man? Sure! If either of you had the brains of a gnat, you know that's not in the cards."

"The question was will you abide by the rules as they will be laid out?" her father said evenly.

"What, are you deaf as well as stupid? How many times do I have to say I will? That does beg the question, though, if you didn't understand that simple yes, what do you understand about my leaving, and that I'm not ever going to pay attention to either of you again once the year is up?"

"In a year, Kennedy," her stepfather told her, "I expect you'll have matured a lot and have a better grasp of these things."

"In a year, I suspect you will have a lot better grasp of my meaning than I have of yours." Kennedy spun on her heel and started for the door.

"I have an agreement for you to sign," Pete told her.

"Sure," she said, turning back.

It was, she saw with disgust, nearly a dozen single-spaced typewritten pages. She read through it, with the two men standing silent, watching her. She finished it and laughed.

"No. Either parts of this are negotiable, or you'd better get the straight-jacket ready right this second."

She saw it in his eyes. So, they were ready, right this second.

"What?" her father asked.

"This part about Mr. Glastonbury. You can hire him for any reason you want. He will not, however, ever tutor me in anything, ever again. Like I said, White Plains High is non-negotiable."

She X'd out several paragraphs.

"Anything else?" her father asked resignedly.

"You have the year ending tomorrow. Today is part of this year. So it ends on yesterday's date next year, at the time you first told me of my grounding."

"Okay," he told her. She made a couple of notations.

"You have me swearing off sex. I want to add a paragraph saying that neither you, Mr. Glastonbury, or any agents of yours or his will ever monitor me in my private room. I fully intend to masturbate and I don't intend to be a running joke with the hired help. Nor do I want to see the film running on the TV news or on the Internet."

Her stepfather recoiled in surprise. "I suppose."

"You suppose? Yes or no? Where have I heard that lately?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand that you have every right to terminate the agreement if I violate the terms?" she asked.

"Of course."

"And I reserve the right to do the same if you do as well."

"You?"

"Yes, me. You're setting limits on my behavior. If you don't agree to limits on yours, the deal's off."

He sat staring at her. Kennedy suppressed her desire to tell him that he was still free to pull out of this folly.

He wrote on the last page of the contract, two paragraphs. "On severability," he told her. She read it and nodded. She went through and initialed the changes, then signed it.

He signed it, and started to pull it away. Kennedy swooped down and picked it up. "This is my copy," she told him.

"It's mine," he insisted.

She laughed. "I'll stand here and you can run a copy over there," she pointed to a copier in one corner of his office. "I'll still take the original."

He laughed. "My, my! No one is going to have to teach you much about business or negotiating!"

"Pete, I'll be the first to admit I don't know everything. I thought I was being well-taught. Now I find it was all a sham, baubles handed out for good behavior. Now, I'll find my own way. And if that way isn't what you would have preferred, reflect on this day, when you could have kept your say, had you just kept control of yourself."

"Kennedy you are still so young ... so vulnerable..."

"Once again: how many vampires have you killed? When was the last time you turned back a magic attack? A world class hypnotist?"

His face hardened. Hers did too.

She turned and Mr. Glastonbury went to block her path. She dumped him casually on the floor without effort, spat in his face and kept going.

She went to her room, locked the door, buried her head under her pillow and cried.

The tears lasted about five minutes, then she realized she was making their case.

She sat up, pulled her phone to her and called Harriet and explained the new rules. Harriet sighed. "You know me, Kennedy. That's what it's been like that here since New Year's."

"I know. Still, they were clear. I can't even hold your hand."

"I understand. Me, my mother told me something like that, too. But she didn't threaten me with chemical castration."

Then Kennedy psyched herself up and called Amy.

"Is this about what you did after you left camp?"

"Yes," Kennedy told her. "It got out of hand."

"Was anyone killed?"

Kennedy sighed. "I'd like to say no. If I said I didn't harm anyone, it would be true. What happened was all what others wanted. I was just a mirror reflecting things. Except ... well, it went terribly awry."

"So, I'm to wait for a year?"

Kennedy sighed. "Only if you're nuts. Amy, it's going to be a year. My father is a man who makes credible threats. Mr. Glastonbury is the same way. Don't wait for me."

"You're going to wait."

"Yes, but that's because I don't have a choice. You will. Dearest Amy, choose."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you don't. The rules, though, are that I can talk to you, email you ... everything but to physically get together. I'll never be further than a phone call away."

"There's always phone sex," Amy said with a laugh.

"What's that?" Kennedy asked, serious.

"Oh, talking dirty on the phone and masturbating while you do."

Kennedy roared with laughter. After a few minutes, Amy was curious. "What's so funny?"

"I wrote a clause into the contract saying they weren't going to monitor my communications, and that I was free to masturbate to my heart's desire."

Amy chortled. "Well ... if I was there I'd..." And Amy very explicitly explained what she would do if she was there. Then Kennedy went on at great length about what she'd do to Amy in that case. It wasn't nearly as good as someone else's fingers or tongue, but beat the heck out of "normal" masturbation.

The next day Kennedy called Pipes. "I understand, Kennedy," he told her. "My friend told me last night what your father intended to do."

"You understand my feelings?"

"I can imagine. Even my friend was outraged. He even put in a word in your favor, something he wouldn't have done a year ago. He would have thought it presumptuous to interfere in another person's parenting. Now he's learned several hard lessons in that."

"Please tell him that I've had to forswear any forays to Madison Square Garden." She hoped that conveyed to them that they couldn't call on her to kill vampires.

"He understands that; your father was quite clear about it. He was mildly sympathetic to that, but just mildly."

"I'm going to miss poker with you guys."

He laughed. "Miss Kennedy, do you know how many poker players could come away from our games without having lost anything?"

"I beat your friend."

"He was upset. So were you. You had a good day and he had a bad day. One of the classic ploys of suckering in a mark is to lose big the first time, then take that and more back the next time."

"Well, I spent it already."

"Good for you!"

-------

A couple of weeks before Halloween, Juan Baptiste put himself in her path. "I'd like something from you," he told her.

"Well ... I'll listen. I'm sort of grounded."

He laughed. "I got Nita pregnant. She talked her father into letting me marry her, instead of him killing me. I'd like you to be my best man."

Kennedy eyed him, then rubbed her ear. "I could have sworn I heard you say 'best man?'"

"That's what I said. I was never much for friends, okay? When Nita was hurt ... most of the guys I knew just shrugged and walked away. Yeah, you dumped me on my ass, but when you figured out what was going on, you stood up for me. No one, no one in my entire life has stood up for me before or since."

"Aren't you going to have some explaining to do, having a girl as your best man?"

He looked at her. "Kennedy, everyone knows you put Dwight down. There are other rumors, you know."

"Like I said, I'm grounded. I will, however, ask."

"Thanks, Kennedy!"

She knocked on Mr. Glastonbury's office door. He looked up, his expression empty. "Miss Kennedy?"

"Mr. Glastonbury, I have a request. It's not covered in the contract."

"What?"

"A friend of mine is getting married."

"You may attend the ceremony, but not the reception," he answered quickly.

"He wants me to be his best man, sir."

Mr. Glastonbury blinked.

"Sir, I would, of course, abide by all the other terms of the contract."

"Juan Baptiste?"

"And Nita, yes, sir."

"Ceremony, no reception, no bachelor party."

She nearly stuck out her tongue like she might have once done and didn't say, "Party pooper," like she might once have. The fetters weighed heavier than ever.

She turned on her heel and left, not even bothering to say thanks.

Still, Mr. Glastonbury had forgotten the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. She might not have been able to party with Juan Baptiste and his friends, but in truth they would have undoubtedly been uncomfortable with Kennedy ogling the girls as enthusiastically as they were.

The main thing Kennedy did was spend hours and hours in the practice room with Lady Kennedy and the other training equipment. What was she supposed to do? School was brain-dead dull. She quickly made up her own lesson plans when Mr. Glastonbury was no longer doing them. She spent a lot of time on the Internet in a variety of classes there. She was enrolled under a variety of names, but it never mattered: she got a 100 in any class she took.

On the day camp was to start Kennedy sat in her room, crying. It was just too much to bear, even if she had just a few days more than two weeks left on her banishment.

The next morning she found her stepfather waiting for her on the terrace. He got right down to business. "I was tempted to give you two weeks off for good behavior, then realized that you'd rush off to that camp."

She looked at him and didn't say anything.

"So, twelve days off for good behavior."

She continued to stare at him without speaking.

He smiled slightly. "So, you're still unhappy?"

"For the last year I haven't been able to hug a friend, or kiss someone I love. Give me a break. If someone had done that to you, you'd be plotting their destruction."

"Are you plotting mine?"

"I'd like to know if you will oppose my petition for emancipation."

He pulled out a piece of paper and slid it towards her.

"There, it's done. All you have to do is sign it."

"And me personally?"

"You're my stepdaughter. Your mother washed her hands of you right after the party. She might not care about you, but I do. In the emancipation request is a description of the allowance you'll draw. You may continue to live in this house until my death or yours. Victoria ... I don't think she'd interfere, but when I'm gone it would be her call."

"And your other children?"

"They have been taken care of separately. They'll never want for anything, nor will you."

"Thank you, sir."

"Pete."

"I'm sorry, I'll never call you that again, sir."

"You didn't learn anything in the last year?"

"I learned many things, sir. But nothing that would cause me to revise my opinion of you."

He waved at the paper. "And that? Is that nothing?"

"I'm fifteen, sir. It would have been hard for you to stop my emancipation this year and impossible next year."

"And you have the money for the petition?"

"Of course. I am, sir, an apt pupil. You've taught me just like others have. Taught me well."

He rocked back. "I wish we could go back to before."

"That's like asking someone you've tortured for a year if he'll forgive you. Not me, sir."

"Is that the way you see it?"

"You threatened me with the death of who I am. Death -- I know death. I don't welcome it, I want to avoid it, but you weren't talking about killing my body, you were talking about killing who I am. Me, personally. That, sir, is unforgivable. It's what I'm supposed to fight, if I'm Chosen."

"I'm sorry you feel like this."

"I imagine Eichman said something like that to his Jewish executioner."

"I have set up a series of trust funds for you. Until you are eighteen, you will be the beneficiary of a modest fund, a thousand a week. You may, as I've said, stay in this house forever.

"At eighteen that trust fund becomes yours if you had more than a thousand dollars in the bank, on average, over the last year. If the trust fund is worth at least 90% of its value at eighteen when you reach twenty-one, you'll get access to another, much larger fund. And another, a very substantial amount, at 25, if my trustees agree you've been an adequate steward. That means, in practice, you can live well from now until then, never work a day, and come into enough to carry you and yours through eternity. On the other hand, lotto winners blow through ten times as much in a year."

"Sir, I will take what money I need from you until my eighteenth birthday. Anything you give me after that day I'll stand on a busy street and throw away to passersby."

She got up. "Is there anything else?"

"Clearly, I made a mistake."

"Clearly, the only person surprised is yourself."

He sounded sad. "I wanted to keep you from a bad end."

"Sir, one of two fates await me, if Mr. Glastonbury is telling the truth. In one I become the Chosen One, and I kill vampires until I make a mistake. If I'm not chosen, then my powers will wither, until one day I decide to end it all.

"I don't know how you define 'bad end' but both of those meet my criteria.

"You took a year from my life, which by all measures isn't expected to be very long. You took the woman I love away from me; now she's happy with someone else she's met. I never want to speak to Mr. Glastonbury again -- the last time I spoke to him was last October. I told you what would happen, and like all of you, like him, like his Watchers Council, you accounted yourselves so smart, so all-knowing, that you could decide for me how my life was to be lived."

She grinned. "There is a saying from your generation, sir, that applies. 'What happens if you give a war and no one comes?' If I'm called -- I'm staying home. I'll kill the vampires that come at me, but I'll never hunt them again. Tell that to Mr. Glastonbury and his Council. My prison days are over; I never have to ask your permission for anything again.

"That is right, isn't it?"

"That's right," he said dully.

"Well good. Now I have to pee. Normally, out of respect for you, I'd just hold it in. Today, even taking a pee has more precedence than you. I'll see you later; never would be equally as good."

She turned and walked out of the room.

Kennedy had only gone a few steps when Annie met her. "Miss Kennedy, you have a guest in the practice room."

"Thanks, Annie. Who is it?"

She grinned. "A surprise."

Annie looked around, and without warning stepped close to Kennedy and took Kennedy in her arms, kissing her soundly. "Fuck 'em, Kennedy. Fuck 'em all! This is my last day. I wish you the best."

Kennedy was startled. "Don't quit on my account."

Annie laughed. "Let me tell you a little secret. The Watchers Council is in big trouble. They tried to kill the current Slayer, and instead got a bunch of their own killed. They fired her Watcher because he told them to do some anatomically impossible acts to themselves. They sent a new Watcher to monitor the Slayers and it was his first assignment. He was no more prepared than I'd have been, and the Slayers ran rings around him. Finally, he tried to kidnap the rogue Slayer and if she was as evil as they say, she could have killed everyone the Council sent after her. Instead she escaped after making fools of all of them. They rewarded that Watcher with the sack, too."

"Last I heard, the second Slayer was in a coma."

"She still is; this was before that. The fact is, Kennedy, that the last three Slayers didn't have Watchers, or their Watchers quit."

Annie kissed her passionately again. "If you were a little older, I'd chuck it, too," Annie whispered. "As it is, they'd turn me over to the authorities. Like I said, fuck 'em! And if there is anyone I know who can do it to them, it's you!"

She turned on her heel and walked away.

Bemused and not a little aroused, Kennedy walked to the practice room.

Pipes was looking at some of the training equipment. He too came over and gave her a hug, although he didn't kiss her. For the first time in her life, Kennedy's body reacted to a man.

"Free, free at last!" Pipes told her, letting her go.

"Urk!" Kennedy managed, trying to quiet her raging hormones.

"I wanted to talk to you today. I know you think your father and Mr. Glastonbury have hurt you terribly, and they probably did, but they were concerned. I was concerned."

"Is that how you would have handled it?" Kennedy said, the hormones evaporating in the hot blaze of her anger.

"No, but it wasn't my call."

"Well, to be honest, you and your friend were very nearly at the top of my list of people I wanted to see."

He reached out and touched her hand. "They said no contact, so we didn't. Kennedy, my friend died three months ago. He had a stroke."

"I'm sorry, Pipes."

He shrugged. "One day it will happen to me, too, as it happened to my wife. I try to keep these things in perspective."

"What did you want to talk to me about? I have to admit to being quite eager to play a little poker again."

He smiled slightly. "We can arrange that here in the next few days. You understand that I work for someone else now? Same job, different boss?"

"Oh. Anyone I know?"

He nodded. "As you may have noticed, I'm not big on names. This once ... of course your father has assured me that the house is swept daily for bugs."

"No one in their right mind believes the government will truly give up," Kennedy said, nodding.

"Exactly. Clarice."

Kennedy choked. "Oh my!"

"Yes. It took a number of people by surprise, but it was my friend's wish. Do you remember in the Godfather movie about them wanting to go legit?"

"Yes. I knew you guys were working on the same thing."

"Well, now it's an actual fact. We have a working agreement with the other Families: they can raise a beef if they find us doing anything in their areas of interest, including the ones we ceded to them, but it's not going to happen."

He turned more serious. "She wants to see you."

"Sure, I'd be glad to."

"Good. As a side issue, she wants to thank you for last summer. She never imagined someone who would watch out for her, but not interfere in anything that didn't need interfering with. Although she did surprise my friend with what she actually modeled. He was old-fashioned and didn't think young women should be seen in public wearing such clothes."

"It was harmless, not much worse than the beach and was, in fact, an important lesson to everyone in the audience."

"Alas, he wouldn't have understood. I'm not entirely sure I want to understand, either. I trust your judgment."

"Even if I nearly got you killed?"

"Like I said, one day it will happen. I'm in no hurry, but if I had to do it over again, even if I knew how close a thing it was, I'd have done the same thing."

"Well, I've learned my lesson, too."

"Good. I won't spoil her surprise."

"Thanks, I guess. I don't want to put her to any trouble."

He shook his head. "It's nothing, trust me." He watched her for a few moments. "Have you heard that those Brit employers of Mr. Glastonbury have been having problems?"

"Yes."

"This is personal, Kennedy, from me to you. If you are ever bothered by them again, feel free to call on me, day or night."

"Thanks, Pipes, I appreciate it."

"Tomorrow would be a nice day for poker," he told her.

"Tomorrow is good for me, too."

"Stop in at noon and we'll feed you as well. I've been working on my own recipe for tomato sauce. I'd like to try it on you."

"That'll be fine, Pipes."

"I'll see you then," he told her.



-------

Chapter 24: Once Again With Friends


Kennedy sat musing for a few minutes. Pipes had made a deliberate mention of the house being swept for bugs. She was pretty sure he was concerned about listening devices, here. Well, odds were he had something to be worried about. She'd never found one, but she was sure her father was a thorough man. Mr. Glastonbury was, too.

She shook her head. She'd been stupid, yes indeed. Yes, she'd risked her life and those of a bunch of others. The fact was the only thing she could have changed was getting a charter jet a day earlier.

The thing had to have been done. And she'd done it and it had turned out more or less the way she expected. Her father and Mr. Glastonbury had been more deliberate, made a worse mistake, and the whole year had been a pig-headed exercise on everyone's part, waiting for the other side to blink. She wasn't surprised they hadn't; didn't regret her decision not to cave in, no matter what the cost. Undoubtedly, they thought the same thing. Well, her father was the first to find out that there were consequences for sticking pig-headedly with a stupid idea.

Mr. Glastonbury, she was pretty sure, knew the futility of trying to kiss and make up.

She called Harriet and then Amy. After that, she called Lauren Tredegar, and ended up also getting to talk to Deb and Steffie.

She left the house at nine the next morning, hitching a ride with one of the staff into town and the railroad station.

She bought her ticket and went to wait for her train into the City. She felt a slight movement of air and turned slightly. "Ferinc!" she said with pleasure, when she saw who was standing next to her on the platform.

"Hello, Kennedy."

"You could have called or something. The Curse of Scarsdale has been lifted."

"I know. I wanted to talk to you in private."

Kennedy looked around and he laughed. "Remember Rosalie's charm? The silence bubble?" he told her.

"Yes, of course."

"She put it into a bracelet for me. When we get on the train, I'll set it working. It'll only work for about ten minutes, but that should be enough."

"Sure. I'll even be nice and not wrap it back around you."

He smiled. "Rosalie has come into her own. No one will ever mess with her again. Usually I keep my lips sealed about things I see, particularly when it's my professional duties. However, I have gossiped unmercifully about what happened to the king."

"Do you have a new one?"

"Yes. He's nearly as stupid and even more venial than the last one."

"Bummer!"

"My words, exactly!" The two of them shared a chuckle.

Then they were on the train and Kennedy felt the spell.

"I have some favors to ask of you and a warning," he told her.

"Okay. The favors are yours; I owe you twice over, Ferinc."

"Clarice is going to ask you to do something. I know from my sources that you've said never again. Please, keep an open mind and don't make any hasty decisions. Lauren says, though, that she's comfortable with whatever you decide."

"That's very mysterious."

"I know, but Clarice talked Lauren into letting her take the lead on this. So be patient, okay?"

"Sure, Ferinc, no problem."

"There have been a number of men who've been showing a great deal of interest in your activities in the last two weeks. They have been seen in the vicinity of your house, as well as asking questions of various people at your school and at camp."

"I'll tell my father; he takes positive glee at sticking it to the government."

"These men don't work for the government. One of them used to be a big cheese in one of the Columbian drug cartels until things got too hot for him down there. Two more are Russian Mafia and the fourth principal seems to have been a British SAS sergeant -- until he was cashiered for cutting off bits and pieces of a woman he was interrogating."

Kennedy grimaced. "Kidnappers?"

"Yes. Kennedy, in some parts of the world it's big business. You would not want to go south of the US border with Mexico, except maybe to Costa Rica and even that's not perfect. There are even areas in Europe you would be well advised to avoid. Corsica, for instance. Africa is like Central and South America. In fact, except for Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada and most areas of mainland western Europe, the rest of the world is a no-go zone for you because of your father."

"I suppose it wouldn't make any difference if I published a notice saying I was never going to take a penny of his money after my eighteenth birthday?"

"You're not eighteen and when you're gambling, who would believe a claim like that? Ask them to believe you would turn down millions, hundreds of millions, perhaps billions? They couldn't conceive doing that themselves; they can't imagine anyone else doing so either."

"In other words, this was a stupid trip."

"Pretty much. On the other hand, once you regained consciousness, they would find they had a real problem on their hands."

Kennedy grimaced. "Thanks, I didn't need that picture."

"You understand that's how they'll do it? Knock you out and haul you off? Odds are you wouldn't know it had happened until you woke up."

Kennedy grimaced. "That's not an appetizing thought."

Ferinc grinned at her.

"Ferinc, I'm screwed. I can't live like that. Guards twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Not being able to leave the house without an entourage."

"I know. That's the second thing I want you to keep an open mind about."

"Pardon?"

"Look, Kennedy, you're a nice young woman. You've done a lot a favors for a lot of people, and some of us want to pay you back in some small way. Just keep an open mind when we get to the restaurant."

"You're going to go all the way with me!"

He laughed. "Only if I was a lot younger and you had a different world view!"

Kennedy blushed.

"Yes, I'll be..." he stopped, clearly choosing his words carefully. "I'll accompany you to the restaurant. Pipes and his friends will see you get back home safe."

"And where does my father figure in this?"

"Kennedy, it's not proper not to tell him. So, a message was delivered to him about a minute after we got on the train. I'm not much happier with him than you are. He banned us from seeing you, and that upset me a great deal. I believed he thought of me as a peer. I know he upset Pipes as well. So -- well, let's say from here on out, we're on your side and while we might plan little presents for you without spilling the beans, anything else we do, you'll know about."

"Thanks, Ferinc."

An hour later, he bowed to Kennedy, took a few steps past the door and looked at the restaurant menu in the window.

Kennedy went in, and the cute receptionist greeted her. "Miss Kennedy! We're pleased to have you back!"

"Thanks."

She had to have a button or something, Kennedy thought, because Fatso and Pistol appeared. "Mr. Pipes says you're to come right in," Fatso told her.

"How are they hanging, Fatso?"

He laughed. "I see you and they want to crawl back out of danger, Miss Kennedy."

Kennedy thought that was about as likely as meeting Elvis, but she didn't challenge him.

A few minutes later, she was ushered into the private dining room in the back. Clarice stood and held out her hand. "Welcome, Kennedy."

"Clarice. You're looking good."

"Fresh air, Kennedy, fresh air. I couldn't go back to camp this year, but I did spend a long weekend in the mountains. It's wonderful."

"Yes, it is."

"Please, sit down. Pipes is still slaving away over a hot stove, intent on getting his sauce just right. I've never met a chef before who added a pinch of this, a pinch of that to the brew as it cooked."

"I have to admit," Kennedy told her, "being a little curious about what kind of chef Pipes is."

"The best, Kennedy. The man's a genius at about everything he turns his hand to. Except music where he's just excellent, and for that..." She stopped and looked stricken. "God, it's been more than a year and a half and I still can't believe she's dead."

"I'm sorry," Kennedy said contritely.

Clarice looked at her and smiled. "Yeah, I know. I lost my cool over Dwight. Looking back, that was the single most stupid thing I've ever done in my life. I knew what a bastard he was. Connect the dots, Clarice! If he was willing to do that to his sister, what was he doing to other women?"

Kennedy nodded. What could words possibly add?

Clarice smiled. "At camp last year, that was the last straw; I grew up. You were a large part of that. They made it clear your approval was critical to me. And you were -- indifferent."

"No I wasn't. But unlike some, if it's not busted, I have no desire to try to fix it."

"That sucked rocks!" Clarice told her, but without heat. "But, getting back to camp, I didn't know what to do about you. In spite of everything I was prepared to come up to your cabin some night and we'd go out back and settle things."

Clarice shivered histrionically. "Oh, would that have been a bad idea!"

"Pretty much," Kennedy replied, but she was smiling.

"But, you seemed like a minor nuisance. All those girls leering at me ... that bothered me. Claire and Betsy, they told me they felt the same thing. And that was on the bus trip up to camp."

"I hope things were better this year," Kennedy told her.

"I don't know. I do know that after you spoke at dinner things got much better. Then we did our skit and made it clear to everyone to back off. That worked even better. Of course, my grandfather shit a brick when he found what I wore for Talent Night."

"It was a little extreme." A piece of black lace that weighed about an ounce, even as it sought to cover an entire body, from the shoulders down to the knees.

"Then he demanded to know from Pipes just what the hell had happened ... and Pipes told him. Everything. It's a good thing my grandfather had promised non-violence, or he'd have gotten in trouble."

Clarice looked at her. "When he finally settled down, he realized I'd done as well as anyone could, given the circumstances. I'm not sure if he thought he was punishing me or rewarding me, when he told me about you."

"Oh, a reward, definitely," Kennedy said lightly.

"I thought I was hearing things. But then, I remembered that night at camp -- I heard the T-Rexes stomping through the trees, I heard that music. I thought I'd been so terrified my mind made it all up."

"No, you didn't make it up."

"You took on a squad of army soldiers. Then, the day you left camp, you took on an evil king. Good God, Kennedy! It's like reading a fairy tale!"

"I wish. Fairy tales end 'And they all lived happily ever after.' Instead, it was 'All their lives ended, one way or another.'"

"That bites, too."

"Pipes said you had something for me."

"A couple of things. To be honest, I don't know how to go about it. First, you're sixteen, right?"

"Barely."

"How would you like to learn to drive?"

"Is that legal?"

"You don't have a City zip code for a home address, so yes. Moreover, I don't mean to learn how to double park, speed through yellow lights and cruise past stop signs, like the rest of us learn. I mean something more substantial."

"I don't follow."

"You couldn't go to summer camp this year. I got you a slot in another summer camp. You just have to tell them that you're twenty-one."

"Clarice, no one on earth is going to think I'm twenty-one."

"Trust me, for what they are getting paid, they'd think you were Tweetie-bird if you told them. This is a Formula One driving class. You will drive very fast cars ... and learn to handle them."

"Clarice ... that's a little expensive."

"Not really. And no, there are no 'Godfather' discounts. I'll be paying the full freight. The one favor I'm asking of them is that so long as you pass their physical and driving standards, you stay."

"Physical standards?"

"Sure, you know. Strength and all that."

Kennedy laughed. "Okay."

"Kennedy, this is gratis. No matter what else happens today, there is no quid pro quo. No strings. It doesn't hinge on anything else. Your father is a man; they expect their sons to learn to drive. I'm going to see his daughter learns to drive rings around 99% of the other drivers in the world. I'm really pissed that the mother-fucker said that my friends and I were persona non-grata."

"It was nothing, Clarice."

"Kennedy, not even you believe that. It was a slap in my grandfather's face. Hell, your old man kicked Pipes in the balls harder than you kicked Fatso! My aunt died in that house! This is one more non-violent way of spitting in his face."

Kennedy laughed. "Okay, I accept it, so long as there are no strings."

Clarice nodded. She turned to Fatso. "Tell Pipes it's lunch time. Ask my other guest to step in."

The first person to arrive was Detective Harrison. Kennedy rose and shook his hand. "Detective, long time no see!"

He laughed. "That's a good thing, too! But, now it's Detective Captain Harrison, Kennedy. I moved to New York when they offered me this job."

"Congratulations," Kennedy told him.

"Oh, not really. I'm the Special Operations Commander. That meant a particular problem crossed my desk."

He waved at Clarice. "She went into great detail about you. I just wanted to know if there was any way in hell I could get past the barriers your father erected. She said not. I have to say, she was right about that. Until today."

"I was grounded, Captain."

"That doesn't exactly square up with what I've heard about you," he said, looking concerned.

"Captain, I did something a little rash. I should have been grounded. A week, maybe. Perhaps two weeks. A year ... well, let's just say, I think it was excessive."

"Yes. Clarice explained, as I said. Anyway, if you'd like, I'd like to show you a problem I have."

"What kind of problem, Captain?"

"Something slightly similar to the one you had with Dwight."

"Captain, I retired. Sorry."

"Kennedy," Clarice interjected, "as a favor to me, would you listen? As a favor to Pipes? To Ferinc?"

Kennedy nodded. "As a favor, I'll listen. My do-gooder instincts have cost me dearly. Everyone tells me if I keep at it, the cost will be even more dear. Clarice, I kid you not; they can reach right into this room."

"I know. If you'd look, you'd have seen we now have mirrors at the front door. If we look up and don't see someone standing in front of us, we'll know."

"You have steel mirrors, Clarice. They're useless."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if the image of a vampire goes through glass, it vanishes. Glass has to be first. A steel mirror will reflect a vampire just fine. Even if you have a camera aimed at a steel mirror, you would see it in the camera."

"Oh." Clarice looked up at Fatso. "Two men on the front and back doors, at once. Get hand mirrors."

"Yes, ma'am," Fatso told her and left.

Pipes came in, followed by a couple of waiters. For a few minutes, they busied themselves setting the table, then serving pasta. Finally, the waiters were gone.

"Kennedy," Pipes told her, "we got together with Captain Harrison and made a little home movie."

The detective laughed. "A friend loaned me one of those portable video cameras news crews use in the field. They're really good. Not to mention simple enough for a flatfoot like me to use."

A panel was pulled back on the wall, and Clarice picked up a remote control and clicked it.

There was a moment of warm up, then a picture of a street. The shot was a pan, finally stopping on a building that looked like a 30's movie theater, with the words "Ninth Avenue Bijou" on the marquee over the door.

There was a cut, then the camera played over a row of six women. They were, Kennedy thought, all young, very young. They were all wearing the same pink hot pants, black boots, skimpy white blouses and skimpier vests. Each girl wore what was fairly obviously a wig, with hair that was electric blue. Each girl wore the same pattern scarf over her head, and the same sort of sunglasses.

"This is the Bijou at six in the evening," Captain Harrison said, "the sun was still up."

Kennedy turned to him, but he ignored her.

"Here is the scene later that evening, a few minutes after ten PM."

This time there was just an empty street again.

"And this," the captain went out, "is the same scene, as sketched by a police artist."

There were a dozen and a half girls this time, all dressed the same way as the earlier girls had been.

"They don't show up on the camera?" Kennedy asked levelly.

"No, they don't," he replied. He left it at that.

"So, a nest of vampires."

"A nest of prostitute vampires," Clarice expanded. "Kennedy, every week there are one or two more girls out there."

"So? Captain Harrison should go in there and arrest them. Take them to their arraignment at ten in the morning. Problem solved," Kennedy said bitterly.

"I tried," the detective told her. "Two officers were killed and six hospitalized. We caught exactly two girls, neither of whom were vampires. The public defender had a field day with their cases. All of them dress alike and that obscures who they are, with wigs, sunglasses, scarves and the like. There is no way to prove that the two girls arrested were actually guilty of anything, except being on the street at the wrong time, in funny clothes."

"And," Clarice went on, double-teaming Kennedy, "neither of the girls who were arrested made their court dates. They haven't been seen again, in fact."

She paused. "One of those girls, Kennedy, was named Karen Spence. Lauren Tredegar said you met her your first year at camp."

Kennedy froze, stunned. "That's a common enough name."

"Not that common and we have her fingerprints. We talked to her family, her friends. I went to Ferinc when we found she'd been at Camp Wanakena. I'm sorry, Kennedy," Captain Harrison told her.

"How many vampires?" Kennedy said, waving at the TV.

"Two dozen at least, plus probably six or eight who haven't been turned," Pipes said, speaking for the first time.

"And you can do nothing?" Kennedy said, rounding on the detective.

"They got one of those damn injunctions. We tried to bust them anyway, but the three undercover guys we sent in were treated to dirty, but legal movies and a back rub, by girls who both had credible IDs that showed them to be eighteen. We checked. Those girls are eighteen. And, of course, we got slapped with another anti-harassment injunction."

The detective captain sighed loudly. "It's not legal, it's not right, it was nothing but vigilante justice dressed up in blue suits. But, rumor has it that four nights ago ten guys went in there armed with batons, planning on busting a few heads.

"None of those men have been seen since. And we can't go in there and search. The NYPD is about to bust a gut."

"The good detective is leaving out some important information," Clarice said flatly. "Most of those girls range in age from thirteen to sixteen. There is a woman who appears to have three male assistants. Most of the girls are slight of build. Waifish."

"Think Crunchy," Pipes interjected.

Kennedy pushed her plate aside and leaned down, putting her forehead against the table cloth, closing her eyes, willing the whole world to go away.

There was no sound, no one talked.

Finally Kennedy sat up. "Ferinc is hanging around next door. Would someone go fetch him?"

"He asked not to be included," Pipes told her.

"Well, all in favor of including him, raise their hands," Kennedy said, raising her both her hands.

"The ayes have it," she went on without pause, without bothering to see if anyone else moved. "Go fetch him."

A few minutes later, Ferinc stood next to the table. "Kennedy, Lauren asks please, not to get us involved in this. This is a mundane matter. Yes, one of her girls appears to be dead. But there are a great many more Lauren can help."

"Ferinc, do you think I plan on leaving calling cards?"

He looked at her. "No."

"Good. If you would, tell Rosalie she owes me a favor. I'm not sure exactly of the nature of the favor just now, but this will clear our books."

"Kennedy..."

"Just ask. If she agrees, listen to what I have to say. You or she can say 'no' anywhere along the line."

"As you wish."

Kennedy turned to the police captain. "Captain Harrison, from here on out I'll be plotting mass murder of what are, to all appearances, young women. You might want to find some other place to have lunch today."

"Kennedy, two of my men died. I had no idea what I was sending them into, or at least so I tell my conscience a dozen times a day. Ten more policemen went in there and vanished. Maybe they weren't exactly New York's finest, but say what you will, I can't fault their hearts."

"Whatever. I fault that, plus their brains," Kennedy said roughly. "Mass murder. I will do everything I can do to keep civilians safe, but..."

"You didn't manage that in Detroit," Clarice told her.

"Clarice!" Pipes' voice was a whip crack. "All of the civilians were safe. The pond scum died. So what? Kennedy didn't do it, they did it themselves. Remember 'own goal' from your soccer days?"

Clarice sighed. "These people are on territory where my grandfather used to collect protection from the local merchants. When we converted our operations, I personally promised them all protection from here on out, without them having to pay."

Kennedy turned to Ferinc. "Tell me more about these guys following me. Numbers, training. Anything you know."

"I explained the bosses," Ferinc told her. "The soldiers appear to be a mixture of various forms of special operations types. Mostly either former KGB or Russian Spetsnatz. There are also a couple South Africans and at least one Israeli. Maybe twenty, all told."

"And they'd have more weapons than just tranquilizers or chloroform?"

"Of course."

"What's this?" Detective Captain Harrison asked.

"Some miscreants who seem to think that kidnapping is profitable," Kennedy told him. "I'm sure you won't bleed about them finding out life isn't a bowl of cherries."

"Do you have a plan, Kennedy?" Pipes asked.

"In broad, yes. I walk in there, dressed like one of the girls, two dozen kidnappers in close pursuit. Preferably in the afternoon. I go on through, using the confusion to cover me."

She pointed at Captain Harrison. "Would you like to be my john?"

"Pardon?"

"I need a john. You know, a guy who wants to get it on with me for money."

"I'm married. I also know what a john is.

"Good! I wish you weren't married. Kids?"

"Two, boys."

Kennedy's made a moue with her lips. "Now everyone will think I don't care about boys. Captain, come with me, and I'll see that you're safe. No one will touch you, unless I'm dead."

"I could do it, Kennedy," Pipes told her.

"Me, too!" Ferinc added. "My wife understands these things and my children are long-since grown. Besides, I'm handier with a sword than any of these others."

"Can either of you whistle up a couple of battalions of New York's finest?" Kennedy asked them.

"I could wear a wire," Pipes told her.

"Pipes, I don't want to be rude, but the cops would know who you are. They might not come at all."

He shrugged. "I still owe you."

"Pipes, you paid in blood. You don't owe me anything, Ferinc doesn't owe me anything either."

Kennedy laughed abruptly. "Oh, that's too good! Wonderful!"

"What, Kennedy?" Clarice asked.

"Ferinc, you said some of these guys are ex-KGB? Do you suppose they had access to those special files?"

"Probably, or at least they've heard of them."

"What do you think the odds are, of convincing them I'm the queen of a crew of vampires? That they'll need wooden stakes as well as Uzis?"

Ferinc blinked. "That would be -- diabolical."

"Yes, it would. Were they following me today?"

"No, Kennedy."

"Cool! Let me know the next time one is hanging around and I'll visit him at night. And after that, I'll only go out at night."

"And Rosalie?"

"Who is Rosalie?" Captain Harrison asked.

"A witch," Kennedy told him. "You really don't want to know."

"A witch?"

"Vampires, Captain Harrison. Vampires. What's wrong with witches?"

"The world is upside down," he said, sounding helpless.

"Yes, it is."

Another idea occurred to Kennedy. She quickly pulled her purse to her, wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to Ferinc. "Sir, would you give this to Rosalie? It's a request for three charms."

Ferinc unfolded it, read it and shook his head. "Utterly bizarre, Kennedy. Utterly. I don't imagine she'll have any problems with these, nor will I have a problem getting the, ah, components."

"Cool. I'd like to move in a couple of days. If I can get them in the next two days, I'll go then."

"Would that be wise?" Pipes asked.

"Well, I imagine that sort of person likes a good challenge, particularly when it's a barely sixteen-year-old girl challenging their manhood."

Clarice was looking frustrated. "I'm afraid I don't understand the nature of Kennedy's plan. Pipes?"

"She goes in, chased by two dozen guys intent on kidnapping her. In the resultant confusion..."

"Aided by a magical confusion spell," Kennedy supplied.

"She starts killing vampires. When that's done, Captain Harrison can call in his men and mop up."

"What's bizarre?" Clarice asked Ferinc.

Ferinc looked at Kennedy who nodded.

"The charms, Miss, are hidden in something else. Miss Kennedy wants a confusion charm, and two charms that protect against that confusion. The confusion charm she would like in one of those anatomically-correct blow-up dolls. The protection charm for her would be an IUD and for Captain Harrison, a rubber."

Clarice blinked, while Pipes roared with laughter. "Bizarre and diabolical!"

"And the risk to my men?" the captain asked.

"Not as great as the risk to you. So far, my plans have worked. I don't think I'll screw this one up, as it's pretty simple. I might add, that, like most of my plans, this one is still a work in progress."

