"You are so full of BS," Kate said evenly, cutting into Pike's story.

"Excuse me?" Pike raised his eyebrows, affecting a who-me? innocence that Kate didn't buy for a minute. "Something with scales and more arms than a Siamese octopus tried to grab my little sister off the beach when we were vacationing in your lovely city, and you're calling me a liar?"

Kate smiled. Oh, it was the stupid things you missed doing. Waiting in dark cars with cold coffee and the desperate need for a rest room. Picking through a pile of trash for the rusty needle in a haystack. Interrogating suspects who thought that you didn't have a brain, peeling them open and getting the truth out. "Yeah," she said. "You're a liar."

"We're here to help," Wesley hastened to say, shooting a sidelong glance at Kate. She could always trust him to play good cop.

"But we can't help you if you're not straight with us," Gunn finished. Kate hid a smile, focusing on the kid in front of her. Gunn thought like she did, straightforward and practical. Leave the mystical stuff to Wesley and Cordelia and Angel -- and, now, Fred. She and Gunn functioned much better with monsters they could see.

"We want to help you," Cordelia said steadily. "Let us help you."

Kate kept fighting down the urge to order everyone out. She knew how to interrogate someone one-on-one, or with a fellow cop who would follow your leads. This group deal was something she wasn't used to. But she wasn't the ranking member here.

The kid stood beside the guy, Pike. Kate had checked her over visually, looking for signs of abuse. Another habit of the force she couldn't break, another reality that the world could be ugly without monsters. She didn't believe for one fraction of a second that Pike was Amanda's brother, but the girl didn't act like an abused child. Which wasn't proof positive, but it meant Kate wasn't going to take him out and get the girl away from him at that moment.

It did beg the question of how a twenty-something guy had ended up with a ten-year-old girl. If he wasn't a family member, no court in their right mind would give him guardianship.

Her brain was running at a million miles an hour, clicking through all those possibilities, while she patiently waited for Pike to speak again. She felt alive, more than she had in her entire last year on the force. More than since her father had died.

Pike turned his back on the group, staring up to the second floor where Angel was. Amanda glanced up at him, and then back at the group. Kate met her stare, and waited.

Pike turned back around, and put his hands on Amanda's shoulders, holding her in front of him. Protecting her, Kate realized, like he had before. With his body, an action as unthinking as breathing. He'd die for the kid. "Amanda's in danger," he said quietly. "Something's trying to get her. I don't know what. It follows us wherever we go. We've probably brought it here, and I would care, if it wasn't for the fact that I can't stop it alone. I need to protect her, and I need help."

"Vampires," Cordelia said.

"I guess, but I don't know," Pike said impatiently.

"No, listen to me. Vampires. I... I have visions, okay? There's some group that's trying to get --" Cordelia cut herself off. "Amanda, maybe you should...."

"I'm staying. I'm listening." Amanda didn't move. When Cordelia didn't continue, Amanda said, "I need to know. Don't just say I'm a kid and lie to me. I need to know."

"Tell us," Pike said. His face was set.

Cordelia bit her lip, then continued. "It's a group of vampires. They want her, specifically. Not to kill her, though. They want to make her a vampire."

In the shattered silence that fell, Kate saw Amanda reach up to touch one of Pike's hands on her shoulder. She was terrified, poor kid. But who wouldn't be? "Sick bastards," Kate muttered, mostly to herself.

"Why would they make a kid a vampire?" Gunn asked.

"Too much Anne Rice, maybe," Cordelia muttered.

"Why her?" Wesley wondered. "I recall from Giles' writings that the Anointed One was a child, but that was to fulfill a specific prophesy, that a child would lead the Slayer to her doom. Perhaps there is another prophesy...." Wesley rose as if to go to the office for a book, and then hauled himself back. "Right. Perhaps we'd best know all the details possible "

"Something's chasing Amanda. That's pretty much all I know to tell you."

"How long?" Kate asked.

Pike shrugged. "At least four years. Probably not any longer than that, because if they had been going for her while she was still at home, they'd have gotten her. All I know is --"

"Bloody hell," Wesley breathed suddenly, breaking into Pike's words. "You son of a bitch."

Kate whipped her head around to focus on the mild-mannered Brit. He was glaring at Pike with murder in his eye. "Yo, Wesley, want to fill us in?"

"This bastard," Wesley bit off, "stole away a young girl from the Watchers who had been sent to train her."

"I," Pike said, in exactly the same tone, "helped a little girl who was running away from the people who had kidnapped her from her family. Exactly who is the criminal here?"

"Whoa, slow down." Cordelia jumped up and separated Wesley and Pike, who were advancing on each other. "Wesley, you first. Explain."

"Four years ago, a team of Watchers went to take into their keeping a young girl, Amanda Willis," Wesley said in a precise, emotionless voice. "The girl disappeared, and it was assumed that she'd run home to her family. But when they got there --"

"Don't." Amanda put her hands up to cover her ears. "Don't. Don't. DON'T!"

Pike dropped to his knees and Amanda wrapped her arms around his neck. He rocked her as she shook with silent sobs. Wesley looked sickened with what he had been about to relate before Amanda. It was a long time before anyone spoke.

"Would you like to come upstairs with me?" Fred, who'd been quiet the whole time, asked. "Just upstairs. We'll keep Angel company. It's not fun to be alone."

Pike seemed unwilling to let Amanda go, but she raised her face from his shoulder. "I'm not running away," she said fiercely.

Fred shook her head. "No, not running away. You'll be here. Be close. But it's okay to not be *right* here." She rose to her feet and held out her hand, and after a long moment, Amanda took it.

Kate waited until Amanda and Fred were up the stairs. "I take it what happened wasn't pretty?"

"I assumed the bastards that had kidnapped Amanda in the first place had done it," Pike said.

"And we assumed she'd died in the massacre there," Wesley said.

"Okay, two questions," Kate said. "Who are these Watchers, and why would they kidnap a little girl?"

"You don't... oh, I suppose it was never necessary to tell." Wesley sighed. "Into each generation is born a Slayer. The one girl in all the world with the strength and the skill to fight vampires. Although, given the oddities that have occurred in the last few years, we currently have two Slayers."

"Had," Cordelia said softly. She shot a glance upstairs, and Kate began putting pieces together. But she waited for confirmation.

Wesley nodded. "Had. You've met one, Faith. The other is the girl whose funeral we attended two months ago."

"Buffy," Kate said, and was cut off by Pike's groan.

"Oh, damnit." He closed his eyes. "Damnit," he cursed again. "Buffy's dead?"

"Okay, we're getting a little too weird here," Cordelia said. "You knew Buffy?"

"Yeah. Years ago. In LA. She's how I found out about vampires, and how to fight them. She left to go live in this middle of nowhere town up the coast. I didn't think she'd be in danger there."

Cordelia shook her head. "I'm sorry, but Sunnydale? On this thing called a Hellmouth."

"God. I hadn't thought about her in so long, but...." Pike just shook his head.

"To answer the second part of your question, Kate," Wesley continued, "Watchers guide and train potential Slayers, from as early childhood as possible. And, unless I very much miss my guess, that little girl upstairs will be a Slayer someday."