AS THE SLAYER makes her way out of Jonathan’s room, she hears a persistent knocking. Padding silently on the balls of her feet, she creeps around the corner. . . .

Where she finds the staff rolling itself against the front door, making the green gem passive-aggressively thump against the exit.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, scooping up the outraged dowsing rod, “I know. Find the hell flag. Make the world go boom. You have such a one-track mind.”

Yanking open the front door reveals two men in leather jackets standing on the front porch.

No. Not men. Vampires.

Armed vampires.

Tightening her grip on the dowsing rod, the Slayer considers running. With more of the other Hells on Earth destroyed, it’s easier to find her way back to Demondale. Its evil seems to draw the staff like no other dimension. She tries to calculate the likelihood of the vamps chasing her through a portal. Seems high. Besides, running from them won’t reveal the location of Jonathan and the Black Flame flag.

“We meet again, Slayer,” Angelus says with a fanged grin.

In the Slayer’s dimension, Angel has a softer, sweeter face. More unassuming, less arrogant. This Angel, Angelus, is sort of fratty. If she didn’t know he was older than the sport itself, she would have assumed he was a football player. He’s got a quarterback’s bluster.

The blond one, on the other hand, she doesn’t know. He must not have landed in her Sunnydale yet. Unless her Angel has a Cockney sidekick hiding somewhere. He’s handsome. In an undead, pasty-faced, evil sort of way. Almost heroin chic, which is trendy in her dimension, but must be years out-of-date in Demondale. Not that vampires stay up-to-date on trends.

“Angelus,” the Slayer says by way of greeting. She scrunches her face at the bleached-blond vampire with the sucked-in cheekbones. “And, um, you.”

The longsword in the blond vampire’s hand droops toward the porch. “What the hell? You know his name and not mine? It’s Spike.”

“Right, Spike,” the Slayer says. She shifts her weight to her right leg, preparing for the impending brawl. “I had a boyfriend in LA named Pike who was also a sort of sharp-faced punk, so it’s kind of confusing. Unless this is another alternate-universe doppelgänger thing. I mean, after leather-and-lace Willow, anything is possible. Oliver Pike, is that you? You have to tell me, otherwise it’s entrapment—”

Spike charges before she can ask if he, like her ex, drives a motorcycle. The Slayer leaps back into the house, hoping that the invitation barrier will bounce the vamps back onto the front lawn.

It doesn’t.

Spike and Angelus bolt over the threshold, fangs flashing and weapons flying.

They’ve been invited in. Of course they have. The Slayer has seen Andrew’s room. The fanboy probably gave them a handwritten invitation. Now he can say that he’s had real live undead in his house.