The New World by Hellmouthguy

One

OLYMPUS

It was November and winter had arrived a good month early just to make damn sure everyone in Boston knew it wasn't screwing around this year. It barged in uninvited, tracked mud on the good carpet and made itself right at home, and it meant to stay awhile. People scurried along the nearly deserted streets, hugging themselves as the wind rifled through their clothes with icy fingers, stealing their warmth away, chilling them down to the bone.

The day had started cold right from the jump and the night had ended up freezing, with a hard east wind off the water that made it worse. But it was crystal clear too, a night that went on forever full of big, bright stars, the kind Boston only got at that time of year. The sky was full of diamonds that night, and the full moon was the crown jewel, the brightest, most beautiful of all. Looking up at that sky, Faith was able to forget how cold she was for awhile.

Today was her birthday. She was seventeen.

She was in Allston, the college part of town in Boston, making the hike to an apartment building she knew a couple of miles down the road. She'd made a few calls but she hadn't been able to find a couch to crash on for the night, and she had nowhere else to go. She'd spent the day shuttling between the arcade and the McDonald's and the drug store, trying to stay warm, but they were all onto her now and she either had to buy something or take off. Faith didn't have any money to buy anything. The apartment building she was heading for was an old dump that looked like it had been converted from a jail, and it was full of dealers and hookers. But the smelly old live-in super still hadn't torn himself away from his Jack Daniels and his Cinemax long enough to fix the lock on the back door and sneaking in there and laying low until morning was better than freezing.

Faith's beat-up old leather coat wasn't worth a damn in this kind of cold and the blue mittens she'd had since she was twelve had seen better days. But after twenty minutes of dragging herself through the wind and rubbing her hands together and stomping her boots to get some blood moving in her legs things started looking up: four college guys happened by and started talking to her. Faith was a scrawny little thing; two years on the street had taken a toll. But she was still a pretty girl, with her long, dark hair, big, brown eyes with movie star lashes, and a beautiful smile--and she had discovered over the years that pretty girls always had options. Unfortunately the options weren't all good ones. If it meant fun, free food and getting out of the cold, Faith was always game, but she had learned the hard way that there were dangerous people out there. So she looked the guys over before she got her hopes up, and tried to get a read on them.

"Hey dudes, what's up?" Faith said, with a sexy smile. Faith worked that smile; on the street it put food in her belly and a roof over her head.

"You're gonna party with us, sweet-cakes. It's gonna be cool," one of the college guys said. He was a blonde kid the size of a sperm whale with wispy chin hair and no neck to speak of, wearing a Red Sox cap.

"Hey, I like parties," Faith said. "But first there's just this little problem of me not having said I'll show just yet. Where's this party at?"

"Party's right here, hon," another one, a wiry little Irish guy with a crewcut and freckles, said.

"Uh...what?" Faith said. She had an alarm that went off in her head sometimes, when things got a little dicey. She needed the alarm; it was just as important to her on the street as the smile and had done just as much to keep her alive. The alarm was going off now.

"You, us," the third one said. "Here, now." He was pudgy and going bald, with small features all crowded in the middle of his flabby face. He wore a sport coat and a yellow tie, and Faith thought he looked like a Republican.

"Okay, and what are you guys talking about?" Faith said, and chuckled like they were just being funny. But she knew something was wrong. She'd been in tight spots with guys before, and she had come to understand that when guys traveled together, they were like dogs: they were a pack. A guy alone could be sweet, but once he hooked up with his buddies, he could turn on you. Faith knew the trick with dogs: don't let them know you're afraid. So she kept on smiling, and tried to come up with an exit strategy.

"She sure is a pretty girl," the fourth one, a tall, thin Asian guy with long black hair, said. "I like her."

"Think I'm pretty, huh? Aw, thanks dude, that's sweet," Faith said, and smiled some more, and played dumb, and looked around her; not panicking, just taking in the street. She knew if she panicked the four of them would be worse. They all stood closer to her now, had all gotten up in her space. They hadn't made a move yet, hadn't touched her, but the signs were all there. Faith knew that when they were in groups, guys who liked hurting girls usually took their time first, joked around with their buddies, got their courage up. Faith had seen it before. And she had always managed to get out of it before, to get away before it got bad, before anyone had a chance to hurt her. She did it by keeping her head, staying calm, not letting herself panic.

Faith's hands were numb, and she shivered. She was hungry. She hadn't eaten since yesterday and that was a candy bar she shoplifted. And she was tired. Tired of being cold, tired of being hungry, tired of pretending to smile, tired of sleeping on strangers' couches, or the street. She forced her fear back down.

She didn't know what happened. She didn't know how she'd gotten here.

She remembered running.

She had run from Southie's D Street Projects--all sterile green cinderblock walls and cold, echoing concrete hallways littered with condoms and cigarette butts--to the hard, gray streets of Boston, with its towering skyscrapers climbing perpetually up into the sky and the weary, suspicious eyes of its people cast down. She had run from school, from her Mom's boyfriends, from getting smacked around when the booze ran out between welfare checks...from being bored.

She was fifteen when she ran away. She left her Mom, blew off school, and disappeared off the grid. That's what Faith liked to call it anyway, because someone said it in this movie she liked and it made her feel cool, like a secret agent. All it really meant was she crashed on people's couches, scrounged for food, stole stuff and sometimes slept on a bench. But it was better than her Mom's place, with her Mom's loser boyfriends and the booze and getting smacked around...better than the dirty, peeling linoleum floors and her Mom's soap operas on the chintzy nineteen-inch TV...better than the green cinderblock walls and cold, echoing hallways of D Street, and the generations of beaten, downcast eyes that had looked at them, knowing they'd never leave that place: leaving part of themselves there, an invisible, yet indelible mark, instead.

She had two rules once she hit the street, two lines she had drawn, promises she had made to herself and kept. Rule number one was, she never had sex for money. There had been offers. She'd always refused, no matter how hungry she was. She'd said no, to some fat guy from the suburbs who cruised by her in a Lincoln Town Car and offered her two-hundred dollars when she was hanging on a corner downtown, just the week before. Rule number two was, she didn't do drugs. There had been plenty of offers for that, too. Scoring coke or smack or E was plenty easy at parties; everyone wanted to hook a pretty girl up.

But sometimes, when she was at a party, she'd done things, because it was expected...she stayed away from drugs, but she drank a lot and let herself get pretty wasted. It made things go smoother, and Faith soon found she had a taste for the hard stuff, whiskey and vodka. She'd done other things, too. Because they were expected. Once the party was over, if she wanted to be able to stay for a few days, she had to do things, and a warm house was better than the street. They'd fed her, given her a place to sleep...so she'd done things with guys. Only with the cute ones, the ones she liked anyway. And she never went all the way with them.

But she gave one guy a blowjob. And it was easy...so she did it again, with another guy, at another party, when he let her crash at his parents' place for a weekend, and she told herself she liked him and maybe it was like they were on a date, maybe he could be her boyfriend, and it would be okay...

When he came, he came in her mouth, and he held her head down, and didn't let her up until she'd swallowed it. She remembered how it tasted. Bitter. "Hey, that was real nice, thanks hon," he had said, when he was finished with her, and he walked away, got dressed, and went out. There was a lot of leftover booze around the house and Faith started drinking after that; she woke up the next day on a park bench with no idea how she'd gotten there, wearing someone else's tee-shirt and sweatpants, and she didn't have her underwear anymore.

She'd had a few boyfriends, here and there; guys she dated who she thought were okay at first. They were always nice, for a little while...as long as it took to get into her pants. But they never lasted, and in the end they never treated her any better than the guys she met at the parties. She lost her virginity when she was sixteen to a guy named Ronnie who lived in his parents' basement and didn't have a job. She dumped him a few weeks later after he took her out for her birthday and made her pay.

And when winter came, and it was too cold to sleep outside, Faith made the rounds of all the colleges, getting drunk in dorms and sleeping on frat house couches, and as the months passed, the word had gotten around, somehow...you wanted Faith at your kegger. She was a party girl, she was up for anything, she gave great head. She heard some guys laughing about it once, telling stories about how they'd fucked her. They hadn't, but they told the stories anyway.

It was Faith's birthday, and she had spent her day thinking about those lines she had drawn, the promises she had made, as she wandered in and out of all the stores without any money to spend, trying to stay warm. She had been wondering if there was a difference between having sex for cash, and giving head for food and a place to sleep...if there was a difference between getting wasted every other night on smack and getting wasted every other night on booze. Either way you still ended up on a bench in the morning without your panties on. Either way you were still a whore.

Faith thought she had drawn lines for herself, that she had made promises to herself and kept them, but everything got complicated and confused, and all the lines she ever tried to draw, all the promises she ever tried to make, they got blurry, they got broken...

She didn't know what happened. She didn't know how she'd gotten here.

Faith watched the four college guys, and acted like she was dumb, and thought about how to get away...and she wanted to cry. She made herself smile.

She was on a little side street and there were no people around and no traffic. But it wasn't late, only about seven-thirty. It was cold but there would still be people out; if she ran and she could just make it to Harvard Avenue, where all the restaurants were, she knew she could find people, crowds. It was cold enough that Faith didn't think the college guys would attack her right there. And anyway Faith knew they'd want to take their time with her, when they got down to it; there were four of them and they'd all want a turn.

She figured they'd try to bring her somewhere. Maybe they wouldn't even hit her. Maybe they'd bring her to someone's house, and party with her, but they'd make sure she understood that until she put out for all of them she wouldn't get to leave. It had happened to girls she knew. Guys called it "running a train." Or there was always the chance these guys would chicken out. For all their tough talk, most guys, even the ones who really hated girls, knew there was a difference between fantasizing about it and doing it. In situations like this Faith knew there was usually one guy in the group who kept his head, who was the voice of reason, who didn't let the rest get carried away. But this group didn't seem to have anyone like that. They were all on the same page. And they weren't drunk, which would make getting away from them harder. But not impossible. One thing Faith knew how to do was run. One way or another, she'd been running for two years. She just had to pick the right moment...

The Asian one said, "Let's have a kiss, girl." And something happened.

His face...changed.

It had suddenly become deformed, somehow, and his teeth had become long fangs...

He grabbed Faith by the hair, and pulled her toward those fangs, and laughed as she screamed. And then Faith saw the other three change too....turn into monsters right in front of her...

Faith kneed the Asian guy in the balls, and ran. She tried not to panic as she ran down the street, as she heard them chasing her, laughing...

Faith was fast but somehow they caught up to her in seconds, and surrounded her in the middle of the street, growling a little now and circling her. Like dogs...like wolves.

"That hurt, girl," the Asian guy said.

"Maybe she likes it rough," Freckles said. Faith looked around. There was no traffic. There were no people. Harvard Avenue was more than six blocks away.

"Help!" Faith screamed. "SOMEBODY HELP ME!" Her voice echoed down the street. Faith looked around at all the houses. No curtains moved. No one looked out their windows.

The four college guys...the four monsters...laughed. "But we can play rough, right fellas?" Freckles said, and backhanded Faith across the face. She went flying and hit the street hard.

She tried to stand up. Her Mom had smacked her around on a regular schedule and a couple of her Mom's boyfriends had gotten their shots in too, but no one had ever hit her that hard before in her life. Her legs felt wobbly. She heard the Republican say, "Dudes. A little discretion please?"

"There's a nice, private spot," Red Sox Cap said, and grabbed Faith by her coat collar and heaved her across the street into an alley. She flew thirty feet through the air and skidded across the ground and smashed into a garbage barrel, spilling trash all over her.

The garbage smelled like old coffee grounds and rotten meat and bananas. The ground was slimy with it. Faith's head felt like someone had twisted it off. Everything was spinning a little.

She looked out at the street, tried to get her eyes to focus, tried to catch the carousel as it came around again. The monsters were there. Laughing at her now.

She knew they were going to kill her.

Her life, such as it was, came into her thoughts. It didn't flash in front of her eyes like some great revelation. It just...occurred to her. She could think about it, in these last moments, or not. The memories were all there, waiting for her. She could take them or leave them. Mostly, she left them. She hadn't much liked them the first time around.

But she wondered how she had ended up in the alley...wondered how all the memories had led here, to this place, to this last moment of her life.

"Heard you give great head, honey," Red Sox Cap said, his voice echoing down the cold, deserted street. They all laughed even harder. "Heard you're a world class skank. World class."

Faith looked up at the stars. Her vision was clearing a little; things weren't spinning as much as before. She could see her breath in the air, white on black, each breath floating up into the sky, making its mark on the world, and then slowly fading away to nothing in the cold, until only the black remained.

She thought about trying to run again. But she wasn't even sure she could stand and there wasn't any real point in trying; she knew she couldn't outrun them. They were fast, inhumanly fast, faster than anyone she'd ever seen. She was used to the garbage smell now anyway. And she knew it would all be over soon.

She sifted through her memories, trying to find the one wrong move, the one disastrous mistake, that had sent her world careening off its axis; that had, finally, made this her life...made this her death. But she couldn't find any one thing. It was a bunch of little things, and they had all just...caught up to her. And now here she was, in the alley, sitting in garbage...and she was going to die.

And then, she knew. She found the answer.

She knew how she'd ended up in that alley. She knew what had brought her to this pass, what had made this her life. She knew why she was going to die.

She was going to die because she deserved to.

She knew she was going to die because she lived on the street like a lowlife and gave blowjobs at parties like a whore and stole like a thief and no one had ever given a shit about her and at the end of the day, she was just another piece of garbage. Someone no one would ever miss, or even think twice about.

She had never gone back to her Mom's house. Faith pretended it was because she had too much pride. But she knew the real reason she had never gone back, no matter how cold it was outside, no matter how long it had been since she'd eaten, was that she didn't think her Mom would let her in.

Faith had been on the street two years. She'd run into cops before. She knew her Mom had never called them. Never even reported her missing.

Faith shivered in the cold, and cried. Her tears, partially frozen, felt like little spider webs on her cheeks.

She saw life, saw her life, for what it was: a series of decisions. Faith knew she had made those decisions, that no one had made them for her. And those decisions in turn had made her what she was, made her life what it was. And she knew now that they were all the wrong decisions, and it was time for her to pay for them.

The four monsters strolled across the street toward her now, grinning. Faith looked back at them, and waited for them to come and kill her, and cried, and felt cold...

And then a silver Lexus barreled around the corner like a rocket and smashed into the monsters, running right over two of them and sending the other two flying through the air. Faith heard the car screech to a stop somewhere up the street. Then it backed up way too fast, and stopped right in front of the alley.

A woman stepped out of it.

She stood tall and straight, and she wore a classy, well-tailored gray business suit and expensive-looking shoes. She looked about thirty or so, with fine, pale skin, and her hair was done in a stylish blonde pageboy. She was pretty. She could have been an angel, standing there in the dark.

Faith wondered if she was dreaming...

The woman ran to Faith, and knelt beside her.

"Faith," she said. "Thank God. Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

Faith shrank away from her.

"My name is Rebecca Greer," the woman said. "I know we've never met. But I want to help you, Faith. I've been looking for you."

"Why would...anyone wanna look for me?" Faith said.

"Because you're special," Rebecca said.

"Your shoes are getting all dirty," Faith said.

"That's okay," Rebecca said, and smiled. "Listen. You have to come with me now, I need to get you away from those boys before they try to hurt you again. Will you let me take you out of here?"

"You...you ran them over." Faith looked out at the street. Two of them were lying there. She couldn't see the other two.

"They're not dead. I don't have time to explain it all right now, but they're still alive, and they can wake up any second. We have to leave."

"Were those guys...were they...monsters?"

"Yes. But I won't let them hurt you anymore."

Rebecca had an English accent, and the most beautiful eyes: deep, dark blue, like the ocean on a summer day. And there were tiny crow's feet at the corners of Rebecca's eyes, that told Faith Rebecca was older than she looked. But they didn't detract from her appearance; Faith thought they made her look even prettier.

Faith knew Rebecca didn't belong in that alley. She knew Rebecca didn't belong with someone like her.

"I don't want it to be like this anymore," Faith said, looking down at the ground, at the garbage all around her, and crying. "I don't want this to be my life. I don't wanna...be the girl who gives blowjobs at parties and...steals and...always feel cold all the time and...and be garbage. I don't wanna be garbage anymore."

Rebecca's stern blue eyes softened, then.

"You're not garbage," Rebecca said, and took Faith's hand. "You're not. I'm going to help you, Faith, if you'll let me. But we have to get out of here, all right? You're in danger here." Faith nodded, and Rebecca helped her up...

Faith jumped. The four college guys...the four monsters...were back. They stood at the entrance to the alley, smiling.

"Now that was rude," the Republican said. He had a tire track running across his sport coat. "And, not for nothing but, hey, Hugo Boss. Jesus, lady."

Faith felt like invisible hands were clutching her throat, like she couldn't get enough air in. Rebecca had run them over, but now they were back, and they didn't even look hurt...their faces were still deformed...they were monsters...

Rebecca was breathing just fine.

"Rude?" Rebecca hissed, and marched right up to the monsters and looked them in the eyes. "No."

"THIS IS RUDE!" Rebecca screamed, and pulled a bottle from her coat pocket and smashed it into the Republican's face. The bottle looked like it was filled with water, but the Republican screamed, smoke rising from his face like he'd been burned with acid, and he ran out of the alley like a whipped dog. The other three growled and came at Rebecca, and Faith watched in amazement as Rebecca elbowed Freckles in the neck, spun and launched a fast high kick that sent Red Sox Cap flying back into a wall, avoided the Asian guy as he slashed at her with hands like claws, and flipped him over her shoulder.

"Faith, get in the car!" Rebecca shouted, holding what looked like a piece of wood in her hand now, as the three monsters got back up. They surrounded Rebecca, snarling and snapping at her, as Faith ran into the Lexus and locked it behind her.

"I know what you are," Rebecca said to the monsters. "I know how to kill you."

Freckles sprang at Rebecca; she aimed a brutal kick at his balls and sent him tumbling to the ground.

"Three on one, bitch," the Asian guy said. "I like those odds."

Faith sat in the Lexus, with tears in her eyes, shaking. She knew how to hotwire a car; Steve, her klepto car thief boyfriend, had taught her when they dated for that month before he got sent to prison. She checked the key mechanism. She could start the Lexus up and be out of there in thirty seconds.

She watched Rebecca, standing up to the monsters. Rebecca was protecting her, just like she said she would...she was risking her life for her. This woman she had never met before was protecting her...a girl she found in an alley, sitting in a pile of garbage.

Faith looked in the rear-view mirror, and saw herself.

She knew life was a series of decisions.

So she made one.

She left the car, and ran to Rebecca's side.

"Three on two, assholes, Faith said. "You want her, you go through me."

Rebecca smiled.

"The skank speaks," Red Sox Cap said. Freckles got up, still bent over a little in pain. The three monsters circled around Rebecca and Faith, snarling.

"I'm not a skank," Faith said.

They could hear sirens in the distance.

"Hope to see you again, pretty girl," the Asian guy said, and leered at Faith like a jackal.

And the monsters ran away...

Rebecca adjusted her suit and fixed her hair. To Faith she seemed so tall and stern and blue-eyed and pretty...like some goddess looking down at her from Mount Olympus. And not altogether approving of what she saw. But Rebecca smiled again.

"Faith, we need to talk," she said. "But not here, and not to the police."

They hopped in the Lexus and burned rubber out of there, an idea Faith enthusiastically supported. For one thing, it was about ten degrees outside now and the Lexus was nice and warm. For another, she'd had skirmishes with cops before and she thought maybe they'd have a problem believing a story about monster guys who got back up after you ran them over. Faith knew cops were just skeptical like that.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Rebecca said. Faith didn't know where Rebecca was taking them; she seemed to be heading back downtown.

"Yeah, but...how did you do all that stuff?" Faith said.

"That? That was nothing. The day a bunch of louts like those give me an ounce of trouble I'll retire straightaway."

"What's a lout?"

"A stupid bully. Are you hungry?"

Faith was starving.

"Guess I could eat," Faith said.

Rebecca looked at her. Faith was 5'5" and there wasn't an ounce of fat on her. Her cheekbones were sunken. Rebecca knew she couldn't weigh a hundred pounds.

"Well. This is a wretched little hamlet, but I passed a restaurant downtown earlier that didn't seem a completely lost cause," Rebecca said. "Shall we get some supper?"

"I...uh...I don't really...have much money," Faith said.

"My treat."

"Okay...thanks. What's a wretched little hamlet?"

"A rotten, backward place."

"You think this is all hamletish, you oughta see Southie."

"I have, actually. It's quite wretched as well."

"So like, supper's not gonna be all tea and crumpets, is it?"

"Americans," Rebecca said with a smile. "I really do enjoy you all. No. I don't imagine we'll be having any crumpets. Though I may have tea with my dessert, and you can too, if you want."

"How come you helped me? How come you knew my name and you were looking for me?"

"Because you have a destiny, Faith," Rebecca said.

And she drove Faith away from the wretched little hamlet...away from green cinderblock walls and peeling linoleum floors, and cold winter days spent on the street, and nights spent drunk on strangers' couches...away from wandering, without discipline, without purpose...and into a new world.

It was a world of magic.

A world of demons and vampires. A world of monsters, and heroes to fight them. Or one hero, to be exact. One female hero. The Slayer, the one girl in all the world who was called upon by destiny to defend humanity against the encroaching darkness, against the threats that lurked just beyond our perceptions...

Except now there were two.

"Buffy Summers became the Slayer about a year ago when Madeleine Lambert, the previous Slayer, was killed by an extremely powerful vampire named Kakistos," Rebecca said. "Last spring Buffy was injured and was clinically dead for a short time. She was revived, but she had been dead long enough for a new Slayer to be called. That Slayer's name is Kendra Young; she's from Jamaica. So now there are two Slayers. The situation is...unique."

"What kind of goofy name is 'Buffy'?" Faith said.

"I imagine it's a family name of some sort. Some unfortunate attempt to honor a great-grandmother or an old aunt with six cats. But I've read some reports...the girl is quite resourceful. She's won some impressive battles."

They were eating in a restaurant in Boston by the Harbor. Faith liked the place. It was ritzy, elegant, with walls done in oak, and chandeliers hanging down from the high ceilings; a good place to eat and talk. Faith noticed the nice rugs, and good paintings of boats and landscapes and horses on the walls. And she noticed a lot of rich people, or they may as well have been as far as she was concerned. Lots of suits, polished shoes and expensive watches. There was a great view of Boston Harbor, with all the city lights reflecting on the water and the cold December wind whipping the waves over the docks a little, and the waiter never said a word about how Faith was dressed. Maybe Rebecca was dressed classy enough for two.

Faith ate her steak and her baked potato, and looked around at all the rich people and the good paintings, and tried to decide just exactly how crazy Rebecca was. So far Rebecca had talked about magic, vampires, and girls with superpowers, and Faith was wondering when she'd get to the part about aliens and government conspiracies, or maybe the Loch Ness Monster. Faith didn't know what was up with those four guys exactly, why their faces suddenly got all deformed, how they survived being run over.

But they couldn't have been vampires...could they?

"Uh-huh," Faith said, concentrating on her steak and nodding in all the right places as Rebecca talked. It was a good steak.

When Faith was finished eating, Rebecca raised her eyebrow and said, "Do you like chocolate cake?"

"Sure," Faith said.

"I thought so. You look like a chocolate girl," Rebecca said, as the waiter came up behind Faith, and placed a chocolate birthday cake with seventeen candles on the table in front of her.

"Happy birthday, Faith," Rebecca said.

Faith was glad the waiter went away without singing. Rebecca didn't sing either. But she smiled.

"I...don't...know what to say," Faith said.

"Make a wish," Rebecca said.

Faith blew out the candles, and made a wish...and smiled, and wiped a tear from her eye.

Later that night, the Lexus purred incongruously through a run-down neighborhood of warehouses, industrial parks and weed-grown lots. Graffiti marred every wall, and the cold wind blew trash down the empty streets like tumbleweeds in an old West ghost town. Junkies huddled in alleys, dressed in rags, watching the Lexus with sunken, half-dead eyes.

Faith looked out the window at the Boston skyline across the Harbor as they drove, at all those majestic skyscrapers reflecting the moon, and promising the world. Faith had stood beneath those skyscrapers, looking up at those soaring spires while everyone else's eyes were looking down; as they all scurried about the sad, tedious business of living out their days. And she knew the promise was an illusion...a lie. The Harbor water looked cold and black.

"Where are we?" Faith said.

"Somewhere called Chelsea," Rebecca said.

"Sure is a wretched hamlet. Why are we way out here?"

"Because you don't believe me."

"Uh..." Faith said, and glanced nervously back at Rebecca.

"Don't get me wrong, Faith," Rebecca said. "There's no reason you should believe me. A woman appears out of nowhere telling outlandish stories about vampires and girls with super-strength? Preposterous. But let me ask you a question. Do you have an explanation for those four boys?"

"I don't...I don't know," Faith said.

"I do," Rebecca said. "They were vampires. And even though it all sounds ridiculous, everything I told you is true. And I'm going to prove it to you. I'm going to open your eyes and show you the world. I might shock you, Faith. I might scare you. But I'll never lie to you. That's why I told you the truth about Slayers and vampires and demons in the restaurant when I knew you were looking at me like I have two heads. Because you have to know you can trust me."

Rebecca looked down the street, apparently saw what she was looking for, and parked in a narrow alley beside a boarded-up laundromat.

"So, uh...what are we doing here?" Faith said.

"Stay in the car, Faith," Rebecca said. "And pay attention." Rebecca was watching a man as he walked down the street toward them.

"Who's that guy...?" Faith said. "Why is he...what's he want?" Faith thought about running. She could run right now. But she didn't even know where she was and it was freezing outside...and she wanted to stay with Rebecca.

Rebecca turned to Faith, and looked her in the eyes. "Faith, I know you don't believe me," she said. "I know you're scared. But you'll be all right, I promise. I'd never let anyone hurt you. Just stay in the car."

The man was almost at the car. Faith thought he looked like a biker. He was wearing a leather coat, with biker colors. He had long hair, a bandana, and a bushy beard...but now Faith could see that his face was deformed...

Just like the four college guys...

Rebecca left the car, and the man leaped at her, roaring like an animal.

Faith screamed...

It was over in about five seconds. Rebecca kicked the man in the stomach, elbowed him in the back of the neck, smashed his face into the pavement and he was out cold.

She pulled a pair of handcuffs from her coat, cuffed his hands behind his back, walked away from him and opened the car door. "Go into the glove compartment and get the cross and the bottle," she said, and returned to the man.

Faith opened the glove compartment and found a wooden cross and a glass bottle filled with a clear liquid, like the one Rebecca had smashed into the Republican's face. She noticed the bottle had a little cross imprinted on the front. She got out of the car, and crept out of the alley. Rebecca was crouched down beside the biker. He was still unconscious. Rebecca had her back turned to her.

Faith knew she had to make a decision. She could run. Or not.

She crouched down beside Rebecca.

"What are we doing?" Faith said. "Didn't figure you for a mugger."

"Look closely, Faith," Rebecca said. "This is a vampire."

"Uh-huh."

Rebecca turned the man over, lifted his lips, and tilted his face toward the streetlight, so Faith could see. There were ridges and bumps on his forehead. He had long, pointed teeth.

"Note the deformed cranial structure and the canine teeth," Rebecca said. "Vampires look like this in their natural state, when they're about to feed. But they can change their appearance at will, passing for human. Most people have seen a vampire at some point in their lives, without realizing it."

Rebecca smiled, and raised her eyebrow. "I know," she said. "You still don't believe me. To be expected. Hand me that cross."

Faith gave her the cross, and Rebecca held it against the man's forehead.

"This should wake the old fellow up," Rebecca said, and the cross began to burn the man's forehead, smoke actually rising from it. He screamed and tried to move, but Rebecca clubbed him in the face with her forearm, and he fell back against the pavement, growling and baring his fangs. Rebecca's knee was on his stomach and her forearm was tight against his neck. He was immobile beneath her on the pavement like a rat in a rat trap.

"What...the fuck...?" Faith said, as tendrils of smoke rose from the man's forehead, and his skin hissed and cooked like meat in a frying pan.

"Swearing is a crutch we use when we can't think of a more appropriate word," Rebecca said. "It masks limited vocabulary and makes one seem crude. Don't swear."

"Uh...darn."

"Better. Vampires can't bear crosses. See how his skin is smoking? With long enough exposure he'll begin to burn. Now the bottle, please."

Faith handed her the bottle. When Rebecca put the cross down Faith noticed that its shape was burned into the man's skin. Rebecca took the cap off the bottle, and sprinkled some of the liquid on her own hand. It had no effect. "This is water," Rebecca said. "It can't hurt me, obviously. But it's not ordinary water. It's holy water, which means it's been blessed by a priest. Watch."

Rebecca sprinkled the water on the man's face. He screamed, and his face turned black and began to smoke where the drops landed, as if the water was acid.

Rebecca looked at Faith, and poured the water on her own hand again. Nothing happened.

"Holy water can hurt vampires, like it hurt our friend in the Hugo Boss coat," Rebecca said. "A high enough concentration of it can kill them, though like a cross it would take awhile. No, your best friend for killing a vampire is this." She pulled a wooden stake from her coat pocket.

"A wooden stake to the heart, and the vampire dies instantly," Rebecca said. "This is going to be shocking, Faith." The man desperately tried to get up now, growling and screaming. Faith looked around. Screaming wouldn't do a whole lot of good in this neighborhood. Rebecca brutally elbowed the man in the face, cracking his head against the sidewalk, and he fell unconscious again. His screams echoed down the dirty street, and faded away.

"Wait, what are you--?" Faith said...

And Rebecca plunged the stake into the man's heart, and he turned to dust.

Faith jumped backwards, and sat under the streetlight, gaping at the pile of dust...at the dust, already scattering away on the cold wind, that was all that remained of the man...

...Of the vampire.

Rebecca stood up, and looked at Faith, her stern blue eyes fixed on her. Faith felt those blue eyes; she felt their weight.

Above Rebecca's head, the full moon had made it over the ugly old factory down the street, and it peered down at Faith with her, a perfect circle of pure white.

"You're a potential Slayer, Faith," Rebecca said. "One of many around the world. No one can know which one will become the next Slayer. But it's certain that one of them will. All we can do is prepare them. I'm your Watcher. I'm here to prepare you."

The street was quiet, and cold. Only the wind made any sound, but even it was hushed now. It was as if the world had paused. Faith felt like the world was watching her, and waiting...

"I'm going to teach you how to fight," Rebecca said. "I'm going to teach you about your enemies, and the world that's been kept hidden from you. And I'm going to teach you about yourself. You're stronger and better than you know. You're important, Faith; you matter. Don't ever let yourself think you don't."

Rebecca crouched down beside Faith, on the dirty sidewalk.

"You're special, Faith," Rebecca said. "But not just because you're a potential Slayer. You're special, because you're a very brave, and good, young woman. I know why you ran away. It's time to stop running now."

Rebecca held out her hand.

"Let me help you, Faith," she said.

Rebecca held out her hand...from Mount Olympus, from atop those skyscrapers across the Harbor that reflected the moon, and promised the world.

And Faith knew the world was waiting for its answer.

She knew life was a series of decisions...

Faith took Rebecca's hand, and they stood up together.

Two

THIS IS YOURS

"This is yours," Rebecca said the next morning. She was holding a wooden stake in her hand. "It's good solid ironwood and it will last you a good long time."

They were standing in the living room of the three-story brownstone Rebecca had purchased a few weeks before at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Berkeley Street, the big bow window filling the room with light. Rebecca had furnished the house with beautiful antique furniture, and there was a grand piano in the living room, and she hinted ominously at giving Faith lessons. The whole house had hardwood floors, and there was a real working fireplace. When Faith looked out the window she could see that their front lawn, bursting with violets and tulips, was the biggest one on the whole street. Her mother's entire apartment could have fit in the dining room. Faith thought it was a castle. But when she remembered that house in later years, she would mostly remember how bright it was; it always seemed full of sunlight.

Faith took the stake, looked at it, got a feel for it in her hand. It was very dark brown, smooth and polished. Faith liked the grain of the wood. She liked the way it fit in her hand.

"I don't want to see you without it," Rebecca said. "When you go out that stake goes in your pocket. I don't care where you are or who you're with, it must be within reach, at all times."

Commonwealth Avenue was in the rich part of Boston; it was a very wide street with grand old townhouses running up and down, each with a tiny little front yard meticulously laid out with flowers. But Faith thought the best thing about it was the tree-lined greenway running down the middle, where kids would walk their dogs and toss frisbees around among the old bronze statues, and the trees would drop leaves all over the place, making the street look like a painting. To a girl from the Southie projects, it was a kind of magic.

"Yes, it'll have to do, I suppose," was what Rebecca said, when Faith looked out at it.

Then she said, "Now let's get to work."

"Uh...you sure about this?" Faith said.

They didn't get to work right away. First, Rebecca had decided Faith needed some things, starting with a new wardrobe. Faith liked Rebecca, but she didn't like charity, and every time Rebecca gave her something Faith felt like something was being taken away from her. Like loans she couldn't repay...like promises she couldn't keep. Faith tried to convince Rebecca that she could make do with just a couple more pairs of cheap jeans and a few shirts, But Rebecca wasn't having any of it. "Nonsense," Rebecca had said. "You need clothes and I'll hear no more on the subject." And that was that.

So Faith stood in front of the mirror that afternoon outside the changing room in Bloomingdale's, a very upscale clothing store in a mall about a twenty minute drive from Rebecca's house. It was called the Chestnut Hill Mall and Faith had never been there before, but she thought it looked pretty swank. Rebecca had heard good things about it and wanted to "have a look about".