"Simple? I saw what happened to my officers before. One was thrown about forty feet, slamming into a brick wall, back first. He has a fractured skull, two broken shoulder blades, shattered elbows and a broken coccyx -- he nearly died. One man had his neck snapped; one little cherub broke a man's back across her knee. It was as if we didn't matter at all."

"To them, Captain," Kennedy said gently, "you are beneath contempt. There for their pleasure and the occasional midnight snack."

"I want to know they are all burning in hell!"

Kennedy sighed. "I've never asked. When you're turned, you lose your soul. Everyone behaves as if it stays behind and after that your soul is evil. I don't know, Captain. I just don't know. In my heart of hearts, I think when a vampire turns you, your soul goes wherever souls go. When a vampire dies, they turn to dust and there's nothing left at all.

"But the fact is, I just don't know where they'll go. It's safer, I think, to believe they are already in hell, and this just cements the stakes, so to speak."

"And you really think you can wade through two dozen of these creatures, all of whom are stronger than any girl of any age has any right to be?"

Kennedy's smile was wintry. "One of these days, bring more money. We'll arm wrestle."

"Kennedy, he can't do that," Pipes said. "There's not a man in this building that wouldn't want part of the action. He'd need an armored car to bring all the money he'd need to meet the stakes and his job would never survive betting with known mob figures."

Pipes waved at the table. "The meal is getting cold. I'd like for Kennedy to concentrate on poker later. Then we'll see her safely home."

They ate then, with no further interruptions. After lunch, Captain Harrison vanished, but Ferinc stayed to play poker, playing in the seventh seat.

Clarice played a lot like Victoria, Kennedy thought. But Victoria had been a long time ago, and Kennedy was ready for that. That, and of course, Clarice didn't have Victoria's luck at cards.

Clarice tossed in her latest hand. "Uncle, uncle! I give up!"

"It is getting late," Pipes told her.

They got up and went into the restaurant, standing near the register to say a few last words.

"See that Kennedy gets home safely. Let me know what she says about Formula One. Keep me posted on the Ninth Avenue Bijou," Clarice told Pipes.

Kennedy coughed ostentatiously, and everyone looked at her.

"Far be it from me to tell any of you your business, but there's a blonde-haired man across the street, standing in a doorway. He has Slavic features."

Ferinc and Pipes turned to look, while Clarice beckoned to Fatso. "The man across the street. Who is he?"

Fatso looked. "He's been there all afternoon. Kennedy can go out the back, there's no one there."

"And where will everyone else go, eh?" Clarice asked him.

Fatso looked across the street, his eyes narrowing. "I'll take care of it."

"No," Kennedy said mildly. "He'll be following me. Just Ferinc, I think. Pipes, I'd take you, but then they'd make you."

Pipes nodded, his eyes bright and focused on Fatso, who shifted uncomfortably.

Kennedy and Ferinc left the restaurant a little later, heading for the subway, and eventually the train back to Scarsdale.

The man was very good at trailing, Kennedy thought.



-------

Chapter 25: Queen of the Night


When they got to Scarsdale, Kennedy simply walked towards the taxi stand, Ferinc in tow. She waved him to get in the next available cab. "I'll be a second," she told him.

"Sure, Kennedy."

Kennedy took eight quick steps, grabbed the man who'd been following them and smiled. "Walk with me."

He shook his head, but didn't say anything.

She pulled a ballpoint from her purse's outside pocket and pressed it against his skin. "This contains a quick nerve-toxin. If I inject you with it, you'll have ten seconds and nothing on earth will keep you alive. Walk with me."

She pushed him towards the cab. She made him get in first, then she got in, forcing the man to sit between her and Ferinc. She kept the pen in contact with the bare skin of his arm.

The trip was just five minutes, and it passed in uncomfortable silence. Kennedy waved the cab to stop at the gate. She got out and beckoned to the man. He clambered out of the cab carefully, wary of Kennedy. Kennedy was quite sure he was prepared to run at the least opportunity.

"You didn't do your homework," she told him. "You go back and tell your bosses to look up 'vampire' and 'Queen of the Night.' I haven't had a decent meal in months. By all means, invite him and the rest of your friends to dinner." She smiled. "Yummy!"

She reached into her purse and pulled out something and pushed it into his hands. "And if they wonder how the Queen of the Night can go abroad in the day, have them contemplate this."

She turned him around, applied a foot in his fundament, and sent him flying forward at something approaching a horse's gallop.

He staggered and went down, no doubt receiving multiple bruises and other contusions when he did. Kennedy waved at Ferinc and spoke loudly. "Count Dracula. As always, I'm at your service!" She bowed to him and Ferinc got in the cab and left, while Kennedy walked the two hundred yards to the house.

Mr. Glastonbury met her at the door. "Queen of the Night?"

"There is a mixed bag of kidnappers stalking me. Elementary misdirection. Please, I ask that you and my father leave them alone."

"And why would your father want that?"

Kennedy laughed. "And your precious Watchers Council? What would they say?"

"I quit. I have no idea what they would say."

"Well, as you'll recall, I quit first. Tell my father to stay out of my business, period. Oh, and if he were to ransom me, I'll piddle in his rhododendrons."

It was, Kennedy knew, one of Mr. Glastonbury's weaknesses. He loathed the French and hated the Germans. His stories about the French usually ended with public urination. His stories about the Germans were about rude country bumpkins. On the other hand, he doted on the flower garden.

Mr. Glastonbury sighed. "Annie left for good this time."

"I know."

"She told you about the Council? That they are in the process of melting down?"

"Gosh, I can't imagine why! Century after century, one failure after another! And now three Slayers in a row have no use for them. And then there's me."

"Miss Kennedy, it's worse than you imagine. The rogue slayer woke up. The Watchers Council sent their best recovery teams to fetch her back. At one point the rogue Slayer had her legs around one of their necks, trying to get him to unchain her. Evidently he convinced her that they considered themselves dead when they start a mission. That's not my understanding, but that's what he told her.

"She let the man go. A few minutes later, the leader of the recovery team got too close. She grabbed him; he didn't have the keys to her shackles, but he did have the keys for the armored truck they were holding her in. She left. She had claimed she was the real Slayer, that the rogue had switched bodies with her. It really didn't matter, because she got away from them anyway.

"So, the recovery team went to Los Angeles where the rogue Slayer was reported. Evidently they swore solemn oaths to an ex-Watcher and he understood they were lying. The result was that the rogue Slayer escaped them again. Of course, they were beyond caring, because they ran into a buzz saw named Angelus.

"To make matters worse, then the rogue turned herself into the police. Voluntarily."

"And this means what?"

"Like I said, they're melting down. Violating oaths? How is that different from the evil we're supposed to fighting? How much had they pushed the rogue into being a rogue? Particularly if, given the first chance, she went and surrendered to the police by her own choice?"

Kennedy shrugged. "None of you have impressed me lately."

"And then there's you," he said. "Miss Kennedy, what are you up to?"

She laughed. "I have no intention of telling you. The last time I was grounded. The next time I expect some of those drugs you were talking about. Or one of those retrieval teams that have a little trouble telling the truth. That's simply not going to happen to me. You lost the right to have any say in what's going to happen. All you get is to offer an opinion after the fact, and I may or may not bother to ask for it."

He sighed. "I know. I was hoping to trade on our friendship in days gone past."

"Friendship, Mr. Glastonbury, is based on trust. I can't trust you, I'm sorry. You regularly hid things from me, things I should have known. You connived with my father to put me in prison for a year. A prison where I had to ask permission to go a wedding, for heaven's sake! Where, even at the wedding, I was restricted in my activities. You wouldn't forgive that -- why should I?"

"You're still alive."

"That's a tired argument. You told me yourself that if I'm Chosen it wouldn't matter if I moved to a mountaintop in Tibet."

"You haven't been Chosen. You're past the median age to be Chosen. Every day that passes means it's less likely."

"And that's a better fate? Withering on the vine? And when I'm finished withering, tell me, Mr. Glastonbury -- where will you be? Off watching someone else?"

"I told you, I quit."

"Sure, of course. And when I'm gone, what'cha gonna do? Eh? You make me sick."

She could see that barb, of all of those she'd thrown, had hurt. Well, too bad!

"Miss Kennedy, you have no reason to like or trust me any more; I understand that. I think I acted as best as I knew how, but I've made mistakes before and I'll make mistakes again. Hate me, if you like. I just want you to know that if you need help, if you need advice, I'm here."

She choked. "I can't trust you. Why would I want advice that I can't trust?"

"I swear to you, you can trust me."

"And years ago, when you came here, you said something similar, if you'll recall. What would you have said a year and a half ago? 'Trust me!'" she snorted in derision.

"Some day, Miss Kennedy, you'll find out about higher callings. When you have to choose between loyalties, between people you love. Then you'll learn the bitter truth: those choices eat at you, just as they eat at those affected by your choices."

"Mr. Glastonbury, if I ever have to make that sort of choice, and there's a chance to explain, I'll do it."

"And you think I didn't?"

"Oh, that part about keeping me alive? I told you at the time that was no good. Advice? I'd have welcomed that, but you weren't around. Not to mention, advice is something you can take or leave. Did I have a choice? Was I given a choice? Back seat driving, after the fact? That's just plain wrong, not to mention stupid."

He sighed. "You understand the year got to be a pissing contest? We knew we should end it. After the wedding I stopped agreeing that the time wasn't right. Your father kept expecting you to cave." His smile was wintery sad. "Kennedy, you might not be the Chosen One, but in most ways you might as well be. Slayers don't bend. They might break, but they never bend. They never cry uncle. If the battle goes against them, sometimes they'll withdraw and come back another day. Most times ... well, there's a reason why there have been so many Slayers. They don't quit. You don't quit."

"Well, tell you what. Pipes and his new friend found a nest of vampires in Manhattan. The police tried a couple of times and lost a dozen men. It would have made a bigger splash, but ten of them were lost in a midnight 'payback' raid. Obviously, that didn't go well.

"The majority of these vampires are girls, sixteen or younger. Many of them much younger. They're masquerading as teeny-bopper prostitutes ... obviously their clients are getting more than they bargained for when it comes to getting sucked off. However, the vamps seem to be careful, not killing clients. I mean, who is going to go to the police and say, 'Hey, the fourteen-year-old hooker I paid to give me a blowjob sucked a pint or two of blood instead.'"

Mr. Glastonbury laughed. "And your plan is to wade in there and wipe them out?"

"Well, remember the 'Queen of the Night.' In a couple of days I'll go visit my subjects. I told the kidnapper guy that I was a vampire. I'm sure they'll draw the right conclusions and come prepared. After the dust settles, I'll clean out what's left."

"I thought you said you weren't going vampire hunting again."

"One of the girls who vanished into the nest is a girl I knew at camp. Carnally knew."

She saw him flush, but she ignored it. "So, a few friends asked me if I could do this. I can. I will."

"Just you and how many vampires?"

"Between twenty-five and thirty, I'd guess."

"Guessing, that's good. Why not spend a little more time and be sure?"

"They all wear the same clothes, the same wigs, the same sunglasses, the same scarves. Unless they all come out as a group, which no one has seen them do, there will be no way to tell how many of them there are. I might add that they also have an afternoon shift, who stand in the sunlight and look enticing, but wear the same clothes. That's another reason not to waste any time."

"And how many kidnappers are there?"

"At least two dozen, maybe more. There will be no way to tell until they strike. They are ex-military, a lot of them ex-Russian-military."

"What, do you expect me to tell you how wonderful your plan is? You'll get those men killed, just like you did the king of the gypsies and his men."

"Ah, but I won't do the killing. You told me yourself about situational ethics, about how that's okay."

"Now and then, once or twice. Not a half dozen one time, a dozen or two or four the next."

"Well, that's just too bad. Part of my plan involves warning the kidnappers of the danger they face and how to face it. They will walk in there with the best information I have."

"And that makes it better?"

"You told me about the Slayer's friends. Doesn't she take them with her? Haven't they been at risk, many times? Did she ever not tell them what they'd face? How have they done, in the great scheme of things?"

"I take your point."

"Good. Now take yourself out of my way."

-------

Two days later Helmut Kruger walked into his office and snapped on the light. A dark-haired young woman was sitting in the chair behind his desk. He recognized her at once, of course.

"Afternoon, Helmut," the girl said. "Pull up a chair and take a load off."

"What are you doing here?"

"Sitting in your chair. I came to talk. As I recall, you have a couple of buddies. Why don't you call Freddie, Ivan and Dimitri? I'm a little pressed for time and I don't want to have to explain myself more than once."

He pulled his pistol. "Put your hands on the desk wh..."

He never saw her move, it was just a blur. The pistol banged against the wall, and he looked down at his hand. One finger was crooked, and he was sure his wrist was cracked.

"I said, I came to talk. Now, be a nice little fellow and run and tell those other three I'd like to talk to all of you."

He brought back a half dozen men, all that were available. She wasn't at the desk, and they spread out to search for her.

Two seconds later, more hands were broken or wrists seriously sprained. It was humiliating. She'd hidden behind the door when they'd come in -- a juvenile trick.

"Did you guys ever see that movie, Crocodile Dundee Two? The part where he tells the bad guy that he isn't very good at what he does?" She sat down, this time on the desk instead of behind it.

"Let's check your intelligence; I'm talking information not IQ -- I don't want to embarrass you. Where was I two days ago?"

"At a restaurant in Lower Manhattan," Helmut told her.

"Bzzzt! Half credit. Surely you know which restaurant?"

"Panafilo Gandolfo," Helmut told her. She made a come-on gesture and he shook his head.

"See, like I said, you're not very good. Who owns the restaurant?"

"Who cares?" he told her.

"You should. That's the private dining establishment of the head of one of New York's famous 'Five Families.' Did your man count the New York's finest and Feds watching the place?"

"Police? The Federal police?"

"Yes, those guys. And the city cops."

"No."

"There were some from both. How about the New York City detective captain inside? Was he mentioned?"

Helmut blinked, then stared at Dimitri, whose job the surveillance had been.

"And why are you after me, anyway?"

"Your father is Peter Stuyvesant," Helmut told her. "One of the richest men in the world. He dotes on his daughter."

"I'm his stepdaughter."

"He dotes on you, too."

"That news, Helmut, is more than a year out of date. He and I have had a falling out. I've been disinherited and all of that."

"A self-serving lie," he tried to bluster.

"Sure, sure. No doubt. I come in here and personally beat the crap out of six of you and it's because my father is protective of his daughter. Maybe you should come up with a theory about why I'm no longer going to get mega-million dollar jackpot trust funds?"

Helmut looked around. Everyone was alert and watching her. She jumped to her feet and came down on the desk. There was a sudden splintering crash, and pieces of the desk shot out in all directions. His beautiful cherry wood desk was a memory. He hardened his heart against her.

"Tsk!" the girl said. "I just don't seem to know my strength these days."

She looked at Helmut. "Did your man tell you who I came home with the other night?"

"Count Dracula?" he sneered. "Sure!"

"Actually, I think he really is the gypsy equivalent of a count. Ferinc is his name. Pity your man didn't pass the word who he actually is."

Helmut stared at Dmitri, who had turned pale and was clearly sweating.

"If he left all that out, he probably left out the 'Queen of the Night' stuff as well."

Kennedy looked around, taking in the lack of comprehension. "Vampires, you know. You do need to do some research. In two days I'm going to a theater in lower Manhattan. If you want me, bring your best. Guns? Guns just piss off vampires! Wooden stakes work, if you put them through a vampire's heart! Did I mention that plastic just pisses vampires off? Swords are good, too. Lop off a vampire's head and it's dead! Holy water is like acid; crosses or any blessed object are painful. Sunlight? Lethal!

"Or of course, you can just chuck the whole thing and move someplace safe. New York state isn't safe for the likes of you. Not Scarsdale, not the City. None of it."

She jumped again, this time slamming into the particle board ceiling of the room. She went through it cleanly, straddled two ceiling joists, spun and ran. It took ten seconds before the first pistol fired and it was about as close as they got, a hundred yards away. She landed on a car outside, startling two men who'd been washing it. She smashed into the car door, yanking it off the hinges, and used the door to knock both men flat. Then she was across the road of the industrial park and gone.

-------

Helmut Kruger looked at the team, now sans Dimitri. "Our security has been compromised," he said flatly. "The girl knows who we are, where we are." He gestured at the hole in the ceiling.

One of the men tentatively raised a hand.

"What, Sergei?" demanded Helmut, still furious with anger.

"We had special companies in the KGB that were on call. They were armed like you report she suggested. Wooden stakes, swords, crucifixes and holy water. Many times when they were called in, the carnage was terrible. Sometimes as many as half of the men of the company were killed. To kill one or two of these monsters."

"One or two could kill forty or fifty men?" Helmut asked in disbelief.

"Sir, a hundred men. They are very tough. Bullets don't stop them. Oh, if you shoot them often enough, you can knock them down. But if you don't kill them, they get back up and keep coming ... only they are very angry."

Helmut waved at Osgood, their new head of intelligence. "Those things she said."

"She was at the restaurant. I can't confirm the New York detective captain was there, but he is a known associate of the girl. The other families of New York bosses are mildly contemptuous of the woman who runs her family now from that restaurant. She is a teenager and wishes to take them legitimate.

"She is young, but has several men from her grandfather's generation who back her. Since they have taken themselves out of the picture, none of the other New York families say they care." He grinned slightly. "However, none have had the temerity to move into the vacuum.

"There are federal spies on the restaurant, plus city watchers.

"She mentioned gypsies. Ferinc is a boss gypsy. It is said that he had the previous king of the gypsies killed -- that it was this girl that did the killing. We sent two men to this camp the girl has been in, run by the gypsies. Neither man has been seen since."

He nodded at Sergei. "I cannot say anything about her being a vampire. There are a number of strange things in her past. Almost two years ago, some men came against her father's house, ostensibly to kidnap him. Except he wasn't there, and had never been planning on being there. Just the girl was present at a party for her friends. It is a matter of public record that four policemen, five guards and two women were killed that night at the house. One of the women was the wife of a major Mafia figure. The other was the lover of our target.

"Men and women died or were injured until the attackers reached the room the girl was in. Officially, they realized their mistake and withdrew, with no attempt to take the girl."

Everyone in the room understood secondary targets. They might have made the mistake of missing their target, but they would never have left a secondary target behind.

"Unofficially," Osgood continued, "she destroyed the attackers."

"Well," Helmut announced. "Guess what? Going after the daughter of a billionaire is going to be hazardous. Is anyone surprised?"

Raul Levi spat. "Dangerous? She ripped the door off an armored Mercedes. She whacked us with it. The day you can duplicate that feat with your bare hands, you can talk to me of dangerous."

Helmut sniffed. "So, you are afraid of a teenage girl?"

Raul laughed. "She has a history of everyone who goes after her, including you, getting their heads handed to them."

"I'm still alive!" Helmut yelled.

"By sufferance," Raul told him. "The rest of us know that; you'd better remind yourself a few times. She's invited us to a place. She's told us that there are a number of these vampires there, waiting for us. Sergei says the KGB would lose dozens and dozen of men trying to put down one of these things. We can't afford to go after a nest of who knows how many of these things.

"We have an alternate target, this Mary Robinson. Her father is merely a millionaire five hundred times over instead of several thousand times. We take her and keep our heads down. This other thing is too dangerous."

Helmut looked around the room. "So, a teenage girl sneaks in and you all piss your pants. She gives us an engraved invitation. Sergei -- tell them. Tell them what is located at that address!"

"A brothel. There are a number of young prostitutes who work there. The exact number is impossible to tell, as they all dress alike. Perhaps twenty-five. I sent tovarich..." he stopped and swallowed, "young Ivanov to test the waters. One of the young women gave him a blow job for fifty dollars, which is the going rate. He said she was fourteen or fifteen, a weak, helpless teenager. Nothing untoward happened."

Raul laughed. "Ivan went in the afternoon, right?"

"Yes, why?"

Raul just laughed. He turned to Helmut. "I came to you because I thought we'd take easy targets. This isn't an easy target. There are literally a million daughters of millionaires in the US. What possible sense does it make to go after one who poses a significant risk?"

"Are you afraid?" Helmut asked.

"I'm alive. Once I was taken prisoner by fedayeen from Hamas. They had me an hour before I escaped. One man bit my ear off. I have marks on my body that others of them left. Small risks? I have no problems with those. This is unacceptable."

Helmut growled, "And if I decide to shoot you?"

"The three men I brought with me are already gone. We are Israelis, do you understand? We never forget. For the rest of your misbegotten life, you'll never know when the bullet will come for you. Or if the key you push on your cell phone is a detonator and the phone blows your head off."

"I asked if you were afraid, not if you were a coward," Helmut covered smoothly. He waved outside. "What would you have us do? Just give up on the girl?"

"Helmut, she walked among us. She's not a vampire; even we in Israel know that. If she was, she would have killed you and everyone else you brought to your office. She could have killed those of us washing the Mercedes. Instead, she just hit us hard enough to piss the less intelligent off. No, she's going against a nest of vampires and wants help. She's trying to lure us into being that help."

Helmut spat at him. "You are windy fool, a coward!"

Raul tossed him a salute, spun on his heel and vanished.

Sergei waved. "You're not going to do anything?"

"Not unless you know where the other three of them are. That's a credible threat against the rest of us."

Sergei sighed. "Helmut, there is something else you should know from the KGB records."

"There's more? I can hardly wait!"

"Quite a lot more. Demons walk among us. Not just vampires, but werewolves and demons of all sorts. There are humans, though, who fight them. Paramount among the humans who fight the forces of the night is the Chosen One, the Vampire Slayer. Always a young girl, strong, fast, competent. She heals rapidly, extraordinarily rapidly. Strong and fast? She could walk through a room with a half dozen men, armed with pistols and knock them silly. Then she could jump through a ceiling and flee to fight another day."

Helmut tried to curb his emotions. "So. That was a long-winded explanation of why you're not going with the rest of us, right?"

"Exactly."

"You're all cowards!"

"Cowards, Helmut? She walked among us. Wake up! She knows who we are, where we are and what we're after. Are you so bemused to think she won't have told her father, in case things don't work as she expects?

"And why wouldn't things work for her? I mean, we held her at bay in our inner sanctum, right? Oh, no! Excuse me! She held us at bay! Helmut, she was in control, not us! She came when she wanted, said what she wanted to say and then left! Do you think she's ignorant of our purpose? Do you think the advice she offered us was to help us ... or see us dead?"

"Follow the damn Jew, if that's your wish!"

"Helmut, we have a secondary target. Her father is filthy rich. The girl doesn't have guards, except when she is at home. She goes to one or another of her friends nearly every day and she drives herself. We know those friends; we know the routes she takes to visit each one. Taking her will be simple! There will be no risk! The other girl is alerted! Her father is alerted. She has guards, serious guards! It is unlikely we can take her without a fight. Since she knows about us, her father will know us as well. We would be hunted at once; not just some vague faceless perpetrators of a kidnapping, but us in particular."

"Finding another safe house is a trivial task," Helmut said, musing.

"Only after we completely sever our surveillance of this Kennedy person. She must have followed one of us back here. She's had an unknowable time to prepare against us. It is possible that even now we are bugged."

Helmut looked around at the others. It was clear this was a defining moment in his leadership of the group. In truth Raul and Sergei were right; the girl presented too great of a risk.

"We'll leave at once, then," Helmut told them. "We will all return to our hotels, and I will call with the location of a temporary safe house. I will talk to my contact here to arrange another, secure place. I'll leave Charles here, to tell Holt what's going on."

"Holt?" Sergei said. "What is he doing?"

"I sent him to watch that theater until midnight."

Sergei shuddered. "Better to leave him a message telling him to go to his hotel and wait for contact. Then, we approach him carefully."

"What are you talking about?" Helmut demanded.

"We will need to be very careful to make sure it is Holt that comes back from that place, not a member of the living dead."

"He's an experienced man! I trained him myself!"

Sergei laughed then. "Helmut, you're a good planner. You would make a good staff officer. I agree with Raul. Unless we have a leadership change, I'm out."

"We can discuss this later," Helmut told him.

"Fine. In the meantime, Charles, why don't you wait until we're gone? Everyone leave anything they don't absolutely need here in the building, including weapons. Give us an hour, and then take the cars in the main area and cut the fuel lines and let the gas leak on the floor. Use a timer and a loop of primacord to detonate it."

Charles nodded. "It'll take the roof off the place, and it will burn hotly. That will be Holt's message: a smoldering rubble pile."

Helmut knew he had to speak the instant Charles stopped. "Do that, then," he snapped on the heels of the last word. "Let's get moving!"

-------

A half mile away, Kennedy dropped her ear bug and grinned. What was it that George Peppard used to say on the TV show "The A-Team?" "I love it when a plan comes together!" Hers was going just fine and the discussion of cars and fires had added a new idea to her plan, reducing the risks to everyone.

Two hours later she sat in her father's office. He looked at her curiously. "A change of heart?"

"As you heard, there are some men following me. I don't want you to do anything about them, at least not yet." She put a brown manila envelope on his desk. "These are the details. I'd appreciate you not opening it unless there's a need."

"And why should I do that? What sort of men are they?"

"A mixed bag of former Russian Mafia, ex-KGB and Spetsnatz, some Israeli commandos, some former South African Secret Police. The leader has a German accent; he may well have been East German Stasi."

"And I'm to ignore them?"

"For now. There's a girl, probably my age, named Mary Robinson. Her father is supposed to be worth a half billion dollars. Do you know her or him?"

"That's probably James Robinson, his wife Courtney and daughter Mary."

"I want you to arrange a meeting for me with her and her father as soon as possible."

"What on earth for?"

"I want her help with a plan of mine. The men who were thinking of kidnapping me appear to have changed their minds. Mary Robinson is their second choice."

He shook his head. "You're insane. I'll pick up the phone and the FBI will show those bastards the warm welcome we give kidnappers in this country!"

"Sir, if they haven't kidnapped anyone, they are going to get wrist slaps. Most of them aren't even likely to see jail."

He sat back. It was true.

"I will never put anyone else but myself at risk again. Her part will be brain dead simple and she'll never be at risk. I will have a squad of New York's finest surrounding her at all times. Then I'll take the kidnappers on a Nantucket Sleigh Ride to a nest of vampires I've been told about."

"And you'll be in a nest of vampires? How many?"

"Twenty-five or thirty. They're probably already having trouble, because that's too many for one spot. I have very limited objectives. There's one person I want to meet, one person I must meet. After that, I'll turn around and leave."

"And they'll let you do that?"

"I'll be there at four in the afternoon, sir. Once I'm out the door they'll not be in a rush to chase me."

"And that's it?"

"That's it, sir."

"I'm sorry I screwed up."

"Not as sorry as I am, sir."

"I'll set up that meeting. I'll give you a call at the house."

"Thank you." She left then and went straight home. On the subway, another vagrant exposed himself to her. She copied Victoria's Secret Handshake and gave the matter her own twist. The man was left gasping and moaning in the car, while she had a nice smile on her face as she got home.

-------

Two days later she met with Mary Robinson and her father. One of the things Kennedy wanted to do was size up Mary.

James Robinson was a short terrier of a man, a bulldog of energy and drive. His daughter was equally short, and clearly the acorn hadn't fallen far from the tree at all.

"You say that there are kidnappers casing my daughter?" James demanded.

"That's correct, sir. Their original target was to be myself, but I've convinced them that would be a bad choice. Then they mentioned that they'd picked Mary as a secondary target." Kennedy explained.

"And you know this how?"

"I bugged them," Kennedy told him.

"You snuck in and bugged them?" Jim Robinson asked.

"No, I was much more straightforward ... although I didn't tell them I was bugging them. I simply went to their headquarters, suggested they'd made a mistake and left."

"And they let you leave?"

Kennedy grinned at him. "It was more like the other way around."

"You held them at gunpoint?" That seemed to startle him.

"Of course not. Guns aren't my thing. I disarmed them, talked to them and left."

"And they let you take their weapons? Why would they do that if you weren't armed?"

"It wasn't so much a taking as a disarming. That's really beside the point. I was wondering if I could convince Mary to assist in a plan I have. There is absolutely no risk to her; I can get New York City detectives to cover her in more than adequate numbers. She would simply be a diversion."

Mary spoke for the first time. "How many of these kidnappers are there?"

"Twenty or so. A couple have recently stated their desire to quit. I'm not sure if they actually will, if the group decides to switch targets. You are, Mary, a rather soft target."

"Because I don't have guards?"

"That's right. I used to dislike such guards, but now I find them of some comfort."

"What exactly do you want my daughter to do?" James asked.

"I will know in advance when they plan to take her. She would follow her usual procedure, then duck into a restaurant restroom. NYPD detectives would take her to a safe location at that point. I would take her place."

"With the purpose of... ?" he asked.

"There are some others I have a beef with. I was going to lead the kidnappers there, and let the two groups have at it. While that distraction was occurring, I was planning on talking to a young woman of my acquaintance. Then I was going to leave."

Mr. Richardson looked her father. "Pete, I have a few problems with this."

"Jim, Kennedy isn't at all what she seems. Later, I'll talk to you about the details."

"And she can waltz into a room full of kidnappers, men who planned on taking her hostage, talk to them and then leave?"

"I imagine that when she left several of them were suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Kennedy is like that. Jim, in the past my stepdaughter has been foolish, reckless ... a lot of things. That was a while ago. She doesn't lie and when she tells you that your daughter will be safe, she means it."

"And she can invoke your name to bring forth platoons of NYPD detectives?"

"Actually, I'd have trouble invoking more than one or two and like as not they'd want to put my ass in jail. Kennedy could probably rally all of them. She has other friends, as well." He looked at Mr. Robinson. "I tell you true, I tried to cut her away from those friends, but it was her friends who noticed the guys following her, not my staff."

"Friends are always good," the other man said.

"I'm curious," Mary interjected. "I just walk into a powder room. You say you're going to come out looking like me. No offense, girl, but I'm five four and you're five eight or nine. No way."

"Platform shoes," Kennedy said succinctly. "You'll be wearing them and I won't be."

"Gawd!" the girl said. "They are so ugly!"

"Useful though," Kennedy replied.

"And if I told you that there was no way in hell I'd do something where it was someone else's ass hanging in the breeze, what would you say?"

Kennedy waved at the bowl of fruit on the table in front of them. "There's an apple. Just as an exercise, why don't you toss it in the air, seeing how close you can get to the ceiling, without hitting it?"

"This?" the girl said, lofting the apple in her hand.

"Just that," Kennedy told her.

Mary tossed the apple up; she did a credible job of missing the ceiling, too. It went up, stopped and started back down. Mary held out her hand to catch it, while Kennedy sat impassive in her chair. At the last millisecond, Kennedy moved, catching the apple literally just above Mary's hand.

Kennedy handed the apple back to Mary. "Again. This time get your hand out of the way. I hope you like apple juice."

"I like apples," Mary said as she tossed the apple up again.

There was no hesitation this time. Lady Kennedy had been hanging from Kennedy's elbow, looking like an umbrella. Then she was in Kennedy's hand. It was very economical work, three cuts. Four apple quarters rained down on the table.

Mary wiped apple juice from her face. "Apple juice, eh?"

"Yes, I'm sorry."

"A sword?" Jim Robinson said. "Good grief!"

"A sword," Kennedy agreed.

"A tool," Kennedy's stepfather added.

"You'd think I'd have noticed a sword," he told Pete. "You'd think security might have mentioned it."

Kennedy looked him in the eye. "It's enchanted to look like an umbrella."

"Enchanted?"

"Like I said, Kennedy isn't at all what she seems," Pete told Mary's father.

"This other group," Mary asked, "just who they might be?"

"Vampires," Kennedy said.

"Vampires?" Mary blinked. "That's a little hard to take."

"They took a friend of mine. A former lover. I can't save her, but I can make it so she can't hurt anyone else."

"Are there very many of these former lovers?" Mary asked, her eyes bright.

"A few," Kennedy admitted, "but none like this one."

"Vampires, as in plural. How many plural?"

"Two, three dozen," Kennedy told her.

"Did you know the reason my father insists I stay close to home is that I'm gay? And that if I meet anyone I like, he goes all super Christian, worrying about my eternal soul?"

Kennedy looked at Mary's father. "I just came off a year's grounding; partly for that same thing. No offense, guys, but sexual orientation isn't an optional question on a test. Learn the real dangers to your daughter's eternal soul."

"Vampires are supposed to be soulless," James said softly.

"Oh, they are. They are."

"And you'll go alone to face them?" Mary asked.

Kennedy shrugged. "I'm not officially on the championship team, but yes. That's what I do."

-------

Six days later the kidnappers made their move. Except, their move kept being frustrated. They would start forward and the girl would unexpectedly go into a busy store. The third time, she went into a restaurant. After a few minutes she emerged from the bathroom, with a disguise. It didn't matter, they grabbed her, ignoring the electric blue hair, the hot pink mini-skirt and very short, very tight-fitting crop top. They were very focused on the deed.

Things went well until they tried to inject her with a sedative -- that's when she clobbered Helmut instead. Inside the van for the next two minutes there was a frantic battle as men tried to stop her and failed.

"Queen of the Night, gents!" Kennedy told them. "I'm telling you now, there's not a person in the US who isn't under my protection. This was your last chance. The next time, you'll end up dead, not bruised. Let me tell you, a Glock shoved up your ass is bound to be painful, even if it isn't loaded."

She smashed the door of the van and was gone around a corner before anyone could react.

Helmut was in a rage. "I'm going to kill her!"

Sergei was groaning, suffering from broken ribs. "Yeah, sure! You go, guy! I'll give you odds, ten to one against. I'm in for a grand, if anyone wants those odds."

Oswald laughed, as blood ran from his nose. "A hundred to one, I might consider it. Not for less."

In a few minutes the wheat had been separated from the chaff. A dozen men followed Helmut, while the rest conferred. "Let's get out of here!" Sergei said.

A New York City police detective appeared at the back of the van, repeating his litany: "You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you..."

Sergei was the first of many to demand a lawyer.

Kennedy stayed two blocks ahead of the reduced horde of kidnappers as they followed her across Manhattan. Just as the sun was setting, she walked around the corner. Ahead of her, the day shift was heading for the door of the theater. She hurried and joined the end of the group, looking no do different than the others.

Still, inside a man stopped her. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm looking for Karen Spence. I want to talk to her."

"Go fuck yourself!" he told her. "Get the fuck out of here!"

"I've fucked Karen and I'm not leaving here until I talk to her. I know she's here, so shut up and get her."

He leaned forward and leered in her face. "Girlie, I'm your worst nightmare!" His face changed. He had a little less than a second, before he was dust on the wind.

Kennedy raised her voice. "I want to talk to Karen Spence. Bring her to me and no one else will be dusted!"

A few minutes later there were two dozen girls, all dressed more or less like Kennedy. Behind them were a woman and two men, who wore vampire faces.

"Karen?" Kennedy called.

One of the girls came forward and stopped in front of Kennedy. Kennedy was quick, stripping away the wig and sunglasses. It really was Karen.

"I'm sorry, Karen," Kennedy told her.

"Sorry? This is the greatest thing in my life, Kennedy! One orgasm after another for all eternity. What could be..."

Kennedy dusted her.

Behind her, the kidnappers finally arrived. Kennedy looked at the woman, behind the line of girls. "The Lord giveth, the Slayer taketh away. In this case, a little favor. Bon appetit!"

She launched herself into the center of the girls, bowling a half dozen over. Without hesitation she jumped up on a snack counter, then leaped upwards as hard as she could. She wasn't a Slayer, but ten feet over her head she grabbed the stairwell banisters and heaved herself up. A second later she was in the old theater's balcony area, a half dozen vampire teeny-boppers in hot pursuit, thundering up the stairs.

She cut across the balcony, then through a door that led to the catwalks. A few seconds later she emerged into the late afternoon. Detective Captain Harrison was there. "You okay?"

"Yes? Is everything in place?"

"Yes. Urban renewal in action!"

"Do it! And let's get the hell off this roof!"

He spoke into his radio and a dozen men on the ground tossed thermite grenades in the doors, then barred and chained them.

There was, Kennedy thought later, nothing more impressive than what happens to an older, wooden frame building when exposed to a dozen heat sources. If they had stood on the roof and spent a minute congratulating each other on a job well done, they'd have died -- it was that fast.



-------

Chapter 26: Driver's Ed


Kennedy straightened out from the curve and set her car in line for the next corner. That another car, drifting along behind her, had to make the choice between hitting her or backing off made no mind to her.

She set up easily for the corner, drifted around it, then accelerated away, now far ahead of the next nearest car. A few seconds later she took the checkered flag.

Only two laps, but hey, a race is a race! Winning wasn't just anything, it was everything! She loved driving these cars!

"My," Harvey, her crew chief, said, "you do like to win, don't you? Fuck the other guy!"

She smiled at him. "You got that part right. The part about them being guys."

"Kennedy, in a real race, two of the three would have hung in there to see if you really had the nerve. Odds are, about then there would be cars rolling down the track, spitting fire and shedding parts."

"And I had the inside, and they would have been at fault, right?"

"Having the right of way isn't going to mean much if you're broken and bleeding in the hospital."

"Let me get this right," she told him. "I have the right of way and they don't. If we crash, that's my fault because I refused to back off. Tell me, what is the point of the rules about right of way if someone challenges you, and you have to give way?"

"Common sense?" he said mildly.

"That's simple idiocy." She waved at the track. "Have you ever seen me break a rule?"

He sighed. "Just the one about how old you are."

"I'm twenty-one," Kennedy said with a laugh. "How many sixteen-year-olds can do this?" She pressed down on the cockpit and assumed what a gymnast would call the "pike" position, her legs parallel with the ground. She went to a handstand, then did a double flip, dismounting to the side of her car.

"I see an Olympic career ahead of you," he told her. "Unless you crash and burn in a qualifier."

"You have to understand, I have real problems when it's me following the rules and others don't and I'm the one considered at fault."

An hour later she was sitting in her trailer, a can of frozen orange juice pressed against her head. New York was never like this! Not a hundred plus degrees! California could easily have been Mars, for all that Kennedy was concerned.

There was a single knock and Emry came in and sat down at the table across from her. Emry was one of the reps from one of the big racing teams. More or less a talent scout.

He grinned at her. "In eight days, the Ontario 500 takes place."

"So?"

"So, that's a Sunday. Time trials run all week. On Saturday, as a warm-up, we'll do a rookie race. A hundred miles."

Kennedy didn't let any expression show on her face. "My class finished earlier today. I'm scheduled on a jet back to New York tomorrow."

"Like it will hurt your Daddy to have to pay for another ticket! What I don't want, though, is your Daddy on my ass. I'll see you get a ride in the race if you can guarantee me three things."

