“Thank you, Jonathan!” Anya said, feeling, for the first time, a small amount of warmth for the human and not just for his money. She set a hand on his shoulder. “If you want, when I have my powers back, I could send you to a dimension where there are no bunnies.”

“Oh, um, that’s nice of you to offer,” Jonathan said, squirming at her touch. “But I think I’d still rather just have Warren back.”

“Right, of course,” Anya said. She took her hand back. “You’re living with the gnawing guilt of murdering your best friend. I get it.”

They passed through the door at the bottom of the stairs and entered an antechamber. The stone walls were damp, a reminder that they were underground. An oddly ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling, illuminating the humans that decorated the walls like living statues.

At least, Anya assumed they were alive. Their skin was missing the vibrance of life; all of them had taken on a flat grayish hue. But their chests rose and fell, and their closed eyes twitched as though they were dreaming. Dressed in matching black sack robes that did nothing for anyone’s figure, the seemingly sleeping people stood on marble pedestals. Plastic tubes jutted out from their wrists and behind their knees, collecting blood and depositing it somewhere inside the pedestals.

“This is the blood farm,” Darla said, motioning at the gray people with the same dispassion that Anya expressed when she showed customers the flash-frozen pastries in the glass display case at Best Pressed. “These gracious volunteers are filling up the font upstairs, as well as the meal kits we send home each week after services.”

“You don’t teach your parishioners to hunt?” Spike asked, touching the nearest blood-filled tube with a black-painted nail.

“Of course they don’t,” Angelus said, lurking in the doorway. “This keeps their flock dependent on them.”

“They’re our children, Angelus,” Darla said with an insulted gasp. “We feed and care for them as any loving parents would.”

“Funny,” Angelus said. “I recall being taught to track and kill when I was a fledgling. Don’t you remember, Darla? The two of us stalking through Galway, pouncing on any fool who stumbled into the dark—”

“That was a different time,” the Master said, flapping a long-fingered hand dismissively. “In the age of the sunshade, there’s no reason for us to rely on the stupidity of humans for food. No need to wait for invitations into their homes or to lure them down dark alleys. Since our presence was made known to them, the humans come to us. All these people walked willingly through our doors, wanting to service us.”

“In exchange for eternal life, right?” Andrew asked. His gaze remained stuck on the closest gray person, a woman whose hair, stark white at the roots, grew darker as you moved to the brown tips. “This is the first step before they get turned?”

“Yes, of course,” Darla said, quickly. “We have a very strict first-in, first-out policy. Once a new volunteer arrives to take their place, each of these lovelies will be granted the bite that saves.”