Is this right? thought Willow, looking up at the huge gigantic mansion. Palm trees lined the drive and in the windows of the huge white house were strange designs of black roses. Possibly a crest of some things. She was supposed to be spending the summer before her second year of college with her distant cousin Jez Redfern. But she had been told she was spending the summer with her friends in a Las Vegas mansion, and had been told she was welcome there too. There was plenty of room for her. And they weren’t kidding! she thought as she stood on the doorstep, nervously twisting a lock of short red hair round her finger as she waited for someone to answer the door. She wished she hadn’t decided to be brave and adventurous and come alone to find the house. She wished desperately that either Buffy or Xander were with her. At least she’d have someone she knew.
She didn’t know Jez at all, only knew that her parents wanted her out the house for the summer, not hanging around doing nothing. The door opened, and a tall, elegantly lanky boy was standing there, a lazy, almost predatory smile on his handsome face. He had ash blond hair and eyes that seemed to shift colour from moment to moment. It was fascinating. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Ash. Can I be of service?”
“Uh - I don’t know,” Willow stammered, hating herself for suddenly being shy again. She’d thought she’d overcome her shyness. She wished Tara was there. “I’m supposed to be meeting Jez Redfern here, but I’m not sure I've got the right address.” She looked down at the piece of paper she held in her hand.
“Does that matter?” Ash said, the predatory smile changing to a sly grin.
“For God’s sake Ash, do you flirt with every girl you meet?” another voice said, sounding disgusted. A girl’s voice. “Mary-Lynette’s going to kill you.” The girl was fairly tall with long yellow hair that fell past her shoulders and gentle brown eyes. She smiled a friendly smile.
“I’m Thea, a friend of Jez’s,” she said. “You must be Willow. Jez isn’t actually here yet, she’ll be here later.”
Willow nodded, still cursing herself mentally for feeling like an idiot because she couldn’t think of something to say.
“Why don’t you come in?” Thea said. “Ash take her suitcases.”
“Yes ma’am,” Ash said, giving her a salute. He picked up Willow’s two suitcases as Willow followed Thea into the huge house.
Inside was gleaming white and marble. There were unusual abstract paintings on the walls. A huge marble staircase with red carpet led upstairs. Thea led Willow up the stairs and showed her to one of the huge rooms. “Get yourself settled, then come downstairs and I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
Willow, feeling a little overwhelmed and very small compared to this huge place, was beginning to feel as if she’d stepped into something way over her head. She didn’t usually have visions, but got the odd premonition feeling, a result of her new found witch powers.
She had no idea how right she was.
“So who is this new girl, anyway?” Ash asked as he and Thea joined a few others sitting around in one of the living rooms. “She’s kind of shy, isn’t she?”
“Give her a break, she’s probably just nervous about going into a new place full of strange people,” Thea said.
Rashel snorted. “If she knew how weird, she’d pack her bags and go home right now.”
“Maybe not,” Quinn said. “She comes from Sunnydale, right? From what I’ve heard, that town’s supposed to be right on the Hellmouth so she might have seen some pretty weird things so we’d be no different to her.”
“Do we tell her about us?” Poppy asked.
Most of Circle Daybreak were staying here with Thierry and Hannah for the summer, before college. They didn’t really have any plans, just hanging out with their friends and their soulmates. Since winning the millennium battle, Circle Daybreak had enquired a new member, Jyira Veraneti.
Jyira was a different species of made vampire to general Night World vampires. Instead of her eyes and teeth changing, her entire face shifted into a more monstrous, demon with sharper teeth and her eyes went yellow. Standard vampire rules, only heard of in legend applied to her. She wore a talisman of lapis lazuli to allow her access to sunlight. About a century or so Jyira and a few vampire friends of hers had made a bad mistake, killing a gypsy girl. Unfortunately for them, the girl’s clan had taken vengeance on Jyira and a friend of hers, cursing them both with a human soul, doomed to remember forever all the people they’d hurt over the years. The other member of their little coven had escaped, and Jyira said she had no idea what had happened to her, or to him either. She hadn’t seen either of them in years. Jyira was tall, with long gold hair and midnight blue eyes. She was very quiet and quite solitary. Thierry had known her for a while, and had suggested she would fit i! nto Circle Daybreak, who could give her somewhere to belong to, and be with other people who would understand what she'd been through.
Circle Daybreak themselves had won the millennium battle, gathering four wild powers and successfully gathering enough strength to banish the reining evil. They all knew that not every Night Worlders had been killed, there were still some out there, and they had to be hunted down and stopped.