Faith stood in front of the mirror, wearing a dress and high heeled shoes, feeling like one of those ridiculous little rat dogs old women lugged around, all bundled up in little doggie sweaters with bows in their hair. She felt like she was on a leash. She looked at the mirror like she wanted to pick a fight with it.

Rebecca stood behind her, and smiled. "Yes, quite sure," she said. "I'm sure it looks wonderful on you, and I'm also sure you hate it."

"It looks okay but...it's just...I'm not much for dresses," Faith said.

"Why not?"

"Don't know. Just...I guess it doesn't really feel like me."

"I'll make you a deal, Faith. You do need some dresses and skirts, and good shoes; I want you to be able to dress up on occasion. But I don't want you to be uncomfortable. Pick out a few dresses and a few skirts and blouses, and at least two pairs of good shoes, and then you can pick out as many pairs of jeans and boots and all the rest as you please. Sound good?"

"Okay, but...I don't...really need all this stuff, y'know?"

"Faith," Rebecca said. "I know this makes you uncomfortable. I know you think this is charity. But it isn't."

Faith stood in front of the mirror, looking down at her shoes.

"Look at me," Rebecca said.

Faith looked up at her. Rebecca smiled.

"I know this is hard for you," Rebecca said. "Harder, in a way, than living on your own was. Because it's hard to be given things when you feel you haven't earned them, when you feel that you're in someone's debt, and you can't see any way of ever repaying that debt. But this isn't about putting you in my debt. This is about me, not you. It's about me, paying off my own debt."

"Uh...okay, you kinda lost me there," Faith said.

"I do tend to make speeches sometimes," Rebecca said, with a smile and a raised eyebrow. "I've always been rather trying that way and I'm afraid you'll just have to have a stiff upper lip about the whole ordeal and bear with me."

"Okay," Faith said, and giggled. "I'll try to keep up."

Rebecca's smile went away. Her deep blue eyes looked at Faith keenly... but Faith thought they were looking at something else.

"We all come into this world with nothing," Rebecca said. "And what we end up having in our lives is often a matter of simple luck. In some countries children die of diseases that were cured decades ago. It's an unjust world, and there is only one real duty we each have in it. It's our duty to try to help where we can. And when someone helps us, we have a debt to repay. We repay the debt by helping someone else. Someone helped me, a long time ago, when I was in a very bad place...a place so bad I never thought I'd make it out. And I have a debt to repay. I have a debt to repay, to you, Faith. I needed help from someone once, and you need help from me now, and someday, someone else will need help from you. We all need help sometimes. That's just life."

"Pretty good speech," Faith said, and smiled.

"Yes, I give a ripping good speech," Rebecca said. "But unfortunately I can't cook worth a damn so we'll be eating out a lot. And I fancy eating in good restaurants. Assuming I can find us a few in this benighted little burg. And good restaurants tend to frown upon jeans and tee-shirts. And I do like you, you know. You're a good girl, Faith, and you deserve good things."

"What's a benighted little burg?"

"A tiny little unenlightened place. But anyway I'm afraid you'll need to dress up on occasion and you'll just have to grit your teeth and get through it. Do you think you can do that?"

"Guess I can handle it," Faith said. She looked in the mirror again. "Gotta admit, I do look just a little bit hot."

Rebecca laughed. It was a high, lilting laugh; it made her sound like a girl. Faith liked it. And it was an infectious laugh; Faith found herself laughing too.

"Yes, Faith, absolutely smashing," Rebecca said.

Faith sat in her room two days later, in the sneakers and sweatpants that Rebecca had bought her, looking down at the floor. It was a nice room, like every other part of the house: big, with hardwood floors and a bow window that let in lots of light. But Faith knew it wasn't hers, not really. It belonged to Rebecca, just like everything else Faith had.

Rebecca had put her through a grueling workout the day before, and Faith's entire body ached. They had run a mile, and at the end of it Faith's legs felt like rubber bands. Then there was an hour of weightlifting. They worked on the chest and triceps that first day, and Faith wasn't strong enough to get any weight up on the bench; she had to lift the bar without any plates on it, and she barely managed to get even that up once. After that Rebecca taught her how to hit the heavy bag. It always looked fun in the movies; Faith had no idea it would be so exhausting. She was dripping with sweat within minutes. Then there was a little rubber punching bag that looked like a balloon that was nailed up on the wall; Rebecca said it was called the speed bag and all you had to do was hit it really fast, getting your hands into a rhythm. After twenty minutes Faith hadn't managed to hit it more than three times in succession, though she had managed to hit the nail a couple of times. And after that Rebecca and Faith had sparred for a couple of hours. Though Faith thought calling it "sparring" would be a charitable description; it was more like Rebecca tossed Faith around, and Faith landed exactly where Rebecca threw her on the mat.

Faith had never felt so exhausted in her life. And Rebecca had told her they were going easy that first day. Faith's finger had a band-aid on it where she hit the nail on the speed bag, and it still hurt.

She sat on the king-sized four-poster bed, the kind she'd only seen in movies and always wished she had, in the big, beautiful room in the big, beautiful house, her whole body sore, her hand aching from the nail...and she looked out the window at the morning, and thought about her old bicycle.

The local church had given it to her in their yearly charity drive. It was a beat-up little pink bike, with a basket and a bell and a few old fading decals, and it was rusty. The other kids made fun of it. But Faith was only ten years old, and she loved that goofy little pink bike, rust and all. She just didn't know how to ride it...

There was a knock at the door. It surprised her. She'd never had her own room with a door on it before.

"Uh...come in?" she said.

Rebecca walked into the room in her sneakers and sweats, and sat next to her on the bed.

"How come you knocked?" Faith said.

"It's your room," Rebecca said. "It would be rude to walk in without knocking."

"Your house," Faith said.

"It's your house too," Rebecca said. Faith shrugged her shoulders, and looked back down at the floor.

"So how did you like your first day?" Rebecca said. "I expect you're feeling rather sore this morning."

"One way to put it," Faith said.

"I know yesterday was tough. Today will be too. But you'll get better at it, and very quickly."

"Hard to be worse."

When Faith brought the bike home her mother said, "Where'd you steal that thing?"

"I didn't," Faith said. "Saint Augustine's gave it to me."

"Cops find out you stole it I'll fuckin' smack you silly, little girl," her mother said. "I don't need no cops here."

"I didn't fuckin' steal it!" Faith shouted.

Her mother laughed, a hoarse laugh, laced with cigarette smoke. "Sure, like you didn't steal those jeans last month," she said. "You always been a little thief. Don't matter to me what you do. But if the cops grab you and I gotta explain it to them I'll smack you silly. Smack you fuckin' silly, so help me Jesus."

"I don't know how to ride it," Faith said.

Her mother shrugged her shoulders and walked away.

"In a week you'll be running that mile like it's the easiest thing in the world," Rebecca said. "In a month you'll be twice as strong as you are now, and you'll make that speed bag dance."

Faith chuckled. "Now I know you're fuckin' shitting me," she said. "Besides, twice as strong as zero's still zero, right?"

"Faith," Rebecca said, in a tone that Faith hadn't heard her use before. It made Faith snap her head up, startled.

"I don't want you swearing," Rebecca said.

"Uh...yeah, okay," Faith said. "Sorry."

"And that bar you were lifting weighs thirty pounds even without any plates on it."

"Could barely even lift it once."

"In a month you'll be doing double that at least, and it will seem easy."

"Yeah? How am I gonna do that?"

Faith tried to ride the bike, and found that she couldn't. She kept falling off. After a long day of taking headers onto the dirty asphalt behind her building, she finally gave up, and left the bike next to the garbage dumpster. The next day the trash collectors came and took it, and it was gone.

"Because I'm going to help you," Rebecca said. "I'm not telling you it'll be easy. It won't. But I'll be there for every minute of it with you."

Rebecca raised her eyebrow in that funny way she had, and smiled.

"You and me, Faith," Rebecca said. "We'll get through it together. How about it?"

Faith looked back down at the floor. She was tired. Her hand still hurt.

"Okay," Faith said.

"Time for our run," Rebecca said, and stood up.

Faith nodded, and stood up with her.

Rebecca was right: it wasn't easy. But Faith did it anyway.

Faith wasn't sure why...but she stuck to it, and did her best, no matter how tired she was, no matter how hard it was. She surprised herself. She didn't think she could be so patient. She didn't think she could try so hard...and then she remembered what Rebecca had said to her.

You're stronger and better than you know.

And Faith felt good about herself...for the first time in a long time...

They ran in the mornings, and hit the heavy bag, six days a week, and lifted weights four days a week. Afternoons were learning how to fight: aikido, boxing, weapons training, and a kind of street fighting called Krav Maga that was used in the Israeli Defense Forces. Faith liked the fighting best and the running worst. She got winded after a few blocks and her legs felt like they were made out of wood by the end of a mile. But Rebecca was right: Faith got better at it quickly, and by the end of that first week she could run the mile without slowing down to a walk and without getting out of breath. And as much as Faith bitched about all the exercise, Rebecca kept her word, and did every single minute of it with her.

Since Rebecca couldn't cook worth a damn and Faith's specialty was grilled cheese sandwiches (which Rebecca called "charming, in an American sort of way"), they ate out a lot. That's where they were the next Friday night, at a swish little steakhouse called Abe and Louie's on Boylston Street a few blocks from Rebecca's house. Faith was uncomfortable; the place had a dress code, and she'd had to wear one of the skirts Rebecca had bought for her. She ate her good steak, and fussed with her hair, and looked around at all the people in their nice clothes. She looked like she belonged with them now. But she knew she didn't.

"So what are your plans for the weekend?" Rebecca said.

"Uh...I don't know," Faith said. "Don't really have any plans."

"Faith, it's Friday night and you've just had a grueling week of exercise and listening to me talk," Rebecca said, and smiled, and drank her wine. Faith had a Coke. Rebecca didn't want her drinking until she was eighteen. "Surely you must want to go out, hang around in clubs listening to rock bands or whatever dodgy things you teenagers get up to these days."

Faith shrugged her shoulders. She didn't have any money. She didn't have any friends. She didn't have anywhere to go.

"Of course, if you'd be willing to put up with me for a bit, I was hoping you'd join me to see the Celtics tomorrow," Rebecca said. "They're playing Chicago; it promises to be quite a barnburner, from what I've been told."

"You're into basketball?" Faith said. Faith had only known her a week, but she had learned pretty quickly that Rebecca was full of surprises.

"I have no idea," Rebecca said. "I've never been to a basketball game. I do like rugby. And one of the things this town has going for it is its sports teams, so I thought we could sample them. How about you? Do you like basketball?"

"The Celts? Sure. Good luck gettin' tickets though."

"I have the tickets. Two at center court right behind the Celtics bench."

"You're shi...uh...you're crapping me," Faith said. "How'd you manage that? You know how hard Celts tickets are to get, even crap seats? And against the Bulls? Thought those would have sold out before the season even started."

"I know people," Rebecca said. "I made a few calls and Bob's your uncle."

"He is? Bob who?" Faith said.

Rebecca laughed. "Sorry, I'm being British again," she said. "It's a way of saying something is easy. The equivalent here would be, 'that's all there was to it'. So. You and me and Len Bias and Michael Jordan tomorrow. Sound like fun?"

"Sounds like a party," Faith said. "Hell, invite Uncle Bob too."

"Good," Rebecca said, laughing again. "And it's an afternoon game, you'll have plenty of time to go out tomorrow night and do God knows what you teenagers do. It will involve boys, no doubt."

Faith shrugged her shoulders again. "Yeah, well...I don't really have plans," she said.

Rebecca went into her purse, pulled money out of it, and slid the money across the table to her. Faith didn't pick it up.

"Do you have plans now?" Rebecca said.

"Uh...what's this?" Faith said.

"A weekly allowance. Take it."

"Uh...look...that's really nice of you, but..."

"Faith, if you were any other girl you would have time to work a paying job, and be able to earn your own spending money. But you're not any other girl, you're a potential Slayer, and your job is to let me train you. That job is very hard and it takes up a lot of your time, and you should have some spending money. And you're going to have some spending money. That's a hundred dollars. Every Friday I'm going to give you a hundred more, and you're going to go out and have fun and do whatever you want with it, and that's final."

"But..." Faith said. Rebecca held up her hand.

"I don't want to hear another word," Rebecca said. "Go out, enjoy yourself. Go out dancing, go to a movie, buy some records, buy some earrings."

Faith looked down at the money.

"I don't really...have anyone to go with," she said. "I mean, there were people I hung out with back in Allston, y'know, people I saw at parties...but...I don't...really have, like, friends I can just call up outta the blue."

"Yes, you do," Rebecca said. "You have me. And I know I'm not the most fabulous sort of friend, but one has to start somewhere."

"You're pretty fabulous, Becca," Faith said, and smiled.

"Thank heaven, I was beginning to worry," Rebecca said. "But it's a good thing you don't have any other friends right now, and I'm going to tell you why, and I'm going to be blunt about it. Ready?"

"Uh...okay," Faith said.

"The people you hung around with were worthless," Rebecca said. "If they were still around I wouldn't allow you to see them. You were in that alley for a lot of reasons, and the people you surrounded yourself with were one of those reasons. They weren't your friends. You're well rid of them."

Faith nodded.

"You're starting from scratch now, Faith," Rebecca said. "You were in a bad place before but now you're out if it, now you're somewhere new, and it will take you time to acclimate yourself."

"What's acclimating myself?" Faith said.

"Getting used to something new," Rebecca said. "You're starting over. New friends are a part of that. But you'll have to find them, and that's something I can't do for you. You're a lovely girl and anyone would be lucky to be able to count you as their friend. Now I won't force you to go out, and I like your company anyway. And I'm not just saying that. I told you when we first met that I won't ever lie to you, and I assume you trust I'm not lying when I say I like you, I like talking to you, I like your company."

"Why?" Faith said.

"Why do I like you?"

"Yeah." Faith looked straight at Rebecca, when she said that.

"Because you come right out and say what's on your mind, for one thing," Rebecca said, and smiled. "I like how you try, even though things are hard. I like how you make me laugh. I like how you were just a tiny bit pleased with yourself when I bought you the dress and you saw how you looked in it. I like how you call me 'Becca'. I like how you pout when you can't get a rhythm on the speed bag, and then you take all your frustration out on the punching bag. And I think you're just a bit goofy. But in an endearing way."

Faith smiled.

"But you need other people in your life, and the only way that can happen is if you go places and meet them," Rebecca said. "You'll be alone in those places at first, but that shouldn't last long."

"Well...I like to dance," Faith said.

"Excellent. Go out and dance. And one more thing. You're a smart girl, Faith, but you didn't always use your head, back in Allston. You let people take advantage of you. I don't want you to ever do that again."

Faith nodded, and looked down at her steak.

"You have a lot to offer," Rebecca said. "People will see that. Just give it time. Not everyone is out to take advantage. There are good people out there too."

Faith nodded again. She knew what most people thought she had to offer.

"Well?" Rebecca said, and glanced at the money in front of Faith.

Faith took it, still looking down at her steak.

"Thank you," Faith said.

"You're welcome," Rebecca said.

"It's just...people see me...guys see me...and they're all thinking one thing, Becca," Faith said.

"Faith," Rebecca said. Faith looked up at her.

"You said you didn't want that to be your life anymore, in the alley," Rebecca said. "You made that decision; no one could have made it for you. I didn't make it for you. Now you have to trust that decision, and trust yourself. You don't want that to be your life? Then don't let it be your life. Demand more from people you call your friends. Don't let people take advantage of you. Know that you're worth more than that, that you deserve better than that. When I saw you in that alley I didn't see a scared girl sitting on the ground; I saw a brave girl trying to stand up. So stand up. Stand up and be strong. Not for me. For you."

"You really think...I can do all that stuff?" Faith said.

"No," Rebecca said. "I know for a fact you can. And I expect you to."

"Okay," Faith said.

Rebecca got Faith back up to a good, healthy weight within a month, and after that Rebecca worked on turning that weight into muscle.

The workouts were grueling, but Faith soon found that she liked them, that she liked the structure they gave to her day. After two years on the street with nothing to do but try to stay warm, Faith found she liked having goals; she liked trying to get up to two miles on their runs, and then three; she liked when she could add weight to the barbell. She liked learning new fighting moves, and practicing them until she could do them perfectly without having to think about them. She liked finally getting a rhythm on the damned speed bag. And she liked when Rebecca smiled at her, and told her she was doing well; she liked seeing that look in Rebecca's eyes, when she knew she'd made Rebecca proud of her.

Rebecca gave her nights and Saturdays off ("but be home promptly by one a.m., and don't test me".) And she took Faith places: movies and ball games and museums. It turned out Rebecca did like basketball, and football, and she especially liked hockey ("smashing"). Faith was a little iffy about going to a museum that first time, but she had never been to one before, so she decided to give it a try one Saturday afternoon, and have an open mind. Rebecca had promised they wouldn't be there longer than two hours, and they were going to the movies afterwards, so it was a fair trade-off.

Faith thought the Museum of Fine Arts was kind of boring, that December day, as she trailed along behind Rebecca in a dress and high heels she couldn't wait to get out of, and looked at all the old paintings; but Faith liked seeing new places, and she had never been there before. It was a bright, cavernous, quiet place: Faith thought parts of it looked like a library, and parts like a cathedral, and parts like a castle, and there were long flights of stairs and long hallways done in marble in every part of it that made her shoes echo down the corridors with a click-klack sound. Everyone whispered, as if the paintings might overhear them and get offended. People stood very close to the paintings, studying them, and Faith wondered what they saw there. Faith stood very close to some of the paintings and studied them, and she didn't think she saw anything much.

But she liked hearing Rebecca talk about the paintings. The Museum of Fine Arts was "sadly limited in both its financial resources and its vision, but someday we'll hop over to New York City, or perhaps the Louvre", according to Rebecca, but Faith thought some of the paintings were actually pretty cool. She liked all the Monets, and she liked John Singer Sargent. She didn't stand six inches away and get all enlightened in front of them like a lot of the people there did, or pretended they did, but Faith looked at the paintings, and appreciated them, especially after Rebecca talked about them. She liked how Monet's "Haystacks" looked like different times of day, and she liked the people in Sargent's portraits...they seemed like they were right there in the room with her. Faith wondered what they would have thought if Sargent told them some crazy potential Slayer girl from Boston would be staring in their faces ninety years later.

"Would you like a painting for your room?" Rebecca said, watching her look at the Sargents. "There are some galleries on Newbury Street I'd like to take a look at, and I was thinking of buying a few pieces for the house."

"Will they be like these?" Faith said.

"You mean the Monets and the Sargents? Only if we're prepared to spend a few million dollars," Rebecca said. "So, no. But they'll be original works by new artists, and even Monet and Sargent started out that way at one point; before they were in museums private collectors bought their pieces and hung them in their homes. We may see the next Monet in one of those galleries."

"Okay," Faith said.

Faith was happy to get out of there and back into her jeans for the movie that night, but when Rebecca asked her if she'd be willing to go back sometime Faith surprised herself by saying yes. She'd spent her life avoiding places like museums, avoiding anything that seemed boring or like work. But she hadn't liked her life much. She remembered what Rebecca told her, about standing up. She felt like she was standing up, in the museum.

Faith liked to dance, and the place she liked to do it was Lansdowne Street. It was a little side street a couple of miles or so down Commonwealth Avenue from Rebecca's house, right by Fenway Park where the Red Sox played, and all the good clubs were there. But it was also right on the way to Allston, and Rebecca didn't like that. The first time Faith brought it up, Rebecca forbade her to go. She forbade her to go to Lansdowne Street or anyplace else anywhere near Allston unless she was with her, actually saying the words "I forbid you", and she got that tone in her voice when she said them, and that was just the end of that. Faith couldn't believe it. No one had ever forbidden her to do something before.

What Faith found even more unbelievable, sitting up in her room an hour later and moping in her brand new jeans and her sexy top and her kick-ass new shoes, was that she was actually doing what Rebecca told her. She didn't go to Lansdowne Street. She sat on her bed, and stared at the wall, and felt pissy about things for awhile, but she didn't try to sneak out. She didn't even know why. She sat there and pouted for an hour, and didn't think about sneaking out; instead she spent the whole hour thinking about why she wasn't thinking about sneaking out.

And then something strange happened. She realized she didn't feel pissy. She realized she had been trying to feel pissy the whole time, but it hadn't been working, and she actually felt pretty good.

Sometimes, Faith was a complete mystery to herself. She shrugged her shoulders, got up, and walked out of the room.

She came back down into the living room with a twinkle in her eye and a bounce in her step and it was all she could do not to smile. She didn't know why she felt happy but she was determined to at least pretend to be pissy, and she felt the smile coming on strong now so she forced herself to think about stuff that annoyed her instead. There was always a lot of that to choose from and she was able to hold the smile back, but the twinkle was still there in her eyes.

Faith sat next to Rebecca on the couch and tried to sound appropriately crabby when she said, "So where can I go then?"

And then Faith looked at Rebecca, and blew it: that damned smile just wouldn't be denied anymore.

Rebecca smiled too.

After some contentious negotiations, they settled on downtown. There were a decent number of clubs there, not as many or as cool as the club scene on Lansdowne Street, but whatever points downtown Boston lost for lack of variety it made up by being far from Allston and within walking distance of Rebecca's house. Faith tried The Roxy that first night, a club about ten minutes away from Rebecca's that she'd heard good things about, and once she got there, it turned out being forbidden was the best thing that could have happened: she loved the place, and went there to dance two or three nights a week, every week, after that.

It didn't look like much. The Roxy was a wide, dark room that squatted at the bottom of a flight of creaky stairs, and it was always too hot, especially when the music started and the dancing got everyone's body heat up. The furniture consisted of marked-up booths, wobbly tables and chairs and stools and a small bar that looked like they stole it out of some guy's basement, and the ladies room was a whole story in and of itself. The bartender was a big guy named Dan who had blue hair and a nose piercing and a tattoo of a Hula Girl on his big slab of an arm. He gave Faith free Coke refills because he liked her. Faith thought the place was too dark and too hot and too loud and sort of crappy, but they got the dance floor right, and she stomped the hell out of that old wood whenever she was there.

But the real reason Faith kept coming back was the DJ. The guy knew his tunes, and he and Faith had quickly become friends. His name was Evan, and he was tall and neat, with longish dark hair, pale skin, and a face that was so delicately handsome it was pretty. There was a steady stream of girls gathered around the DJ booth most nights, competing for his attention. When Evan ignored them all to talk to Faith their looks were daggers. "Sorry girls, he's all mine," she said sometimes, just to rub it in, grabbing his arm and stealing him between sets as the girls' stares burned a hole in her back. He wasn't really hers, except as a friend. But Faith was okay with that. Faith had been burned often enough by guys that she definitely wasn't looking for a boyfriend, and even if she was, she had no time; being with Rebecca took up most of her time. And Faith was okay with that too. She liked being with Rebecca.

Evan didn't seem to be looking for a girlfriend either, though Faith wasn't sure why at first; he was gorgeous. But he was a good friend, and that was all that mattered. He played Faith's favorite songs whenever she was there, and they hung out, Evan drinking margaritas and Faith drinking Cokes, and sometimes they'd grab a bite to eat afterwards. He was the only guy she'd ever met who hadn't tried to get into her pants...the only guy who had ever really talked to her.

Evan had an easy smile, and he told dumb jokes, and he made Faith laugh. It was impossible for her not to smile when she was with him.

One night, over drinks in a quiet corner, Faith asked him if he had someone special.

"I've hung around with some really great girls, had a lot of fun," he said. "And...there was this girl once..." Evan's smile faded. "We were friends all through high school. After awhile, I...fell in love with her. I told her."

He finished the rest of his margarita in one gulp. "We...did it, you know?" he said. "And it wasn't the same after that. It was weird, awkward. We tried to date, but...there was stuff...we both had a lot of stuff we were dealing with. We realized we couldn't be together that way, but we couldn't be friends anymore either. Everything had changed. Then we both went away to college, and I never saw her again."

"I'm sorry, Ev," Faith said.

"I lost a friend, but I learned a lesson," he said. "Take that leap with a friend? You risk everything. Love can destroy a friendship. I won't do that again."

Faith took his hand.

"My friends are too important to me," Evan said. "I don't want any more of them to leave. Got it?"

"Hey, just try to get rid of me," Faith said.

"Gonna hold you to that. So what about you?"

"What, you mean like, guys?"

"Yeah. You have anyone?"

"Nah. I'm kinda...not in the market for that right now, y'know?"

"You're gonna deprive the world of your sassy brand of hotness? On behalf of guys everywhere, what the hell are you thinking, woman?"

She laughed. "Goofball," she said.

"Don't even tell me you don't know how hot you are," he said.

"Bite your tongue, Ev. Yeah, I know I got it goin' on. It's just...I'm a loser magnet. Seriously."

"It can't be that bad. Can it?"

"Okay, Faith 101, ready? I've been with three guys that you could call, y'know, boyfriends, I guess. First there was Ronnie, total deadbeat, always a day late and a dollar short. Took me out for my birthday and made me pay. Followed that up with Steve, the klepto. Stole stuff, even stole my stuff. He's in jail somewhere now. Latest trainwreck was Kenny. Drummer. He was like the guy in 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure', except he didn't even have the decency to be Keanu. He was the other one. Plus he was baked all the time. So, yeah, I don't know what comes after drummer? But I bet it's not anything good."

"Oh, fuck, honeybuns," Evan said, laughing. "If you drank I'd buy you a double."

"Let's talk about you again," Faith said. "Less depressing. So you're telling me you're off the market too? You're breaking hearts, baby."

"I don't know," he said. "I've had girlfriends, screwed around, had some fun...I'm a guy, right? But I'm still looking for the right girl. Whoever she is, I guess I'll know her when the time comes."

"Got plenty of chances to have fun in this place. With all the chicks hanging around your booth I figure you could be as adventurous as you please."

"Fun is one thing. But...I'm looking for someone...where it's not about getting some and getting gone. I want it to be about giving. About committing to something, and making it work. Anyway, whoever she is, she's out there. Maybe I'll get lucky and find her."

"Or maybe she'll find you," Faith said, smiling her sexy smile. "You never know."

"Maybe," Evan said.

But Faith noticed he wasn't smiling anymore.

Some days, after their workout was done, Faith and Rebecca would walk for hours up and down Commonwealth Avenue and Newbury Street, stopping to buy knick-knacks in all the little Newbury Street shops, and looking in the galleries. Faith liked the galleries better than the museum; the stuff in the galleries was a little wilder, a little more surprising. They picked out paintings for the house, looking in all the Newbury Street galleries one cold afternoon in January, and Faith found one for her room. It just spoke to her. She got that feeling, looking at it, that all the people in the Museum of Fine Arts got, or acted like they got, when they stood really close to the paintings and studied them; she felt transported. She felt, for a moment, like she wasn't aware of herself at all.

They walked for hours that day and into the night, and Rebecca talked to her, like she always did; about history or philosophy, or the Slayers who had come before, or whatever Faith wanted to talk about. Faith didn't say much, she just listened; she liked listening to Rebecca. And they ended up back at Faith's favorite place, that night, like they always did: the big, four-acre Public Garden, with its flowers and willow trees, and the lake that had swans in springtime, and the statue of George Washington on his horse. It was a cold night, and there were no leaves on the trees and only a few winter flowers, but the stars were out and the moon was up and everything was quiet and still. It felt like the world was telling them a secret. They found themselves speaking in hushed tones, careful not to disturb that beautiful stillness; they both knew it was fleeting.

"Think about it, Faith," Rebecca said, as they stood beneath the statue, looking up at the stars and eating hot fudge sundaes--the ice cream place on Newbury Street was open year-round, and ice cream was Faith's favorite food. "A ragtag group of poorly equipped farmers, outnumbered and outgunned, defeated the greatest professional army in the world to build your country. They had no real training. Some of them didn't even have shoes on their feet. They marched through the snow anyway. Men deserted in scores, but Washington held his army together. Through defeat after defeat, for years, he held them together. And they won. And they built this country. The longest stable democracy the world has ever known. A beacon of freedom that inspires people around the world to this day...your current President notwithstanding," she added, with a raised eyebrow.

"The Slayer is just one link in a chain," Rebecca said, and put her hand on Faith's shoulder. "A chain of brave men and women throughout history, who have changed the world for the rest of us. You're alive today because of their sacrifices. Some, like George Washington, have held armies together...some, like Buffy Summers, have saved the world from being overrun by vampires. While others, whose names we don't know, have trudged through the snow, with no shoes on their feet. There's a war going on, Faith. It's been going on since the beginning and will go on until the end. You're a part of that war now."

Faith raised her eyebrow.

"Hmm. I'm making speeches again, aren't I?" Rebecca said.

"Just a little," Faith said. "But it's cool, Becca, I like your speeches. Had me glued to my seat."

"Occupational hazard of being a Watcher, I'm afraid. We're subjected to so many mind-numbing speeches about duty and honor and destiny and being the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls and all that claptrap at the Watchers Council that we all just dream of the day when we can inflict one on some poor potential Slayer. Sharing the pain, I suppose."

"Watcher thing, huh? And here I thought it was a British thing."

"Now that you mention it, I suppose that could be part of it too. Okay. No more duty and honor for tonight. Just ice cream and Chinese food and popcorn, and that ridiculous movie you rented for us. Deal?"

"Sure. But hey, duty and honor are cool too. You never know, maybe I'll be the Slayer someday and all that history stuff you're always telling me about will come in handy. I could be all, 'Okay bad guys, I'm Faith the Vampire Slayer, and oh, by the way? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Slayers and vamps'."

Rebecca laughed; she nearly choked on her ice cream.

"I'm not gonna be down with that taxation without representation stuff either," Faith said, giggling and patting Rebecca's back, as Rebecca tried to catch her breath. "If I see even one guy getting taxed without being represented? I'll be all, 'Okay, where's the tea at? Gimme all the tea! Yo, chuck out that damn tea, bro. We are having us a tea party.'"

Rebecca put her hands on Faith's shoulders, looked her in the eyes, and said, "Faith, you're an inspiration to us all."

And they walked home together, laughing.

To Faith's utter amazement, she actually liked the piano lessons.

It had taken awhile to get Faith on board with the plan, but Faith really enjoyed listening to Rebecca play, and that got her to take the plunge. She always thought piano had to be long, boring classical songs, but Rebecca could play folk songs and show tunes and fast jazzy things that made Faith want to dance. So she sat with Rebecca at the piano for an hour a few nights a week, playing the scales and "Pop Goes the Weasel" and "Heart and Soul" and a French song called "Fr�re Jacques" over and over again, and learning about chords and how to position her fingers. That's what they were doing on a snowy night in February, when they both had colds and were sitting in their bathrobes and pajamas, sneezing and sniffling, and drinking tea with the fireplace crackling away behind them.

"You have excellent hands," Rebecca said, as she watched Faith haltingly try the scales. "If you put your mind to this, you could perhaps do it professionally someday."

"Really think I'm the piano type?" Faith said.

"I think you can be anything you want."

Faith launched into "Pop Goes the Weasel". She kept on screwing up on that one high note, and she was damned well going to get it right this time.

Oh my God, Faith thought. I'm a band geek.

She smiled, and banged out that high note just right.

The snow kept on coming that month; a week later it was still snowing and the whole city was at a standstill. But Faith liked the way it all looked; everything was quiet and pretty, like a painting. She even thought it was a little like a Monet painting, when the street lights hit the snow a certain way, and that made it even better. But it made it pretty damned boring too; the snow was a foot deep, driving was an adventure and there wasn't anything to do. She thought about going to The Roxy but she'd called Evan and he'd said he wasn't going in to work again "until this fucking Bing Crosby-ass White Christmas bullshit lets up. Sorry honeybuns." And dancing was no fun for Faith without Evan spinning the tunes...and without her knowing his eyes were on her.

So Faith stayed home, and hung around in the gym practicing with the weapons, or watched TV on the couch, and she was restless; and then Rebecca came into the living room while Faith was lying in front of the television, and stood in front of her with her hands on her hips and that eyebrow of hers raised.

"Has your brain rotted enough yet?" Rebecca said.

"Almost there, Becca," Faith said. "Tryin' for a nice liquid consistency."

"I have something for you," Rebecca said.

Faith squinted up at her. Rebecca had a book in her hand.

"Oh good, homework," Faith said. "Remember about the liquid consistency?"

"You'll thank me later," Rebecca said.

"I will? You sure about that?"

"You don't like to read?"

"What do you think? Ever seen me with a book? Ninth grade drop-out, you think I like reading? I'm too dumb for that stuff."

"Faith," Rebecca said. Faith instantly sat up. Rebecca's voice had that tone it sometimes got. The tone that Faith knew meant you better frigging listen. The tone that meant now.

"I don't ever want you to say that again," Rebecca said. "Do you understand?"

"Yeah," Faith said. "But...it's true, Becca."

"No," Rebecca said, and sat next to her on the couch. "It isn't. In fact it's the only stupid thing I've ever heard you say."

Faith looked down at the floor.

"How many times have I called you a smart girl?" Rebecca said.

"I don't know. You call me that a lot," Faith said. "Always thought you were just being nice."

"No," Rebecca said. "I told you, the night we first met, that I would never lie to you, Faith. And I never will. Because I want you to know you can trust me, but also because lying complicates things; it makes things harder. The truth is always best because the truth is simple. When I said you were smart I meant it. I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

"But I don't...know about books and stuff. And big words, and history and...all that stuff."

"'The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants'," Rebecca said. "Who said that?"

"Thomas Jefferson," Faith said. "Okay, so I know that one."

