Day One
Saturday, February 14th, 2:41 AM

"Why are you here?"

Mayor Wilkens stood, hands in his pockets, leaning back against his desk. His expression was completely serious: This was business.

Faith shrugged, sitting slouched in the chair before him. "I told you; I'm looking for a job."

His eyebrows rose. "You're a Slayer. You're job is to fight people like me." He crossed his arms and looked at her intently.

"Young lady, if this is some kind of trick--" He suddenly broke into a grin. "Heh heh. Sorry. I guess Trick is out of the picture completely. But--" He became serious once more. "If you and these Watchers believe that you can deceive me in some way..."

Faith shook her head.

"Nope. That's not it."

She came up out of the chair in a smooth movement, coming face to face with him. He showed no reaction at all, not the slightest hint of fear that a Slayer was within arms' reach of him. She looked at him for a moment, then turned and walked slowly across his office, her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

"I don't work for them. Not anymore."

She turned to face him.

"They tried to drag me off to England tonight. They were gonna put me on trial, then lock me away." She tilted her head to one side, and her eyes narrowed. "And you wanna know the best part? Even if they decided not to, if I did what they said, and kept on putting my life on the line like a good little soldier, the reward would be them trying to kill me on my Eighteenth birthday." She looked down at the carpet. "Buffy told me all about it. Giles shot her full of poison, just so the other watchers could put her through some dumbass test to get her killed." She gritted her teeth. "Guess that shows how far you can trust your Watcher... As if I didn't know that already." She turned and walked to the wall, staring at some framed pictures without really seeing them. "If I had been in town when that shit went down, If I could have gotten my hands on that bastard, I would have killed him for that. For daring to hurt her, to touch her." Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

Wilkens nodded to himself, watching the girl's back.

"I'm curious." His voice was light, but he was watching her every movement, every look on her face. "What leads you to believe that I'll do any differently?"

She turned to face him and he spread his hands, giving her an ironic smile.

"After all, I'm 'Evil'. Doesn't that mean that I'm crazed, twisted, and not to be trusted?"

Faith looked at him.

"I don't think so."

He affected a surprised expression, and she waved a hand at him.

"Sure, you've tried to kill me, and the others. But you didn't pretend to be my friend, and then stab me in the back. You didn't hide what you were trying to do."

She looked down at her hands and cracked her knuckles. "I never heard of you trying to do in your own people, which is more than I can say for the White Hats."

They looked at each other in silence.

Wilkens looked thoughtful, pursing his lips and whistling tunelessly as he considered. Faith fidgeted, glancing around the richly decorated room. Abruptly coming to a decision, the Mayor picked up his coat.

"All right then, Faith." He paused and looked at her inquiringly. "May I call you Faith?"

She nodded cautiously.

"Well alrighty." He gave her an encouraging smile. "Lets go for a ride."

He moved to the door and opened it, holding it open for her. She walked out ahead of him, then waited as he paused to lock it behind him. He led her downstairs, then outside.

Minutes later, they were in the back of his limo, being driven across town by a smallish guy that Faith was sure was a vampire. He seemed like kind of a wuss for a vamp, but she supposed that you didn't want one of the big, stupid and scary ones driving your car for you.

She sat facing the Mayor, watching him as he ran a moist towlette over the armrests before relaxing back in his seat. Looking for something to break the silence, she gestured at the driver behind the glass barrier.

"Shouldn't you maybe have more of a bodyguard than just this puny dead guy? Buffy and her friends know about you now." She rapped on a side window with her fist. "They could ambush you and pull you out of this thing, and you'd be history."

He looked back at her with a strange, almost amused expression

. "Oh, I'm not worried about that." He gave her a cheerful smile. "I've made certain... arrangements, that should prevent any unfortunate accidents from taking place." He didn't explain any further, so she let it drop. Instead, she looked out the window at the passing streets.

"Where are we going, exactly?" She asked.

He smiled, a strange, almost childlike grin. "You'll see."

She looked annoyed, which only made him chuckle at her impatience.

After a few minutes, Wilkens asked his next question. "You know, once it's known that you and I are working together, your friends are going to behave differently towards you." He looked genuinely concerned, his voice earnest. But there was also an amused sarcasm to his words; he knew very well that he was being facetious. "Peer pressure can be a terrible thing for a teenager to face. They may even stop associating with you." He tilted his head at her. "Are you sure that you can accept that?"

