Good for you,LJ more starting at [link] will be back to post the pundette part.

This is weird.

Livejournal isn't letting me in....

That link didn't work for me, but I can get to Livejournal in general just fine.

Yup, just got in, whimpered hysterically, and commented.

Who wants to read the opening for the first story of the sequel to "Career Change?" Series title is "Career Advancement," story title is "Reorganization."

Hector Nunoz Ramierez had worked hard all his life, starting in his uncle's Los Angeles landscaping business before he was quite legal to work, sweating in rich people's backyards during the day and attending school in the evening. By the time he was thirty, he was running the business, and by the time he was fifty, all his children were attending very good colleges-- only occasionally helping out with the business, just to remind them that all success is built on dirt.

At fifty-seven, when his wife died, his family convinced him that taking an interest in life again was not a betrayal of her memory. He had as much money as any one man really needed and then some, and he decided that all working twelve hours a day got you was sitting at funerals saying "I should have spent more time with my family." He cut back to a decadent six hours a dayand began exploring the brave new world of hobbies.

Cars. As a young man, he'd looked at the cars in the garages of the rich folk, and he could never decide which one he would buy when he was rich. Now that he was really rich, he decided to buy them all. Some of his grandchildren enthusiastically helped, and within a few years the Ramierez Collection was being talked about in the same breath as the Harrah Collection and others.

Hector hardly slept anymore. Nighttime was a good time to catch up on his car magazines and to surf the Internet for possible new acquisitions and prices. At two a.m. on the late summer night, he was the only one up when he looked out his office window and saw lights on in the garage.

The alarms hadn't gone off, so he wasn't too concerned. He probably had forgotten to turn the lights off himself when he left--or one of the grandkids had come over to drool over the new California Shelby. Ricky was still trying to negotiate his way out of being banned from the garage for sneaking several buddies in to look at his grandpa's cool cars.

The garage was the reason he'd bought the house in Glendale, bigger than he was really comfortable with. The previous owner had been a dot-com millionaire who had spent his money just as quickly as he earned it. The collection of Porsches and motorcycles had been one of the first liquidations when the bottom fell out, but the house hadn't been far behind. As Hector approached the garage, he saw a red BMW convertible parked in the shadows to one side of the big front doors. Who did he know who drove a Beemer convertible, he wondered as he stepped through the open doors.

"All right, who's here?" he called.

The place seemed empty, except for the twenty-two cars parked down both sides of the long space. Must be one of the grandkids, then, hoping not to be caught.

"I know you're here, I saw your car outside. Who's here?"

"Evenin', mate."

He seemed to have popped up out of nowhere, the slender blond Englishman in the long black leather coat.

"Who are you?" Hector asked. He looked around again. "Who let you in here?"

Another man appeared, down by the '68 Corvette. "I'm sorry, we let ourselves in. We heard about your collection and thought we'd nip on over and have a look."

This man was English, too, and possibly a bit older than the first one. He was dressed in black as well, but more respectably than his friend.

Hector blinked at them, baffled by their casualness. "It's very late."

"We know," the second one said apologetically. "We just got in, though, and thought we could peek in without bothering anyone." The look he gave his friend was oddly challenging.

Hector looked at the garage doors. "You're lucky I apparently forgot to set the alarm, though."

The blond scratched his ear casually. "Yes, lucky, that. I must say," he added quickly, "you've got some nice cars here."

"Oh, yes, I'm quite pleased with them." Hector smiled happily at having new fellow enthusiasts to chat with. "But I swore that I'd keep the collection under two dozen, and I just spotted a 1969 Detomaso Mangusta on the Internet. I may have to sell something to make room." He looked down the line of cars. "But I'd hate to part with any of them."

The second man scanned the collection with a wistful eye. "I'd make an offer for that '62 E-Type over there, if I could."

The blond shook his head. "No, no, no, Ripper, you're the T-Bird type. The '56, over there, that's a nice set of wheels."

Hector nodded. "My late wife's favorite car." He sighed briefly at the pang of memory. "Which car is your favorite?" he asked the blond.

The man reached up and fiddled with a small gemstone that pierced the top of his right ear. "They're all some very sweet cars, mate, I'll grant you that. The Coupe Deville is very nice." He began strolling down the line. "But I have to confess that, if forced to make a choice, I'd go for this one." He stopped and rested his hand on the black hood of one of Hector's more recent acquisitions.

"Oh, the 1959 DeSoto. That's actually a very rare car."

"Yes, I know." He ran his hands over the front of the hood, smiling fondly. "The Fireflite Sportsman, in Starlight Black. That's why we picked this one, because Dru liked the name of the color. She thought she was the only one who knew the stars were actually black."

Hector glanced at the second man, wondering if he should be concerned about the other one's behavior.

The second man smiled calmly. "Where did you get the DeSoto?"

"Oh, at a police auction in a little town a couple of hours from here. I got a very good deal on it." He glanced at the car sympathetically. "The poor thing was in terrible shape, with the windows covered in spray paint and really horrible stains on the upholstery. But we've got her all fixed up and looking as good as new."