"What does 'wretched' mean?"

"Crappy. Gonna be pretty wretched, having to read stuff," Faith said, and grinned.

"See?" Rebecca said. "You're a smart girl. You pick things up quickly."

"So you're saying I'll just have to acclimate myself to this reading stuff, huh?" Faith said, her grin getting wider.

"Yes, dear," Rebecca said, with a smile. "I'm afraid so."

Rebecca took Faith's hand.

"You know those things because I taught them to you," Rebecca said. "Now I'll always tell you the truth, and that includes telling you things that are hard to hear. And the truth is that you're a smart girl, but you're uneducated. No one has ever taught you anything. No one has ever taken the time."

Faith looked up at her.

"But there's a difference between being uneducated and being stupid, Faith," Rebecca said. "They aren't the same thing. You survived on your own without a place to live for two years; you survived because you're smart. You kept yourself alive when no one would help you. You had to size people up, make the most of your opportunities, find ways to feed yourself, to keep yourself warm, to protect yourself. They weren't always the best ways. But you survived out there when a lot of girls who aren't as smart as you wouldn't have. And Thomas Jefferson and a lot of new vocabulary words wouldn't have been much help."

"I guess," Faith said.

"Now at your age being uneducated is nothing to be ashamed of, yet. You can still say it's your mother's fault, it's your teachers' fault. But you won't be able to say that forever. Eventually, it will be your fault. It's something you need to fix. And I'm going to help you. Why do you think I talk to you so much about history, about philosophy?"

"Yeah, but...it's different when we talk about that stuff. I mean in school it was always boring, history and all that stuff was boring and I could never remember any of it. But when we talk..."

"You had lousy teachers. That doesn't mean you're not smart. Actually it means just the opposite. It means you were smart enough to be bored."

Faith shrugged her shoulders.

"This is no different than our workouts, Faith," Rebecca said. "It will take time but it will get easier, and you'll learn to like it. And I'll help you. And it'll be better than school, because school fills your head with things you don't need to know. I don't care if you don't know calculus, I don't care if you don't know how to speak French. But you need to know about history, and philosophy, because they inform the way we live our lives. You need to read good books, because they build vocabulary and tell us important things about the world, and ourselves. I want you to read this book. And when you're done reading it, we'll talk about it."

"That's it?" Faith said.

"Were you expecting a quiz?" Rebecca said, and smiled. "I'm not going to test you. I'm not going to ask you to write a book report. This isn't about remembering the book so you can get the answers on a test right; it's about reading the book and getting something out of it. If you have questions that's okay, if you don't understand it that's okay too. We'll talk about it when you're done. But I expect you to read it. All right?

"Okay," Faith said.

"That's my girl," Rebecca said, and handed Faith the book, and walked out of the room.

Faith looked at the book. It looked old. It had a weird goofy cover, with a little girl on it.

She shut off the television, and opened the book.

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, Faith read...

Her hands a blur, Faith hit the speed bag with a nice, steady rhythm.

"Tell me why we have to listen to this horrible music again?" Rebecca said, watching her. They were in the gym. Rebecca had set it up on the third floor, in a big room with one of the bow windows that let in lots of light. A sparring ring was set up there, along with the speed bag, the heavy bag, free weights and a bench. There were weapons on the walls, that Faith was just beginning to learn to use: swords, staffs, axes, bows, knives, throwing stars, nunchakus. Practice dummies and targets were set up next to them. The boom box Faith had bought the week before was in the corner, blaring out one of Evan's Roxy mix CD's.

"Helps me get a rhythm on the bag," Faith said, making the speed bag dance.

"Who sings this one?" Rebecca said.

Faith smiled. "You like it?" she said.

"Of course not," Rebecca said. "I'm simply curious."

"'TLC'. They're this all-girl hip-hop band."

"'Hip-hop'. How clever."

Faith turned to Rebecca, her smile even larger.

"You do like it, don't you?" she said. "You're all British about it and everything, but you can't fool me. I can tell you like it." Faith kept hitting the speed bag as she talked to Rebecca, her hands keeping up their rhythm in perfect counter-point to the music.

"Perhaps just a little," Rebecca said.

"Hope for you yet, Becca," Faith said, and laughed, and hit the bag a bunch of big wallops in a finishing flourish as the song ended.

"Yes, well be that as it may, is there any chance we could perhaps shut it off now?"

"Sure," Faith said, chuckling, and shut the music off.

"I remember a time when you hated the speed bag," Rebecca said, looking closely at her. Faith was wearing sweat pants and a cut off tee-shirt, and Rebecca could see the definition in her shoulders and arms; the long, hard trapezius muscles sloping down from her neck, the bulge of her biceps, and her triceps muscles beginning to appear as well. Faith's forearms had long veins running down them now, and were noticeably larger than they used to be. When Faith walked, her posture was perfectly straight, and there was a spring in her step. A far cry from the thin, dispirited, perpetually slouching girl Rebecca had taken in not even four months earlier.

"I remember almost chucking the thing out the window once," Faith said, and turned back to her. She saw Rebecca smiling.

"What?" Faith said.

"You look good, that's all," Rebecca said.

Faith glanced at the window. It was the first day of March, and spring was theoretically on the way, though you wouldn't know it from the weather. Winter still had Boston in its clutches and wasn't giving it up without a fight. It was a cold, rainy day; a few degrees colder and it would be snowing.

"Hope this weather lets up," Faith said. "Pain in the butt on our runs."

They moved to the window and looked out at the afternoon together.

"We got through February," Rebecca said. "March couldn't possibly be worse...could it?"

"Never say never in Beantown, Becca," Faith said.

"Four miles today. I think the running agrees with you."

"Yeah well, I don't hate it like I used to. My wind's good now, and my legs don't hurt. Now it's just boring. But I got you with me, so I'm good."

"I'm proud of you, Faith," Rebecca said, and put her hand on Faith's shoulder. "You've come so far. You've never once disappointed me."

"Thanks, Becca," Faith said, and hugged her. "Thanks...y'know...?"

Faith leaned her head against Rebecca's chest, and held Rebecca very tight. Rebecca could see that Faith had tears in her eyes.

"Faith...?" Rebecca said, hugging her, and running her fingers through her hair. Hugging Faith felt perfectly natural...the way it used to feel when she hugged her daughter, all those years ago. "What's wrong? Is something wrong?"

Faith shook her head, and smiled.

"I'm happy, Becca," Faith said, crying, her voice muffled against Rebecca's chest. "For the first time in my life. I'm just...happy, y'know?"

Rebecca held Faith in her arms, and looked out at the rain...and thought about her daughter...

One day, for no real reason, Rebecca canceled their morning run.

Faith wasn't complaining. It was a cool, bright Sunday morning near the end of March, and Faith could think of a lot of fun ways to spend it that didn't involve huffing and puffing and dragging her ass along the Charles River Esplanade for four miles. Rebecca had come into Faith's room just as Faith's alarm clock went off, sat on the bed beside her, and told her she had some errands to attend to, and that they would skip their run this one time. Faith didn't know what kind of errands couldn't wait until after their run, especially since most of the stores wouldn't even be open yet on a Sunday, but she wasn't about to question this stroke of completely unexpected good fortune.

"But I should be back in plenty of time for us to go through our sword-fighting routine, and aikido after that," Rebecca added.

Faith chuckled. "Yeah, figured that," she said.

"Have you finished the new book I gave you yet?" Rebecca said.

"I'm almost done," Faith said. "I feel bad for Anne. How come the Nazis did all that stuff? What do they care if someone's Jewish? It doesn't make sense."

"We'll talk about it when you're done. Do you like the book?" "Yeah, it's pretty cool. Sad though."

"Just wait until you start in on the next one. The sadness just keeps on coming, I'm afraid." "Yeah? What's it about?"

"It's about German soldiers during the first World War, and what it was like fighting in the trenches."

"Cool. Not likin' the Germans so much though, after what they did to Anne."

"People are people, Faith. Evil is a choice made by individuals, not by races or governments. Heroism works the same way. But we'll talk about it another time. Relax, sleep in today. You've earned it."

"Hey, sleeping in? Think I can work with that," Faith said.

Rebecca was looking at her.

"What?" Faith said.

Rebecca smiled, and kissed her cheek.

"Nothing," Rebecca said. Go back to sleep."

Red Sox Cap, Freckles, the Asian guy, and the Republican were sleeping in that day too, sprawled on decrepit old chairs and couches in the living room of a condemned house in Jamaica Plain, a shabby, working class Boston neighborhood that had come a long way from its roots: boasting fairly cheap rents, some interesting restaurants, an impressive array of dive bars and a hop, skip and a jump commute to most of the big colleges in town, it had managed to attract a large and growing population of college students over the years and had eventually become an excitingly diverse blend of cultures and ethnicities and, unfortunately, vampires. The room was a graveyard of pizza boxes and peppermint schnapps bottles. The Republican slept in boxers and a tee-shirt; his brand new Armani suit was carefully hung up on a wooden hanger on the closet doorknob. And other than the fact that Red Sox Cap was actually wearing a Boston Bruins cap now and the Asian guy had cut his hair, they all seemed much the same to Rebecca, as she looked down at them, holding a gasoline can in her hand. She tossed the gasoline can away, and walked to the windows.

It was still early; a couple of hours past sunrise. The vampires had gotten very drunk the night before and gone to sleep and they weren't planning on waking up until after sunset, when they'd hunt.

At least, that was the plan...until Rebecca snapped up the shades on all the windows and said, "Rise and shine, boys. It's a glorious morning."

The sun woke them up instantly, flooding into the room and searing their flesh. They leaped up, howling in pain, their skin smoking, their faces changing to vampire form, and cast their eyes around wildly. Sunlight was everywhere. All four of them scrambled into the same tiny corner, the only part of the room the sun hadn't penetrated.

"The Brit bitch," the Asian guy said, swaying a little, still drunk. "What the fuck do you want?"

"That's a lovely suit you have over there," Rebecca said, looking at the Republican. "Armani?"

"Okay, why aren't we killing her?" Freckles said, massaging his temples and wincing.

"So where's the chippie?" the Republican said, smiling at Rebecca. "You remember, the little homeless slut you picked up? Her name's Faith, right? You should've brought her along, lady. We all miss her."

"You have fabulous taste in clothes, you know," Rebecca said, smiling right back at the Republican. "Are you sure you're not gay? I bet you are. I bet you just love taking a nice, big cock up the arse."

The Republican snarled at her.

"At least your friends stayed and fought," Rebecca said. "But when I hit you with that holy water you ran away like a scared little bitch slapped girl. Pathetic. Do these three bend you over and fuck you? Are you the little poofter girl of the group?"

The Republican took a step toward her, but shrank back, as his skin sizzled in the bright sunlight.

"East-facing windows," Rebecca said. "Just perfect for watching the sunrise. I wonder if the four of you could manage to kill me and make it back to the corner before you burn. Anyone care to have a go?"

The vampires glared at her, but didn't move.

"No, I didn't think so," Rebecca said. "None of you lot have the balls."

"Hey. What's that smell?" Red Sox Cap said.

"It took me awhile to find you," Rebecca said. "But I never stopped looking. I never forgot about you. And now here we all are, having this lovely meeting of the minds."

"Gasoline..." the Asian guy said.

"Yes, I poured it on all of you as you slept," Rebecca said. "No wonder it took you so long to notice it, you all stink of peppermint schnapps. Schnapps is a nancy boy's drink, you know. Real men drink scotch."

The vampires looked around the room, and then back at Rebecca. The sun was everywhere, and it was creeping closer...steadily, inexorably burning their little refuge of shadow away.

"I could've staked you as you slept," Rebecca said. "But that's not how I wanted it."

Rebecca's unwavering blue eyes fixed on them as she took a silver lighter from her pocket, and snapped it open. The vampires shrank back, as a tall, powerful jet of flame shot up out of it.

"This is how I wanted it," Rebecca said. "And Faith sends her regards, by the way."

She smiled, and tossed the lighter at them. The vampires went up in flames like torches, shrieking.

Rebecca watched, as the four vampires burned to death in front of her.

"No one hurts my girl," Rebecca said.

And the vampires burned down to dust...

And Rebecca walked out the door, into the sunlight.

Three

MY GIRL

It was April eleventh.

After her workout with Rebecca, Faith spent the night at the Boston Garden, watching the Celtics thrash the Lakers. Rebecca had gotten them the same seats right above the Celtics bench as before, but at the last minute she said she wasn't feeling well, and encouraged Faith to go on alone.

"I'll be fine in the morning, I expect," Rebecca had said. "I'm just...feeling rather fatigued. It's not easy at my age, you know, keeping up with a potential Slayer all day," she added, with a smile.

Faith knew there was something Rebecca wasn't telling her. Rebecca was in better shape than she was, barely broke a sweat in their workouts and kicked Faith's butt all over the mat. But Faith could tell she needed to be alone, so she went by herself to watch the Celtics kick the Lakers' butts all over the Garden that night. The Celtics were as unstoppable as ever, and Faith had a great time watching Len Bias and Reggie Lewis and Shaquille O'Neal kick the hell out of the Lakers and the amazing new guard they had drafted out of high school the year before, while eating hot dogs and booing refs and giving Nicholson the finger on the other side of the court. She was sure he smiled back at her once.

When Faith got home Rebecca was sitting in the dining room in her bathrobe drinking scotch.

"Hey, Becca," Faith said.

"Oh! Faith...how was your game?" Rebecca said, getting up clumsily. There was a small framed photograph on the table in front of her. It was the one Faith had seen in Rebecca's room. A pretty little blonde girl. Faith knew who she must be. But Rebecca never talked about her, and Faith didn't want to pry. There were plenty of things Faith didn't like talking about either.

Rebecca picked up the photo and held it down by her side, as if to hide it. She swayed a little.

"Celts kicked butt as usual," Faith said, watching her.

Rebecca walked toward her, and nearly fell. Faith rushed forward and grabbed her arm.

Rebecca reeked of scotch. Her eyes were puffy and red.

"Come on, Becca...how about we go sit on the couch for awhile, huh?" Faith said.

"Yes...that's..." Rebecca said, trying to stand up straight, and dropped the photo. The glass broke.

"I...dropped it..." Rebecca said, looking down at it in shock. "It's broken."

Faith knelt down and picked it up. "Just the glass," she said. "We'll get a new frame."

"I broke it," Rebecca said. "I broke it."

She dropped to her knees beside Faith on the floor, and tried to pick up the pieces. She nearly fell over. Faith steadied her.

"Hey. Becca? It's okay," Faith said. "I got it. We'll buy another frame for it, okay?"

Faith put her arm around her. "Okay, Becca?" she said.

Rebecca nodded. Faith hugged her.

"Come on, Becca," Faith said. "I'll put on some coffee and we'll go in the parlor, okay? Come on, here we go..."

Faith got her up, brought her into the living room, sat her on the couch, and put the coffee on.

They sat silently together the rest of the night, drinking coffee. Rebecca's deep blue eyes were looking at something very far away.

A little before midnight Rebecca said, "My ex-husband had my daughter Gwendolyn for the weekend and a vampire killed them both at the carnival in Glastonbury. She was six. She would have turned sixteen today."

Faith stayed with her, and held her hand, until Rebecca fell asleep.

Faith went upstairs, put the photo back on the little antique table beside Rebecca's bed, and came back to the living room with blankets and pillows. She made sure Rebecca was comfortable on the couch, put one of the blankets over her, and set a pillow beneath her head. Then she took the other pillow and blanket to the recliner next to the couch, and went to sleep.

Faith woke up in the recliner the next morning to the smell of bacon. Rebecca walked in and smiled at her, all showered and fresh and pretty and not a hair out of place, looking like a million bucks even when she was hung over.

"Good morning," Rebecca said. "I made breakfast. Shall we see how badly I botched the bacon and eggs?"

The bacon and eggs weren't that bad. Faith thought the eggs were maybe a little runny and the bacon was a little undercooked. With ketchup and orange juice it all worked out okay.

"Well. We certainly had an eventful night, didn't we?" Rebecca said. "Thank you, Faith, for staying with me last night. April eleventh is...a hard day for me. I had hoped it would be easier this year."

"Becca...no one's strong all the time, y'know?" Faith said. "We all hit snags."

Rebecca nodded, and drank her coffee and ate a tiny bite of her toast.

"Your daughter was a beautiful girl," Faith said.

"Thank you," Rebecca said.

"Is she why you became a Watcher?"

"My great-grandfather was a Watcher. I knew about them, they even tried to recruit me, but I always resisted joining...in those days, the only girl I wanted to watch over was Gwendolyn." Rebecca smiled. "After her funeral, I applied for membership and was accepted. Since then I've trained potential Slayers."

"She'd be proud of you."

"I...like to think so."

"Any of the potentials you trained actually become Slayers?"

"No. There are about two-thousand potentials in the world at any one time. So actually becoming the Slayer is rather like winning a lottery. But someone will. And they'll survive longer if they're trained. Some potentials go on to become Watchers themselves."

"Hey, you had me thinking I was all cool and stuff and now you're telling me I'm like, one in two-thousand. So not fair," Faith said.

"There's magic in you, Faith," Rebecca said. "How do you think we find potentials? And vampires seek out potentials especially. Your blood is potent to them. There are also those who have targeted potentials in attempts to destroy the Slayer bloodline. No one has come close to succeeding yet, but someone may try again someday. It's imperative we find and protect as many potentials as we can. But even if you never become a Slayer, you'll be important. You needed to open your eyes to the world...to the ongoing battle. You'll be part of that battle, Slayer or not. Some people while away their lives on the couch. That isn't for you."

"I kinda like hanging on the couch."

"I notice you also like fighting."

"Yeah, that too."

"Evil touches all of our lives. It touched yours..."

Faith looked down at her eggs. She wasn't sure how, but Rebecca knew about her mother.

"And it touched mine," Rebecca said. "And we can't blame ourselves."

Rebecca took Faith's hand. "Faith," she said. "We can't blame ourselves."

Faith nodded, still looking down at her eggs.

"What matters is how you deal with it," Rebecca said. "What you do next. Evil is like a plague. Some people become infected with it, and inflict it on others. Some weather it, but never really recover...they're broken inside. But some people decide to rise above it, and fight. That's what I decided to do. And it's what you're going to do."

Rebecca finished eating and stood up. "But in any event, the morning is dragging on and we haven't even had our run yet," she said. "Let's get to it."

"Hey, just throwing this out there?" Faith said, as she finished her eggs. "But since you're sorta hung over and we both got like four hours of sleep I was thinking it'd be cool if we gave ourselves a day off. Y'know, we could shop, maybe get our nails done..."

Rebecca raised her eyebrow. "It's cold out there this morning, and we'll be doing an extra long run today to shake off the cobwebs, so wear something warm," she said.

"Worth a shot," Faith said with a smile.

Faith found out she was the Slayer one Tuesday night in May when she threw a guy named Brendan over the bar at The Roxy.

Rebecca had a visitor that day. His name was Trevor and he was British, and he was going to take Rebecca out dancing, "and perhaps we'll eat at that wonderfully crude steak house on Route One." Faith thought Trevor was a pretty good cut of meat himself...six feet tall, good build, his slacks nicely accentuating his butt and his sweater showing off his broad shoulders; he rowed in his spare time and it showed. Dark hair brushed back, a big toothy British smile and blue eyes with a playful twinkle. Way to go, Rebecca, Faith thought. Apparently he and Rebecca had been dating off and on for a year or so and he had just arrived in town as a visiting lecturer at Harvard. Trevor shook Faith's hand and said, "So this is our Slayer in waiting. Absolutely stupendous to meet you, my dear girl."

"Be home promptly by one a.m., and don't test me," Faith said, in an English accent that was a very good approximation of Rebecca's. Trevor laughed. "Oh, I like this girl, Becky, I really do," he said.

Rebecca smiled at Faith, and raised that eyebrow of hers. "I like impertinence, Faith," she said. "But only up to a point."

"What's impertinence?" Faith said.

"Being inappropriately presumptuous," Rebecca said. "Now run along and have a nice night with Evan."

"Got a joke for you," Evan said, with that sly wolf's smile he had, as he and Faith sat on wobbly stools at the bar in The Roxy after his first set, Evan drinking his usual margarita, Faith drinking her usual Coke. Faith could've found ways to sneak a drink here and there, but Rebecca didn't want her drinking until she was eighteen...and Faith didn't miss booze anyway. Memories came with it.

"Oh, no," Faith said, and smiled. She couldn't help smiling around him. Evan was a big goof. A big, gorgeous goof.

"Okay, so these three like, English explorer guys are exploring this deserted island, right? And they get captured by this evil pygmy cannibal tribe."

"Why are they English?"

"Fine. They're not English. What do you want them to be?"

"I don't know. Swedish?"

"Why Swedish?"

"Why English?" Faith said, and they both started giggling. Faith liked trying to screw up Evan's jokes.

"Fine," Evan said. "Three Swedish explorer guys get like, captured by this evil cannibal tribe. Okay?"

"Okay."

"So they're captured, and tied up. And the leader of the evil cannibal tribe says, 'You have two choices, white man. Death, or ki-ki.'"

"Death, or ki-ki?" Faith said.

"Death, or ki-ki," Evan said. He finished his margarita. "Dan, need another round over here, bro!"

"How bombed are you on a scale of one to ten?" Faith said.

"Four," Evan said. "I'm in the giggly phase but I haven't started slurring words yet. So the first explorer guy says, okay, I'll take ki-ki. And then..."

Dan brought them another round.

"That was fast," Faith said.

"Had it ready to go," Dan said. "When Ev gets in margarita mode you just keep 'em coming. But this is it for now, dude, you have another set later."

Faith reached for her purse, but Dan waved her off. "Your money's no good here, Faith," he said. "Ki-ki joke?"

"Yeah. Should I be worried?" Faith said.

"You be quiet," Evan said, waving his finger at Faith's face, and missing.

"You sure he's gonna be okay to DJ?" Faith said.

"I have a routine with him," Dan said. "His second set's in an hour, after this I'll get him onto ginger ale. He'll be fine. He likes being a little tipsy for his second set anyway. 'Course, he did play 'Rhinestone Cowboy' that time..."

"It's a good song!" Evan protested.

"It's not a good song, and you sang along with it," Dan said. "And yeah, the cowboy hat? 'Nuff said."

"That was just that one time," Evan grumbled, apparently talking to his margarita now.

"Okay, well, as long as you're taking good care of my man," Faith said.

"Don't worry, hon, I got it covered," Dan said, and walked away.

"Okay, so back to the joke. The first explorer says, 'I'll take ki-ki', and then all of a sudden like thirty of the cannibals tear his clothes off, and start fucking him in the ass..." Evan said, and gulped down half of his margarita.

"Oh, my God," Faith said, closing her eyes and giggling.

"And fucking him in the mouth and doing all these horrible things to him," Evan continued, undeterred. "So the second explorer guy sees this, and he figures being fucked by pygmy cannibals is better than being killed. So when the tribe leader says 'You have two choices, white man. Death, or ki-ki'..." Evan was doing a very bad impression of a pygmy cannibal that sounded like he was trying to imitate Mr. T after breathing helium. It made Faith burst out laughing. Evan rubbed her shoulder until she stopped. "So the second explorer's like, fine, whatever, I guess being fucked by thirty pygmies is better than being killed, and he says 'I'll take ki-ki,' and braces himself, and the pygmy guys grab him, tear his clothes off, and fuck him in the ass and the mouth. So anyway..."

Dan passed by on his way to the other end of the bar. "You're in the home stretch," he said.

"So anyway," Evan said, grabbing Faith's hand to make sure she was still listening. "The tribe leader says to the third explorer guy, 'You have two choices, white man...'"

"Death, or ki-ki!" Faith said, and did her own impression of a pygmy cannibal that sounded like Darth Vader would sound if he was high. They both started giggling again.

"And so the third explorer guy says, 'Screw you! I'm not doing this ki-ki stuff. No way any man's fucking me in the ass!'"

Evan said that last part a little too loud, and with a raised fist for emphasis. People at the bar started staring, and Faith put her hand over Evan's mouth, laughing so hard her cheeks were hurting.

"Ev...? Honey, baby, darling?" Faith said. "I think you're up to maybe a six now."

"Five," Evan said, his voice muffled beneath Faith's hand. Faith took her hand away, and Evan said, "I'm only at five because I'm still not slurring my words." He took another big gulp of his margarita. "So like, the third guy says, 'I choose death, you bastards!' And the tribal leader looks at him, and then he says, 'You are very brave, white man...'" Again Evan did his Mister T impression, and again Faith burst out laughing. "And then the tribal leader says to the third guy..."

Evan was grinning at Faith, or at least in her general direction, his eyes apparently focused on a point just above her left shoulder.

"And then the tribal leader says to the third explorer guy, 'Very well! Death...by ki-ki!" Evan shouted, and banged his fist on the bar, and spilled what was left of his margarita, and laughed like it was the funniest joke in the history of the universe. Faith laughed too, and grabbed some napkins and cleaned up the mess Evan had made.

"Whoa," Evan said. "Think I jush shit six."

"Ginger ale time," Faith said.

"Ginger ale time," Evan said, his eyes wandering to Faith's legs. She was wearing a short skirt and knee-high boots. Faith didn't usually wear skirts; she wanted to see if Evan would notice her legs. "Jesus Christ, you're beautiful," he said. He put his arm around Faith and leaned his head on her shoulder. "Tired all of a sudden. Just...wanna snuggle up with my girl."

"Okay, Ev," Faith said. "Time to sober up. You just let me and Dan take care of you, okay?"

"My girl," Evan said softly, and dozed off with his arm around her.

He was drunk. Faith knew he didn't really mean it.

"Yeah. That's me," Faith said.

Faith got hit on most nights at The Roxy, usually when she was at the bar, getting her wind back after a long stretch of dancing. Guys (and a few girls) would try to buy her drinks, and she'd drink the non-alcoholic ones and smile politely, and not give her phone number out because it was Rebecca's number. But she had a large and growing collection of phone numbers from guys that she hadn't called back. Faith didn't trust guys. One after another, they had treated her like she could be bought. Like something to be used and discarded.

She had been ignoring guys that night, hanging with Evan and getting him ready for his second set, and then getting back onto the dance floor once he got back in his booth. She didn't know how he did it but you wouldn't have been able to tell he had been half drunk an hour before. As Faith danced, a hot blonde guy sitting at a table in the corner caught her eye. He was watching her too, his eyes all over her while she did her thing, dancing to her favorite tunes, the fast ones that really got her engine running. He smiled at her, ignoring the three giggling preppy girls who kept making excuses to walk by his table.

He finished his drink and came over to Faith, with his nice body and his little diamond earring and his killer smile, and got up in her space and danced back at her. He knew how to move, and Faith liked the way he did it in those pants. This one might just be a little too hot to pass up, she decided, so she let him into her space and danced around him, tailoring her moves to his, and they stepped around each other like they'd practiced it all their lives, and then they were right up close and it was a slow song, and his arms were around her.

He whispered something in her ear, but the room was too noisy.

"What?" Faith said.

The whisper again, though he wasn't whispering, he was actually talking pretty loud, to no avail. "I'm..." he said, and Faith missed the rest.

"What?" she said again, giggling.

"I'm Brendan!" he shouted, just as the music suddenly cut out, and his voice carried across the room like the announcer at a wrestling match. Everyone in the club laughed. "Let's hear it for Brendan, folks," Evan said into his microphone, and everyone applauded. Faith looked up at Evan in his booth and giggled. He smiled back at her. He didn't look jealous. Damn, Faith thought.

Then Faith looked back at Brendan, and she couldn't resist: "Hey, no reason to shout, Brendan," she said, and burst out laughing.

He kissed her. Faith thought it was a little too soon, but he had worked for it. It was a pretty good kiss, too.

When the music came up again, Faith felt strange. At first it felt like a wave of nausea. But then it passed...and she suddenly felt better than she had ever felt before. She was full of energy. She needed to dance. Evan was playing a good, fast song, and Faith started moving. Brendan matched her move for move, and kissed her again, with some tongue this time. Faith smiled, and pushed him away. "Hey, cowboy, let's take it easy, okay?" she said in his ear.

"What?" he said, grinning, and kissed her again, forcing his tongue into her mouth. She pulled away.

"Seriously, dude, come on. Let's just dance, okay?"

He smiled and nodded apologetically. They danced. But now his hands were getting a little too friendly, groping her butt. Faith moved them back to neutral territory. "Brendan, come on. Please?" she said.

"Can't hear you," he said, and moved his hands back down onto her butt. Faith yanked them back off.

"Dude. Stop it, okay?" Faith said. "I'm not like that."

"C'mon, don't be a tease," he said.

He yanked her toward him, and shoved his tongue in her mouth again.

"I said stop!" she shouted, and pushed him away. "What the hell? I thought we were having fun here! What the hell are you doing?"

"What's your problem?" he said.

"My problem? My problem is you're treating me like crap. What the hell do you think I am?"

"Whatever," he said, and threw up his hands. "I thought you were fun."

"You mean you thought I was a slut," Faith said.

"Get over yourself. I can have any girl here anyway. You're not all that."

"Know what? I thought you were a cool guy. Turns out you were just another dick," Faith said, and walked off the dance floor. But she still felt like she had energy to burn.

Brendan pulled her back toward him. "Know what I thought you were?" he said. "My fucking cum dumpster." And he laughed at her, and walked away.

Faith stood there, speechless, and almost started to cry...

Then she grabbed his arm and threw him twenty feet across the room.

People scattered away as he crashed into the bar, smashing bottles and sending drinks flying everywhere...

Faith wasn't sure what had just happened. She looked around the room. Everyone was staring at her.

"Faith!" Evan shouted, and jumped over the booth and ran to her, and threw his arms around her. "Are you okay? Are you okay, baby?"

"Ev?" Faith said. "I don't..." She saw herself in the mirror behind the bar.

"Oh, my God," she whispered.

It wasn't her. It looked like her, but, somehow...it wasn't her...

And then she knew what had happened.

"Ev, I'll...call you tomorrow, okay? I just...I don't feel...I gotta...I gotta go..." Faith stammered.

And she tore herself away from Evan, and ran...

She ran straight back to Rebecca's house at a full sprint. She never felt tired, never had to take even one deep breath. It would have been a ten-minute walk; she made the run in less than sixty seconds.

She noticed the full moon looking down at her as she ran, a perfect circle of pure white.

She charged into the house and bounded up the stairs three at a time and ran into Rebecca's bedroom on the third floor. It was past midnight. Rebecca was sleeping. Faith switched on the little antique lamp on the bureau.

"Becca!" she shouted. "Becca!"

Rebecca leaped out of bed. "Faith! What's wrong?" she said.

"I'm the Slayer," Faith said.

They were in the gym. Rebecca stood by the weight bench in a blue terrycloth bathrobe, piling a hell of a lot of weight on the barbell. Faith thought she looked beautiful, as always. Twelve-thirty at night, just rolled out of bed, and not one blonde hair out of place. That's how she looked every morning too, even before she put her makeup on. Faith always wondered how she did that.

"Bench press this," Rebecca said.

"Bench press that?" Faith said. Then she remembered running back to the house...how she never felt out of breath. She remembered the energy she felt...

"Bench press it," Rebecca said, in that tone she had, the one Faith knew meant now.

The energy was still there. It pulsed through Faith like a sugar rush...but it was constant. It would always be there. She would always feel like this...

Faith giggled, said "sure," and got on the bench.

She looked up at the barbell. It looked heavy.

She lifted the barbell off the rack, lowered it to her chest, lifted it straight back up again with hardly an effort, and set it back on the rack. It amazed her, how easy it was. She could have sworn she was lifting, at most, thirty pounds.

Rebecca put two more big plates on the barbell. "Again," she said.

Faith lifted it again. It was still easy; she still barely felt the weight.

Faith set the barbell back on the rack. Rebecca went around the room picking up plates, and loading the barbell up with as many as could fit.

"Now," Rebecca said. "Again."

Faith felt it a little bit, this time; she could tell she was lifting something heavy. But it was still easy, and she got the weight up without any real effort. She kept benching it, two reps, three, four, her arms still not tired...how much could she lift now? Just how strong was she?

"That's enough," Rebecca said. "You can stop now." Faith set the barbell back on the rack and sat up.

"How much was I just benching?" Faith said. They had done their chest and triceps routine the day before. Faith could just barely eke out three sets of bench presses at one-hundred pounds, with a lot of help from Rebecca on the last set; she could get one-hundred and thirty up once, with Rebecca spotting her. "Eight-hundred and forty pounds," Rebecca said.

She was benching eight-hundred and forty freaking pounds.

She was the Slayer! The Slayer!

Faith looked up at Rebecca, expecting her to be happy, expecting her to be proud...

Rebecca forced a small smile. "Come on," she said. "Let's..."

She turned away from Faith, as if she didn't want her to see her face.

"Let's celebrate," Rebecca said.

Faith sat in the big first floor dining room, at the long table with candles on it under the fancy chandelier. The room was dark, but the street lamp outside bathed her in a little pool of light as she looked out the window at Commonwealth Avenue. It had started to rain, and the colors from the street lamps and the traffic lights mixed and melted together on the slick wet street, red and green and yellow on black, making everything seem a little unreal, like a dream. Rebecca came back from the liquor cabinet with a bottle of Krug Clos du Mesnil champagne and two champagne glasses, sat down beside Faith, and lit the candles.

"Have you ever had champagne, Faith?" she asked.

"Nope," Faith said.

"I think you'll like it."

Their shadows flickered on the walls. Faith felt like she was in church.

Rebecca poured two glasses, and raised her glass to her.