"You're not getting inside my pants."

He laughed. "No, simple things. First off, I don't want to hear from Daddy about his little girl being entered for a real race."

"You won't."

"Second, I don't want to hear from him, no matter how badly you lose."

"He doesn't give a shit."

"Last, if you're a fried tater-tot in the hospital, alive or dead, I don't want to hear from him then, either."

Kennedy laughed. "You should do your homework better."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, my father had nothing to do with this. This was a gift from a friend."

He raised an eyebrow. "Some gift!"

"A friend of a friend, if you get my drift," Kennedy told him. She could see at once, that he didn't get much of anything. "A mafia capo."

He choked. "Right!"

"No, I'm serious. Check with the school office."

He paled considerably. "And can I get the same deal about them?"

"Sure, no problem."

He nodded. "Kennedy..."

"You're still not getting in my pants."

"No. One thing. I was told to do this. I didn't understand why, because you're a crappy driver. I told them that. But, I'm offering the ride anyway."

"I'm a crappy driver?" Kennedy said, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

"Yes. Technically, you are beyond compare. But, Kennedy, technique doesn't win races."

"I've won every competition, no matter what the form, in driving school," Kennedy told him.

"So? Like I said, that's not what wins races." He held up a sealed envelope. "Here, take this. Put it someplace safe. Open it after the race."

"What is it?"

"My evaluation of your driving in your first race."

"A race I haven't been in?"

"Exactly."

Kennedy sighed. "And you won't explain?"

"No."

"And you'll trust me with the letter?"

"Kennedy, you're either good or not. You are either trustworthy or not. I don't think you're a good driver, but if I had a million dollar stake to hold for a race, I'd get you to help me watch it."

"And this makes sense to you?"

"It does. It's hope for you. Reschedule your flight or turn your slot over to someone who might be able to win."

"You don't think I can win?"

"Not a chance in the world," he told her. "Unless every other car in the race craps out."

-------

Came the day, Kennedy was ready. More than ready. The smells of the pits, the racetrack were a heady wine. She loved it!

She ran around in a couple of circles, and qualified second. She smiled to herself, vowing that before the first turn she'd be in front!

She was, too! She held the lead until half way through the second lap, when one car went past her. Grimly, she matched her car's performance with her own. Two laps later two more cars were in front of her.

In a forty lap race, you can't afford to lose a second. She checked her fuel status and she was doing well. She glanced up as she flew past her pit crew: no problems with the tires. She'd skip the pit stop!

At that point, six of the sixteen racers were ahead of her. Cars pulled off for their pit stops, but two of the cars ahead of her didn't. They ran tight lines, not jockeying for position, just content to wait. Since there wasn't a second between them, she was sure it was going to work for them. She, on the other hand, was halfway to being lapped.

Twice she surged forward, only to fall back at the tortured howl of the engine. One of the guys who'd stopped came up behind her, and she was all but frothing in rage. She did everything in her power to block him. And in doing so, let someone else pass them both.

Then came the checkered flag. She'd finished fourth. It was enough to make her chew nails. Still, she had to be back in Scarsdale the next day, or miss the opening of school.

On the airplane, she took the envelope and read what was written there.

"Kennedy is a competent driver, skilled in the basics. She has never blown an engine, she's never had mechanical or brake failure. She routinely finishes her competitions with more fuel than nearly anyone else.

"In light of this, it is my opinion, she should not be given a spot on the team. It is my belief that she will routinely finish from fourth to eighth, depending on the depth and nature of the field.

"The fuel numbers are the most damning: she doesn't push her car. The engine failure record repeats that: if you don't push an engine to its max, you can't win. She is overly cautious, more concerned about maintaining her fuel state and the mechanical state of her vehicle than winning. A little of that is okay, but Kennedy is extreme."

It was humbling, because she knew he'd written it before her race.

She sat contemplating things, resisting the urge to pick up the phone on the plane and unload on Emry.

Pipes was there to greet her, along with Mr. Glastonbury.

"Well, Miss Kennedy," Mr. Glastonbury asked, "did you have a lot of fun?"

"Everyone else there was male. I didn't get laid. Ergo, I didn't have that much fun."

"You won races?"

"Not the one that counted," she told him.

Pipes touched her sleeve. "Kennedy..."

"Tell Clarice I appreciate learning how to drive. Everyone can relax; I'll never practice my Formula One skills driving in town."

"Was it a good experience, Kennedy?" Pipes asked her flat out.

"Pipes, up here in the back of my head," she pointed at the spot, "there's a computer that keeps track of the art of the possible. It won't even let me try the art of the impossible. And if it decides that it's more impossible than it looks, I can't do that, either."

She turned to Mr. Glastonbury. "Once upon a time, I dreamed I met the First Slayer; I thought I was to be Chosen that night, but that she decided I was too young. Now I know the truth of it. I'll never be chosen, Mr. Glastonbury. Never. A Slayer fights even if there is no hope. I've never felt like that, so I didn't realize the truth.

"I learned the truth on the race track. I could tell when I was pushing too hard, where the car might break, or where if I went faster the engine would use too much fuel. I didn't push it.

"When the king of the gypsies had Rosalie throw that spell at us, I thought I was ready, and I did what I thought I had to. But when I realized that it was much stronger than I expected, I stood paralyzed, unable to move. I couldn't think of even one more thing to counter it that I hadn't already done.

"The visions I've had of Slayers dying? They died fighting. I never got the message, not until now. If someone had been in my head that day, they'd have seen me die with my head bowed, waiting for the inevitable."

Mr. Glastonbury smiled thinly. "Miss Kennedy, that's what we all do. We put our best effort even if things go awry. A friend of mine had a brother who was a bomber gunner in World War II. One night over Germany his plane was hit. They were on their way to drop incendiaries on a German town, instead those bombs started going off in the plane.

"One second he was in the aircraft, the next second the plane blew up like a skyrocket. It literally blew the man out of his clothes; he was stark naked. Needless to say, his parachute was gone, too.

"He fell and fell, knowing he was dead. He made what peace he could with God, then, seconds before the impact, he closed his eyes.

"He went into a drift of snow that had formed near a hedge. He opened his eyes and realized he was still alive. In fact, he'd never hit the ground at all. He nearly froze getting out of that snow drift and the Germans thought him mad, but when he was finally repatriated the RAF officially recognized that he'd fallen from the bomber. A dozen other pilots had seen his aircraft fireball; the entire crew had been written off as dead.

"Miss Kennedy, you said it yourself. Your brain measures the art of the possible. I'm sure when it comes down to it, if there is any possibility of victory, you'll go for it. A car race? Miss Kennedy, a car race isn't a matter of life and death. Oh, for the drivers, I suppose, but they aren't in it to kill or be killed. Those are the sorts of fights you fight. Where did your 'art of the possible' computer come down on the notion of bearding a clutch of armed kidnappers in their den? Or wading into the heart of a nest of vampires, outnumbered twenty-five to one?"

"I had a plan. I was sure I was as safe as I could be."

"Miss Kennedy, I suspect if you had to race where the losers all died and only the winner survived," Pipes told her, "I have a feeling you'd finish first."

Kennedy smiled slightly. "First, I'd try to change the rules."

That was pretty much that. Once or twice a month, on a Saturday, she'd go into Manhattan and have lunch at the restaurant and play poker. School was a minor distraction. Her teachers knew she was coasting, and most of them took that as a good reason not to challenge her, academically.

Harriet was seeing someone and seemed happy; Amy was happy with her own girlfriend. Kennedy paid attention to a couple of girls at school but there was no magic spark.

Vampires and kidnappers seemed to have gotten the message and avoided Scarsdale and Manhattan.

Towards Christmas Kennedy started tutoring Juan Baptiste and Nita. Nita was well along in her pregnancy and hated going to school where she was getting some rude comments. Kennedy wanted her to name names, but Nita wouldn't reveal them. So Kennedy did some skulking and got a couple of names on her own. Abruptly, the rude comments stopped.

In late April two things happened that changed the routine. Mr. Glastonbury stood one morning, watching her work out. He didn't say a word, not until she finished.

"Miss Kennedy."

She turned to him as she was putting Lady Kennedy back in the case.

"This year May Day is on a Tuesday, and the Faire will be open from the Saturday before to the Sunday after. I have been asked to perform some archery exhibitions on both weekends, and Duke Roger asked me if I'd like to do some on May Day as well."

Kennedy shrugged. "So?"

"So it's not like you need the class time. Would you like to come? Duke Roger was asking about you."

"Is this your way to get back in my good graces?"

He shook his head. "We both know how impossible that will be. You tolerate me; we both know that. This is a simple invitation. You can come up for one or both weekends, or stay the entire time. Or you can stay here."

"Okay, I'll go," she said abruptly, not sure why she'd agreed. Maybe, she thought, just to get out of the house.

The second thing was the advent of Victoria. She knocked on the practice room door and Kennedy had looked up.

"Victoria."

"Hah! You remembered who I am! Sometimes I'm not sure. I mean, no Christmas cards, no birthday presents ... none of that."

"I don't do those ... and unless someone is intercepting my mail, I don't get them from you, either."

"Well, hey!" She patted her stomach. "That's a case of the pot belly calling the kettle belly black!"

With a start, Kennedy realized Victoria was pregnant.

"Thanks, Victoria," Kennedy said evenly.

"Thanks for what, Kennedy?"

"Well, I wasn't invited to the wedding. Thus, no reason to send a wedding present nor anniversary presents."

"Hah! Like you would! Besides, I'm not married and I'm not going to be married."

Kennedy smiled thinly. "I could talk to him."

Victoria slapped her thigh. "You would, wouldn't you! Kennedy, please ... lighten up. I'm okay with this. It's my choice. Fuck everyone else."

Kennedy nodded. "My theory, pretty much. Although I don't think our father would approve."

"I thought he was 'Pete?'"

"Not since he grounded me."

"I heard about that. The staff was all aghast. A battle of the titans! I'm surprised no one realized that no one ever wins that kind of battle."

"Maybe ... But if you surrender, you lose by default."

Victoria blinked. "I never thought of it quite like that."

She looked around. "It's April; I'm here until Memorial Day. Any bad guys on the horizon?"

"Not that I know of."

"Good! Let me know if that changes."

"Okay."

"Any cute maids?"

"She left."

"Bummer, Kennedy. Bummer! I sent her some money after she got hurt at your party. She sent it back."

"It's called 'stiff-necked pride, '" Kennedy told her. "It's all the rage among those of us who accept responsibility for the things we do."

"Tit for tat, Kennedy," Victoria told her. "You owe me."

"I owe you for what?"

"One ruined party. I want you to come to my 'Spring Fling' on Memorial Day."

"I don't think so."

"It'll be downstairs, Kennedy. That's assuming you'll let me hold it here."

"It's your house," Kennedy told her.

"Not so far as father is concerned. He says if you say no, it's no."

"Well, yes. But I can't imagine going."

"I went and played poker with your friends. I came to your New Year's Eve Party, Kennedy. You owe me."

"If you insist."

"I insist. You will, for that matter, not spend the time standing around the fringes. You will dance, do you understand?"

"Oh, Victoria!" Kennedy said with sarcasm. "I live to obey your every whim!"

"Kennedy, I had a pleasant chat with a very refined woman that night. Then she died, killed in front of me. Then a girl, maybe a little chunky for my taste, but still, I'm sure she was nice ... she was murdered in front of me too, just like that very nice woman. To be honest, I don't remember much after that, as I was barfing in the corner. I do remember seeing you heading towards the guy, I remember you standing in an empty quarter of the room a second later, no guy to be seen."

"Wow!" Kennedy told her.

"So, you will come to my party and you will dance. At least twice, for the number of people I saw killed that night."

"Then, I will dance eleven times, for those two and all the others. Plus twice more for those who were hurt." Kennedy smiled thinly. "Not counting you, of course."

"You can invite a girlfriend, but only one of the two dances I require will count with her."

"Victoria, you may not have noticed, but I'm neither outgoing nor popular."

"Kennedy, keep talking and I'll start inviting some of your friends."

Kennedy shut up and a few moments later, Victoria was gone.

Kennedy took Lady Kennedy with her to Faire, and once again mustered with the watch. Duke Roger looked her up and down.

"You're looking well, Lady Kennedy."

"Thank you, sir. Do you suppose I might have the petting zoo again?"

He laughed. "Oddly, few volunteer for the duty, and then, never more than once."

"Duke Roger, sir, it is my intention never to pull my blade this weekend. I have no desire to show off, demonstrate, duel or anything else. Just my duty as one of your constables."

"The petting zoo will only be open on the weekends and May Day. Could I interest you in a couple of hours of general patrol on the other days?"

"Okay," she told him, uncertain if this was a step up or down. Well, on reflection, she had to admit that anything different than the petting zoo had to be a step up -- because there was no way to go down from the zoo.

She went over to the shopkeepers' booths and got a hug from Harriet. "Can you imagine it?" Harriet bubbled over. "All these years and here we are! Juniors in high school, next year seniors and then off to college!"

"Well, I'm not sure about college," Kennedy told her, "but yeah, I am looking forward to it."

"I have a stepfather," she said out of the blue.

"Is he nice?"

"Nice enough. He keeps Mom happy, and that's a good thing. She met him here, at Faire; he's a science fiction author."

"Cool!"

"Yeah! Except now we go to conventions as well as Faire. It's making for a busy life!"

"And how's Rachael?" Rachael being Harriet's girlfriend.

"She's fine. She's got an orchestra thing this weekend, but she'll be here next weekend."

Harriet's mother appeared, saw Kennedy and did a double-take. "You!"

"Me!" Kennedy agreed.

"Stay away from Harriet!"

"Mother!" Harriet said, outraged.

"I have and I will, but, now and then a hug from an old friend is just what the doctor ordered!" Kennedy hugged Harriet one last time and tried to ignore the press of their bodies.

She tossed a casual hand salute towards Harriet's mother, turned and left.

Friar Geoffrey fell into step next to her. "You understand that with the exception of the current Slayer, most Slayers have no friends. They cut themselves off from their families, too. I understand the Slayer's younger sister has turned into a pesky teenager, living together has become quite a trial..."

Kennedy turned to him, confused. "The Slayer doesn't have a sister. Not unless this is a different Slayer."

"No, it's the same one. She always has had a sister."

"I can remember a half a dozen times where you told me that her parents were divorced and that her mother had worried a great deal about Buffy, until finally, one day, she found out about her being the Slayer. Now she's nervous, but accepting. You also told me the Slayer was living in her college dorm. Her first roommate was a demon, then she paired up with one of her friends, then the friend started rooming with someone else. Never a word about a sister."

"No, she's been at home for months and months. She's always had a sister."

Kennedy nodded. "Whatever."

He paled. "You think I'm lying to you!"

"Of course not, why would I ever think that? What could I possibly base that judgment on? Unless my memory is completely out of whack, that is. Is it?"

"I don't know. I just don't know ... I'm sure I told you she had a sister. I can remember several occasions where I told you. She's something like five or six years younger than the Slayer."

"Mr. Glastonbury, I swear, you told me the opposite. Not just once, but several times."

His laugh was harsh, short and bitter. "You realize I'll have to check this with the Watchers Council?"

"Hello! This isn't the surprise for me you think it is."

She looked at him coldly. "Trustworthy isn't something you can be one day and not the next. You are or you aren't."

"Miss Kennedy, I know we'll never be friends; I'm equally sure we'll never be teacher and student again. All I can say is that I'm not sure what I could have done differently, even had I been able to see the future."

"And that, Mr. Glastonbury, is why I treat you with all the contempt you deserve. I screwed up when I led the others to meet the king of the gypsies. Had I to do it over, there are any number of things I'd have done differently. You seem incapable of learning from your mistakes."

She spun on her heel and stalked off.

The petting zoo hadn't changed. She took great care not to pound a few of the two-legged visitors into the ground. At the end of her shift, Duke Roger met her.

"Sir?" she asked.

"There are people, Lady Kennedy, who have no guts and no honor. They do what they do from behind your back, and never let on that they were the one. Someone has told Sixteenth Cousin you're here this weekend. The fool has been practicing with a sword and now thinks he's as good as any girl, so he's going to show up tonight and challenge you to another duel."

"And I told you I won't draw my blade. Someone better tell Sixteenth Cousin just how bad it will look if I take him on barehanded, pull down his britches and spank his bare butt."

Duke Roger grimaced. "Lady Kennedy, I'm sure you could do just that -- but do you understand that one of my jobs is to make sure things never get that far? Sixteenth Cousin is upsetting my apple cart, but under our rules, he's got the right to challenge you. It's just that I'm as sure as I can be, he has no intention of abiding by the rules."

"So, if you're willing to let him break the rules, why not let me?"

"Two wrongs don't make it right."

"I suppose. How about if we simply go out behind the village and duke it out?"

"Lady Kennedy ... you know I can't let him fight against such odds."

"Even if that's what he wants?"

"Particularly if that's what he wants."

Kennedy sighed. "I'll think on it. I promise you, I won't draw a weapon against him. If he wants a fight, I'll do it bare-handed. If he draws a blade against me when I'm unarmed, I will make him wish he was never born, even though I won't leave so much as a bruise."

"I suppose that's the best I can expect. Lord knows, if I was in your position, I'd deck the bastard myself."

A short while later, Kennedy was sitting in the Inn, eating dinner. Someone nudged her shoulder. Unsure, she turned, wary.

Ferinc grinned. "Lady Kennedy, I presume?"

"Ferinc!" she said with genuine pleasure.

"I have brought you a present." He stepped aside and Kennedy could see Rosalie, Marcie and Harriet.

Kennedy whooped for joy, stood and grabbed Rosalie about the waist and twirled her in a circle.

"You never used my charms," Rosalie said with a good-natured grin.

"I thought of something better. Can I talk to you in a bit?"

"I swore off magic for Lent," she told Kennedy.

Kennedy laughed. "And how long has Lent been over?"

"Drat! You're not supposed to know those things!"

They all shared a laugh.

A few minutes later Kennedy explained what she wanted. Rosalie put her hand on Kennedy's. "No."

"No?"

"Okay, I didn't swear off magic for Lent. I did swear off magic that hurts people or changes people. You want me to leave him in the dust."

"Okay, that's no problem," Kennedy told her, then whispered her next plan.

Rosalie smiled. "Just a swirl of air?"

"And a little dust, even if there is otherwise none."

"No problem."

"And I swear to you, not so much as a physical bruise."

"Leaving out the great huge hole you're going to poke in his psyche?"

"Rosalie, this is Ren Faire! Slaying dragons is the stuff of legend! He'll have his shot! To win, all he has to do is stand his ground!"

Ferinc insisted on hearing what Kennedy proposed and when he heard it, he could only shake his head. "Your mind is diabolical, Lady Kennedy. Terrible and diabolical."

A while later they were in front of campfire. Kennedy was burning marshmallows, while the others were singing lustily about wenches and knaves.

Sixteenth Cousin appeared walked up to Kennedy and slapped her face. Kennedy laughed at him.

"Don't you dare mock me!" he demanded.

"You challenged me. Bare-handed then, my champion against yours."

"Your champion?" the boy exclaimed. "What a crock! You, girl! You and me!"

It appeared then. Thirty feet tall, scarlet red, fanged, clawed, wings perhaps sixty feet long when unfurled.

The dragon leaned down and roared in Sixteenth Cousin's face.

Sixteenth Cousin wasn't the only person to fall on his ass in the next second.

As quickly as the dragon appeared, it was gone. Kennedy bowed her head. "Sorry, my champion got a little ahead of himself. I've told him to stand down, until you decide if you'll fight yourself or name a champion."

Kennedy could see the spreading stain down Sixteenth Cousin's front, the smell of fresh diaper was wafting in the evening air. "Perhaps after you clean up," Kennedy said, twisting the barb.

She turned to the duke. "Sir, while what I drew wasn't blood, my honor is satisfied."

"How did you do that?" someone demanded.

Kennedy faced the crowd, a small smile on her face. "I probably broke the fire regulations. That was a firework, it goes up twenty or thirty feet and leaves pretty sparkles in a swirl."

There was a lot of talk, turning ribald, mostly, and for Sixteenth Cousin, serious aspersions on his manhood.

Kennedy spent the time talking quietly with her friends, catching up on the gossip from her other friends from camp.

When it was time for sleep, Kennedy slid into her tent, and has she had done several times, lay on top of her sleeping fur, her chin pillowed on her hands as she watched the goings on.

Not much later, Friar Geoffrey appeared and sat down just outside her tent.

"I've never told you, but I keep a diary."

Kennedy looked at him without saying anything. It's was impossible to do a good "who cares?" shrug while lying down.

"A long time ago, a friend of mine put a spell on it, making it look like book on ancient Aramaic. I spent a while reading back entries and you're right, there's nothing there about the Slayer having a sister. I write down information like that, so it should have been there.

"My first thought was to call the Watchers Council and ask for them to check themselves."

Kennedy couldn't suppress a snort of derision.

"Yes, I know. It was just a thought. So, instead, I called the Slayer's former Watcher. Guess what, he's Watching again, but this time more or less as a freelance. I asked him about the sister and he said he couldn't tell me anything about that, but did I know of an ancient enemy, a nameless enemy from before there were men on the planet, and who was now going by the name Glory?"

"And your answer?"

"No, I've never heard of anyone like that. Then he asked me why I was curious about the Slayer's sister and I told him my Potential was immune to any but the strongest magic, hurled directly at her, and she doesn't remember his Slayer having a sister. He told me to tell you to belt up, that you don't know what you're talking about."

"Belt up? That's your English version of hush my mouth?"

"Yes. Miss Kennedy, I hope you won't tell anyone else about your suspicions. I won't either, not even the Watchers Council."

"Particularly the Watchers Council," Kennedy replied.

"I don't know if I mentioned that the Watchers Council has used their chemical cocktail on her twice now. The first time it worked adequately, this last time it barely worked at all."

"My heart bleeds for them."

"No doubt. Still, it's something you might want to remember."

He stood up. "Now, for some ale, some music, and who knows!"

"You're telling me I'm making a mistake being here in my tent alone."

"After a while, people get a little less -- well, call it choosy."

"I've tried that. It didn't turn out well at all."

He chuckled. "I suppose I should be glad. Still, it's painful for me to see you -- moping."

"Moping is your word for it?" Kennedy laughed. "We here on our side of the pond have our own words for it."

"Your own words, your own spellings. You've brutalized the mother tongue!"

He walked off towards the campfires. Kennedy contemplated rising to the challenge, then decided that this was a good day to goof off. She pulled her pillow close, put it over her head, and put her head down on her shoulders and slept.

She was up early. She worked out a few yards away from the other tents. She was nearly done when she saw Duke Roger was watching her.

She saluted him and he bobbed his head. She finished up and went over to him. "Is there something, Duke Roger?"

"Well, there was a reason why I came over here, but after watching that workout, I suddenly realize that it would be a really good idea if I avoided a challenge from you."

"A challenge?"

"For the dukedom. In fact, the king should worry about a challenge from you."

When he said "king" a mental picture of the former king of the gypsies popped into her head. She shook her head hard. "I don't want to be a duke; I surely don't want to be king!"

"Well, a few minutes ago I received a cell phone call from the gentleman who had volunteered for morning duty at the petting zoo. A hit and run driver clipped him as he was leaving his driveway. His car is totaled and he has a broken leg. He's sorry, but he's not coming."

"A pretty fancy excuse," Kennedy said with a grin. "Couldn't he have said 'My dog ate my homework?'"

"I know him, he's hurt, Kennedy."

"I was kidding."

"I know. Would you take both shifts today?"

"Of course."

She headed for a shower, then breakfast. A little before nine she was at the petting zoo.

There were two kids there, even if the animal handlers weren't around yet. One was a boy of about seven, the other a girl about twelve. Kennedy bobbed her head to each. The boy, for reasons Kennedy couldn't fathom, seemed to have a crush on one of the goats. He knew its name and he spent most of the day talking to "his" goat as if it was his best friend.

Kennedy realized that the goat was probably the only friend the boy had, so she kept anyone from bothering him.

The girl, on the other hand, when not at Faire, belonged to the 4-H Club and one of the two cows at the zoo was hers. While she wasn't supposed to go in the animal barn without one of the adult handlers, Kennedy knew her and knew it would be okay, so when the girl went in, Kennedy didn't think twice about it. The boy, of course, needed a glare to keep him from following the older girl.

It was a nice morning and the barnyard smell wasn't overpowering yet. Kennedy sighed. Why was it she was good at this?

There was a shriek from the barn.

Without hesitation, Kennedy reached for the boy. "Duke Roger! Now!" she yelled at him, pushed him towards the main area of the Faire, then she was inside the barn.

The light was dim, but even in dim light, movement is easy to see.

She drew up. Whatever it was that had a grip on the girl wasn't a Sofai water demon. It was big and ugly. And Kennedy didn't think the reason the girl was close to its mouth was so it could smell the roses.

"Hey! Stop!" she called, pulling Lady Kennedy.

"Another mortal!" said something behind her. Something tried to knock Lady Kennedy from her hand. Kennedy ducked and twisted, saw a second one of the critters, and faster than you say "Big mistake to get so close" its head was rolling across the floor.

The other demon roared in fury, and tossed the girl away, bouncing her off a wall and charged Kennedy. Kennedy waited carefully, and at the right moment, ducked, turned and slashed. Her blade missed its head, but slammed into its spine. Instantly she whirled and slashed diagonally, a high line attack, then, staying with the movement, delivered a low line diagonal slash a fraction of a second later.

The demon slid on its face across the barn floor. Kennedy lifted Lady Kennedy up high, and stabbed down through its heart, pinning it to the dirt.

Kennedy whirled and went to the girl who was shaking her head, still groggy from hitting the wall.

"What was that?"

"It's Sheila, right?" Kennedy asked

The girl focused on her. "Yes."

"Sheila, you're not stupid, right?"

"Huh?"

"You're not stupid. What you just saw ... that's not something you want to tell people about, do you? Scaly demons with sores the size of dinner plates?"

Sheila's eyes visited the two dead demons. "They're right there."

"Not for long. Sheila, trust me on this. Tell Duke Roger you were going up to throw some hay down for your cow. Tell him you slipped on the ladder."

"It grabbed me!"

"It's dead. I swear, it will stay dead. It didn't want you, anyway, either."

"When I screamed it hurt me! It told me to call you!"

"I know. And you didn't, did you?"

"I don't know ... I was..."

"Thinking about it. But, I was too fast."

Outside, Duke Roger's voice boomed! "Kennedy! Coming in!"

"Back in a jiffy!" Kennedy told Sheila.

She met Duke Roger a few feet from the door. "What happened?" he asked, his eyes on the two dead critters.

Kennedy laughed. "Do you want to make this easy or hard?"

"Oh, easy. I'm a big fan of easy."

"Do you have a doctor or EMT who will keep their mouth shut?"

He looked at Kennedy in askance. "Yes."

"Fetch him or her. Tell them Sheila has a, uh, personal injury. A private injury. Keep everyone else out."

"The boy just said he heard a scream and you asked him to run and fetch me."

"Exactly right!" Kennedy told him.

He nodded, turned and left.

Kennedy went back to Sheila, who was sitting up now. "I think there's something wrong with my ribs," she told Kennedy.

"You were thrown pretty hard. I'd like you to stay quiet here for a bit. Duke Roger has gone to get a doctor. I have a spot of work to do."

She retrieved Lady Kennedy first, cleaning off the blade by plunging it into the dirt. She hated to put the sword back in her scabbard, but what could she do? She grabbed the second demon around the waist, picked it up and dragged it behind a pile of straw. A second later, she had the two bits of the other behind the same pile. She was going to push hay over the bodies, but there was a knock instead.

"Kennedy, it's the duke."

"Come," she called.

Duke Roger and the doctor came in. She was a woman in her late twenties, dressed in Faire costume of a court lady, but carried a prosaic medical bag.

Kennedy waved at Sheila and the woman went right to her.

"Ribs too, I think," Kennedy told her.

The glare from the doctor said she should mind her own business.

"Doctor," Kennedy said evenly.

"I'm busy!"

"Please, a second."

The doctor looked at Kennedy.

"Duke Roger assured me that you'd be cool," Kennedy told the woman.

"Let me treat my patient."

"Are you? Cool?" Kennedy asked.

Duke Roger spoke. "Ellen, you once told me that nothing would astonish you."

"Roger, she's hurt! I need to look after the patient."

"Doctor, please, a moment," Kennedy interjected. "I assure you, it will inform your diagnosis."

Kennedy waved to the corner and when the woman didn't move, grabbed her by the hand and pulled.

The doctor looked down at the two demons and gasped. "Oh my God! What are those?"

Duke Roger looked a little green himself. "Kennedy?"

"About a year ago, I was starting on demonology, but my teacher and I had a parting of the ways. One of the warrior demon races; I remember that much.

"Doctor, one of them grabbed Sheila. When I lopped off its buddy's head, it threw Sheila against the wall. Sheila tucked and took it on her back. After you get done examining her ribs, you're going to need to check her groin, because that's where it had its grip. Odds are she's bruised. Odds are that's going to look a lot like something it wasn't."

"Rape," the doctor offered, still staring.

"Actually, it was hungry, but not for sex," Kennedy told her.

It was, Kennedy realized, touch and go just then for the doctor. She nearly threw up. After a second, the doctor turned to Kennedy. "And you lopped off one of the heads?"

"It snuck up behind me, laughed and tried to grab me. Rule One: grab first, then laugh."

Without a word, the doctor turned and went back to Sheila. She turned to Duke Roger. "We're going to need a stretcher."

"Right!" he said, and hustled towards the door.

The doctor bent low, talking to Sheila in almost inaudible tones. She undid Sheila's jeans and pulled them down a bit, talking to Sheila all the while. A bit later, the jeans were back where they belonged.

Kennedy, in the meantime, moved a lot of hay.

Duke Roger returned. "There's an ambulance enroute, Ellen. A stretcher is outside. It would be best if we carried her to the side gate."

The doctor looked at him. "And you're okay with this? She slipped?"

"Sheila?" Duke Roger said, crouching down next to the girl. "It's not a good thing to lie, but this ... trust me on this. This is a good time to lie about what you saw."

"Why?" the twelve-year-old asked.

"Because a lot of people have a vested interest in denying such things as this. They would do -- unpleasant things -- to you, to make you change your story. I swear to you on my honor, Sheila, I wouldn't say this if it wasn't true."

"Sheila," Kennedy said quietly, "my stepfather is worth a b'zillion dollars. This is the third time someone has come after me. I'm truly sorry, I am. I want very much to be just plain Kennedy, someone who can go to Faire and have a good time and not worry about bad guys, but it's just not possible, I guess.

"As bad as that is, the government keeps trying to butt in. They would, I think, like to take me apart into little pieces to see what makes me tick. I'm not fond of them, either.

"Please, it will be better for everyone if you simply tell people you started up the ladder, got a few steps and slipped."

Kennedy was surprised at Sheila when she said, "It sure hurts down there like I slipped on the ladder!

"Okay, I slipped. What are you going to do with that," she waved at the pile of hay.

"Compost," Kennedy told her.

"Oh! Ick!" Sheila replied, then groaned. "I shouldn't laugh!"

"Let's get that stretcher in here, Duke Roger," the doctor said, cutting through it all.

A few minutes later, four of the constables were carrying Sheila out on a stretcher, tut-tutting at her injuries.

The animal handlers had arrived in the meantime, and were concerned, then furious when Kennedy told them she'd let Sheila in without supervision.

Kennedy stared coldly at the boss until he finally ran down. "Great proactive ass-covering," she told him. "I've seen you let Sheila stay late several times. I've been told that she's almost always the first person in the barn in the morning. You understand she's afraid her parents are going to sell her cow for hamburger, don't you?"

There were grudging nods.

"Do not fault me for not being there, when in fact, you weren't there either. Now, go fetch me a shovel."

"A shovel?"

"A shovel. You know, one of those things for digging? Then go outside for an hour. Tell people that the zoo will open at ten thirty, instead of ten."

Friar Geoffrey had made a belated appearance, his eyes bright. He simply stood watching the proceedings, but ignored the "Shoo!" command given to everyone else.

Kennedy found a place in the dirt of to one side and started digging.

Friar Geoffrey laughed. "I was thinking about offering a hand, but watching you dig, I have regained my humility. What happened?"

She nodded at the pile of hay. "Two demons were waiting for me this morning. They got Sheila instead. I think it was a setup, because the man who was supposed to be here today was involved with a hit-and-run as he left his home, early today."

Friar Geoffrey went and pawed through the hay. A minute later, he was back. "Palfrey demons. Tough fighters. Their clans usually hire out two or three to a client and guarantee their work."

Kennedy grimaced. "How many in a clan?"

"Well, that's hard to say. Usually from ten to forty adult males. Of course, now they'll teach the younglings your name and face, and now you'll forever be a target."

"I was a target yesterday," Kennedy told him. "I'm a target today, and if I'm alive, I'll be a target tomorrow. Pardon me if I don't get excited except about the staying alive bit."

Kennedy finished, pushed the remains into the pit, then much more quickly, filled it in. "I must say," she said, leaning on the shovel, short of breath, "that vampires are much more accommodating when you kill them. They turn to dust."

She quickly moved the hay over the spot, then went and let in the animal handlers, who could only complain about how they were going to be late opening because of Sheila.

Kennedy was truly fed up with BS, so she invited the head of the handlers into the barn and explained that she was unhappy with his attitude. Oddly enough, when he was reminded, he'd had a few accidents around farm animals himself.

It was odd, Kennedy thought, as the day wound down. Except for the first hour or so, there was no interest in what happened to Sheila or the petting zoo.

At the end of the day, Duke Roger appeared. "Everything seems to have quieted down."

"I have to leave. I won't be back," she told him bluntly.

He nodded. "I understand. They keep trying."

"I can protect myself," she told him. "I can't bear the thought that someone like Sheila might be hurt because of me."

"Lady Kennedy, my heart goes out to you, and I wish it wasn't so -- but it is. Please don't come back. You have your duty and I have mine."

"And you've tried to do yours as best you can, and I keep trying to pretend mine doesn't exist."

She could see the glint of tears in his eyes. "If I thought that for an instant, I'd fight you myself. Fate, Lady Kennedy, isn't fair. It isn't nice. You have yours and your path and mine must part."

"I know."

She had long since called; the earliest she could be picked up was Monday morning. She wasn't happy and told her father so in no uncertain terms. Still, it didn't seem like much of a risk, so she retired to her tent. This time, even though she lay as she had the night before, this time her hand was inches from Lady Kennedy.

She was drowsing when someone walked up. She came awake, ready to draw Lady Kennedy at need.

Instead, it was the doctor. "May I sit?" the woman said, gesturing in front of Kennedy.

"Sure."

She arranged herself, then stared at Kennedy hard. "I am, you understand, an official trauma doctor for the state of New York. As such, I have a legal obligation to report any child abuse, even if it's mere surmise.

"At the hospital they kept asking her how it happened. Four times Sheila told the same story, and after the fourth recital she yawned and put her head down, saying she was tired and wanted to nap. Twelve-year-olds might nap if forced, but not even force would get them to admit they needed the nap.

"I hope they are satisfied."

The doctor looked at Kennedy steadily. "Sheila worships the ground you walk on, you know. You are, she told me, the only one of the constables that doesn't make fun of her, or make cow jokes. She would do, I think, pretty much anything you asked of her. She also greatly respects Duke Roger."

Kennedy laughed. "You want to shout the truth to the rooftops?"

"I thought about it. Her injuries are more consistent with attempted rape than slipping on a ladder. Except I can't get those -- things -- out of my mind."

"Two demons wanted me to come in the barn so they could kill me. The thing is, of course, that I didn't agree with the plan and in the ensuing fight I killed the two demons."

The doctor was silent for a moment, then shook her head. "You'd think someone today would have noticed the bodies."

"I dug a grave and buried them. If you'd have looked close, you'd have noticed the hay pile moved ten feet."

"And Roger is okay with this?"

"No, of course not. The duke told me to leave, and that's what I'm going to be doing early tomorrow. Doc, this isn't the first time they've come for me. I keep trying to pretend it's not true, but it is."

"Paranoia."

"Paranoia, delusions of grandeur, all of that," Kennedy said smugly. "Did you see the dragon?"

"I heard about it."

"Paranoia, that's what Sixteenth Cousin faced. Not to mention delusions of competence. Everyone else there just had overactive imaginations."

"So, Sheila slipped," the doctor agreed.

"Sheila slipped is a much better explanation than the other one."

"She is lucky not to have internal bleeding. We don't think so, but she's saying overnight in the hospital to be sure. Plus she has a couple of cracked ribs."

"She did a good job of landing," Kennedy complimented the young girl. "She was thrown head first towards the wall."

The doctor grimaced. "You are so calm and controlled about this. As if it happens every day."

"Not every day. This is the fourth time in four years. Plus, once there were some mundane kidnappers as well. The government has tried a couple of times as well."

"More paranoia," the doctor said reflexively.

Kennedy sniffed. "I understand it's a Psych 101 truism: people being who they are, every now and then you find a patient that people are indeed trying to kill. Don't ignore such an explanation when making a diagnosis."

"And what am I supposed to do about what I saw this morning?" The doctor's voice was plaintive.

Kennedy smiled. "Sheila knows what to do. So does Duke Roger -- it's what I'm going to do. Let it go."

"I can't believe you're getting away with this."

"Getting away with what, doctor?" Kennedy asked coolly.

"Alteration of history."

"Ask Duke Roger about the time he came face to face with a vampire. There are good and sufficient reasons to amend history."

"Really? Isn't that rather, condescending? The rest of us aren't fit to know?"

"No, it's not that. Knowing about these things won't help you. If you met one of those demons on a dark night, unless someone like me was close by, you'd die unless you turned and ran as fast as you could -- and they had something else on their minds.

"The government has learned caution. They've discovered there are two opposing sides in the fight. It's trite and crass, but true: it's the good guys versus the bad guys. When their people go up against the bad guys, a lot of good men die. When they go up against someone like me, a lot of good men get humiliated. Even the dimmest bureaucrat seems to have figured out that they have to be very careful to put an oar into this battle."

"Good and evil?"

"Good and evil," Kennedy confirmed.

"And if everything I've come to believe in my life says that good is relative and so is bad..."

Kennedy laughed sarcastically. "I can tell by your voice you're from New York City; Brooklyn."

The doctor nodded.

"So, have you treated anyone who was shot? Stabbed? Mugged?" Kennedy asked her.

"Of course! When you have no hope, you give up on everything. What has that got with this morning?"

"Most of the criminals you meet are bad, but not evil. They kill each other and innocent bystanders, but they are really children with little understanding of what it is they are doing. There are those, however, who are true evil.

