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  “Some kind of problem with the boat?” Steve suggested.

  Cheryl’s stomach did a little flip. “God, I hope not. We’re in the middle of nowhere. But what about this guy? He didn’t swim here from Crete.”

  “We were gone all day,” Steve said. “Konstantin could have gone and picked him up somewhere.”

  But even as he said it, Cheryl could tell from his tone that Steve didn’t believe it. Together, they watched the two men moving toward the sand. Even now, Konstantin stood up in the water, and it only came midway up his chest.

  “He must have been belowdeck all that time,” Cheryl said.

  “If all they wanted was to rob us, there are easier ways,” Steve contended.

  He was right about that, but he didn’t sound all that convinced. Cheryl didn’t understand it, either, but there was something very off about this whole thing.

  Steve reached down and grabbed one of the oars off the dinghy. He held it in one hand as the two men walked, sodden with seawater, up the sand toward them. Both were clad only in their pants.

  “Konstantin, what’s going on?” Cheryl asked in Greek, trying to mask her nervousness.

  Steve nodded toward the other man. “Who’s your friend?” he asked the captain of the Charybdis.

  The man nodded toward the bearded newcomer and smiled. “Ephialtes,” he said.

  “That’s your name?” Cheryl asked the man in Greek.

  In response, Ephialtes moved closer to Cheryl, studying her face. He reached out to touch her. She slapped his hand away and stepped back. Ephialtes looked angry and moved after her. Steve stepped between them, holding the oar out in front of him in both hands.

  “That’s a mistake,” Konstantin said.

  In English.

  Cheryl didn’t know the man could even speak the language.

  That was the moment when Ephialtes snarled. He reached out for the oar in Steve’s hands, and when her husband wouldn’t give it up, the dark, bearded man struck him with the back of his fist, knocking Steve to one side. The oar fell to the sand between them. Even as Steve scrambled to get back to his feet, Ephialtes grabbed the oar.

  When she saw what was about to happen, Cheryl screamed. She leaped for Ephialtes, but Konstantin grabbed her from behind and held her. From behind, she watched Ephialtes bring the oar down on her husband’s head. Again and again. It cracked on the third stroke. Shattered on the fourth. Ephialtes did not stop.

  The thick, broken shaft of wood was covered with blood.

  Cheryl sank to the sand, mind numb. Hot tears streamed down her face, and she made an effort to free herself, but Konstantin was a man of the sea. Though thin, his body was covered with muscles thick as heavy cables. She could not free herself.

  Finally, Ephialtes let the oar drop to the sand. Cheryl stiffened, for she believed she knew what was to come next.

  But then Ephialtes turned, and she realized she had no idea. His face was inhuman, his brow ridged and protruding. His eyes blazed yellow in the dark, and his lips were curled back in a snarl that revealed horrible fangs.

  “Bucolac,” she whispered, the truth shattering what remained of her rational mind.

  Ephialtes sank down onto his knees on the sand before her. Konstantin released Cheryl, and Ephialtes drew her to him. For one brief instant, she screamed and tried to squirm away from him, but he was even stronger than Konstantin. There was logic to that, in her mind. Konstantin had captained the boat. Konstantin was human.

  Holding her tight, Ephialtes sank his fangs into the soft flesh of her throat and began to drink.

  The wind blew hard across the cliffs, and the bells rang loudly. In the darkness of the church, the spirit and memory, the invisible, Hellish thing that was all that remained of the vampire sorceress Veronique, shuddered with pleasure.

  “At last,” she said to herself.

  “At last.”

  Veronique’s eyes fluttered open. Her eyes now. And yet only hours before, they had belonged to a woman named Cheryl Yeates. From the traces that remained in Cheryl’s mind, Veronique quickly assimilated much of what she would need to know to survive what the world had become. Not merely to survive but to thrive.

  For a moment, she only looked up at the stars, looked at the lovely night and felt it caressing her flesh. It was a sensation she had forgotten many years before, and now it filled her with a lust for the shadows.

  Finally, Veronique noticed the two creatures before her. A vampire and a man. Both servants of the Triumvirate. She could sense that from their mere presence.

  “Your name?” she demanded of the vampire.

