All dressed up and no one to slay.

A chill wind blew off the Pacific Ocean. Buffy Summers zipped her navy blue sweatshirt up to her throat and shivered, just a little. All right, it was November, but still, Southern California in November was not usually quite so brisk. She was tempted to pull her hood up but there was something just a little too gangbanger about that look for Buffy's tastes.

As Buffy walked along the waterfront, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt and grumbled softly to herself. Her gaze darted around the wharf and the canneries and the large shipping vessels out on the water. Sunnydale had its share of gorgeous California beaches, but this wasn't one. This was Docktown, the part of town the Chamber of Commerce desperately tried to divert tourists from. In a way it was surprising these streets were still on the map.

Patrol had been completely uneventful thus far, and it was growing late. Midnight had come and gone and by all rights Buffy should have long since returned to her dorm. She had class at ten minutes to nine the next morning and she was determined not to oversleep. Now that college had started, she was turning over a new leaf. The Watchers Council held as conventional wisdom that a Slayer could not carry on a personal life and be effective in the war against the forces of darkness.

Come hell or high water, Buffy intended to prove them wrong. She would be the most efficient, most effective Slayer who ever lived. But she would also immerse herself in the college experience, both socially and academically. In high school, she'd failed to balance the two, had really made a mess of things a few times. But college was going to be different. Maybe she'd never be normal, but with the enhanced physical capacity that came with being the Slayer, she believed she could juggle it all. If she managed to get to class in time in the morning.

What the hell am I doing all the way out here? she thought.

The answer came back quickly, and what a simple one it was: the job.

She was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing. Buffy was the Slayer, the Chosen One, the one girl in all the world with the power to combat the forces of darkness.

Tonight, though, things had been quiet. Patrolling Sunnydale was a vital part of her work as the Slayer. But when patrol was slow, that was when a bit of doubt might creep in; doubt that she would actually be able to pull off the balancing act she was attempting with school, her mom, her friends, and slaying.

What she needed now were action, adrenaline, and a nice, juicy monster or two. See Buffy. See monster. See Buffy kick monster's ass. It was what she needed to keep her focus.

A scream rent the night air with the blunt brutality of a gunshot. A quick and violent instant that caused Buffy to flinch even as its echo died above the waves.

Despite the ominous quality of that scream and what it might mean, she could not hold back the ghost of a smile that flickered across her face. Heart pounding in her chest, Buffy sprinted along the wharf. Her legs pumped as she ran past the harbourmaster's quarters on one side and a long, ugly concrete building that housed several shipping companies' offices. She waited for another scream but none came. At Dock Street she instinctively turned toward town and ran alongside a liquor store and half a dozen run-down multifamily homes mostly utilized as boardinghouses, renting rooms to fishermen and merchant sailors.

Halfway along the next short block she saw the cracked and flickering neon sign that hung in front of The Fish Tank. Experience told her that was her destination. There was no activity out front so Buffy stopped short at the entrance to the stinking alley beside the bar, a place so sleazy calling it a dive would be an insult to dives everywhere.

No scuffle in the alley.

Buffy frowned. Her instincts could have been wrong. She looked around, alert for any sign that might lead her to the screamer. Patrol had taken her here before; The Fish Tank was just the kind of place that bottom-feeding vamps afraid to draw the attention of the Slayer liked to hunt, thinking it beneath Buffy's notice. It wasn't.

A muffled laugh came from farther along the alley, deeper in the shadows.

Something was going on there in the darkness, where things let out small giggles weighed down with sinister intent and gleeful perversity. It was amazing all the evil a laugh could contain.

Buffy ran the length of that darkened alley between buildings, then paused just at the corner of a building, her back to the brick wall. To her left there was a small paved area behind The Fish Tank lit by a single bulb above the back door. In its sickly yellow glow she could see an open Dumpster filled to overflowing with shattered beer bottles and the remains of what the place mockingly called food.

It was a narrow drive that ran behind a number of the small businesses on the block, and Buffy was amazed that somehow a garbage truck fit itself back there at least once a week.

It stank, sure. But more important, it was remote and dangerous, with the buildings on one side and a chain link fence on the other. It wasn't a place anyone would go by choice. Yet somehow they'd gotten the woman back there - a woman all by herself.

Vampires.

Three of them crowded around the woman, who had screamed once and then had been unable to scream again. They were locked onto her as though they were entranced, one with his mouth on her throat, fangs piercing the soft flesh and a small rivulet of blood dribbling down to stain the collar of her Aerosmith T-shirt, and the other two at her arms, also suckling her blood but not quite as sloppily as the first. On their exposed skin Buffy could see markings, unfamiliar symbols she could only assume had some arcane meaning. The rest of their bodies was covered in leather.

The woman was maybe forty and had no business in the Aerosmith T-shirt and cutoff denim shorts she wore - unless she was a regular at The Fish Tank, where head-banging rock and hard drinking were the order of the day and a woman could be twenty-four and look forty, and still the guys would get all crazy around her. What a life. Buffy didn't understand places like The Fish Tank or the people who went into them.

But she didn't have to understand to care. To act. To take vengeance. Given that there were three vamps feeding off her, and the way she hung in their arms, completely limp, eyes without any spark, Buffy knew the woman was beyond her help.

Too late, Buffy thought bitterly.

From a sheath at the small of her back she withdrew a long stake with a smooth grip and a sharp, tapered end. She liked to feel its weight in her hand. With a single breath Buffy stepped out of the alley and into the dimly illuminated drive in front of the huge blue Dumpster.

The vampire whose fangs were buried in the woman's neck grunted and looked up at her. He had a black tattoo across his face, a bat with its wings spread, eyes peering out from inside each wing. A gnarled symbol shaped like a bonsai tree was carved into his face at the jawline. Bonsai's eyes narrowed.

At first Buffy thought it was just a trick of the jaundiced light, but then she realized it was no illusion. The vampire's eyes glowed a faint orange; a kind of energy seemed almost to radiate from him, to crackle around his entire body.

This wasn't like any other vampire she'd ever seen.

For a moment it threw her off. Then she chuckled and shook her head as she thought about how badly she had been itching for a fight. Careful what you wish for, she thought.

"I can't decide," the Slayer declared, her voice sharp and clear in the brisk night air. "Could be you're in a gang. Sunnydale Flying Rodents. Something like that," Buffy said, ticking off possibilities on the fingers of her left hand while still clutching the stake. "Could be you got lost on your way to some comic book convention. Or, possibly, you've just gone all freaky-geek over The Matrix and now have no life outside the film."

The vampires let the woman's lifeless form slump to the filthy pavement and she saw that the eyes of the others also sparked with that unnerving orange glow and exuded an aura of energy so different from other vampires she had fought. All three of them, it turned out, had bat tattoos across their faces, around their eyes. The overall effect was profoundly disturbing. They moved slowly toward Buffy, forming a half-circle around her, as if to prevent her from running away. Of course, she had no intention of running.

"Then there's always D," she said idly. "All of the above."