"True evil comes into your home to make you hurt, to make your life hell incarnate -- even if they plan to kill you a few seconds later. They are cruel because it pleases them. The common criminal might kill by malice or carelessness, but the truly evil have no redeeming characteristics -- they kill for the pleasure of it ... or for no reason at all.

"They are stronger than you are, stronger, in fact than the average man. And that's just the ones that used to be human. The ones like those this morning, who were never human, they treat us like we treat bugs. We are of no account. They came for me, knowing that I'm one of those who can fight back. And that's why I'm camped off to one side of everyone else and why I'll be gone a little after sunup."

"It seems to me like evil is just a matter of degree."

Kennedy sighed. "Trust me, Doctor. You don't ever want to find out that it's like the difference between ice and steam. A complete change of state."

Kennedy realized that the doctor was procrastinating. And with that realization came the understanding why. "Doctor, a few years ago my sister explained to me in glowing terms what being eighteen meant: you can bed down with whoever you please and no one can say no. Doctor, I'm seventeen."

"Am I that transparent?"

"Well, it took me a while to figure it out. Please, I really wish I was eighteen and I really, really wish I didn't have my fate hanging in the balance just now. But I do. Yeah, odds are you can crawl in here next to me and we'll spend a pleasant night and tomorrow we'll go our separate ways -- no harm, no foul.

"But those two this morning weren't alone. They ambushed the guy who was supposed to have the morning duty, knowing I'd get the job. Night is their time of day; they could be sneaking up on us right this very second."

For Kennedy, it had been simple. She could see past the doctor and she was careful and listening. When Friar Geoffrey asked her how she was, the doctor jumped, literally, two feet into the air. Without another word, the woman whirled and fled into the night.

Her tutor shrugged. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay. I was telling creepy nighttime stories and she finally realized that she really didn't want to know how true they were."

"The car will be earlier than originally planned. I finally convinced your father that this is serious."

"I guess after all this time I should applaud or something."

"Dawn, Miss Kennedy. I'll be there to see you off. I was quite sure you didn't want me along."

"You're right about that," Kennedy told him dryly.

"Your sister and a friend are staying in the house. Mr. Stuyvesant says that it would be easier if you evicted them."

"I'm sure it would."

He turned and walked back towards the village.

Kennedy rolled over and went back to sleep.

-------

A little before noon the next day she was sitting on the terrace when Victoria appeared. Her stepsister saw Kennedy and started.

"I thought you were gone for another week."

"No," Kennedy told her.

Another girl appeared, yawning broadly. She walked up to Victoria and put her arm around Victoria's waist. "Who is this, Vickie?"

"Nebbie, this my stepsister Kennedy. She lives here."

"Oh, hello!" the woman said to Kennedy, smiling. "Good morning!"

Kennedy looked at Victoria. "They came again, yesterday, Victoria. You asked me to tell if you things looked dangerous. They are."

Victoria's eyes flashed with anger. "One second after you see my friend, you tell me to pack my bags?"

"No. If you'll recall, I had time to get exactly one word in edgewise. Trust me, Victoria, I'd have said it next, anyway."

"You're not having a fight over me, are you?" the girl asked plaintively.

"No," Kennedy said.

"Yes," Victoria replied.

The woman looked at Kennedy with distaste. "How can you be so jealous of your sister? Why do you have it in for her?

"Nebbie? Is that a name?" Kennedy asked.

The girl shrugged. "It's actually Nebraska. My mother couldn't think of anything else when I was born in Valentine."

"Nebraska, a few years ago at a New Year's Eve party I hosted, kidnappers came. Nine guards and two guests were killed, a guest and a guard were injured. Last year kidnappers came again, only this time they were stopped short of the house. Yesterday two more came for me where I was spending the weekend."

"Feel free to stay, Victoria; your friend can stay as well. That's your business. If you schedule a party here, I won't be here. I'm sorry, that's just the way it has to be."

"You're serious?"

"Victoria, have I ever lied to you?"

"Every day in every way, but nothing this big, I guess.

"Why do those bastards keep coming for you and have never bothered with me?"

"Maybe they figure the ugly daughter has fewer guards."

Victoria seemed to actually be thinking that over.

"I guess, Nebbie, we're going to have to get a room in town. The Hilton, I expect." She turned to Kennedy. "I still think this is just an excuse to get out of dancing with people."

"Victoria, dancing never once crossed my mind."

Kennedy went down to the practice room and swung Lady Kennedy until her arm was so tired she couldn't hold a glass of juice, much less her sword.

-------

A week later Mr. Glastonbury was back. "The doctor went to Duke Roger and started demanding answers. Another skeptic."

"I hope the duke was gentle with her," Kennedy told him.

"Duke Roger told her to either accept the explanation or he'd have to let her go. She quit."

Kennedy ran her hands over her eyes. "I never meant for it to end like that."

Mr. Glastonbury nodded.

"Kennedy..." he started to say something and stopped.

"What?"

"The Watchers Council has told me that since you're not the Slayer at the age you are, they are taking you off the official 'Watch' list. I had to remind them twice that I quit, because they kept trying to assign me to a girl in North Carolina and that you had quit as well.

"When I broached the subject of the Slayer's sister they told me that I was, of course, mistaken. My diary was incorrect, you are incorrect, and my own impressions of a sister are quite correct."

He looked at her then laughed. "Then they told me that if either of us talked about it, and they found out that we'd talked about it, they'd kill us. A friend I have who is still on the Council doesn't know the details, but that it's a very strong spell that someone used to change the memories of just about everyone who knew the Slayer, to convince them she has a sister. He says the Council knows why, but they won't say."

"You know where the Slayer is, don't you?" Kennedy asked him. Mr. Glastonbury nodded that he did.

"Why not just pick up the phone and ask her? Unless the reports of her dissatisfaction with the Council are wrong."

He chuckled. "You don't suppose, Kennedy, that if someone bespelled the entire planet, just about, to keep a secret, that the Slayer probably isn't going to blab it to a voice on the phone?"

Kennedy blushed. "Well, you know me. I like simple plans. That one, I think, qualifies as simple-minded."

A few weeks later Kennedy called her stepfather and asked when and where Victoria's party was going to be. He laughed. "Victoria is under the impression you won't be there."

"Everyone is under the impression I'm staying home that night. What better night to travel? The only person who knows in advance is you. I assume you know enough not to tell anyone, not even Victoria."

"Oh, surely! I was going to be there; security will be more than adequate."

"I told her I was going do dance eleven dances, but she said I only had to dance two. I'll double that, then be out of there."

"You do know how to dance, right?"

Kennedy laughed and hung up without answering.

Starting that evening, she swept the area around the house to make sure there were no watchers. There weren't. The next night she went out again, then planned on going out later, after midnight.

She had a paper do in English, so she worked a little on that. It was stultifyingly dull, and in the middle of it, seemed to wake up.

She looked down. She was very high up, standing on a construction crane or something. She looked back at a young girl, fourteen or so, then looked down again. A vortex was forming; Kennedy wasn't sure why she knew it, but she knew that the vortex meant the end of the world. She turned back one more time, smiled at the young girl ... and then stepped off.

She felt calm and confident as the ground grew closer, but more importantly the vortex rushed closer. There was an instant of shattering pain, as if her being had been spread to edges of the universe. For a second she had a glimpse of green fields and rounded hills on the other side.

Then she was awake. Sweat poured off her body; it was worse than any of the times before. How arrogant she was! Slayers could recognize the inevitable as well as the next person, and could prepare for it as well as anyone ever can.

She pushed herself up, and went looking for Mr. Glastonbury. He was asleep, it lacked a few minutes of one in the morning. She banged on his door until he appeared.

"What is it, Miss Kennedy?"

"You'll be getting a new Slayer tonight. This time, the cheerleader won't be coming back."

She spun on her heel and went back to her room and locked the door. She cried until dawn. Dawn! That was her sister's name. Her not-sister. The one she'd died for anyway, because that's who she was. And as the sun rose, Kennedy knew that once again she'd not been Chosen. So, it was true! She was going to be passed over.

Long before it was time for school, she'd had a lot of time to think about a lot of things.



-------

Chapter 27: Other Evils


Kennedy kept busy during the summer, trying not to think about the camp she couldn't attend or the friends she couldn't see. Twice she went to play poker in Manhattan with Pipes and the others, each time using a different route, a different way to get there.

It was a little like being grounded, but this was by her own choice. Instead of doing what she truly wanted, she buried herself. She worked out, she studied, she read books for pleasure, and she watched TV more than she ever had before.

Now and again, she'd ask Mr. Glastonbury for a study topic; now and again, weeks later he'd ask her a few questions about the topic. It wasn't at all like it had been before, and she didn't spar with him at all. She had to forgo sparring with human partners, because the one time a guard had agreed to practice with her, she'd tossed him six feet in the air when he rushed her. If it had been Mr. Glastonbury, he'd have landed, moaned and groaned for a while, and then would have been ready to go again. The guard simply turned and left, quitting the next day.

Pipes was candid. "We've rethought the whole thing about how to fight vampires. No more going in, guns blazing away. Instead, we've got a few guys now who are getting pretty good with crossbows. When we're sure that's what we're facing we find a good spot and lie in wait. They come in range and zap! We dust them from ambush!"

"You have just two guys?"

Pipes nodded.

"You'd better train another couple, and start being careful about your ambush sites. At some point, they'll try to trap you. You need a covering force, and you'll need a clear shot at the vamps that will be coming up from behind your people."

"It grates," Pipes told her. "The men don't like it. It's not very brave to shoot from ambush. They want to do it face to face. We showed them the tape the police made of their cops flying through the air, crashing into things. Having their necks or backs broken like twigs. It just doesn't seem to sink in. They're sure they're too smart to let it happen to them.

"Except it will, won't it?"

"Vampire hunters are something vampires have faced for hundreds of years. Vamps are smart, they are tricky, and once you start building a history of killing them, they'll know about it. People talk. Then they trap the trappers. Or come after you. Stay at it for very long and they adjust and then ... that's the ball game."

Pipes nodded. "Carlo said something once, about his time in Nam. We had to be smart every time, be lucky every time ... and all they had to do was get lucky once or hit you on an off day. The vampires are like that too, aren't they?"

"Pretty much."

"I'll pass the warning. At least Clarice is still young enough to be willing to accept such things. My friend ... if he decided to do something else, you were out of luck."

"Like you said," Kennedy told him, "that only needs to happen once to ruin the rest of your life. And if you're really unlucky, it could be a very long life indeed."

When school started it was almost an anti-climax. Sure it was her senior year, and most of her classmates were eagerly looking forward to college. Still, as usual, her own future was clouded.

Right after Labor Day Kennedy had an appointment with a counselor. The counselor knew who her father was and blithely assumed Kennedy could get into whatever university she wanted to, no problem.

That mildly irritated her, because Kennedy had been hoping for some decent advice. It all kept coming back to what did she want to do after high school?

If she was the Slayer, well, things were pretty much a slam dunk. Stay in training, keep learning and cross her fingers and hope that she could do some good in the time she had. Except Mr. Glastonbury had all but said there was almost no chance now that she was going to be Chosen.

Did she want to fade away, slide into frustration and bitter anger and go out in a blaze of glory? She didn't think so. Being strong, fast and quick healing were things like her hair color, her measurements and her shoe size. They were facts about her, but they weren't her.

Did the frustration and depression happen because the Potentials knew they could be Chosen, then waited too long before started thinking about the future? Why did it happen to girls who were merely stronger then ninety-nine out of a hundred of their peers? Girls who ran faster or healed better? Why did they despair? Because they listened to their Watchers, she decided. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, she thought.

On the other hand, she'd told her stepfather where to go put his money. Money, and yes, as the counselor assumed, influence. Kennedy was sure she could go to him, apologize and he'd take care of everything. Again, that wasn't her, either.

Sure, she'd done to herself, over the last year, pretty much what he'd done to her the year before. Did it matter whose choice it had been? She was absolutely positive that it did. You either had control or you didn't. If you didn't have control, at some point, if you weren't careful, you'd stop paying attention and that would be that.

Without her father, she'd have a tough time living. Paying for college? It would have to be a community college and probably part time, with most of her day filled with an eight to five job. Was that so bad? How many of her peers had that staring them in the face?

No doubt, quite a few. But, she was sure that most of them, at this point in life, were hoping against hope that it wouldn't happen to them. No fat, beer-drinking, belly-scratching husband, no fat little kids, yelling, screaming and making messes all over the place. Instead, a nice home in the burbs with a stockbroker husband, the shiny, smiling kids with perfect grade-point averages and who played championship soccer or who were training for the Olympics.

Kennedy did something extraordinary then. She scheduled another appointment with her counselor the next day.

"Let me be blunt," Kennedy told the woman. "My stepfather and I have had a falling out. I told him I'd rather die than take any of his money after I graduate. Look at my grade point average. I expect to get at least 1500 on my SAT test and maybe higher. I want to go to a college on a scholarship."

To her credit, the counselor did look. "Straight As, that's good."

"I got a B in my first semester of Spanish," Kennedy told her. That had been necessary to make sure that the other girl finished ahead of her. Which, it turned out, had been unnecessary, as Kennedy had never heard of AP classes and the girl had. There were a dozen others ahead of her as well.

The counselor shrugged. "You've never played on a varsity team sport. No soccer, no lacrosse, no volleyball, no track and field ... do you have any hobby sports, like ice skating or gymnastics? Any extracurricular activities at all?"

"Not really. I swing a mean sword at Ren Faire, I can row a racing scull really fast."

The woman hadn't been interested until the last. She looked up at Kennedy. "Sculls? You have experience with sculls?"

Kennedy decided on a whim that it was time to lie. "Quite a bit. I've had some good coaching."

"Hmmm. Sculls are a sport where maturity counts more than youth. Most of the women in it are older. How about skiing?"

"No."

"Just sculls?"

"Yes. My coach said I should try out for the Olympics."

The counselor smiled. "Kennedy, do yourself a favor and don't ever mention that again. Every coach on the planet tells their athletes they can make the Olympics. What sort of times did you turn in, in sculls? What kind of scull?"

"Single scull. We didn't do it to a stop watch. There was a rock about a mile out in the lake. The first time I went out, it was maybe fifteen minutes. By the time I was finished, it was maybe twelve minutes."

"Twelve minutes isn't a competitive time for a mile, much less fifteen minutes."

"Out and back."

The counselor shook her head. "Kennedy, we're back to believability. You don't row 3000 plus meters in twelve minutes ... or even fifteen. Maybe if you were the world champion, you could do it in fifteen minutes."

"I row really fast," she told the woman.

How could Kennedy convince her? Ask her to go up to Camp Wanakena and watch? In September, when the camp was closed? What did Mr. Waterman do the rest of the year, anyway?

"Is there some place I can try out?"

"In New York City? Are you kidding? A dozen or more."

"I'll make arrangements. I'll get the times certified."

The counselor ran her hand over her face. "There are notes in your file, Kennedy. You have to know that."

"Yeah."

"One of them is that while you probably don't always tell the truth, no one has ever caught you in a lie."

"Sometimes I fib," Kennedy admitted. "But..." she stopped herself from saying it was to low ball what happened, not the other way around. "Not about anything important. 'How are you, Kennedy?' 'Fine, thank you!'"

The counselor laughed and said, "I do that, particularly on the first day of my period.

"Look, Kennedy. Get someone unbiased to time you. I have a friend who coaches rowing at the University of Miami in Florida. Show me a good time and I'll give her a call. She's coming up in a few weeks, looking for bodies for her program. It would be pretty much what you want. Full scholarship, including tuition, room, board and fees. A stipend for books. In the second year, if you perform well in the classroom as well as well as rowing, the stipend will help you get a place off campus."

"I'll do that, then," Kennedy told her. "Miami? That's by the ocean. I'd like that."

The counselor laughed. "By the Atlantic -- nice beaches, nice weather ... of course you get the occasional freeze and the occasional hurricane. Believe me, the weather is simply wonderful."

"Why are you here, then?" Kennedy asked -- then hated herself an instant later.

The counselor shrugged. "Like you and your father, my friend and I had a falling out. I grew up here, I'm comfortable here. It's where I came to lick my wounds."

Kennedy was tempted to volunteer to help lick them, but decided that would be a really bad idea.

"It'll take a day or two," Kennedy told the counselor, "but I'll do it. I'll have the times for you by early next week."

"Don't do anything that will give my friend something else to be pissed about," the counselor warned.

"Never!"

-------

That evening she went to see Mr. Glastonbury. "I need something in particular," she told him. "You seem to have a lot of connections. If you can't help, I'll call Pipes or Clarice."

"What is it, Miss Kennedy?"

"I need to find a place where I can get some certified time trials in a racing scull. Soon, as in the next day or two."

"I'm sure I can find someplace," he told her. "Is there anything else?"

"I was thinking. The counselor at the high school told me that if I was any good at a sport, I could get a full scholarship. Except you never taught me any competitive sports."

"I explained why."

"Yes, you did. Now explain something else to me. I seem to remember you saying that when a Potential gets too old, her Watcher leaves. Does that mean you don't stick around until the bitter end?"

"Sometimes that takes a few years. No, we leave on her nineteenth birthday. There has never been someone Chosen who was nineteen."

"A couple of things then, for you to take back to your sucking asshole Council. The only sport I have that I could possibly get a scholarship in is sculls ... and I learned that at a camp run by gypsies, from a demon. How do you justify to yourselves, just turning some poor girl out like that? You don't teach her any other skills at all, do you? Not even skills for coping with life. I can't cook, sew or even wash my own clothes.

"The counselor talked about if I did well, as a sophomore, I could live off campus in an apartment. Except, Mr. Glastonbury, sir, I don't even know how to boil water. If I went down to the kitchen, I'd have to hunt to find juice to pour into a glass. And where do we keep the glasses, anyway?

"And that's just one thing for me. I can't dance very well. I've never been on a date, all my training has emphasized fighting characteristics. I'm smart; I learned math, English, history and that stuff on my own with your help. I made time to read books and watch TV, things you didn't recommend. You wouldn't have made time at all for those, would you?"

"It's not essential to your training. True, you do need some recreation, but few Potentials live in a mansion with servants to do the work. They spend their extra time learning the things about living that I didn't teach you."

"Do they pay attention in school?" Kennedy pressed.

She had him! He looked away. "Not always."

"You think about it," she told him. "You think about just how you prepare a Potential for life as a normal person."

"We don't," he admitted.

"You need to think a lot more," she told him. "Let me know when you know something about sculls."

She got up, turned her back on him and walked away.

-------

It took two days to arrange, then the following Monday she was standing in a boat house at the New York Athletic Club's facility in Pelham. Kennedy smiled to herself. It was five thirty in the morning and she'd already been waiting for half an hour.

Finally one of the coaches approached her. "What would you like, Miss?"

"A single scull. I'd like to do a two thousand meter warm-up, then one for time. I'm a high school senior, who, if I have a good time, might be able to secure a scholarship."

"And you've rowed before?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a coach?"

"A Mr. Waterman. He's the coach at Camp Wanakena, which is on Cranberry Lake up in the Adirondacks."

"That's a summer camp?"

"Yes."

"And you feel that this qualifies you, somehow, for this?"

"I feel it entitles me to try. Plus, my stepfather is Peter Stuyvesant, and I checked -- he's a member of the New York Athletic Club."

"Just a minute," she was told. The coach walked away from Kennedy without another word.

Kennedy hummed to herself, miming working out with Lady Kennedy, sitting, she was sure, forlornly lonesome in the cabinet back at the house.

The coach returned and watched Kennedy exercise. "I'm not familiar with that style of warm-up," she told Kennedy.

"Usually I practice with a sword. I'm a big Ren Faire fan. Still, a warm-up is a warm-up."

"That it is. You have permission twice to do this; that is a little unusual."

Kennedy smiled. "Good! If you'd said no, I was going to open my purse and start pulling out stacks of money until you agreed. My stepfather and I have had a falling out and in eight and a half months, the money stops. In the meantime, I have no compunctions about spending it."

The coach held out her hand. "Cynthia Beason."

"Kennedy."

"Come along, Miss Kennedy."

"Kennedy is fine. Just plain Kennedy. Miss Kennedy makes me think my tutor is talking to me."

"Then come along," she was told.

She was waved to a rack of boats. Kennedy started running her hands over the finish, passing up a dozen before she picked one that was better than the rest.

She carried it to the water and got in. "Proceed, Kennedy," Coach Beason told her.

Kennedy looked around. The coach chuckled. "About two hundred meters ahead and to the right, are six lanes. The inner four are in use. Use the outer lane. The buoys mark 200 meter intervals. If I were you, I'd go out just a couple of hundred meters, then return for your time trial. Then I'd keep it to say, four hundred meters."

Kennedy paddled to the lane indicated and simply kept going, making no attempt to start. She kept it down, way down, just getting used to the feel of the oars, the scull and above all the water. The ocean was an entirely different beast than placid Lake Wanakena.

She turned at the end, pleased she'd not have needed her training wheels and cruised back.

Coach Beason was dismissive. "Four thousand meters for a warm up? You'll be lucky to get two hundred meters."

"Tell you what, Coach," Kennedy said, not really angry, but trying to sound it. "Do you have a dollar in your purse?"

"It's back in the boathouse. I have it in change, yes."

"Fine. I'll bet the folding green contents of my purse against your dollar. You get a scull, come down here and race me the two thousand meters. That's fourteen thousand to one odds."

"I'd get fired. My dollar against just one of yours."

"Whatever. Get in the water."

Kennedy could see the coach didn't react well to being bossed around. Still, a few minutes she had a scull in the water herself and a few minutes later they were lined up. "You call the start," Kennedy told the woman.

"Start!" the woman said instantly and started.

Kennedy chuckled and started after her.

At two hundred meters she was abreast with the coach. The woman glanced at Kennedy, but that was all.

Kennedy chuckled. "Is that the best you can do?" Kennedy called. She went from about forty percent effort to about eighty percent and started streaking down the lane.

She never bothered to look back. At sixteen hundred meters, she put in the last twenty percent and flew the rest of the course.

She circled and waited nearly four minutes for the coach to catch up.

The woman stared at Kennedy stonily. "My, my! Aren't we amped up!"

"Pardon?"

"On speed."

"Well, I do like to go fast, but I think you're talking about drugs. I don't even use caffeine."

"Well, I have to admit, you don't look like you're on steroids. Want to race back? Double or nothing?"

Kennedy laughed. "Sure, why not? Can I call the start this time?"

Their sculls were facing each other, Kennedy headed the right way. The coach shook her head. "You have to wait until I'm ready."

"Like you did for me?"

"We were both lined up. I'm not lined up."

"Well, whatever you're comfortable with," Kennedy told her. "Call it when you're ready."

In a moment they were lined up. This time Coach Beason was trying to psych her out by waiting and waiting. "I'm dying of old age here, coach," Kennedy said with a laugh.

"Go, then!"

Kennedy got up and left. This time she ran at thirty percent, more than enough to keep her ahead of the coach for the first thousand meters, then she ran up to sixty percent. At the end, two hundred meters from the finish she went back up to a hundred percent.

This time the wait was almost six minutes. Kennedy had paddled back to the dock and was waiting for the coach. When the coach arrived, she gestured at a woman standing on the dock. "Sharon?"

"Seven minutes, five seconds outbound; ten minutes twenty seconds on the flip side. She's a horse."

Coach Beason got out of her scull and Kennedy did the same. The coach waved at the boat. "Take it back to the boathouse."

Kennedy wasn't stupid. "I'll be a step behind you," she told the coach.

"Sharon, my scull," Coach Beason told the woman, who wasn't much older than Kennedy.

Sharon lifted the coach's scull out of the water, and started carrying it back to the boathouse. Kennedy bent down, lifted hers by brute force, ignoring the sweat popping out on her forehead and her screaming arm and thigh muscles. She took a few quick steps, catching up with the other girl.

"Kennedy, just put it down. I don't want you to drop it," the coach requested.

Kennedy ignored her. She put the boat on a set of supports. "It needs to be rubbed down."

"Sharon will do it," the coach told her. "Come with me."

Obediently, Kennedy followed her. They went a few yards from the boathouse, into a building that was clearly a combination of offices and classrooms. Coach Beason wended her way through the offices, sat down at a desk and pulled open a drawer. She handed Kennedy a plastic cup, wrapped in plastic.

"Fill this."

"What is it?" Kennedy asked.

"A whizz cup. Pee in it. I'll have your urine tested for drugs. If you show up positive, I'll see you banned." She waved to a door. "There's a rest room through there, first door on the left."

Kennedy looked around the office. There were a half dozen others present, four men and two women, including Coach Beason. Kennedy pushed her shorts down and filled the cup where she was standing.

When she finished, all the conversation in the room had evaporated, every eye was on her.

Kennedy handed the cup to the coach. "There." There had been no way to keep from leaking around the edges. "Can I have some Kleenex?" Kennedy asked.

The coach took the cup, wiped it off from a box she had on her desk, then wiped her own fingers, before offering Kennedy some Kleenex.

"What was that about?" the coach asked, waving at the cup.

"I read somewhere that in real urine tests, someone has to watch, to make sure it's not bogus. I didn't want anyone to think I was cheating."

A man approached the desk. Kennedy eyed him warily, but his attention was focused on Coach Beason.

"What was that about, Cynthia?"

"A urine test, sir."

"Please, I'm sure I told you that the young woman was Pete Stuyvesant's daughter, right?"

"Yes, sir. She said it as well. Never heard of him."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, you will, I'm sure." He turned to Kennedy. "Miss Kennedy, on behalf of the New York Athletic Club, I apologize for Ms. Beason's behavior and attitude."

Kennedy shook her head. "Look -- all I want is a certified time for my rowing this morning. She thinks I need a drug test. Fine. I don't want people saying I cheated, okay?"

The man turned to Coach Beason. "Tell me that there was a good reason for this serious invasion of privacy of a member of the club?"

"She rowed a 4k warm-up. Then we raced 2k and she turned in seven minutes and very small change. We rested two minutes and then came back. She came back in ten and a third minutes. If she is a she."

The man turned to Kennedy. "I'm Jake van ter Horst, the head coach for sculls. Your father called me Friday night, telling me you wanted a fair timing. I'd already told Mr. Glastonbury I'd give you one, and I told Ms. Beason to be firm, but fair. I had no idea she'd interpret 'firm' as rigid."

"No problem, sir."

"Miss Kennedy, would you please have a seat," he waved to a chair next to Coach Beason's desk.

"Why? I heard the times. Unless you're going to lie about them."

"No, we'd never do that," Mr. van ter Horst told her. "This is about something else. Please, a few moments of your time."

Kennedy sat down.

He sat down on the corner of the desk, blocking Kennedy's view of the coach. Kennedy was pretty sure that the gesture was pretty rude on the man's part. He was looking at Kennedy, with his back to the coach.

"Miss Kennedy, do you know what the world record times for single sculls are?"

"No, sir."

"Well, you'd have given the best men in the world a run for their money. You'd have easily beaten the best woman single sculler. Pete said you were talking about trying for a scholarship at the University of Miami."

"I heard I could get a full scholarship there, sir."

"Pete said that you were looking for independence," Mr. van ter Horst told her. "The University of Miami has a fine rowing program, perfectly fine. Except ours is better."

Kennedy laughed. "But yours would be in the shadow of my stepfather."

"Well ... no. Look, Miss Kennedy, let's be blunt. Your father raced sculls back when he was in school. He was the team PR person, because he was terrible in a scull." He waved around them. "In this place, we demand excellence. No one buys a place on this team except with talent. Simply that. We have a variety of programs to promote excellence. I'll grant you, we rarely have a walk-in with such potential, but I'm here to tell you, we're willing to go the extra mile when we find someone. I'll beat anything Miami, or any other school, offers you."

Kennedy waved at the yellow bottle of urine on the desk.

"That's not an issue, is it?" he asked.

"No, but I'm not comfortable with the lack of trust it indicates."

"Well, you'll have to get used to it. The first time you win a race, you are going to have people using the masculine pronoun for you, calling you names -- and demanding drug tests."

Kennedy smiled thinly. "I might be gay, but I'm not confused about my gender. As you may have noted, I made a mess on your floor, trying to pee standing up."

"We will supply those times for you. I assure you, they will get the attention of every racing scull coach in the country. And not just single sculls. You could scoot just about any scull to victory. Olympics? Duplicate this morning's performance a dozen times in the right races over the next two years and you'll be there. Half a dozen times in races this fall and you can be at the World Championships. Obviously, it would help if you win more than the minimum number of races, but we have an inside track: if we put someone up for a race, they'll race. Miami can't say that. No one else in the country can say that."

"And you have an attached university?"

"Well, no. However, we'd supply a scholarship to a local university in the New York City area. And there are some fine ones. Columbia, even, if you want."

Kennedy had thought she'd be able to make school on time after she left the Athletic Club. Instead, she got home well after lunch, having been Jake van ter Horst's guest at the NYAC dining room -- which could best be described as palatial and the food some of the best she'd ever eaten.

At home she worked out a little with Lady Kennedy, but even with aspirin and a couple of hours rest, her arms were tired.

The only fly in the ointment was that they wanted her to practice three or four times a week. In September, five in the morning was still light. It wasn't going to be light for much longer. She went to Mr. Glastonbury that evening and explained.

"The quick and easy answer," he told her after her explanation, "is that you should wait for a year or so. It's been quite some time since vampires came after you. You went after them a few times, but there weren't many who knew exactly what happened ... if the word had gotten back, I'm sure we'd have had more visits.

"You aren't likely to be attacked in a boat. In fact, it would be unheard of. Not that vampires haven't attacked people in boats -- but the boats were a lot larger than a single scull! Just take it easy, don't make a big splash and you should be okay."

"That's just it. They don't want me to take it easy. They want me to make a big splash. World champion and all of that."

"That would be a decidedly bad idea, Miss Kennedy. They do know who you are, and if you appear in the papers, they will come."

"Even if I'm too old to be a Slayer?"

"Well ... maybe not then. But that's not for almost two years."

"I'll be careful."

"I hope so. Quite a few people could be at risk."

"And yet, you tell me my odds of being chosen are going down, day by day."

"Yes, but right now you're seventeen. A tenth, Miss Kennedy, a tenth of Slayers are seventeen or older when Chosen. On the other hand, at the end of the school year you'll be nearly eighteen, and that chance will be down to less than a percent."

"I know it's a risk," she told him with finality, "but I think it's an acceptable risk. I'll pace myself, rowing at near record times, but not over the edge. I will exercise due care going to and from practices."

He sighed. "Except, you'll be a sitting duck at an event. You'll have to be there, in a known place. It would be simple in the extreme to set up an ambush."

"So far as I know, they only race in daylight."

"It's hard, I know, to give up on family, friends -- most human contact beyond the most casual. Still, that's the only way to be at all secure."

"And if I become the Slayer I'll stop rowing. In the meantime, I'm not ready to give up on the rest of my life. Not yet."

A little while later she called Mr. van ter Horst and said she'd start training at the club.

"Fine. Women's coaches are available at five thirty to eight thirty in the morning, Monday through Saturday. We'll expect you for at least two hours, three days a week, to practice with a coach. Men practice on the same days, from six to nine PM; you may not be on the water during those hours. The rest of the day and Sundays, you may practice as you wish. If you have a private coach, they'll be admitted to the club without problems as your guest."

The only way she was going to get to school on time was either fly down the freeway or fly a helicopter. She'd have to see about that. Still, it was a manageable problem and she agreed.

She told Mr. Glastonbury that she would need a car on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. There was no problem with leaving house at 4:30 in the morning to get there by 5:30. It would be the return to White Plains, which was even further than Scarsdale, to arrive in time for school that would be problematical.

She was up early the next morning, getting into the swing of things, so to speak. Her arms and legs felt fine and she swung Lady Kennedy with joy and pleasure. By the time she got to school, she was feeling as good as she'd ever had. She saw Harriet in the hall on the way to their first class and that made it even better.

-------

An hour later, the world was a different place.

Her first class in the morning was economics. The class started at 8:30 and ran until 9:20 and that day started out no differently than days had in the years before. A little after 9:00, the teacher, Mr. Green, waved at someone behind Kennedy. "Miss Wasserman, you can be expelled for using a cell phone in class."

Kennedy craned in her seat to look. Judy Wasserman was on the list of students least likely to get in trouble, in Kennedy's head. Judy looked pale, and clearly wasn't paying any attention to the teacher.

She closed to the phone and looked around, aware for the first time that everyone was staring at her. "Mr. Green, could you turn on the TV?" she asked. "My mother says it was just on the news. A plane hit the World Trade Center." There was a significant pause. "My father works there."

Kennedy could see the teacher hesitate. But, like Kennedy, he was considering the source. "We'll check," he said, trying to sound in charge. He turned on the TV, and tuned to a local station, instead of the school's internal feed.

There was a shot of one of the World Trade Center towers, with smoke billowing out the side. Kennedy jumped. She could see the hole the smoke was pouring out from. Unless she was seriously seeing things, the hole was four or five stories tall. And was far wider than it was tall.

There was a sudden gabble from the commentator, and the camera swung around to the other tower. The explosion in the other building was clearly visible, the camera in position just a few seconds after the impact. There was a huge ball of black smoke and yellow flame, blossoming like an evil flower.

The sounds from her classmates ranged from gasps to "Holy shit!" More than one person was crying. Without hesitation she reached for her own cell phone.

"Mr. Glastonbury," she told her tutor when he picked up. "You need to turn on the TV. Get all the staff. The World Trade Center has been attacked. Airliners have hit both buildings." She flipped it closed without waiting for him to speak and returned to watching the TV, trying to control her shock and surprise.

Mr. Green, in turn, was also on the phone, the one tying the classroom to the office.

A few moments later the PA system announced that all teachers should tune their TV's to a local station and if the TV wasn't working, to join a class where it was.

The TV was remorseless. There were never-ending repetitions of very little news, interspersed with scary rumors. Then, at a quarter of ten, came the announcement that other planes had been hijacked and that the Pentagon had been hit.

Judy Wasserman had left and one or two others were in phone discussions with parents about the same thing, when Kennedy felt her phone vibrate in her slacks. She grimaced. Evidently, the usual rules were gone today, so she pulled it out and opened it up.

"Kennedy," her father's voice spoke.

"I've heard," she said quickly.

"There's a gentleman here who says his name is Fatso who won't let me in Pipes' restaurant. Could you talk to him?"

"Sure. What are you doing there?"

The next thing she heard was Fatso. "Miss Kennedy?"

"Fatso, that's my father. She'll want to see him right away."

"He says something weird is going on. Terrorists blew up the World Trade Center again."

On the TV screen the camera turned and one of the World Trade Center towers dissolved in front of them. This time there were screams of horror, or just plain complete breakdowns, with kids crying or looking away in disbelief.

"What was that?" Fatso asked querulously. "The whole restaurant's shaking!"

"You take him to Clarice right this second! Let me talk to my father," she said.

"Pete," he said economically. "What the hell was that?"

"Sir, one of the towers. It just -- dissolved. I mean, in ten seconds, it was gone. I mean, there's nothing left except huge billows of smoke and dust."

"Surely you can't see that well."

"The TV can. Pete, I can see well enough to know it's gone. You're close by, and that dust cloud is expanding. You need to seal the restaurant as best you can. Tell Fatso you need to see Pipes or Clarice, right this instant."

"I had a terrible time getting through, there were no circuits. I hate to hang up."

"Pete!" She could see the billows on the TV screen, advancing remorselessly down streets, in the confined canyons of Manhattan. "Run! Oh, and Pete, an airliner hit the Pentagon, too. There are rumors of more hijacked planes, heading for DC. The White House or the Capitol, they think."

"Shit! Pipes isn't here. I'll go! Call Mr. Glastonbury, tell him to come pick you up. Go home and stay there until I tell you otherwise!"

He was gone then. Kennedy tried calling home, but like her father said, it seemed like every cell phone circuit in the country was busy. She kept on trying and trying. She was still trying when the second tower vanished into the same billows of smoke and dust.

A few minutes later the principal announced that anyone who wished to leave could, and that the busses were being summoned early.

Kennedy didn't exactly sniff in derision at the last. If Mr. Green or her classmates were a valid sample, they were too far gone in shock to move. Odds were, so would any bus driver. Would you want to ride with a bus driver who wasn't affected by this?

As if making a lie of her hypothesis, Mr. Glastonbury appeared in the door of the classroom and caught her eye. She was out of her seat in a heartbeat, grabbing up her book bag. "I saw that tower collapse," he told her. "I couldn't get you or your father. So I came here."

"Good choice! The circuits are overloaded, pretty much.

"I talked to my father a short time ago, he was near the restaurant, he went there."

Mr. Glastonbury reached out and touched her arm, the tenderest thing she could ever remember him doing. "That is very good to hear, Miss Kennedy. He had an appointment in one of the towers this morning. For security reasons, I didn't know which."

It was a temptation to be sick to her stomach, but Kennedy fought it. They were in the hall, and she saw Harriet ahead of her. "Harriet!" she called.

Harriet turned, saw her, and hurled herself at Kennedy, hugging her tightly, sobbing on her chest.

Kennedy hugged her friend just as tightly back, then started stroking her hair. After a few minutes, Harriet lifted her head from Kennedy's chest. "I should have known nothing would faze you," she told her friend.

Kennedy shook her head. "A minute ago I nearly threw up when I found out my father was supposed to be there this morning. He's okay, I spoke to him a little while ago."

"I've tried to call my mother," Harriet told her. "I can't get through."

"I can't get through either. I have no idea how my father got through to me."

"I was going to walk," Harriet said. "It's only a few miles."

"Nonsense," Kennedy contradicted her. "Which car do you have, Mr. Glastonbury?"

"The limo. There are three guards as well as the driver. I had no idea for sure what was going on."

"Fine. Harriet, you can ride with us. If you see anyone who needs a ride who lives near you, or if we see any of the Scarsdale kids, I'll give them rides as well, until we're sitting on each other's laps."

"Me!" Harriet said with some of her normal fire. "Pick me!"

"You bet!"

They gathered a half dozen other passengers, then, one by one they dropped them off before returning to the house.

Like most everyone else they spent the day in front of the TV. A little before noon, Kennedy's stepfather got through again. "We're okay, although we're going to have to leave soon, because the air is really bad. The transit system is shut down, the only way off Manhattan is to walk. We're making improvised gas masks for the walk. We're going to Queens, either walking across one of the bridges, or we hear some of the ferries are running. Then we'll go to Port Washington -- I have an apartment there, and we can stay there for a few days.

"Kennedy, your friend wants to talk to you."