“I don’t think we should,” Hannah said finally. “We should wait until we know a little bit about her first. I’m sure she's a perfectly trustworthy person, but you never can tell.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” Sarah muttered, something which had taught her a harsh lesson.
“Tell me about it,” Jyira muttered, a vision of a handsome face, and endlessly deep dark eyes filling her vision for a moment. Looking into those eyes and allowing him to seduce her had been the biggest mistake of her life. Of course, she'd eventually forgiven Angel for changing her against her will, after he’d taught her the joys of being a vampire, but then again, that had cost them both too. She felt as if she just couldn’t win. She always vaguely wondered how he was coping. She admitted to herself she would like to see him again.
“So what *do* we tell Willow?” Maggie asked.
“That we’re just a group of friends all hanging out and enjoying ourselves before college starts again,” Thea said. “That’s all we really can say. I’ll say a few people are friends of mine and Jez’s and Ash is our cousin, and there are some of his friends, and their boyfriends/girlfriends or whatever. That’s believable.”
“What if someone does something stupid and she finds out?” Poppy said.
“Who’d be stupid enough to let the secret slip?” Rashel said with another snort.
There were notably several glances at Ash, who looked back at them, aggrieved. “You guys don’t think much of me, really, do you?”
“We never think of you at all,” Quinn said with a dry smile.
Ash folded his arms and slumped down lower in his chair. “It’s always nice to know you’re appreciated.”
“If she does discover something she shouldn’t, we’ll have no choice but to tell,” Hannah said.
Poppy shivered suddenly. Which was strange because it was warm and there were no windows open, or air-conditioning on.
“Poppy? What’s wrong?” Maggie asked, her little face concerned.
Poppy frowned, an uncharacteristic expression for her. “I don’t know. I just had this weird feeling. A feeling that someone’s coming and something’s going to go horribly, horribly wrong.”
Willow sighed heavily, shutting her bedroom door. She’d spent the afternoon with her cousin’s friends. Something about them was off, weird. She wondered if she couldn’t be a bit jealous because they were all so good looking, while she herself felt small and dull. She wanted to be back at home with her own friends where she fit in and could at least find something interesting to talk about. And Ash's insistent flirting was making her nervous. She’d already mentioned politely that she was taken, (she didn’t mention who by) but that didn’t seem to both him, Ash said he already had a girlfriend, she’d be arriving sometime soon, and maybe they could swap. She doubted Mary-Lynette would be impressed with that idea.
Thea had said just to ignore him. At least she was nice, Willow had the feeling they could be friends. She wasn’t so sure about Thea’s cousin Blaise, a striking girl with cold grey eyes that seemed unnerving. The way she seemed obsessed with herself reminded Willow a little of Cordelia. She smiled a little, thinking it would be funny if they were both in the same room together. Poppy seemed like fun, and so did Maggie, but she felt nervous around their boyfriends. James was kind of quiet, but he was nice when he smiled. She had the feeling that he didn’t talk a lot, only to Poppy. Around them she felt like an intruder. And Delos, and his yellow eyes, were scary. Those golden eyes reminded her of vampire eyes, just before they killed you. Rashel and Quinn, the other couple, seemed cool and kind of distant, in their own world. Hannah was okay too, a little like Thea, nice and friendly, as her boyfriend Thierry (which Willow secretly thought was a ridiculous name.) Jez hadn’t shown up yet, and was expected sometime this evening or tomorrow. And Jyira…she barely said a word. She reminded Willow a little of Angel. She had the same lost look in her eyes.
But of course, she'd only just met them, and for all she knew, they could be completely different. At least the house was cool, there were plenty of rooms to explore and the weirdest things. What she didn’t understand when she was in that room, why her witch senses had been on the alert. She could sense power in these people. Something telling her a number of them weren't human. Well, she thought, after all the things I’ve seen, what difference does one more impossibility make? Bored, she opened her lap top computer and logged onto one of the Internet chat rooms she used. Of course, she was always a little wary of people she met on line, since once she had met a robot, and didn’t particularly want to repeat the experience.
