"DAWN!" yelled Buffy from the front passenger seat. "That is about the two hundred-and-twenty-third time you have asked me that, and for the two hundred-and- twenty-third time the answer is NO!"

"But I need the toilet!" Dawn whined. She sat, arms and legs both crossed tightly in the back seat, a dark grey cloud over her head. However, her face lightened up as the Los Angeles taxi cab they were riding in passed a sturdy red-brick building. "Can we stop off and see Angel? Oh can we - Can we - Can we?"

To this, her answer was silence. Dawn emmited a loud sigh out of the side of her mouth, sounding like a cross between a dying cat and Austin Powers when he is horny.

There was a brief silence.

"You're no fun, you know that, don't you, Buffy?" Dawn uttered. "I mean, just because Angel dumped you and didn't say good by. I mean, can't you forgive him for that? I mean, just because he came to town and stalked you for two days and then left without speaking to you, and when you confronted him about it, he hardly said two words. Would you have acted any differently? And just because he would not let you have a showdown with your arch enemy, and insisted on dealing with her himself. I mean, no body's perfect. And just because he almost killed your boyfriend, I mean -*"

"Dawn, that is enough!" Buffy growled without turning around. "You don't know what you're talking about!" She discreetly nodded towards the adipose driver. "Besides, this isn't the kind of thing we should be discussing here. If you know what I mean..."

"Don't you worry about me, miss," said the driver, speaking for the first time. "I've seen more weird things in my life time that you have, I wager."

"Oh yeah?" questioned Buffy superciliously.

A piercing squelching blare broke through the vehicle. Buffy was nauseated to see that the driver's front had split down the middle, oozing a thick green goo. From inside extended fifteen slick puice tentacles, that flailed to such a degree that neither the driver nor Buffy could see the road in front of them.

The driver elongated one of his many limbs to Buffy to be shook. "Pleased to meet you," rasped the driver, his face flooding with watery purple hue. "I'm J'kest. I'm a Lazehuit demon."

Buffy shook J'kest's tentacle courtiously. "I'm ... Buffy," she told him.

"Buffy's the Slayer!" Dawn said excitidely, leaning forward. "I'm her apprentice, Dawn." Dawn reached for a tentacle to shake, but found that it came away in her hand. She screamed and flapped back onto her seat.

"Not to worry, girly," he smiled at her through his rear view. "Plenty more where that came from. Three more slimy tentacles slid through his shoulder blades. Dawn could clearly see the huge pores from which they attenuated.

Buffy gave her sister a grisly look, but said nothing.

"So, you're the Slayer, huh, girl?" asked J'kest.

"Yes ... yes, I am," Buffy replied.

"Well, a good thing, too, if you ask me," the demon said. "There's a lot of filthy undead creatures walking the streets of L.A. this days."

"Really?" Dawn asked, trying to surpress her giggles.

Buffy shot her another deathly glance.

"Don't get me wrong. I know lot's of demons, and they're all good people. I mean, there's my parents for one thing. And my daughter. Well, she's half demon," He smacked a picture which hung over the details of his lisence. "That's her. 569 this week she is. Such a pretty picture, isn't she?"

Buffy peered at the photo. "She doesn't look quite as old as that," Buffy observed. "But then again, we know a girl whose nearly one and a half thousand years old. She only looks about my age."

"Yeah," Dawn said, disgusted. "That's Anya! She is one helluva bi-*"

"DAWN!" Buffy warned.

"Heh!" J'kest laughed, allowing green bubbles to crop up all over his skin. "You remind me a bit of my daughter." He used one of his tentacles to lower down his picture and presented it to Dawn.

"You're right," Dawn responded blankly. "She does look like me."

"What about you girls, you haven't told me about your parents," J'kest queried.

"Oh, yeah," Buffy returned unenthusiastically.

"Our mom, Joyce, lives in Sunnydale. She's single. We stay with her," Dawn exclaimed, springing out of her seat. "Our dad, Hank, stays here in L.A. Up until last week we thought he was single, but last week we got a phone call. We've come to L.A. to meet his new lady-love!"

"Don't sound so blithe," Buffy warned.

"Agreed," murmured J'kest. "I mean, you don't even know that she'll be ALL woman, if you know what I mean."

With that, Dawn fell back into her rawhide moth-eaten seat. Buffy could do nothing but laugh.

"So you girls are based over the Hellmouth, huh?" proceeded J'kest. "You must see some weird stuff down there."

"You can say that again," Buffy notified him. "There's hardly a person in town who isn't related to someone else who has some kind of supernatural power."

"Must be hard for you," J'kest responded.

"O-Boy O-Boy it is!" Dawn clamoured. "Especially that demon Anya! Ohhh! I wish she would just go away and leave Xander alone! She has no right interfering with our love! The vixen! The temptress! The virago! The-"

"Is it a right, here?" asked the driver, referring to the road ahead of them.

"No. Second left," Buffy told him. "37 Newland Lane."

"This sure is a pretty place," J'kest said. "I live in Hollywood. Not nearly is nice as here."

"Still, I guess you get to see a lot of movie stars!" Dawn commented, optimistically.

"Not really. We live in West Hollywood see? Nilfonte." answered J'kest drearily.

Dawn was dumb, she looked to Buffy for something to say.

"AHAH!" cried J'kest suddenly, making both Summers girls jump, and sending showers of green fluid in every direction. "I remember where I've seen you before, girl."

"Me?" asked Dawn. "I don't understand. I don't think you'd have seen me anywhere."

"You're that girl, em ... what is it?" asked the driver, fumbling for words.

"Ms. Muffet?" offered Buffy vacantly.

"That's it!" J'kest cried merrily. "You're the curds and wey girl!"

Dawn sighed and leaned back in her seat.

"Here we are", J'kest told them, rearing his vehicle onto the curb. "That's $23.67 please."

Buffy counted the money out on her hand and J'kest lapped it up with a quick whip of his tentacles. Gradually, Dawn managed to peel herself from her passenger seat.

As J'kest started to drive off, he hooted his horn, and called out: "Good luck with Glory!"

"Doesn't it bother you that everyone in the Black World knows everything about you?" Buffy asked her sister.

She shrugged in response. There was a brief silence as they rang the doorbell. "I need the TOILET!" Dawn yelled through the letterbox.