"To the new Slayer. To Faith Lehane. To my girl," Rebecca said, and smiled. They touched glasses, and drank.

Faith knew Rebecca; she knew something was wrong. She'd figure it out eventually.

Faith liked the champagne. "Why do I get the feeling this stuff is really expensive?" she said.

"Because you're a smart girl with a discerning palate," Rebecca said.

"What's a discerning palate?"

"A keen sense of taste."

They finished their champagne, and Rebecca poured two more glasses.

"And now...one more toast," Rebecca said, and raised her glass again.

"To Buffy, and Kendra," Rebecca said.

It hit Faith all at once. If she was the Slayer now...

Someone else was dead.

"Buffy, and Kendra," Faith said, and understood, for the first time, what exactly being a Slayer meant. She hadn't felt the weight before, in the gym. Now she did. She felt the weight on her shoulders, now...the weight she would carry the rest of her life.

They touched glasses, and drank.

Rebecca had decided to get good and scuppered. She wasn't quite there yet, but she was feeling quite relaxed. Good show, Mr. Krug, she thought. You make a capital champagne. She stood in the doorway of Faith's bedroom on the second floor, the champagne bottle and her glass in her hand, watching Faith sleep. Faith was seventeen. Still a girl.

On the wall above the stereo system and the stack of hip-hop CD's that Faith had insisted she needed there hung the painting that Rebecca had bought for her in one of the galleries on Newbury Street. Faith had chosen it. It was an abstract, all swirling curves of deep, dark blue. "That one," Faith had said, pointing right at it.

Faith's leather coat was on the floor again; she always threw it on the floor no matter how many times Rebecca told her to hang it up. Rebecca picked it up--quietly, careful not to disturb Faith's sleep--and hung it in the closet.

Faith slept, curled up on her side by the open window. Faith always slept with the window open. A cool breeze was coming in.

Rebecca draped the blanket over Faith, and kissed her cheek.

She shut the door and walked up the stairs to her own room on the third floor--she was a bit wobbly, but not nearly enough, she would definitely need more champagne shortly--and sat down on the frilly four-poster bed, looking in the antique mirror with its gilt baroque frame. On the little table next to the bed, Gwendolyn looked up at her, frozen in that one smiling moment, forever. Rebecca and Faith had bought a new frame for the photo the day after Rebecca dropped it.

Rebecca stood up, and walked to the big mahogany bureau. Standing up suddenly like that told her she was closer to scuppered than she thought. Perhaps just one more glass, Mr. Krug, then we'll call it a night. She leaned on the bureau, looking in the mirror. She would be forty-two in August, though most people thought she looked ten years younger. But there were crow's feet at the corners of her eyes now, and laugh lines by her lips too, that most people didn't notice. Her hands rested on a silver tray on the bureau, which held brushes and combs and makeup and perfume. There was an antique porcelain vase next to it, which Faith had bought her the day before from an antique shop on Charles Street, because she knew Rebecca loved flowers. Faith had put tulips in the vase today.

Faith could have used the allowance Rebecca gave her to buy it. But Rebecca had found out from Evan that Faith had worked shifts at The Roxy--sweeping floors, helping behind the bar, checking ID's at the door, whatever needed to be done--to save up for it herself. Faith gave it to her on Mother's Day.

"Damn it Damn it DAMN IT!" Rebecca screamed, and smashed her fists down on the silver tray, and started to cry.

She wasn't sure how long she cried, leaning on the bureau with her eyes squeezed shut, the bottle of expensive perfume Trevor had bought her broken on the floor, spilling out at her feet. When she looked up at the mirror again, she saw Faith there, standing in the doorway behind her, in her nightgown.

"Tell me what's wrong," Faith said. She came into the room, and took Rebecca's hand.

"Do you know...do you know how long a Slayer lives?" Rebecca said. "Nineteen. Nineteen is the average life-expectancy of a Slayer."

When Rebecca looked at Faith, Faith saw something she had never seen before in those eyes, in that ocean of peaceful, calm blue that had been her constant source of strength, that Faith had taken for granted would always be there. She saw something desperate.

"This isn't what I wanted for you, Faith," Rebecca whispered.

Faith hugged her, and now she was crying too...

"I wanted you to live," Rebecca said. "I wanted you to be strong and happy. That's all I ever wanted for you. Not...not this. Not this..."

Faith felt the weight on her shoulders. The weight that would always be there...

They stood like that, crying, a little longer.

Then Rebecca straightened up, and wiped her tears away. And she wiped Faith's tears away too.

Faith looked up at Rebecca, and she saw that the desperation was gone, the ocean in Rebecca's blue eyes placid and strong again.

"So I guess you and I are just going to have to beat the odds," Rebecca said, in that tone she sometimes used, the one that Faith knew meant now. And she smiled. And Faith smiled too.

"Well, we're a frightful mess, aren't we?" Rebecca said, as they looked in the mirror together, and laughed. "Run along and get some sleep, Faith. Tomorrow your training begins."

"Begins?" Faith said. "Then what have we been up to for the past like, six months?"

"The past six months were a nice vacation on a tropical island somewhere, sipping Mai Tais," Rebecca said. "The past six months were training wheels. We're going to beat the goddamned odds. And to do that, we're going to have to do the work. I'm going to work you, Faith. Harder than you've ever worked before. Your combat training? Double it. Then double that."

Rebecca looked at Faith, just the way she did that night in November under the full moon.

"You're going to live to a ripe old age, Faith," Rebecca said. "Because I'm going to make you the greatest Slayer that's ever been."

Four

LION

They spent the rest of that week doing combat drills. Aikido, boxing, Krav Maga, and weapons training, just like before, except now there was a lot more of it. Rebecca wasn't kidding; Faith's combat training time was quadrupled. The good news was Faith would no longer have to run or lift weights; Slayer strength was magical, according to Rebecca, and, short of starving herself, a Slayer couldn't get out of shape or lose muscle even if she wanted to. So Faith spent eight grueling hours a day with Rebecca, working on her fighting technique, getting used to her new body; to her new strength, her new speed, her new reflexes. Everything was strange to her. Just picking things up was different: everything felt lighter. She had nearly perfect aim now, with any weapon that came to hand. She could punch through solid wood. When she walked she felt almost weightless, like she was walking on air. She could sprint at thirty miles an hour for ten minutes before beginning to tire. She could do a thousand pushups.

"Again," Rebecca said. Faith was pretty sure it was Rebecca's favorite word in the whole English language.

It was Saturday, and Faith was in her sweats, in the gym. On her ass on the mat, where she'd been most of the day. Rebecca stood over her, all business.

Trevor was there too, cheering Faith on, saying completely unhelpful things like "You can do it!" and "Oh, you almost had her that time!" whenever Rebecca threw her, which was a lot. It turned out that Trevor was a former special forces commando with a British outfit called the S.A.S., and he liked watching Rebecca and Faith's training routines. When Faith asked what the S.A.S. was, Trevor smiled and said, "We're the people you don't see until it's too late."

Faith groaned, got up, and ran at Rebecca. Faith was sneakier this time: she anticipated Rebecca's move and tried to sweep her legs. It didn't work, and Faith ended up back on the mat, back on her ass.

"Ow," Faith said.

"Oh, so close, Faith, so very, very close," Trevor said.

"You're getting better," Rebecca said. "Still not good enough, but better."

She offered Faith her hand, and pulled her up.

"A Slayer always thinks tactically, Faith," Rebecca said. "She instinctively catalogues her surroundings, noting any terrain or object that can be used for offensive or defensive advantage. A Slayer catalogues her opponent as well, both physically and psychologically, and you did that: you knew I prefer to go to my left and tried to use it against me. Bravo, but I don't really prefer going to my left. I just wanted to see if you'd notice."

They had been doing aikido throws all afternoon and Faith's ass ached. So she smiled with relief when Rebecca called it a day.

"Have mercy on your poor Slayer," Trevor said. "Or we'll be late for our dinner reservation."

"Yes, that's enough for today," Rebecca said, looking at the clock. "We have to drop Faith off at her party too."

She smiled at Faith, and put her arm around her.

"You're doing well, Faith," she said. "You're a natural at boxing, your footwork is excellent and your aikido is coming along nicely. Don't feel discouraged because I can throw you. Aikido is geared toward defeating a superior foe. It's an effective counter to your Slayer strength. That's why you have to learn it."

"Hope Uncle Bob shows up before my butt falls off," Faith said. Rebecca laughed.

"Uncle Bob?" Trevor said.

"Faith likes to poke fun at our quaint British expressions," Rebecca said.

"Ah," Trevor said. "Yes, someone probably should."

"Don't worry, Faith," Rebecca said. "You're learning fast; you'll be throwing me in no time."

"And dear Becky is a fifth degree black belt, don't you know," Trevor said. "Amazing you were even able to lay a hand on her today at all. Not only will Bob be your uncle in no time, but I'm sure Fanny will be your aunt."

Faith raised her eyebrow. Every time she thought there weren't any more weird British sayings, up popped a new one. She made a mental note to poke fun at Rebecca about it later.

"Now run along and get dressed. You don't want to be late for your party," Rebecca said.

After getting her ass handed to her all day Faith thought at first she might not be up for the party at Evan's place that night, but that magic Slayer mojo kept on pumping in her veins and after a shower and a quick bite to eat (Faith's famous grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon and tomato which Trevor called "delightfully primitive") Faith was ready to dance.

Evan's parents were, in his words, "ridiculously rich; really, Faith, it's just ridiculous," so Evan's condo in Cambridge was a breathtaking sight, a huge duplex with a glorious view of the Charles River. The large, sunken living room with its three big blue couches and the rug that felt a foot deep looked like something from the Playboy Mansion, and a giant sound system took up the entirety of one wall, blasting Evan's Roxy playlist through the room, out the windows and across the entire neighborhood. The place even had a terrace, and Evan was out there with the grill going, passing back hot dogs and burgers (Faith ate three hot dogs and two cheeseburgers; being a Slayer was hungry business). There was a fully stocked bar running along the wall separating the sunken living room from the kitchen and it was bigger than the one at The Roxy; if Evan's place had a dance floor, it would have been a better club than The Roxy. Dan was behind the bar, slinging drinks, his blue hair done up in a special new spiked 'do tonight, because his girlfriend was back from vacation.

The place was packed, wall-to-wall, and the music was so loud it sounded like artillery, and everyone was dancing and laughing and drinking and having so much fun that Faith was becoming seriously worried about the cops breaking it up. Then Dan informed her that his Dad was the Cambridge Chief of Police, and Faith relaxed, grabbed a Coke, and kicked back on one of the couches. Someone offered her a joint, which she politely declined.

Once he'd handed the grill off to someone else and finished making the polite host rounds, Evan sat next to her, looked back at Dan and said, "Barkeep, one margarita and don't skimp on the salt, and a Coke for my date, chop-chop."

"Yes, your fabulousness," Dan said.

"I'm glad you came," Evan said to Faith.

"Thanks for the invite," Faith said.

"Don't be silly. How could I not invite my girl? It wouldn't be the same without you. And don't worry, we'll make sure you get a ride home. Dan's doing his designated driver thing tonight, so he can drop you if I get too ridiculous with the margaritas, which, yeah, I'm thinking I might."

"Yeah, I'm thinking you might too. But it's cool, I can always have Becca come get me. What's Dan's girl like? He told me she was coming."

"Name's Terry, she's supposed to be by a little later. She's a drama queen, and she orders Dan around like she's Margaret Thatcher. But then I order him around like I'm Margaret Thatcher too."

Faith thought about how strange her life had become since she'd met Rebecca. She actually knew who Margaret Thatcher was now.

"And she loves him, so there's that," Evan continued. "She's fairly hot. Not Faith hot. She's this petite little blonde thing. They're happy, that's the main thing. He's my bud...I'm glad he's happy."

"You sound a little worried," Faith said. "She monopolizing him a little maybe?"

"Yeah. He loves her. We don't hang out as much. But he's my bud. I'll work with it."

He put his arm around her. It caught Faith off guard.

"I'm putting my arm around you," he said. "Deal with it."

"Sure," she said, and laughed, and leaned against him. It was nice.

"That guy at The Roxy was a prick," Evan said.

"Yeah," Faith said. The memory still cut.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm good. But see? Told you I was a loser magnet. It's like I got a sign on my back. 'Hey guys, come dump on me'."

"Not forever. You'll find the right guy. Give it time."

Faith nodded, and wondered how much time she had.

"So are you ready to tell me how you managed to toss him across the room yet?" Evan said. "You were like Wonder Woman. Except without the red white and blue panties."

"It's...just...y'know...like I said. I uh, do some martial arts, here and there," Faith said.

"Don't ask, don't tell. I get it," Evan said, seeing right through her like he always did. "But listen, if you ever need a shoulder? Or a place to crash? You know I'll always be here for you. Don't ever forget that."

They sat for awhile, leaning against each other, and looked at the crowd. Faith noticed two girls watching her like hawks.

"I think those two blondes are gonna put a hit out on me," Faith said.

"Those two," Evan said. "Yeah, they've been up my ass all night. They grabbed my ass, actually. I had to hide in the bathroom for awhile to get away from them. For real. Actually hid in the fucking bathroom at my own party."

"They're kinda hot, you know. Maybe a little on the slutty side..."

"They look good but their brains are on standby. I don't do dumb. Besides, they're not as hot as you. You've kind of spoiled me with your hotness."

"Well, duh," she said, and looked at him. Their faces were very close to each other...their lips were very close to each other. They both acknowledged the moment, and let it pass.

It was nice. Faith liked having a guy who was just a friend. She liked not having to deal with that pressure. Not having to figure out how far to let a guy go this time, where to draw the line. You gave an inch and guys wanted to take a mile. If you let them go too far they thought you were a slut. Not far enough, and they lost interest. She was tired of that game. It was nice, not having to play it...

If only Evan wasn't so damn hot, Faith thought. Damn, damn, damn.

"What?" Evan said, giving her that smile he gave her sometimes, the one that made him look like a fox in a chicken coop. Faith knew that Evan knew he was gorgeous, and she knew that he knew that she liked him, and she knew he was being insufferable about it like he always was because he liked getting her all hot and bothered. Faith wasn't sure, but she thought he might even have been acting impertinent too. But that was okay. Faith liked when Evan was insufferable and possibly even impertinent, and she liked being all hot and bothered for him. So she giggled, and put her head on his shoulder.

"You know," Faith said.

"I wasn't able to make you blush this time," Evan said. "Gave it my best shot too. Did the smile and everything."

"I blushed a little," Faith said.

"You're pretty when you blush."

"You think I'm pretty?"

"Duh. The tip-off was all those millions of times I've called you pretty."

"You've never called me pretty before."

"What are you talking about? I call you pretty all the time. I called you pretty like two minutes ago."

"You called me hot."

"Yeah, well, hot, pretty...same thing."

"They're not the same. I'd rather be pretty than hot."

"Well, you're both. You and me, you know what we're like? We're like Bruce Willis and whatshername in Moonlighting. We can never get together, or the show will become lame. Except we're both so much prettier than they are."

"I don't know, Ev, Bruce Willis is fine. I'd need to see the whole package to make an informed judgment on that one."

"Maybe for your birthday I'll jump out of a cake. Hey, those two blondes remind me of a joke."

"Oh, no."

"Okay, so there are these three fifth grade girls, a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead. Which one has the biggest tits?"

"I know it's gonna be the blonde, but I don't know why."

"The blonde, because she's eighteen. Why did the blonde stare at the orange juice?"

"Why?"

"Because it said 'concentrate' on the carton."

Faith giggled. "You are such a goof," she said.

Across the room, the two blondes walked off in a huff.

"Think they heard the jokes?" Evan said.

"What are they complaining about?" Faith said. "They got to grab your ass. I didn't get to grab your ass."

"You can grab my ass if you want."

"You know I'm gonna hold you to that, right?" Faith said.

The next day Faith and Rebecca had dinner in Boston's North End, a tiny neighborhood of Italian restaurants and shops and old redbrick houses built on narrow, crooked streets that weren't really maneuverable by car, but that didn't stop people from trying anyway. The double-parked cars, the traffic jams, the insistent beeping of horns and the hurling of expletives in both English and Italian was a traditional part of the neighborhood's ambience. It was a warm day, and old women sat on their front steps, and men sat in the espresso cafes arguing about soccer teams, and Rebecca and Faith explored the neighborhood, peeking in the windows of all the restaurants and cafes, before settling on a place to eat. They were about to walk into a promising little restaurant called Lucca when they bumped into three handsome Italian men coming out of a cafe next door.

"No, no, Lucca has gone down, it's only for tourists now," one of them, a gorgeous man with slicked-back black hair, beard stubble and a big smile, said. "Could we let two beautiful girls eat second-rate food?" he said to his buddies, who were laughing. One of them, whom Faith thought was even more gorgeous than the first, took Rebecca's hand and gently turned her around. "Signorina, try Taranta," he said, pointing down the block. "For you, only the best."

"Well...thank you very much," Rebecca said. "I believe we will."

The man holding Rebecca's hand kissed it, and bowed. The third one, a tall man with a ponytail and dark eyes whom Faith would seriously have considered marrying if he asked, took Faith's hand and kissed it. "Watch out for this one," he said. "A heartbreaker. She's gonna be a heartbreaker!" Faith giggled. "If I was only just a little younger man," he said. "Just a little younger man..."

"Enjoy, ladies," the first man said with a smile, and the three of them waved and walked away, resuming their argument about soccer.

"Well. This is one part of Boston I think I can appreciate," Rebecca said.

"I'd say those guys were being pretty damn impertinent," Faith said.

"Yes, but I like impertinence."

"Y'know, Becca, if I didn't know you better I would've sworn you were blushing for a sec there."

"Certainly not," Rebecca said.

The three impertinent Italian men were right about the restaurant, but when Rebecca and Faith got back to the car after dinner, Rebecca didn't drive them home. She headed away from downtown instead.

"Where are we going?" Faith said. They were driving through the tunnel, toward the other side of the city. The sun was low; it would be setting soon.

"Hunting," Rebecca said. "You're ready. You're used to your new abilities now. You're strong, smart and skilled. It's time to begin."

Faith knew this day was coming. This was what all her training had been for. What her whole life, in a way, had been for. She felt the way she did back in school, when some girl called her out and she knew she'd have to either fight or run. You're dead after school. But her whole life up to now, every fight she'd ever been in, every tough project chick she had to smack down to protect what was hers...it was all minor league ball. Now she was in the majors. And getting sent back down meant six feet under. Faith nodded her head, and tried to hide her fear.

"I told you that you'll be able to sense vampires at a distance," Rebecca said. "Mostly because you'll smell them--you'll find all your senses are sharper now but your sense of smell is much sharper than any of the others. You'll find that all vampires have a particular scent that you'll instinctively recognize. In fact you'll be able to recognize anyone, not just vampires, by their scent now. But a vampire's sense of smell is even better than yours. They're like bloodhounds. Once a vampire has your scent he can track you for miles. Remember that."

"Will they know I'm the Slayer?" Faith said. "I mean, like, how you said vamps are gonna smell a certain way to me. Does the Slayer smell a certain way to them? Will vamps be able to tell I'm the Slayer just by how I smell to them?"

"That's a very smart question," Rebecca said, and smiled. "You're a perceptive girl. Luckily the answer is no. To a vampire you simply smell like a teenaged girl; Slayers don't have a specific scent in common. But vampires remember every scent they've ever encountered, just like you will from now on. You have advantages over vampires, Faith; you'll find you're much stronger than the average vampire, and usually faster too, and another very important advantage you have is surprise. You'll immediately know if someone is a vampire simply by how they smell, but a vampire won't know you're the Slayer until you show your strength. It gives you the first move in a fight. That's why it's important that you never let a vampire escape from you. If a vampire runs into you and manages to escape, he'll know your scent after that and when he smells it, he'll know the Slayer is nearby. Even worse, he'll be able to track you. You can only take a vampire by surprise once. Make it count."

They came out of the tunnel onto a highway. Faith looked out the window. They were on the other side of the Harbor, now; the familiar Boston skyline was behind them and receding, the skyscrapers reflecting the light of the setting sun, blood red.

"You're the Slayer now, Faith, and that makes you a target," Rebecca said. "Once you begin destroying vampires word will get around; you'll develop a reputation and some vampires will even seek you out. You must be alert and ready for battle at all times from now on, not just when you're out hunting. You can be attacked anywhere, at any time. Madeleine Lambert once had to fight off seven vampires while she was watching a figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics in a crowd of twenty-thousand people."

"In the vamps' defense, figure skating makes me want to kill people sometimes too," Faith said.

"Don't joke," Rebecca said. "There are vampires who take Slayers like trophies. You're not going to be one of them."

The Lexus parked outside a cemetery in East Boston as the sun set and evening came on. East Boston was a working class neighborhood separated from Boston by the Harbor, its streets lined with ugly tripledecker houses rammed together with hardly any space between them. All surrounded by Boston's Logan Airport, which defined the neighborhood's boundaries and gave it its shape. Planes took off and landed right over their heads, and Faith wondered how the people living there, mostly Hispanic and poor, ever got used to it. Rebecca turned off the motor, and looked at Faith in the dark.

"Remember that nature special that was on last week?" Rebecca said. "The one about lions?"

"Yeah?" Faith said.

"You're the lion."

They got out of the car, and walked toward the cemetery. It was big, with lots of trees, and a black wrought-iron gate all around. There was a playground in a field next to it. The area was residential; there were houses across the street.

"Vamps hang out here? Right in sight of people? Right near a playground?" Faith said.

"Remember they can look human when they want to," Rebecca said. "I've been exploring Boston for months now; I've been to every cemetery in the city. I know where the vampires are. I found evidence two nights ago that a small group, perhaps two or three vampires, is nesting here. The playground just makes it prime real estate for them. That's why I picked this group first. You're going to make an example out of them."

The cemetery's gate was locked, with a heavy chain.

"Don't feel much like a lion," Faith said.

"That's because you haven't caught their scent yet," Rebecca said.

"Locked. We can climb over, I guess."

"No. Break the lock. Let's make a proper entrance."

"Break the lock?"

Rebecca looked at her. "Break it," she said.

"Uh, okay," Faith said, and took the heavy padlock in her hands...and effortlessly pulled it apart.

"Wow," Faith said. "I keep forgetting how strong I am now."

"Feel like a lion yet?" Rebecca said, and pushed the gate open, and marched into the cemetery the way Napoleon marched back into Paris. There was a man at the far end, a few hundred yards away, sitting on a tombstone and smoking a cigarette. He wasn't looking in their direction yet.

"Is that man a vampire?" Rebecca said.

Faith looked at him, trying to decide.

"Don't think about it," Rebecca said. "It isn't a riddle. You're the Slayer. You know this. Look at him and tell me if he's a vampire."

Faith looked at him...and suddenly, somehow...she knew.

"Yeah," she said. "He's a vamp."

"Excellent," Rebecca said. "Now go kill him."

"Uh...yeah. Okay," Faith said, afraid, and trying not to be. She started walking toward the man.

"Faith," Rebecca said, softly.

Faith turned.

"I know you're afraid," Rebecca said. "It's natural."

Rebecca put her hands on Faith's shoulders, and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Don't try to impress me tonight. You don't have to. I'm already impressed. I'm already proud of you," Rebecca said, and hugged her.

"Thanks," Faith said, and looked up at Rebecca, who always seemed so tall and strong and beautiful. "That...really means a lot to me, y'know?"

It was a goodbye hug, Rebecca knew. The girl she met that cold, starry November night wouldn't be coming back...she would be gone forever soon. Rebecca didn't want to let her go.

But she knew she had to. Rebecca broke the embrace.

"Remember what he is," Rebecca said. "He looks human but he's not. He's a demon in human shape and he doesn't have a soul. He murders and rapes and butchers people. He's your prey; nothing more. Kill him."

Faith nodded, and walked away.

The night was coming on quickly now, and the moon, a thick crescent, was on the rise through the clouds, sometimes hiding behind them, sometimes revealing itself; it lit the sky with silver. There were street lights outside the cemetery, bathing part of it in hard white light. Faith walked in the dark part, past little weathered tombstones, leaning at angles, some decorated with faded death's heads: skulls with wings. A white Ford Thunderbird drove too fast down the street, blasting an Aerosmith song she knew.

Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away, the song said...

And then, suddenly, Faith was aware.

She was aware of all the little leaning tombstones. She was aware of the crunch of twigs beneath her feet. The smell of the grass. The slight, warm wind rustling the leaves. The moon like an eye staring down at her. She was aware of all of it, all at once.

It was as if all her senses had...reached out, somehow...

She was aware of the swing set in the little playground on the other side of the cemetery squeaking in the wind and Rebecca watching her from far away and the feel of the stake in her pocket and the smell of the vampire's cigarette smoke and the Aerosmith song fading away down the street...

Her skin tingled, caressed by the wind. It was as if she was feeling the wind for the first time in her life. Everything she was sensing came at her like a wave, like a riptide carrying her out to sea. She almost lost her balance, lost herself. She had to steady herself against a tree, center herself again. The bark felt sensuous under her fingers. In the tree's coarse, craggy skin, in all its sharp, knobby protrusions and its little shallow valleys, Faith could discern a whole new world of intricate patterns...like the tree went on forever.

Everything was so much more, now. So much deeper.

After a moment she found she could sift through the sense data...sort it, catalogue it. She realized Rebecca was right: the vampire smelled like rotten meat. Like a carcass. And Faith instinctively knew that all vampires smelled the same way. But the vampire also had a specific scent underneath that one, specific to him alone. The rotten meat smell overwhelmed it but it was still there. Faith guessed the other scent must be how the vampire smelled when he was still alive. Rebecca had a specific scent too, and Faith catalogued it, and knew she would always remember it. It was a pretty scent. Faith liked it.

Faith felt like she was waking up, for the first time in her life...that her life before this moment had only been a dream. She felt brand new.

She wasn't afraid of the vampire anymore. She had the scent.

The vampire became aware of her. He turned and dropped his cigarette. Faith heard him growl.

He loped toward her, seeming to Faith a half-animal thing, still growling, but smiling now too. He smelled like rotten meat.

They met, by a stand of trees, and regarded each other.

"You lost, girl?" he said. He was a tall Puerto Rican man with dark hair, earrings, and a goatee.

"Nope," Faith said...and something happened.

She felt her heart beating and felt a rush... like she needed to move, like she needed to dance, like she needed to fuck. Like she needed to kill.

"You know what I am? You know what this is?" the vampire said. "You're gonna die tonight, honey."

Faith showed him her stake. "Know what this is?" she said.

She could see he didn't like the stake one bit.

"Who the fuck are you?" he said, his smile gone.

"I'm the Slayer," she said.

"Slayer's out in Cali."

"Didn't you hear? There are two of us now. Double your pleasure..." and she smiled, and bared her teeth at him.

"'Cuz I can go all night," Faith snarled, and ran at him like a lion charging an antelope.

She threw a punch that sent him flying twenty feet across the cemetery before he even had a chance to move and he slammed into a tombstone, breaking it in two. He got up and sprang at her, his face changing to vampire form as he did, becoming a grotesque thing with long animal fangs, but Faith grabbed him by the arm and flipped him over her head into a tree. Before he could get up she rained down punches on him, cracking his head against the tree over and over again. She picked him up by the throat and held him in the air in a grip like steel. He was barely conscious. She held the stake up so he could see it. She smiled.

"Bye, honey," she said, and staked him. The whole fight had taken less than ten seconds.

Faith felt like a lion. Boston was her territory now. She'd defend it.

A moment passed, and then Rebecca was standing behind her. Faith recognized her scent.

"How does it feel?" Rebecca said.

"Feels like more," Faith said.

"Their crypt is down that way," Rebecca said. "Shall we pop in and say hello?"

The crypt was a small mausoleum, made from granite, with stone steps leading to the arch-shaped door in front, and a peaked roof topped with a cross. The stone looked centuries old and was overgrown with leaves. The door was shut tight. Faith kicked it open with a boom that echoed through the cemetery. The crypt smelled like blood and booze inside, and it was dark, lit only by a solitary torch. A large stone crucifix was broken in pieces on the floor.

Two vampires sitting on a sarcophagus looked up from their card game and their whiskey.

Faith's eyes lit up when she saw the vampires. They were like Christmas presents. She wanted to rip them open, and see what was inside.

"Knock knock," Faith said.

The fight lasted almost a minute this time; the short, wiry Mexican kid was quick and got a good hit in on Faith that sent her flying. In a strange way, that made Faith like it even better. She staked him after flipping him with an aikido throw that sent him into a wall, and a knee to the head that put him down.

Now Faith had the other one, a pretty black girl with bleached blonde hair in corn rows and nervous, darting eyes, on the floor, with her knee on the girl's stomach and the girl's right arm in a wrist lock. The girl's bloody earlobe was on the floor beside her. Faith had torn it off, a nasty and very effective little move Rebecca had taught her that had taken the girl out of the fight in the first three seconds. The girl had cowered on the floor, crying, while Faith killed her friend.

The vampire looked up at Faith in terror. Faith looked down at her like she was a piece of meat.

"See ya," Faith said, and staked her.

"Excellent," Rebecca said, walking into the crypt. "The aikido throw, the wrist lock...and I especially liked the bit with the ear."

"Bob's your uncle," Faith said, as she got up and dusted herself off.

Rebecca laughed. It was a strange sound, in the crypt; it echoed through that dark place and filled it up, like the sun shining in. "Yes, dear, we'll make a right English girl of you yet," she said.

"Think I gotta get some cool lines for when I dust vamps though," Faith said. "Like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I can be all, 'hasta la vista, baby'."

"You realize I haven't the slightest idea what you're referring to, of course," Rebecca said.

"Do all vamps live like this?" Faith said, looking around. The crypt was a dump and it stank. Beer cans and whiskey bottles were strewn about everywhere, there was a pile of dirty old clothes heaped in a corner that smelled like urine, and there were blood stains on the floor.

"Most do," Rebecca said. "Some, mostly the ones that have been around for awhile, have a sense of taste. But most vampires live like transients, finding protection from the sun where they can. They have complete freedom: they kill as they please, and they feel no sense of remorse or even hesitation about it. There's a purity to vampires, the purity that comes from being soulless. Having a soul is a complicated, messy thing; being a good person is hard. But evil is easy."

"I'm hungry," Faith said, when they got back to the car. "Weird. Just ate like an hour ago."

"Most Slayers are hungry after a good kill," Rebecca said. "And your body will be different now: you'll be eating more in general. Don't worry, it will never go to fat. We can find a restaurant somewhere, or there's that leftover hummus in the fridge."

"I need something with some good meat in it. But a restaurant will take too long, I need meat like, right now. Evan says there's this take-out place called Kelly's over on Revere Beach."

"You should have Evan over to the house for dinner sometime. I'd like to get to know him better."

"Sure. Anyway he says they have great roast beef sandwiches. I think it's around here somewhere."

"Roast beef sandwiches. How charming," Rebecca said.

Slaying made Faith hungry, and she had a big sloppy roast beef sandwich with sauce and cheese that was the most roast beef she had ever seen in one place in her life, a bucket of french fries as big as her head and a super-sized Coke. Slaying also made her horny, but she didn't tell Rebecca that. Rebecca looked relieved when she saw the menu was more varied than just roast beef, and ordered onion rings and coffee, both of which she pronounced "capital". And they sat on the beach wall, eating and looking out at the moon on the ocean. It was a beautiful spring night, with summer on the way and the ocean smell strong on the gentle breeze, and the beach was packed with parked cars, and a lot of limos. It was prom season, and the kids in the limos preened and posed and laughed in their rented tuxes and fancy dresses. Faith turned and watched them as they drove by.

"Do you want to go back to school?" Rebecca said, watching the limousines. "Do you miss school?"

"Nah," Faith said. "Southie High was a pit."

"There are better schools. Private schools. I could enroll you for September. Anywhere you want. Trevor could make some calls."

"Never was much for, y'know, homework and all that. Might've been nice to go to prom though."

"You have a destiny, Faith. A grand one. It will be better than any prom." Rebecca looked at Faith with that eyebrow of hers raised. "That's not to say a good man wouldn't help you pass the time though. How's Evan been lately?"

"He's...a really good friend."

"Mmm-hmm. Well, hope springs eternal. And there'll be others."

"No big. Never had any luck with guys anyway. I'm good just, being with you and doing our Slayer stuff, y'know? I don't need anything else. Are we gonna be going to Sunnydale?"

"Yes. But not now. We've lost Kendra, but Angelus has been destroyed and Spike and Drusilla are gone. They don't need us there just now and you need more training. The Hellmouth is calm for the moment, so we'll let you put the fear of God into Boston for awhile before we unleash you on California."

"I want to meet Buffy," Faith said.

"You will," Rebecca said. "And I'm sure you'll be good friends. We'll go out there. But not just yet."

"Taking down Angelus...Buffy's really something. Plus The Master last year too. Becca...tell me honestly. Be upfront with me. Do you think...I can ever be as good a Slayer as Buffy is?"

Rebecca put her arm around her.

"Yes, Faith," Rebecca said. "I know you can. And I know you will."

"Okay," Faith said.

"So how do you feel after your first night as the Slayer?" Rebecca said.

"Five by five," Faith said, and smiled.

Five

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP

Use your enemy's size and strength against him. Unify with his rhythm and intent, find the right position, find the right timing. Redirect his energy. Make it work for you.

Keep your guard up, watch his feet, stick and move. Always on the balls of your feet, always shuffling, always moving.

Fight dirty. Get inside his guard and hit the weak spots. A finger to the eye, an elbow to the neck, a kick in the balls. Quick, efficient, brutal.

Hour after hour, day after day, drill after drill until Faith got it right...