The blond man walked slowly up the driver's side, running his hand along the fender. "Looks just like she did in that carlot in Memphis, where we got her."

Hector was beginning to feel faintly nervous. "Where you . . ."

"Yep. A clean, one-owner vehicle, she was." He shrugged. "Well, clean being relative, of course."

"But you're not old enough to have bought that car new."

The smile was disturbing. "Never said anything about buying, mate." He tilted his head back thoughtfully. "The salesman was quite happy to come with us on the test drive."

The other man chuckled faintly. "Let me guess, you've been test driving it ever since?"

"In a manner of speaking." He fished in his coat pocket and pulled out a set of keys, then glanced up at Hector. "Unless you've changed the locks, mate."

Hector shook his head. "I brought in a locksmith, he made new keys. This was your car? You're the one who owned it before the police seized it?"

"Which they had no right to do, as I was being illegally detained at the time." He unlocked the driver's door and swung it open. "Well, that buggering squeak's finally gone." He slid into the driver's seat with a contented sigh. "And you've fixed that damned annoying broken spring in the seat. Thank you. Oi! Where's my stereo!"

"It--was missing when I bought it."

"Rotten coppers must have kifed it, no one else in Sunnydale would have the balls to rob my car."

Hector took a step towards the door, suddenly not very comfortable with these strange visitors. Especially not if one of them was the person responsible for some of the things the police said they'd pulled out of the DeSoto.

The second man put his hand on Hector's shoulder. "Don't leave yet, Mr. Ramierez. I'm sure Spike has other questions about what happened to his car."

Despite everything, Hector could not pull away from that hand. "Please . . . I want no trouble."

"Neither do we, sir. No trouble at all."

The DeSoto's engine turned over and caught without a problem. The blond laughed and revved it a few times before turning it off. "Sweeter than she's sounded in forty years," he said, climbing out of the car. "And a full tank of gas, too. Thank you, mate." He strolled over to join them.

Hector kept shaking his head. "Just take it . . . please. I won't even call the police."

"Of course you won't." He stopped in front of Hector, then glanced thoughtfully at his friend. "Unless you want to?"

"No, I'm fine, thank you. The girl at the club earlier was enough for me."

"Right, then." He smiled at Hector. "And because you did such a nice job on the car, this will be very quick."

Hector didn't even have a chance to finish saying "What?" before his neck was snapped and fangs were in his throat.

When Spike was finished, he let the man's body fall gently and grinned at Giles. "So, fancy a new car, do you? I bet we can find the keys to these beauties around here somewhere."

Giles looked around thoughtfully, then shook his head. "I'm really fairly fond of the BMW. The E-Type would just make people think I'm having a midlife crisis or something."

"You're a baby vampire, Ripper, you're too young to have a midlife anything."

"I am not a baby."

"Are."

"Not." He shook his head. "Just get your car and let's go."

"Right. Let me get the spray paint."

"We'll be back in Sunnydale well before dawn, don't deface that lovely car if you don't have to. We can get the windows tinted when we get home."

Spike hesitated, then shrugged. "If it's not dark enough, then I'll get the paint. Fair enough, home we go." He hopped over the body on the floor and strode back to the DeSoto, bouncing happily. "And I'm getting a stereo put back in first thing!"

"Good! You can get those damned discs of yours out of my car then."

• **

yep, the boys are back in town.

Wonderful stuff! I like that Spike and Ripper are still, well, evil.

connie! I love it! Want more!

falls at connie's feet, worshipfully

I like it a lot too. What I don't like is that lj made some of my writing one with the universe. But the board seems to be "healthy" again...maybe I'll post in here.
Ethan Rayne was fuming.He'd thought he'd had his whole chocolate plan well in hand--deliver the tribute to Nokomis, muck with Ripper's playground, and slip out like the fog. Simple and pleasant. But now that know-it-all succubus was here. Or to be more correct, half-succubus. Unfortunately, her libido tended toward "repressed human" rather than "insatiably demonic" and who would think she'd get famous? He suspected that her public rancor about bi- and homosexuals had to do with her place in his queue. She just couldn't understand about the boys. And the sodding book tour happened at the worst possible time. But here she was, wearing white again...she looked more like an iceberg every time he saw her. "Hello, Ethan. Aren't you happy to see me?"
She extended her hand. He kissed it. American women were fools for a phony courtly gesture...he'd learned that much in his time here. "Of course, pet. But your notoriety is damned inconvenient at the moment. Tell Rupert to call off his boys, will you?"
"I asked you never to talk about that."
"Not Ripper, darling. Rupert Murdoch. It's funny...Ripper was the one with the natural talent, but Murdoch made the dark arts pay. Ripper had too many questions. What if we're wrong, Ethan? What if we hurt somebody, Ethan? Murdoch never worried about it. "
"A real man's man," Ann agreed, sighing.
"I always knew you fancied him."
"It's the power. But you have my soul. Literally."