He handed the phone to Clarice; Kennedy was expecting Pipes. What she got was part and parcel of the entire day.

"Kennedy, Pipes didn't come in this morning. He takes various routes, varying them every day. We've tried to reach him, but his phone just goes to voice mail. One of his routes was to exit at the World Trade Center and then either walk or take a cab to the restaurant."

"If my father is safe," Kennedy told her firmly and as confidently as she could, "then Pipes is safe."

"I hope so. We have to go. You would not believe the smell."

Time trickled past. About ten in the evening, her father called again, saying that they were safe in Port Washington and that Mr. Glastonbury had the number.

That night Kennedy slept badly, waking up every few minutes to go see if there was any news. She slept with her phone in her hand, too, hoping to hear from Pipes.

Most schools in the country were closed the next day, certainly all of those in the New York area. Several people Kennedy knew called and were glad she was okay. She'd called the Athletic Club as well, and found that all the activities were suspended for the time being.

In the morning and afternoon she called her father, but there was no word on Pipes. Clarice had finally gotten a car and she and her minions were whisked off to wherever it was she lived.

Thursday, the high school made an attempt to open, but there were hardly any students and Kennedy wasn't one of them. She was frustrated with lack of news about Pipes, frustrated about everything. How would a Vampire Slayer deal with a planeload of crazed terrorists, intent on immolating themselves and the people aboard, in order to bring down one of the largest buildings in the world, much less two of them?

A little after ten in the morning, Mr. Glastonbury appeared, the phone in his hand. He held it out to her and she thought it was her father.

"Kennedy, Detective Captain Harrison."

"Oh, Captain!" He was an NY policeman! She'd already heard how many firemen and policemen were missing and presumed dead. It must have been terrifying! "Are you okay?"

There was a short pause. "Funny you should ask. No, I'm not okay. However, I'm getting better and I guess that's something to be grateful for. I made them stop the pain meds for a while, so I could talk. I tell you true, Kennedy, this has to be quick, because it hurts like the devil."

"What hospital are you at?"

"New York Presbyterian in White Plains. Look, Kennedy, your friend Pipes is here. He's pretty banged up, but they say he should be okay. He saved my life, Kennedy. For real, no shit, stepped in front of the bullet for me. I..." he started coughing, and Kennedy could hear a voice in the background.

A woman's voice came on the phone. "The detective has to sleep now. He needs his rest."

"What happened to him? Is Pipes okay?"

"They were working at the World Trade Center and I understand there was a cave in. Half a dozen men fell into the hole. Two were killed outright and Detective Captain Harrison had a piece of concrete land on his leg, with a piece of rebar jutting out of it. He's lost his right leg just above the knee. Mr. Pipes, I understand, managed to get on top of Captain Harrison to protect him, but then more debris came down on them. Mr. Pipes has extensive internal injuries and a number of broken bones. The spinal column and his skull are intact, though. The only ID we had on him was the captain saying 'His name is Pipes' before he went into surgery. Can you contact Mr. Pipes' family?"

"Yes! Please, I can't tell you how much I appreciate this! His family will tell you, I assure you! Please, let me call them!"

In truth, the only phone number she had was her father's. But, yes, he knew Clarice's number and gave it to her. Kennedy told the girl about Pipes and where he was. "We're on the way!" Clarice said. "Thank you, Kennedy!"

"Don't thank me! Thank Captain Harrison and the nurse!"

She looked up at Mr. Glastonbury, who had been standing silent, throughout. "I want to go the hospital."

He smiled. "Okay, give me five minutes."

Pipes was unconscious another seventy-two hours. The hospital had cat-fits because there were so many people standing outside his ICU, waiting for news on his condition. On the other hand, you don't tell the mayor of White Plains or three of the five heads of the Five Families to move along.

Dennis was the only one in the room when Pipes woke up. At first, all Pipes could manage was a smile, then he was asleep again. Still, two dozen people in the corridor cheered lustily, in spite of requests from the hospital staff to quiet down.

Kennedy was surprised that her stepfather was a frequent visitor. Once, in the middle of the night, they'd gone to the hospital cafeteria and he'd treated to her some fairly decent chocolate meringue pie. "Why are you here?" she asked.

He smiled slightly. "You had to have been there."

"I'm glad I wasn't. It wasn't something I've ever trained for."

She was surprised when he slapped her face, very, very hard. "And I have?" He was furious, she saw.

"I don't think it came out the way I meant it," she said, holding her hand to her cheek.

"Sure it did. You think you're in control, Kennedy. The fact of the matter is, like the rest of us, sometimes we're not. And yeah, it feels awful and sometimes actually things are much worse than we ever could imagine.

"Me? I had an appointment with the trust fund people. I was in the lobby when the plane hit. It knocked me to my knees; I had no idea what had happened. Still, within seconds, you could smell smoke. A NYPD officer picked me up by the scruff of my suit collar, put his boot in my butt and shoved me towards the door. 'Run' he said.

"I ran. If you think that's the proudest moment of my life, you're more stupid than I can imagine."

"No, I don't think it's stupid."

"We're talking you, not me. I got out of there. Outside, it was bizarre. There was a blizzard of paper. I got a block away and looked back up at the billowing smoke and was about to say something stupid when the second plane came across my field of vision and smacked the other tower."

He reached out to her. "I lost it, then. I kid you not, I simply lost it. I put my head down and started motoring as fast as I could on foot away from there, my only thought being escape. When I finally ran out of steam I was about two blocks from the restaurant. I'd never been there before, but I knew about it and knew where it was. So I went there and found it was closed. I went around the back and the guards in the kitchen stopped me. It took me twenty minutes to reach you. That Fatso fellow, and he's not that fat, was all but ready to drill me between the eyes."

"Sir, 'Fatso' got his nickname based on the size of his equipment."

Her stepfather blinked and sighed. "I suppose it's on my head that you know such things."

"Pretty much a crime of omission," she told him.

"After that, we were like castaways on a desert island. People were walking past on the street, trying to get off the island. We had a terrible time getting anyone on the phone. Clarice doesn't believe in TVs, I understand, any more than her grandfather. We found the head chef had a tiny TV in his office and we used that until the first tower went down and the lights went out."

He looked at her and shrugged. "We decided that we had to leave, then. When we got outside and looked and saw only one tower ... it was the most awful moment of my life. Thousands of people had died; it was clearly a deliberate act. I wanted to reach out and bomb those barbarians back to the stone age..."

"Sir, they never left the stone age. They are barbarians, wearing skins stolen from their betters, who hate us and our world with an all encompassing passion. Vamps just see us as a source of food and occasional sport. If we're destroyed, they're destroyed, so they exercise some restraint. The people who brought down the towers don't know any restraints."

"I've heard it was this Osama Ben Laden."

"I imagine it was him or someone like him," Kennedy agreed. "We'll find out who and make them regret this."

"Yeah!"

She finally got a few moments with Pipes and he just held her hand, grinning. "Get better!" she commanded.

"You bet! You're going to learn to play poker yet!"

It was Sunday, then. Late in the day she went home and worked out for a few hours, then collapsed and slept like a log. Monday at school was a time of tears and sadness. Over and over the news that so-and-so's father-mother-brother-sister-wife, some relation or friend had been there and was dead or, most commonly, missing. There was no pretend, there was no false optimism. Everyone had seen the pictures -- if someone was missing, that someone was dead.

Hugs, handshakes, meaningful glances were the coin of the realm. Class work? Hah!



-------

Chapter 28: Portents


Tuesday, a week after the catastrophe, Kennedy appeared at the Athletic Club. There were only one coach and three rowers practicing; the traffic was still light on the freeways and roads. Kennedy warmed up, then rowed out two thousand meters, then came back flying down the lane, letting all of her rage from the last week drive her.

The coach who was there laughed. "Wanna trade jobs? You could give me tips, not the other way around!" He was a tall, lanky fellow with bad skin and his hair done up in a pony-tail. "Look, the next time you're in, I'd like to see you in a double or quad boat," he told her.

"I've never really played a team sport, not competitively."

"Not even in school?"

"For years I was home tutored. My tutor is a Ren Faire fan and I'm a dab hand with a sword or bow. Working together with someone else has never been in the syllabus."

"Well, it's not that hard, trust me."

A few minutes later they were out on the water in a two-person scull and it was, as Kennedy expected, much harder than just rowing by yourself. For one thing, it did no good to row at her usual furious pace, because she kept fouling his oars. And of course, he couldn't begin to keep up with her.

Still, she left a little early and actually managed to get to school on time.

Still, the routine was established. Rowing took a lot of time, school took time, working out took time. Kennedy started ruthlessly pruning things like TV, recreational reading, even extra studying. Practice with Lady Kennedy, though, wasn't affected.

She arranged to take the SAT in the middle of October, and life settled down a bit.

Then one Monday evening her father met her after school and they drove to a nice restaurant in Scarsdale for dinner. It was clear he wanted to talk about something, but he wasn't going to rush it. The conversation was light, about school, about rowing, anything except grounding and the still smoldering piles of rubble on the tip of Manhattan.

"I was intent on that day," he told her as they sat eating dessert, "on redoing your trust funds."

"And I told you what would happen if you gave them to me."

"Well, yes you did. A week from today is Columbus Day, which you have off from school."

"They're talking about having class to make up for the lost days after the attack, anyway," Kennedy told him.

"I heard that, but I checked. There's provision for snow days, and they're going to cross their fingers and hope for no real snow days this year. I want you to come to the office with me."

"Father brings his daughter in to work day?" Kennedy laughed.

"Not really. Usually when that happens, the daughter gets stuck at a desk, is pointed to the solitaire game on the computer and is expected to be quiet and not be a nuisance. No, you'll be at my side the entire day. You'll hear and see everything I do."

"Why?" It wasn't that she was hostile, so much as curious.

"Well, several reasons. As I said, I'm going to restructure your trust funds. Perhaps the most important new feature is that they aren't automatic. You'll have to ask for them."

"That will never happen," she said with finality.

"That will be your choice, Kennedy. The one thing I will want, after next Monday, is your promise not to throw the money away."

"That bothered you, did it? I meant it to."

"I figured you did. And yes, it bothered me a great deal. You'll see why Monday.

"Another reason is that it's clear you are starting to think of the future in terms outside your possible calling."

"It gets less likely every day."

"Well, I realize there is just about no way it would interest you, but I'm going to run you around the office, showing you what the various people do. Think of it as career day for Kennedy."

She grimaced. "I think you can take it to the bank that my career isn't going to entail sitting behind a desk in a building like the World Trade Center, shuffling paper and hoping for a sixteenth point up-tick on some stock or bond."

"It may well be that you're right. That's up to you. I just want to get in a little tutoring of my own, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good. You understand that some companies take great pride in their support for Olympic athletes that they employ. Companies like UPS and Home Depot, and they're just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of others who just quietly go about doing it. It's kind of like what alumni do for football players ... summer jobs that entail going to practices and working out, then collecting your paycheck. Your generous paycheck."

"Wonderful."

He chuckled. "In high school and college, the athletic associations spot check to make sure the athletes actually do work. UPS, Home Depot and the rest write off the salaries to publicity."

"Can we stop at the hospital on the way home to see Pipes and Captain Harrison?"

He smiled. "Yes. And I can take a hint."

"One last thing," Kennedy told him. "I was surprised to find out that I've been a member of the New York Athletic Club since I wasn't quite nine years old."

"Originally my thought was that your tutor could have a little time off by taking you there. The club has some very good programs for young tennis players and golfers. Plus there is swimming instruction, and a number of other youth recreational opportunities. That was my first hint that your tutor wasn't following the usual PE track. He never took you. I asked him if you were getting enough physical exercise and he let me watch you run one morning. Goodness! I've never been able to run that fast in my life!"

They visited both men, although her father only briefly said hello to the police captain. Captain Harrison's wife was there and Kennedy got to shake her hand. From the look on the woman's face her husband told her a few stories about Kennedy, and she was expecting Kennedy to be older.

Pipes, on the other hand, was sitting up in bed, reading a Tom Clancy novel. "Dennis was by a while ago," he told Kennedy. "My young friend has done something bizarre and extraordinary. I wish I could be out there, helping."

"How bizarre?" Kennedy asked, remembering the Clarice in her very sheer teddy.

"She's talked to the other families. She's gotten them to agree to a one month, a full thirty-one days, interest suspension on loans to less than sterling clients, and, if anyone pays off the principal during that month, no fees and other charges would be applied. Doing their civic duty to the City, in its hour of need. Plus, of course, the PR is very good."

"And this is significant?"

"Yeah. Someday we'll find ourselves on a desert island where we'll have no fear of listening devices and I'll tell you the real story of the families. It isn't nearly as imposing as you might think. PR has been important to them since the end of the Second World War."

"She's a really nice person," Kennedy told him. "An asset to any organization."

He stuck his tongue out at Kennedy, who laughed.

Kennedy turned serious. "Why did you help Captain Harrison?"

Pipes looked at her steadily. "I was in the subway station when the first plane hit. There were a couple people who came down to the station with minor injuries, burns mostly. I thought they were crazy, and some of us helped them back upstairs, where we thought we could find an ambulance.

"After that, it was one thing after another. Captain Harrison came by at one point and saw me and asked if I'd be willing to help get to some people trapped in Tower 7, there had been some debris that had hit the building and a number of people were injured, and since the power was out, they were having to be carried by hand down the stairwells.

"I said yes and we did that. We were walking back into Tower 7 when the first of the big towers came down. One second we were walking across the lobby, the next the floor opened up and swallowed us. I had no control of where I ended up. The next thing I knew, more debris was coming down and I got hit.

"Some others upstairs hadn't gone in, and a couple of them hustled to get help, while the rest started trying to get us out. Captain Harrison and I were last; it took them hours and hours to get to us. We were being loaded into an ambulance three blocks away when Tower 7 came down. If our rescue had been delayed a half hour...

"Not that I haven't minded being thought a hero by NYPD."

"You were brave," Kennedy said valiantly.

"I was trying to do good things," he agreed. "Irony is that except for my spleen, I'll fully recover. Captain Harrison won't. Irony is if that chunk of concrete and rebar had hit two feet higher, it would have killed the both of us."

It was sobering, for sure.

-------

The next afternoon after school Mr. Glastonbury appeared when she started working out with Lady Kennedy.

"I've been watching you, Miss Kennedy," he told her. "I think you are getting stale, not having to fight against living opponents. I'd hate to find out that you've gone stale, fighting against targets and punching bags the next time it counts."

She grimaced. "I was thinking the same thing, sir. Except I'm too stiff-necked to ask you and the one time I tried it with one of the staff guards, he quit the next day."

"Why don't we do a half hour a few times in the next week or so? We'll know if you've gotten stale. Then you can decide what you want to do."

"That sounds right. Thanks, sir."

He silently handed her a letter.

Kennedy tapped it on her finger. "And this is?"

"A note from your mother. She found out you're working on sculls at the Athletic Club. I'm afraid her hopes have once again been raised. Your father would be very proud if you made the Olympic team, or just competed in a championship event. Your mother, on the other hand, seeks reassurance that you 'won't disappoint her once again.'"

Kennedy read the note. It was self-serving, whiny, not to mention obsequious in its praise and flattery. She was tempted to throw it away, but, on the other hand, it was the first time her mother had communicated with her in years.

She stared at Mr. Glastonbury who shook his head. "It's not mine to comment, Miss Kennedy."

"Good, and with that shining example, I too will forebear expounding my opinions."

A few days later she met her father at the front door. To her surprise they went to the airport and a helicopter. "I thought your office was here?" she asked.

"Yes, it is, and it's also in Boston, New York, Buenos Aires, London and Madrid. Today, we're off to Boston."

The Boston office had, it turned out, a heliport on top of the building. The helicopter deposited them atop their destination and left for elsewhere, while they descended in an elevator.

"It seems a little ostentatious," Kennedy said mildly.

"A few months ago I consulted on a major merger. I flew back and forth across the US in the corporate jet; I chartered helicopters back and forth wherever I went. The travel bill was about a million dollars. That's an expense I incurred, for which I was compensated above and beyond the fourteen million I got for my personal services. The company billed nearly twenty million for the whole deal. It took six weeks, about two hundred hours of my time. Do the math."

Seventy thousand dollars an hour? Yeah, you could probably absorb a few helicopter rentals for that kind of money. "Wasn't that excessive?"

"I received a flat one tenth of one percent of the purchase price, with a bonus of one percent of anything over three billion, four hundred million, as I was an agent for the seller. How much did the company sell for?"

"Twenty million, right?"

"Yes."

"Three point six six billion."

He grinned at her expression. "Before you go get excited about the filthy capitalist profiting at the expense of others, when we get to the office, pick a real estate office at random from the phone book. Call them up and ask them what their commission is for selling a home."

"More, I assume."

"Well, if you pick 'For Sale by Owner' it would be less. Seven and a half percent is nominal, even the 'By Owner' types it runs about one percent."

Kennedy blinked. "You could have made a third of a billion dollars at market rates?"

"Yes. But, that's called killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Me, I'm known as a fair man, who treats the parties honestly. That, and I have a whopping big discount for my favored customers -- that is, any customer willing to pay me a few million dollars to expedite their deal. I make a hundred million or so a year, shepherding mergers or acquisitions like that."

She nodded. The elevator door whisked open and he stopped a few feet away at a locator bulletin board. He waved at it. Kennedy wasn't sure what she was supposed to look at, and after a second, turned to her stepfather. "I assume you want me to pay attention to something. I don't know what."

"How many floors does PS Investments occupy?"

She looked at the directory. "Three."

"Count heads," he told her, then put his hand behind her back and propelled her into the office area.

There were lots and lots of people. He would stop at each desk and introduce Kennedy as "my stepdaughter" and introduce the person or persons he was talking to. He stopped, Kennedy was sure, at every desk on the floor, before he went down a hall with a row of ornate office doors on one side, all closed. The door to the corner office was open, and he went directly inside and motioned Kennedy to a chair.

"Well?" he asked.

"A hundred and fifty-six, sir."

"How many did I tell you were from another floor?"

"Two, sir."

"You have an outstanding memory. If, after lunch, I was to take you around again, how many could you introduce me to?"

"I think they all know you, sir."

"How many names and faces would you remember?"

She sighed. "About one in ten if we did it now; fewer, many fewer, after lunch."

"It's something I practice, do you understand? It flatters people when you remember their names. So I practice associating names and faces. I grant you, there are about ten percent it takes me more than one meeting to remember, but still, ninety percent isn't too shabby!"

"No, sir, it's not."

"Do you understand that you saw about ninety-two percent of the people who work on this floor this morning?"

"I'll take your word for it."

"And there are two more floors? And offices in another half dozen cities around the globe, most, of course, half or a third this size?"

"Nearly three thousand overall?" Kennedy guessed.

"Close enough. Later today I'll get the manpower report. Yesterday it was three thousand, four hundred and sixty-two. Today it will be different."

He got up and walked to the window. "There is not a person who works for me who gets minimum wage. Nowhere."

"Wow!" Kennedy said, clearly underwhelmed.

He turned and walked past her chair, as if pacing. She shook her head, not having a clue. She learned an important lesson when his foot lashed out, crashing into the chair leg. It cracked, and Kennedy started over backwards.

There wasn't anything she could do to prevent falling, so she tucked her head in, rolled and when she went to get back up, found herself pinned to the floor by another chair.

"Listen to me for one second, little girl!" her stepfather's voice was angrier than she could ever remember.

"Don't try to get up," he told her. "You owe me a few minutes of time."

"I don't owe you a thing. Not since you grounded me." Still, she didn't try to get up.

"Listen to me! I can understand you're being pissed at me for grounding you. I'm a big boy. I screwed up, I'll admit it. I'm too stubborn by half. Big deal, I screwed up! It's happened before, it'll happen again. It's only a question of when."

"Charlton Heston said it better."

"He got paid for it, too -- but not paid as well as I am. In any case, this is a freebie. Advice from me to you.

"You pissed me off when you talked about standing in the street throwing money away. Okay, if I gave it to you, I suppose you'd be within your rights. I was planning on giving you a quarter of the business, Kennedy. By throwing that money away, you'd have put nearly nine hundred people out of work, instantly! Some of those people have worked for me, loyally and faithfully, for decades! You'd toss them on the garbage heap!

"Worse, there would be repercussions. Probably, before the dominoes stopped falling, it would be about two thousand people whose jobs would have evaporated, mostly from other companies, those who do business with us.

"For what? So you could have a temper tantrum, to piss in my face because I screwed up? I thought Slayers weren't supposed to be able to hurt people? Thousands? Could you really hurt thousands?"

"I'll give the money back to you. I'll sign it right back," she said, suddenly afraid.

"Well, not to worry. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. As I said, I'm redoing the trust funds." He laughed nastily. "I had one of my assistants calculate what we spend on postage for a month. That's what you'll get. It's still in seven figures, as we do a lot of express and certified mail, but it's peanuts. Postage stamp money!

"I'm going to let you up. Then we're going around to each and every desk on this floor, and you're going to listen to what that person does. You'll look at their family pictures they have on their desks, their trophies, awards, certificates -- all of that. The assembled accomplishments of my employees, but not you. Never you."

He pulled the chair away. "Get up."

She did so and met his eyes. "How did Victoria do on her day at the office?"

He sniffed. "I told you the answer to that once before. Nothing she will ever do in her life will earn enough money to pay for one month of her credit card expenditures. You, Kennedy, you could sit in my chair, if you wanted."

"I don't want to sit in your chair," she told him. "In fact, I can't think of many things I want to do less. I mean, yeah, there's going on a world tour with my mother again. I'd rather have my teeth pulled -- all of them."

"At your age, do you know what I had my heart set on?"

"You wanted to be a fireman?" she asked, keeping her voice light.

"No, I was going to be an astronaut. I wanted to go into space. Now, I'm one of those helping fund some startups, and we're thinking about offering some large cash prizes to companies that make big advances in civilian space technology. I may be an astronaut yet!"

"And this means what?"

"It means, one day I wondered why my father had missed an opportunity to make some money. I asked him and the answer turned out to be simple: I'd seen the opportunity, but he'd missed it. My father was a much cleverer man that I am. He gave me twenty thousand dollars. He said it didn't count if you aren't doing it for money. Later that year I had my own house, bought with my own money. I drove my own car ... all of that. I was independent! The next time I got any money from the old man was when he was dead."

Kennedy gulped. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh. I wasn't a bad boy, growing up, Kennedy. I was just wild. I didn't like to hear 'No' and above all, I didn't want to hear people tell me I couldn't do something. Sort of like you. You're smarter than I was, up to a point. You were never threatened with 'The granite hills of New Hampshire for the granite heads of New England's wealthy.'"

"No, I was just grounded."

"Where you could still talk to friends and see a few of them, instead of what I was threatened with: a total cut-off for four years."

"Except I wasn't given a warning to shape up or be shipped out. I was just told what my options were. No warning, no nothing."

"I told you, I made a mistake. It's a feature of people like us, Kennedy. We don't make many blunders, but when we do, they're spectacular. People can get seriously hurt, too. Yeah, at first I worried about that, then I worried about my own ego. Stupid. I was stupid. I can live with that, I can take the consequences for my own actions on my own head. I couldn't accept your threat to throw the money away."

"I will never throw your money away, okay?" she told him. "I just won't take it, in the first place. It'll stay in the bank."

"You think I carry mine in my hip pocket?"

Kennedy blinked, then blushed. "Sir, I know we're never going to be really good friends, but right now, I need some time to think."

"Well sorry, Kennedy. Right now, we're going around to all of those desks. I expect we'll be a little late getting home tonight, because there are a lot of desks and everyone feels that their niche is very, very important."

It was, in fact, nearly eleven before Kennedy poured herself into bed, her brain buzzing with a billion facts and figures.

Sometime later that night, she half woke up. She was suffocating; she was confined in a narrow space. She'd never been claustrophobic in her life, but she was then. She scrabbled at her surroundings, unseen in the black of night.

She tore at fabric; she beat frantically at a wooden lid covering her. Fear and panic made reason flee; her only thought was to escape. Her fingernails were broken; her hands were bruised and bloody. The first trickle of what was clearly dirt that fell on her face scared her silly. She twisted and heaved, clawing, pushing her way through the dirt, upward, ever upward, even as she was nearly suffocating.

Then there was a faint wash of night air, then more and more, until she was laying on the ground, gasping and afraid, more so than she'd ever been in her life.

Her senses returned. She was still in her bed, still in Scarsdale, New York.

She sat up, trying to get her emotions under control. What had that been all about?

It hit her like a giant mallet. Oh! She contemplated her nighttime attire. She lived in a house with a dozen men and exactly two women. She slept in sweat pants and a sweat shirt unless it was really hot outside, and then she wore shorts and a t-shirt.

She left her room and went straight to Mr. Glastonbury's and pounded on the door. After a second, he appeared, rubbing his eyes. "Miss Kennedy, is there a problem?"

She'd had time to think about it, now she couldn't resist. "She's back. Your girlfriend is back."

Mr. Glastonbury blinked. "My girlfriend?"

"The California Slayer. She's back."

He shook his head. "The first time, it was one of those things. A pool of water; she had a friend close by. The second time it was into a hell dimension. There's always a first time for everything, and she came back where no other had before. This time she fell ten stories and went splat on a pile of rubble. She was buried in a cemetery."

Kennedy grimaced and held up her hands, showing him her broken nails and bleeding knuckles. "Funny you should mention that -- but, she's a Slayer. She didn't stay buried."

He reached out, hesitantly, and took her hands. He examined the marks and shook his head. "This can't be! It can't possibly be! They told me earlier that her Watcher was back in England."

"Yeah, well, guess what, Mr. Glastonbury? This Slayer is hard to kill, and as hard as that is, it's double hard keeping her dead."

She reached out and removed his hand from hers. "And now, my duty done, I'm going back to sleep. It's been a hell of a night."

The next morning she raced at the Athletic Club. All of the coaches were showing up, grimly intent on their work. She spent some time in a double scull. It was hard work for her. She had to sit in the rear or it simply didn't work, as the person in front set the stroke and no one could keep up with Kennedy. In back, she could see the person in front and keep the stroke, even if it was much slower than she wanted.

Kennedy went to her coach at the end of the morning. "I want to help, I do. But ... I can't do this. I can't go that slow. It's driving me crazy."

The coach nodded. "I suppose."

A woman, in her late twenties spoke up. "How about I give it a try, eh? What could it hurt?"

"Sure, why not. Kennedy, this is Maid Marian, Marian, this is Kennedy."

Kennedy smiled at the older woman who promptly laughed. "Maid, Kennedy. Maiden."

"Why on earth?"

"Practice, practice, practice."

Kennedy gingerly got into the scull, letting the other woman direct her into the front seat, where Kennedy could see nothing of the other rower. It was an odd feeling, but finally Kennedy realized what the other was doing. Kennedy was like a metronome, rowing. Marion started off hitting every other stroke. That was when Kennedy was at 40 percent. When Kennedy went to 80 percent, Marion hit every third stroke.

At the end of a thousand meters, Kennedy coasted to a stop, then craned to look at the woman behind her. "That's a clever idea. It must be hard, though, not hitting on the same beat as me."

Marion grinned. "Kennedy, my day job is second percussionist with the New York Philharmonic. My job is to fill in where the composer wanted extra uumph in a piece. Every second, third, fourth, even every eighth beat. Piece of cake!"

Kennedy had felt great stirrings in her breast, regardless of the woman's age. She hadn't felt anything like it since she'd last said goodbye to Amy. So, thinking she was clever, she asked, "And what do you do at night?"

Marion grinned. "When I'm not here, a pure vanity, or at the Philharmonic, a labor of love, I'm a nun."

Kennedy sighed. "My father would love you."

Marion raised an eyebrow and Kennedy shook her head. "It's one of those things where you had to have been there."

"I like any number of things. My true calling is Christ."

"Marion, once upon a time I lectured several hundred horny young women on the importance of not being men. Men, you see, push -- but women don't push. You are, I assure you, safe with me."

"Normally I'd offer to arm wrestle you about now, to prove that I'm quite capable of defending my own virtue. On reflection, I've decided that anyone who can row like you can, can probably put my hand down, handily."

"Not to mention, my stepfather taught me to cheat at arm wrestling," Kennedy added.

"I would be very disappointed, Kennedy, if you and I were having a pissing contest just now."

Kennedy laughed. "I suppose. I won't do it again."

That was Wednesday; Friday she rowed with Marion again, and this time it was against three other crews. To put it mildly, they won, pulling away.

Afterwards, Marion laughed. "You'll never row on an eight-boat."

"Why not?"

"You would have only one oar. With you on the crew, the boat would go in circles." Kennedy was tempted to toss Marion into Long Island Sound, but decided it wouldn't be right.

"How about a four rower scull?" Kennedy asked, being serious.

"I don't know," Marion replied, equally serious. "I'm used to funny beats. Once, I played with Evelyn Glennie. Now there's a percussionist for you! Deaf, but she feels the music in her soul! Still, finding two more rowers who could row off the pace ... that would be hard."

"It would be the same pace as you, right?"

"Sure."

"Then, you set the stroke, and they can ignore my strokes."

"That'll be the trick," Marion agreed. "We'll try it Monday, okay?"

"Sure. I have the SATs on Saturday, but they are nothing. I'll be ready, first thing."

The SATs turned out to be anticlimactic. Kennedy had no trouble with them at all, and spent Sunday at the club with Marion, working on their stroke.

Monday she rowed in a four-person scull and it was a little ragged at first, but Marion worked with the other rowers. Kennedy didn't comment on the huge carrot Marion was holding in front of the other women. "You'll make the Olympic team, if you can deal with this!"

When she got home Sunday evening, Mr. Glastonbury was there.

"It's taken a lot more time than usual to get anything out of the Council. I'm not sure what's going on there; I can't think it's very good. Still, you're right. The Slayer's original Watcher was notified Wednesday that his Slayer has returned from the grave. At this point in time the Council doesn't know or understand what has happened. The Watcher is en route back to California."

"In other words, nothing of interest," Kennedy told him.

"I wouldn't go that far. One Slayer is in prison, the other is ... wonky. No one knows what to make of it."

A month later, Mr. Glastonbury was at his worst, ever, in the practice hall. Finally Kennedy called a halt before he got hurt. "Sir? What's up?"

"I'm not supposed to tell."

"I'm not supposed to tell is code for 'Ask me again and I'll tell you everything.' Please, Mr. Glastonbury, what's going on?"

"She was resurrected by a friend, who is, evidently, an extremely powerful witch. The ceremony was interrupted by a bunch of biker demons who thought they could 'tree' the town. That was a bad, bad mistake on their part.

"Now, weeks later, the Slayer's Watcher has decided to return to England. The witch who brought her back suffered rather terribly for her hubris. It cost her her life partner and nearly her soul. She very nearly went evil."

"Oh!" Kennedy felt a little sick. Were Steffie or Rosalie at risk of the same thing?

Mr. Glastonbury must have sensed some of her inner thoughts. "Miss Kennedy, you have to understand one very important thing. Well, two. First is that magic has consequences. If you have a good heart and do good things with it, it's not so bad. Rosalie, for instance, from what you told me, was getting careless. When you start doing magic for its own sake, or for your own personal benefit, you run very grave risks.

"For one thing, the Slayer hadn't gone to hell. She'd gone to heaven -- and they pulled her back here."

Kennedy wanted to faint. How do you live with that? Wasn't heaven supposed to be a place of perfect happiness? And if there was ever a place less than perfect, it had to be life on Earth!

Two days later she got her SAT scores back and she had a very good score indeed. She sent off applications to a number of universities, Columbia among them.

Mr. Glastonbury had asked her what she was planning on majoring in. In a matter of a few days, everyone had asked. Her stepfather, Pipes, Mr. van ter Horst at the Athletic Club. It seemed like everyone was interested.

It was an odd thing, odder than anything she'd ever done, picking a college major. For the first time in her life, she thought past tomorrow or the next day. This wasn't strategy for beating a vampire in a battle of life and death; this was about the rest of her life.

She'd long since made a private vow. All of her friends lived normal lives. Pipes and Captain Harrison had been badly injured, the detective had been crippled, and they still lived and worked. Other people did as well. Even if she lost her strength, her quickness, her ability to heal fast -- she was going to be normal just like everyone else. The more she thought about it, the more she thought suicide was the ultimate copout for a Potential.

She chuckled to herself. Maybe that's what made the difference between those who were Chosen and those who were not. The Chosen ones didn't have a secret death wish, while the rest did.

So she told everyone she was majoring in history. For the first two years at Columbia she wouldn't have to specialize, so that gave her lots more time to think about it. In truth, the whole "history is my major" theme was just a way of kicking the can down the road, because she really didn't know what she wanted to do.

Even as the school year neared its close with graduation looming and the odds of her being Chosen declining measurably every day, she still had a chance to be Chosen and she wasn't going to kick back and think she didn't.

-------

Also, there was an early graduation present. She'd been sparring with Mr. Glastonbury, using Kendo sticks one afternoon when abruptly, she was on her back, staring at the ceiling of the practice room. She sensed someone next to her. For a moment it was a weird expression. The person she was seeing wasn't the person kneeling next to her.

She smiled wanly, focusing on Mr. Glastonbury, not the other fellow. "It's happening again."

"The Slayer's dead?"

"Dying." She remembered the flash. "Shot, this time. I can feel it; the bullet nicked her heart. Every time her heart beats, she's a little closer to death."

The other figure was gone now. Kennedy reached out and touched Mr. Glastonbury's hand. "Don't you leave, too!"

"Never," he whispered. "Is there anything I can do?"

"I'm fine. It's the other girl who is dying. If you know her address, I imagine you could try calling 911 in California, but they might think it odd."

Her eyes returned to the ceiling. For a long time the world drifted in and out of focus.

"Miss Kennedy," he said softly, "I'm getting concerned. Your pulse is very slow; your respiration is also slow and shallow."

She turned to him. "I thought her friend deserted her. He called 911. They're working on her. Mr. Glastonbury, she's not sure if she wants to live."

"Don't let her take you with her," he commanded.

She smiled wanly. "I never thought I'd become a connoisseur of how to die. I have become a big fan of instantaneous death. I don't think I'll ever be able to sit through an operatic death scene again."

"Keep talking," he told her.

She smiled. "I'm trying to get through to her, but this seems to be a one way connection. I can feel her, but she gets nothing from me."

She started to say something, then grabbed her chest. "Oh!"

"Kennedy!" Mr. Glastonbury screamed.

"Oh God! She's so strong! Burning, burning, burning! Oh! Oh! Oh! God, does she hate!"

Kennedy sat up, shaking her head, leaning her head down between her knees. She gagged, then retched, dry heaves that weren't that dry, leaving yuck on the practice room floor.

"Miss Kennedy..." Mr. Glastonbury said helplessly.

She reached and touched his hand. "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. The Slayer died, but her friend the witch was there. She pulled the bullet out, healed the injury and restarted the Slayer's heart. The Slayer is fine, now. But the witch!" Kennedy shook her head.

"I could see inside her mind! Oh, Mr. Glastonbury, something terrible and evil happened there. Much, much worse than the Slayer nearly dying. That witch ... she's stronger than Rosalie. She's stronger than a dozen Rosalies. And she hates! Lord, does she hate! Someone killed the love of her life and the witch wants vengeance! She'll get it, too."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine. The Slayer's fine."

"I have to make some calls."

"I understand; I'll be okay," she told him.

She got up and stripped off the kendo gear, then put it away, the simple task helping her focus. She went to dinner, and chewed mechanically, not really able to taste anything.

Mr. Glastonbury joined her on the balcony a while later.

"The Slayer's friend, the witch, she's lit the world with her flame. Everyone with any significant amount of magic can sense her. She's gone completely evil, she's capable of anything. A short while ago, she caught up with the young man who killed her friend and nearly killed the Slayer. She tortured him briefly, and then skinned him alive. When the Slayer tried to save him anyway, the witch burned the man to ash. At last report, she was chasing the two confederates of the dead man. They were in jail at the time of the shootings."

"Off the rails, eh?"

"Yes, completely. I can't tell you what the Council is going to do, but they've authorized the most drastic measures."

Kennedy grimaced. "They're sure to mess it up."

Mr. Glastonbury smiled thinly. "This is the kind of magic they are entirely too afraid to deal with. They have a special coven of witches on call. They're working something up. They won't tell me what, but it's sure to be powerful."

"Someone I can root for, eh? Instead of the Council, where I'm a little conflicted?"

"Yes, someone you can root for."

The next afternoon when she got home from school, Mr. Glastonbury spoke to her. "Did you sense anything today?"

"No, nothing."

"There was a fight; a duel arcane. You took part in one duel arcane. There is a lot of give and take involved. The Slayer and several others had to take a lot. In the end, though, the witch was subdued by her oldest and best friend. Another minute or two and the Earth would have been a toasted cinder."

Kennedy grimaced. "Can I offer a comment?"

"Of course, Miss Kennedy."

"Most Slayers die and stay dead. Coming back is unusual, right?"

"As in never before, yes."

"She's been drowned, sent to hell, sent to heaven and now shot. Each time she's found her way back from places no one else has. Mr. Glastonbury, someone or something very, very powerful wants her alive. If it had been the Slayer who stopped her friend, that might have been a sign that that was the end of it. I don't think so. I don't think it was. Something is going to happen, something big. Something bigger than any of the demons she's fought before."

He nodded. "It would seem so. Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation that covers all the facts is the best. Coming back once was amazing, even if it seemed to have a simple explanation at the time. And so was the second time. And even, in its way, the third time. Eventually even the dimmest member of the Watchers Council has to sit up and pay attention."

"What happened to the witch?" Kennedy asked.

"You understand it was the power of love that sent her spinning out of control? And that it was the power of love that brought her back? At that level of magic, some pretty amazing things can be done -- like violating all of the rules and regulations covering travel between the States and England. The Slayer's Watcher was teleported from England to California, fought to contain the witch, and once she was under control, took her straightaway back to England."

He smiled thinly. "I haven't flown since 9/11; I understand the new rules are beastly. They avoided all that."

"Travel with my stepfather," Kennedy said dryly. "You also get to skip all that, as well."

-------

Graduation was a time of parties at school. In fact, once college acceptances started arriving, it pretty much ended the pursuit of academic excellence. No one just up and quit, but the amount of studying done by her peers declined radically. For Kennedy there was rowing, there was school, and there was Lady Kennedy. She did her level best to put Slayers, Chosen Ones and Potentials out of her head as much of the time as she could.

She practiced rowing and her fighting skills, and except for school, her human contact was limited and at school she was withdrawn. Harriet was excited about college, excited that her friend had gotten in the same one as she had, and they were looking forward to it.