Three months passed. Faith became a terror.

With Rebecca's guidance, Faith swept through Boston like a hurricane, stalking and destroying vampires with ruthless, brutal tactics. Every day she grew a little more skilled, a little more confident, until finally her name was whispered in fear in old crypts and boarded-up tenements, in crack houses and sewers, anywhere vampires hid from the light. Word spread quickly that a strong new Slayer was marking her territory in Boston, that it was no longer a place where the vampires could hunt as they pleased. Faith's name spread throughout the city...

And far beyond...

The three vampires had Faith surrounded.

It was August, and scorching hot in Boston. But Faith liked the heat; it loosened her up. She was in her work clothes: broken-in jeans, a tee-shirt and steel-toed Doc Marten boots, excellent for kicking vampires across cemeteries. The vampires were nowhere near as fab: like most vampires Faith had fought, they looked like eighties rejects. One of these nights Faith just knew she'd be taking on REO Speedwagon in some cemetery somewhere. She wondered if vampires were different on the West Coast...she wondered about Buffy, and how things were for her. She wanted to see her. She knew they could be friends.

What the vampires lacked in style they made up for with lots and lots of muscle. They were big and mean and by the way they moved, Faith could tell they knew how to fight. She smiled.

Faith reached out with all her senses: the old cemetery in the rich part of West Roxbury with its beautifully preserved statues and ivy-grown mausoleums was quiet; the only sound was the chirping of crickets. It was late, and there was no moon to see by; the elm trees cast long shadows in the glow of the streetlights outside. The night was humid and the vampires' scents were strong. Rebecca was twenty yards behind her. One of the vampires wore a gold chain with an Italian horn on it. Faith's stake felt smooth in her hand. A cat hid in the bushes to her right; she was a yellow tabby with black stripes and white paws and green, staring eyes. Rebecca's perfume smelled nice, kind of flowery. The vampires ran at Faith, their boots pounding the soft earth like drums.

"Go ahead," Faith said. "Make my day."

They were big but they were slow and Faith ran rings around them. The one with the long ratty gray hair and the droopy moustache tried to grab her. She ducked under him, spun around, and staked him through the back. The other two leaped at her from her left, but she wasn't there anymore. She somersaulted away and came up facing them as the vampires hit the dirt. They got up, growling.

The cat growled back at them. So did Faith.

"So what's up? You guys talked real big before. Gonna show me something before I dust you?" Faith said.

"Got a fuckin' mouth on you girl, I'll give you that," the bald one with the beard and the earring said. "I'll shut you the fuck up though. You come into my house? Gonna get smacked down."

"Wow, baldy," Faith said. "Gotta tell ya, I'm positively shaking in my fabulous boots after that speech. Damn, guess I should probably just run, huh?"

The bald vampire pulled out a switchblade. The other one, a guy with a moustache and a crew cut who looked like he used to be a motorcycle cop, had a big, shit-eating grin on his face. But not for much longer.

"Aw, you brought me a present," Faith said, as they both came at her. "That was really thoughtful."

Baldy came first, with Motorcycle Cop behind him. To Faith they were moving in slow motion. She stepped to her right, grabbed Baldy's arm, took his knife away and flipped him over her shoulder. She stuck the knife in Motorcycle Cop's eye, spun and kicked Baldy in the face. He slammed into a tree and went down. She staked Motorcycle Cop as he screamed and tried to pull the knife from his eye, then she spun and faced Baldy as he got up. He threw a big roundhouse punch; Faith blocked it. It sent her flying, but she rolled right back up to her feet.

Baldy ran at her, throwing wild punches which Faith dodged easily. Then he leaned in too close with another roundhouse punch and Faith ducked it, got under his guard and hit him with a right uppercut and a beauty of a left hook. He wasn't ready and he went down. He got back up, a little wobbly now. Faith planted her left leg, whipped around, and kicked him with her right. It sent him flying and he landed hard on the ground. He managed to get himself up again, but Faith could see he was almost done. She walked toward him, anticipating the kill.

"It's my house," Faith said. "This whole city's my house."

He took one last run at her and threw another big punch, but it was slow and Faith slipped it with ease, kneeing him in the balls for good measure. He lowered his hands to protect the area, and Faith hit him with two quick jabs and the sledgehammer of a right cross she had and he was out cold on the ground.

Faith stood over the unconscious vampire, and looked down at him, predator to prey.

Boston was hers.

"Hasta la vista, baby," she said.

She staked the vampire, and walked back to Rebecca.

"Wonderful, Faith!" Rebecca said with a big smile. "You're getting better every day."

"Couldn't have done it without you, Becca," Faith said, and hugged her. She liked hugging Rebecca. She liked leaning in against Rebecca, and she liked how warm Rebecca always felt, and the way she smelled. Faith had trouble letting go of her sometimes.

"And I see you managed to work your catchphrases in again," Rebecca said, with a raised eyebrow.

"Come on Becca, don't tell me you don't think they're just a little bit cool," Faith said, and grinned.

"Yes, they're very clever, darling."

"Got another one I'm getting ready to try out. How about, whenever I pull out my stake from now on? I say, 'Say hello to my little friend!' Al Pacino said it in Scarface when he was all like, playing this psycho drug kingpin guy."

"Who's his little friend?"

"A gun with a grenade launcher. He has it in the house along with like, eighty-two pounds of cocaine."

"I see. I suppose you couldn't just say 'God save the Queen' instead?"

"I'll try to work it in," Faith said, and laughed.

Faith was a jeans and leather kind of girl; she owned dresses and skirts because Rebecca insisted on it, but she rarely wore them. Faith dressed up when they ate at a restaurant with a dress code, or when they went to a museum, but that was about it. So when Rebecca walked by Faith's room and saw her wearing high heeled shoes and a black dress and checking herself out in the mirror a few nights later, she raised her eyebrow and said, "Well. This is a change."

"What do you think?" Faith said. Rebecca walked in and looked in the mirror with her.

"I think you look beautiful," Rebecca said. "I've always said you should dress up more often. Aren't you glad we bought you the dresses now?"

Rebecca's birthday had just passed, and Faith's present to her was two tickets to Les Mis�rables, a musical which Rebecca had mentioned was a particular favorite of hers and which Faith found out was just starting an engagement in Boston. They had gone to the show together, and Faith was surprised to find herself liking it. She hadn't understood what a musical was, and she'd been prepared for a long, boring night, but once she acclimated herself to the fact that people would just start singing in the middle of the story, she had a great time. And she liked the singing too.

And she'd had to wear a dress, and that hadn't been so bad either. She had decided she'd try wearing dresses and skirts more often. She knew she had the legs for it...why not show them off? Tonight would be the perfect opportunity.

"Still feels a little weird," Faith said. "Kinda like...exposed a little. You sure I look okay?"

Rebecca smiled. "Ask Evan," she said. "You're seeing him tonight."

Somehow, Rebecca always knew everything.

"We're going to the Feast in the North End," Faith said. "Evan says the food's great and it's like a big party in the street."

"If you see those nice Italian gentlemen, tell them I said hi," Rebecca said.

"Hello, Evan," Rebecca said, fifteen minutes later, answering the door with a big smile when Evan arrived to pick Faith up. "Don't you look handsome."

And he did. But he didn't look as good as Faith. She stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at him. Evan looked up at her, and said, "Oh my God."

"Hey, Ev," Faith said, fussing with her hair.

"That's...wow," Evan said, his eyes glued to her.

"Yes, I'm sure, but why don't you come in?" Rebecca said, as Evan was still standing on the step.

"Yeah...thanks..." Evan said, and came in.

"Uh...you like my outfit?" Faith said, and walked down the stairs to him. She moved her arms around in front of her, as if she wanted to hide herself.

Rebecca gently lowered Faith's arms to her side.

"Can you wear that dress every day forever?" Evan said, finally recovering his wits, and smiling his wolfish smile.

Faith laughed, and started to relax a little. "Okay, gonna call that a yes on the outfit," she said.

"I think I'm gonna need a baseball bat to keep the guys away from her, Rebecca," Evan said.

"Oh, I'm sure Faith can take care of herself," Rebecca said.

"Besides, maybe I don't want you to keep the guys away," Faith said, with a sexy smile of her own that went up against Evan's and gave as good as it got.

Rebecca watched their banter, watched the way Faith looked at Evan. Evan would have to be a complete idiot not to know how Faith felt about him. And though Rebecca didn't know Evan very well--she had only met him a few times--she knew he wasn't an idiot. Evan could hurt Faith, very badly. It was the one thing Rebecca couldn't protect her from.

"Have fun tonight," Rebecca said, and kissed Faith's cheek.

After a week of deceptively cool weather August returned to form and Boston got sucker-punched with another heat wave that held the city in its grip like a dog gnawing a bone. It was after sunset and it was ninety-two degrees. Even the vampires had been laying low, trying to stay cool. Perversely, Rebecca and Trevor had decided to go dancing. Faith had much more sensibly decided to stay inside curled up in front of the VCR, which was strategically located next to the air conditioner. Evan would be coming over with rented movies and they were going to pop popcorn and order pizza and have a cool, relaxing night.

Faith had staked a couple of vampires the night before, so she wasn't feeling restless. She lay stretched out on the couch in front of the television like a cat: indolent, satisfied, comfortable...but always ready to pounce.

Rebecca watched her from the dining room, while she waited for Trevor to arrive. Faith was relaxed, her whole body slack. Rebecca knew that was an illusion. Faith could spring into action, fully alert and ready to fight, in a split-second; Rebecca had seen her do it before. Faith seemed to be concentrating on the television. But Rebecca knew Faith's senses were aware of everything around her. If a single sight, sound or smell was out of place Faith would instantly be ready to fight. And she knew that Faith knew she was watching.

Rebecca came into the living room and sat next to her on the couch.

"Hey, Becca," Faith said, and stretched, and yawned, and smiled.

"Any good movies lined up?" Rebecca said.

"Pulp Fiction, and a Clint Eastwood western. Plus Evan got some Burt Reynolds movie where they all like, race cars and chew bubble gum and laugh over the credits at the end. Evan's a guy so of course he thinks that's hilarious."

"So how are you and Evan? You've been seeing a lot of each other lately."

"You know. We're five by five."

"Faith...will you promise me that you'll...be careful with him?"

"What do you mean? Becca...Ev and I are just friends. We're not... y'know...like that."

Rebecca was torn. Faith had a right to her privacy. Rebecca had very quickly taken over nearly every part of Faith's life since that November night when they first met; she understood what that meant, and the responsibility she had to Faith. But that made it even more important that Faith have something--anything--that was hers, and hers alone. Evan was hers.

"Okay," Rebecca said, and smiled. "Have a good time."

She hugged Faith, and walked away.

When Rebecca got home a little after two, she went to check on Faith on her way up to bed.

Faith's bedroom door was open. When Rebecca peeked her head inside, she saw Faith and Evan in bed together.

They were asleep. Faith was wearing her nightgown, and Evan was still fully dressed. Faith was curled up against him with her head on his chest. Evan had his arms around her.

Faith woke up, and opened her eyes. The little clock said 2:16 a.m. She was confused. Someone was in bed with her...Evan. She recognized his scent.

She remembered. They had come back to her room to listen to music...

There was another scent. Rebecca's. Faith turned over, and looked up.

Rebecca was standing beside the bed.

"Let's talk," Rebecca said.

Faith sat at the kitchen table, and Rebecca made coffee.

"Uh...okay, Becca, look...seriously? Nothing happened. I mean...I don't know, I think we just kinda like, fell asleep and..." Faith stammered.

Rebecca turned around. Something in Faith's voice wasn't right. She was nervous...verging on scared.

"I...you know I'd never...I'd never lie to you right?" Faith said. "I mean... you know that, right? We, we didn't do anything, Becca, I swear..."

As Rebecca watched her she could see that Faith was shaking now, and was nearly in tears. What the devil was wrong with her?

And then, Rebecca understood.

She knelt down in front of Faith, and took her hand.

"It's all right, Faith," Rebecca said.

"We didn't, we didn't..." Faith whimpered, shaking her head back and forth, with tears in her eyes.

Rebecca hugged her.

"Sshhh. It's all right," Rebecca said again. "I'm not angry. I know you wouldn't lie to me. I trust you. I always have. Okay?"

Faith nodded, holding on tight to her.

"Faith," Rebecca said. "I'm not..."

I'm not your mother, Rebecca was about to say. But somehow, she couldn't make herself say it...

"I won't...I won't do what your mother did," Rebecca said.

She could feel Faith crying now.

"I'm just...sorry and...we weren't supposed to and...I won't do it again, I promise..." Faith said, sniffling and sobbing, her tears falling on Rebecca's shoulder, and in Rebecca's hair.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Faith," Rebecca said. "You didn't do anything wrong."

She looked Faith in the eyes. "Faith," she said, softly. "You didn't do anything wrong."

Rebecca wiped Faith's tears away, and stroked her hair. "Listen to me," she said. "You'll always have a place with me. You'll always be my girl. I won't stop caring about you. I won't. Do you understand?"

Faith nodded, still shaking a little.

"You don't have to be on your best behavior all the time," Rebecca said. "You don't have to be perfect all the time. That's not what I want, Faith. I don't care if you make a mistake...I make mistakes too. Everybody does. All I want is for you to be happy. Okay?"

"Okay," Faith whispered.

"I trust you," Rebecca said. "And I'm proud of you. If you make a mistake, if you do something you think you shouldn't have, you can always come to me, no matter what it is, no matter how bad you think it is. I'll always be here for you. And I don't ever...ever...want you to be afraid of me. All right?"

Faith nodded again, and smiled.

"That's my girl," Rebecca said, and kissed her cheek, and hugged her again. "That's my girl."

Eventually, Faith stopped shaking.

"Are you okay?" Rebecca said after awhile, still holding her.

"I guess I get...kinda goofy sometimes, huh?" Faith said, sniffling, her eyes red.

"It's one of the things I like about you," Rebecca said, and smiled. Faith giggled, and nodded.

Rebecca took a napkin from the table. Faith's nose was running. Rebecca held the napkin against it.

"Blow," Rebecca said.

Faith blew her nose. Rebecca wiped it, and smiled again.

Then she got up, and poured some coffee. The thought occurred to her that caffeine might not be the best thing for Faith right now--the poor girl would probably do better with a good stiff shot of scotch at the moment--so Rebecca went to the refrigerator and poured Faith a glass of milk instead. Faith drank it.

"Now," Rebecca said. "Let's have our little talk...about safe sex."

"Oh...crap," Faith said.

"Can we please stop talking about penises now?" Evan heard Faith saying as he walked downstairs in his socks fifteen minutes later.

"I just want to be sure we've covered all the bases," Rebecca said.

"We grand slammed the bases," Faith said.

"And you'll be certain to use protection."

"I will, Becca, I promise. And I already told you, Evan and I aren't--"

"Uh...hi," Evan said, walking into the kitchen.

"Hello, Evan," Rebecca said, and looked at him with her arms folded across her chest, and waited. It wasn't an unfriendly look, but it wasn't welcoming, either. If Faith was going to give her heart to this boy, Rebecca wanted to see what he was made of. It was time for him to show his quality. Her stern blue eyes fixed on him, and she waited.

"So, uh..." Faith said, looking from Rebecca to Evan.

"Let Evan talk," Rebecca said, in that tone that meant now.

"Okay, look, this was my fault," Evan said. "We went to Faith's room to listen to music, and it was late, and I really should have gone home, Faith told me I should be getting home before I fell asleep. But I thought we could stay up a little longer. I was stupid and I apologize. We fell asleep in the bed but I swear, Rebecca, nothing happened. So if, you know, you're angry? Take it out on me, not Faith. If you don't want me coming over anymore I'll understand."

He was trying to cover for Faith, Rebecca could tell. But he had showed his quality. Rebecca's eyes softened. Evan didn't know her well enough to notice, but Faith did, and she sighed with relief.

"Would you like some coffee, Evan?" Rebecca said.

"That'd be great," Evan said, and smiled.

"How do you take it?"

"Light, two sugars?"

Rebecca poured him a cup of coffee, added milk, cream and sugar, and handed it to him with a smile.

"Take your coffee in the dining room, and we'll talk there," she said.

"Uh...okay," Evan said.

"Evan and I are going to talk," Rebecca said, before Faith could interject. "We won't be long."

"Y'know, I'm pretty sure he already knows about..." Faith began to say.

"I should hope so, but we won't be talking about that," Rebecca said, and put her arm on Evan's shoulder and walked him out of the kitchen.

Just before they left the kitchen she glanced back at Faith, and winked.

"Faith is important to me, Evan."

They sat at the dining room table together, and drank coffee. Rebecca looked straight at Evan, her dark blue eyes unwavering. Evan didn't blink.

Rebecca liked that in a man. She almost smiled.

"I don't want to see her hurt," she said.

"Neither do I, Rebecca," Evan said.

"Do you...care about her?"

"I'd jump in front of a truck for her."

"An interesting way of putting it. She cares about you, very much."

"Yeah. I know."

"Faith says you two are...just friends."

"Best friends."

"Evan...if that's all you want...you may not be able to avoid hurting her."

Evan got up and walked to the window, and looked out into the darkness.

"Have you ever met someone, and knew...really knew...that you were meant to be with them?" he said.

He turned to her.

"That the world brought you together with that person for a reason," he said. "That no matter what you did, what path your life went down, no matter what mistakes you made, you were meant to be with that person in the end?"

Rebecca thought about the night she first met Faith...in the alley.

I don't want it to be like this anymore, Faith had said. I don't want this to be my life. Rebecca saved her...

And she knew that if she had gotten there even a minute later, Faith would have been dead.

"I met someone like that once," Evan said. "We were best friends all through high school in Chicago. Her name was Maggie. I loved her."

He smiled.

"We hung out all the time," he said. "We were in the Drama Club together. She always made me laugh."

Then he turned back to the window.

"I don't know when it happened, when I stopped seeing her as a friend and started seeing her as...something more," he said. "I was dating this girl named Samantha. And we were getting serious...and then I suddenly just realized one day I was in love with Maggie. I broke up with Samantha, told her I was in love with someone else. A few days later I told Maggie I loved her. She was worried...she didn't think it would work. We tried...but she was right. It didn't work."

He looked at Rebecca, and she could see he was close to tears.

"A month later...Samantha...she killed herself," Evan said. "She left a note...it turns out she had been in love with me, and never told me."

"Oh...oh God, Evan. I'm...so sorry..." Rebecca said.

"Yeah. She deserved better than that. She deserved better than me."

He sat down, and looked down at the table.

"I took off," he said. "Maggie was planning on going to school overseas... partly to get away from me, I guess. I was planning on going to Northwestern but I had to get the hell out of there. I applied only to out of state colleges after that and ended up here at Tufts. So these days, yeah, you could say I'm a little gun shy about mixing friendship and romance. It's too much of a risk. If I'd been smart enough to figure that out a few years ago I'd still have my friend and Samantha wouldn't be in the fucking ground somewhere."

He looked up at Rebecca.

"Sorry," he said. "That was rude. I didn't mean to swear."

"It's all right," Rebecca said, and smiled.

"Every day, all the time, you know what I think about? Faith. You think I don't know how she feels? That I don't feel it too? That I wouldn't love it if she was my girlfriend? But...take that chance? You can ruin a friendship. Or a life."

"I know Faith. She's going to put you to a decision soon, Evan."

Evan nodded, looking down at the table again.

"I can't guarantee that if you and Faith dated, it wouldn't end badly, and you wouldn't lose her," Rebecca said. "That could happen. You're both young, and not so alike as you think. Faith...has had a hard life. It isn't easy for her to trust...to let new people in. But once she does, she's the most loyal friend you'll ever have."

"Yeah, I know," Evan said. "I was adopted too."

"Adopted...?"

"My parents couldn't have kids, so they adopted me. They didn't tell me until I was thirteen. For a long time I was really desperate to find out about my birth parents, but the records were sealed. I got over it though. I know my Mom and Dad love me. It doesn't matter if they gave birth to me or not."

"Faith told you...?"

"Well, yeah. I told her about my parents. I guess that made her want to open up about you. She told me how you adopted her when she was really little... she said she doesn't remember her birth parents at all. Faith's a great girl, Rebecca. You did a great job with her. She loves you a lot."

Rebecca was silent for a moment.

"Yes," Rebecca said. "She's a great girl."

Rebecca and Faith drove Evan home an hour later. It was a clear night, with a big yellow crescent moon that hung low in the sky and shone very bright on the water as they drove back home along the Massachusetts Avenue bridge that crossed the Charles River, connecting Cambridge to Boston. "So...you and Ev have a good talk?" Faith said.

"Mmm-hmm," Rebecca said. "He's a good young man. I like him."

"He asks questions sometimes. I'm not in school and I don't have a job and everything and he asks questions so...I told him I'm going to Boston Latin."

"At least you picked a good school. But be careful with lying, Faith. Don't let it become a habit. Someday, you may want to tell Evan the truth."

"With the Slayer thing...my life's so weird. It's just I had to tell him something, y'know?"

"Faith, I want you to get your high school diploma. I can teach you things, and you're doing a good job with your reading, but it's still important to have a high school diploma."

"Do I have to? I mean, if you really want me to I will but...going to classes will be a drag."

"I've looked into it. They have something called a GED. It's a test you can take to prove you know what you need to know to be a high school graduate. Pass the test and you get a diploma. Fair enough?"

"So like, I won't have to go to school? Just pass the test?"

"Yes. But the test isn't easy. When you're ready I'll start tutoring you. I've already bought all the textbooks."

"He keeps asking me where I want to go for college."

"Do you want to go to college?"

"Maybe. Sounds better than high school."

"If you want to go, Trevor will make some calls."

Faith looked away from Rebecca, staring out the window at the sky as they turned onto Commonwealth Avenue. "Just in case Evan brings it up? I sorta told him you adopted me when I was a little kid," she said.

Faith watched Rebecca out of the corner of her eye.

"It'll be our secret," Rebecca said, and smiled.

It was September and autumn was a few days away; Boston didn't feel like an oven anymore. The weather was holding steady at cool and comfortable for the moment and Rebecca had pronounced it excellent for antique shopping. She and Trevor had gone to Salem to "have a look about" the antique shops the day before, and had come back convinced that there was a vampire lairing somewhere in the little amusement park by the beach out there.

"There's something rotten in Denmark," Trevor said to Faith, after he and Rebecca told her about it.

"I thought the vamp was in Salem?" Faith said.

And so, after Rebecca explained to her about Hamlet, she and Faith had made plans to take their own little trip to Salem to have a look about.

It was a pleasant drive a half hour north of Boston, along the ocean. Faith had never been to Salem before and she was curious. So she looked out the window at everything as they drove along the little winding streets of the old port town that Sunday morning: the colonial houses, square-built, with sloping gambrel roofs and columns on either side of the doors; the famous House of Seven Gables, sullen and gray and foreboding even in the sun, its sharp-angled gables making it seem more like a sprawling assortment of geometric shapes than a house; the cobblestone streets in the upscale shopping district; the girls playing at being Wiccans who hung around all the new-age "magic shops" downtown. It all seemed defined by the ocean: the big sweep of the Harbor was always there in the corner of Faith's eye, and there were yachts, glinting in the sun; the air smelled like the sea.

Billboards all over town proclaimed Salem "The Witch City", and the police cars all had witch insignia on the doors. As they explored the town they drove down a street called Witch Way and passed a school called Witchcraft Heights Elementary.

"Witchcraft Heights Elementary?" Faith said.

"They've gone somewhat overboard, haven't they?" Rebecca said. "And the high school football team is called 'The Witches'. It's a tourism thing."

"They should stick with the boats and the ocean and the old houses. The witch stuff all seems fake. They really burned witches in this place?"

"Yes, in the seventeenth century, though I believe the actual site is closer to modern Danvers, which borders Salem. Not a good idea to mess about with Puritans, they were quick with the torches. They were stupid, joyless people; they'd burn their own daughter for looking at them the wrong way. With idiots like them starting it off it's a miracle your country amounted to anything at all."

"They burn any real witches? You told me witches really exist, right?"

"No, they never managed to burn any witches. And oh yes, there are witches. My aunt Jane on my mother's side was a witch. Horrible old woman."

"Was she like, evil?"

"No, but she insisted I go to bed by eight sharp whenever she babysat and she never let me have dessert. Said it would rot my teeth. As for the actual witchcraft, she mostly minced about in the woods having one-sided conversations with Dionysus and creating noxious potions for various ailments. Though she did turn one of her neighbors into a warthog when he called her an ugly old sow, or so the rumor goes."

They visited the Salem Witch Museum ("When in Rome, I suppose," Rebecca said) and to Faith's surprise she found herself enjoying it.

"They tried to burn a Slayer once," Rebecca said, speaking softly in the dark room with its creaky wood floor and little windows and peeling paint that reminded Faith of her classroom in elementary school, as they looked up at the painting of Reverend Samuel Parris's slave Tituba, telling tales of the devil to a group of rapt girls sitting by the fire. "She was an Indian girl of the Pennacook tribe whom some of the townspeople saw killing a vampire, and of course they were frightened, and reacted the way they always did when faced with the unknown: they tried to burn her. Let's just say it didn't go too well for them."

Looking at the paintings and wax statues of those poor girls, Faith felt a kinship with them. They were caught up in something bigger than themselves, something they couldn't control. On the way out of the Museum, she bought a book about the Salem Witch Trials from the gift shop.

"I see you enjoyed yourself," Rebecca said, looking at Faith's book, as they walked out into the sunlight. "I told you history can be interesting."

"It's all about the presentation," Faith said. "I like when you talk about it. You make it sound all cool, y'know? Like you're telling stories. Wasn't liking it so much when my high school history teacher talked about it though. Maybe there should be like a hotness requirement for guy history teachers. You know, like 'you must be at least this hot to teach history to high school girls'. Then we'd all pay attention. Maybe Brad Pitt should teach history."

"Maybe Mel Gibson should," Rebecca said.

Faith stopped and grinned at her. "Becca!" she said. "You naughty girl! What would Trevor say?"

"But Mel's so pretty," Rebecca said. "It's just not fair, how he toys with my heart."

"Mel sure can wear leather pants," Faith said.

"Oh my, yes," Rebecca said.

They walked down Essex Street, laughing and looking in the windows of all the little shops and restaurants, scouting out likely places for dinner.

"That looks like an interesting book," Rebecca said. "I'd like to read it, when you're done."

"There's just something about those girls," Faith said. "It's like...they didn't ask for what they got."

They had lunch, a clam plate for Rebecca and a burger for Faith, at a little place on the beach, and then they hit the shopping district, poking around in the antique stores, all of which seemed to specialize in things from the sea. Rebecca bought an antique rocking chair for the living room, and a scrimshaw carving for Faith. They took a look around the little shops in the "Witch District", all jammed full of crystals and magic wands and books about Tantric healing and discovering your past lives ("Not one witch among 'em", Rebecca said, eyeing the wide-eyed goth girls and shaking her head), and after dinner at an Indian restaurant on Essex Street, they were ready to hunt when the sun set.

Salem Willows, the park was called, because of the old willow trees that dotted the grounds, and in summer people flocked there to picnic under those trees and look out at the sea, and teenagers smoked joints under the pier and made out in their cars. There was a little amusement park and arcade there too, and in summer the smell of the ocean and the sounds of seagulls mingled with the smell of barbecues and the laughing screams of children playing Skee-Ball and video games and running along the beach. But the park was closed for the season now, and the only smell was the smell of the ocean, the only sound a cold wind raking through the trees.

And as Faith walked through the park with Rebecca that night, all her senses alert, she thought about the fact that it had been a few days since she had killed a vampire and she was restless. She needed this, she had come to realize. Something happened to her that night in May, when she took that first vampire. It felt as if a switch had been thrown in her head...as if she used to be one thing, but now she was something else. Like she had gained something...or lost something. She was the Slayer now, for the rest of her life. She wasn't complaining.

It was a big park, with lots of potential hiding places among the closed shops and arcades and one large area of pretty thick trees that would take a long time to search through if it came to that. But Faith knew they wouldn't have to look around for long. Two women, walking through a park alone at night? If there was a vampire here, he'd find them.

And he did, a minute later. He came out of the arcade and crossed the street toward them with a jaunty stride, smiling, as if he were meeting friends...or women who couldn't fight back. Faith could see him clearly now under the little black antique streetlamp as he entered the park. He looked about twenty-five, tall and thin, wearing a black trenchcoat and combat boots. He had long black hair combed in front of his eyes and he was wearing makeup. A former boyfriend of one of the goth girls in the magic shops, maybe. Faith smiled back at him.

That knocked the jaunt right out of him. They weren't supposed to smile.

He stopped and stared at Faith, confused. Rebecca was behind Faith now, giving her room to work. Rebecca always stayed close, in case Faith needed help. But she hadn't ever needed help yet.

Faith walked toward the vampire with a jaunty stride of her own. A few yards away from him, she pulled out her stake...and the vampire finally realized just who she was.

"Say hello to my little friend," Faith said.

The vampire didn't want to meet Faith's friend. He turned and ran.

He didn't get far. Faith leaped after him with a laugh that echoed through the park, and tackled him a few feet away from the arcade.

He tried to throw her off, but she didn't move. His face changed to vampire form and he tried to tear into her throat with his fangs, but she cracked his head against the pavement with her forearm. She had him pinned, one knee on his left arm, his right arm in a wrist lock. Her stake hovering above him.

"All you got?" she said.

Their eyes met. She saw him surrender, saw it there in his eyes. He was hers and they both knew it.

"Hasta la vista, baby," she said, and staked him.

She stood up, and dusted what was left of him off of her clothes.

"All this way for that?" she said. "Now I'm gonna be all frustrated the whole way home..."

"Faith!" Rebecca shouted, her voice echoing through the park. At the same moment, Faith sensed something above her and instinctively back-flipped out of the way, before Rebecca's voice even registered.

A vampire landed where she had just been. A female, one of the goth girls who hung around the magic shops, her face twisted and deformed, her long fangs dripping saliva, her eyes narrowed to angry yellow slits. And unlike the boyfriend, she looked tough. Faith could tell by the way she positioned her feet that she knew how to fight.

"Think your mascara's running, honey," Faith said.

"Shut up!" the vampire screamed, and raked at Faith's neck with her claws. Faith dodged barely in time. An instant later and her throat would have been torn out. The vampire leaped at Faith and Faith went with her rhythm, didn't try to take the charge or meet it with force but instead redirected it, taking hold of the vampire's arm and using her momentum to flip her over her head. The vampire landed on her feet.

"What's up with the dye job? You lose a bet?" Faith said. She'd have to concentrate. Focus. This girl could fight. Faith threw out talk to throw the vampire off her game, but in her head she was all business. The vampire came at her again, getting in range, moving into her fighting stance and eyeing Faith warily. And that rage, that boiling rage that made her eyes two cat slits, was still there.

Forget her eyes, Faith thought. Watch her feet.

Faith's senses reached out. She felt Rebecca without seeing her. The wind kicked up. Somewhere, a dog barked. The vampire smelled foul to Faith, like all vampires did; she smelled like rotten meat. Faith catalogued her surroundings. Arcade. Plate glass window. Trees. Pavement. Hydrant. Fire escape.

The vampire threw a flurry of punches. Faith dodged the first two and blocked the third, but the fourth one got by her and staggered her. The vampire spun and kicked Faith in the face, sending her flying. Faith hit the sidewalk and rolled, anticipating the vampire's next move without seeing it. The vampire pounced where Faith had been a second before.

Faith kicked her in the face and leaped to her feet; the vampire stumbled and her guard dropped for a second and Faith was able to shuffle inside and hit her with a jab and her big right cross and put her down. But before she could follow up the vampire flipped herself away from her. Then she surprised Faith, leaping at her instead of regrouping for another attack, and knocked her down. She punched Faith in the face, cracking her head against the sidewalk.

They rolled on the sidewalk, the vampire slashing at her, and Faith desperately blocking, trying to keep those claws away from her face. With a roar, the vampire punched Faith in the face again and again, cracking her head against the sidewalk repeatedly. Faith nearly lost consciousness. She felt Rebecca, a few feet away, about to jump in. Faith didn't want that; she didn't want to chance Rebecca getting hurt. The vampire went for her throat, giving Faith just enough of an opening to ram two fingers in her eyes. The vampire screamed and released her grip; Faith head-butted her in the nose and kicked her off.

Faith jumped back up, and again the vampire was back on her feet almost instantly. Faith could see out of the corner of her eye that Rebecca had backed away, but she was staying closer now. Faith could feel blood dripping from her nose down her chin. The vampire's nose was bleeding too, and she was squinting in order to see. Faith looked down at her denim jacket. The vampire's claws had slashed it to ribbons.

"Wait, I got it. The outfit, the makeup, the hairdo...you're running away to join the circus, right?" Faith said. Her tough talk was bullshit and she knew it. She had gotten lucky with that last move. She couldn't afford another mistake with this girl.

"You killed my boyfriend! You killed David! You killed him!" the vampire screamed.

A Slayer catalogues her opponent as well, both physically and psychologically...

She's angry. Use it.

"Hate to break it to ya Elvira, but Dave fought like my Grandma," Faith said. "Thinkin' I did you a favor, y'know? You can do better."

Still half blind and squinting, the vampire sprang at Faith, snarling. Faith dodged her, grabbed her right arm as she passed, spun around, twisted the arm up high behind the vampire's back and broke it. The vampire screamed and turned for one last run at Faith, but Faith spun again and kicked her in the face. The vampire flew through the air, smashed through the window of the arcade, and landed flat on the floor. Faith leaped into the dark arcade after her, jumped on her back and got her in a headlock, twisting the vampire's one good arm behind her back. She broke that arm too, with a crack that echoed through the room. The vampire screamed again.

