Arms and legs unfolded from the burial niches. Bodies fell out of the walls as newborn vampires of all shapes and sizes answered Darla’s call. Although their faces were transformed into vampire bumpiness and their eyes were the yellow of predators, they lacked the menace of the other monsters in the room. Maybe it was their distinctly human clothing. Jonathan suddenly understood why the people in the blood farm had to wear those robes. There was something about a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company T-shirt that just didn’t scream creature of the night.

Even so, at Darla’s command, the newborns threw themselves at the slayer with all the intensity of starving carnivores.

Facing down a throng of vampires, the slayer just smiled.

It was the most terrifying thing Jonathan had ever seen. Even more than the first time the murder bees had landed in Demondale or the day it rained flesh-eating slime or the moment Angelus had killed Rayne without warning. People knew to be afraid of those things.

The slayer didn’t seem to be afraid at all. She was excited to fight her way to the Black Flame flag. Like she knew something they didn’t.

A hand pulled hard at Jonathan’s sleeve. He held in a scream, afraid that a fledgling had gotten turned around by the smell of his distractingly human blood. But he found Anya painfully gripping his arm.

“Are you trying to die?” she asked. “Because I could leave you to it.”

“What? No!” he said.

“Good,” Anya said. She pulled him behind the giant bed’s ornate headboard. Andrew had already taken cover and scooted over to make room for Jonathan and Anya. The vengeance demon was much stronger than she looked. Even after she let go, Jonathan could feel her fingers bruising the crook of his elbow. He tried to ignore the pain, squeezing the messenger bag close to his chest as he surreptitiously scanned the floor for a power outlet. Or, at the very least, avoided looking at the soul-sucking flames in front of him and the huge naked painting on the wall.

“The slayer still has our artifacts,” Andrew said, over the sounds of fighting on the other side of the headboard. From his pocket, he withdrew a small knife. Its wooden handle was emblazoned with the Eagle Scout logo on one side and Tucker Wells’s name on the other. Despite wanting to do everything Tucker did, Andrew himself hadn’t made it past Webelos because he’d been too scared to camp overnight away from home. He unfolded the knife with a snap, the three-inch blade reflecting the dark hellfire in front of them. “We just need to get the backpack away from her.”