I did not, as it happens, jump out of the car. I do admit that it was a close thing for a few minutes. It's one thing to get a half-glimpse of something odd in the middle of a rousing fight. It's quite another to be sitting next to someone who very clearly needs to use the extra-large toothbrush. Under other circumstances I might have suspected some sort of elaborate hoax, but not with Dennis' blood still drying on the edge of my jacket. "Jeremy." I'd managed to hit a whole new level of freaked that did a reasonable emulation of calm. "Could you explain a bit more? Like what's going on?" I glanced forward at the Viking-like fellow driving the car, but he seemed to have his concentration fully directed toward the road. "All right, kid." He slouched back against the seat. His face relaxed as well, the protruding fangs retracting to restore the shape of the mouth to normalcy. "What's your name, anyhow? Can't keep calling you 'kid'. Or," he smirked, "Buffy." "Mark." "Nice name, easy to remember. OK, Mark. As demonstrated, there are people in the world who're not like you. The classical concept of the vampire has some pretty serious flaws, but at least it gives you approximately the right idea. Now, in the bad old days there were a lot of..." He hesitated for a moment. "... Well, in fact it would be better to say that thre weren't many rules, and there was a lot of violence. Things have changed." He shrugged one shoulder and opened a hand, palm upwards. "Some groups decided that cutting way down on the violent interactions would be a plus for all concerned. You can think of us as a 'Save the Humans' society if you like." The ready grin flashed again, though fortunately without the extensible fangs this time. "Anyhow, there are always renegades who don't get with the program. What you just saw was the apprehension of one of those." "Apprehension?" The thick sound of the final blow echoed for a moment in my memory. "You stuck a stake in him!" "Well, yes." Jeremy tossed that off with a wave of his hand. "That will incapacitate him. Interrupts the nervous system, Amber says. Amber's the tall one with brown hair. She tries to find scientific explanations for everything. The older ones tend to just roll their eyes at her." "So he's not dead?" Speaking of apprehension, I was feeling a bit. "Not as such, no. Going to be dragged off for judgement." "I see." I don't think of myself as the sharpest pencil in the box, particularly when I've just undergone several traumatic scenes in short succession. However, in time the obvious has been known to penetrate my skull. "And you just happened to be around when he showed up?" Jeremy had the grace to look slightly embarassed. "Not exactly." He tried to sketch the situation out in the air in front of him. "There's a group we've been pursuing that seems to have moved into this general area. The Pracosta group, after their pack leader. We don't know all their members by sight, but report of the attack on your friend came over the police radio, and so we went to check it out. Seeing the nice policemen interviewing you so thoroughly, we suspected you were a witness to these events, and so we followed you to see if we could pick up the full story. The rest you saw, apparently. By the way." He twisted a little toward me. "Your help was very... timely. I was in some trouble there. Thank you." The comment came out of left field and left me a little red-faced. "I didn't do much." Reviewing the situation in my head, I had to add, "Your friends seem to move pretty fast. I guess they'd've got to you." "Maybe, maybe not." Jeremy's lips twisted. "A very little time can make all the difference. The distraction and the help - were very welcome at the time. I haven't been doing too well tonight, all things considered." For the first time, our driver interjected a comment. "Just wait until Elena has the chance to talk to you." Jeremy winced. "Thank you ever so, Lars. I've been trying not to think about that." The chuckle from the front seat had a touch of malice to it. "You'd better start paying more attention, Jer. Followed and ambushed in the same night." "You," Jeremy shot back, "didn't notice him either. We were all concentrating on the Pracosta." "And if he could follow, a Pracosta could have," Lars sighed, "which I'm sure Elena will point out in detail and at volume." "And Elena is..." I hazarded the question. "She's the one who dumped you on me. Or me on you, from your point of view," Jeremy was kind enough to reply. "Our fearless leader. Who, incidentally, has a command of sarcasm and invective that has been known to make stones blush from time to time." "So," I put this all together, "not only are you kind of a vampire police force, you have the stereotypical police captain?" Jeremy stared at me for a moment, then to my surprise erupted in great whooping gasps of laughter. Lars snickered, too, in quieter counterpoint. "Oh God..." Jeremy finally managed to enunciate, "that's just a perfect image, too. Perfect." "And on that note," Lars put in, "you can think of this as our police station." He pulled into the driveway of a sprawling farmhouse, drawing the car up among several other vehicles. "Where we will all discover what fate and Elena have in store for us."