...Well, that's about fifty kinds of suspicious.
"Hey, Giles," she says after school, a flyer torn on one corner from where she was uncautious about pulling it from its staple, "does this all-caps warning here look fifty kinds of suspicious to you?"
"Alrighty. Prom's not for a while, so no huge rush." Pause. "Although if I'm going, I have to invite Sherlock - lest I be killed by the Phantom of the Promenade before having a fighting chance - and I have to find a dress and so on. Or I'll just be turned away at the door and the inevitable poor sap who ignores the all-caps warning will die."
Sally Williams is organizing prom. Sally is uncomfortable about explaining the warning, but ultimately confirms that, yeah, people who go stag or even with a group of friends? They keep turning up dead. So this year they're just forbidding single attendance.
And how did they die? Bella wants to know.
Sally Williams doesn't know.
Bella goes to the library and reports to Giles. "How do I figure out what it is?" she asks, spreading her hands.
"If it only drowned them, I'd wonder if it was some kind of - I dunno, despair spirit, provoking loneliness to the point of oddly specific suicide, but if it strangles people too I think it must have some more physical presence," opines Bella, "am I wrong?"
"If it doesn't care about being kicked in the head, will it care about getting torched? I don't have great wand control yet, but I think I could refrain from burning down the school, and then I'd have a chance of not needing to use squares. Or, I could go straight to the squares, but what do I wish for, what process do I disrupt to rid us of Prom Ghost?"
"Mightn't it just recoalesce? It's already making trouble only during prom - once annually - as far as we know. It's pretty low-key, and it wouldn't be immediately obvious if I'd only spooked it into leaving for a relatively meaningless period of time." Pause. "Heh. Spooked."
"I confess it doesn't appeal to me. Is that definitely going to be what it wants, though? Maybe it just thinks single people are depressing or it had a date who neglected it in favor of someone who went stag, or whatever - traditionally how do you find out what a ghost wants?"
"I don't know, she might, as a favor. She might be better equipped to handle this world than me. Friendly spells she can make up to suit her needs on the spot! Who needs super punching ability?" Juliet shrugs. "But this is the one I got, so I'll do what I can do."
"Unfortunately, the other supernatural threats don't have allergies to such easily available materials, at least not known, but that one that has to be twisted apart - knowing that was super-useful," says Bella. "And - hm - it looks like I should expect the ghost to be someone who died hereabouts. Probably at a prom. How far back do your records go?"
Studying happens. Sunset alarm on Juliet's phone goes off before Giles can read through all the history. Juliet goes to get Sherlock his breakfast.
(She's not obsessing - truly, she isn't - but certain things do remind her of certain other things, and she entertains wonderings about iron supplements and the productive capacities of Slayer bone marrow.
And Sherlock, being Sherlock, can probably tell what's on her mind when he gets there.)
"The wound was all gone the next morning after last time, and I didn't feel dizzy anymore, but I know the Red Cross insists on waiting months between donations and I'm not sure how much of that is them being paranoid about their blood supply, how much of that is them being paranoid about avoiding lawsuits, and how much of that is information about baseline human blood-recovery ability."
"Well, there's probably going to be a ghost there that likes to murder people who go stag," says Juliet, "so if you were going to dump me in the middle of the dance that'd be a reason why not. There's a very stern warning about it on the flyers." She has one of these in her messenger bag, folded up; she takes it out and hands it to him.
He gets a peck on the cheek for that. "I'm gonna attempt to pacify or disperse the ghost, of course, because even an all-caps warning on the prom flyer in Sunnydale probably won't have everyone so obedient, but that might not take all night. Pity I don't know how to dance. Time was trying would've been a trip to the emergency room."
"You know how to dance? As well as cook and figure out facts from itty-bitty wisps of evidence and lurk like you don't exist and beat the Slayer in a fistfight half the time and dodge crossbow bolts and all this with you only technically seven years old."
"Dad! You're home, good. It's me. I wound up crashing at Sherlock's and my phone was dead, I'm so sorry. I'm fine, everything is fine, please tell me Sunnydale isn't crawling with cops looking for a missing person?"
Charlie's response is a sigh of utmost relief. "Bells. Oh lord, Bells, you scared me. No. No cops looking for a missing person. I know there's - things, going on, cops might make it worse even if you had it under control to start, I was going to call the school and see if you showed up before jumping to assuming you were in something bad."
