"If she plans to threaten my family, that's different than sending a couple of vampires after me personally. Still, you've been helpful." She jumps off him.

He scrambles to his feet and bolts.

She watches him go.

She might have to warn her foster family about inviting weird strangers inside at night... Luckily it's just her for foster kids, she doesn't have any little siblings to worry about.

(At the end of the night, Vanessa receives three out of four expected reports, and notes down the address to which the missing vampire was sent.)

The next day she rounds up Kaylee and Tag over lunch and takes them to the library. To Giles and her friends: "We might have a problem. A vampire showed up outside of my house last night."

" - shit."

"What exactly happened?"

She recounts what happened, and the information she got.

"There is a master vampire in Sunnydale that knows where the Slayer lives," Giles summarizes darkly.  "We will have to move against this Vanessa quickly.  - Strictly speaking, I don't quite the authority to send you home to recover from your sudden 101 degree fever on my own recognizance, but I can certainly do so today without being immediately fired."

"Are they likely to do anything in the day?"

"They are not, but they may be expecting us to wait for nightfall, or at least for the end of the school day, to make a countermove - and it is not inconceivable that they have demonic allies capable of daywalking."

"I already let Gaara know, she can move freely, and is tracking my foster parents - I'm less worried about the house itself, I'll beat them home, and they work near each other..."

“My thought was that I should convey you to the cemetery, if you feel you’re prepared to go on the attack.”

"I'm as sure as I can be he was telling the truth about who she was - I'm less sure about her location. He hesitated a bit right before it. There could be a trap there easily, or just a red herring."

“That complicates things. If you’re comfortable leaving the house alone I won’t gainsay you, but do be careful coming home - not everything can be kept out by refusing it invitation.” He sighs. “I have a contact in the police department who I can tell to keep an eye out for this Vanessa figure, and I think we should investigate the cemetery in any case. But for now, we may have to play defensively.”

"Even with just vampires, I'm betting the 'no invitation' thing doesn't stop them from setting fires."

“I can try to help you arrange for an extended absence, if you want.”

"I'm not sure skipping school - would help? And if we're not reading my foster parents in... They probably wouldn't buy whatever excuses."

"If you think the house, and your foster parents, will be safe without you, you're free to continue attending school.  As for telling them - I still prefer not to let the information propagate," he says.  "But if we don't resolve this quickly we may have to."

" - An empty house is at less risk than the school, kind of, and I get home before them, and home alone I'd have fewer resources - I think the vampires are more concerned about not breaking the masquerade than I am."

Kaylee frowns.  "What exactly are they likely to actually do?  You said the - lurking guy - said something about rounding up a bunch of vampires to go after you, but he didn't sound like he had a head for tactics.  - If the situation were turned around, if we were the vampires and we'd figured out where the Slayer lived, what would our smartest move be?"

"...Hm. Ambush of some kind, or some way of forcing the situation to their advantage. Choosing the battlefield. So - lie in wait in my house, requires a demon ally or hitman or something that's stealthier than I'm perceptive, or.. Does the no-entry thing stop them from setting houses on fire?"

"Ideally I'd stop here to look for a reliable account of vampiric arson, but - I can't see why it would stop them from setting a fire from outside.  It's not a tactic they use with any frequency, but then they wouldn't often have reason to.  ...Come to think of it I'm also fairly certain they can throw things through windows, as long as no part of their body crosses the threshold."

"Yeah. Don't have to do much to get people fleeing their house."

He sighs.  "If their main advantage over us is that they know where you live - we may have to relocate you and your parents until they make a move.  And I am somewhat loath to do that without informing them of why.  Certainly if you're not comfortable with trying to get them out of the house under false pretenses..."