Faith slouched back in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. "I might have had trouble if they actually were my friends; but they're not." Her voice was bitter. "They gave it a try, sure. For about five minutes. After that they just lied to my face, and pretended to care because it made them feel better. 'Poor Faith, she's number two', 'Let's invite Faith, she must be lonely living in that crappy apartment all by herself'." She tossed her hair back and looked at him.

"See this?" She ran her fingers down the side of her face, carefully touching the bruises and traces of dried blood that had been half-hidden by her hair.

"My good friend Angel gave my this tonight, with a baseball bat." She rubbed her hands over her thighs, wiping them on the leather of her pants. "My friend Xander only shows up at my place because he wants a taste of Slayer, and he's not allowed to have his favorite flavor: Blonde. Thank god Buffy can at least see through his act. And Willow," She screwed up her face in disgust. "Ugh. Sweet, pure Willow, everybody's friend. She couldn't stand to see me and B getting close. Every chance she got, she was whispering to her behind my back, about how I was a psycho, how I was pushing them apart, how I wasn't good enough to be one of her friends." Faith shuddered.

"She makes me want to vomit." She looked around the inside of the limo. "The others are nobodies, a rich bitch and a dog boy. No loss there."

Wilkens considered this, then nodded. "I suppose I'll take to mean: "Yes, I can accept that."

She nodded and looked away. "You got that right."

"We're here."

The limo pulled up at the end of a darkened residential street.

Faith peered out, but saw only a run-down neighborhood: Shabby houses that might have been nice forty or fifty years earlier, with unmowed yards scattered with junk and debris. The streetlights were broken out, leaving only the glow from a few house windows to illuminate the street. She looked at the Mayor questioningly. He folded his hands on one knee, meeting her gaze levelly.

"Faith. With Mr. Trick gone, I need someone, that's true. I'm a very busy man. Not only do I have the town to run--and believe you me, that takes a lot of work--but I also have my own project to complete." His voice lowered. "I've been working on this for a very, very long time, and I'm getting mighty close to finishing things up here." He paused, and she nodded for him to go on.

"I need someone who I can trust to handle the distractions for me. Someone with initiative, intelligence, and discretion." He gave her a wry smile. "And I have to be honest. Some of the things I'll need done are not very nice. Some would even call them "Evil". That's just their opinion, of course, and I couldn't care less what label they put on it... But there you are." He looked at her expectantly.

"Do you think you can do that?"

She rubbed the tip of her nose, then looked up at him. "You're being straight with me." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, I am."

She gave him her wicked little smile. "Then I'm your girl."

He nodded, unsurprised. "All right then. Before we talk about salary and benefits, I just need you to do one thing for me." He pointed. "Down this street is house with several motorcycles in the front yard. The men who live there are a bad element, they have no redeeming social value whatsoever." He looked at her, a pleasant expression on his face. "I want you to go kill them."

She stared back, unmoving. In a matter-of-fact tone he went on.

"Now understand me: They are not murderers, or drug dealers, or wife-beaters. They're not even especially bad people, as far as I know. I just don't like them living here, on this street, in my town. They are human beings, and I want them dead. Right now." He waited, watching her face.

She looked down at her hands, which she had unconsciously started scrubbing on her pants again. She made herself stop, and took a deep breath. Looking back up, she tossed her hair back off her face. Cocking her head, she gave him an appraising look.

"This is some kind of test? To see if I'm on the level?"

He nodded, and spread his hands.

"That's right, it is. But you don't see a syringe full of poison here, do you?" He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "This test is optional, Faith. You can either do it, or you can just walk away. You decide. I'm not going to tell you what to do with your life, that's not my place. But if you do this, if you come work with me, I promise you," He looked at her earnestly. "You will go far. You'll see things, do things, that your little friends could never imagine." He reached out and gently touched his fingers to her bruised face. She jerked back, and he shook his head slightly. "I'll never hurt you, Faith. I'll never lie to you, and I'll never betray you." He leaned back in his seat. "But first, you have to show me that you're for real. Decide now."

She looked at him, her eyes haunted. She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. Running her hands over the leather of the seat beside her, she thought it over. He watched her, waiting.

Faith let out a shuddering breath, then cracked a weak smile at him. "You don't take MasterCard, by any chance?"

He raised his eyebrows, but she shrugged, opening her door. "Never mind."

She slid out to stand beside the car. Leaning down to look back inside she met his eyes. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back."

She closed the door quietly and began walking towards the house with motorcycles in the front yard.

Inside the limo, Mayor Wilkens flipped open his cellphone and dialed a number. "Sunnydale police department."

"Hello," He answered, watching Faith walk slowly down the quiet street. "Officer Stratton, please. Thank you."