Someone who called themselves darkknight was trying to keep a conversation with her, inviting her to a private room, asking her about herself, what she liked to do. Well, she thought, talk about myself? I live on a weird town directly over the Hellmouth run by vampires. My best friend is a vampire Slayer and I’m dating another girl, also, I’m learning how to be a full fledged witch, and a gigantic demon tried to eat us all on Graduation Day, and we fought a huge war, but we won in the end. And how weird was our first year of college? Should I really say that? She could just imagine the look on his face. She told him she was from a small town in Southern California, she had just finished her first year of college and was spending the summer with her cousin and her friends in Las Vegas.
Darkknight said he was in Las Vegas too. It’d be cool if they could meet sometime. Willow said she wasn’t so sure about that. She’d have to think about it. The door slammed open. Obviously Blaise never bothered to knock. “I’m hungry and there’s *nothing* to eat around here. Me, Crystal and Scarlet are going downtown. Want to come?”
“Down town Las Vegas?” Willow didn’t know. Part of her longed to see Las Vegas, but part of her wasn't sure about going with Blaise and her friends. She had a sneaking suspicion Blaise was up to something.
“Hmm. We’re trying to convince Jyira to come too, she never leaves the mansion. She needs to get out more,” Blaise said. Then she noticed the computer and the chat room. “Who’re you talking to?”
“Some guy called darkknight, but he sounds a little weird. We’ve barely been talking for fifteen minutes and he wants to meet. He says he’s in Vegas too.”
Blaise’s eyebrow raised. “Tell him yes and to bring some friends along.”
Willow frowned. “That could be dangerous. He could be anyone. He could be a - “ She bit her lip, suddenly breaking off. She had been about to say, he could be a vampire looking for victims. She didn’t want Blaise to think she was crazy.
“Go find Hannah and tell her we’re going out, we don’t want her getting paranoid and sending the Calvary after us,” Blaise said. And Willow went to find Hannah.
Blaise sat at the desk, looking at the computer, asking darkknight his real name. His real name was Jeslan Redfern. A Redfern. A vampire using Internet chat rooms to pick up his victims. How modern.
She grinned and told him who she really was, one of the last of the female Harmans. She told him to meet her at a Night World club in town. See if Willow had some backbone. Who knows, maybe she’d like to be a Night Person.
Night World clubs like the Black Iris chain had supposedly been shut down after the millennium, but Blaise knew of a few that were still in business for the remaining Night People who liked to break the rules.
Darkknight said he was looking forward to meeting his meal.
Now, she and her friends were going to have to come up with an alibi, just in case something did happen to Willow. How they were going to explain it to Jez.
Willow was more nervous than she could remember being in a long time as she followed Jyira, Blaise and her friends down town. They’d decided to walk, as parking would be a nightmare. And none of them had a car. Jyira walked quietly beside Willow. She was dressed in black from head to toe and looked like a shadow, blending into the darkness surrounding her. Willow’s witch senses were screaming *vampire* at her. But if Jyira was a vampire, why wasn’t she killing them all? She had all vampire traits, and Willow had noticed, when they passed a mirror in the mansion’s entryway, Jyira had no reflection. Now, that was a little odd. Everyone else had seen too and nobody had said a word. Maybe they all knew she didn’t care.
Blaise and her friends were all stunning. Heads turned as they passed, car horns beeped, guys whistled and waved. Blaise and her friends waved back. Jyira snorted and rolled her eyes, muttering something about men being the most absurd species on earth, and how male vampires were worse than male humans. Secretly, Willow had to agree. She couldn’t help wondering if Jyira preferred women to men. As if reading her thought, Jyira said, “Not really. I had a boyfriend once. Only, it ended badly. Something happened and we were separated.” A look of pain crossed her face. “I never saw him again.” She sighed. “I miss him.”
“You’re afraid of being hurt again?” Willow guessed. She could understand.
Jyira sighed and nodded. “He gave me this.” She held out her hand, showing the small gold ring set with a blue stone on her finger.
“What was he like?” Willow asked.
Jyira’s expression turned dreamy. “Tall, dark, drop dead gorgeous with the most intense dark eyes. They seemed to look right inside you. His name was Angel.” She snorted. “Which is completely inapt for him, since he was more like the devil in flesh.”
Willow’s eyebrows were in her hair. Coincidence, she told herself. But then again, how many tall dark handsome Angels were there? And it sounded as if Jyira had been involved with Angelus, Angel’s demon.
She wondered if Jyira knew what had happened to him. Should she tell? She wasn’t sure. Angel had been around for a long time, and was bound to have a load of ex girlfriends dotted about the globe. She could ask Buffy. Maybe Angel had mentioned Jyira to her. Maybe she could see about trying to get them together again…
Of course, this was all speculation, and maybe it really was just a really weird coincidence. She seriously doubted it, but it wasn't any of her business and she’d better just keep her nose out. She noticed Jyira had gone all quiet again, a sad, pensive expression on her face.