  “Ephialtes,” he replied.

  Veronique smiled. “An excellent jest, young one,” she said. For he had named himself after another Greek, one who had betrayed his people millennia before. Ephialtes had been at Thermopylae, where a handful of Spartans held hordes of Persians off for days before finally falling. The Persian king, Xerxes, who fancied himself a god, called his elite guard the Immortals. Ephialtes betrayed his own people to the Immortals, and they were slaughtered.

  “Yes,” Veronique repeated. “An excellent jest.”

  “Thank you, mistress.” He stared at her. “I am your descendant,” he told her in an awed tone. “I was made by one you made, long ago. I have been searching for you, waiting for you. Waiting to be called.”

  She touched his face. “And do you know why I am here?”

  He nodded slowly, his face radiant. “Yes, mistress.”

  “Excellent.” She was very pleased.

  For a moment, she studied the human, then she looked at the boat and the ocean beyond.

  “How far to Crete in this vessel?” she asked.

  “Two, perhaps three hours,” Ephialtes told her.

  With another glance at the sky, Veronique estimated at least eight hours until dawn. More than enough time to reach Crete and find shelter.

  Which meant they didn’t need the human.

  Veronique smiled at him. “Come here,” she instructed. “It is time for you to serve the Triumvirate.”

  He looked frightened and began to back away.

  But he didn’t get very far.

  The feasting had begun.

  Chapter One

  Several months later . . .

  At first glance, the town of Sunnydale was like so many other small towns that made up the endless suburban sprawl of Southern California: it promised much but delivered very little.

  There were no real neighborhoods, only differing amounts of distance from the nearest freeway. Life went on at the other end of a commute: at the office, the magnet school, hangouts based not on proximity but on flash. Although the school board talked about the excellence of Sunnydale public education, everyone really believed the key to success was whom you knew and how charming you could be.

  But there were other things wrong with Sunnydale, in the light of which the worship of style over substance seemed the tiniest of faults. Unlike the other, similar towns that dotted the coast of Southern California, Sunnydale was cursed. Below the ground, the mouth of Hell sat dormant, ready to erupt at the appropriate provocation and to disgorge the demons, monsters, and forces of darkness that raged for the death of the world. Evil was drawn to the Hellmouth as though it were a magnet, drawn to Sunnydale, and it flourished there.

  Sunnydale was the epicenter of the dark forces that lurked in the shadows of the world, a constant threat to humanity. It was evil’s very own ground zero.

  In its way, Sunnydale was the heart of darkness.

  And if you want to destroy a thing, you aim for the heart.

  Which was what had brought the Slayer, Buffy Summers, the Chosen One, to Sunnydale three years before, though she hadn’t known it at the time. Forced to leave her old life in Los Angeles after her war against the darkness led her to burn down the high school gym, she and her mother had come to Sunnydale because Joyce Summers thought it the perfect place to start over. The perfect place to run an art gallery the way she’d alwa
ys wanted.

  Buffy believed in that dream. She had been thrilled to have an opportunity to put the whole vampire thing behind her. She knew now that it was naïve to believe she could escape her destiny. But back then . . . for one brief, shining moment, she’d thought she could be a normal kid again.

  The first day at Sunnydale High, Rupert Giles, her new Watcher, had made himself known — and any hope Buffy entertained of having a normal life had evaporated.

  Now, on this cold and gray February night, torrential rain bulleted the metal siding of the Bronze. Wind rattled the windows as if they were the vertebrae of a frozen, abandoned graveyard memory. The Bronze stank with the odor of wet wool laced with coffee. People dashed into the club completely drenched, because, as a rule, Southern Californians didn’t own umbrellas. Or if they did, they never remembered to use them.

  Buffy slipped back into her chair at the Bronze, sipping at her newly purchased — and lusciously warm — mochaccino, and grinned broadly at her friend Xander Harris, who sat across the table from her.

  “Isn’t this great? Flash-flood warnings, and I’m chillin’ with my friends. No vamps to stake. No demons to destroy. Just me, my pals, and an extremely mediocre band.”

  Xander nodded happily. “Yup. It must be great to be a Slayer in Southern California. When the weather’s bad, even the forces of evil take the night off.”

