“What a waste of time,” Angelus huffed. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll find the flag without the Mayor’s help.”

Jonathan felt a tug of smug satisfaction as he retrieved Warren’s badge from the heavy messenger bag. He approached the secretary’s desk in open defiance of the crucifix, feeling unusually powerful. He slid the badge over to the secretary.

“One of the Mayor’s handpicked interns was murdered,” he said. “By the legendary vampire slayer. I think he’ll want to know about it.”

The secretary’s jaw worked as he considered this information. “One moment, please,” he said and picked up the phone on his desk, murmuring the information into the receiver. He replaced the handset. “He’ll see you. But you’ll need these to gain entry.”

Out of another desk drawer, he retrieved a fistful of metal and scattered it across the surface of his desk.

“What the hell is that?” Anya asked. “Enchanted tokens? Antiviolence shields?”

Jonathan cautiously reached out and flipped over one of the aluminum pieces. The other side was high-gloss red, white, and blue with the words BRING HELL TO SACRAMENTO in a bold font.

“Campaign buttons,” he informed the group.

“I hope you’re all voters,” the secretary said.

Spike and Angelus looked mutinous as they affixed the buttons to their leather coats. Drusilla gave an experimental lick to the needle-sharp pinback before attaching it to the front of her corset. Andrew had to help Anya place hers, after explaining that people generally didn’t wear pins in the center of their chests.

“Why not?” she asked. “Isn’t that where it would get the most notice?”

Jonathan didn’t know how someone so old could be so clueless. If he’d been alive for eleven hundred years, he definitely wouldn’t need Andrew’s help in being stylish. The guy had a velvet cape in the back of his closet. He said it was for Halloween, but Jonathan knew that was a lie.

Once everyone was decked out in election swag, the secretary motioned them toward the door at the end of the hall, which stood open and waiting for them.

“Well, howdy, compadres! Aren’t you a fun-looking bunch?” Mayor Richard Wilkins said, welcoming the group into his office. He was fair-haired, presenting as a middle-aged white man despite being a known immortal sorcerer. Jonathan had only seen him in person once. On New Year’s Day, the Mayor had publicly cast the spell that had blotted out the sun and opened the Hellmouth lurking under Sunnydale High. The Mayor made the complex dark magic look effortless, never breaking a sweat even as the last of the magic-deniers in town had screamed in terror. Warren had applied for his City Hall internship the very next day, telling Jonathan and Andrew that the future was going to be in openly evil politicians.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” the Mayor said, gesturing to the two chairs in front of his expansive desk.

Andrew helped himself to one of the chairs. Spike and Angelus stationed themselves on either side of the door like bodyguards. Anya sat on the floor, her legs crisscross-applesauce, which Jonathan found unbelievably embarrassing. He slunk into the remaining chair—because someone had to—and hugged the messenger bag in his lap like a security blanket. He would rather disappear altogether than be associated with this bizarre collection of demons. Especially when Drusilla started singing to the picture frames on the wall.