THE SLAYER HAS never been to a winery before. Technically she’s only a junior in high school. The wizard staff leads her to a hillside lined with grapes hung on wooden trellises, acres of fruit strung up like scarecrows. She gets all the way to the cavernous tasting room at the top of the hill before being attacked by a horde of evil monks.

Finally, a fight worthy of her training.

Wine barrels line the walls, stacked three high and stamped with the words SHADOWDALE VINEYARDS. At the far end of the room, above an eight-foot-long bar with a concrete top and empty stools waiting for tasters thirsty for evil wine, there is a metal seal of a goat head. Out of its horns, the Black Flame flag burns smokeless fire.

She’s never seen the Black Flame split into two before either. Does that make this Shadowdale doubly evil? Probably. After all, what kind of place has evil monks?

At least, she assumes they are monks. Their faces are demonic but they’re all dressed like Robin Hood’s badger friend—in thick brown robes cinched at the waist with rope belts that make it all too easy to grab and spin them. They fight en masse, an endless wave of punches and kicks for the Slayer to anticipate and counter.

Ramming the end of the staff into the nearest monk’s solar plexus for leverage, she backflips, landing kicks on two more assailants before she lands. Arm block. Rotational wrist lock. Spinning back-fist. A leg aims for her knee and she sweeps it, sending a brown robe crashing to the floor. Hands clamor for the staff, pulling it even as she holds firm. Duck and swipe. Elbow strike. She smashes the bottom of the staff into whatever foot or leg is nearest—whac-a-mole-ing demons away from her. If she can make it to the wine barrels, she can climb to the top and dash around the room, hit the Black Flame flag, and be on her way. But she’s kind of enjoying the workout.

The Slayer throws a demon over her shoulder, slamming its body into two more. When she looks up, the breath leaves her lungs as fast as if she’d been sucker-punched.

Her mother cuts through the crowd. The monks that the Slayer hasn’t trounced fall back, their shouts and grunts silenced to a more monklike quiet.

Joyce Summers has liquid-brown eyes and soft blond curls. She wears a white cashmere cardigan and linen pants. In the darkness of the tasting room, she looks like an angel.

She holds her hand out to the Slayer.

“Mom,” the Slayer says on a sigh.

“Buffy,” Joyce says, her voice like music. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too,” the Slayer says. She steps forward, wanting to wrap her arms around her mother, to stop running long enough to drown in a hug full of that perfect Mom smell: basil and gardenias and sunlight and hairspray and the powdery perfume of Mother’s Day gifts gone by.