In fact, Kennedy had not known what to say or do about Harriet. All those years of dressmaking with her mother, years she'd sounded alternately sour or mildly enthused, had passed. Now Harriet and her friend, Rachael, spent their spare time designing. Not just Ren Faire costumes, but dresses for such things as the Senior Prom. Half a dozen girls wore their work and a whole lot more than a half dozen wished they had dresses like that.

Their work was starting to be noticed by adults, as well. Kennedy had a sneaking suspicion that the two of them were never going to finish college. Why bother, when you can make a mint designing dresses?

As for the Senior Prom, Kennedy had laughed at the thought. She had no date, no prospect of a date and it was at night, anyway. She wished everyone well and would have let it go at that.

Except about nine that evening her father, Ferinc and Pipes showed up at the house, and her father presented Kennedy with one of Harriet's best efforts. By ten thirty Kennedy was dancing, the four men taking turns. It wasn't the Prom, but Kennedy seriously doubted if any of her peers were dancing with a Mafia consiglieri, a gypsy count, a billionaire or a mystical Watcher from England.

Then one day she tossed her tassel, smiled at the audience in the school auditorium and a short while later, passed through the doors of her high school one last time.

Pipes hugged her and not for the first time Kennedy felt her body respond. It was silly, stupid and wasn't going to happen. She smiled sweetly at him, and even felt pleasant enough that she didn't mind him asking how she was going to spend the summer before going off to Columbia.

"Row more. Then come home, run, swing Lady Kennedy, run, work out with Mr. Glastonbury, swing Lady Kennedy, run some more. For breaks, I have a pile of history books Mr. Glastonbury says will give me a good all around grounding. Will and Ariel Durant are half the stack, plus Toynbee, Gibbon ... a long, long list. A six foot stack of books; I measured them."

"Tell me you'll come and play poker with us a few times."

"I will come and play poker with you a few times."

He smiled and she returned it.

The world was a wonderful place, and if her place wasn't to be a mystical warrior fighting evil, well, she'd done her tiny bit to hold them back. She was content.



-------

Chapter 29: The Bringers Bring It On


Kennedy trailed her oars in the water. Behind her Marian was still breathing hard after their latest run. "That was nice," Marian said, catching her breath.

"It was," Kennedy agreed. They'd worked out signals so that Marian could be ready when Kennedy changed pace. The coaches were still having cat fits about Marian not matching Kennedy stroke for stroke, but the "slow it down" admonishment was never going to fly as good coaching advice.

"Kennedy," Marian started to say. Kennedy craned around to look at the older woman. "Can I ask a question?"

"That has to mean it's personal. Sure, if you want."

"When I first started rowing with you, Mr. van ter Horst called me in and talked to me. About how this was dangerous, that your father is super-rich and that more than once men have come for you. That once a whole lot of people got hurt."

"Two people got hurt," Kennedy said, trying not to sound bitter. "Eleven people got dead, not counting the perp."

"I just wanted you to understand that I know something of your history."

"Okay, you know a little of my history. Understand it? I don't think so."

Kennedy paused. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for that to sound so condescending."

"You got a full scholarship to Columbia; with a father as rich as yours that means you're a very good student indeed."

"All I take from my father these days is room and board. My living conditions are -- a little extreme -- it's just easier if I live at home."

"So, you're a good student, which means you study."

"Not as much as you might think. Certainly almost none since the start of this year."

"When I'm getting to, in a roundabout fashion, is I'm curious about your training regimen. I also coach a little; younger girls mostly. I would dearly like to know some of your secrets. I was wondering if sometime I could come and watch."

Kennedy stifled a giggle.

"What?" Marian asked.

"The second time we rowed together. You didn't want to get too tired and had to leave early. You were going, you told me, to a peace rally. You were going to be a march marshal."

"Yes, so?"

"I decided you would never want to know what my training regimen is. Your beliefs are yours, Marian. Let's just say that my training is heavily slanted towards martial arts. I didn't want to get into an argument."

"Kennedy, if we don't talk about our differing beliefs, there is no way we can come to a consensus on how to live our lives in harmony."

"Marian, this isn't something you want to talk about with me, do you understand? I'm Kennedy, the girl you row with. You don't want to know about my training regimen and you definitely don't want to know about my personal history."

Marian put her sculls in the water and pulled. The boat stopped.

"Are you a violent person, Kennedy? I have a little trouble imagining that."

"That's because if you had any imagination at all, Marian, you wouldn't be marching in peace rallies. If you had any powers of observation at all, you wouldn't think peace is a natural state of affairs. If we try to discuss this, all it will do is generate hard feelings."

"I'm not sure I understand, Kennedy. Who are you? Are you a fan of war? I can't believe anyone could possibly be, except the crazed and demented."

Kennedy sighed. "Marian, I beg you, let's start back, keeping the pace down, matching one to one. Let's not have this discussion."

"We won second place in the US nationals in double sculls," Marian told her. "You finished second in the single sculls. You slacked on both races, didn't you? And now this? Maybe I am in the wrong place, Kennedy. I want to win as much as anyone."

Kennedy couldn't help it. She hugged her sides and laughed, deep and hard.

"You're laughing at me," the nun told Kennedy.

"Of course. You don't believe in war, but you believe in competition. War, Marian, is competition by other means than a race. Competition is about proving yourself better than the others. I have my own reasons why I didn't win this year. Next year, Marian, we're going to set some tongues wagging. You'll have them wondering if we're both dykes. They'll be doing chromosome tests on you, too."

"What has this got to do with my activities with the peace marches?"

"Marian, ask once more and I'll tell you. Trust me, this isn't something you want to know."

"I can deal with it. I have faith in God and confidence in my beliefs."

"I'm agnostic about God, although I suppose since I believe in souls, heaven and hell, I have to believe in God, too. I tell you true, Marian, I have as much faith and confidence in my beliefs as you do. More, I suspect, because unlike like you, I get to see with my own eyes."

"You're making fun of my beliefs."

"Marian, I'm not kidding, and I'm not making fun of anything. What you take on faith, I see with my own eyes. I've stared into the eyes of a demon from the pits of hell, Marian. A soulless, lifeless husk who would just as soon kill you as look at you."

"That's not possible."

"Marian, sit still. I'm going over the side, into the water. I'm going to swim a ways underwater. A long ways. Two hundred meters, without coming up for a breath. If you sit still, the scull won't tip over."

"I'm not worried about going in the water."

"No, of course not. Now, please, sit still so I can get the balance right."

Kennedy dropped the oars forward of her, then waited for the boat to stop moving. She felt the pulse of the ocean and the waves, feeling the rhythm. Without another word she went straight up about eight feet. She moved then, doing two and a half flips, entering the water cleanly, a few feet from the boat.

Marian was dealing with the boat's sudden movement. The scull shipped quite a bit of water, as the reaction from Kennedy's jump had pushed the gunnels under water briefly. She looked around in vain, trying to find Kennedy. Could the girl really swim two hundred meters underwater without coming up?

It had to be a trick. Of course, with her own eyes she'd watched Kennedy jump higher than she'd ever seen anyone jump before, much less from a scull in the middle of Long Island Sound. And the double flip and clean entry said that Kennedy had considerable diving experience.

Reluctantly Marian headed towards the dock, trying to think of what she could say if something had happened to Kennedy. She saw Kennedy, a few minutes later, when she surfaced at the 1800 meter buoy. Marion hurried herself. When she was close, Kennedy gestured at the dock. "Race you!"

Marian was startled. There was no way a swimmer could beat a scull! Not even a single person who was rowing a double scull! She bent to it, and for a few minutes it was touch and go, before she finally pulled ahead. Whenever Marian slowed down, Kennedy would start to cut the distance, so Marian hustled the last eight hundred meters.

Finally Marian pulled up at the dock and watched Kennedy swim the last few feet. Without a word, Kennedy was up the ladder and onto the dock, ignoring Marian.

Nonplussed, Marion didn't know what to do. She saw Kennedy go up to a young woman about Kennedy's age, who was accompanied by a man old enough to be either of their fathers. Marian snubbed the boat to a bollard and got out herself.

"Clarice, Pipes," she heard Kennedy say. "An unexpected surprise."

"Could we talk, Kennedy?" the other young woman said.

Kennedy glanced at Marian, and a smile crossed her face. "Clarice, unless this is your private business, I'd like Maid Marian here to be able to listen."

"It's ... both of our private business," Clarice said, eyeing Marian.

"Ah, in that case, a favor then, Godmother."

Clarice laughed. "That certainly doesn't have the ring to it that Marlon Brando imparted to 'Godfather' does it?"

"No, and Cinderella's godmother didn't help. Please, a favor."

"Sure, if that's what you want."

"Marian," Kennedy told her companion. "This is about my life, as my life really is. It isn't a place for moral qualms, 'peace in our time' or any of that. Clarice is the head of one of the Mafia Five Families of New York, although they no longer function as a crime syndicate. More like a conglomerate."

"You're kidding, right?" Marian said.

Kennedy gestured for Clarice to speak.

"You were right, Kennedy. They ambushed both teams. They're all dead. Pistol was one of the backups. They died, too."

"He was a good man; I'm sure they were all good men." Kennedy turned to Pipes. "Did you do as I suggested?"

"Yes. It wasn't an easy thing to do."

Kennedy turned to Marian. "The three of us," she indicated Clarice, Pipes and herself, "have a common enemy. I'm more or less retired, but Clarice keeps a team of men who ambush our enemies. I warned them that our enemies are clever, and don't like people hunting them. That they would try to ambush the ambushers. Because of the nature of our enemies, I told them that if the team was ever killed in action, they had to be beheaded as soon as possible."

Marian looked at Kennedy. "You can't possibly be serious."

"As a matter of fact," Pipes volunteered, "she is. Vampires are hard to kill. Kennedy has advantages that the rest of us don't have, but like she said, she is more or less retired."

"Vampires? Now I know you're crazy!"

Kennedy chuckled. "You should seek out a priest. One who does exorcisms would be best. Or one who has been around a long time, dealing with supernatural events. He'll tell you the truth, if you ask."

Kennedy turned to Clarice. "How many of them were there?"

"The nest was reported to have four. So at least that many, more likely twice that," Pipes told her. "They're in the Village."

"They should be right at home there," Kennedy said with a straight face.

She looked at Marian. "When I take them, you can come and watch if you want, but I'll warn you now, I'll be killing them. At least you can take consolation in that they are already dead and their souls are gone."

"You're insane," Marian said harshly.

"I wish. Marian, like I said, go talk to a priest before you judge me. You talk about your religion and your faith. I don't ask you to take me on faith, I ask you to talk to one of the priests of your faith, then make up your own mind."

Kennedy gestured at Pipes, at the umbrella hanging from his arm. Pipes grinned and gave it to Kennedy.

Then the umbrella was Lady Kennedy and Kennedy made her sing for them.

She smiled at Pipes and Clarice. "Thanks, I love having Lady Kennedy in my hand. I just hope you don't think I'm going from here to there, to play whack-a-mole with vampires?"

Pipes looked away, but Clarice looked at her. "Don't you want to?"

"Sure, Clarice. I've got a few spare stakes, I'll loan one to you. You can come, too."

Clarice shook her head. "I'm a businesswoman."

"You're a businesswoman who got four men killed," Kennedy reminded her. "Maybe Pipes won't tell you about it, but you have to realize that if you don't go with me when it comes time, you'll never again be able to ask men to risk themselves in your name."

Clarice turned to Pipes, but he looked away from her again.

"And here," Clarice mused, "I've wondered all morning about why it was so easy to convince you to come here, Pipes. Was it because you knew what Kennedy would say?"

"My friend, I told you what you had to do. You shook your head and told me that you couldn't. You suggested we talk to Kennedy and I agreed. It was your suggestion, your choice."

Kennedy grinned. "Clarice, have I ever given you bad advice?"

"Actually, you're one of the few people who has never offered me any."

"I did suggest following the rules at camp. Clarice, I'm not going anywhere near where you lost people until I've had a chance to study the situation. You understand that as much as they like to kill vampire hunters -- Slayers and Potentials are the ones really at the top of their list. I doubt if our association is unknown. They think, they reason, they do everything but breathe and have a soul. Did I mention they have pride?"

Clarice grimaced. "What was it I heard from someone? About being seduced by the dark side of the Force? I used my wiles and my intelligence to get where I've gotten. But I forgot every single lesson my grandfather taught to me about how to fight. I wasn't going to, you see. We weren't going to do that any more.

"And you, Kennedy. You were a bad influence. You walked into a building with two dozen vampires and the City of New York police and fire departments did your bidding and helped you burn them up. No tiresome visits from the police later, no surveillance; none of it. I've had several cops stop me on the street and thank me for my help. It was safe, I thought. Civic duty, civic pride. Safe."

Kennedy laughed. "I'd hug you, kiss you on the cheek, but you'd wig out. Clarice, we're born, we live and then we die. It's not safe being born, it's not safe living, and death has its dangers as well.

"Have you met my sister?" Kennedy asked her friend.

"No."

"You should seek her out and say hello. My stepfather keeps wanting to treat me as a peer -- when he's not treating me like a child. Conflicted is the best word to describe him. Once he told me that my sister would never earn enough money to pay for a month of her credit card expenses. You, Clarice, you've been living on your grandfather's credit card. As long as you were content to just be quiet, take what was offered, no one had a problem with it. But you wanted something different.

"You face a choice: the classic fish or cut bait. You've been living on your grandfather's credit card. Come with me when I go there and that will stop."

"I pay my own way!" Clarice retorted. She stopped and blushed. "Which is what you're telling me, right?"

"Yes."

"I've made a big mistake, haven't I?"

"Yes," Kennedy told her.

"I can't order men to risk their lives, can I? Not if I'm not willing to risk my own."

"No. You can't even ask them. You're their boss. What, they're expected to tell you 'No thanks?'?"

"And what will going with you prove?"

"That you pay your debts, Clarice. Then, for God's sake, listen to me when I say, forget this! Pipes didn't want to hunt vampires, did he?"

"No."

"Then please, Clarice. Listen to your consiglieri. He's not a fool. And you know he has no love for vampires."

"I thought it was something I could do. To atone for my brother, for Cynthia..."

"Your brother was a bastard when he was your brother. You do need to atone for him, because you never spoke out until it was not only over and done with, but you spoke to the wrong person. You should have been looking in the mirror, not at me."

"Why don't you hate me?"

"He wasn't my brother -- he was yours. He never hurt me, except with Ruby and the others, and that wasn't him, not really. I rubbed out a piece of vermin for what he did at my party."

Clarice stood up straight. "I guess I have to walk the walk, don't I?"

Kennedy guffawed. "Yes. But you have to understand, it'll be like my father offering to pay for my college tuition. Pocket change! No big!"

"You're paying your own way," Clarice told Kennedy.

"No. The New York Athletic Club gave me a rowing scholarship at Columbia. My stepfather assures me he refused to say aye or nay when they asked him if they should."

For the first time Marian chuckled. "Oh, it wasn't like that at all, Kennedy. They'd have given you that scholarship no matter who your father was. All you had to do was ask, and you did.

"The Club wishes you'd done better this year, but there would have been a lot of talk, you're right about that, if someone walked in off the street who could go from nothing to world champion in a few months. They are already working on a marketing campaign for later this fall."

"Marketing campaign?" Kennedy looked stunned. "Me?"

"You."

Kennedy swallowed. "Not this year. I have to convince them to hold off until next year, at least. I can't afford the publicity."

"What do you mean?" Marian replied.

"I told you, my enemies would like to see me dead ... except I have a built-in 'best-use-by-date.' This year is pretty much my last chance there and they know it. If I lay low until then, they won't bother me. But this year it's still a risk."

"You can talk to Mr. van ter Horst. If nothing else, he'll listen to Peter Stuyvesant."

Marian took a deep breath and looked at Clarice and Pipes. "You have to know I'm trying to stay rational by grasping at straws."

She faced Clarice. "You said you didn't want violence, not for yourself. Yet, you're clearly thinking about it."

Clarice waved at Kennedy. "It's not within me to not want vengeance for those men. There are hundreds of generations of Sicilians in my makeup that demand, very forcefully, what I should do to those who hurt me or mine. I thought I was doing a public service; that it was relatively risk free. We were careful, I thought. Kennedy predicted this exact scenario; she warned me what would happen. And I thought we were too smart, too careful.

"And you know, as bad as my ordering men to engage in 'civic duty, ' my coming here to get Kennedy to bail me out was an even worse decision."

She turned and started to go, but Kennedy grabbed her sleeve. "Clarice, trying to deal with this yourself would make every other stupid decision you've made in your life pale into insignificance. Not to mention, would almost certainly render moot your plans for the future.

"You made a mistake; I've made mistakes, Pipes has made them, I know. Don't compound this one."

"You'll do it?" Clarice asked.

"I'll do it," Kennedy told her. "I've done it before, it's not that big a deal."

"And you'll take me with you?"

Kennedy grinned. "Yes. Which isn't to say that you'll be in much danger. But, there are those pesky mistakes we make. Ask Pipes about what it's like to start to turn into a mouse."

"I felt my tail twitch," Pipes said, shivering.

Kennedy could see Clarice look at Pipes strangely. To break the moment, Kennedy grinned at Marian. "You had to have been there."

"I'm alternating wondering how someone as nice as you can be such a huge liar -- or wondering if you're a profoundly disturbed young woman."

Kennedy took a few steps and dipped into her gym bag and pulled out her phone. She dialed Mr. Glastonbury. "Sir, Kennedy. Do you know the name of a Catholic priest who is aware of things? Preferably someone as high in the hierarchy as possible?"

He said he knew several. "Could you call around and see if any of them are available at short notice? Sir, Clarice's crew was killed and so was the backup."

He told her he'd get back to her.

Kennedy turned to Marian. "One of the indispensable weapons in my armory is Holy Water. Blessed artifacts, including crosses are good, too. Once, when I was ten, I thought my tutor was being passed a bottle of booze at a restaurant. Instead, it was a bottle of Holy Water, consecrated by a bishop."

The phone rang and Kennedy listened and nodded. "Sure, that sounds good enough. He'll be expecting us? Kennedy and a party of three?"

The drive wasn't that long. They rode with Clarice and Pipes, Marian not sure if she was in mortal danger of death or if her soul was in peril.

"St. Paul's?" Marian said softly, when they pulled up in front of the cathedral.

"You bet. Have you ever met Bishop Meany?"

"I've seen him at mass."

"Well, today is your lucky day, then."

It took a surprisingly short time to be brought into the presence of the bishop. Marian curtsied, while both Clarice and Pipes knelt to kiss his ring.

The bishop was a man in his late fifties, showing signs that at one time he'd been a boxer. He was still a powerful man, and grinned at Kennedy. "Geoffrey asked if I would meet you. With him, you never know."

Kennedy nodded. "Sir, Marian is a nun, who is honest, faithful and devout. She works hard, she's never had a bad word for me. However, there are some worldly things she's never had occasion to learn about, much less meet. I was wondering if I could impose upon you, sir, to help her understand."

The bishop's eyes went to Marian. "Sister? Is that your wish? Do you understand that there are things the church doesn't speak about except in private? Things that would not benefit most people's education?"

"I heard some fantastic things, your eminence. I don't want to impose on you or church doctrine."

He waved his hand airily. "Which order do you belong to, Sister Marian?"

"Dominican Sisters of Hope, your eminence."

"And you've fallen in with these people?"

"Sir, it's a vanity, but Mother Superior permits me to row at the New York Athletic Club. Miss Kennedy also rows there, and we row together in double sculls."

He nodded. "Is it your wish to learn of these things, Sister Marian?"

"I don't honestly know. If what Miss Kennedy says is correct, I'm not sure what to believe."

"In God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Mary ... all those things the Church teaches and holds dear. Nothing you will hear will contradict fundamental truths. But, as in many things, there are areas where reality isn't as simple as we teach to the laity." He sighed. "It's like a connect-the-dots puzzle, where we don't include all the dots."

He nodded to the rest of them. "I will be a few minutes, please pardon this rudeness on my part, but the Church has some secrets."

The bishop gestured towards an inner office and Marian preceded him inside.

Clarice touched Kennedy's arm. "When you go, call me."

"I will, I promise. But it won't be right away."

Pipes sighed. "Clearly we didn't do enough surveillance ourselves."

"Mr. Glastonbury said something to me once that I've taken to heart. When the small vampire attacked me from ambush, I thought I'd been ready. Yet I walked into a trap, knowing I was going to be ambushed. There is knowing, and then there is understanding. I won't say that I can't be ambushed now, but it's not going to be a simple thing for them to do."

Pipes smiled slightly. "I notice that when you're walking, you always walk on the sunny side of the street."

"It does make life easier," Kennedy told him.

Eventually Marian was back, and they immediately left, headed back for Marian's car at NYAC. "You don't look worse for the wear," Kennedy said mildly.

"And you don't look like a mystical avatar, either."

Kennedy chuckled. "That's probably because I'm not one. I could become one, but it's no longer very likely. As painful as it is for the others of you to contemplate, it appears that I'm too old."

There was a moment of disorientation. Then she was running, running, running. The men who pursued her wore black robes, implacably intent on killing her. They had, Kennedy knew, already killed her Watcher. She fled through the night.

The smells were strange, the buildings were strange, the night sounds were strange. Kennedy had no idea where she was, but it wasn't very likely to be the US of A. She scrambled up a drain pipe, much faster than her pursuers.

She relaxed minutely. She was safe now, she was sure ... none knew the roofs of the city like she did. The two men in robes who appeared in front of her startled her like she'd never been startled before. She grappled with one and used him as a shield, but she slipped. She fell and fell, landing with a thump in the road.

Momentarily stunned, she was helpless when they came upon her, knives gleaming, flashing in the night. She screamed and screamed and screamed...

The world flexed and Kennedy was lying on her back, next to the car, concerned people hovering over her. A few feet away Kennedy could see Marian with a cell phone in her hand, speaking urgently into it.

Kennedy grinned at Pipes. "If she's calling 9-1-1 have her call it off. I'm fine."

"This is your idea of fine?" Clarice exclaimed.

"Well, I'm a little disoriented, but it'll pass in a moment. I'm fine, really. If an ambulance comes, there could be some issues, because I won't go with them."

"But you had some sort of seizure! You were talking then your eyes rolled up and you slumped back. After a few seconds, you were panting, like a dog."

"Or like someone running full out. Clarice, please. Remember Rosalie. This is magic, not medical. All a doctor would find is that I'm in good health and stronger than I appear."

Pipes walked over and explained to Marian, who was stubborn, shaking her head. "I know a seizure when I see one!"

"It's not a medical condition," Kennedy repeated. "Like some Catholic saints, I have visions. Surely you wouldn't call a doctor for Joan of Arc or someone like that?"

"Don't make fun of my religion."

"And we were where, just now, talking about what, with a prelate of your religion? Your church openly accepts visions."

"You're not a saint!"

"And I never said I was. I said I have visions. It's magic, I'm sure of it, Marian."

"Magic!" she sneered.

"Magic," Kennedy told her calmly. "You know, like the exorcisms the church still performs. What do you suppose animates the shells of the undead? How do demons get here from other dimensions? There is no Scotty 'beaming them down.'"

Kennedy turned to Clarice. "I need to get home ASAP. Could we get going again?"

"Sure, Kennedy," Pipes said. "We'll drive you, if you want."

"I have a driver and guard back at the Club, patiently waiting. No, we'll just go back there, if it's okay."

"If you're sure?"

"I'm sure."

Kennedy turned to Marian. "I'm going to talk to my friends about something. It would be really cool if you'd listen and not butt in. If you would think long and hard about what you hear and what it means, before you speak. It wouldn't hurt to talk to the bishop again."

With that she turned to Pipes. "You know the current Slayer lives in California?"

"We've heard about that. We understand the need for secrecy, so we've never tried to learn more."

"This Slayer is different than all the ones who've gone before her. She's been killed four times, now."

"Killed?"

"Killed, but not as in dead as a doornail. This is going to sound fantastic, but the first time she was drowned, but a friend was close by and he gave her mouth to mouth."

"That's not terribly fantastic," Marian said, her voice bitter.

"Marian, I can finish this conversation after we let you out," Kennedy said crossly.

"Not so fantastic, Marian's right about that. The second time she was tossed into hell. At least a hell dimension. No one human has ever returned from a hell dimension before her. She came back. I'm weak on the details, but all you need to know is that she came back.

"The third time -- someone had to die to save the universe. It sounds hokey, but there was a primal evil conjuring to move us all, the entire planet, to one of those hell places. We'd all have died. Unless someone gave their life to stop it. It was supposed to be the Slayer's sister, who isn't exactly human herself. Except the Slayer decided that it would be her. So she jumped off a tall construction crane and went splat into a pile of building materials from something like a hundred feet up. After having stopped the end of the world."

"That was it, we were sure. Except someone very powerful wants her alive. One of the Slayer's friends is a witch a thousand times more powerful than Rosalie. She resurrected her. I'm not sure I'd want to call it 'innocence, ' maybe naivetè is better, but the witch was worried her friend was burning in hell.

"Well, the Slayer hadn't gone to hell -- she was in heaven. And she got pulled back here."

"This is a little hard to believe," Pipes said mildly.

"Yeah, well, I understand if you ever go to Sunnydale, California, you'd find out quickly enough that nothing is hard to believe there.

"Magic has consequences. Ferinc taught me that. When you do magic you need to be sure why and what you're doing. The witch went evil. I mean not just a little evil, but all the way off the reservation. Not so many months ago she decided that humanity was a blot on the universe's copy book and decided to eliminate it. Us. All of us. Her lover, you see, had been murdered. She was so concerned about that, she didn't notice at first that the Slayer had been mortally wounded at the same time.

"When she did notice, it was at one second past midnight for the Slayer again. The Slayer died on the operating table, as they were preparing to repair the damage.

"The witch brought her back. This time the Slayer was dead only for a few seconds again; heaven and hell didn't seem to be involved. The witch went crazy after that and nearly turned us all to toast. She was, however, stopped. That was early this summer.

"There is something else. I know a lot about the details of the Slayer's deaths. I know them because I've been in her head each time she's died. I was in the mind of the Slayer before her, too. And today ... that was what was happening. Only this time it wasn't the Slayer, it was someone else. She was, I think, a Potential, like me. Some guys in black robes ambushed and killed her."

"And you were with her, too?" Pipes asked softly.

"Yeah. I tell you true, dying once isn't what it's cracked up to be. Seven times now, I've died. Sliced to bits, drowned, thrown into hell, my neck broken, splat, shot and now cut up again. Thank you very much, I've had enough."

"Do you have a connection to this Slayer?" Clarice asked.

Kennedy shrugged. "I used to think so ... until a few minutes ago. Now, I have to go back to the drawing board. Maybe the connection isn't with the Slayer, but with the problem that's been building for years and years."

"You're delusional," Marian announced. "I'm sorry, Kennedy, but you should be seeking professional help. Resurrection!"

Kennedy shook her head sadly. "Marian, surely the bishop told you about vampires. They're reborn without souls. They are dead for a day or so, and then they return. I've never had the courage to ask about zombies; I imagine that they're real too. If I'm delusional, it's a delusion your bishop and most of the leadership of the Catholic Church share with me."

Marian turned her head and looked out the car window, ignoring Kennedy.

When they were back at the club, Marian got out of the car and walked away, without a word.

Clarice looked sad, and it was Pipes who spoke. "I'm sorry, Kennedy."

"For years Mr. Glastonbury has warned me of the dangers of having friends. They can get hurt -- or in Ruby's and Marian's cases, the truth wounds them. He told me that you just don't know what the tipping point will be that breaks a friendship."

"Well, you never have to worry about me," Pipes told her. "Not ever."

"But that's just it, Pipes. I do. I can't stop worrying about everyone around me. I alternate, you know. One day I'm denying there's a problem and trying to live my life as normally as I can ... and then periodically life brings it to my attention that I'm not normal. Sometimes that reminder takes the form of risks to my friends. Once, the bodies of some of my friends and employees of my father."

"And you don't know what to do?" Pipes offered.

"I have no clue what to do. Not a clue. I tell myself that if I'm not chosen, I'm home free. That it's not going to bother me to turn into just another girl; someone like you, Clarice, or Harriet ... any of my friends."

"Don't let your fears get you down," Clarice told her. "At least, that's what my grandfather told me maybe a million times. 'Make a decision, ' he'd say, 'stick to it. Accept your lumps.'"

Later Kennedy made a beeline to see Mr. Glastonbury. She explained about the vision, and added the kicker, the one she hadn't mentioned to the others.

"Sir, she was older. I mean, she was my age, I'm sure. I don't have anything definite to base that on, but my own feelings. I don't think it was the second Slayer who died, it was someone else, a Potential like me."

"I'll call the Council," he told her. "I don't know if they can or will help. Lately they seem to be running in a permanent crisis mode. I thought they'd overblown the risks of the millennium, and sure enough, nothing much happened. I get the impression this time that it's come out of the blue and they don't have a clue what's going on."

"She had a Watcher," Kennedy warned. "She knew her Watcher was dead."

"I'm not your Watcher any more, remember?"

"Of course not. My father just lets you stay on here, running the house, because you're ideally suited to be his factotum."

"He worries about you. I worry about you. Pardon us for caring."

She started to speak but he cut her off. "Yes, I know. We have a funny way of showing how much we care. That's true enough. And we've said over and over again, it was a mistake."

Kennedy faced him forthrightly. "The most immediate problem is that I'm supposed to start at Columbia in two weeks. I'm thinking there must be a good reason why I should take a sabbatical."

He smiled slightly. "You won't break the Club's heart -- so long as you keep racing. But Kennedy, even that is going to be dangerous if what you clearly think is true."

"Yeah. I need to think about this."

"I can't help but notice you're not asking for my advice."

"Has it changed any in the last decade?"

"No."

"Then I really don't need to hear it again."

He sighed.

A week later, Kennedy was sitting in the practice room, reading a book on demonology when it happened again. The same disorientation, then running, running...

There was an instant that the girl was running along a long series of show windows of stores in some downtown. Kennedy recognized the language of the signs as German, but that wasn't as startling as the reflection of the girl's face. Her hair was red. Not a typical carrot-top, but clown-wig red. There were purple highlights as well, and the girl's nose was pierced, her eyebrows were pierced, and Kennedy was pretty sure the young woman's tongue was pierced as well.

The girl went through a door and relaxed. It was a night club of some sort, filled with people and loud, raucous music. Techno, a voice whispered in her head. She grimaced, it was terrible music...

They seemed to sprout out of the floor like magic puppets. One second there were no black robes around, and then they were there. She eluded one's grasp, spun away and hustled through the door she'd just come through.

The knives of those waiting on the other side flashed, cutting, cutting, cutting...

Kennedy regained consciousness, lying on the floor of the practice room, a knot on her head where she'd hit it. She ignored that and was up and moving at once.

Mr. Glastonbury listened in silence. "The last one was in Turkey, Istanbul," he told her. "Germany you say?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure. I suppose it could have been Austria or somewhere in Switzerland; they all have predominately German regions as well."

"Go with your first instincts, Miss Kennedy. What about her Watcher?"

"I don't honestly know. But, sir ... she had piercings. Eyebrows, nose, tongue ... who knows what else? As my Watcher what would you have said if I wanted something like that?"

"No, flatly no. Anything like that is a risk. Even long hair is a risk; it's something for an enemy to grab at."

"Yeah, that was kind of my thought as well. Either she didn't have a Watcher, or she doesn't obey him."

"I'll call it in. Miss Kennedy..."

"I know. We need to call my father and tell him we need to get the staff out of the house, and he has to make sure none of the family drop in for the time being. I'll talk to the Athletic Club and the University."

"And the other thing? That's just too dangerous."

"All of these attacks have been at night. I'm going in the morning. I'll go to the club, talk to Mr. van ter Horst and then gather up Clarice and do it. Then I'll come back here. Lay in some supplies. It wouldn't hurt if you took yourself elsewhere as well."

"No."

An hour later Mr. Glastonbury found Kennedy watching a DVD on one of the TVs.

"Good news and bad news, Miss Kennedy," he told her.

"Good news is always good," she replied.

"Not in this case. It would seem you're not seeing all of the deaths. They are happening a couple of times a week, all around the world. The Council says the attacks are being conducted by someone called 'The First, ' supposedly the evil that came before all other evil, or something like that. His agents are called 'Bringers.' They are blind, but seem to be fully aware of the world around them. They are some sort of demon-manifestation. These Bringers appear to be all male. They are soulless, so feel free to kill them on sight."

"I'm hearing a waffle in your voice," Kennedy told him. "A demon-manifestation?"

"Yes. The Council has seers who have insight into these things. Once these were men, but they have been possessed by these demons. They don't know much more than that. There is a shadowy figure behind them, but the Council's people can't see for sure who or what it is."

"I will be extra, extra careful. Tomorrow will be the last day I go out. We'll sit here, back to back, waiting for them."

"It could be weeks, Miss Kennedy. It could never happen."

"Then we'll wait weeks. Get everyone out of here as quickly as possible."

He nodded.

She went up on the terrace and stared into the distance. After a few minutes a shiver went up her spine. Once upon a time the grounds of the house had trees, bushes, flowers ... in short, it had been a beautiful place, a place where you could contemplate beauty to your heart's content. And now ... Well, it wasn't ugly, not by any means, but all of that was gone now, instead just carefully manicured lawns that stretched out, featureless, in every direction to the eight-foot field stone fence that surrounded the estate.

She got up and went inside.

Mr. Glastonbury greeted her. "The Council called back. She was German, from Berlin. She was eighteen and a half; her Watcher told her a month ago that he would be leaving her. She went wild. The piercings, going to raves, doing drugs, wild, unprotected sex ... He was quite sad to see what she had become, but it wasn't time to go quite yet. He should have gone, because he's dead now."

"I destroyed this house, didn't I, Mr. Glastonbury?"

"It doesn't look destroyed," he said, trying to keep his voice light.

"Not if you like lawns. But if you want a beautiful place where people can live, where children can grow up safe and secure ... it's like I razed it flat."

He could only shrug.

"I've seen what vampires can do," she told him. "I understand fighting them, I understand about the Slayer. What I'll never understand is why this is. Once I half-joked about the Slayer's Watcher drowning her, then the new Slayer's Watcher drowning her as well. You were horrified, you couldn't imagine a Watcher hurting his charge."

"That's right!"

"Even if it's really everyone else that gets hurt? If the world was filled with Slayers ... if there were no Potentials, just Slayers and Slayers-in-training, wouldn't that be better?"

"Except it's not going to happen," he said with certain finality. "You have no idea what you're asking."

She gave him her middle finger. "And you have no problem asking us to fight until we die, if we become the Slayer, or go crazy if we don't. Maybe it's you who don't have a clue."

She turned and stalked away, angry.

The next morning she woke very early and worked out for an hour. She went in the kitchen, poured her own juice and fixed a bowl of cereal. She'd been making a point of learning simple things, thinking she'd be in college, in her own apartment in another year.

Mr. Glastonbury appeared. "Only the driver and car guard are left. After this trip this morning, they'll leave as well, Miss Kennedy."

She wanted to spit. "Either the threat is real and you have no right to risk their lives, or we're paranoid. Which do you think is the case?"

"You will drive yourself?"

"Hey, I'm even legal now!" she reminded him.

"Take the Yukon," he told her.

She shrugged. As if a big SUV would make a difference! Still, it would be easier to conceal Lady Kennedy, and it would mean she could drive Clarice and herself to the Village to take care of business.

She parked in the Athletic Club's main parking lot and walked inside. It was still early, but Mr. van ter Horst was already there. She walked up to him and baldly told him that she was forced by circumstances to take a year sabbatical.

He had heard, she realized after a second, when his protests were minimal and pro forma. "You father called me late last night," he confirmed to her. "He told me about the threats against you, against your family. It seems unbelievable that such things can happen in this day and age. But I have a view of the Manhattan skyline from my apartment and every day for the last year I've been aware of what's missing."

"I'm truly sorry, sir," Kennedy told him. "I swear, when this is over, I'll be back. But I can't put the people here at the club at risk. I just can't."

"I know, I know. Please, go with God, and for heaven's sake, be careful!"

She returned to the Yukon and stood for a moment outside it. Should she go and see Marian and her coaches? It wasn't so much that she was afraid, she really wasn't, but at the same time what would be the purpose? She'd have to look them in the eyes and lie. What good could possibly come of that? And if they were waiting for her, it wouldn't be good that came from that!

She clambered into the Yukon and drove into Manhattan.

The first rule of driving in Manhattan during rush hour: Patience!

She called ahead a few minutes before she got to the restaurant. When she got there, Clarice was standing at the curb, with Pipes and Fatso next to her. The men got in the back seat while Clarice got in next to Kennedy.

Kennedy waved at Pipes. "No."

"Then none of us goes," Clarice told her.

"We're just going to guard the vehicle," Pipes explained. "You haven't burdened us with your plan this time, but I figure you plan on parking some distance away and walking to the target."

"That's right. There are six possible parking spots, including some for tourists. I have a set of conditions here," she tapped her forehead, "random numbers that I'll use to pick which one."

She turned to Clarice, ignoring the car behind them, already honking. "I was tempted to call this off. There are some guys after me, personally. They like ambushes. So far as I know, they only go out at night, but they aren't vampires. They are very, very good at ambushes.

"The two times I've seen them work, they surprised their victims, when the victims thought they were safe."

She put the Yukon in gear and drove about forty feet, then backed into the alley behind the restaurant. "All out."

Pipes laughed, and Clarice made a startled sound.

"We'll walk from here. It's ten blocks. Pipes, I'll call afterwards. Blue means pick us up, heading towards Chelsea. Plan Green means we're on the shortest route back, Plan Yellow is down towards Soho. Plan Red means sit tight, you don't need to come. And, of course, Plan Black means flee, all is lost."

"Yes, Kennedy," he said simply.

"Oh, odds are you won't see vampires. If they do come, stake them. Guys in black robes with knives -- they're not vampires. Shoot them."

A few minutes later Kennedy and Clarice were walking down the thronged street, side-by-side.

"What's the plan?"

"A surprise," Kennedy told her. "When I tell you, I'll point to a place. You put your back solidly against the wall and stay there, come heaven or high water. Unless I'm dead, of course, then run like a jack rabbit."

"I'm not armed."

"Clarice, the single worst thing you could be today, is armed." Kennedy smiled at the expression on her friend's face. "Not, mind you that this will hurt." She handed Clarice a stake.

"I guess it wouldn't have looked good if I went into battle without a weapon."

