“I prefer to think of myself as timeless, thank you.”

“But your soul remains untouched. It’s a feat.”

Anya snuggled deeper into the leather chair. A low buzz of intoxication had taken up residence in the base of her skull, like a hive of lazy bees.

“I traded my life to D’Hoffryn when I dedicated myself to vengeance. The Marnoxon gem gives me my powers, but D’Hoffryn gave me my immortality.” She held on to the pendant around her neck, rubbing her thumb over the green stone. Disconnected from its source, the stone was quiet and lifeless. She missed the thrum of power that usually coursed through it. “I should have been in Arashmaharr when the slayer showed up. I should have fought her there. Before she got to the gem. I could have stopped her.”

Anya peered through the window in the floor again. The quarreling Wellex demons had been cleared away from the pool table. A group of humanoids had taken their place. They were all dressed in so much silk and velvet that Anya couldn’t tell if they were vampires or humans in vampire costumes. Alive or undead, they didn’t look strong enough to take on the slayer. They’d be dust stuck on the green billiard felt before they could finish fluffing their cravats.

Without her magic, would Anya fare any better?

“What if no one shows up to fight tonight?” she asked, still watching the maybe-vampires chalk their pool cues.

“Then we die,” Angelus said.

“It’s been a long time coming,” she said, biting her lip. The buzzing bees of inebriation didn’t make it any less embarrassing to have irritating human emotions. Like fear and shame. Looking into his fathomless black eyes, she confessed, “And I’m still not ready.”

“No one ever is,” he said. It wasn’t quite an intimate, soul-baring revelation. But, then again, Angelus didn’t have a soul. And he hadn’t disagreed with her, which was maybe as much of an admission as he could manage. He was only 272. Still young and pretty.

“To the end of the world,” she said, raising her drink again. “Or saving it. Whichever comes first.”

“Sláinte.”

In unison, they drained their glasses.

Thirteen

BY ELEVEN-THIRTY, the first floor of the Bronze was packed far beyond the fire code’s maximum capacity. Discarded Fight the slayer flyers carpeted the floor.

They had requested the worst of the worst and that was exactly who had shown up.