TEASER

Kennedy walked along the road slightly ahead of the three younger girls. The night so far had been uneventful and she was bored. The girls had been chattering non-stop since they'd arrived in town and parked the truck. She had tried to actually teach them something, impart some of her adventures in Sunnydale, and show them what being a Slayer meant, just like Buffy had done for her and the others when they had come to her. The girls, however, seemed more interested in discussing Xander and Andrew and the world's number one Slayer. Kennedy sighed; none of that interested her. Now if they had been talking about Willow she could have happily forgone the hunt for beasties and bored for Ohio on the subject. Not that anything was boring about her Willow.

One of the girls screamed behind her and she spun around to the face the foe.

There was nothing there but the three girls. Miranda had her hand to her mouth, the other pointing into the shadows of a shop awning. Kennedy turned to look that way, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. She could see the pale green eyes staring back at her balefully, and if she strained she could make out a thin, whip like tail swirling in the air.

She barked out a laugh and squatted at the road side. Holding out her hand palm up, she made kissing noises. The big ginger tom cat came gracefully out of the shadows and made its way towards her hand.

"Here's your big bad…" Kennedy began until a rushing matt of grey and black pounced on the cat and disappeared up the road, the cat in its mouth. "What the . . .?" Kennedy never finished the sentence as another of the creatures landed on her, knocking her sideways to fall on the road.

"Get back!" she shouted to the girls as she pulled her knees up under the beast and stopped it from getting a good grip on her.

One big paw swiped down, intending to rip her throat out, but she was just quick enough to lift one of her hands to block it. Her arm took the bash and its claws left thick red welts on her forearm, but she still had a head so all was good. She used the same hand to grab a hold on its hairy head and pulled it backwards with all her Slayer strength. She wanted to get her legs around its neck and snap it, but they were still trapped under the weight of its body. Its mouth, full of sharp teeth and dripping saliva, was trying to connect with her face, but her grip on its hair was keeping it at bay. That's all she was doing though. She couldn't find any leverage to get the thing off of her.

Alison had been huddling the other two girls into the shop doorway but now that she saw that Kennedy was struggling, she ran back to help. The only weapon she had was a wooden stake. She'd never used one before to kill anything, but it wasn't difficult to figure out which end went in the monster. She held it in both hands and lifted her arms up high above her head. She debated with herself for a second where the heart was supposed to be, and then with a shake of her head plunged it hard into beast's back.

It yelped and went rigid on top of Kennedy for a second and Alison thought she had killed it, but before she could celebrate it twisted on top of the older Slayer and lashed out a paw that sent Alison flying through the air. Before Kennedy could take advantage of its distraction it had leapt off of her and, snarling, ran up the road after its buddy.

Faith looked at the slop in her bowl with disgust. It was supposed to be mashed potatoes and stew. Sure didn't look like it. She sighed, thinking about the huge cheeseburger she'd eaten the day before. Now that was food.

A shadow fell across her table, but she didn't bother looking up as she asked:

"What's up, Lol? Something I can help you with?"

Lolitta was two hundred and ten pound of tall, dark and scary. An Italian American with a fiery temper. As far as Faith knew she was inside for a mob hit that went wrong. Instead of killing the guy she'd been told to, she killed the guy she was doing the job with because he pissed her off while they waited. In the time before Faith had jumped ship, she and Lolitta had become, not friends, but equals maybe. They were the only two women no one else in the place would mess with. A lot of the time Faith had despised the other woman but deep down she knew that they were pretty similar. They'd both had a rough go of it, both been brought up in a world which made you not give a damn about anyone but yourself. They had both been chosen for jobs either due to birthright or destiny that they could not walk away from. If Faith didn't have Angel and the rest on the outside rooting for her, she would probably be still as angry as Lolitta and taking it out on the population of Stockton Correctional Facility. Plus, before, she had been more fun to hang with than most of the retards in the place. Since she'd been back though the Slayer had been keeping her distance. She wanted to keep her nose clean and hanging with Lolitta would not make that easy.

"I was gonna ask you the same thing, Wilkins." Faith cringed at the name. That wasn't her anymore, but she kept quiet. "Word has it that you've been playing Governor's lap dog. You switching sides on us?"