“This girl interrupted our, um, party earlier,” he said. He set the camera on the bar, pressed play, and stepped back again, this time checking behind himself first.

The barman watched the video camera’s display placidly. Even when the girl busted out her kick-ass ninja fighting moves, roundhousing the shrink ray in the split second before Jonathan could shoot her, the blond vampire just yawned, scratching at his chin with black-painted fingernails.

When the girl in the video vanished inside the portal, Jonathan reached out and turned off the playback.

Anya’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “She’s a lot younger than I expected. She barely looks old enough to wish vengeance on a cheating ex.”

“You know,” the barman said, blue eyes fixed on Jonathan the way a spider might watch a fly, “just because she kicked your ass doesn’t make her the slayer.”

“The slayer?” rumbled a second bartender, striding up behind the first. This one was taller and broader, his dark brown hair pulled into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. He spoke in a far less discernible accent, something that might once have been Irish but now landed firmly in the mid-Atlantic.

“Ah, Angelus,” the blond barman said, beckoning to the other vampire. “These kids think they’ve found a slayer.”

Andrew looked at Jonathan with eyes so wide they were in danger of popping out and bouncing on the bar. Few people in Demondale did not know the name Angelus. The owner of the Bronze and one of the most powerful vampires in town—second only to the leader of the Church of the Eternal Night—Angelus had been one of the first undead to announce himself after the town went dark. He’d staked his claim—no pun intended—to the Bronze by killing the last owner and using his blood to fill the town’s first plasma kegs. Even now, the Bronze was the only restaurant in town that sold human blood. Everywhere else served varieties of animal. No one asked where Angelus got enough blood to keep his kegs full of A, B, and O. No one dared.

Jonathan wondered how far running would get him before Angelus ripped out his throat. His eyes slid over the walls, searching for an electrical socket he could plug the shrink ray into. Shooting might be the only way he got out of this vamp nest alive.

Angelus gave a derisive snort. “There hasn’t been a slayer on the West Coast since the Gold Rush. The latest girl is in Boston, I heard, with some milksop Watcher with two last names. If she’s smart, she’ll stay there. What could one slayer do against an entire town of vamps and demons?” He cocked his head and leered down at Anya. “It’s not you, is it?”

“Me? I’m eleven hundred years old. But thank you.” Blushing, Anya held up her red wristband. “No, my boss, D’Hoffryn of Arashmaharr, was attacked by the slayer. She slaughtered basically everybody at Vengeance LLC, stole the Marnoxon gem, and then made this one”—she hooked a thumb at Jonathan—“kill his friend on camera so she could steal a bunch of magical artifacts and run off through a portal.”