"Give?" Faith said.

The vampire was crying.

"He's dead. He's dead...you killed him..." she said.

She twisted her head around to look at Faith, with tears in her eyes. "Get it over with," she said.

The girl went limp. She lay completely still on the floor under Faith, waiting to die. Faith took out her stake.

"What's...what's your name?" Faith said.

"Why do you care?" the girl said.

Faith held her stake poised above the girl's back. But she hesitated.

"Tell me your name," Faith said.

"Emily," the girl said.

"I'm Faith."

"I know who you are, Slayer."

"You put up a good fight. Best anyone's ever given me. Almost had me."

Emily looked back at Faith again. Her face changed to human form. She was pretty.

"Just do it. I don't have any reason to live anymore anyway," Emily said.

Faith still hesitated. She felt Rebecca behind her. She felt the whole room around her. One of the video games in the arcade was turned on. Faith recognized the sound. Space Invaders. A cold wind blew through the broken glass. Somewhere a dog barked again. The vampire's eyes were blue. A cockroach skittered across the floor a few yards away. The vampire's breath smelled like cotton candy.

"David..." Emily whispered, and closed her eyes.

Faith staked her, and she turned to dust.

Faith didn't move. She knelt there, in the pile of dust, with the Space Invaders sounds and the cold wind through the broken glass. After a moment she felt Rebecca's hand stroking her hair.

"Are you all right?" Rebecca said.

Faith got up. "I just...I just want to go home," she said.

Rebecca took a handkerchief from her pocket, and gently dabbed the blood away from Faith's nose.

Then she put her hand on Faith's shoulder, and walked her out of the arcade, back to the car.

"Would you like to stop somewhere and grab a bite to eat?" Rebecca said, as they drove away.

Faith shook her head.

"It happens sometimes," Rebecca said. "One of them manages to hold onto a bit of their humanity. That doesn't mean she had a soul. It doesn't mean she wouldn't have killed you if you let her. It doesn't mean they wouldn't have murdered us both if we were the two helpless women we were pretending to be."

Faith nodded.

They were quiet, after that...

Two days later the weather did what it had a tendency to do in Boston: surprised you. It was the last day of summer and it was bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky, but the sun was all talk and it somehow managed to be on the wrong side of forty degrees. The day just got colder as it went on, and a raw east wind off the water joined the party, cutting right through whatever you were wearing. The low temperature broke the record in Boston that day, and "dress in layers" was the mantra mothers around the city repeated to their children.

"Dress in layers," Rebecca said to Faith, after their workout. "It's cold."

Rebecca knew the previous night had been hard on Faith. Soulless things that they were, vampires nevertheless were as complex as the people whose bodies they walked in and being a Slayer wasn't all black and white. Good people did bad things and bad people--even vampires--could have friendships, could care about someone, could choose sometimes to do good things. Faith would work it out for herself, as every Slayer did eventually. But it would take time. Faith hadn't talked much since yesterday.

"Okay," Faith said.

"Trevor's picking me up to take me to that restaurant in that horrible skyscraper tonight..." Rebecca said.

"The Pru," Faith said.

"Yes, the Prudential building. Horrible eyesore, but Trevor says the view from the restaurant on top is fantastic. We'd really like it if you could join us."

"Well, uh, I got a thing with Ev and Dan and his girlfriend. We're going to a movie, then The Roxy."

"Oh," Rebecca said, and smiled. "Another time then. And don't forget to bundle up tonight."

Faith nodded, and walked away. Then she turned. Rebecca was putting their equipment back on the shelves. Faith wanted to tell her she wasn't angry with her, that she just needed time to think. But Faith wasn't sure that was true. Maybe she was angry with Rebecca, a little.

But she knew they could have that talk later. They had plenty of time.

Faith walked out the door.

Faith wasn't very good company for Evan and Dan and his girl that night, and she begged off right after the movie. She told them she had a headache, and she knew Evan saw right through her. But he respected her space; he always had. So they dropped her back home, and Faith went up to her room, and flung her leather coat on the floor.

She hadn't dressed in layers. She'd felt cold all night.

She sat on her bed, looking around her room. The only thing that was really hers was the leather coat on the floor. Everything else, Rebecca had given her. She looked up at the painting Rebecca had bought for her, the one she herself had picked out, with all the swirling, liquid blue. Deep, dark blue, like the ocean on a summer day.

She glanced at the alarm clock. Almost ten.

She put on a sweater and a winter coat, and ran out the door.

Someone once called Boston's Prudential building "a textbook example of urban character assassination". It shot up fifty-two stories into the sky a few blocks ahead of Faith now, towering above everything around it with all the warmth and charm of an electric razor as Faith sprinted down Boylston Street past Copley Square, with the sleek, lofty, fragile-looking Hancock Building looming over it, all silver glass reflecting the night sky, past the grand old Trinity Church looking ornate and palatial and somehow out of place on her right, and the Public Library on her left with its carved stone lions at the doors and the monumental inscriptions that proclaimed, "Built by the people and dedicated to the advancement of learning". A beautiful relic from a more optimistic time.

The Pru was in the Back Bay, about a fifteen minute walk from Rebecca's house. Faith sprinted there in less than ninety seconds.

She walked into the big, quiet foyer, her boots echoing on the polished marble floor, and entered the chrome and glass elevator. As she slowly made her way up to the fifty-second floor, she had a funny feeling in her stomach. She wished the elevator was faster.

She got out of the elevator and her stake was suddenly in her hand, and she found herself stalking toward the restaurant at the end of the carpeted hallway, past the framed prints of the Boston skyline, past the vases on little tables, being careful to make as little noise as possible.

She smelled vampires...

...and blood.

When Faith walked into the restaurant, thirteen vampires were looking right at her. The most she had ever taken on at one time before was three.

"For Kakistos we live," they snarled, in unison. "For Kakistos you die."

Six

SLAYER

Blood was everywhere.

It was splattered all over the walls, and sprayed on the windows; the magnificent view of Boston was tinted red. It collected in pools on the rug and on the white linen tablecloths. People were dead in their chairs, their throats torn out. People were dead on the floor. The restaurant was silent, in that specific way a place is silent after death has been through it.

Faith saw Trevor, lying dead in a pool of blood, his throat slit. She felt a wave of panic and looked around for Rebecca. She couldn't see her. A neat black man in an expensive suit sitting at one of the tables checked his watch.

"Faith Lehane. Been waiting on you. You can call me Mr. Trick," he said.

He took a sip of wine, and patted his mouth with his napkin. "Southie girl," he said. "Bet you don't see too many look like me around the old neighborhood, do you? You should've been there during the busing thing in the seventies. Now those were some times."

He turned and looked at her, and his face changed, his forehead becoming deformed, the eyes protruding, the teeth growing to fangs. "Know what I love about this century?" he said. "How everything's so connected. How you can find anyone anywhere. Back in the day, you ate the daughter of the guy next door, you just left town, started over. It was simpler then. Of course, I'm older than I look." He smiled, showing Faith his teeth. Like a wolf that smelled blood.

"These days, everyone's got a social security number, phone, driver's license," Trick said. "Makes it hard for a man to turn over a new leaf, but it does make it easy to find someone. You were a tough nut to crack though. You got practically no records anywhere. License, nope; phone, nope; hospital records, none since age ten; school records stop after ninth grade. Frustrating. But your Watcher was easier. Rebecca Greer. Born August 11th, 1956. Moved from Newcastle, England, to Boston about a year ago, looking for you, I guess. Current address, 48 Commonwealth Avenue. Drives a Lexus. Plate number, 421-GG7. Yes indeed, I do love computers."

He finished his wine. "We had everything set to go today, all the guys in place, but we couldn't find you," he said. "So we were gonna just send some guys to watch your house until you got back, when we spotted Becky heading here. We assumed she'd tell us where you were. We can be very persuasive. But I gotta give old Becky her props: lady's tough. When she wouldn't talk to us, well...the guys then felt the need to relieve their tension by eating the patrons of this fine dining establishment."

He stood up, and the thirteen vampires began to spread out, surrounding Faith and snarling.

"But hey, now you're here," Trick said. "So it all worked out. But the problem with you taking your sweet time and all is, we don't like to keep Kakistos waiting. No, we surely do not. He gets bored, y'see..."

He gestured to the other side of the room, and as the thirteen vampires spread out in a circle around Faith, she could see...

"And then, well...he gets impatient," Trick said. "And he has to find a way to, how shall we put it...occupy himself? And someone to occupy himself with."

She could see...

...Rebecca. She was on the floor, on her stomach. She was...

Faith felt her stomach tighten, become a hard, cold thing.

Kakistos was an ancient vampire, tall and powerfully built, with a bald head and a face like a pit bull. He had cloven hooves for hands and feet. Faith remembered Rebecca telling her about him...how he was so ancient and powerful that he could no longer assume human form...how he killed Madeleine Lambert, the girl who was the Slayer before Buffy Summers...

There are vampires who take Slayers like trophies.

He was lying on top of Rebecca. Moving on top of her, and grunting...his pants were down.

Rebecca was naked and unconscious beneath him...

Faith felt the scream tear from her mouth and before she knew what she was doing she was in motion, leaping over tables, running for Rebecca. A voice in her head told her to be careful, to remember her training, but the scream that kept on tearing out of her drowned it out and she sprang at Kakistos like a lion...

She almost made it to him. At the last second some of the vampires managed to get in front of her. Screaming, she staked the nearest one, spun around, ducked under the outstretched arms of another and staked that one too. Then she felt arms dragging her down; the others had reached her.

As they dragged her to the floor, she heard a voice somewhere say, "Hurt her, but save the kill for me. I'm almost through riding this bitch."

Faith felt her rage filling her up; she felt it coursing through her arms and her legs. It was fuel and she was going to use it. Her legs kicked out and three vampires went flying across the room. She screamed, kicking the air, squirming and twisting, fighting to move her arms, her screams growing louder and louder and the blood pounding in her ears; at first she could hear voices screaming "Hold her down!" but the pounding in her ears and her own screams were all she could hear now. One of the vampires got too close and she tore into his face with her teeth, getting her mouth around his nose and tearing his nose off of his face.

He ran away screaming, but her screams were louder than his. His blood was in her mouth. She spit the vampire's nose out and kicked her legs and threw her arms forward with all her might. She heard one of the vampires say "Oh no" and four more vampires went flying and suddenly she was free...

Faith stood up and roared, her mouth dripping blood.

The vampires regrouped and ran at her again. Faith leaped at them, covering five yards in one bound, knocking the vampires over like bowling pins and screaming and clawing at the eyes of the closest one she could get her hands on. She landed on top of that one and tore his eyes out of his head with her fingernails. He screamed but her screams were still louder, and she staked him. The others tried to grab her, but she dropped to her stomach, rolled onto her side and kicked out with her legs and two of them went flying. She rolled away from the rest, flipped herself back up to her feet, planted her left leg, whipped herself around and kicked with her right, harder than she ever had before. Two more went flying fifty feet across the room and over the bar.

She waded into the other five and threw a punch at one of them that could have put a hole in concrete; it knocked half his teeth out. He landed on the floor and Faith stomped on his face with her boot over and over again, an insane light in her eyes. She felt the bone give beneath her feet and she felt her rage building inside her like a rocket as the other four grabbed her from behind and tried to pull her away. She screamed and flipped them all over her head and kept on stomping. Faith crushed the vampire's skull like an egg, until his brains were a piece of bloody meat on the floor. She kicked them across the room and the vampire turned to dust.

Everything was in slow motion. The only sound Faith could hear was herself, screaming. All she felt was rage, exploding through her and compelling her forward, and that cold thing at the bottom of her stomach when she thought about Rebecca on the floor. She tasted the blood from the vampire's nose in her mouth. It tasted metallic, like a penny. Her lips trembled a little; she wasn't sure, but she thought she might be crying.

More of them were behind her, trying to drag her down again. She leaped backwards, going with their motion, and headbutted one of them. She twisted around and staked another and heard Trick somewhere saying, "Waste of manpower, waste of resources..." They all piled on her now, dragging her down with their numbers. One of them kicked her in the face and she fell, and then they were all trying to hold her down and kicking her. One of them started kicking her in her right side. She felt fire lance through her side and thought she felt some of her ribs go as she covered up and tried to roll and avoid their kicks.

The vampire without a nose was suddenly standing above her, and he kicked her in the head. Everything went red for a second like fireworks exploding behind her eyes. Faith knew if she didn't get up in the next few seconds she never would.

She caught a glimpse of Kakistos...he was on top of Rebecca, thrusting into her and yanking her hair like a jockey pulling the reins of a horse. Faith heard Rebecca whimper, half-conscious, and then she saw Kakistos shudder, and heard him moan and chuckle. "Best piece I've had in decades," he said.

Faith closed her eyes, and now she knew she was crying. She felt the tears running down her face. She tasted them on her lips.

The vampire without a nose kicked her in the head again, and the other vampire kicked her again in the ribs. She almost lost consciousness. The vampire without a nose aimed another kick at her head...

She grabbed his boot, inches away from her. She looked at the vampires, and everything seemed to slow down again...to freeze.

"I swear to God, I swear to God. I'm gonna kill every last one of you," someone said.

The voice sounded strange. It took Faith a second to realize she was the one who had said it.

Then she flung the vampire without a nose away by his boot, quickly sat up, and grabbed the next closest vampire by the neck and twisted his head around. His neck snapped like a twig and she kicked her legs out and rolled, managing to trip a couple of the others. It gave her enough room to grab her stake and jump back up. Her side felt like it was on fire and her vision was blurred. She forced it to come into focus.

Her rage was still there, but she needed to control it now, to use it. If she was going to get Rebecca out of this she'd have to play it smart.

A Slayer always thinks tactically.

She let all her senses reach out. Trick was sitting at the bar, drinking wine. Kakistos was standing beside him now, watching. Seven vampires surrounded her. One was on the floor with a broken neck. He'd recover eventually, vampires couldn't be killed that way, but he was out of the fight. The vampire without a nose was running back at her. He'd be on her in two seconds. But he was angry; that would make him sloppy.

Rebecca was naked and bleeding and very still on the floor.

A flaming pan sat on a cart at the other end of the room. There were knives on the tables. They were on the fifty-second floor. A vampire would survive the fall but he'd be badly hurt. It was night; she couldn't grab Rebecca and run, the vampires would chase them down outside. She'd have to make her stand here. She didn't hear sirens. Anyone who could've called the police was dead; people down on the street wouldn't have noticed anything happening this far up. Police would help...

Faith was the Slayer. She was only just beginning to understand it, but the magic that was a part of her now had changed more than just her physical prowess, her strength and speed. She had become a predator. A perfect hunter, in both body and mind. She had just tactically evaluated the situation and everything and everyone in the room and then devised a plan of action all in the space of one second. The vampire without a nose hadn't yet reached her.

She grabbed a couple of steak knives from a nearby table and started moving. One knife went straight through the eye of the vampire without a nose. He wasn't expecting the knife and Faith threw it with such force that it knocked him to the floor, and he rolled around screaming. The other six were running after Faith now, but Faith was faster. As she ran she shoved one of the tables through a window. When pieces of the Pru fell fifty-two stories someone down there would notice. It would bring police. Maybe too late to help but it was worth a shot. She stopped short and doubled back, hopping over tables like a jackrabbit, keeping just out of reach. She leaped off a table, grabbed a wooden bar stool from the floor and shoved one of the legs through the heart of the vampire without a nose as she ran past him again. He turned to dust and she kept running. The restaurant was long and wide and it gave her plenty of room to maneuver...

Stick and move.

Just as the vampires were about to reach her again she jumped up onto a table, pushed off it with her legs as hard as she could and backflipped, somersaulting back over all six of them. She landed behind them and staked one, but the backflip sent pain lancing through her side; her ribs were definitely broken there. She ignored it. Another vampire got a knife through the eye and fell to the floor and Faith was running again as the other four vampires howled with rage and chased her. She grabbed the flaming pan from the cart as they closed the distance, turned, and threw it in their faces. Two of them caught fire and started running around, panicking.

She heard Trick say, "I think you're gonna need to see to this." She heard Kakistos say, "And of course, you don't want to get your hands dirty." Faith noticed another knife on the floor; it was a butcher knife. Faith noted its location and kept running. She knew what she was going to do with that knife. The two vampires who were on fire had managed to start fires in various parts of the restaurant while trying to put themselves out; the other two were chasing her again. Two she could deal with. She was tired of running. She passed the vampire with a broken neck and knocked a burning table over on top of him. He turned to dust, and Faith faced the two vampires chasing her. They stopped short, just out of Faith's reach. One of them leaped at her...

Redirect his energy. Make it work for you.

Faith twisted his arm, flipped him over onto his knees with his arm up high behind his back in a wrist lock and staked him while the other one watched.

She was getting tired. Her eyes drifted out of focus again. She forced them back in focus. Her adrenalin and her hate had carried her this far but she couldn't keep this up forever. The vampire in front of her wasn't sure what to do so she took a moment to catch her breath.

The two vampires who were on fire were hitting themselves with tablecloths and throwing water on themselves to douse the flames, but they didn't look good. The one with the knife in his eye was rolling around on the floor. Trick said, "Will someone please kill that girl? Pretty please? Cherry on top?" The fire was starting to spread. The vampire with the knife in his eye looked done. That left Faith three vampires to deal with, along with Trick and Kakistos. "Oh, and just in case no one noticed? This frigging place is on fire," Trick said.

Kakistos would be the toughest and it was fine with Faith if he wanted to stay out of the fight while she dealt with the goons. Trick was a mystery. She'd solve him later. The vampire in front of her was circling warily. Faith knew he was afraid. His scent told her that. He had seen Faith make a lot of fancy moves and seemed to have decided to just be ready for anything. But Faith wasn't feeling fancy just then, so she grabbed a bar stool and smashed him across the face with it. He went down and she staked him as the other two came at her.

The fire alarm went off, a repeated, high-pitched whine that blasted through the room like a siren. It would bring help. The restaurant apparently didn't have a sprinkler system, or if it did it wasn't working. That was good. The flames would keep the vampires cautious.

Faith's side felt like needles now. She blocked it out. The two vampires circled her, looking for an opening. Not so damn eager when there aren't thirteen of them, Faith thought. She had to get Rebecca out of there. The flames were at the opposite end of the room from Rebecca but the whole place would go up eventually. She had to end this fight.

The vampires finally came at her. One aimed a good kick at her and Faith had to twist to protect her broken ribs and take the kick on the shoulder. It knocked her down but she was fine with that. The vampire jumped on top of her to try to capitalize like she predicted he would and she flipped him over her head with her legs into the fire and he turned to dust. As she got up the other one punched her in the face before she could get her guard up, a good punch that made the whole right side of her head feel numb. She rolled with the punch and flipped herself back to her feet. She saw Trick standing on a chair in a corner of the room pulling a speaker out of the wall. The fire alarm stopped. "Can't hear myself think with this frigging thing," Trick said. It didn't matter. The fire department would have picked up the alarm. They'd send help. Faith knew she just had to hold on.

The ribs were a continuous white-hot pain now and the punch in the face took more out of Faith than she thought. She should've been able to dodge the kick the vampire sent at her just then but her vision doubled again and he tagged her in the chest. She stumbled backwards and he punched her in the face again. It sent her flying and she smashed into a table. The vampire with the knife in his eye chose that moment to finally get the balls to get back into the fight, but Faith tore a leg from the table and threw it straight through his heart as he got up and ran at her. He turned to dust, and Faith jumped up and ran at the last one. She suddenly stopped, catching him off guard, and spun and kicked. Spinning set her ribs on fire again, but the kick put the vampire down. Faith pounced on him and staked him with a scream of triumph that echoed through the restaurant.

All thirteen were dead now.

Faith walked to the butcher knife and picked it up.

Then she faced Kakistos.

A good chunk of the room was burning. Faith felt shaky and tired and her right side hurt, but her vision was okay for the moment and she was alive. She heard sirens in the distance. Finally.

"And what are you going to do with that, little girl?" Kakistos said.

"Gonna cut your dick off with it," Faith said. "Been saving it special, just for that."

"We'll see," he said.

"Girl does have a certain flamboyant style, doesn't she?" Trick said. "But, just to reiterate? This place is on fire. So I'll catch y'all later."

"Why do I even keep you around?" Kakistos said.

"Who else you gonna call when you need to recruit eighteen new flunkies?" Trick said, and headed for the exit. "And I am of course the epitome of style, sophistication, and wit."

"What makes you think I'm letting you leave?" Faith said.

"Aw, honey," Trick said, and laughed. "Honey, honey...come on. Use that pretty brain of yours. You really think those slabs of beef you took down were, in any little microscopic way, indicative of what you're facing next? Girl, your life can be measured in seconds. And you surely don't need old Mr. Trick adding to your troubles. Tell you what, Southie. You survive this? We'll do lunch."

Faith knew he was right. Kakistos was the one Faith wanted and he looked plenty hard enough without having to fight Trick at the same time. But Faith wasn't going to forget about old Mr. Trick. Everyone who had anything to do with what happened to Rebecca was going to die. Faith was going to see to that.

"Some day, some way," Faith said. "We'll see each other again, Trick. And when we do I'm gonna stick you like a fucking pig."

"Uncalled for," Trick said. "Now that was just uncalled for." And he walked out the door.

Faith and Kakistos watched each other.

"Well?" Kakistos said.

Faith ran at him. He threw a punch that Faith should have been able to dodge, but her ribs still felt like hot needles and she had to settle for blocking it with her shoulder. The punch hit her left shoulder like a cannonball and her whole left arm went numb. She flew the entire length of the room, slammed into the far wall and fell to the floor.

Kakistos opened a bottle of beer and took a swig.

"I'll give your Watcher credit," he said. "We asked her nicely where you were and she wouldn't tell us. Not after we beat her and threatened to kill her, not even when we had a knife to her boyfriend's throat. Bitch and her boyfriend killed five of my boys too. That pissed me off."

Faith got up, picked her butcher knife and her stake up off the floor and ran at him again. She couldn't move her left arm. Kakistos put his beer down and faced her. She stopped just out of his reach and waited for him to make a move. She'd find an opening.

He came at her. He was very fast for his size, but tired and hurt as Faith was she was still faster. He tried to grab her and she sliced his cloven hand with the butcher knife, spun around, and kicked him in the back. It was like kicking a boulder. Kakistos stumbled forward but didn't fall, and spun around and threw a backhand that Faith ducked. It cut through the air like a baseball bat.

You're faster than he is. Stick and move, stick and move...

She circled him, looking for an opening. He threw another punch that Faith ducked; it put him slightly out of position and Faith was able to get in under his guard and hit him two good right hooks in the face. He tried to grab her but she shuffled back out. She couldn't keep her guard up without her left so she had to keep her distance. He lunged at her and she shuffled to the side and kicked him in the balls. He was smarter than most men: he took the pain and didn't double up and drop his guard. Faith backed up some more, got some distance, tried to lead him closer to the fire where he'd be less confident. He had a long reach and he was too strong; she couldn't afford to let him hit her even one more time. Some feeling was returning to her left arm, but she still couldn't move it.

Kakistos lunged at her again and slammed his fist down like a hammer. Faith dodged, twisting out of the way, and the blow cracked the wood-topped bar in half from one end to the other. When Faith twisted her ribs felt like she'd been kicked by a horse. She stumbled, and before she could get out of range again Kakistos caught her with an elbow to the back of the neck...and then everything went black.

When Faith opened her eyes she was on her back on the floor and he was on top of her. His breath stank of blood and beer. He had Rebecca's scent on him.

"I kill Slayers," he said, leering at her. "I've been around a long time. A man needs hobbies. After you I'll do that bitch in California."

His knee was on her stomach. He had one cloven hand around her neck, choking her; the other pinned her right arm down. The room was spinning, Faith's vision was blurred, and the pain in her side was spiking; his knee was digging into one of her ribs. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her knife and her stake were out of reach a few feet away. Her left arm was underneath him, but she still couldn't move it. She tried to throw him off but he was too heavy. He smiled as Faith labored to breathe, slowly tightening his grip on her neck, stretching the moment out. He was too strong...he had her.

A part of Faith thought about closing her eyes, and letting oblivion come.

Then Kakistos made a mistake.

"Your Watcher was one hell of a great lay," he said, and laughed. "Nice tight pussy, the way I like 'em. If this place wasn't falling apart around us I'd go take another ride before I kill her."

That was the moment Faith decided she was going to live.

He squeezed her neck harder. Faith had no air left now. She didn't need it.

She concentrated on her left hand. She was going to move her left hand.

Kakistos moved his fangs toward her neck...

She was going to move her left hand. She was going to move her left hand. She was going to move her left hand...

He had an erection. She could see it...

Slowly, underneath him, her left hand moved.

She felt his fangs on her neck...

Faith grabbed his balls with her left hand, and squeezed.

Kakistos suddenly sucked in air like he was suffocating, let go of Faith's neck, sat up and screamed. Faith could breathe again, gasping and coughing. Kakistos clawed at her left hand, prying at her fingers. They wouldn't budge. Her hand was like a chunk of stone. He punched her in the face. Faith's head cracked against the floor, but she forced herself to stay conscious...and to squeeze with all her might, as Kakistos screamed.

She felt his balls explode.

He flopped around like a fish on a hook and fell to the floor, screaming. Faith crawled to her knife and her stake, coughing. She picked up the knife and the stake and tried to stand, but the room was still spinning a little and she couldn't keep her balance. So she crawled back to Kakistos and crouched down in front of him instead.

"Think...I was kidding...?" she whispered breathlessly, and stabbed the butcher knife into his crotch. Kakistos screamed and flung a wild punch at her, but she avoided it, slashed the knife at his face and sliced his eye open. He screamed again, blood spurting all over his face.

Then Faith tore his pants down, grabbed his penis and balls, and sliced them off with the butcher knife.

Kakistos screamed again, and didn't stop screaming...

Faith liked that scream. She could listen to that scream all day long. She could dance to it.

His blood and fluids spurted out. They smelled foul. That was good. Kakistos didn't smell like Rebecca anymore. Faith didn't want him to have any part of Rebecca.

She held his penis and balls in her hand, and showed them to him.

"Took your last ride," Faith said, in a voice that wasn't human, and that she didn't recognize as her own. Then she tossed his ugly meat, the grotesque, putrid things he had used to violate Rebecca, into the fire to burn.

The fire had more than a quarter of the restaurant now and smoke was filling the room. Faith started coughing. The sirens were outside the building.

Faith plunged her stake into Kakistos' heart...

Nothing happened.

The stake snapped Kakistos back from wherever he was and he clubbed Faith across the face with a backhand that sent her flying into a wall. She landed inches from the fire and rolled away just in time. She tried to stand, and fell back down. She got up again, holding onto a table to steady herself. She could see him coming toward her. The stake was still in his chest. He pulled it out, and threw it into the fire.

He ran at her, screaming incoherently. Faith couldn't dodge him in time, she could hardly even stand. He brutally clubbed her in the face and sent her flying again. When she opened her eyes she thought she might have blacked out for a second; she was on the floor and the rug smelled funny. It smelled like blood. She looked down, and saw a little puddle of blood beneath her, and knew it was hers. She tried to get up, but everything was spinning again and she didn't know where Kakistos was...

She felt an exploding pain in her stomach, like someone had just hit her there, and then she slammed through something brittle, and there was cold air rushing by...

The cold air woke her up. He had kicked her out the window. She was falling...from the fifty-second floor of the Prudential building. Seven-hundred and fifty feet above the ground.

She didn't scream. She was too surprised.

She thought about roller coasters. She had never been on one before. She had never been to an amusement park. She wondered if this was what the roller coaster felt like...

Faith saw the ground rushing toward her, and knew she was going to die.

Her life came into her thoughts. It didn't flash in front of her eyes like some great revelation. It just...occurred to her. She could think about it, in this last moment, or not. The memories were all there, waiting for her. She held on tight to them...cherished them, in these few seconds she had left.

"Wonderful, Faith!" Rebecca said with a big smile. "You're getting better every day."

"And I see you managed to work your catchphrases in again," Rebecca said, with a raised eyebrow.

"Come on Becca, don't tell me you don't think they're just a little bit cool," Faith said, and grinned.

"Yes, they're very clever, darling."

Faith smashed into the roof of a police car, bounced off of it and hit the ground...

She rolled to a stop, and lay still.

Seven

ASHES

Everything was dark.

Then there was a voice.

Holy Mother, hear my prayer, the voice whispered...

It was a girl's voice.

Everything was dark.

Then there was a voice.

Just take it easy honey, just hold still...the voice said.

Faith opened her eyes. Everything was a little blurry.

She was lying on the ground. A light was shining in her eyes. Men were leaning over her.

There were lights all around her...red and blue, flashing...police lights. Her whole body felt numb. A man wiped blood from her nose and mouth.

She looked around. Her head hurt when she moved it. It was night. She was lying next to a police car. Its roof was caved in. She heard sirens in the distance...they sounded like fire engines on the way. There were police cars all around, and an ambulance. Two police officers stood near her. "How the hell did she survive that fall?" she heard one of the officers, a tall black man, say to the other one. She heard the other officer, a petite girl with curly brown hair, say, "God must have wanted her to."

Faith looked up, and saw the top floor of the Prudential building burning.

Rebecca.

Faith leaped up. It was like fighting through quicksand. Pain shot through her left arm, and the needles were back in her ribs. Faith heard the man with the light say "Hey!" She heard the black police officer say, "What the hell...?"

She sprinted for the building. Her legs felt awkward, like she couldn't get them to work right. A song from one of those old Christmas cartoons she watched on TV when she was a girl came into her head.

Just put one foot in front of the other...

Her ribs were one continuous, insistent pain. She was pretty sure her left arm was broken; it was bent in a weird way and it hurt. She felt dizzy and nauseous. Her vision was blurring again.

As she ran for the building two more police officers cut her off. Fire shot through her left arm as one of them grabbed her.

"Whoa, whoa! Hold it!" the short Irish guy said. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" She got away from him and tried to run again but both of them grabbed her now, the Irish guy and a fat old man. The petite girl and her partner ran over too.

Faith was crying now. "BECCA! BECCA'S UP THERE!" she screamed, and tore herself away from them. They all fell to the ground and Faith heard someone somewhere say "Jesus!" as she ran into the building.

She ran into the elevator and pressed the button for the fifty-second floor, the doors closing just before the cops and the EMT's reached it. Then she fell to her knees, exhausted and crying. The floor felt cold. She vomited.

A sudden ringing sound startled her. It was the elevator doors opening. She was at the fifty-second floor. She had no memory of the last thirty seconds.

Get it together. Right now.

She looked out at the hallway, and hesitated. She was afraid...afraid she would die without ever getting to ride a roller coaster. That she would never go places or see things, like California, or the Louvre. That Brendan would be the last person she ever kissed.

She thought about her mother. She thought about the time when she was seven and her mother had hit her so hard her skull fractured and she was in the hospital for four days.

She was hurt, she could barely walk...and she didn't have her stake.

Kneeling on the cold metal floor of the elevator, hurt and scared and exhausted, Faith had no idea how she would fight Kakistos...how she could possibly manage even to hold him off.

She got up, and walked out of the elevator.

More than half of the restaurant was gone now. Thick, black smoke made it hard to see and harder to breathe, creeping into her lungs. She couldn't see Kakistos anywhere. She looked toward the center of the dining room, where she remembered Trevor's body was. The whole area was engulfed in flames now.

The area around Rebecca hadn't gone up yet. Faith jumped onto the bar and ran to her.

Rebecca was naked on the floor, in a pool of blood. She'd been beaten.

Faith put her coat over Rebecca and gently turned her head so she could see her face. It was swollen and bloody, yet Rebecca looked unnaturally pale. Her neck had two puncture wounds.

Faith cried, her whole body shaking.

Rebecca stirred. Faith brushed her tears away, and took her hand.

Rebecca opened her eyes as much as she could, and looked up at Faith.

"Faith," she said, in a weak, hoarse whisper, and smiled. "My girl."

Faith kissed Rebecca's cheek. It was a goodbye kiss, she knew.

"Don't...forget...dress in layers," Rebecca said.

"I will," Faith said. "I'll always dress in layers."

Rebecca smiled, and squeezed her hand.

"I love you, Becca," Faith said.

"Love...you...too," Rebecca whispered, and closed her eyes.

Faith carried her to the elevator. Rebecca never opened her eyes again, never stirred. Faith couldn't feel her heartbeat.

Rebecca was pronounced dead a few minutes later, on the plaza outside the Prudential building. She had lost too much blood.

EMT's sat Faith down and worked on her for awhile; she watched as they zipped Rebecca up into a body bag and took her away. They led Faith to an ambulance, and she followed them silently. She didn't say a word in the ambulance. She didn't say a word in the hospital's examining room forty-five minutes later, as she sat on the cold metal table in her socks without her bra on, wearing the little cotton dress they gave her that was open at the back, and the doctor held the cold stethoscope against her back and asked her to breathe in, and his hands probed her ribs. His hands were cold. He asked Faith questions and she didn't respond; eventually they worked out a system. Faith either nodded, or shook her head. But she didn't say anything, and she didn't look at him.

She looked around, at the white walls with the chipped paint, at the metal shelves with boxes of latex gloves and tongue depressors and bandages and moist towelettes and all the other things hospital examining rooms always had, and at the poster showing the spectrum of pain and how you should let your doctor know how bad it is by saying a number from one to ten, and at the other poster with an illustrated diagram of the lungs. The room was too bright. The fluorescent lights were harsh; they brought everything into too sharp a focus, left no room for ambiguity. They made a sound like a little bee buzzing around Faith's head.

