With a sharp jab, the wooden end of the staff splinters the screen. Expecting the crunch of glass, the Slayer is confused when the staff tears through the screen like fabric. The Black Flame thrusts out of the rip in the screen like Porky Pig at the end of a Looney Tunes cartoon.

“I spy with my human eye.” She looks back at Adam and grins. “Hey, RoboCop, have you ever read any Mary Shelley? I’m guessing you didn’t have to pass sophomore English to get this job.”

“I have the ability to download any work of literature ever written. I am connected to the high-speed wireless network provided by the library. It is. . .gratis.”

“Go ahead and download Frankenstein. I’ll wait.”

Adam’s skull whirs as his circuits exert themselves.

“The Modern Prometheus,” he says. He rapidly scans the air left to right for a full minute, seeing something beyond the Slayer’s perception. His circuits stop humming. A single tear runs out of his demon eye, down his green skin, splashes onto the metal plate on his chest, and sizzles.

“Oh,” he says.

Satisfied, the Slayer stabs the gem into the Black Flame flag and watches as the Jonathan Levinson Museum burns.

Eight

SMOKE BILLOWED FROM the Church of the Eternal Night’s broken stained-glass window, stinking of burning shellac. The pews must have finally caught fire. The magicked grass in the courtyard beside the burning church pricked at Anya as she sat down. She tipped her head back to watch the sooty plumes disappear into the dark sky. The view was much better from outside, away from the threat of imminent death.

“Well,” she said to the group, gingerly touching the shallow claw marks the old woman had made above her eyebrow. “That was exciting.”

“Infuriating,” Angelus said, kicking the nearest palm tree. Above him, the fronds quivered noisily. “I can’t believe she got away!”

Anya inched her left hand away from the Super Soaker left behind on the grass alongside a pile of ashes topped with a single fake eyelash. “Oh. Right. Sorry about your vampire-mom ex-girlfriend.”

“Not Darla,” Angelus said, his gaze working hard to avoid looking at the ash pile that had once been his lover-mother. “The slayer! It was thirty to one in there and she still managed to escape with barely a scratch!”

“I did scratch her,” Drusilla said. She had stretched out on Willow’s leather-clad lap, writhing against the grass like a gothic Victorian cat. She licked the side of her hand before reaching up and offering a taste to Willow. “That slayer’s a tawny port.”

Spike flopped his loose arm in recrimination at the vampire girls. “Excuse me,” he said loudly. “I’m standing right here!”