"Not unless you were planning on twisting their heads off, bare-handed. Even I'd come up a little short in that department, I'm afraid. I'm a mystical warrior, and you're my Sancho Panza. It will be enough that you came along."

For August, it could have been much worse. It was a nice morning for a walk, and when they got close, Kennedy crossed the street and headed for Washington Square, Clarice saying nothing. They reached the Arch and Kennedy pointed to the side that faced the sun. "Right there. Keep your back to the wall."

Clarice started to gesture towards the building, but Kennedy caught her hand, leaned close and kissed Clarice on the cheek. "Wish me luck!"

Clarice looked startled. Kennedy spoke just above a whisper. "You were about to gesture at the building. A watcher would know."

"Sorry," she said apologetically.

"It's hard," she told Clarice. "I've spent most of my life preparing for days like this, and it's hard for me, too."

She walked briskly forward, Lady Kennedy hanging from her arm, looking like an umbrella.

She walked towards the building that housed the nest. It was a modest, five-story brick building, one of those that were the hallmark of the modern Village -- well kept. There was a doorman, like so many buildings had in New York. They did concierge duty, but mostly they were there to keep out the riff-raff. She walked right towards him, her eyes boldly meeting his.

But, ten feet away, she let what she had up her sleeve slide into her hand. She dipped, and used the hook to lift the manhole cover in the street up. She looked at the doorman. "If you're still there when I come back, I'll kill you," she told him levelly, then kited the several hundred pounds in his direction, knowing she'd come up short.

With that, she stopped paying attention to him and dropped easily through the manhole, landing lightly twenty feet below grade, in a six foot storm drain. Sure enough, the vamps had cut their own entrance to the apartment building and she ran quickly to the cut.

There was a guard sleeping on the other side, but her footsteps alerted it. He grimaced as vampires do, and laughed when she swung the "umbrella" towards him. The laugh changed to horror when Lady Kennedy changed and a second later he was dust.

The others were a hundred feet away, and sure enough, the doorman had buzzed them. The three of them were awake and ready, but not ready enough for someone who was all but a Slayer. It took less than a minute to dispatch them, none of them were armed and evidently facing someone with a sword wasn't in their game plan.

There was a clatter on the steps that led into the building and Kennedy saw the first black robe enter.

"Ta-ta for now," she called, and turned and ran back the way she'd come. In theory, this was bad practice. Since she'd always made a point of good practice, she crossed her fingers she wasn't making the same mistake those other Potentials had made.

Sure enough, she had. Two of them were waiting for her, just a dozen steps beyond the entrance to the sewer. The storm drain was about six feet in diameter, which rather constrained how far she could swing Lady Kennedy, but she was ready. The first Bringer died in seconds. The other backed away rapidly, and she kept going after him, blade weaving a tight web.

She got to the point where she dropped in. She made a long lunge, pushing the other back three steps, then, as she recovered, she dipped and heaved like she'd never heaved before, going straight up.

It would have been cool to lightly land on the street, but only the upper half of her torso made it out of the manhole. Still, that sufficed. Lady Kennedy had already gone back to being an umbrella, and she lifted herself up a quick foot, using her elbows.

A second later she jumped again, and landed as lightly as she'd hoped the first time on the street. The doorman took one look at her and cursed. "I'll kill you next time, dirty little girl!" Then he turned and walked away, his broad back towards her.

Kennedy ignored him and turned and walked quickly back towards Washington Square. "Call Pipes, tell him Plan Red," she told Clarice as she got close.

She nodded towards Little Italy and Clarice started walking. "I take it," Clarice said, "that it didn't work?"

Kennedy chuckled. "Time flies when you're having fun! Four vamps and one of those Bringer guys. It really was a trap for me."

"But ... you were gone for less than a minute!"

"Like I said about time flying..." she told Clarice. "Now we need to make tracks, because there were four Bringers and the doorman. He might be the Bringer's boss, although I'd have expected more fireworks. Maybe he doesn't like sunlight."

They walked much more quickly than they'd done going the other way. Pipes and Fatso were at the entrance of the alley. Kennedy didn't hesitate. "The vamps who killed your men are dead. I also killed a Bringer. I left at least three Bringers and a human helping them, the doorman.

"I did something right, because the vamps were sleeping. Or, maybe not, because the Bringers were ready for me. Regardless, the odds that they don't know Clarice was with me is low. Take her someplace well away from here. Don't tell anyone where you're going. Not even the pilot of the plane. Stay lost for a couple of weeks. Check in with me at the house. Once there's no answer, you're probably safe."

"Once there's no answer?" Clarice asked.

Kennedy nodded, letting the other figure it out.

When Kennedy got home she filled in Mr. Glastonbury who listened, nodding. "I'll report this to the Council. What do you think you did right?"

"I think it was the storm drain access. They were counting on the doorman to alert them. The three in the main room didn't have time to alert their guard on the drain entrance."

"And the Bringers?"

"I have no idea. They seemed ... ready. I mean, the two that came down the stairs were quick. The two in the tunnel had to have been further along, away from the building. They must have moved almost at once. I think speed and surprise were what worked." She met his eyes.

"They seemed flustered by Lady Kennedy, but it didn't stop them from attacking. They each have two knives, and fight well with them. The knives are about fourteen inches long, curved, fairly wide blades. I'm sure they're quite sharp."

He nodded and called it in. A while later he was back. "They told me to use my best judgment."

She lifted an eyebrow and he explained. "That's what you tell your people, Miss Kennedy, when you haven't a clue what to do next."

It was anticlimactic. They slept in the practice room, when they did sleep, within touch of each other. Mostly one was awake, and it was only when both were awake would they prowl the house, making sure no one had snuck in while they were asleep.

Days passed. A week. Two weeks.

Mr. Glastonbury punched her in the stomach one morning, when she was standing, looking out the window. She rounded on him, and they spent a few minutes sparring.

Afterwards she looked at him. "They'll come when we're both asleep, won't they? How can they do that?"

"It doesn't happen often, and they have seers just like the Council." Mr. Glastonbury sighed. "Speaking of the Council, I should call in and see if there's news."

A few minutes later he was back. "They're gone."

Kennedy furrowed her brow. "What do you mean, 'They're gone?'"

"I mean there was no answer. I called a half dozen backups and they were gone, too. Only the coven replied, and they cut the connection almost at once and used magic. They're not sure exactly what happened, but the Council of Watchers was destroyed by a series of explosions, while the Council was in session. Since then, if you poke your head up it gets lopped off."

"Any minute, then, eh?" Kennedy asked.

"Yes, any minute. I think the plan is clear. Kill the Potentials, kill the Council. Then they'll go for the Slayer in prison, then the one functioning. When they're all dead, so will the Slayer line be. After that..."

"And here we sit, mostly in the dark, quietly waiting to be slaughtered," Kennedy told him. "Screw it! You need to teach me more about ballroom dancing! I demand dance lessons, you stupid Englishman! Turn up the lights, turn up the music! I don't want to die here, afraid and hiding!"

So they danced. For two days he showed her one dance step after another, and she learned each, then practiced, practiced, practiced.

Gaiety, particularly enforced gaiety, doesn't last. Nothing happened, the house remained empty except for the two of them.

"They're baiting us," Kennedy said, finally.

Mr. Glastonbury shook his head. "Just waiting until we lower our guard."

"Tomorrow is October," she told him. "We hang on for another seven months and I'll be nineteen."

He laughed bitterly.

A few feet away an alarm buzzed. He moved and looked. "But, I don't think you'll have to wait nearly that long. Call it a half dozen."

Kennedy stood, stretching. She had Lady Kennedy in hand, and at once the sword began to hum. Mr. Glastonbury rose, a mace in his hand, another in his belt.

They stood back to back; Kennedy was impressed that he let her face the door to the practice room.

And there she learned her final lesson in ambushes.

The explosion made her blink, but she resolutely kept focused on the main door. Four of them came through, while behind her, she could hear many feet approaching. "Six from the door," she said conversationally.

"And three from this direction. I surely don't need any help with just three!"

Kennedy laughed low in her throat and moved forward.

The first of them brought his knives together, trying to foul her blade. His head did a better job, but just for and instant.

"One!" Kennedy called.

"And two!" Mr. Glastonbury replied.

Then three of them came at her once and she was very busy. Mr. Glastonbury didn't say anything, but she could hear the ring of steel behind her. Another Bringer died and she parried with the two still close, killing yet another of them. Number six was still holding back, staying behind the others, while number five came forward to join the battle. There was no longer time for words.

Kennedy grinned to herself. So, even these bastards in black robes were afraid! It made her feel much better.

She turned, just in time to see Mr. Glastonbury go down, surrounded by flashing blades.

She whirled, took a step and stood over him, killing the black robe who'd killed Mr. Glastonbury, and the one who'd backed him up. A whisper of sound made her duck and spin, and she avoided a killing stroke from behind her.

She made that Bringer pay big time for it, saw that number six was still holding back. Number five seemed confident enough, trying to reach out and touch her. Lady Kennedy reached out and touched him instead and he crumpled.

She turned as the last Bringer from behind her came forward. The room was dimmer than she remembered, she couldn't focus. Magic! She blazed in anger, remembering the time in the king of the gypsies house. The last Bringer brought his blade back, and she stepped forward, knowing Lady Kennedy would kill him.

He swung to parry and with horror she realized that the blade she fought wasn't a true sword. Her brain flashed to the memory of a long ago class: one she'd not paid nearly enough attention to. The man was swinging a sword breaker. He caught Lady Kennedy and with contemptuous ease, twisted. Like a fool, Kennedy resisted and Lady Kennedy shattered into a thousand pieces.

She should have died then. The shock, the horror sank in at once. She was frozen, stunned to her core. The Bringer drew back and swung the breaker at her. There was nothing but a stub of her sword left, but Lady Kennedy did one last duty for her mistress. Kennedy managed to parry the blow offline, and Kennedy pushed the ruin of her sword forward, heedless of the risk. There was only a few inches of blade left, but it sank into the Bringer's forehead.

As suddenly as the attack started, it was over. Kennedy was alone in the practice room. Lady Kennedy lay in ruins. Mr. Glastonbury was curled up in a fetal ball, but she knew instantly that magic or not, no one, not even a Slayer could survive a blood spill like the one that surrounded his body. She'd seen them slit him open, after all.

For the first time in her life, she felt a metallic, burning sensation in her mouth. The taste of fear, she was sure. She held up the hilt of Lady Kennedy.

She'd read the Lord of the Rings. Isuldur's sword had been reforged. So could Lady Kennedy! She looked at the ruin in her hand and scanned the practice room. She'd known it when the sword broke; she hadn't wanted to know it. The sword had shattered like a piece of glass. Most of the pieces were an inch or two long.

There was no way, ever, to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Again she looked around the room. Nine dead Bringers, one dead Watcher, one dead sword. Thank God there were no dead guards, no dead friends and no dead family members! This time, by God, she'd done it right, even if the cost had been unbearable.

A man appeared at the entrance to the practice room. "Are you Kennedy?" he asked, blinking owlishly.

She was already stalking towards him, intent on killing him with her bare hands. He saw her expression and spoke quickly.

"I'm Rupert Giles. I used to be a Watcher. Now, I'm trying to save Potentials like you from the Bringers. Please!"

She still wanted to kill him. "Another Watcher. Another Watcher a dollar short and hours late."

He looked around. "I understand. Please, your Watcher died here. Does his death mean so little to you?"

Kennedy snarled. "As much as my death would have meant to him!"

The venom in her voice brought him up short. "I have two other Potentials outside, in the car. Please, do you drive?"

"Drive?" Kennedy asked, bemused.

"Drive. I don't do it very well. I've been letting one of the others drive, but I'm afraid she's English and keeps trying to drive on the wrong side of the road."

"I know which side of the road to drive on," Kennedy snarled at the Watcher.

"Get your things and we'll go."

Kennedy looked around. "All that's left is me."

"Clothes."

"Five minutes then," she replied.



-------

Chapter 30: Sunnydale


Mr. Giles had asked Kennedy if she would drive; what started out as a favor became the thing to do as they drove across the US. Day and night seemed meaningless. Mr. Giles wanted to stop for gas only; Kennedy was amused that he had no problem with her using her debit card to pay for it. If you needed something to eat or a comfort stop, you rushed inside and did whatever business it was that you had to do.

The two other girls were English and half the time their conversation seemed incomprehensible. And they were a little vague on how they had gotten to the US as well.

Driving was surprisingly relaxing. She'd never done long distance driving on the highway before, but quickly realized that it was more or less the same as driving a race, except at much slower speeds with drivers who didn't know how to drive.

She smiled slightly at the memory. Mr. Giles got nervous at any speed above forty-five miles an hour and when she was tooling along the freeway at the seventy-two miles an hour, which was as fast as his Range Rover would go, he grew agitated because she was going "too fast."

A month before she'd have laughed and mentioned her ticket to drive Formula One cars. A week ago she'd have at least mentioned it. Today ... she slowed down to five miles over the speed limit and left it at that.

The driving was an anodyne for the pain she felt inside her; pain that had been growing for weeks and months. Her responses were rote and automatic, requiring minimal thought. It suited her.

There was a minor flap when they stopped in Needles, California and Mr. Giles saw the gasoline prices. He was on his English high horse about "highway robbery" and price gouging. In a way it was familiar and comforting, and that was the problem. Familiar meant old memories bubbled to the surface. There were a lot of things she wished she could say to Mr. Glastonbury that she was never going to get to say.

She glanced at the Watcher. He'd been pleased how polite she was, calling him Mr. Giles and all. What would he say if he found out she could care less what he thought? But it pulled her out of her mental fugue and made her focus on the situation at hand.

What should she do? Should she once again go along supinely with the wishes of another Watcher? The two girls he had with him weren't what she'd expected. She'd heard stories of Slayers and these two girls weren't anything like the stories. She'd always envisioned Potentials as someone like herself: tough, self-confident, well-trained and honed.

Annabelle. Was that even a name of a person, even one from England? People named their cows Annabelle. Annabelle had learned a thing or two from her Watcher, but it seemed to be mainly theory and not to be afraid.

Mollie wasn't much of a name, either. Worse, Mollie was a total airhead, without much of a clue about anything. She was supposed to have had a Watcher, but she must have slept through every single class. The two had moods that ranged from mildly excited to deathly afraid.

Rupert Giles wasn't an airhead. He was fussy, prissy, a lot like her first impressions of Mr. Glastonbury. Except, once you got past simple impressions, it was clear that there was the same sort of adamantine steel underneath the over-polite facade.

To put it mildly, Kennedy had lost confidence in herself, in Watchers, lost confidence in the Slayer ... the whole lot of them. And it had happened so fast!

Then there was the fact that other two girls were, she was certain, fifteen or so. Neither of them suspected Kennedy was eighteen ... they thought of her as a peer. Well, she wasn't. Not in age, not in experience.

She chuckled to herself, remembering her last real conversation with Pipes. Yes, she was bossy. Yes, she manipulated and used others to achieve her goals. Pretty much, Kennedy thought, like a real Slayer would. So, how would the real Slayer react to a junior leaguer come to play in her sandbox?

Probably not well. And if that was a fair description of how the Slayer would deal with things, what her fellow Potentials would do defied imagination. Kennedy had a great deal of experience in getting everyone killed. It had happened at her New Year's party, it nearly happened when she met the king of the gypsies. And now, Mr. Glastonbury and Lady Kennedy were dead. Was there something sad about a person who grieved as much for a dead sword, as she did for any of the people who had been killed?

There was a shimmering in front of her, and Kennedy took a step back.

Rosalie grinned at her. "I don't think it's going to help to say, 'Not to worry, I'm not real.'"

"You look real," Kennedy told her.

"Well, I'm only here in your imagination. Everyone around you is going to think you're wacky, talking to yourself."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Kennedy said.

"I'll be short. Pipes found out what happened at your house. I don't know what to say, except I'm sorry. Mr. Glastonbury seemed like a nice man."

"He was my Watcher. It went with the territory. I'm proud of the fact that I kept it to just one person killed this time."

"Pipes went to Ferinc and Ferinc came to me. Pipes explained about the linkage to the deaths that you face; he wondered if there was anything I could do. I think I can, Kennedy. Say the word and you'll only die one more time. Your own."

Kennedy laughed so hard it hurt her stomach. "I don't think that came out like you thought."

"The word, Kennedy, is yes or no."

"Yes, once more is just fine with me."

"So mote it be! Good luck, Kennedy! If you need any help, don't call a gypsy! We're going into hiding until the dust settles."

"Not Ferinc."

"No, not Ferinc, or Lauren or Deb or Steffie. Not me or Marcie. The rest of the little worms will duck for cover, though."

Then she was gone, as if she'd never been.

Mr. Giles appeared next to her. "Are you okay to drive some more?"

"I'm fine," she told him. "The one thing I've noticed already about the desert? It dries tears almost as fast as you can cry them."

It was a few minutes after dawn, and Kennedy drove the rest of the way to Sunnydale without a break. They arrived a little after noon, and the drive gave her even more time to think. She'd definitely been on the right track earlier. The Slayer didn't need competition; she needed people who would put their shoulders to the wheel and push. So, that's what she would do. She wouldn't mention things like being a little stronger than most girls, a little quicker or able to heal quickly.

Nope, from now on, she was going to be just like the others. She would lend a hand, but she was going to be really, really careful about stepping on the Slayer's toes.

Mr. Giles directed her once they were off the freeway to the house. The others were getting their things, chattering away. She met the Watcher's eyes and nodded at the house. The front windows had been shattered and were now boarded up.

They started forward, and just before they got to the front door, it opened. The woman who stood there was in her early twenties, blonde, but not nearly as perky as she'd looked the first time Kennedy had seen her. Her eyes were old, very, very old.

Kennedy stood off to one side with the other two Potentials as Buffy and Mr. Giles talked, catching each other up on the events. Most of the time, though, Kennedy was looking at someone else.

She'd heard about the Slayer's friend who was a witch, a most powerful witch, who'd nearly scorched the planet bare of life. She wasn't at all like Kennedy had expected. She was clearly shy, diffident, uncomfortable with so many new people present that she didn't know. A red-head, on top of it! She was cute!

Of everyone present, Kennedy realized, she had the most in common with Willow the witch. They had looked on the destruction of all they'd held dear; destruction brought about by their personal actions. She should have left the house at a run as soon as she realized that the Bringers were coming for her.

Kennedy smiled to herself. And, of course, she'd been celibate for entirely too long. Maybe the two of them could get together and nature could conspire to take their minds off the past and the future?

Her attention returned to the Slayer and the current discussion. It had reached the point where the Slayer was talking about what they were going to do to fight the First, the baddie that was in charge of the Bringers, and who intended on wiping out everyone on the planet.

She listened to Mollie and Annabelle voice their fears. She herself, though, wasn't so sure the Slayer was as clueless as she sounded. Still ... this was important. "That's it? That's your plan? I saw what those Bringer guys did to my Watcher. They cut him to pieces!"

Buffy looked around at the others. "She's not wrong. We need more muscle. That's why we need Spike." Spike it turned out was not only a vampire, but Bloody Bill, one of the most famous vampires. That they needed his help boggled the mind. That the Slayer had it as her first priority made Kennedy seriously doubt the Slayer's sanity.

They were shuffled off to the kitchen to get something to eat. Kennedy was famished, but controlled herself. Sure enough, as soon as they started relaxing, the other Potentials started chattering about anything and everything except the matter at hand.

Kennedy, in turn was studying someone new. Dawn, the Slayer's magical sister. Nice breasts! Kennedy sighed and told her urges to calm down. She was eighteen now and Dawn was not. Yes, six months before she'd have definitely been interested in seeing if Dawn's horizons needed to be broadened. Now ... now it wasn't going to happen. Besides, not only was Willow more suitable, she was mysterious and clearly a force to be reckoned with.

In all of her previous relationships, there had always been the dominant member of the pair. The one who made things happen. Kennedy was quite sure that if something happened with Willow it was going to take some convincing ... but once it happened, it would be like with Annie. They'd have to take turns being on top.

Her expression froze. She supposed she could ask Mr. Giles, but according to him, the Watchers Council had been completely wiped out. Kennedy crossed her fingers and prayed that Annie had gotten the boot. She wasn't brave enough, though, to ask Mr. Giles about what Annie's fate had been.

Later, Willow was talking about sleeping arrangements. She said that Annabelle could sleep on the living room couch, and Mollie could stay in Dawn's room.

Kennedy smiled. "Not if Dawn actually wants to sleep. Mollie will talk her ear off."

"Well, Annabelle..."

"Snores."

Willow looked exasperated. "Would you like to take care of the sleeping arrangements?"

Kennedy grinned at her. "Okay. But you better not hog the covers."

The expression on Willow's face was priceless. Simply priceless.

A little later, Kennedy braced the Slayer. "Are we going to get weapons?"

Annabelle spoke primly. "We'll get weapons when the Slayer feels we're ready."

Mollie piped up, "I feel ready."

Annabelle rounded on her. "You're frightened. You need to learn to control your fear!"

Kennedy wanted to grimace. That statement was the same as saying "I'm afraid, too!"

Kennedy spoke up, "I know what would help with that. Weapons."

Buffy smiled slightly. "Load them up!"

The Slayer went to a large wooden chest and opened it. The others gathered around, seeing what was there. None of them went for the crossbow, and Kennedy couldn't bear the thought of carrying another blade, not just yet. She reached for the crossbow, carefully checking it out.

Kennedy spent some time with the crossbow, making sure everything was in order. Mr. Glastonbury had, from the first, made it clear that weapons worked because you took care of them and if you didn't take care of them, they wouldn't.

As it was, she was still making sure everything was oiled and ready when the word was passed: Annabelle was missing. She'd left, Mollie told them.

The Slayer left them behind. Kennedy could understand that. Why hadn't Mollie spoken sooner? It passed imagination.

Later, Buffy was back. She looked, if you'd never heard about Slayer's healing powers, pretty bad. She was battered and bruised and clearly was in pain. When Mollie expressed doubts about the future, Buffy launched into a full rant about courage and duty. Kennedy just kept her mouth shut.

It had been the Slayer, not the rest of them who'd gone after Annabelle. Yes, she was bashed and battered, but it was clear she was unaffected by the injuries.

Sleep was, though, easy for Kennedy. Not that she indulged, not with Willow just a few feet away. "That doesn't look very comfortable," Kennedy told Willow, who had pulled some blankets and pillows down on the floor.

Willow explained how it really was quite comfy on the floor. Kennedy stifled her laughter. She didn't tease long, though, knowing it would be counter-productive.

That was a good thing. In the middle of the night another batch of Potentials arrived, and Buffy went after another who was due in, having taken the bus. There was quite a bit of concern when Buffy didn't come right back, but that turned out to be because Bringers had been there to greet Rona, yet another Potential slayer, this one who'd never had the benefit of a Watcher.

Kennedy contemplating telling the girl to count her blessings, but it was clear Rona was concerned about how little she knew about what was going on.

Finally they were once again bedded down for the night. Kennedy kept trying not to laugh. Willow was still forted up on the floor, while Kennedy was on the bed. Kennedy didn't have the heart to jerk Willow's chain about it, instead contenting herself with talking about herself, keeping things very general. Still, it was cute when she mentioned to Willow that her stepsister and parents had lived in another wing of the house.

"Your house had wings?" Willow seemed startled.

"Yes. The summer house in the Hamptons didn't have wings. Well, one wing."

Finally Willow said that she thought Kennedy should sleep. Kennedy grinned. "If I'd wanted to sleep, I'd be downstairs with all the other girls, catching z's."

Finally they slept. It wasn't until late that Kennedy woke up, restless and nervous. So much to think about! At least she owed Rosalie an eternal favor: when Annabelle had died she hadn't been in her mind. Maybe that was messing with the mystical order of things, but she didn't care. Dying wasn't pleasant; once would have been enough.

Willow was gone, so Kennedy got out of bed and went downstairs. One of the new girls, Eve, was holding forth. Kennedy wasn't sure what it was about what Eve was saying, but she was pretty sure Eve was trying to undercut the Slayer. That didn't seem to make much sense, but she'd had her nose rubbed into it too many times to want to stand up and call the girl on it.

Giles and a woman who evidently had once been a demon went off on an errand, to visit a dimension that had some seer in it that the woman, Anya, thought could help.

A little later, Willow appeared, telling the Slayer that the seers in England had located another Potential, who'd made it to Sunnydale, and was staying in a motel. Buffy and friend Xander went to seek the latest Potential out, while the rest of the Potentials went downstairs. Instead of working out, there was more talk-talk. Kennedy was getting upset at all of the talk, and at Eve who seemed to be the ringleader.

Kennedy had grave doubts on how well the other Potentials could handle themselves, if it came to a fight. For the first time she realized what a herculean task it must be, usually, for a Watcher. Mr. Glastonbury had had it easy, she thought!

Her musings had meant she'd tuned Eve out. Abruptly, Buffy was in the door to the basement. "Get away from them!" she commanded.

Kennedy wasn't sure at first who the Slayer was talking to, but Eve turned and smiled. "Oops!"

Eve was, it turned out, really the First in disguise. She could take Eve's place, because the real Eve was dead back in the motel. The other girls were shocked and horrified, and the First's warning them that, come night, they'd all be dead, didn't help.

Then there was a flash and Eve/the First was gone.

Buffy turned to Willow and asked if she could do a barrier spell. Kennedy's heart went out to the witch; she could see how much the other was afraid. Still, Willow said she'd do it. The other Potentials had their doubts, but Kennedy stood up for Willow, as stoutly as she'd ever stood up for anyone.

Still, the conversation started to degenerate into fear and recriminations. Kennedy turned to Buffy. The Slayer was adamant. "We'll fight!"

Vi, one of the English girls, and red-headed, answered. "With what?"

Kennedy snarled, "With whatever it takes, right?" Kennedy was talking to Buffy for the last. But the chorus of Potentials, all afraid, rose and rose, drowning out the Slayer. Kennedy tried to inject some sense, and was mildly miffed that the Slayer wasn't doing anything to help. It was then that Kennedy noticed that Buffy, Willow and Xander were gone.

All Kennedy could do was swallow, and vow to do her best.

Later, as darkness fell, Dawn was peeking out the window at the Bringers gathering around the house. Buffy went to the weapons chest again and pulled out a short sword, handing it to Rona.

Rona looked at the weapon with concern and fear on her face. "Like this will do any good! What's the point?"

Kennedy lost her temper. She gestured at the tip of the sword. "That's the point. You stick it in bad guys. Any more questions?"

Kennedy grabbed up the crossbow and checked it again. The Slayer gestured. "Do you know how to use that?"

Kennedy clicked the trigger and looked the Slayer in the eye. "Since I was eight." Buffy gave Kennedy a bag of quarrels. It was deja vu, all over again! It was the same sort of bag that Mr. Glastonbury had once asked her to carry at Faire.

She vowed that she would stop being all weepy like the other girls. A little while later, she came across Willow in the hall. Willow was floating a glowing ball, above her hand.

She tried to keep her voice light. "Wow! You really can float stuff!" The light went out and the ball dropped to Willow's palm. Willow explained how the First had interfered the last time she'd tried a spell.

Dawn called from the living room, "There's something happening outside."

They all rushed to her side. It was ugly, no doubt about it. The Uber-vampire was all gray skin, fangs and claws. It looked at the house and Buffy urged Willow to get the barrier up.

The thing broke down the front door before the barrier was working. Kennedy was shocked at how much pain it looked like Willow was suffering. She could even feel a tithe of the magical energies swirling around them.

"Run! Go out the back!" Buffy told them, when it was clear that Willow wasn't going to be able to hold it.

Kennedy vowed she'd be the first out the door; she'd fought Bringers, she knew how to kill them. But, as fast as she was, Xander beat her. He hardly slowed, slamming an axe into the first one. Kennedy saw the next Bringer start to swing at Xander and she shot it through the forehead. Then it was a melee fight, with the Potentials holding their own until Buffy came out, then it was no contest.

In a few minutes they were all running down the street, Willow included. Buffy turned back to hold up the Uber-vamp, while Xander led the rest of them towards safety. Kennedy hadn't had much use for Xander up to that minute, but she hastily reevaluated everything she'd thought before. When the rubber hit the road, he was there, standing shoulder to shoulder with Buffy and Willow.

Soon, they were clambering down construction scaffolding into a pit. They'd no more than got to the bottom, when the Uber-vamp showed up. Evidently, Buffy hadn't held him up very much at all.

Then Buffy was there, a pillar of strength. It was an epic battle that raged in front of the Potentials. At one point, Buffy grabbed the crossbow from Kennedy and shot the Uber-vampire with it. It didn't seem to slow it down.

Kennedy was getting nervous, but Willow kept counseling caution. She wasn't sure where Willow got that from, but then, the Slayer was being squeezed by the ultimate vampire, and she slammed her palm forward, breaking off the crossbow bolt in the vampires shoulder. She slammed the broken piece into the vampire's eye, and it threw her quite a distance. Buffy bounced up and started kicking some serious vampire butt.

At the end, she strangled it with a piece of barbed wire. It vanished in a haze of dust.

A bloody and battered Buffy turned and faced the Potentials and gave them another pep talk. "Here endeth the lesson!" she concluded. She gave Xander and Willow a high sign, and they started back to the house. Kennedy wanted to cry, wishing she could be as brave as the Slayer, but Buffy wasn't around -- she'd gone to rescue Bloody Bill, the vampire, from the First's clutches. Alone.

The next day Buffy behaved if nothing special had happened. She told the others that late in the evening she'd show them how she patrolled for vampires. Kennedy smiled faintly as she heard the description of trolling through the graveyard, getting a new vampire to attack at once. Mr. Glastonbury had never said anything about a tactic like that, but it made sense! Slayers were at their weakest in the first few days after they were Chosen. Vampires would be as well.

The first two chosen to patrol were Rona and Vi. Rona was from America, Vi one of the auburn-haired girls from England. The rest of the Potentials stayed back as the two girls prowled through the graveyard at midnight.

Kennedy saw the hint of movement, something the two victims didn't see until it was too late. Spike grabbed Rona and threw her a few feet, then grabbed Vi and would have had a snack if it hadn't been just practice. Buffy had a little session explaining to them what they'd done wrong. Then it was Kennedy and Chloe's turn. Both of them spotted the movement. Chloe ducked and ran, while Kennedy backpedaled, watching Spike intently. Neither of them said anything; it was Buffy who broke the moment.

"There you have it. If you're not surprised, you can move back to regroup, or watch your enemy carefully, to see what it's doing."

Later, they were back at Buffy's house, training some more in the basement. As the sun started to come up, Willow told Buffy that the seers had found yet another Potential in Sunnydale, this one who lived there and had for some time.

Still, Buffy had to get to her job, so Willow promised she'd work some magic later to find the Potential.

Kennedy wasn't sure how Buffy divided up the duty for her friends. When she'd gone to the motel and found the dead Eve, she'd taken Xander. That evening she told the Potentials that they were going patrolling, while Willow would conjure up a spell to find the Potential, and once they knew where she was, they'd go get her. Xander, Dawn and Anya would be backing up Willow.

Kennedy was amused. The first thing Buffy did was take them to a demon bar where she lectured them on how to extract information from sources. Kennedy was looking around, fascinated. This wasn't Mr. Waterman, there were all kinds of demons present, along with some people who looked quite human.

"Blend in, get used to this sort of place," Buffy told them.

Rona laughed. "We're a bunch of fifteen-year-olds in a demon bar. Just how much blending are we going to do?" Kennedy smiled at that. It was true, except for the age thing. So, none of them had yet twigged to the fact she wasn't a true peer.

Later, they went out into the night again, this time meeting up with Spike. They went back to the graveyard again, but this time to a marble mausoleum. It was a real mess, and from the description, a nest of vampires had been living there. Then Vi found what looked at first glance to be a body, but turned out to be a vampire.

Buffy thumped it a few times, talking about how important various things were. Then she turned and spilled a handful of stakes on the ground. "It's up to you, now," and left out the door, locking it behind her.

Kennedy hung back, letting Rona, Vi and Mollie fight it. They did pretty good, too. Mollie was the one who finally dusted it.

Later, Buffy and the rest were back, another Potential in tow. She had not only dusted a vampire, but fought Bringers as well. Amanda was the girl's name and Dawn had kept the Bringers off the girl's back until Buffy and the others arrived, and then, together, they'd put down the Bringers.

Kennedy couldn't help it. Earlier, Mollie had grabbed the crossbow from the weapons chest and Kennedy had made do with a long dagger. Now, she was mildly jealous of the Slayer and her friends who had gotten to fight the real enemy: the Bringers. If they'd been locked in a room with a Bringer or two, she wouldn't have hung back! She'd have run up her score!

She glanced at the new girl. She looked ... plain. A long face, long straight hair, taller than most of the others, a sort of awkwardness about her movements. Still, Kennedy heard her plan of trying to lure the vampire she'd found to where the school's marching band was practicing, to make up for years of slights to the swing choir that Amanda participated in. Kennedy grinned. She'd done something like that once, bringing the kidnappers to the vampires. It was a good idea!

-------

A few days later there were still more Potentials. Buffy and Giles had quite a few hushed conversations, and then it was announced that the Potentials would go out into the desert with Giles to a place in the desert where they could commune with the First Slayer or whatever. Kennedy didn't really relish the thought, and when the big day dawned, the first thing she noticed was that the Slayer, the big bad Slayer, had the crud.

Kennedy smiled at that. She could never remember a day where she'd really felt sick from something like the cold or the flu. She'd been beat up a few times, knifed once and those had hurt, but she'd never been sick. Willow came downstairs and started talking to Buffy and Kennedy watched her for a few seconds. Why not, she thought? What would it hurt?

She went over to Willow and touched her shoulder. "I got the crud. I'm going back to bed." She lowered her voice, and while she didn't think she sounded very convincing, both Buffy and Willow were solicitous. Later, Kennedy said she wasn't up to the retreat with the others and everyone nodded sagely. Kennedy could feel the Slayer's eyes on her, but Buffy didn't say anything.

Later, it was evening and Kennedy watched the others leave through a curtain. With that, she took a shower, got dressed and was thinking about heading downstairs when Willow showed up with a cup of tea. It was a sweet thing for her to do, and Kennedy didn't have the heart to lie directly to her. Still, it took Willow only about a second to figure out that Kennedy wasn't sick.

It took some doing, but she convinced Willow that she had a mission to undertake, and the two of them snuck out. The Bronze hadn't been on the "demon bar" tour, but Kennedy had heard enough about it. She asked Willow what she wanted and brought it, along with her own "virgin Bloody Mary." It was clear from the conversation that Willow didn't realize that Kennedy was drinking a glass of tomato juice without any alcohol. Willow was having a daiquiri and after that the conversation stayed general for quite a while.

At one point Kennedy asked Willow how long she'd known she was gay. It was kind of sad, really. Just for the one person. The one that Andrew's friend Warren had killed. Having had loved ones killed in front of her, she didn't feel any need to explore Willow's feelings about that!

Finally it was getting late and Kennedy didn't want to risk running into Bringers, so they returned to the house. Buffy, Xander and Anya were in the living room talking, and didn't say anything to the two girls who came in. Kennedy and Willow went upstairs to the bedroom. It was a tender and sweet moment, getting Willow to relax enough to let Kennedy kiss her.

Kennedy was quite sure nature would take its course if Willow would just relax a little. It was a nice kiss, and Kennedy could feel Willow slowly relaxing, adjusting -- and enjoying the kiss.

There was no discernable instant when Kennedy sensed something was wrong. The muscle tone under her fingers changed, the passion went away. Kennedy opened her eyes and jumped back. Willow was gone, replaced by a guy!

The guy made some joke about not being attractive, and moved towards Kennedy again. Kennedy hastily backed up. She'd just remembered Steffie and her glamours just as the guy noticed himself in the mirror.

Then he was trying to reassure Kennedy that it was really Willow. After a very short discussion, they went downstairs.

Even after all the earlier discussion, Kennedy hadn't realized just which guy Willow had morphed into -- but the shocked reactions on everyone else's part made it clear. Warren, the man who'd killed Willow's lover, Tara, and who Willow had, in retribution, more or less turned inside out.

Willow assured everyone that it just a glamour and she could get rid of it, but she was going to need some materials. She convinced everyone that she could deal with it. When Willow left, Kennedy waited a few seconds, intending to follow her.

That turned out to be a bad idea, because Willow was nowhere to be seen. Still, Kennedy stalked the streets of the darkened city looking for her friend. When she caught up with Willow, it was much later and the guy was looking dejected.

It took some doing, but Kennedy convinced Willow that she could help out, and Willow/Warren headed to see some "old friends" as she described them to Kennedy.

The old friends turned out to be a Wiccan circle at the university. Willow had a difficult time convincing them that even though she looked like Warren, it was really Willow. Then one of the circle stood up and said she knew it was Willow.

Kennedy couldn't say why, but she didn't like the tall blonde woman from the first instant she saw her. That turned out to be good judgment on her part, because in the next few seconds Willow realized it was the woman, Amy, Willow called her, who was the source of Willow's problems. She knocked Amy across the room, which was a surprise to Kennedy. Of course, she kept reminding herself that Willow had nearly microwaved the whole planet, so maybe she shouldn't have been surprised.

It wasn't until Kennedy touched Willow's arm, wanting to tell her friend that no matter how she looked, Kennedy supported her, that she realized something was wrong.

Willow confirmed it. "It wasn't me that hit her. It was Warren! I'm becoming him!"

With that, she put up a barrier to keep Kennedy from following her and vanished. Touching the barrier sent Kennedy sailing across the room and she crashed into something, losing consciousness for a few minutes.

When she came to, Amy was still there. "Where did every one else go?" Kennedy asked her, wary of the woman.

"They left. You should return to the other Potentials, Kennedy."

"Who said I was a Potential? Who told you my name?"

Amy smiled evilly. "Oops!" She sounded, in that instant, just like Eve had, the instant before Eve vanished, when the First was pretending to be her. Kennedy felt something squeeze her, and she fought it to no avail. One second she'd been facing Amy and it had been nighttime and the next instant she was standing in Buffy's backyard, facing a very distraught Warren and it was daytime.

Warren had a gun and was pointing it right at Kennedy, saying she was the source of her problems. It was clear that Willow was losing it, losing to this Warren person. Kennedy stiffened her back and told Willow that she was strong, that she was a lot stronger than Warren and had nothing to worry about.

It took a few minutes, but Kennedy kept remembering what she'd heard about Willow's past. It had been the power of love that brought her back from the brink before, so Kennedy relied on that. Finally, she was close enough to reach out and touch Willow, then bring her lips down onto Willow's.