“You know, that’s the first time someone’s been able to get more than a sentence out of her,” Blaise said, glancing back at them. “What happened to separate you?”
Jyira’s expression darkened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“He probably dumped her,” one of Blaise’s friends muttered.
“He did not!” Jyira said defensively. “We just killed the wrong person is all. And her clan didn’t like it and decided to make us pay. And it was Darla’s fault. Getting the damn gypsy girl was her idea, and she got away with it.” Jyira’s voice trailed off into a mutter.
All Willow’s suspicions had been confirmed. But it was surprising. Jyira was a souled vampire too? What had happened to separate her and Angel, then? And how come he’d never mentioned her before? Unless back then she’d been going by a different name. It made sense. Angel had done the same.
But Jyira seemed so unhappy. She’d have to see about reuniting them. She wondered what Jyira had been life before it happened. She remembered how bad Angel had been when his demon had been set loose, was Jyira just as bad? Getting them back together could be disastrous.
She decided to keep her nose out of it.
Blaise was leading them all into a world of glitz and bright lights and colour. People were everywhere. The hotels were all strange, there was one with a flaming pyramid outside, another with an Eiffel Tower outside, and one with a small Statue of Liberty and a roller coaster on the outside. She hoped Blaise would talk them into going on that roller coaster. Right on the edge of the hotel, high up, and generally scary. The one opposite had a large lion out front with flashing green eyes. Willow had heard all about this place, seen it on TV and in movies. But it was more fun to actually be there, just walking around and looking at the strange wondrous sights without needing to be inside with the gambling.
But the area Blaise was leading them into now was darker, away from the glamour of the Strip area. She knocked on a door with a spray painted black iris. It opened an inch and a skinny kid with beady eyes looked out. “Who are you?”
“I am Blaise of the Harman clan and these are my friends. We’re expected.” Blaise had her hands on her hips, tapping one heeled door impatiently while the skinny kid opened the door and let them in.
“Stupid werewolf,” the girl with long dark red hair said. Willow thought her name was Scarlet.
She opened her mouth indignantly to tell them werewolves weren’t stupid, she had dated one and he happened to be very smart. But then something struck her. Werewolf? That girl had *known* that boy was a werewolf. And they obviously knew Jyira was a vampire. So what were they? Vampires? Something else all together? Maybe they were witches. And why were the Harman clan so important?
Something inside Willow was telling her to be afraid, be very, very afraid. The place inside was strange, hardly any light shone, and dark figures moved around to strange music. It had a dark, twisting Gothic atmosphere to it, a perfect place for vampires, in other words.
She was beginning to panic. She didn’t feel right here. She wanted to leave. But they’d only just gotten here, and she suddenly decided she didn’t want to see Blaise in a bad mood. Blaise was talking to a guy with a shock of blue spiky hair, dressed in black leather. The other girl who had come with them, Crystal, a dark haired girl, had drifted off to the bar. Surely, they weren't old enough to drink, but nobody was ordering them out. Willow felt like telling the manager or something; anything to get out of here.
Blaise and the blue haired guy were walking over to her. Willow backed away, looking for some way out, and almost ran into some girl with pink hair. The girl glared at her, raising a fist with a ring on every finger. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the blow.
”Hey, leave it, Kyra,” a male voice was saying. “She didn’t do it on purpose.”
Willow opened her eyes to see the pink haired girl delivering a withering glare at her. She turned around to see who’d saved her. It was Blaise and the blue haired boy.
“You must be Willow,” he said, grinning, with a row of big whit teeth.
Willow was confused. “Do I know you?” She knew for sure she didn’t. But how did he know her?
“We met on the Net a few hours ago,” he said.
Willow frowned. “darkknight,” she said, remembering the handler name. He grinned again. He grinned a lot. Blaise smiled. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone to get aquatinted.”
Willow glared helplessly at her. There was nothing she could do. She looked around for someone to escape to, but couldn’t see Jyira anywhere.
Darkknight or whatever his real name was, was staring at her in a very strange way. His eyes were going very dilated, shining like an animal’s. She could sense he was trying to do something to her mind, control her, take over or something, but she was fighting him without knowing how she was able to.