He hummed quietly to himself as he waited. There was a click over the phone. "Dispatch, Stratton here."

He smiled.

"Kevin? Richard here. Listen, I need you to make sure that all your units on the south side are busy for the next little while....."

Faith was having a rough night. Angel had knocked her out, then dragged her off and chained her up. Her head still hurt from that. Then Wesley had chained her up again and dragged her into a truck. She had left the truck by jumping off while it was in motion, which had also hurt. Buffy had found her, and given her a solid shot to her already sore face. That had hurt too. And finally, she had dusted Trick, along with his best boys, while Buffy had stumbled around, knocked silly by a falling crate. She was tired, and hurting, and she hadn't had anything to eat in over nine hours. With her Slayer's hyper-metabolism, that was a bigger deal for her than for normal people. She rubbed her belly, listening to it growl. All of her physical abilities took energy, and that included her healing. Her headache was nearly gone, and the bruises were already fading, but she felt like her stomach was trying to eat her alive. She kept walking. She was tired, but even more, she was tired of being screwed over by people who kept lying to her. Pretending. Whatever else the Mayor was, he was honest. She knew it in her gut. He would do just what he said, give her exactly what he promised, and she wanted that. She needed it.

The house wasn't hard to find. It might have been nice, once, but now the wood siding was coming off, the gutters were sagging, and the yard was full of knee-high weeds. The only visible objects that were in good condition were the big motorcycles parked in the driveway and yard. There were eight of them, which probably meant at least that many men inside

. Not a problem.

She walked right up to the front door. It was past three in the morning, but lights were still on, and a television and at least one radio were blaring loudly from inside. Faith raised one hand to knock, then paused. Trying the door, she found it unlocked. She shook her head and opened it.

Inside, it was just as gross as she had expected. The living room held two couches, with a ragged biker-type spawled on each. In the far corner was another motorcycle, with the disassembled engine spread out on newspapers all around it. A boy in his late teens sat among the parts, working on something with a metal file. The television was set on some kind of car race, with the volume high enough to hurt her sensitive ears. The room stank of beer, smoke, sweat and motor oil. She closed the door behind her.

At first none of the men really noticed her. She solved that problem by stepping over and turning off the television. Relative silence fell, broken only by the radio playing from somewhere upstairs. One of the men, a fat guy with his hair braided in a pig-tail, came up off his couch, spilling chips in all directions.

"Hey Bitch! I was watching that!"

He put out a thick arm to shove her out of the way. She caught his wrist, shifted her feet, and threw him off to the side with so much force that his shoulder dislocated before he bounced off of the wall. He fell to his knees, then onto his face, emi-conscious and moaning in agony. She smiled at the other two.

"Someone else call me 'Bitch'."

The guy on the other couch was blinking dumbly at her, while the young one in the corner came to his feet, eyeing her warily.

"Hey, uh. Are you Mickey's girl?" He sounded uncertain, and scared. She looked at him and shook her head.

"No, I'm Buffy's girl. Except we're having some problems right now." She walked towards him. "I think this might be just the kind of therapy I need to vent my anger over our relationship issues."

She reached out for his neck, only to have him grab her wrist. She stopped and looked at her hand, held by his. She raised it, then lowered it. She moved it towards him, then pulled it back. His arm trembled as his muscles strained, but he was unable to exert any control over her hand as she moved it, playing with him. Eyes wide with panic, he raised his other hand and threw a punch at her face.

Instantly she ducked under it and fired a fist forward into his chest. Her full Slayer strength, unleashed against a human being, ruptured organs and splintered bone. He flew back into the corner to land in a heap, convulsing weakly as bloody froth spilled from his mouth and nose. She stared down at him, then gasped as someone grabbed her hair from behind. The other guy had finally made it up off of the couch. He fumbled awkwardly for a headlock, but she didn't give him time to find it. Reaching back over her head, she grabbed one of his hands in each of hers, and squeezed. He gave a scream as the bones were crushed in her grip. Whirling, she grabbed his head and twisted. There was a pop, and he went limp, dropping to the floor.

Faith was breathing heavily, and not from the exertion. As far as fights went, this was nothing. She stood looking at what she had just done, and she honestly didn't know whether she wanted to be sick, or burst out laughing. She settled for swallowing heavily and walking further into the house.

That scream must have been heard by the others.

She stepped into the hall and came face to face with another biker. He opened his mouth to speak, and she punched him in the throat. He fell back, clutching at his crushed windpipe, already suffocating. There was no one in the kitchen, or the first bedroom she checked. She came to the base of the stairs leading up just as another man appeared, standing at the upper landing. He had a gun, a large automatic, and he was already bringing it up to point at her.