  “Actually, business has been a little slow all week,” Buffy said. “I’m having trouble filling my empty nights. Almost.” She raised her hands. “I gave myself a manicure last night.”

  Then she made a guilty face at her best friend, Willow Rosenberg, who slid, burdened with a pair of huge coffee cups, into an empty seat at the high, round table.

  “Of course, the manicure was accompanied by the whole study thing. Since I would never want you to feel that all the time you’ve spent tutoring me is wasted.”

  “My time is freely given,” Willow announced, sliding one of the cups to Xander, who had held the table for them. “And the band’s not that bad.” She paused. “Which is actually the definition of mediocre, so, okay.” She sipped her latte and smiled in the direction of the coffee counter, where her boyfriend, Oz, was buying some pastries. As if he sensed her gaze, he looked up and smiled back, blue eyes shining.

  Buffy was wistful. She could hardly remember what it was like to be in a relationship that wasn’t tormented and awkward. Oz was a werewolf three nights a month, but that was the extent of the major weirdness between them. It wasn’t like her and Angel’s deal.

  “Uh-oh, your smile is fading,” Xander chided. “Remember, Wendy, if we don’t think happy thoughts, the pixie dust won’t work, and we won’t be able to fly anymore.”

  “Hey, I’m weightless,” Buffy protested. She took a sip of her mochaccino to prove it. She licked her lips and sighed with contentment. “Time off from slayage doesn’t get any better than this.”

  “Or shorter,” Xander said slowly as he gestured toward the entrance to the Bronze.

  “No,” Buffy moaned. “No, no, no.”

  Giles was closing his umbrella as he scanned the crowd. The sort-of-haphazardly-dashing forty-something Brit’s expression was serious in the extreme, and that, combined with the fact that he usually avoided the Bronze like the plague, was a fairly good indication that he was here on business.

  “You guys distract him while I hide under the table,” Buffy grumped.

  Giles spotted her and headed on over. Willow frowned in sympathy, and Xander wagged his finger in Giles’s direction.

  “This Slayer’s out of service,” he said by way of greeting. “In serious need of downtime.”

  “Hi, Giles,” Buffy said wanly. “What’s the haps, not that I really want to know?”

  “I am sorry, Buffy.” At least he was contrite. “I’ve just learned that the medical examiner conveniently failed to mention to the media that Jackson Kirby’s neck was torn open and he was drained of blood.”

  Jackson Kirby had been something of a local celebrity. A homeless panhandler, he had been a fixture on the corner of Avenida Ladera and Escondido Boulevard for seven years. “WILL WORK FOR FOOD,” the sign around his neck had read. Whether anyone ever actually called him on the offer seemed unclear.

  He had been found dead in an alley early in the morning. With no family and — according to the local news — nothing suspicious about his death, he’d been quickly interred at city expense.

  “He was buried at Restfield,” Giles continued. “If he rises, we need to make sure he doesn’t stay risen.”

  Sigh. Life as the Slayer, Buffy thought glumly. “Don’t you think he’ll wait until it stops raining?” she asked. She started pulling on her raincoat.

  “I’ve got my car,” he told her.

  “And an umbrella,” she noted. She picked up her coffee cup and examined it. “And, happily, I have finished my piping-hot beverage.”

  “So, the glass is half full,” he ventured.

  She gave him a look.

  “One-third,” he amended.

  “Hey, that’s my line,” Xander said. “Buffy, you want some company?”

  “Xand, that’d be above and beyond the call of duty.” She flashed him a wan smile. “But you’re sweet to offer.”

  “I’ve got nothing better,” he insisted.

  “It’s just one dusting. It’ll be over like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “So, I’m thinking, company,” Xander insisted.

  Oz walked up with a buttery croissant on a plate, which he offered to Willow. “Is there a rumble?” he asked.

  “We’re rumble-free,” Buffy assured him. “Or, rather, you are.” Then she shrugged and said to Xander, “If you’re all pumped to be wet and cold and bored, who am I to stop you?”

  Xander smiled and hopped off his stool. To Oz and Willow, he said, “Duty calls.”

  Willow pulled off a piece of croissant and popped it into her mouth. As she chewed, she said, “Do you want us to come with? Cuz we’re happy there.”

