“Hey, you leave my mother out of this!” Spike yelled, shoving Angelus into the nearest pew. “You know how hard it was for me to kill her!”

“Praise darkness!” a pert voice cried out behind them. “The prodigals are returned home.”

In an archway leading to some shadowy back room was a small blond vampire woman. She wore a powder-blue skirt suit with matching heels. Not that anyone could focus on her clothes when her transformed vampire face was so heaped in makeup. Anya had never seen yellow vampire eyes adorned with false eyelashes before, much less complemented with hot-pink spots of blush and matching lipstick. The overall effect was more disturbing than any of the imagery stained onto the windows.

Drusilla dashed down the aisle, crying out, “Grandmother!”

She towered over the blond vampire woman but didn’t let that stop her from stooping for a hug.

“Hello, Darla,” Angelus said. His shoulders were so stiff, Anya wouldn’t have been surprised to find a dozen knives in his spine.

“Welcome to my home, darlings. I’ve been waiting for you to visit for ages,” Darla, the vampire being crushed in Drusilla’s hug, said. Freeing an arm from the embrace, she gestured to the room. “What do you think?”

“It’s bright,” Spike said. “I haven’t been in a church since they were lit with candles.”

“William, the last time you were in a church, lightbulbs hadn’t been invented.” Darla giggled. She peered around his shoulder at Anya and the nerd boys. “Aww, did you bring us an offering for the blood farm? How thoughtful!”

Anya stepped in front of Andrew and Jonathan. “Sorry, no, not offering these. They’re key members of stopping the apocalypse.”

“They’re here to see the Black Flame,” Willow said. “Someone had a nightmare about the slayer.”

“It was dreadful, Grandmother,” Drusilla said, nuzzling Darla’s shoulder and smearing blood all over the smaller woman’s suit in the process. “That horrible slayer won’t stop until she’s plucked every thorn out of the bush. Who wants a world with no thorns? How will the flowers defend themselves?”

“She’s Drusilla’s grandma?” Jonathan asked Andrew in a loud whisper. “Is it just me or do they look nothing alike?”

“I think they’re blood relatives,” Andrew whispered back. “I mean, vampire blood. Family through bites.”

“Darla is my sire,” Angelus said darkly. “I sired Drusilla. She sired Spike.”

“Are you sure there isn’t a vampire bible?” Andrew asked. “Because this sounds exactly like the part in Genesis that’s all begats.”

“Wait a minute! She sired you?” Anya asked, pointing from Darla to Angelus. “But she doesn’t have an accent! All of you have accents!”

Darla let out a sparkling laugh that made her fake eyelashes bobble. “We’ve been in America for a hundred years. I let myself assimilate.”

“Is that why you got kicked out of the band?” Anya asked her.