It was the first kiss played in reverse; except this time Willow was back at the end. Willow was shocked and drained by the episode ... so Kennedy helped her upstairs and hummed while she went to fix her some tea. It was, Kennedy thought, as she waited for the water to boil, an odd thing. Everything she knew about cooking Mr. Glastonbury had shown her in those last few weeks when they'd been alone at the estate, waiting for the Bringers to come.

Later, one by one, the others returned. They'd all had their own adventures. Xander, Dawn, Anya and Andrew had gone chasing out into the desert. They'd heard from someone on the Watcher's Council that Giles had been killed back in England, and they were afraid he was the First in disguise. Except if was a false alarm; it was just Giles.

Buffy had taken Spike to some old army base. Spike had a chip implanted and it had started to go bad. The military guys that showed up, took care of the chip -- by removing it. It was clear that Xander, Willow and Buffy's other friends weren't happy about that, no matter how confident Buffy was.

Later, Willow was sleeping comfortably, and Kennedy felt restless. She got up and went downstairs. There was a crowd of girls sleeping on the living room floor. She grimaced and went downstairs to the basement. Spike was in his usual place, chained to a cot in one corner. He looked at her briefly when she came in and then closed his eyes again.

Kennedy walked over to the punching bag and launched into a full series of punches and kicks, going full out.

When she stopped, an hour had passed. She was a little tired, but not enormously so. Mostly she stopped because there wasn't much more she could get from this. She wanted Lady Kennedy's hilt in her hand! She wanted to swing her sword; she wanted to make her sing! She fought the tears.

A stir and she turned. Buffy was leaning against the wall. "I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who can't sleep," the Slayer said.

"Sorry," Kennedy murmured.

Buffy waved at the bag. "I wasn't here when you started, but that was a very rigorous practice session. Giles would love you."

Kennedy shrugged. How do you tell the Slayer her Watcher would have wanted to know why she stopped so soon?

"You're not in the same league as the others," Buffy continued.

"No."

"And Willow?"

"That's personal."

"She smiled earlier, looking at you. Do you know what that means to me, to see her smile again?"

"I like it when she smiles, too."

"Yeah. Not quite the same way as I do, but yeah."

"Different strokes for different folks," Kennedy said, her eyes going to Spike. He was sitting up on his cot, watching the byplay between the two women.

"Are you a Slayer?" Buffy asked directly.

"No. I'm eighteen, and now nearly eighteen and a half. I'm not the Slayer, or even a Slayer. I'm not as strong as you are, I'm not as fast as you are ... although I think I heal as fast as you do."

Buffy nodded, her eyes bright. She gestured upstairs. "I'd like you to train them. Like a Watcher would."

"I suppose."

"Look me in the eye, Kennedy. Look me right in the eye and tell me you've never fought for real."

"I never said or hinted that I've never fought for real."

"You've killed vampires?" Buffy pressed.

"Yes. And Bringers, too."

"And Willow doesn't give you the heebie-jeebies?"

"I've known witches before." Kennedy couldn't resist. "Some of my best friends are witches."

"Earlier, Chloe was complaining about how you hung back when you fought in the crypt."

"I could have killed it in two seconds," Kennedy said confidently. "It wouldn't have taught me anything or shown me anything about myself that I didn't already know. I was careful, but they needed to do it themselves."

Buffy nodded. "Giles ratted you out, too."

"Giles?"

"Surely you remember meeting him?"

Kennedy flashed back to that awful night. "Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking too well."

"Well, you kept the dead Bringers down to less than his fingers. He gets fussy when he has to start using his toes to count up bodies."

"Do you like your Watcher? Do you trust him?" Kennedy asked, curious.

Buffy laughed easily. "We keep an armed truce. That's how I describe it. I love him; I hate him. He's betrayed my trust a few times. I betrayed his a few more."

Kennedy felt tears running down her cheeks. "At the end he had my back and I had his."

She turned and walked quickly upstairs. She didn't bother to undress, just crashed on the bed, next to Willow.

The next morning, at breakfast, Buffy told the others that Kennedy was going to be in charge of training, then left for her job a school. Kennedy grinned at Willow, then led the Potentials down to the basement. She went over each piece of equipment, showing them how to use them. It was pretty daunting, because not many of them knew how to use it. Twice the punching bag beaned someone who wasn't careful. But slowly, they started to get the idea.

She gave them a break at lunch time, then outside for hand combat drill. She taught them as she'd been taught. Going through the motions slowly, one by one, until it was rote, habit. She was still at it when Buffy returned with someone Kennedy didn't recognize. Amanda exclaimed, "Principal Wood!"

He was the Sunnydale High School principal ... Buffy's employer. Dawn and Amanda were his students. Still, it was a distraction and Chloe nearly stumbled and fell. "You! Potential! Drop and give me twenty!" Kennedy told the girl.

"Twenty what?" Chloe asked, unsure.

"Pushups, maggot!"

Kennedy turned to Buffy, beaming. "Did you see that? I love this job!"

Later it was dinner time and Kennedy was helping clean pots and pans. Karma, she thought. She wondered if Willow could just magic them clean ... then remembered all the warnings about using magic on personal things.

There was a great discussion downstairs later, with everyone telling stories about their lives. Kennedy just said she had a Watcher and that when the Bringers came, he was killed.

It was very late, when there was a scream upstairs. They pelted up, to find Chloe hanging from a ceiling fan fixture. The First showed up again, laughing, about how she was killing the Potentials, one by one, and that soon, they'd all be dead.

Later, Buffy came in from outside. She gathered up the girls and spoke to them. Kennedy grimaced. She was getting a little tired of pep talks!

Buffy pulled no punches. "Chloe was an idiot; she was stupid! If you're like her I'll find room for you, next to her and Annabelle. I'm the Slayer. I'm the one with the power -- and the First has me using that power to dig our graves. I've been carrying you too far, for too long. The ride's over!"

Kennedy had felt terrible starting the instant she'd realized the one who was dead was Chloe. Had her "maggot!" comment sent the girl to an early grave? She couldn't think, couldn't deal with it. "You're out of line!" she told Buffy, but she was really talking to herself.

Buffy continued the pep talk, ignoring Kennedy. When she finished, she turned to Dawn. "Go get the emergency box."

A few minutes later Dawn was back with a box a lot smaller than the weapons box. She opened it and started taking out things. There were some pieces of ironwork with primitive figures and shapes, done as outlines.

"What's that?" someone asked.

"It's a shadow caster," Dawn replied, reading from some old papers. "You use a light to throw shadows on the wall. The instructions say, 'you can't just watch, you must see.'"

There was a few moments of time spent getting ready, then Dawn started the shadow play, reading from the parchments. There were strange sounds, strange music. Kennedy shivered. More magic!

The shadow play depicted the creation of the First Slayer, which was interesting, then out of nowhere, a portal opened. Kennedy had heard of inter-dimensional portals before, but the swirling chaos of the real thing six feet away made her feel pretty puny. Buffy laughed at the others' fears and went through.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then there was a flash and a huge, mean, ugly demon appeared in their midst and lashed out. It was one of those things where you have to react instantly. Xander jumped right at it and got tossed. Kennedy and Dawn were the next off the mark, and both of them got tossed; Kennedy landing hard on her back. She grimaced, knowing she had at least one broken rib.

Spike got into it then, and he too lost the exchange. Still, more and more of the girls were getting into the act and the demon fled.

Willow knelt next to Kennedy. "Are you okay?"

"Just hurt. Don't make a case out of it."

There was discussion then, but Spike wasn't much for discussion. He'd picked himself up from where he'd been thrown -- he'd actually gone through a wall! He told them he'd take care of bringing the demon back. Willow was going to open the portal, so they could return Buffy and send the demon back from whatever dimension that had spawned it.

Spike was back an hour or so later, carrying a very dead demon, one who looked like he'd been bludgeoned to death. Spike was pretty battered himself. Willow was having trouble opening the portal.

One second, Kennedy was still feeling the pain from her earlier injury, the next second she was lifted a little up in the air, and then it felt like someone was sucking the life out of her. Startled, she glanced at Willow, who was intent on her spell casting. A second later, Buffy was back and the demon gone.

The others made quite a fuss over Willow, Buffy and Spike. Kennedy simply sat still, trying to recover. That instant had been worse, even, than the one when Rosalie had nearly turned her into a mouse, or when Amy had teleported her. Much worse.

Later, Kennedy went up to the bedroom, standing, looking outside. Willow came up next to her. Kennedy looked at her for a brief second. "You sucked the life out of me."

Willow nodded soberly. "Yeah, I did that. You were the most powerful person in the room. It's important that you know what I am, and what I'm like when I'm like that."

Kennedy stared at her for a long second. "I'll see you in the morning," and went downstairs and crashed in a corner, leaning against the wall.

-------

A few days later Andrew was running around with a video camera, filming people. Kennedy shrugged it off, not really interested.

Still, the pause had given her time to contemplate what was going on around her, and the people she was with.

Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Someone Kennedy should have taken an instant liking to, as she had with the first Amanda so many years before. Except she could see it in the Slayer's eyes. She wasn't afraid ... no, she was fatalistic about what was going to happen. The skin on her face was tight, her movements were like a spring too tightly wound up.

Willow, the Witch. From one day to the next, sometimes from one hour to the next, Kennedy had no idea who Willow would be. She was soft and cuddly, enjoying being held, kissed, stroked and cuddled. Then her eyes would flash black, the veins on her face would pop out and all bets were off.

The others. Dawn, the Key, the Slayer's sister. Kennedy wasn't a genius, but she could see the hurt in Dawn's eyes. She might be a Key, but she wasn't supernaturally powerful. She was just Dawn, a teenaged girl, helping the others. She had, Kennedy had learned, come a long ways in the last months, both as a person and as a scholar.

Xander Harris. Good grief! If she liked guys, she'd fuck his socks off and the hell with his girlfriend! He was quiet, unassuming and, Kennedy thought, the most level-headed one of them all.

Anya, the former demon, Xander's former fiancè. She and Xander were clearly still in love, and Kennedy had no idea why Xander had done what he'd done -- literally leave her at the altar. For someone supposedly more than a thousand years old, Anya performed her role as a "bubble-headed moron" perfectly.

Spike. Bloody Bill, the vampire she'd learned about when she was younger from her Watcher. A vampire of the worst sort. He was supposedly reformed; oh, sorry about those people he'd killed under some sort of compulsion by the First. And quite clearly someone that the Slayer not only relied on, but they had to be involved together.

Giles, the Watcher. He'd been in and out at first, bringing in more Potentials. Yet, in all the stories Kennedy had heard, he'd never fought the Bringers, he'd just been there to clean up the mess. It was amusing to see that Buffy trusted her Watcher not a lot more that Kennedy had trusted hers.

Andrew. Now there was a prize catch! He was crazy, Kennedy was sure of it. He'd started off tied up, but that had broken down. Now, he was like a mascot. A mascot who'd let the First convince him to kill his best friend. A mascot who, when he wasn't thinking -- and that happened a lot -- bragged about his days as an evil super-villain.

Then there was the principal of the local high school, Principal Wood. Another crazy person. One day he and Giles got together and decided that Buffy would be better off if Spike was dead, and came up with a plan to kill the vampire. The details weren't clear, beyond the fact that Spike lived, Principal Wood came within an inch of being beaten to death, and Giles was trusted even less than before.

Kennedy had been sitting, watching Willow when Andrew announced that someone named "Fred" was calling from LA. Willow took the call, and listened, then left hurriedly. Kennedy was sure it was to find Buffy. What Willow had to say to Buffy, though, wasn't something Willow would tell Kennedy.

The next day it was clear what the message had been about. Faith, the second Slayer, the evil Slayer, appeared, with news that a Potential had been attacked and left with a message for the Slayer. There was, though, some doubt if the girl would survive long enough to regain consciousness. She was at the local hospital in Intensive Care.

It was Andrew who described Faith to the Potentials. When he got to the part about Faith killing a Vulcan, Kennedy sniffed in derision.

Rona picked up on it, too. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

Amanda, standing next to Kennedy, asked, "She killed a vulcanologist, someone who studies volcanoes." It was pretty clear that Andrew had gotten the words confused. Then later, Buffy was back, with word that the Potential had awoken, and that she had been attacked by an evil man in a minister's black shirt and pants and white collar. He had, the nearly dead girl told Buffy, something of Buffy's.

What that meant, no one knew. Buffy, though, knew what she wanted. "We're going after him. All of us."

Kennedy looked around. Sure, she'd been training them, but they needed months, maybe years to get into shape. Kennedy swallowed. Then it was time at the weapons chest again. This time, she reached down and picked up the largest sword in the chest. It was one that Mr. Glastonbury would have called a broadsword, although broad is a relative term when it comes to swords.

One of the empty-headed English girls, Mollie, said she hoped the Preacher didn't have tentacles, because she didn't do squishy. Kennedy laughed at that. "I don't care if it's Godzilla, if I can get this in it!" She flashed the broadsword.

Amanda looked over Kennedy's shoulder. "Matthew Broderick could kill Godzilla. How tough can it be?"

Eventually everyone was outfitted, and they followed Buffy to the place the Preacher guy was reported to be hiding out, an old vineyard. Some of the Potentials were detailed to hold the door, then Buffy led the rest of the inside.

Inside, they were greeted by Bringers. The one that came at Kennedy came from one side, and she didn't see him until too late. She managed to block his knife, but he knocked her down. Kennedy grimaced, bounced to her feet and started applying some serious hurt to the Bringers.

In a minute, the surviving Bringers faded into the darkness of the underground wine cellar they'd been fighting in. Then the Preacher, Caleb, appeared.

He exuded evil from every pore, no matter how much his boyish good looks signaled charm. Buffy asked what he had of hers, and he laughed and waved around him. "Nothing, until now. You brought them to me."

Buffy launched an attack and was tossed, hard, across the room. Then Spike attacked with an equal lack of success. Kennedy didn't wait any more. She stepped close and swung the sword. He casually avoided the stroke, stepped close and punched her in the face.

It was the worst thing of her life. Nothing compared to it. It was like being hit by a wall. She sailed across the room, and lay bleeding against a vat of wine, barely conscious. From her position she saw Caleb grab Rona and just as casually as he'd dealt with Kennedy, nearly tear Rona's arm from her socket. Kennedy ignored her injury and tried again, bare-handed this time.

The second blow was clearly one he meant, unlike the first time. She cratered the wall and slid down, with only the faintest hold on consciousness. In the next second she saw Caleb kill a girl, grab Mollie and kill her too.

Buffy was calling on people to retreat, to leave. Kennedy tried struggling to her feet, but none of her limbs worked.

Somewhere Willow and Xander had appeared. Xander crouched down and got Kennedy up, pushing her forward. She was moving, when she felt Xander's hands leave her. She turned in time to see Caleb, still as calm and as casually as before, poke his thumb into Xander's eye. Xander's scream was something that would haunt her until the end of her days; still, she helped them get him up the stairs, and away.

Later, they were at the hospital. There were a half dozen serious injuries among the girls, Rona's arm and Xander's eye the worst. It was clear that Buffy was distraught, upset at what happened. Kennedy, on the other hand, spent the time telling everyone she was fine. Xander was in the hospital, his injuries well beyond what they could deal with -- and he wasn't a Slayer.

-------

After that, things happened fast. The stream of Potentials had all but dried up; the one girl who'd been so terribly wounded by Caleb was the last to arrive and she never left the hospital. Waves of unease swept the town. People started leaving one morning; by the second morning the flow had turned into a flood.

One of the things that bugged Kennedy was that Buffy promptly got sick again, her voice turning hoarse. She herself had never had a sick day, at least that she could remember, in her life. The times she'd been "sick" had been feigned, so seeing a "sick" Slayer filled her with disbelief.

Then there was the second Slayer, Faith. One day Anya was giving a deadly dull and boring dissertation on killing demons. Kennedy looked around and realized Faith and Buffy weren't there. She decided that she could afford to skip the lecture, as well. Stake vampires, chop demons. Hey! She had personal experience! That worked!

She found Faith in the kitchen, sitting on the counter, eating from a bag of chips.

"Got enough to share?" Kennedy asked the dark-haired Slayer.

The look she got was pure vitriol but the words had a practiced quality to them. "Trade you for a carton of cigarettes and some soap."

Kennedy grimaced and Faith clearly thought again. "Sorry," Faith told Kennedy, and handed Kennedy the bag of chips. Faith waved at the steps down to the practice room. "Shouldn't you be down there at Hogwarts?"

"Probably," Kennedy told her, taking a chip.

"All right! Playing hooky!" Faith exclaimed.

Amanda appeared from downstairs and saw the two of them talking. She walked over to Kennedy and looked at her seriously. "Do you think they'll ask questions about our sex life on the test? I really hope I don't have to study all that."

Right then, Buffy walked into the kitchen. She had a box of research material, she wanted them to look at right away. Kennedy and Amanda took it downstairs, while Buffy went back to school.

In spite of the best intentions, it was clear that no one was much interested in research. Girls would stare off into the distance, clearly remembering the fight with Caleb. Faith looked at Kennedy, who just shrugged. Never in her life, had Kennedy had to deal with this many allies. One, sometimes two was all it had ever been. The time she'd tried four had turned out really badly.

Then Faith suggested taking an evening off and going to the Bronze. That suited Kennedy!

To put it mildly, it started well and degenerated into a disaster.

Partway into the evening, a trio of policemen appeared to arrest Faith. The Potentials were feeling their oats; they were ready for some serious kick-ass. Faith tried to settle them down, and in the process was dragged outside by a bunch of the cops, while one cop stayed behind to "control" the crowd.

Kennedy was mildly surprised that Dawn was the one who led the charge to get past him. When he went to lift his shotgun against the teenager, Kennedy grabbed it and twisted it away. That opened the floodgates. Next to Kennedy, Amanda swung a pool cue that connected solidly with the man's overlarge stomach. In a second, down he went.

Buffy was there then, the stern taskmaster, sending everyone running back for the house.

Kennedy was incensed. Faith was right; they had to blow off some steam. They had to!

The Slayer was not only unyielding, she said they had to go back and face Caleb at the vineyard. Everyone, including Kennedy looked at each other. Not possible! Her Watcher had been clear that the one thing that killed Slayers most often was their unreasonable urge to go against any odds. She'd tried to fight Caleb and had been battered twice. It made no sense!

After the fight at the winery things seem to fall apart. Everyone was working at cross-purposes. The Watcher and Faith seemed to be trying to undermine Buffy. The Watcher and Principal Wood were trying to kill Spike. It was clear that Xander, sorely wounded or not, wouldn't mind seeing Spike dead either, but Anya didn't want him hurt.

Kennedy was as confused as the rest. In her own, private, judgment, Buffy was close to breaking. Whenever a problem presented itself, Buffy would either throw herself heedlessly into battle -- or give the girls another pep talk, and frequently both.

People continued to empty out of the town, fleeing as fast and as far as they could. One evening things finally broke down, and the Potentials voted Buffy out and Faith in.

Kennedy was dispirited, alternating between despair and anger. For one thing, she had profound mistrust of Faith, and as soon as Faith was in charge, she proved it, shutting Kennedy down totally, making it clear that she wasn't interested in suggestions or questions about her plans or methods.

The only good thing was that Faith nominated Kennedy to be a stalking horse, to try to suck in an attack by the Bringers, so they could capture and question one. To her surprise, the plan worked perfectly, and even if she came away with some bruises, they were of no account.

Of course, when they got the Bringer back to the house to question a problem quickly arose. Not only was the man blind, his tongue had been cut out. But good old Willow put a spell on him, to make him talk anyway. Of course, with magic that strong, it didn't work the way it was expected. The Bringer started speaking through Andrew -- right up until Giles decided he'd heard enough and killed the Bringer. Kennedy wasn't happy about that at all.

Spike showed up, and found out that Buffy was gone. He was coldly contemptuous of the lot of them, and proceeded to go a few rounds with Faith. It wasn't a confidence-building exercise, because Faith didn't put up much of a fight.

Late that night, as the house quieted down, Willow was nervous and frightened. Kennedy had some reservations about the two of them, but she cuddled down in bed with Willow. Their love-making was as tender and sweet as any love-making Kennedy had ever known.

Still, her senses were heightened. Faith and the Principal were having sex; so were Xander and Anya. Kennedy felt bad about the fact that the rest of the Potentials had the cold comfort of solitude that night ... not that she was willing to give up her time with Willow.

The next day Faith was brisk, planning an attack, using the information gleaned from the Bringer about a mystical armory, hidden in the sewers, an armory of significant importance to the First and Caleb. Buffy had, at least, listened, now and again, to them. Faith didn't listen to anyone at all.

The day crawled past, with everyone making final preparations for the attack. Neither Buffy nor Spike returned, there was no word at all about them.

When it came time for the attack, Kennedy followed Faith, her every sense hyper-acute and sensitive, trying to suss out the smallest warning or sound that could alert them to trouble ahead.

They had a fight with some Bringers, but they were easily defeated. Rona found the stash of weapons, and Kennedy, like Faith was worried. The weapons were pretty mundane and not in any vast quantities. Then someone found something like a footlocker, hidden against one wall. Faith broke open the lock and looked inside.

"Bomb! Run!" she called to the Potentials.

Like everyone else, Kennedy was able only to turn and take a few steps when the world was shattered by a very strong blast. She was picked up and thrown against a pile of debris, then covered with more.

Kennedy smiled when she heard Amanda's voice, afterwards. Amanda was clearly frantic, thinking she was alone. Kennedy shook her head and struggled erect. Between them, they got things organized, looking after the injured. Rona found Faith in a pool of water, looking drowned. Kennedy remembered the Slayer's own bout in water, and suggested mouth-to-mouth.

Sure enough, in a minute, Faith was back, although badly shaken.

Kennedy got them organized, pulling back, intent on returning to the house. Then they found themselves facing another Uber-vampire. Then another and another, until there were a horde of them.

Kennedy dusted one of them and got knocked silly. Out of nowhere, Buffy reappeared, wielding something like a heavy, wicked axe. It was clearly magical, slicing through the vampires with ease. In moments, they were alone in the sewers once again.

Again, Kennedy got everyone organized and moving, helped in large part by Amanda. Kennedy turned to Buffy as they started back to Buffy's house. "Are there more?"

Buffy shrugged. "There are always more."

Kennedy hurried. At the house, it was a nightmare of work, working on the wounds and injuries. At one point Kennedy spoke to Buffy. "Is there a plan, this time?"

Buffy ignored her, instead, speaking loudly to all of the girls. "Get ready! Time's up! We're going back to the winery."

Kennedy was to tired and numb to care. She followed blindly. Clearly, every thought she'd ever had in her head was wrong. Buffy was the Slayer -- nothing else mattered. So, when Buffy told the whole lot of them to wait outside, she did.

The wait seemed to be forever, but eventually Buffy was back, the mystic axe still in her hand.

When they got back to the house, a furious Dawn was waiting for her sister. Buffy, it turned out, had convinced Xander to chloroform her sister and spirit her away from Sunnydale. When Dawn had regained consciousness, she'd nearly killed Xander.

The respite was sufficient for Kennedy to recover a bit. That was good. Another pep talk from Buffy, though, was enough to make her grind her teeth. Then Buffy told them her plan.

Kennedy blinked in astonishment, her eyes swiveling back and forth between Willow and Buffy. Buffy thought that Willow, with the aid of the axe, could break the magics that were wrapped up in the Slayer, so that instead of there being one at a time, all Potentials became Chosen Ones. It was bitter irony that she had no intention of ever telling anyone, that the idea had come to her many years before.

The plan was to open the Hell Mouth and go in at noon the next day. As usual, everyone crashed, leaving Kennedy and Willow alone in Willow's room.

Kennedy hugged Willow, trying to console her friend, to tell her that she wasn't alone. Finally Willow explained Kennedy's part in the plan. "You'll be my ground," she told Kennedy.

"I can do that!"

"And if I go to the dark side -- kill me."

Kennedy blinked. But it was true, wasn't it? She leaned close to Willow's ear and whispered. "I will if I must, but you are very, very strong! I won't need to!"

Neither one of them felt very romantic, so they spent the night in each other's arms. When dawn came, Kennedy looked at the sleeping Willow. She reached out and lightly traced the lines of her friend's face. "This will never work, not you and me."

Willow opened her eyes, startling Kennedy.

"Kennedy, you're my ground. This time I won't pull from you, because if I lose it, you might get confused and think trying to kill me would be the same thing as killing yourself. And it could be. We are soul mates, you and I, but not life mates."

Kennedy nodded. "It hurts, though. I used to tell people I didn't want them to tell me that they loved me, because I didn't know what it was. I still don't. But I know more today than back then. You and I -- it's more than friendship, but not love."

The sun speared through a crack in the curtains. "The crack of dawn, the crack of doom..." Kennedy whispered.

Willow giggled. "A crack of sunlight. Every day I've been asleep at dawn, that light spears me in the eye and wakes me up. By the time I'm able to focus, it's gone. I've tried to block it, but I never succeeded."

They prepared, then went downstairs with the other and had a light breakfast. Principal Wood appeared, driving a yellow school bus. Silently, they gathered their weapons and boarded.

At the school, Principal Wood made some jokes, but everyone was intent on why they were there. Anya, Andrew, Dawn, Xander, Principal Wood and Mr. Giles would stay above ground, to prevent any of the vampires from escaping into the sewers, if some got past Buffy and the others.

Willow and Kennedy were tasked with the spell, even if Kennedy's part in that was to carry Willow's bag of supplies and the mystical axe.

Kennedy walked alone through the halls of the high school. They were a mess, no doubt about it. She laughed. Rule One for building a school: nowhere near the Hell Mouth!

She arranged things for Willow in the classroom they'd chosen for the magic, then sat back on her haunches, waiting. It wasn't meditation; Mr. Glastonbury had taught her that well, but it was certainly meditative.

Finally Willow came in, and without another word, started the chant.

It was hard, Kennedy found, sitting still, her back to the Hell Mouth, trying to be ready for whatever Willow needed, and trying to ignore what might be sneaking up behind her.

It seemed to take forever. In the near distance, she could hear the sound of swords, telling her that some of the vampires had made it past Buffy and her crew. She couldn't help a glance over her shoulder, but the door was still closed.

When she turned back, it was a different Willow. Instead of turning black, Willow was glowing white. The axe was so bright it hurt to even keep her eyes slitted open. Then it was like a bolt of lightning hitting Kennedy. Energy flowed into her, coursing through her body. She grinned. She'd tried to tell herself for many, many years, that she was just as strong and just as fast as any Slayer. But it wasn't true. Well, it hadn't been true. Now it was, and the difference was awesome.

Willow stopped glowing and grinned crookedly at Kennedy.

"You're a Goddess," Kennedy whispered.

"And you're a Slayer," Willow replied. Willow reached out and picked up the axe. "Take this to Buffy."

Kennedy plucked the axe from Willow's fingers, jumped and spun and ran like the wind.

The vampires, no matter how strong, didn't survive being in her path; she followed the flow, leaving a string of dust swirls behind her. She found where the battle raged, far beneath the ground. She saw Buffy and called to her. "Here!" she yelled, tossing the axe.

It spun in a blinding, glittering arc. Buffy fielded it easily, and the blade met an onrushing vampire as the motion continued. The axe came back and another of the vampires turned to dust.

Then it was melee. She saw one girl go down, but wasn't sure who it was. She saw another take a blow to the head, and a sword in the gut. She too went down. Amanda.

The world turned dim, it seemed to shrivel. The world was a far, far better place with the Amandas of the universe than with this scum! Kennedy set into the vampires with a renewed will.

She looked, later and saw Buffy was down, a large blood stain on her back. Still, Buffy's head was up; it looked like she was talking to someone. Faith got the axe and started using it. When Rona was pressed hard, Faith threw the axe to her, and Rona started making a flurry of vampire dust.

Buffy was up again, and even as she got up, Spike groaned. There were odd sounds, very different from the ones the vampires made, but since the vampires were pretty noisy, it wasn't possible to tell what was going on.

Then Spike screamed, and Kennedy could see the amulet that Buffy had given him was now sun-bright, beams of light smashing vampires right and left. Kennedy staggered and went to one knee, a few inches from Amanda.

For an instant the girl's eyes flicked to Kennedy, then rolled up.

"Run, run!" Faith was calling. "Everyone back on top!"

The girls broke off the fighting, although in truth, no matter how fast they were, the beams of light were smashing into the vampires by the dozens, and then the hundreds.

Kennedy didn't think, didn't really understand. She took a few steps after the others, then stopped. She turned back and scooped up Amanda in her arms, then hustled after the rest of the Slayers.

Then they were in the hallways of the high school, and it seemed as if the ground would never stop shaking. The roar of sound was greater than Kennedy would have ever imagined. One of the other girls touched her sleeve.

"Kennedy, Willow is unconscious."

Without a thought, Kennedy handed Amanda to the girl and then sprinted down the corridor. In a minute she had Willow who, it turned out, was merely awestruck at her own power, not unconscious. It took a bit before Willow could navigate on her own though.

Finally they were outside, and Faith screamed and pushed people to get them on the bus. Then they were moving as the world continued to tremble and shake. Kennedy saw the school building start to slump, slowly at first, then faster and faster.

The bus started, and Kennedy looked around. Where was the Slayer? It took her a second to realize she wasn't there. Then another second, to try to focus on who else wasn't there. It was hopeless, really. The sound, the shaking, the stress made logical thought nearly impossible.

Then there was a clatter on the roof of the bus and Dawn squealed in pleasure. "Buffy!"

Kennedy thought it might have been a vampire, but then realized as she saw the bright daylight outside, that it wasn't likely. They were rapidly leaving town, while behind them it was clear that like a bad movie, the town was vanishing behind them.

Then the sound diminished and stopped. The shaking stopped. Someone said it was over, and the bus began to slow.

Some, a few of them, mostly Buffy's friends, headed out the door to see what had happened.

Kennedy could see Principal Wood a few seats in front of Willow's. He was bloody and weak, clearly in trouble. Next to her, Willow seemed to get her second wind. Without a word, she was up, heading for Buffy.

Kennedy watched her go. In her heart, she knew that her understanding of the night before was right. She might not know what love was, but she knew what love wasn't. Kennedy would never be first in Willow's heart. Her magic, her friends, defined who she was. And that wasn't something Kennedy wanted to interfere with.

She got up and went back and sat next to Amanda. "I'm dying," the plain girl said weakly. "Sit with me."

Kennedy chuckled. "Do you know what Willow said to me, once the spell worked?"

Amanda closed her eyes and shook her head.

"You're a Slayer now. So are you. I was stabbed in the stomach once. It was a skinnier blade and I didn't bleed as much as you did. No one bopped me on the head, either. But five minutes after I was stabbed the bleeding had stopped. The next day, I was strong enough to swing a sword."

Amanda opened her eyes. "You think I'll live?"

"I'm sure of it. Marching band, watch out!"

Amanda tried to laugh, but winced in pain. She reached out, though and took Kennedy's hand. Kennedy squeezed and smiled.

Later, she climbed down from the bus, to gawk at the sight behind them. It was a mind-bogglingly huge crater, maybe a mile deep and eight or ten miles across.

Willow was standing alone, a few feet to one side. Kennedy went up to her and stood, not speaking. Willow glanced at her. "I'm sorry, Kennedy."

"Don't be. Once upon a time I convinced myself I was a butterfly, flitting between different lovers at the drop of a hat. Yet, every time I turned around, I was trying to make it permanent. I'm not cut out to be a butterfly. And with you..." Kennedy shrugged. "I'd have to worry about being sucked dry, wouldn't I?"

"Only if it was really necessary," Willow said, her voice a whisper.

"Willow, I like and respect you, I do. But do you understand that I'm a Slayer? One thing we don't do is suck our friends dry so we can do our job. We let them help, oh yes, we do! But they ask. You've never asked anyone, have you?"

"No."

"Willow, if I were you, I'd spend a lot of time thinking about exactly what your friends mean to you, and how likely you are to go dark because you treat them like spare batteries."

"I'm not a bad person."

"No, of course not! You're a very fine person! We all have things we're not proud of; personality defects.

"Earlier, I was angry at Faith for shutting me down, after she took over from Buffy. It took me a couple of days and a couple of fights before I realized the truth. If I'd been in charge, I wouldn't have brooked any opposition, either. At least I was smart enough never to challenge Buffy, because she would have felt the same way."

Kennedy waved at the vast chasm in front of them. "The other day, I was looking at the stupid map Andrew drew of Sunnydale. The ocean was a few miles away."

"Yes. There was a port here, a deep-water port. It was featured as a question on every geography test in junior high and high school. I don't think this was very good for the port."

Again Kennedy gestured at the stupendous hole. "Somewhere in there is the Hell Mouth. The question I ask myself is, 'Can demons swim?'"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Somewhere to the west, the ocean and this chasm nearly meet. Open up a channel between them. Give Sunnydale not only a deep-water port, but a lot of beach front property as well. It'll be a modern day gold rush."

Willow stared at Kennedy, then stared at the awful pit. After a few seconds she laughed. "I can do that. In fact, I don't actually have to do anything, because there is already salt water running into the pit. In a day or so, it would have turned into a torrent. If I wait, curiosity seekers, news reporters, just plain people could get hurt. You're right, sooner is better than later."

In the distance there was a sound of rushing water.

Kennedy reached out and hugged Willow one last time, then turned and walked back to the bus. She never, ever, not even once, looked at her handy work.



-------

Chapter 31: The New Mint


The injured girl reached out her hand, seeking Kennedy's. Kennedy wrapped hers around the proffered hand.

"You came back for me. You saved my life," Amanda whispered.

"You're my sister and friend. I'd have done it for any of you."

"This itches something terrible."

"Don't scratch," Kennedy told her.

She managed to lift her head. "The Marching Band didn't make it, right?"

"No, I don't think any of them survived. Not if they stayed."

The wounded Slayer looked around. "Where is everyone?"

"Outside. It looks like Sunnydale was hit by a big meteor. There's just this big crater where it was. Everyone is oohing and aahing over it."

The injured girl sighed and repeated. "You came back for me."

Kennedy reached out and took her hand. "Yeah. Can I tell you a secret?" Kennedy paused. "I love you, Amanda."

"I thought you loved Willow?"

"No, nothing like that. Willow and I ... yeah, we're never going to be enemies. But, I tell you true, Willow doesn't really have friends. Once she sucked the life out of me."

"Oh!"

"Yeah! Oh! But, hey, that's Willow. She's like the Slayer, that way. She does what she has to do, to get the job done."

"I don't hate people like that. Just the Marching Band."

Kennedy smiled gently and squeezed Amanda's hand. "You know, once you came to us, I would look around, and there you were. Always someplace close."

"You were always there, leading. I ... I didn't want to die. So I stayed close."

Kennedy nodded. She waved towards the back of the school bus. "I've already put my two cents in. A couple of weeks ago, Andrew had his 'Big Board.' Until I saw it, I didn't realize how close the ocean was. I asked Willow to let the ocean in."

"Let the ocean in?" Amanda asked, confused.

"Yeah. I grew up near New York City. I understand about harbors and all that. A Hell Mouth that is below sea level is not going to be much of a threat. We make this a big harbor and the Hell Mouth is going to be out of commission."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," Kennedy responded.

Amanda squeezed Kennedy's fingers. "Do you really love me?"

"Really, I do. It's taken me all my life to realize that it was about time I lifted my head and looked around me. People who stand shoulder to shoulder with me -- those are my real friends. Someone who is always there, whenever I look, is more than a friend."

"Even if I just sing? If I'm not a witch?"

"Amanda, sweetie, I've known many witches. I'd far rather hear you sing like a meadowlark, than see you enchant a pencil to float."

-------

A few weeks later, Kennedy led her friend into the restaurant. Fatso was there, beaming, joined quickly by Pipes.

"Pipes!" Kennedy said. "I have a present for you."

Pipes shook his head. "Kennedy?"

"I'm moving back to the estate. However, I've brought someone who wants to sing in your choir." Pipes looked at Amanda and visibly blinked.

Kennedy laughed. "My friend! Not only can she sing, she cheats at arm wrestling! Amanda is a Slayer."

Amanda looked at Kennedy, then at the men standing in front of them. "We're all Slayers, sir."

Pipes chuckled and smiled at Amanda, "But you sing?"

"Swing choir in high school."

Amanda was embarrassed when Kennedy laughed. "The Sunnydale High School Marching Band has no idea how lucky they were to get out of town quickly, and didn't mess with my sweetie!"

Kennedy smiled at Pipes. "She has learned a little self-control since then, Pipes. Still, I wouldn't arm wrestle her."

"Miss," Fatso said. Everyone turned to him. "I wrestled Miss Kennedy once. I don't think she cheated; she's just stronger than I am. It's good to hear there's someone Miss Kennedy can't beat."

"Not 'can't'" Kennedy told him. "Won't."

-------

Many, many years later, Kennedy awoke, coughing her lungs up. She reached out for the love of her life's hand. "It'll be soon, sweetie."

"I know."

"Please. This one last time. Help me down to the practice room."

Kennedy ignored the tears streaking down her love's face. She drew herself in, husbanding her strength. Two of the younger women appeared and all but carried her downstairs.

Kennedy sat erect, her back rigid, ignoring those who would help her. "Things aren't like they were before. There are those of you who are here who are Potential Slayers, as I once was. Soon, you will be Slayers, something I came to only later in my life.

"In those days we had Watchers. They meant well, but what they did was prepare us to die bravely and nobly. What we do here is to teach you to kill every last one of the soulless scum you will face. If you do that well, one day you'll be like me: facing the end of my days, in the warm loving arms of the woman I love, surrounded by women I respect."

Kennedy let her eyes dwell on each face for a moment. "Some of you aren't beautiful. Some of you aren't svelte. You will, though, all be Slayers one day. I wish you could have seen it, sisters! Once I suggested to my Watcher that he and his brothers should drown their Slayers, so that more Slayers could come to the fight!

"You've all learned a little now, of magic. It's not a panacea; you can't rely on it. But hey, if the sword arm is wilting, it's a great pick-me-up!

"Willow Rosenberg set us free. It cost her ... it cost her more than any of us would want to pay. You will find that there are a lot of things involved with being a Slayer that will cost more than you want to pay. It's part of the territory. It's part of what you will learn here."

Kennedy smiled at the young faces around her. "So, go forth, sisters! Sin! Kill vampires!"

Coughing racked her body. When she stopped, she wiped the blood away and laughed. "Oh, yeah. Wear a dust mask. Vampire dust rots your lungs if you kill enough of them."

Two hours later, Kennedy started coughing and couldn't stop. There was nothing anyone could do.


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The End
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Posted:  2007-10-28
Last Modified: 2008-05-26 / 12:00:59 am
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