Faith didn't like it in there. Everything felt too cold and too hard and too bright and too closed in. The room smelled like blood and rubbing alcohol.

Faith suddenly felt the old fear at the bottom of her stomach: the metal table and the rubbing alcohol and the feel of the stethoscope had brought it all back, dredged it up from all those years ago. The room seemed very small now. The doctor's hands were on her and she didn't want his hands on her. They were rough and cold and he was right up close to her and Faith didn't like his scent; he smelled like cigarette smoke and tuna fish and chewing gum and deodorant all mixed together. She felt like it was getting harder to breathe, like every breath she took was giving her less air than the one before it. She knew that feeling was an illusion, that it was all in her head; she'd had to fight the feeling back before, when she was a girl. She hugged herself, as the doctor examined her, and she felt cold in the flimsy little cotton dress that was open at the back, and she tried not to think about her breathing, or how small the room was.

A nurse came in after the doctor was done and they had put a cast on her ribs and another cast on her arm; the nurse asked if Faith had identification. Faith shook her head. She had a social security card but she kept it at home. She didn't want them to know her real name anyway. When the nurse gave her a form to fill out she put down a fake name and address.

She didn't say a word to the two police officers, the tall black man and the petite girl, who came to see her when she was in the hospital bed later, hooked up to an IV machine in the big, crowded, antiseptic-smelling emergency room with all the junkies in the beds around her, and said they were sorry for her loss. A detective came in and said she was lucky they weren't going to press charges against her for interfering with a crime scene and assaulting police officers. He was a sloppy-looking old man with gray whiskers who needed a shave. His breath smelled like stale coffee. "You're a perfect capper to a perfect goddamn day, missy," he said to her, when she didn't say a word to him. The cops and the detective went away for awhile and another nurse, a fat old woman with beady eyes and gray hair in a tight perm, told her they couldn't find her name in the system and did she have insurance? Faith didn't say a word to her either.

The next morning, when she had a moment alone, Faith unhooked herself from the IV machine, found her clothes, snuck into a bathroom, washed up as best as she could with the broken arm, and quietly slipped out of the building.

It was a cold, bright morning. The pain was a little better; they had doped her up with something overnight and she'd slept for a few hours. She had thirty dollars in her pocket and she didn't feel like walking home so she took a cab.

"Sure this is where you wanna be, kid?" the cabbie said, when they arrived.

The house had burned down.

It was a pile of rubble now, and it had taken a couple of other houses with it. There were no fire engines there, but smoke was still in the air and the charred remnants of the house were still wet. Puddles of water flooded the street.

Faith paid the cabbie, and wandered through the remains of the bright, beautiful house with the grand piano and the hardwood floors and the real working fireplace, the castle Rebecca had made for them both. It didn't feel real, now...it felt like a place she only dreamed she had lived in. The piano was gutted. Faith crouched down and tapped one of the keys. It made a small, pretty sound.

She saw the photo of Gwen in the rubble, in the little silver frame she and Rebecca had bought. The frame was melted, but the photo had survived. She took it out of the frame, and slipped it in her pocket.

Then she ripped one of the wooden legs off of the piano, found a long knife in the rubble that was only partially melted, and walked away.

The car was gone too. Rebecca had been teaching Faith to drive, and had given her a set of keys. Once Faith got her learner's permit Rebecca was going to let her use the car. Faith had just checked every inch of the parking garage near the house where Rebecca kept the car, and the Lexus just wasn't there. Trevor picked Rebecca up the night before; they took his car to the restaurant. Rebecca had left the Lexus in the garage. Someone had stolen it. With a car, Faith would have had some options. Without it, she was down to the money in her savings account. Rebecca had given her an allowance of a hundred dollars a week and Faith didn't always spend it all; Rebecca bought her the things she needed, the allowance was supposed to be fun money. Faith had managed to save almost a thousand dollars. It would support her for a little while.

She remembered Rebecca was the one who insisted that she put any money she didn't spend in a savings account. Faith was going to just put it in her bureau drawer. If she'd done that she'd be down to the money in her pocket now.

First the house, then the car. Faith knew it was Kakistos. He was still out there. Kakistos must have sent his people to burn down the house and take the car.

She walked out of the parking garage, with her piano leg and her partially melted knife.

Faith sat in the Public Garden, under a willow tree. Her left arm felt a lot better suddenly, and she was surprised to discover that it didn't seem to be broken anymore. It still hurt but she could move it. Which made whittling a new stake a lot easier. So she sat under her willow tree, whittling herself a stake out of the piano leg, and thinking about things. She had almost a thousand dollars and nowhere to live. She had the clothes on her back. And she had one very angry vampire on her back too.

Faith remembered Rebecca's voice...that pretty accent she had. Her scent. The way she'd raise her eyebrow sometimes. How warm she always felt.

She started to cry. Then she stopped herself.

Cry later. Plan now.

She needed clothes. They'd have to be cheap. Not having a place to live was going to be a problem soon too. She had lived on the street before and she could do it again...but with Kakistos out there, that was dangerous after dark. And there was also the little problem of Kakistos not dying when she staked him. That had never happened before. As far as Faith knew, it was impossible.

A Mercedes drove by, with blacked-out windows.

She was up against a super-strong ancient vampire who was fully capable of kicking her ass one on one. And he apparently couldn't be staked. And he had Trick helping him, along with a network of hired muscle. And she had cut his dick and balls off, so he was bound to be grumpy. And she had no place to live, no change of clothes, no car, and not much money.

She looked up at the statue of George Washington on his horse. She remembered what Rebecca had told her...about how the American Revolution succeeded when it had no right to, how a bunch of farmers held off the greatest army in the world. All because of that bronze guy on the horse.

"Got any advice, George?" Faith said.

Her stake was done. It was nowhere near as good as the one Rebecca gave her but it was wood and one end was sharp and that was good enough. She threw the knife and her cast in a barrel and headed downtown.

Her social security card had gone up with the house and without it Faith had no identification; all she had was her ATM card. She didn't think the bank would let her close out her savings account without identification so she withdrew the maximum amount allowed from an ATM and ate at a McDonald's downtown and thought about things some more. She hadn't eaten fast food since she met Rebecca. Rebecca wouldn't allow it. The dollar menu burgers were cheap and they tasted like it. But they were food. She knew she'd have to get used to the dollar menu. Not much steak from now on. She sat in the little blue plastic chair and ate her three burgers and fries and drank her Coke, and thought about things.

She realized she would have to go back to the hospital and find out about Rebecca's funeral arrangements.

A drunk old homeless guy who smelled pretty festive walked by her table and noticed the stake. "Is that a sausage in your pants or are you just happy to see me?" he said, and laughed like it was the funniest thing anyone ever said. "You got a quarter?" he added.

Faith gave him a five dollar bill. "Why don't you buy yourself something to eat," she said. "The burgers only taste a little like hockey pucks."

"Eat in this place?" he said, and looked at her like she was the old crazy smelly homeless person. He pocketed the five and walked out.

She could see a Porsche with blacked-out windows outside driving slowly down the street. Faith knew a little about cars; tinted windows were allowed in Massachusetts only up to a point. If the windows were too dark they were illegal. This was the second car with completely blacked-out windows she had seen today. Neither one could possibly be street legal.

If it was Kakistos, it meant he could track her during the day. It meant he knew where she was. They'd follow her until dark, then corner her somewhere...

Her ribs were still stiff and though she could move her left arm a little she couldn't fight with it. She was in no condition to fight Kakistos again yet, never mind fighting him with a bunch of his goons around. And even if she was...how do you kill a vampire who can't be staked?

She needed help. Her money wouldn't last long. It was the first day of autumn and winter would come after that; it would just get colder. She had nowhere to live and she'd be down to begging or stealing eventually. She could go to Evan. She knew she could stay with him as long as she needed to.

But if Kakistos was following her he'd track her to Evan and kill him. Anyone she went to would just get themselves killed helping her...

Anyone except...

She finished her food and walked back outside. Way back in traffic she could see an SUV with blacked-out windows waiting at a light.

Faith walked up the block. The light changed and she heard the cars moving again behind her. She knew the SUV was the fourth one back. She hurried around a corner, tore a piece of iron railing from a stairway and held it down at her side, waiting. When the car followed her around the corner, Faith smashed its windshield in.

Sunlight flooded into the car, and two vampires burst into flames and turned to dust. Faith had her answer.

People were pointing. Cars were stopped in the street. She heard somebody say, "Someone find a cop!"

She dropped the iron railing and ran across the street, around the block, and then went into the Filenes store through a side entrance. It was a huge, noisy, crowded department store with six floors crammed full of stuff, and exits on every side of the building. She needed someplace she could disappear into and think for awhile. Any vampires following her would have to get out of their cars to go into the store and it was still daylight. She'd be safe there for now. She walked past the perfume counters, toward the escalators leading to the Basement discount store. She'd strategize and shop at the same time.

At least, that was the plan. She'd just picked out some clothes--a few cheap outfits that were just barely acceptable but wouldn't win her any fashion awards, and a cheap backpack to carry them all around in--when Evan ran up to her, breathless and frantic.

"Faith!" Evan said, and hugged her. "Jesus Christ! Jesus fucking Christ!"

"Hey, Ev," Faith said, ignoring the pain in her ribs that he was now making much worse.

"Didn't you see me?" he said. "I shouted to you but you just ran away! Jesus, I've been so worried about you! I went by your house to make sure you were okay and the whole place was burned to the ground! Where have you been? You couldn't call? Do you know how worried I was? Why didn't you call?"

"I...uh..." she said, not having the slightest idea how to answer him.

"That fire at the Pru last night...it's all over the news," he said. "They're saying some psychos started stabbing people and set fire to the place..."

Faith wanted to get away. She couldn't look at him. She couldn't let Evan get involved in this. He'd get hurt...

She moved away from him. He moved closer to her.

"Faith...you said Rebecca had a reservation at the Top of the Hub last night," Evan said.

Faith looked down at the floor.

Evan took her chin in his hand, and gently raised her head, and looked her in the eyes. "Was...was Rebecca there when it happened?" he said.

"She..." Faith started to say, and began to cry.

Horror dawned in Evan's eyes. He gently hugged her again, and brought her toward him.

"Faith. What happened to Rebecca?" Evan said, softly.

"I...couldn't...I couldn't stop him," Faith whispered.

"Couldn't...? Couldn't stop who?"

She leaned her head against his chest, and broke down in tears.

"I couldn't stop him!" she screamed. "I wasn't good enough, I wasn't strong enough! And now she's dead and now she's dead...she's dead, Becca's dead..."

She collapsed on the floor, crying.

Evan fell to his knees and caught her, and held her close.

"I couldn't stop him, Evan! I couldn't stop him!" she screamed again. "I'm the Slayer and I'm supposed to be able to stop them all but I wasn't good enough and now she's dead and it's my fault! It's all my fault!"

They knelt on the floor together, holding each other. People were staring. It didn't matter.

"Faith...baby...of course it's not your fault," Evan said.

"I loved her, Evan," Faith whispered. "I loved her and now she's dead."

"I'm so sorry, Faith," Evan said.

Faith nodded, looking down at the table. Evan held her hand.

She was wearing his long leather coat. He had given it to her. "It's cold, honey," he had said.

They were at the Papa Gino's on Tremont Street, a pizza place a few blocks away from Filenes, sitting in a red plastic booth, drinking Cokes and sharing a pizza that neither of them had touched.

"Faith...what's a Slayer?" Evan said.

Faith didn't say anything. She just looked down at the table.

Then she looked up at him. She wanted so badly to tell him...to tell him all of it. To share the weight with someone else...

Behind Evan, she saw the Porsche with blacked-out windows outside.

One of the windows rolled down just a crack...

Faith saw a gun sticking out of it.

Without conscious thought she pulled Evan out of the booth and dragged him to the floor with her just before the gun started firing. It made a strange, popping sound; judging by the sound alone she wouldn't have known it was a gun. It destroyed the front window and raked bullets through the room.

"Down! Everybody get down!" Faith screamed, while lying flat on top of Evan on the floor, completely covering his body with hers. Whoever was firing wasn't taking chances, pumping out enough bullets to mow down a battalion. Faith dragged Evan with her behind one of the booths, trying to get him out of the line of fire.

It was still daylight, with a bright sun. Everything Faith knew about vampires, everything Rebecca had taught her, told her that the vampires wouldn't get out of that car. They could cover themselves up and run in, but they'd be fighting at a disadvantage. All she'd have to do is kick them back outside and they'd be dust.

Faith told herself they wouldn't try to come in.

But Kakistos shouldn't have been able to survive that stake either...

The bullets seemed to go on forever, making little popping and zipping noises as they sliced through the restaurant, bludgeoning through walls, smashing through glass, ricocheting off the metal counters and the cash registers. The air was full of smoke and debris, as if the restaurant itself was in motion all around her. Faith felt her heart beating. If she lost Evan she'd have no one left. She held on tight to him. Her hands were shaking.

Evan's breathing was very rapid. Faith knew he had asthma and he was trying to suck in air, beginning to hyperventilate. She caressed his cheek.

"I'm right here, Ev," she said, softly, as the room exploded around them. "I'm right here." He opened his eyes, and looked up at her. "We're just gonna whisper now, okay?" Faith whispered. He nodded.

"Where's your inhaler?" she whispered.

"All out," he whispered. "Was...gonna pick up...one at the...drug store..."

"Okay. I'm right here, okay Ev? I'm right here, and I won't let anything happen to you. I just want you to breathe with me, okay? Just breathe. We're gonna breathe together, you and me."

She caressed his cheek, and stroked his long, dark hair, and breathed, slow and steady, normal breaths, not trying to take in too much.

"Breathe with me, Ev," she whispered.

He breathed with her. She looked in his eyes. They were big and brown, like hers.

"That's it, baby," she whispered. "That's it. Slow, steady. Slow, steady. Feel me breathing, feel my chest on top of yours, feel the air going in and out. I'm right here. I'm right here. I'm right here."

The bullets finally stopped. Faith didn't look up yet. She listened instead. Listened for the sound of someone walking in...

They breathed together, in the silence. No one moved around them, no one made a sound. There had been at least eight or nine other people there when the firing started.

A familiar scent came to Faith...and a tear came to her eye.

"That's it, baby. You're doing good. That's it. That's it..." she whispered.

Faith smelled the blood in the air, and knew she and Evan were the only ones left alive in the restaurant.

"That's it baby, we're doing it, me and you, that's it..." she whispered...

And Faith suddenly realized that she was in love with Evan. And she knew that she couldn't ever see him again, after today.

She closed her eyes, and promised herself she'd be strong. She opened them again, and looked at him.

Evan's back had been to the window. She hadn't seen any cars following them on the way to the restaurant. They must have been hanging back pretty far and that meant they wouldn't really know what Evan looked like. If she started running, right now, left the city, she'd draw them after her and he'd be safe.

She heard a car drive away.

"That's it, baby, you're doing it. You're doing it, you're doing it," Faith whispered, as Evan's breathing returned to normal.

She smiled, with tears in her eyes.

They got the hell out of there. Faith dragged Evan behind her, cutting down side streets. They stopped at a drug store and picked up Evan's inhaler, and then Faith dragged him behind her again, running in and out of stores, staying out of sight. Faith made her way back to the Public Garden, taking Evan into a little underpass under a footbridge that was hidden from the street. The sun was still bright. They'd be safe there for now. They sat on a bench together.

"Faith...those people are dead," Evan said. "We...have to go to the police."

"Do you care about me?" Faith said.

"Of course I do. What kind of question is that?"

"Then you'll do what I'm gonna ask you to do, without asking me why. You'll do it for me."

"Do what?"

"You're gonna go home. And you're not gonna say a word about this--not one word--to anyone. Not the cops, not Dan, not your parents. No one."

"But..."

"Evan. Listen. This is important. You're not gonna say a word about me to anyone. You're gonna forget you ever knew me. If anyone ever asks you about Faith Lehane you have no idea who she is. You're never gonna mention my name again, to anyone."

"What? Faith...I can't..."

"You're not gonna go to Rebecca's funeral. You're never going to mention her name or that you even knew her. You'll do all this for me if you care about me. Do you care about me, Evan?"

"More than anyone in the world," he said.

Faith almost broke down, when he said that. She almost took it all back, and ran away with him.

"Then you'll do this for me," Faith said. "And..."

She was crying...she couldn't stop the tears now, no matter how hard she tried to be strong. He gently wiped them away.

"And...and you won't ask me why," she said. "You'll just go. You'll just go, right now!"

"No," Evan said...and he put his arms around her, and pulled her toward him, and kissed her.

They remained that way for a moment, on the bench, kissing each other. Then Faith pushed him away.

"Evan, we can't do this!" she pleaded, crying. "You have to go! If those guys find us they--"

"No!" he shouted. "I'll be god damned if I'm gonna...gonna just run away when you need me!"

It was all falling apart. If Evan went to the police there'd be a record, he'd be a witness, Kakistos could track him down...if Evan tried to stay with her, and Kakistos found them together...Faith felt herself starting to panic.

"No, baby no...please...please? You have to leave, you have to...I can't protect you from them! I can't...they're after me, not you...if you leave you'll be safe! Please? Please?!" Faith screamed, begging, not knowing what else to do...

Evan took her hand. "Faith...I don't know who's after you or why," he said. "But we can go to the police, I'll help you, we--"

"If you try to help me you'll get killed! The guys who are after me...they killed those people in the Pru to get to me!"

She saw it in his eyes. Saw that he believed her.

"They killed all those people in the Pru and the Papa Gino's to get to me," Faith said. "If we go to the police they'll kill them too."

"But...but the police can..." Evan began.

"I'm the Slayer, Evan. I have to do this."

"You said that before. What's...a Slayer?"

"How much do you weigh?"

"About one-eighty."

Faith got up and picked up the bench Evan was sitting on and lifted it over her head with one hand.

"Oh my fucking God!" Evan said, sitting on a bench suspended eight feet in the air, held aloft by a girl.

"The guys who shot at us are vampires," Faith said. "I have super-strength and I use it to kill them. That's my job. That's why they're after me."

He looked down at her, stunned.

"Vampires...?" he said.

"It wasn't guys with knives who killed those people last night," Faith said. "It was vampires. They ripped those people's throats out."

She put the bench down. Evan quickly stood up, as if he thought the bench might try to gallop off with him. Faith tore one of the iron legs from it and bent it into a pretzel in front of Evan's eyes.

"Jesus Christ," Evan said.

"I'm the Slayer," Faith said. "I can bench press a thousand pounds and I can punch through walls. Last night I killed most of the vamps at the Pru, but one of them kicked me out the window. I fell all the way from the top floor to the street and survived."

"Vampires," he said. "You're saying...vampires exist. This is...Jesus, this is just..." He shook his head, bewildered. "And you fell from the top of the frigging Pru and survived...?"

Faith took her stake out of her back pocket. "Know how you're always asking me why I carry a hunk of wood, and I always say it's my good luck charm?" she said. "This is a wooden stake. If you stab a vamp through the heart with it, it dies, turns to dust."

"Vampires," Evan said. "You...kill vampires."

"That's what the Slayer does," Faith said. "What the Slayer is. She's the one who keeps the vamps under control. Rebecca was my Watcher. She helped me, taught me how to fight."

"You are Wonder Woman...that's how you threw that guy across the room at The Roxy. You're Wonder Woman."

"Please. I'm way hotter than her."

"Yeah. You'd look pretty damn good in red white and blue panties."

"So do you believe me? Or do you think I'm just some crazy girl?"

"You did just lift me and the bench over your head with one hand."

"There's that."

"Vampires, huh?" he said.

"Vampires," she said.

"Are there werewolves too?"

"Maybe. Never met one."

He stood very quietly, looking at her.

"So now what?" Evan said.

"You can't come with me, Evan," Faith said. "I can't fight them and protect you at the same time. They'll kill you and...and I love you."

She started crying again.

"I love you and...and if you died I...I couldn't live with myself if you died," she said.

He hugged her. She leaned her head against his chest, just the way she had always wanted to.

"So you're just gonna...what...run?" he said.

"I have to draw them away from here, away from you," she said. "Once you're safe and I'm healed up from yesterday I'll take them down."

He rested his chin on top of her head, and ran his hand through her hair.

"Just like that, huh?" Evan said.

"Or they'll take me down," Faith said.

"So you're saying you're going on the run and I can't come with you."

"Yeah."

"Well that fucking sucks. I want to come with you. I've got money. We'll find a place somewhere..."

"No. No, baby. You can't. I won't let you."

"Kiss me again."

She kissed him.

"For Christ's sake," Evan said. "You're the one. It was always you. I'm such a fucking idiot. We should've had so much...we should've...been together, and...I was afraid. That's why we weren't together. I was afraid. I was a fool."

"We had stuff," Faith said. "The friend stuff, hanging out? It was important to me. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"I said I'd never do this. That I'd never let love get in the way of a friendship again. And then...I meet some vampire-slaying, super hot girl and I realize the thing I really want most in the whole world is to see her in red white and blue panties."

"Such a perv," Faith said, and laughed.

"I love you, Faith," Evan said. "You're my girl."

Faith nodded, and cried, and stayed close against him. She couldn't have him for very much longer. She'd make the most of every second.

"Do you own red white and blue panties?" he said.

They laughed.

"No, perv," Faith said. "And Wonder Woman's panties weren't red white and blue. They were blue with little white stars like the American flag. The top she wore had the red."

"She had that kinky rope too," Evan said.

"It was a magic lasso. It made bad guys tell the truth."

"And the bracelets that blocked bullets for some reason."

"I wanted to be Lynda Carter when I was a little kid. I'd like, spin around the way she did on the show when she was changing? And I'd pretend I was changing into Wonder Woman. Everyone started calling me "Spin Around Girl".

"Spin Around Girl", Evan said, laughing, and they kissed again.

The kissing became passionate. He ran his hands down her back, and up her sides, toward her breasts...her hands touched his chest, and moved down over his stomach, to his waist...

Faith pulled away.

"We...we can't, baby," she said. "We can't."

"But I love you," Evan said. "You can't leave when I just now discovered I love you. Please. Don't leave me now. Don't leave me."

She looked down, unable to meet his eyes.

"You'll die," Faith said. "You'll die if I stay with you. Don't make this harder for me. Please? Please, Evan? For me?"

He gently raised her chin, and looked her in the eyes. He hesitated.

Then he said, "We're going to see each other again, Faith."

And he kissed her, one last time...and walked away.

She ran.

By sunset she was on a Greyhound bus. She had Evan's coat, her stake, a backpack with a few changes of clothes, her ATM card, the photo of Gwen...and the knowledge that Evan was alive somewhere. It would be enough.

Looking back at the city receding into the distance, she saw the Prudential building reflecting the light of the setting sun, blood red.

She had been run out of her own territory. She had lost Rebecca. She had left the man she loved behind and she could never see him again.

She pulled Evan's coat tight around her, and curled up in it, and cried.

Then she turned her eyes forward.

She was heading west...toward the one person who could help her.

The one girl in all the world.

Eight

THE HAND OF THE GODDESS

Buffy focused on the tai chi forms, trying to find harmony within herself.

She had been trying for more than two weeks. She hadn't managed it yet.

Her strong, lithe body taut, her breathing relaxed, she moved through the air beside him, focused on her center of gravity, her rhythm adapted to his, but still separate, still apart from him...from this man she loved: this man who had tried to kill her, and everyone else she cared about.

She watched him move, letting her discipline slip slightly; he was so graceful, so beautiful. There were times she couldn't take her eyes off him.

They exercised together every morning in his mansion. Not talking, not touching...just moving, separate from each other, yet together. Trying to achieve the same thing.

When they had really been together...when he was hers, and she was his...all they tried to do was enjoy each other. But that was before her Angel became Angelus...before her beautiful Angel became an ugly thing, a treacherous, murderous thing: a monster without a soul.

Now, they simply tried to find a moment's peace.

He was still beautiful, on the outside. Graceful, muscular, handsome, with the deepest eyes...eyes that had seen centuries. Buffy felt the familiar longing she always felt when she looked at him.

She put the thought out of her mind. She was used to repressing that part of her, now; she did it every morning, when she saw him. Every morning since he had come back...

Angelus had planned to kill Buffy and drag the world into a hell dimension. But in the end, he couldn't bring himself to kill her; he had the upper hand during the fight...but something stopped him from finishing her. His hesitation gave Buffy the chance she needed, and she defeated him.

At the last moment, his soul was restored. Angelus was gone, caged again. Her Angel had returned...too late. The hell dimension had planted its seed here. Only his blood would satisfy it...

So Buffy stabbed the man she loved through the heart, and sent him to hell, and saved the world.

A month ago he returned from that hell dimension she sent him to, like a wish that had been granted. Though he had come back feral, senseless, he had his soul. Buffy could see it, flickering in his eyes.

From his cryptic mutterings and darkly suggestive hints, she gathered he had been in that dimension for nearly a century, even though he had only been gone for three months. Time was different there. And it wasn't a place for people with souls. It had hurt him.

He was still beautiful, on the outside...but Buffy knew the wounds he took in that place ran deep. Angelus was back in his cage, but the damage he had done, the lives he had destroyed, would always be there now, in Angel's eyes.

She took care of him as he acclimated himself to the world. She brought him food: animal blood from the butcher shop. She stayed with him. He didn't say a word to her at first. She stayed anyway.

After a few days, he started trying to recover his focus, his balance. He sat very still for hours, meditating. She sat still with him. A week after that, he began the tai chi exercises.

He hadn't invited her to exercise with him. She came anyway.

On the third day of the exercises, he finally spoke directly to her. He said, "Good morning."

On the fifth day, he offered her a glass of orange juice. He didn't drink it; vampires didn't need food. He had gone to the supermarket the night before, and bought orange juice, so he could offer it to her. He had bought muffins too, and they ate a little breakfast together that morning, after their exercises. He drank his pig's blood, and she drank her orange juice and ate her muffin, in silence.

They had breakfast together every morning now. On weekdays Buffy woke up at four a.m., to spend the mornings with him before school, and they exercised and ate breakfast, and sometimes Angel would say a few words to her.

They never talked about Angelus. They never talked about their feelings, or their relationship, if he was hers or she was his, or where they would go from here. They didn't know where they were going. They took it a day at a time.

Parched, she drank him in every morning. It got her through the day.

Yesterday, they had lain in bed together for an hour after exercising. That hour got her through the school day and through the night, through slaying in the cemetery and cramming for her history test at midnight, until she woke up at four, showered, and rushed back to him. She put on a little perfume this time, the perfume she remembered he used to like.

She didn't try to touch him. She didn't initiate anything. She just smiled and said, "Hi."

He said, "Good morning."

They exercised.

They ate breakfast: orange juice and muffins and pig's blood.

He didn't touch her. He didn't look at her much. He didn't say anything.

At 7:30, she said, "I have to get to school," and walked to the door, trying not to look at him, trying not to let him see how much he had just hurt her.

"Buffy," he said.

It was the first time he had called her by her name since he came back. The name shattered her composure. Her hand shook a little, and she nervously ran it through her hair, trying to smile, trying to be in control, and failing. She could only just barely stop herself from crying. She felt the air between them, the exact distance separating them, every molecule and particle of it. The name sliced through the distance, sliced into her.

"I still love you," Angel said. "I always will."

Buffy's whole body felt like it was shaking. He came to her, and touched her cheek. Her heart beat faster.

"I don't know if I can ever love me," he said.

She took his hand.

"I'll love you for both of us," she said.

He smiled. God, how she had missed that smile.

"I like your perfume," he said.

They couldn't make love; they both knew that. It was their lovemaking that had released Angelus, that had given Angel the one moment of perfect, transcendent happiness that had activated his curse, and cost him his soul. Buffy thought that some part of him must have hated her for that, for destroying the long, slow process of redemption he had worked a century trying to achieve. But she was wrong. He could never hate her. He could only ever love her.

Even Angelus didn't hate her. He loved her too.

Which is why he had tried so desperately to destroy her...

He kissed her. The kiss crackled through her.

It was enough. It would get her through another day. Buffy smiled...

And then she remembered the photographs, in a shoebox in her closet.

She would forget them, sometimes; there were times she went days without thinking about them. But they always came back to her, eventually...they never left her for long.

She started to cry.

After three days on a bus Faith ended up at a dump of a bus station at the ass end of California, a little town on the Mexican border called Calexico, and just in the nick of time: the bus was crowded and stuffy and the other people on it had gotten pretty ripe after three days. Sometimes Slayer senses were a burden. It was almost sunset and the sun was big and golden in a bright blue cloudless sky and the day was windy and hot and felt like summer. Faith saw actual mountains in the distance when she looked around. She had never seen mountains before.

She was on a bus to Sunnydale an hour later, and that night she was sitting in a cramped little motel room that cost twenty dollars a day. She'd gone to an ATM and pulled out more money; the room was paid for a week. After a quick stop at the local McDonald's to chow down on the cheap Faith had two-hundred and fifty-five dollars in her pocket and a hundred and sixty dollars left in her savings account.

The room was lousy. A couple of rickety chairs, a tiny old TV set, a cheap little scratched-up bureau, a bed. A huge painting hung on the wall, all black and a blinding shade of orange, something about birds flying over the ocean, everything silhouetted by the giant, orange setting sun. Faith knew from all her visits to museums with Rebecca that the painting was an attempt at Expressionism. In this case, a swing and a miss. But the room was all she could afford.

She hung what clothes she had in the little closet. She set Gwen's photo on the nightstand beside the bed. In the morning she'd buy a frame for it.

Tonight, she had a Slayer to find.

Willow Rosenberg left the Magic Box with her mandrake root and salamander eyes and hurried home with all the speed and stealth she could muster through the deserted, shadow-darkened streets. She knew it was stupid of her to come alone to this part of town after dark; the Magic Box was in a dreary, squalid neighborhood of tenements and boarded-up buildings and liquor stores, with the occasional crack house sprinkled in, and although the neighborhood's low rents allowed the Magic Box to turn a profit they were more than offset by the high incidence of vampire attacks, and people steered clear of this part of town after sunset. But Willow needed those ingredients tonight; tomorrow just wouldn't do.

The dark in Sunnydale was a strange thing, Willow thought, as she watched the sky and hurried home as quickly as she could: it had a quality, an intensity to it, that darkness didn't seem to have in other places. The light from the street lamps struck out feebly against it, and was swallowed up.

And then from out of that dark came the sound Willow had been dreading...footsteps behind her.

Being the best friend of a Slayer had eliminated much (not all) of Willow's naivet�: she didn't even bother looking over her shoulder and just started running, fumbling through her handbag for her stake and cursing herself for her impatience. A good witch had to be patient, yet she hadn't even had the discipline to wait a single day for the ingredients she needed for her spell. She'd wanted results now, tonight; she didn't want to wait for the sun. She heard the footsteps behind her breaking into a run, and an acid drop of fear splashed down into her heart.

"Hey cutie, what's your hurry?" came the shrill, mocking voice from behind her. A claw dug into her arm and spun her around, and Willow saw three vampires surrounding her. They shoved her into an alley, and the one who had called to her, a small, wiry man with a shaved head and an earring and a big grin, nodded to his two friends. They all looked like they were just out of college.

"She's a pretty one," he said. "Hey Marty, you like redheads. Isn't she pretty?" He shoved Willow again, and she tripped and fell backwards into a wall.

Marty was tall and lanky and he looked like a vacuum cleaner salesman. "Absolutely," he said, whistling appreciatively. "Nice cute face, good legs, and check out those tits too. I bet there's one hell of a rack under that sweater."

"You got us all excited," the first vampire said. He nodded toward the third vampire, an overweight man with slicked-back hair and sideburns that went all the way down to his chin. "Hey Jerry," he said. "This girl got you excited?"

"Aw, yeah," Jerry said.

Willow looked around. Behind her, the alley ended in a fence that was too high for her to climb. In front of her, there was no one else on the street...there was only the all-pervading darkness, closing in. She managed to find her stake at the bottom of her handbag, and held it in front of her.

"A stake. That's cute," the first vampire said.

Marty laughed, walked up to Willow, blocked her feeble attempt to stake him, and smacked her in the face. It sent her flying back into the wall again, and her handbag and her stake clattered to the ground. Marty kicked the stake away.

"Okay, so here's the thing," the first vampire said. "Oh, hey, I'm Alan. Sorry, didn't mean to be rude. Anyway, after you suck me off, Jerry gets to fuck you first. He's sort of a nerd. He doesn't get any. We try to help him out."

Alan and Marty laughed. "Assholes," Jerry said.

"Fucking little tease. This bitch needs a beat-down," Marty said, cracking his knuckles. "And I'm just the man to hand it out. You gotta know how to handle a woman, Jerry. A bitch will take your balls if you let her."

"Get down on your knees now, girl," Alan said, smiling at Willow. "And hey, no teeth, okay?"

Willow stood there, frozen, shaking.

"I said on your fuckin' knees!" Alan shouted, and backhanded Willow in the face. It bounced her off the wall and she fell to the ground, her nose bleeding.

"That's right, man," Marty said. "Teach the bitch."

Willow put her shaking hands together, and looked up at the sky.

"Holy Mother, hear my prayer," she whispered, with tears in her eyes.

"Witch, huh?" Alan said. "Cool. I hear they give great blowjobs. Hey, Jerry, is Little Jerry standing at attention? Get ready, man."

"Let's get to it hon," Alan said, and unzipped his pants, and grabbed Willow by the hair. The other two vampires unzipped their pants and grinned.

"I got a better idea," came another voice out of the darkness. The vampires all turned...

