"Yeah. And holy water. You're not? I forgot I was wearing it or I would have asked if it was bothering you. My boyfriend's trained away the reaction to an impressive degree but I still take it off when we spar."

Gloria fished under her collar for a moment, before pulling out a cross necklace of her own. "No. And I go to church on Sundays, too. I wear this under the dress when I have a high enough neckline for the chain not to look out of place, because a vampire 'costume' with a cross would look odd. But the fangs haven't impeded my Christianity at all."

"Good for your Christianity. I've painted crosses all over my town to make it difficult for more vampires to move in to replace the ones I nab."

"Clever. Of course then you have a problem with those vampires continuing to exist outside of super-powered stabbing range, but no system's perfect."

"I travel a bit on weekends. And it's actually particularly important that fewer nasty-biteys congregate where I live, because it has a Hellmouth and boy does shit ever happen there. I'm not sure of the exact mechanism, but shit is very intent on happening around Hellmouths. I would like the shit that is trying to happen to be poorly staffed."

"I suppose since you have a calling and a boyfriend and whatnot you're probably not interested, but is there anyone within earshot of your door who might be interested in moving to a universe less intent on trying to kill them?"

"I'm in a low-rent shopping center on a slow Tuesday and since I killed the lizard demons it's all humans, most of whom probably don't know there's anything more magical than fraudster Tarot readers out there."

"Being abruptly educated still seems like a better deal than living in the Elemental Plane of Murder."

"Do you want to move to my universe? It seems worth asking."

"Who, me? If I don't die in my world there might not be any more Slayers. The system is dodgy as all fuck but I don't know how to set up a replacement with volunteers and funding and combat options that don't involve violent impacts, so this is what we got. The world would be substantially more lethal if little monsters were not told about the Slayer in the closet as a scary bedtime story. Also I have parents and a boyfriend who cannot reasonably get to this door either."

"I didn't think so, but better safe than sorry." She sighs. "I wish there was something I could do to help."

"Well, you offered to export blood, which is a bad idea for any number of reasons, but maybe you have other exports which aren't so... contagious and potentially interactive?"

"Blood is something I have in my body. I was coming in to work, I don't have that much on me...I could probably hold the door open until one of my employees gets here and have them fetch something for me. I do have a witch on staff, but her actual job description has less to do with mixing potions and more to do with mixing cocktails. Might be a good idea to see if she has any brilliant ideas, though."

"Sure. According to Bar's explanation you could send her on arbitrary errands as long as you're willing to hold the door."

"My dad's a cop," volunteers Bella.

"That seems like it might be a more dangerous job than usual in a particularly murdery small town."

"It is. Lot of turnover. But he's been okay so far. And now he knows when to call me."

"That's good. I hope he keeps being okay."

"Me too."

"Do you have any ideas for anything that might be useful aside from magic? I'm not intimately familiar with Chris's whole repertoire, and of course there's the theoretical possibility she might not agree to help, or be taking a sick day and not come in or something. I do probably have more available funds than you do."

"Inconveniently, the organization intended to support and supplement Slayers doesn't take the expedient step of having a dozen of them work ordinary jobs and tithe to pay Slayers. I'm living entirely off my parents. That said, I am not strictly funds-limited - boyfriend ought to have inherited a lot of money, which has not managed to legally fall into his possession but he can steal it without moral qualm if it's crunch time. I might be tech-limited if you guys have different stuff?"

"You have an organization designed to support you and you still have to worry about high scool Latin class?" Gloria asks incredulously. "If I, or more realistically my wife, were designing a support system for the only person in the world who keeps a population of malevolent supernatural beings under control, it would involve, one, shock troopers to take some of the workload off your shoulders, and two, a jet of some kind to get you wherever nasty things were nastying their nastiest. Equipping you with state-of-the-art whatever it is you use ought to go without saying. Are these people being incompetent on purpose?"

"You know, sometimes I'm not sure? The one who's directly responsible for interacting with me is okay by and large. The rest of them I suspect of deeply stupid and unethical Slayer-related behavior, of which 'not paying me' is perhaps more forgivable than some. Latin is actually job-relevant, though. Interpreting prophecies and so on."