Eventually he gave up. “Oh the hell with it,” he said. He suddenly grabbed her shoulders, his grip like steel. She couldn’t break free. His canine teeth were lengthening. His face didn’t shift, however, like the vampires she'd seen. This was a new species.
Frightened, Willow slammed a knee into his groin, forcing him to let go of her. And then something happened. She wasn't sure what. Something inside her seemed to wake up suddenly, telling her to teach this guy a lesson. Willow kicked him again. He stumbled backwards, crashing into a table. Willow smiled, not a very nice smile, and lifted a chair, smashing it over his back. He cried out in pain, blood covering his face. The smell of that blood was enticing. Willow grabbed his head, yanked him up, and sank her own fangs into his neck. The hot blood gushed into her, filling her with a power that was more intense than any witchcraft she'd ever done. Someone seemed to be coming to stop her, she could sense them from behind. She raised a hand, and a flash of orange energy sizzled out, striking them.
She was annoyed when someone grabbed her shoulders and pulled her off the blue haired guy, who was almost dead by now. Willow looked up to see Jyira staring at her in surprise.
Jyira’s face had changed. She was wearing the monstrous face of the vampire spices Willow knew. But then, what species was *she?* She remembered Anya, the demon who’d created an alternate universe, the result of a wish Cordelia had made. In that reality she and Xander had been vampires. In her own reality she was now a vampire. What the hell was going on here? Had that universe somehow come back and merged with hers? Or was there something going on in her own world even she and her friends had had no idea about? New species of demons gathered together, passing themselves off as people?
Jyira’s yellow vampire eyes were glowing. She began dragging Willow out the club.
“What the hell was that?” she said, still in full vamp face.
Willow shrugged, catching a glimpse of her own reflection in a store window. Her eyes were a bright and shining silvery-green, her canine teeth as long as a wild cat’s, curving into delicate points, dripping with blood. “You tell me,” she answered Jyira. “I have no idea. I’ve been studying witchcraft. And I seem to have a knack for it.”
“Half witch, half vampire,” Jyira said softly. “That’s new.”
“And maybe you can tell me who you really are,” Willow said.
Jyira frowned. “As you can obviously see, I’m a vampire. But you were right before. I have a human soul, which is real pain in the ass.”
Willow nodded, understanding. “So what happens now?”
Jyira shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I don’t know. I guess what we can do is go look up your family tree, and see what skeletons are hidden in your closet.”
Willow and Jyira walked back to Thierry’s mansion. Jyira’s features had shifted back to her regular features, so had Willow’s. Her teeth had gone back to normal and so had her silvery green eyes. They looked like a person’s eyes now.
The mansion was quiet when they arrived. It was late so they figured everyone else was either out or had gone to bed for the evening. Willow led Jyira up to her room, where she logged back onto the Internet and searched for her family name Rosenberg. Most of the references that came up were completely useless, but the more Willow searched, eventually she came up with things that were meaningful to her.
Willow pointed at the screen. “These two names seem to appear a lot,” she said to Jyira. “Harman and Redfern. Do they mean anything to you?”
Jyira’s eyebrows were in her hair. “Redferns and Harmans are the most important Night World families in the world. The Redferns are the vampires, and the Harmans are the witches.” Jyira frowned and looked at the screen. “From what it looks like you’re descended from the Night World, you have Redfern genes on your mother’s side. Your mother’s sister’s father was a Redfern, and he had a son who and he married a human woman, and they had Jez. And you have Harman blood on your father’s side. The Harman line is run through the women, rather than the men. You must be a new breed. Half witch, half vampire.”
“I guess my parents really had no idea about the Night World then, or they would have told me, and about all these stupid rules they have to follow,” Willow said. She shook her head in confusion. “But if I have vampire blood inside me, why have I never felt the need to feed it?”
Jyira shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I don’t know. Maybe it’s cause you never really believed that vampires existed or something.”
“But I know about vampires and I have for the last four years or so.” Willow frowned. “It was in my junior year of high school, coming onto senior year that I started discovering witchcraft.”
“Maybe the more you believe the more your powers work,” Jyira suggested.
“But that still doesn’t explain about the vampire part,” Willow argued. “I’ve known about your species, like I already said. My best friend Buffy is the Slayer.”
