Princess Anyanctla

1

At 8:30 on a Friday evening, Buffy Summers was on the job in the Sunnydale Cemetery again. Two vampires had grabbed the 21-year-old by her arms. They had her pinned down atop a headstone, while two others grabbed her legs, and pinned them down. A fifth vampire was on top of her, with his mouth opened, and his fangs against the young blonde woman's neck.

He's the vampire who gets lucky! She thought, This is my night to die! Next Slayer's called! Who? Faith? Can the Council get her out of jail?

Then the vampire and his fangs vanished into a puff of dust.

Spike stood above her, holding a stake where the dusted demon's heart had been.

The vamps who'd been holding her legs jumped up. Spike moved quick, staking them both into puffs of dust; while Buffy broke away from the two who gripped her arms.

She staked them both, and they turned to dust.

The fight was over.

Buffy then shouted angrily. "I didn't need your help Spike! I had everything under" she hesitated, "control."

Footsteps were rapidly approaching from her right. She and Spike turned to face the two dark figures who hurried toward them through the night, making their way around the tombstones. The Slayer raised her weapon.

"Buffy! Put down the stake! It's us!"

Xander Harris had called out. The 21-year-old construction worker hurried up to her and Spike. He was dressed in work pants and a brown windbreaker jacket. Red haired Willow Rosenberg stepped up beside him. She and Buffy were the same age as Xander, and also casually dressed.

Willow said, "You got to be more careful how you wield that thing Buff!"

"Sorry." Buffy then remembered to lower her weapon.

"We're not kidding." Now Xander spoke. "We've got some bad news Buffy. It looks like you've accidentally slayed a non-demonic being."

The Slayer stiffened. She repeated "'Non-demonic'?"

"It's a perfectly understandable mistake." Xander said, "Considering the way she was dressed, or not dressed."

Now Spike repeated, "Not dressed?"

"Um-hm." Willow said, "Remember that vampire woman you staked, over by the Caulfield crypt, who was going topless?"

Spike perked up. "Topless you say?"

Xander couldn't help smiling himself. "Her belt was top her top garment."

Willow sighed and rolled her eyes in annoyance.

Then she said, "That's right. She's got a giant gash between her boobs, but no fangs inside her mouth. Looks like you killed a human by accident Buffy."

"No I haven't!" The Slayer shouted, "I haven't been anywhere near the Caulfield crypt yet tonight!"

Then she said, "Show me where she is."

Buffy headed off across the cemetery, with Willow at her side.

Spike said, "I definitely want to look into this myself."

He and Xander then hurried off in the same direction as Buffy.

After about a ten-minute walk, they came to the section of the cemetery that was furthest from the street. The four came up to the body of a full figured teenage dead girl, stretched out atop a sarcophagus. She wore only a short skirt and shoes, and had a foot tall wooden stake, sticking out from a wide deep gash between her breasts.

Buffy, Willow, Spike and Xander gathered around her body.

Buffy said, "Loretta? She's a friend of Dawn's."

Willow nodded, "Becoming a vampire and getting staked by the Slayer is all just part of being a Sunnydale High school girl; except that this time, she wasn't a vampire."

"And I didn't stake her!" Buffy insisted again.

"That's obvious love." Spike said, "This wound is much too large to have been made by a stake. She was gashed wide open with a blade, not impaled by a stake."

Buffy said, "And when I go patrolling, I never let go of the stake, and I'd never leave it lying around like that."

Xander added, "And you'd never use a stake that fancy either."

The stake was intricately sculptured with patterns of entwined snakes and indecipherable inscriptions.

Spike said, "What the bloody hell? It's not stuck in the wound. It's just lying in there."

He grabbed the stake, and lifted it out of the wound.

He said, "Her heart's been ripped out."

Buffy leaned over the body, put her fingers into the wound, spread it apart and looked inside.

"Right." She said, "Nothing's in there. Could I see that for a minute?"

Buffy examined the sculptured stake. "There's a price sticker on it. This was bought at the Magic Box. Let's ask Anya if she remembers who bought it."