She leapt upwards, her feet hitting the first, eighth, and top steps. From his point of view, she might as well have flown up at him. He got off one shot before she slammed into him, bowling him over backwards to sprawl on the floor. He tried to bring the pistol back into line as she landed on his stomach, one knee to either side of his body. She slapped his hand aside, breaking three of his fingers and sending the gun flying. Blood streamed down her left side from where the bullet had grazed her. Her hair was tangled around her face and her eyes were blazing with fury as she stared down at him.

"You Fuck! You shot me!"

She slammed her fists into his face, alternating left and right. The first blow shattered his jaw, the next broke his nose and the cheekbones on one side. She kept going, striking him a dozen times in the next two seconds. By the time she stopped, he had long since gone limp, his eyes staring blankly through a mask of blood. She bounded to her feet and jerked him up by the front of his denim vest. She slammed him into a wall hard enough to stave in the plaster, then turned and hurled the body down the stairs.

She peeled her bloody shirt away from her side to look at the wound. A shallow groove had been cut just under her left arm, but the bleeding was already slowing. It took a lot more that to stop a Slayer. She looked around and went right down a hallway. Now she was seriously pissed. A door opened, and a bald man with a lot of tattoos ran out, still pulling his pants up around his waist. Faith straight-armed him and he bounced back like he had run into a wall. She moved forward, pushing him again, driving him back into the bedroom. Following him in, she took up a stance in the clear space just inside the door. He stared at her in disbelief, but that didn't slow him down. Snatching up a heavy sheath-knife from the bedside table, he leapt at her. Faith was through with playing around. She wound up into a spinning circle kick and lashed out as he came into her range. Her foot slammed into the side of his skull, snapping his neck and hurling him to one side in a boneless sprawl. She touched down lightly, picking up his knife from where it had fallen. She started to turn away, only to jump at a scream, and movement from the far side of the room. She dropped to one knee and whipped the knife at the woman who stood in the door of the small bathroom. The heavy blade struck her in the stomach, the impact throwing her backwards and out of sight. Faith stared after her, gasping for air that didn't want to come, tears spilling down her cheeks as she turned and moved back into the hall.

At the far end stood two men, staring at her. One held a baseball bat, the other a tire iron.

"What the hell is going on?" Bat-guy demanded. His eyes flicked over her, the wild mane of black hair and her tear-streaked face, the blood staining her left side.

Faith looked at the men and felt a laugh trying to push past the sobs she was holding inside. The men thought they were so tough, so mean, looking at the little girl. They didn't know what mean was. She felt strange. Before she had been torn, undecided. But now things inside her were falling into place, and it felt right.

She used her hands to smooth her hair back over her shoulders, then wiped her face. She managed a smile

. "Don't mind me, fellas. I'm just here to fill out a job application."

She walked towards them, her hips swaying in her leather pants, her empty hands held out for them to see.

"You guys looking for a good time?"

The watched her warily as she advanced, then stopped just in front of them. She looked at them sadly.

"I hope not, 'cause all you're gonna get is killed. Right now."

They stared at her blankly for long seconds, then they made the connection. The first one swung the bat overhead and down at the top of her head. She reached up and caught it between crossed wrists. Holding it by the end, she pivoted like a dancer and pulled the bat around to the side, using it to block the swing of the tire iron. Without letting go, she snapped a kick at the second one's knee. It splintered like rotten wood, bending suddenly sideways. He shrieked like a Wesley and stumbled back, dropping his weapon. Faith gripped the end of the bat firmly, then pirouetted, wrenching it out of the first man's hands. Disarmed, he took a step back in shock.

Smiling faintly, she gave it an underhand toss, whipping it past him and striking his sobbing friend in the gut. He gave a wheeze, and collapsed on the floor, his diaphragm paralyzed. Faith looked at the man before her.

"Now it's just you and me."

She stood looking up at him. He was a full foot taller than she, and outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds. He stared back at her, terrified. Faith took a deep breath and thought things over. At some point during the exchange, her breathing had come back under her control. She felt better. This was what she was built to do, and she loved doing it. Not just to monsters, either. That was what Buffy just wouldn't let herself see.

When you could do this, and do it to anyone you wanted, how could you not turn it loose?

