"Why didn't you come forward before?"

"Like I could trust you? And I'm in a bit of a dependent state at the moment. Unless you have some blood you don't mind parting with."

"Well, that's it for now. Don't leave town."

Frank had never been so glad to leave anywhere.

God, Erika - this is tremendously entertaining stuff, even without any knowledge of H:LotS. You go, girl.

suhNERK.

Only one thing (very first of anything I'd correct). This:

Despite his dislike, Frank feels that the vampire's words have the ring of truth. It all comes down to Homicide Rule 9, he thinks " It's good to be good. It's better to be lucky."

Change in tense made me jump there.

Tim at Buffy's House 1630[is this right?] Revello Drive was not what Tim expected.He thinks he should find something more mystical, like something the Dalai Lama would live in, but he finds a suburban house. He suspects that this makes the collective amnesia of this town easier to understand and accept. He thinks of his own home that looked normal, but was anything but. "Get a grip, Bayliss," he says and takes a few deep breaths.

"Can I help you?" A pretty blonde woman, a few years older than Tim is at the door. "Detective Bayliss, Homicide. I'm here to see Buffy Summers."

" This isn't about Ted, is it? Cause he was a robot." Bayliss thinks that the late nights are catching up with him. She would never say such a crazy thing. She would remind you to take your vitamins, or to change your oil, but not expect you to come by in case of roboticide.

(falling over laughing)

ROBOTICIDE?

Oh lord. I. love. erika.

Thee and me both, Deb.

(In other news, I'm all chuffed at having added another 8000 words to my big fuckoff Potterverse story these past couple of days. I think I might actually get the bugger finished before I leave the country! I do hope so. It's at 58,000 words at present, which is more than double the size of the longest thing I've ever written in my life. I'm quite excited.)

58K??? Fay, love, that's a frellin' novella.

Well, it pretty much is, yes. I think it should be around 70k when it's finished. I'm pretty chuffed.

Once this is out of the way I'm going to concentrate on trying to rewrite some of my fanfic into an idea I've had for an original novel. I know that in the real world publishers mostly don't look at anything less than, what, 100k? But 40 or 50k is allegedly novel(la) length, I think? So that's what I'm aiming for, just to see if I can do it. As a writing exercise, type of thing.

100K? Um, "Weaver" is just about 70K on the nose.

Really? Well, bugger me. That's immensely cheering.