"You'll get yourself killed," someone mutters. 

        "She goes to the school," someone else offers. "Sunnydale High."

"Karen Teller. You really don't know what you're getting yourself into. It's like she's everywhere at once."

                "I'm not a coward."

       "She's got friends, they're usually with her -"

"Friends, huh? Little army of high school brats with stakes?"

"No."

     "Well, some of those."

"They're teaching the kids at the school to fight vampires these days."

     "I remember when humans knew their place -"

"She didn't get those weapons from any high school students."

"There's a bodyguard, a tall fellow."

"There's a priest."

       "Last I heard the Watcher's Council was as useful as a toothpick but maybe the times are changing."

"Priest and a bodyguard, huh? That's new. They have names? Addresses?"

No one has the faintest idea where the bodyguard lives. The priest lives a short walk from the church in a little cottage. The Slayer drops by every week, or every few weeks, or really only once a month or so, depending who you ask.

Well, this should be interesting.

The first order of business - after he's found a place for Dru to stay, anyway, a nice roomy abandoned factory where she can spread her dolls out and rest for a while - is to determine who this Slayer is and how seriously he should be taking her and her "friends".

He waits down the street from the school in his car, the black paint on his windows protecting him from bursting into flames. The slayer's not hard to recognize, if you know what to look for. She moves with purpose, like she knows what she's doing. She stops outside to talk to someone, a man in a suit coat who couldn't look more uncomfortable if he tried. That'll be the watcher, then. Doesn't look very tough.

He follows the watcher home.

"Have you seen Mr. Wyndam-Pryce?" asks Karen, two days later. "He hasn't bugged me in like a whole forty-eight hours."

"- no, I haven't. That's worrying. Let's drop by his place."

Wesley's apartment is empty of humans, but not of objects. 

"His books are still here."

"Well, I don't like this." He seems to be watching Karen expectantly.

"Well..."

Dangit, how do detective people do things, this is much harder than crossbows.

"He didn't call anyone?"

"Nope."

"Well. ...is his car still here."

(It is. There's a little parking lot near the apartment complex that still has a car that looks like the one Wesley drives. She doesn't have the license plate memorized, or anything, but she's pretty sure very few people keep their cars that obsessively clean.)

"Well. We should probably figure out what murdered and/or kidnapped my watcher."

"We should probably assume that it doesn't wish us well, either. Let's not be out tonight, and let's invite your family over to Michael's -"

"Yeah, that makes sense.

"What about - I mean tomorrow's parent-teacher night."

"Oh, right. Everyone out after dark - damn Synder - Michael can drive Azalea over and be an extra pair of eyes and ears, and we can tell the Bureau to be around conducting investigations of the drainage systems or whatever and escort all the kids home safely. And I'll read all the demons in town, see if any of them were involved."

"Cool. I'll, um, get Azalea and then sit at Michael's and be useless, I guess?"

"We're going to figure it out. We just need some leads and shouldn't wander around exposed looking for them. You can sit at Michael's and brainstorm with Wishbone, 's not useless."

She nods seriously. "I'll get Azalea."

He reads demons' minds. There aren't many left and none of them are contemplating Wesley, just their girlfriends and their soap operas and the inadequate inventory of the local magic shop and how their sister is a bitch and how it's been too long since there was an explosion in this town and how sirens are an atrocity really if you think about it and about how this town used to get a higher caliber of tourist and about whether that fellow was single. 

She grabs Azalea and Connor and Wishbone and they all drive to Michael's.

"Just so we're clear," says Karen, before they get there, "If you hit on my priest, I will have to beat you to death with a shovel."

"That's fair. What happens if I hit on Alex?"

"I dunno! Don't! Probably not murder, I guess, I'll probably just glare very sternly."

"I just like to be aware of all current threats to my life."

Lovely. They arrive at Michael's.