"I will be showing up to school, at the usual time," Bella promises.
"There will be no more crashing at Sherlock's," Charlie says.
"I'll see you this evening," Bella says instead of agreeing. "Or right around sunset when I stop at the house if you're there then. Bye, Dad!"
"Bells -"
Bella makes a cut it gesture at the nearest camera.
"Thanks, Jarvis," says Bella. She peers down at herself. "Mmm, possible I should stop at home for a change of clothes. Bloodstain's not obvious on black, but it's not totally invisible, either... I should take my shirt off first in the future," she concludes.
"Sherlock's in for prom," Bella tells Giles at study hall. "Any progress on the identity of Prom Ghost?"
"Doesn't anyone besides Slayers ever address these things? Is this strong evidence against the going-to-prom-with-the-ghost-or-
She goes home forty-five minutes early, though, so she can do some further notetaking in the privacy of her room.
And at the usual time, she meets Sherlock bearing a jar of breakfast.
"I told him I promised not to do anything needlessly reckless, to be more careful about keeping my phone charged, and to call if I'm not going to be home before eleven p.m. or 'borrow your phone' to do it if mine dies," she says. "And I think it would probably be a good idea if I refrained from not-being-home-before-eleven for at least a couple of weeks, especially so I haven't burned out his tolerance by the time prom rolls around."
"Well, you could cover the exterior of the place with crosses, although that might make it unpleasant for even you to live in and if you overdid it you'd attract extra attention on that basis. Did Tony put in exterior cameras? If he did Jarvis can tell whether someone coming is you or not and turn on sunshiney lights or not on that basis." She shrugs. "Maybe I'm worrying too much, there aren't many vampires left in Sunnydale now that I've been here a while."
And here is Jarvis. "Hey, Jarvis, since pretty much the entirety of Sunnydale is not such a great neighborhood, if the situation ever seems to call for it would you have strong feelings either way about being armed?"
Sparring happens. Bella's winning slightly more than half the time, now, and she's making smaller and smaller tweaks each time she pauses to edit.
When she tires out, she waits until she has Sherlock in a convenient pinned position and just doesn't quit with the victory kisses until their entire pose has melded into a snuggle instead of a pin.
"I'm not coming after school," she calls over her shoulder as she goes, "I got invited on a dress-buying expedition, so don't assume I got eaten when I don't show."
After school, Bella goes with her school acquaintances with whom she maintains a shallow sort of friendship to purchase dresses.
To her great surprise, she finds one she really likes. It's indigo, almost the same color as her mask, and it's knee-length and twirly enough not to be too much of a hindrance if she has to physically fight the ghost. It has matching shoes with pokey heels, which she can now actually walk in given new preternatural balance, and which strap on snugly enough that she could probably stake a vampire with her footwear in this getup if the heels are wood under all the indigo lacquer.
It's not on sale, but she buys it anyway. It fits.
It's hanging near the window when Sherlock comes by for breakfast.
"Giles found the likely Prom Ghost. She died in 1920, there was a live suspect - haven't found out who yet - and she was strangled and drowned both, not just one or the other. So if you meet her, we think her name is Minnie and she's pissed off 'cause her boyfriend murdered her."
"Pity." She walks a few steps in silence, then says, "Do you have speculations as to what leads some vampires to - enter the service industry - instead of doing the sociopathic hedonism bit? Does it not occur to most of them, do you have to be in a guild or the existing bite shop employees will kill you, is it just some sort of psychological diversity much like how you're all special that is alas unbottleable...?"
"Fair enough." Bella muses as they walk. "I can probably keep living with Charlie for a good long time, but if anything - supernatural or otherwise - happens to him, or if I ever just plain don't want to live with my dad anymore because I have somehow made it to age twenty-seven and it's getting old, I wonder how Slaying and a job would interact. I'm thinking not so well. School I don't care about cutting in an emergency even if I haven't had to yet. If I wound up doing that with a job they could fire me."
Here is the brick place. Bella designates the first hour of her time as playing-with-fire time. She can reliably contain the blaze as long as she's not too distracted by anything more than conversation, and she keeps it in midair so if she does lose it it will vanish before touching any surfaces they would not like torched. After this hour, sparring!