Seeing her distraction, the man swung a massive fist. Faith reached out and caught it in her hand, stopping it cold. Smiling smugly, she stepped inside his reach and backhanded him across the jaw. He staggered back, stunned. She advanced and jabbed him in the stomach. His breath whooshed out of him as he folded forward. Grabbing him by his collar, she pivoted him around backwards, then torqued him down and back, shattering his spine across her knee. She dropped him to the floor and straightened. The man whose knee she had destroyed had stopped breathing. The one at her feet was a goner as well. She took a quick look in the last rooms remaining on the floor, but all were empty. she turned and walked back downstairs.

Mayor Wilkens was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.

She froze for an instant, then came the rest of the way downstairs. He looked at her approvingly.

"Well." He nodded at the corpse by his feet. "I think that proves rather conclusively that you're not "Undercover", in some sort of scheme to gain my trust."

Faith nodded wearily, holding a hand against her aching side. Wilkens stepped forward and tugged at her hand.

"You're hurt!"

She pulled away irritably.

"'Sokay. It's no big deal. And I heal fast."

He put a hand on her shoulder and guided her down the hall. "That may be true, but we'll go have it looked at. Infection is nothing to take lightly. I'll not have my girl neglecting her health." He smiled down at her. "You're going to show that Buffy and her friends what you're made of. Yessir, I don't think they'll know what hit them."

They were in the front room when Faith suddenly pulled away. She looked up at his concerned face.

"Not Buffy."

He looked confused, and started to answer, but she cut him off. "I'll help you, I'll do stuff like this, or whatever else you need me to do. I'll kill off the Scooby Gang, and if you want me to kill Watchers, I'll do it and then throw a party afterwards." She looked away and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, unknowingly leaving a bloody streak. "But Buffy is off-limits."

He looked at her, his expression stern.

"Faith, she's the biggest threat to me. Watchers are nothing without Slayers, and even if they get their hands on another rocket launcher, those friends of hers are not a very credible danger."

He gestured at the carnage in the room around them. "But a Slayer is a killing machine. It's what they do. I can't have her coming after me. She might get lucky somehow."

Faith shook her head stubbornly.

"No. That's my only condition. Buffy is mine. If she comes after you I can stop her. We're pretty evenly matched," She shrugged. "Well, okay, not really, but close enough. I can keep her off you. And with her blocked, her friends are just Vamp-chow." She looked sad.

"I was getting through to her. For a little while. Then that idiot I killed in the alley started messing with her head, and everything---" She stopped, then turned to look at Wilkens. He stood by the door, leaning over to wipe drying blood from his shoe with a white handkerchief. He looked up when she went silent.

"Allen. You killed him." He nodded. "I know." He dropped the handkerchief on top of an overflowing wastebasket. "Actually, you did me a favor. It seems that he was going to divulge some information to your Buffy that I would rather she not find out about. Fortunately for me, you were there." He smiled at her. "Isn't it funny how things work out? If not for Allen, you and I might never have met. Certainly not in friendly fashion like this!" He tilted his head to one side. "You know, sorcerers take omens like that very seriously. I think it bodes well for you and I getting on well together." He reached out and gripped her shoulder gently.

"All right then. We can work around the Buffy situation. Maybe you and she can work things out, after my project reaches completion." He grinned. "Its for gosh darn sure that she won't be any threat to me afterwards!" He chuckled so infectiously that she gave a small, relieved smile.

They moved to leave the house.

"I'll get with Karen, my secretary, about your benefit package. You'll have full health and dental, and we can start putting money in a 401K for you. Take it from me, young lady: Always plan for the future. If there's one lesson I've learned and learned well, that's it."

As she walked past, the first biker that she had faced stirred from his spot on the floor. His ruptured shoulder was swollen and rigid, one side of his face was black and puffy, but he was alive, and awake, and staring up at them both. The Mayor glanced at Faith. She raised one foot and slammed it down, crushing his throat. Mayor Wilkens nodded, and continued, his arm on her shoulder as they walked out to the waiting limo.

"We'll take you by the hospital to have a look at that cut. The chief of surgery there is a very good friend of mine, we play golf every week. After that we'll stop by your place so you can clean up and change, you must want to get out of those filthy clothes, ugh. And is that your stomach that I hear? Yes? Well then, we can stop by Dennys and get some breakfast. If you're good, you can have blueberry waffles...."

He gestured absently as he opened the door to the limo for her, and a ripple disturbed the air around him for a moment. As he got in and closed the car door, a faint orange glow began inside the silent house. As the long black car pulled away, the building burst into flames, burning with a manic, supernatural intensity.

Long minutes later the first patrol cars arrived, but they found only flaming debris. Of the house's occupants, only bones remained, burned and cracked.