Faith was standing at the entrance to the alley.

"And who the fuck would you be?" Alan said, and let go of Willow.

"Sweet Polly Purebread," Faith said, and smiled, showing the vampires her teeth. It had been awhile, since she'd dusted a vampire. She was restless.

"This isn't a great neighborhood to be hanging out in, Polly," Marty said, moving around to her side. "There are a lot of dangerous people out here."

"I'm selling girl scout cookies," Faith said. "Any of you guys wanna buy a box? How about you, fatso?" she said, grinning at Jerry. "You're a disgusting pig, you probably eat a lot of cookies."

"Fuck you, bitch!" Jerry shouted. "You are so fucking dead!"

"So that's a no on the cookies?" Faith said.

Jerry snarled and ran at her. Faith stepped to her right, grabbed Jerry's arm, spun him around and twisted the arm up high behind him.

"Guess you're gonna die a virgin, fatso," she said, and pulled her stake from her coat pocket and staked him through the back. Marty tried to tackle her, but Faith dodged him, grabbed his arm and flipped him over her head. He flew into Alan and they both crashed into the garbage cans lining the wall.

"Oh, and by the way? I'm the Slayer," Faith said. "Girl scouts is just like a side thing."

"You're one dead fucking crazy bitch, is what you are," Alan said.

"Dead?" Faith said. "Some day. Crazy? Could be. Bitch? Hell yeah. And do you kiss your Momma with that mouth, boy?"

Alan sprang at her. Faith planted her leg, whipped around and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying over Willow's head as Marty ran at her next. Faith grabbed Marty's arm and threw him head-first into a wall. As he struggled to stand she staked him without bothering to turn around.

"Hey, are you okay?" Faith said to Willow, and helped her up. She picked up Willow's handbag, and gave it to her.

"Um...um...yeah," Willow said. She was shaking, and she still had tears in her eyes. Faith took her hand. "It's gonna be okay," Faith said. "No one's gonna hurt you now." Willow nodded.

"Cool. Just gimme a sec here, okay?" Faith said, and stalked past her as Alan got back up.

Willow thought she knew Slayers. She was Buffy's best friend, and she had met Kendra too. But this girl was different. She seemed to enjoy it, to enjoy the killing, in a way Buffy never did...or would never admit she did. Faith had been smiling since the fight started and she was still smiling now.

"Cat got your tongue, boy?" Faith said, as Alan growled at her. "C'mon, aren't you gonna threaten me some more? Get me all scared?"

"Fuck you!" he shouted, and threw a garbage can at her. As Faith blocked it he tried to get past her.

"Right back at ya," Faith said, and punched him in the face as he ran past with a right cross that sent him spinning through the air like a top and crashing into a wall. He fell to the ground, and Faith stood over him, looking down into his eyes. Her smile was gone now.

"Get up, bitch," Faith said.

He tried to stand, and Faith kicked him in the face. Teeth went flying out of his head as he fell sprawling to the ground again, coughing up blood.

He raised himself to his knees, and stood up slowly. Faith waited.

He made one last stand, leaping at her again. He wouldn't have had a chance against Faith on his best day; now he was hurt and it made him slow. She backhanded him out of the air like she was swatting a fly.

"We're not done, boy," Faith said. "Not by a long shot." She picked him up and slammed him face-first into a wall, and held him there by the neck. She bent his left arm behind his back and broke it with a crack that echoed through the alley and made Willow shudder. The vampire screamed. Then Faith did the same thing to his right arm. He screamed again, and Faith let go of him, and he slid down the wall to the ground. He started to cry.

"Hey!" Faith shouted, and crouched down beside him and grabbed him by the throat.

"Don't you fucking cry!" she screamed at him, shoving her finger in his face. "Don't you fucking cry on me! You cry on me and I'll stomp those fucking tears right out of you." Faith got up, took a step back, and kicked the vampire in the head, roaring like a lion as she did; the kick sent the vampire flying down the alley like a football through a goalpost. He ricocheted off the back fence, landed on a dumpster, bounced off of it and fell to the ground.

Willow watched, entranced, as Faith stalked through the alley, ferocious, snarling, not hiding herself from her the way Buffy did, but naked in her rage, and completely revealed before her; this was what a Slayer was, Willow realized. What Buffy was, too...what Buffy had always been, but had never let her see. In her strength and her magnificent rage, Faith was majestic; she prowled that alley like it was hers, like an animal marking her territory and claiming everything and everyone in it for herself. Watching her was like staring straight into the sun.

Willow saw a lion, when she looked at Faith...she saw the hand of the Goddess revealed.

And Willow knew she would never see Buffy the same way again...

Faith wrenched a pipe from the wall and dragged the vampire back where Willow could see him. She stood over the vampire, holding the pipe in her hands.

"Please..." the vampire whispered.

Faith giggled.

She raised the pipe high above her head, and brought it down with devastating force across the vampire's knees. He shrieked, and Willow could hear his kneecaps break.

Faith turned to Willow. "What's your name?" she said.

"Willow," Willow said, staring down at the crippled vampire.

"I'm Faith. You know about vampires?"

"Yeah."

Faith held out her stake. "This guy took something from you, Willow," she said. "Want it back?"

Willow looked at the stake for a long moment...and took it.

Faith grabbed the vampire by the neck and smashed him into the wall, propping him up.

Willow stood in front of him, the stake in her hand.

"Right there, Will," Faith said, pointing at the vampire's heart. "Straight through."

Willow nodded.

"So I guess you're Willow's bitch, huh, boy?" Faith said, smiling at the terrified vampire. "Funny how things work out, isn't it?"

Willow saw the fear in the vampire's eyes. She liked it.

With a scream, she staked the vampire, and he turned to dust.

Willow looked down at the pile of dust for a moment...and turned away.

She gave Faith the stake. She stood apart from Faith, looking away from her and hugging herself. Faith put her hand on her shoulder.

"You okay?" Faith said, softly.

Willow nodded. "Um, thanks doesn't, um, really cover it?" she said. "But...thanks. You saved my life."

"Hey, no problem. Vamps were right about one thing, though. Not a real good neighborhood for a gal to be taking a stroll, y'know?"

"I, um, needed some things at the store."

"Uh-huh," Faith said. She looked closely at Willow's face. "Assholes roughed you up a little, huh? Your nose is bleeding, and you got a pretty good bruise on your cheek here. But you look okay other than that. Pinch your nose and hold your head forward to stop the bleeding. I'm gonna walk you home, okay?" Willow did what Faith told her. "I thought you were supposed to hold your head back?" she said.

"Nope. Forward," Faith said. "Trust me, I've been hit enough to know."

Willow nodded, took a tissue from her handbag, and wiped her nose. "Thanks for walking me home," Willow said. "It's...really nice of you."

"Sure," Faith said. They walked out of the alley and turned down the street. "You live around here?"

Willow giggled nervously. She was still shaky, and the thought of what would have happened to her if Faith hadn't been there made her feel panicky. She forced the thought down, buried it. She noticed Faith was watching her carefully. "That would be a big nope," she said. "I live on the non-crack house side of town. I just come out here occasionally when I'm feeling really dumb and reckless and I need stuff from the Magic Box."

"Magic Box. That like a magic store?"

"Yup. I'm sort of a witch. Or trying to be."

"Hey, cool. Always wanted to meet a witch. Can you do like, any spells?"

"I can levitate pencils. And I restored someone's soul once...let's see...I can do like this thing where I can get inside a person's head and read their thoughts? I did a love spell, but that didn't work so well. Well, actually it worked a little too well and all the girls in town went all crazy jealous and almost killed one of my friends. I'm good with locator spells. Like, if you got lost somewhere? I could totally find you if I had something of yours." Willow remembered the body she had found when she accompanied Buffy on patrol a few weeks before. A girl, about her age, drained of blood. She had been left for dead in a park and her body was decomposing. Maggots were swarming over her.

"So are you from around here?" Willow said. She noticed that Faith was constantly glancing around, looking at all the boarded-up buildings and empty lots, as if she was memorizing the layout of the neighborhood, cataloguing all the places vampires could hide.

"Nah, just got in from Boston," Faith said.

"Wow, that's pretty far. What brought you all the way out here?" Willow saw herself dead in that alley, drained of blood...lying naked by the garbage cans, with maggots swarming over her. She felt something in her stomach...like a twinge of nausea.

"I'm looking for someone," Faith said. "Y'know, most people get all freaked out when they see what I can do. But you're all kinda relaxed about it."

"What, you mean, how you're a Slayer?" Willow said. "I guess it would freak some people out, but me, not likely. My best friend's a Slayer."

Faith stopped and looked at her.

"A Slayer?" Faith said. "Buffy Summers? You know Buffy Summers?"

"Yup," Willow said. "That's her. Um, is everything okay?"

"I need to find her. There's something important I need to tell her about."

"Um...well...I think she's on patrol tonight. I think she wanted to do the cemeteries on the east side this week. She said she did the west side last week..."

"Okay, I'm new here and I got no idea where anything is. How far to all the cemeteries?"

"A few miles, but there are kinda a lot of them. We're sorta cemetery central here. There are six on the east side." Willow remembered the look on the vampire's face, when he grabbed her by the hair. The vampire knew he could make her do what he told her to do. She thought about what they would have done to her, and how she would have been powerless to stop them. The feeling had moved up from her stomach now, into her chest. It felt like a steadily increasing pressure. She tried to block the thoughts again, to bury them, but she couldn't.

She thought about the things Angelus had said to her in her mother's car the previous spring. His voice was gentle, but his hands were cold and there was nothing, not one single thing, in his eyes. She thought about small, dark spaces. She thought about being locked in.

She thought about closets.

She felt her hands shaking, and stuffed them into her pockets.

"She have a cell phone?" Willow heard Faith saying.

"A cell phone? No...no, she...but...now that you mention it, she probably should..." Willow stuttered.

"Okay, come on," Faith said, still keeping a watchful eye on Willow as she looked around. There was no one on the street. She broke the window of the nearest car, an old Chrysler LeBaron, with her fist.

"Um..." Willow said.

Faith got in, smashed the car's key mechanism and hotwired it. "Hop in," she said, as the car started.

"Um..." Willow said.

"Look," Faith said. "I'm a good girl, I don't steal cars. But I gotta find Buffy fast. There's a big bad vamp on my trail and his hobby is killing Slayers. He came after me in Boston and he said he's coming after Buffy next. Buffy needs to be warned. So can you maybe help me out here, Will?"

The thought that Buffy might be in danger was all it took. Willow got in the car. "Head straight up this street all the way to the second set of lights, then take a right," she said.

"Gotcha," Faith said, and pulled away from the curb. She watched Willow out of the corner of her eye. Willow was trying to hide her hands. They were shaking. Faith remembered what it was like to be scared; she had been scared in the Prudential building, heading up in the elevator after Kakistos kicked her out the window. She had been scared when the vampires almost killed Evan.

But when Faith watched Rebecca die...when she watched Evan walk away...she felt that cold thing in her stomach, and knew she would never be afraid again. She simply had nothing left to lose.

She knew all she would ever feel was cold...

Faith put her hand on Willow's shoulder, and smiled. "Rough night, huh?" she said. "But it's all over now, and those guys are dust. You're runnin' with a Slayer now, Will, you're safe as houses. Uh, not that I ever really understood what that means? But no one can hurt you while I'm around. Okay, Will?"

Willow nodded, and forced a small smile. The car felt confined and closed in now...like a closet. "You're really good at hotwiring cars," she said, just to be saying something. The image was stuck in her head now, and she couldn't get it out. She was naked, and he was on top of her. He was beating her, and forcing himself into her, and the other two were laughing and waiting their turn...

"Had a troubled childhood," Faith said with a grin. She kept her hand on Willow's shoulder as she drove. "But I'm a whole new girl these days, promise."

Willow couldn't move. There was no room in the car and she couldn't escape and in the alley she couldn't make him stop. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't get the image out of her head. She couldn't make him stop...

Willow started shaking. Faith pulled over and parked.

Willow felt Faith's hand on her shoulder. She could feel the strength in it, the same strength she always felt in Buffy.

She clutched at Faith's hand like a lifeline. She thought if she let go she'd be lost; she'd never find herself again.

"It's okay, Will," Faith said, and turned toward her. "I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere."

Willow's whole body shook now, and she held onto Faith's hand with all the strength she had, until finally she collapsed into Faith's arms, and cried.

"It's okay," Faith said, and hugged her.

Faith felt tears welling up in her eyes.

"I wasn't too late this time," Faith said.

Faith tried to fight them. But the tears were too strong...

"I saved you," Faith whispered, as the tears rolled down her cheeks. "I saved you."

Buffy stalked through the cemetery, all her senses reaching out. She was in her work clothes: a miniskirt, halter top, and a pair of big platform boots that were good and broken in for running. The night was silent. The only sound was the wind, rustling through the trees. Buffy made no noise whatsoever; she moved from shadow to shadow like a cat with footsteps so light and cunning they couldn't be heard. The smell of freshly-mown grass, and, faintly, pipe smoke, came to her as she sniffed the air, searching for the scent of her prey. An owl watched her, concealed high up among the leaves of a tall redwood tree behind her, staring down at her with bright, unblinking eyes. Buffy knew it was there.

She already knew there were vampires somewhere in this cemetery; she smelled them. She knew they were close. All that remained now was the game, the fun of tracking them. Sometimes she'd let a vampire run a little ahead of her, just so she could catch it and pounce, the way a wily old cat played with a mouse.

A moment later, she heard them. Two men, talking. She crouched behind a tombstone. As the moon peeked through the trees ahead of her, she saw them.

They looked older than most vampires she had fought; they appeared well into their forties. For whatever reason, most of the vampires in Sunnydale looked no older than thirty. They were sitting on tombstones in a little moonlit clearing, and arguing, apparently about the situation in Bosnia. One of them smoked a pipe, which Buffy thought was a real achievement for someone who didn't breathe.

"Interestinger and interestinger," Buffy said softly, and listened. She had a test to study for, but these two vampires made her curious: she had never seen anything like them. She let the two mice squeak, and run ahead for awhile...and she bided her time, waiting for just the right moment to pounce...

Gradually, the image went away, and Willow's panic subsided. Gradually, she stopped crying. The shaky feeling had gone and the pressure in her chest and lungs was gone now too. She didn't feel trapped anymore. She held on to Faith, curled into a ball with her head against Faith's chest, and she felt protected. Faith held her, and watched the street silently. Willow could feel Faith's heart beating against her cheek, strong and steady.

Willow didn't have to be in the alley with the vampires; she knew that now. They couldn't make her do things; they had no power over her. They were only memories, shadows. Faith had killed them. They couldn't hurt her anymore.

Willow knew she could leave the alley. So she did.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"It's cool, Will," Faith said. "You had a rough night. How you doin'?"

Willow shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Sorry? About what?" Faith said.

Willow sat up and wiped her eyes. "Just...I'm just being a stupid crybaby," she said. "I'm acting like a stupid scared little girl when we need to warn Buffy. Come on, let's go. She needs us."

"Everyone gets scared, Will," Faith said, and rubbed Willow's shoulder as she got the car back on the road. "No shame in it."

"I bet you've never been scared," Willow said.

"Sure I have. I used to get scared pretty good sometimes."

"Used to?"

Faith saw Rebecca, dying. She saw Evan, walking away.

"Yeah," Faith said.

The mice kept squeaking...

"You might not actually exist, that's all I'm saying," one of the vampires, a short, nerdy-looking man with glasses and a bald spot, said. But he was still scary in his way: he was wearing a beige Members Only jacket that made Buffy shudder. "You might not exist in nature, but only in my perception of it."

"I can't believe you're on about this again," the other one said. He was a tall man with a pot belly and a bushy beard, wearing an Irish sweater and smoking a pipe. "This is all because you can't cast a reflection anymore, isn't it? The world is what it is. Of course you have to trust your perceptions. If you don't then everything is thrown into chaos, then there's no point to anything."

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Then why are you even arguing with me if I might not exist?"

"Perhaps I'm not arguing with you. Perhaps I'm perceiving an argument which isn't, in fact, happening. Or perhaps I'm the one who doesn't exist, and you're merely perceiving--"

"I'm perceiving that you are a complete and utter nincompoop," Irish Sweater said.

"Yes, and once again, your penetrating insights win the day," Members Only said. "I stand humbled before your rapier wit."

"Oh for God's sake. Fine. You want an argument, here's one. Why bother living when you can't even trust that the world as you perceive it today will still be there in the morning? Why not just stake yourself and be done with it? Because you know that you can trust your perceptions, and you do. This is the world we're stuck with, and we can't escape it. Might as well settle back and make the best of it, I say. You're just bored. You're on this idealist kick now; next week you'll probably be a materialist. The problem with you is, you're always looking for a point to living, some great purpose behind it. But there is no point, there is no purpose. We're here, the world is here, and we simply have to live in it."

"And I feel obliged, once again, to point out that we're not, in actual point of fact, alive."

"A technicality. We may no longer have our souls, but to all outward appearances, by every measure that matters, we're still living, breathing--"

"We're not breathing, actually."

Irish Sweater sighed. "Fine," he said. "We're living, arguing beings--"

...And the cat decided it was time to pounce.

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't make any long-term plans if I were you," Buffy said, sitting on a tombstone right behind them now. The vampires turned and growled softly at her. "And by the way? You guys are like, the most boring vampires ever. You're PBS boring. If there was a movie about you it would be like, one of those independent dealies with subtitles, and everyone's from France? And there wouldn't even be one car chase or any explosions at all. No one wants to see that movie. Plus, free fashion tip? Sweaters and Members Only jackets and pipes? Not really screaming evil undead creature of the night. Try black leather trenchcoats, maybe a few silk shirts. And would it kill ya to use some hair gel?"

"This really isn't a good place for a young girl to be wandering around so late at night, my dear," Irish Sweater said, in what he probably thought was a threatening tone. Buffy smiled politely.

"If she was my daughter she'd be grounded," Members Only said, adjusting his glasses to get a better look at her.

"So you believe she exists now, do you?" Irish Sweater said. "Wonderful. Let's have a parade. Did you hear that, young lady? He's decided you exist. You can relax now."

"Oh, be quiet," Members Only said, and turned back to Buffy. "How old are you? Do your parents know you're here?" he said.

"What if her parents don't exist?" Irish Sweater muttered. "Won't your face be red."

"I believe I'm going to start ignoring you now," Members Only said.

"The girl can't be out of high school," Irish Sweater said, looking closely at Buffy. "Children these days. No discipline at all."

"It's the parents' fault," Members Only said, and shook his head disappointedly at Buffy. "They park them in front of the television all day and wonder why they grow up without any sense of responsibility."

"Not to mention all the violent videogames they let them play," Irish Sweater said. "And the music videos? The girls all learn to dress like harlots and sashay around like Playboy centerfolds. Just look at that skirt she's wearing!"

"Hey!" Buffy said. "There's nothing wrong with my skirt! What's wrong with my skirt?"

"It's inappropriate," Members Only said. Why, in my day--"

"Earth to old guys?" Buffy said. "Your day was a hundred years ago. Now it's my day. So let's try this again. Hi. I'm the Slayer, maybe you've heard of me? The thing is, I have a history test Monday and I really need to study, so how about we skip the bonus round and go right to Final Jeopardy." She pulled her stake from her boot. "Remember, your answers must be in the form of a question."

"A Slayer," Irish Sweater said, and snarled. "So that's why she's here."

"Yup, and now it's time for you to meet Mr. Pointy," Buffy said. "Sorry, I'm usually more quippy, but unless you guys know about Constantinople you're getting the economy package tonight."

"What about it?" Members Only said.

"What about what?" Buffy said.

"Constantinople," Irish Sweater said.

"We're professors in the philosophy department of UC Sunnydale," Members Only said. "Or at least we were, until a puerile young vampiress and her group of asinine thugs turned us."

"Okay, three things," Buffy said. "First, why would a vampire want to turn--um, no offense--a couple of old philosophy professors? Second, what does 'puerile' mean, and third, please stop saying words like 'puerile'."

"'Puerile' describes behavior that is obnoxiously immature or adolescent," Irish Sweater said. "She turned us because Henry failed her on her Intro to Ethical Theory final when she was human."

"She dropped out not long afterwards," Henry said. "And that led, through a tortuous chain of--"

"Don't say 'tortuous' either," Buffy said.

"--And that led," Henry continued, "through a complicated series of events, which she recounted to us in excruciatingly--" He looked at Buffy. She nodded. He continued. "--In excruciatingly complete detail, to Sunday becoming a vampire. So because she blamed me for her unlife, she decided to turn me in order to be revenged upon me. And Randall here happened to be engaged in a heated discussion with me at the time, and Sunday turned him too."

"Because she's a bitch," Randall said.

"And now you guys hang out in cemeteries saying 'puerile'," Buffy said.

"We stay out of sight," Randall said. "We get animal blood from the butcher shops and bring it back here."

"And we have some books, and a chessboard," Henry said. "It's a rather wretched existence, but it's tolerable."

"Why bother with animal blood?" Buffy said. "Having trouble chasing after all those pesky victims in your old age?"

"If you're implying that we would kill an innocent person to satisfy our hunger I must say I'm insulted," Randall said.

"Absolutely not," Henry said. "We've never attacked anyone and we never will."

"Never?" Buffy said. "C'mon, vamps love eating people. I have it on very good authority that people are yummy."

"Perhaps so, but nevertheless, we will abstain," Henry said. "Our blood comes from the butcher shop."

"You're telling me you've never eaten anyone," Buffy said. "Never attacked even one person."

"Never," Randall said. "Not once since that bitch turned us."

"And her name is 'Sunday'?" Buffy said. "And I thought my name was ridiculous."

"What's your name?" Randall said.

"Buffy," Buffy said.

"Yes," Henry said. "I'm afraid that is rather ridiculous."

"Now what is it you need to know about Constantinople?" Randall said.

"That vampire," Willow said, watching the dark, oddly threatening trees rush by in the wind. They were driving down the back roads, and the moon was the only light; the car's headlights carved out a fragile, tenuous path through the nearly absolute darkness of Sunnydale's night, like a rope-bridge over a bottomless chasm. "What if he's here now? What if he finds Buffy before we do?" They had already tried two cemeteries and had found no sign of Buffy yet.

"He'll be looking for me first," Faith said. "Trust me, he wants me a lot more than he wants her."

"How can you be sure?"

"I cut his dick off."

"Oh," Willow said. "Well, okey-dokey then."

The wind picked up, and blew Faith's hair around. "Damn. Think I'm having a bad hair day," she said.

Willow pulled a hairbrush out of her handbag. "Will this help?" she said.

"Got confirmation the whole windblown look's not working for me, huh?" Faith said with a grin, and blew a stray strand of long brown hair out of her eyes.

"Not so much," Willow said, giggling.

"Thanks," Faith said, and took the brush and fixed her hair, and handed it back to her. "You guys got some pretty weird weather around here. Kinda like summer and fall all rolled into one. It's warm, but then the wind starts blowing like a bastard and it suddenly gets cold."

"I know. I've always thought it was because of the Hellmouth. You know about the Hellmouth?"

"Yeah, I got the cliff notes. It's like an entrance to a hell dimension or whatever and Sunnydale's built right on top of it. So you guys got bad weirdness coming to town every once in awhile."

"Yeah. And Sunnydale always has a lot of stray magic in the air because of it too. It affects everything. So we don't just get vampires, we get giant snakes and hyena kids and people building robots in their basements."

"Sounds like a party. Guess it's lucky for me I've got a witch on my side," Faith said.

"Yup," Willow said, and smiled.

"Okay, so then the Automotive Empire sacked the place on...wait, wait, I know this...May 29th, 1453..." Buffy said, sitting on a tombstone and furrowing her brow at Randall and Henry.

"Ottoman Empire," Henry corrected her.

"Right. They sacked Constantinople because they were Muslims and they were being all empirey and they didn't like Christianity, right?" Buffy said.

"'Empirey' isn't a word. But essentially, yes, that's what happened," Randall said.

Buffy suddenly felt strange. Her whole body was tingling, like it was charged with electricity...

Faith suddenly felt strange. Her whole body was tingling, like it was charged with electricity. For a moment she didn't know what she was feeling... and then, instinctively, she understood.

"What's the closest cemetery to here?" she said.

"Blue Hills is about a mile ahead," Willow said.

"That's where she'll be," Faith said.

"And then the Ottoman Empire went on to become the only serious threat to Western European dominance over the next few centuries," Randall said.

Buffy stood up and looked around. She knew someone was coming. And it wasn't a vampire.

"And then they were finally defeated in the first world war," Henry said.

As the tingling feeling got stronger, Buffy remembered that she had felt it once before. She had felt it the first time she met Kendra.

"And the partitioning of the Empire created the modern Arab world we take for granted..." Henry said.

Buffy could sense two people moving toward her. She knew they weren't a threat. If they were she would already be crouched, prepared to fight. Instead she stood there, waiting, peering into the trees by the light of the moon.

"...And all of its attendant problems," Randall said. They were both ignoring Buffy and talking animatedly to each other. "The Arab world's animosity toward Israel has vexed us for decades now, and that isn't even taking into account the tensions between the Sunni and the Shiites..."

A familiar scent came to Buffy on the breeze. She smiled.

"Or the complexities of the Palestinian situation," Henry said. "And then of course there's the danger of America's dependence on foreign oil..."

"That's blown out of proportion," Randall said. "Within a few decades we'll be using hydrogen, or perhaps even cold fusion. Oil will be a headache for awhile longer, but an eminently manageable one."

"I completely disagree," Henry said, as Buffy walked away from them.

"This way," Faith said, marching through the cemetery. Willow had to run to keep up with her. "She's right..."

Buffy stepped out from behind a stand of trees in front of them.

"...There," Faith said.

"Buffy!" Willow said. "You'll never guess who this is!"

"She's a Slayer," Buffy said.

"Oh. You guessed," Willow said.

The moon slipped behind the trees. Two predators stood in the darkness, and faced each other.

"Buffy, you and me need to talk," Faith said. "There's all kinds of badness on the way and we...wait a minute." She cocked her head. To Willow, she seemed to be concentrating intently on something. But Buffy knew she was reaching out with all her senses...the way only a Slayer could.

"What's wrong?" Willow said.

"There are vamps here," Faith said, and pulled out her stake, and marched past Buffy.

"Fine, and yourself?" Buffy said, catching up with her. "The last Slayer was polite enough to say hello at least."

Willow scurried along behind them. "Her name's--"

"Faith," Faith said. "Sorry. After I dust these vamps we'll have some girl talk, promise."

"Faith, look," Buffy said, heading her off. "Yeah, there are a couple of vamps here, but they--"

"But what?" Faith said. "They're vamps. End of story."

"It's a little more complicated than that," Buffy said.

"No, Buffy," Faith said, and started walking again. "It really isn't."

"Wait!" Buffy said, and grabbed her arm, just as Randall and Henry came into view. She could hear Henry babbling something about the separation of powers in the Constitution.

"What's your problem?" Faith said.

"My problem is that if you'd just stay still and listen to me for a frigging second, maybe I could explain what my problem is! This is my town. Did it occur to you that maybe I know how things work here and you don't?"

"Buffy, look. I've heard about you, y'know? I've heard stories about what you've done, how you've saved the world, all that stuff. And seriously, I gotta give you mad props. And I know this is your town, I'm not tryin' to step on your toes out here or anything. But the thing is? Those are two vamps over there, and I'm a Slayer. So I'm thinkin', hey, here's a crazy idea, maybe I should just go over there and, oh, I don't know, stake 'em."

"Here's another crazy idea," Buffy said. "How about you shut up and listen."

Willow had never seen Buffy like this before. She didn't understand it. The way Buffy was looking at Faith, her body language, the tone she was taking...it was as if Buffy had decided she didn't like Faith even before Faith had started talking. "Buffy," Willow said. "How about we all just, y'know, like take a breath and relax and...?"

"They're not like regular vampires, okay?" Buffy said to Faith, like a bored teacher lecturing a recalcitrant student. She ignored Willow completely. "They don't want to hurt anyone. They said they've never attacked anyone before. They drink animal blood."

"Uh-huh," Faith said. "And since vampires are such stand-up guys, you believed them."

"Look, they're nice guys, alright?" Buffy said. "They're like these nice old college professors, and we talked and they even helped me out with my homework and..."

"They helped you with your homework?" Faith said, laughing. "You're kidding me, right?" She looked at Willow. "Hey Will, tell me she's kidding. Tell me you guys are just having some fun with the new girl."

"Um..." Willow said, growing progressively more worried. She didn't know Faith, but she knew Buffy, and she could see that she was getting angry.

"This isn't a joke!" Buffy said.

"And yet here's me, laughing," Faith said.

Buffy's hands were clenched into fists. She took a deep breath. "Look," she said. "I know this sounds stupid. But I've been a Slayer a lot longer than you, and one thing you need to learn in a hurry is that things aren't always black and white. Not all vamps are the same. These guys are philosophy professors, and they swore they've never hurt anybody, and they're really nice and they--"

"You know what?" Faith said, and laughed again. "I always figured things would be a little different in Cali, y'know? Maybe a more laid back vibe, maybe you guys all say 'groovy' or smoke dope or whatever. Gotta tell ya though, I never thought it would be this different. But right now I don't even give a shit. You've been a Slayer what, a couple years now? After all the butt you've kicked, maybe you're starting to forget how this works. So let me bring you up to speed, B. Those guys are vamps, I'm gonna dust 'em, end of discussion. Easy as one-two-three. Comprende?"

Faith turned away, and walked straight toward Randall and Henry, who were too engrossed in their argument to notice.

"Faith!" Buffy hissed, and caught up to her and grabbed her by the arm again. Faith whirled around, her control starting to slip; she was showing Buffy her teeth now.

"Buffy...!" Willow said. "What are you doing?"

"Inquiring minds want to know, Will," Faith said. "I think your friend maybe needs to check her dictionary. Look up Slayer under 'S' and vamp under 'V' and get her head on straight. Know what it says under 'V'? It says vampires are demons. Even the ones that help you with your homework."

Faith smiled again now, without warmth. "And y'know what?" she said. "I've been polite, I've tried to be cool. I mean, you're Buffy Summers, y'know? So I'm tryin' to be all West Coast, all laid back and mellow. I'm tryin', honey, I really am. So I'm gonna ask you once, okay? I'll even ask nicely. Let go of my arm. Pretty please."

Willow gently pulled Buffy's hand away from Faith's arm.

"Faith...look," Buffy said. "Not all vamps are the same! Some are..."

"Some are what?!" Faith shouted. "Cuddly and nice? Or maybe they had a tough life and you feel bad for them?" She thought of Emily, lying on the floor of the arcade at Salem Willows, crying.

"You don't have to kill them!" Buffy shouted back.

Then Faith thought of Rebecca, lying on the floor of the restaurant in the Prudential building, dead. And she felt the cold thing in her stomach.

Faith moved very close to Buffy, and looked her in the eyes. Buffy's scent came to her...she smelled pretty, like flowers. Faith smiled.

"Sure I do, honey," Faith said. "I gotta kill every last fucking one of 'em."

And she walked away.

"The whole thing is a transparent attempt by the Republican party to hijack the government. It's a shameless power grab!" Henry was shouting.

"You don't know your ass from your elbow!" Randall shouted back. "Clinton's behavior is an embarrassment to--"

A piercing whistle cut through the air, ending their discussion. They turned, and saw Faith standing at the edge of the clearing.

"Do you two windbags ever shut the fuck up?" Faith said.

Randall and Henry stood up and stared at her. Faith strolled into the clearing, twirling her stake in her hand.

"So, philosophy professors, huh?" Faith said. "I read some philosophy. Friend of mine lent me some books. She's dead now. Vamp killed her."

Randall and Henry growled. Faith smiled.

"Yeah," she said. "That's more like it, pops."

Buffy and Willow entered the clearing. Faith turned and looked at Buffy.

Buffy knew what the look meant. It was a line in the sand. She could cross it, or not. Faith was leaving it up to her.

Willow understood too. She grabbed Buffy's arm, holding her back.

Faith turned back to Randall and Henry. Her smile got even bigger as they moved around her, positioning themselves for a fight. "Bet you guys know Nietzsche, right?" she said. "I thought some of those philosophy guys my friend had me read were sorta full of shit a little, but Nietzsche was pretty interesting."

"He was sexist," Henry said.

"That was a minor point of his writings, and merely a consequence of the time he lived in. People make more of that than they should," Randall said.

"I just figured he wasn't getting any," Faith said. "He was a grumpy old bastard but he understood about power, y'know? 'Cuz in the end? It's all about power. Guy told it like it is. I was all like, you go, Frederick! Well, except the women being like cows stuff. But then he never met me. Better believe I would've changed his mind."

"And you are? Henry said.

"Supergirl," Faith snarled, and leaped straight at Henry and staked him before he could move. "Henry!" Randall screamed, as Henry turned to dust in front of him. He lashed out at Faith with his claws, but Faith was much too fast for him; she dodged him with ease and he missed by a mile.

"Faith!" Buffy shouted, as Faith spun and staked Randall through the back. He turned to dust, and the dust drifted slowly to the grass, and he was gone.

"WHAT?!" Faith screamed, glaring at Buffy.

They faced each other in the silent cemetery, their lives changed forever.

Faith had thought she would find a friend here. Someone, maybe the only person in the world, who could understand her.

In the moment Buffy had realized what that tingling sensation meant, she had rejoiced. She always knew someone else would be called after Kendra died... and now she was here, and she had thought they would be allies...

Instead, they watched each other warily, each wondering whether she had just made a new enemy.

"Nothing," Buffy said, as the dust scattered away on the wind.

Continued...