Buffy walked suspiciously through the streets of Sunnydale. What was she suspicious of? What <wasn't> she suspicious of? The couple kissing, the whore who led a man into a motel room, either or all of them could be vampires. She knew this was possible, all because it was nighttime. The streets of the Hellmouth were always dangerous at nighttime. However, on occasion, they could be dangerous during the daytime too. One of those occasions would come soon.
She heard a cheerleader scream and she ran towards it. She saw a very ugly vampire vamped out holding the cheerleader, one Felicia Mansfield, by the throat. "Uh-uh-uh." the vampire warned. There was something different about this vampire. He was... uglier somehow. She chalked it up to spended too much time around Cordelia. "You see, my pretty," the vampire began "one more step, and I shall kill her." She could tell he wasn't joking.
"Okay, what do you want?" Buffy asked.
"A Slayer <and> a hostage negotiator? Nice to see those tax dollars going to the Watcher's Council, isn't it?" He whipped out his three-inch tongue and licked the side of Felicia's face. "Yummy, nothing like a taste of fear to get the juices flowing." The vampire saw Buffy reach for her stake. He lengthened a fingernail to show her he meant businesss. "If you want her to die, then by all means kill me. She'll be marked for death before I turn into ashes." This non-fear of death was uncommon in the usual rubbish that Buffy disposed of regularly.
"Cut the crap, what do you want?"
"Ah, ok, now we can get down to business. You see, my boss Track wants..." Before the vampire could get the words out, he felt a sharp pain in his back. He fell backwards and barely cut the cheerleader's neck to make it bleed. It fell onto its side and Buffy saw a silver dagger in his back. Then, the vamp's body caught on fire and was soon nothing more than a pile of ashes.
"What a waste." Buffy commented, not even trying to regard the killer.
"Thanks. I've been practicing for a while now." Buffy looked up and was suprised. It was if she had this man somewhere before, then she remembered. He was the man in her dreams before Angel left for Los Angeles.
She didn't know what to say, so she said "You're welcome." Felicia had fainted from the shock, and the stranger dropped down beside her.
"Do you have any holy water?" The question kind of caught her by surprise.
"Shouldn't we get her...?"
"Look, that vampire marked her. That means that there's going to be an army of his kind coming here just to kill her. We can un-mark her with holy water now and some essence of garlic later."
"You've done this before?"
"Once or twice. On myself, about thirty." The number made her eyes open with a look that screamed 'I'm impressed'. Buffy handed him the holy water. He said an acient prayer in a long forgotten language as he applied the holy water to the wound.
"She'll be fine... once I can get her some..."
"Essence of garlic, you told me that already."
Then, as if the idea had just hit him, he asked "You look like a coffee person, are you?"