  Buffy smiled. “You guys have something better to do.”

  “Hey,” Xander protested, miffed. Then he shrugged. “Okay, I was first to comment on my lack of social engagement, but let’s not all rush to help out.”

  Giles cleared his throat. “Let’s be off, shall we? I imagine this won’t take long.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they all say,” Xander said. Then he flushed. “Forget I said that.”

  Buffy smiled slightly and picked up her Slayer’s bag. Poor Xander.

  She led the way out of the Bronze just as Cordelia Chase sauntered in, killer in a trench coat and heeled boots, completely dry. Xander tensed at her side, but Buffy didn’t let on that she’d noticed.

  A moonstruck kid about half as tall as Cordelia carefully lowered his umbrella from the heights of her hair. A single droplet of rainwater tapped the end of Cordelia’s nose, and she glared at the guy. He withered.

  “I’m sorry, Cordelia.”

  She gave him an impatient scowl. He stared at her. “Coffee?” she prodded. “Muffin?”

  He snapped his fingers. “Double latte, nonfat milk. Peach, nonfat.”

  “And?” She raised an imperious brow.

  He strained for the answer. Looked not so joyful. Here he had made it all the way to Final Jeopardy, and he was drawing a blank.

  “Possibly, two packets of blue sugar substitute,” Xander suggested.

  Cordelia moved one shoulder. The boy stared at her as if he had never heard of blue sugar substitute. Then his lips parted. “Oh!”

  He scampered away.

  “He must have a really nice car,” Xander said evenly.

  “His father owns the Porsche dealership.” Cordelia nodded at Buffy and Giles, removing her coat. “What exciting adventure are you running off to? Another tour of the lovely Sunnydale sewer system?”

  Buffy shook her head. “Naw, we did that last night, saving the world from the Unbengi Serpent.”

  “Well, on behalf of the
world, thanks. And excuse me. You’re blocking everyone’s view of my outfit.”

  Xander huffed and rolled his eyes at Buffy. Buffy was thinking up comebacks, but Giles tapped his watch and said, “We really must be going.”

  “Have fun.” Cordelia gave them a wave. She had not spoken one single word to Xander, nor even acknowledged his presence.

  “Porsches. How common,” Xander grumbled.

  Xander and Giles flanking her, Buffy made a point of giving Cordelia a wide berth as they exited the Bronze. The rain was really coming down, and even the short walk to the car was daunting. Giles unlocked the doors to his ancient gray Citroën. Xander climbed into the backseat while Buffy sat shotgun up front with Giles.

  There was that inevitable exciting moment when she wondered if the Gilesmobile would start. Once again, Buffy was astonished when the engine sputtered to life. Then they were off.

  * * *

  Alone at home, paperwork spread before her on the kitchen table, Joyce Summers listened to the rain and wondered what time Buffy would be home. As she stared at the night-blacked windows, she felt another cough coming on and tried to stifle it. She had been coughing for days, and sniffling, and now was the worst time to get a cold. There was so much to be done at the gallery. She had been working for more than two months to mount the Malaysian shadow puppet exhibition and organize the artist’s reception. Working too hard, that was a given. But it was going to be a wonderful exhibit.

  She sipped her tea, which had grown lukewarm. She didn’t feel well at all, and, truth be told, she wanted Buffy’s company as much as she wanted to be reassured that her child was safe and warm.

  It was hard to be a mother, harder still to be the mother of the Chosen One, the only girl in all her generation to be pitted against the forces of evil. At first, Joyce had not believed Buffy’s story about being a vampire Slayer, to the extent of pretty much forcing her out of the house. Her reward for that lack of faith was an entire summer spent hoping and praying that her absent daughter was not dead and that she would come home.

  But as the days and nights had dragged by in one long, agonizing vigil, momentary flashes of debilitating panic — she’s been killed, she’s never coming back — pierced her grim determination not to break down. It had never occurred to her until then that she might actually outlive her child, a nightmare reserved, she had assumed, for bad parents. Careless parents, neglectful parents. Despite her work with the runaway shelter, she couldn’t shake the notion that if something . . . bad happened to Buffy, it would be her own fault entirely.