Jyira’s eyebrows raised. “I seem to have had a few problems with the last few Slayers. We’re not exactly each other’s favourite people.” She was smiling a little. The first time Willow had seen her smile. There was a sense of humour there, very subtle, but it was there. Willow told her about the last few years of her life, about the dark world Buffy had brought them all. It hadn’t been her fault, she’d never wanted any of it. Jyira didn’t give her any funny looks, or move away from her when she told about her new relationship with Tara, Buffy and Xander had been looking at her slightly weird ever since they’d told them. And finally, Willow decided she had no choice but to tell her about Angel too.
Jyira just listened, without saying a word. Her eyes clouded over whenever she mentioned him, and whatever traces there had been of a smile on her face, had faded completely. She now looked as blank and remote as she had when they’d first met.
Willow looked at her. “You still miss him, huh?”
Jyira sighed and nodded. “For almost two centuries he was all I knew. He taught me how to survive.” She paused. “Of course, it all ended in disaster. I think I must have passed out or something, but when I woke up I was alone in a clearing and Angel was gone. I never saw him again.”
Willow frowned. She’d decided to keep her nose out of Jyira and Angel’s relationship; it wasn’t any of her business. But she thought of how depressed Angel had been before he left for L.A., and the two times he’d come back. He always looked as if he were missing something important. She had thought it was because of Buffy. Now she thought it maybe it was because he missed Jyira.
“Do you still love him?” Willow asked gently. She knew the pain of losing someone you loved. Ever since Oz had left her, she felt there would always be some part of her that would never be the same again. He had been her first real love, something no one could replace. She knew that deep down inside he would always be special to her.
Jyira sighed and walked to the window. She stood there, looking out into the dark night, lit by the bright lights around the mansion. She seemed to be thinking, about her past, Willow guessed. Jyira stood there, still and silent for along time. Willow felt awkward sitting there, staring at her, waiting for her to say something. She didn’t want to cause Jyira anymore pain, and telling her Angel had been in love with someone else recently probably hadn’t done poor Jyira much good. She seemed so unhappy, so lonely.
Finally, Jyira sighed again. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Yeah, I do still love him. I always will. He might have been a monster when I knew him, but he was *my* monster. He was always kind to me. I’d like to see him sometime.” She turned and walked out of the room.
Willow felt like kicking herself for bringing all these memories up. And there was only one thing she could do to make Jyira feel better. She picked up her phone.
Part 6 Willow tapped her fingers impatiently while she waited for Buffy to answer. It was late, but she was probably up, if she wasn’t out patrolling. As far as she knew Buffy should be at home for the summer.
“What?” an annoyed, sleepy voice snapped.
“Buffy this is Willow. I need Angel’s L.A. number.”
There were sounds of shuffling sheets and a light being switched on. Buffy groaned. “Willow, do you know what time it is?”
“Yes, I know what time it is,” Willow snapped. “But this is important. I need his number tonight.”
“Why? Since when were you chummy with Angel?”
“Well, I’m not really, but I’ve met someone up here who is. Well, used to be. She’s a vampire with a soul, just like him. They were involved in the past and she’s so miserable and she wants to see him again.”
“Why? Tell her to just forget him and move on.”
Willow was a little surprised at the unusual bitterness in Buffy’s voice. “Are you *jealous?*”
“No, I just - ”
“I don’t understand. You have a boyfriend. Okay, he’s an idiot and I have no idea what you see in him, but if you have him, why should you care about another souled vampire meeting Angel? He dumped you.”
Willow could almost hear Buffy scrambling for words. She was surprised at herself, she wasn’t usually so blunt about her opinions on people. She kept her thoughts to herself.
Finally, Buffy sighed and gave her the number. Willow thanked her and hung up, and then dialled the number.
Another annoyed sleepy voice answered. “Angel this is Willow,” she said quickly. She was getting excited now, and starting to feel really good about herself. They were both going to be so grateful to her.
“Willow? Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes,” Willow said impatiently. “I’m sick of people asking me that. But this is important. I need you to come to Vegas.”
“Vegas? Why are you in Vegas? You’re not old enough to gamble.”
“I’m not there to gamble. I’m staying with a few distant cousins and their friends for the summer. But there’s someone here who you’d really like to meet.”
“I would? Why?”
“Just come. It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises. And why do you sound so happy and perky?”
“You’ll like this one. Trust me.”
Angel sighed heavily. “Why do I have the feeling I’m going to regret this? All right, all right. Who is it?”
“You’ll see when you get here.” After Willow told him where to come, she hung up, feeling bright and happy, and very pleased with herself. She couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces, long lost lovers finally reunited. Like her own romance movie.
