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Part 3
"Angel? How?" Buffy asked, releasing Jessie and gazing into the eyes of her supposedly dead lover.
"I forgot to tell you. Buffy, look who I found wondering out by the bus depot!" Willow proclaimed.
"How?" the slayer repeated.
"I- I don't really know actually. I just...saw this really bright light, and I was here. But I was kind of scared to see you... So I... ran off," Angel stuttered, uneasily shifting under the glances of the humans.
"This is so touching it's making me sick. Can I stake him now?" Jessie asked. Buffy glared at her cousin, and she turned away. "Jeez...what good is being a slayer-in-training if you can't train to slay?!" Jessie demanded, slumping into one of the upright chairs and setting down the bag she'd brought.
"Pardon me? What did you say?" Giles asked.
"'Slayer-in-training'?" Giles' eyes lit up from behind the thin lenses of his glasses and he dashed into the office. Buffy turned away from Angel, along with the other teens and the vampire, and wondered what the watcher was doing.
"Oh dear...Oh dear..." He came back out carrying a book with loose pages hanging out of it, along with several envelopes on top of it. A broad smile was creasing his face as he set the book on the counter and motioned for all six to go over. They crowded him and he opened the book. "This is wonderful... The Codex prophesied of a new slayer arriving to take the place of the former, this one much younger that the other slayers, and quite strong for her age. 'A young slayer shall appear, and her appearance is especially queer'"
"Do I look 'queer' to you?" Jessie asked, reading the ancient book behind him.
"You're hair is really weird...Do you bite your nails?" Cordelia inquired. Jessie shoved her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker and glared.
"No, no, no. It means that you're queer. Not literally of course. You're a queer slayer because 1: You're surprisingly young. Most slayers aren't called until they're 16. 2:You're the family member of another slayer."
"Who?"
"Me." Buffy replied. Jessie looked at her. "She's dead? Why's she walking if she's dead?"
"I brought her back!" Xander proclaimed, flexing his flimsy muscles.
"Okay. But I'm not a real slayer. I have two more years of training to do!"
"A question. How come she gets training, and Merrick just came up to me and told me I was the slayer?" Buffy questioned.
"You're a typical slayer. Most slayers are taken by surprise by their callings. A select few are chosen from birth to live with their watchers. They're parents either have to give them up for adoption, or give her directly to the watcher for life training."
"What's your watcher's name?" Willow asked. Jessie took a deep breath and looked at the group. "Freddy. He was the curator at the orphanage I've lived at since birth."
"Did you have to eat gruel and be slaves to some rich guy?" Cordelia asked.
Jessie chose to ignore her. "Back to my question, can I stake Vampy right now?" She pointed the splintered table leg at Angel.
"I have a better idea.Why don't you tell us what happened to bring you here? Then you and Buffy can go patrolling." Giles asked, looking momentarily at Angel, his anger building up at the vampire, but keeping it bottled. Jessie groaned and sat in her chair again. "Fine...You guys might want to take a seat, this is gonna take a few minutes." The others sat down, and the slayer started her story.
"Well... It was a few years ago, and Freddy had just taken me for a hunt, when we were ambushed by a bunch of vamps..."
There was a shout, and the vampires spread from their attackees. In the middle of the lot came two others, one male and one female.
"Well, well, well Dru. What do we have here?" the male asked, brushing the lady's black hair from her face.
"It's an old man Spike. And a little girl. Can we eat them?"
"Why don't we have a little fun with them first, luv?" Spike gestured to one of his henchmen, who grabbed Fredrick and threw him to the ground in front of the couple.
"Freddy!" Jessie yelled, trying to get back to her watcher. "Jessie! Run!" Fredrick yelled, waving his arm futilely above the growing group of vampires. The arm froze in mid-air and Jessie watched in horror and wondered what they were doing. Finally they dispatched and there below Spike was the dead, throatless and bloodless body of her watcher.
"Freddy!" Jessie shrieked again. "You...dummies! I'm gonna rip your hair out!"
"Ooh, I'm so scared," Spike chuckled, blood covering his chin. The slayer reached into her bag and pulled out a sling shot. She took a bottle of Holy Water from her pocket, loaded and fired the water at Spike's face. The glass bottle shattered, and the water spilled all over him. He screamed in agony as smoke rose and the skin blistered and bubbled. Jessie giggled at her accomplishment of making the vampire mad, but soon regretted it.
"You've been a bad girl," Dru snapped at her, vamping-out. "I was going to allow you to play with Ms. Edith. Now Ms. Edith will have something to play with before she eats you up." Jessie looked around her to see more and more vampires gathering around her. Not having been able to slay very well, she did the only thing her brain kept yelling at her: run! Her feet spun on their balls, and she ran off in the opposite direction as fast as her little legs could carry her.
"And...I must have ran for who-knows how long. Next thing I know, I'm back at the orphanage by myself, scared as hell. I couldn't go outside after dark for the next... two years, because I was afraid he'd be there to come after me," Jessie finished explaining. The other occupants were in shock, Willow near tears.
"That's so sad!" The hacker choked out, desperately fighting back the water.
"That's Spike for you," Angel said quietly. "Always attacking the less fortunate. Terrorizing orphans, killing those helping them-"
"-Like you?" Xander asked. The girls all shot him glares, Buffy's especially cold.
"You know Spike?" Jessie asked, straightening.
"Yeah. He used to live here. Till Angel went bad, bugged the hell out of him, stole his girlfriend, tried to open a gateway to hell-" Xander was silenced by an inhumane growl radiating from deep within Angel's throat.
"O-kay. Can we get going? If I can't kill him, can I at least kill one or two newbies? They don't call this place 'Boca Del Inferno' for nothing." Jessie stood up, grabbed her bag again and slung it over her shoulder. Buffy looked at Giles, then got ready too.
"Are you sure you two can handle being out there by yourselves? Buffy, you've been...alright, but Jessie. She may need help getting into the swing of things. Vampires differ from area to area, especially on the Hellmouth." The slayers glared at him and walked out the door. With Buffy gone, Cordelia and Xander moved uncomfortably away from the vampire and Giles and Willow went to chain Oz up in the cage.
"Let us help you," The couple offered, walking to them and lifting up the werewolf, carrying him out.
Angel watched them, then walked to the stacks and sat in the shadows, waiting for the slayers to
return.