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“I’m just saying, I don't see how you can fight in them,” William said. “They’re three inches too high to be effective.”

Buffy stopped in her muddy tracks. She planted her hands on her hips.

“I have always worn them. And I have never fallen,” she said.

He looked down at her feet, shaking his head. “They’re bloody clogs.”

“They’re espadrilles. And they’re cute...”

“Were cute. In 1992,” he said.

She turned on the heel of her leather upper espadrille and marched further into the Wallace Home Memorial Park. After their spectacular defeat of Team Kennedy in soccer earlier, both felt fairly light on their feet and were sparring accordingly.

Buffy halted again. “Anyway, how do you get be Joan Rivers here? You had the same look for what – forty years?”

William shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Thirty. If you’re counting,” he said. “Besides, it’s different for vampires. We’re iconic.”

“Uh-huh,” Buffy said, smiling. Behind her, the bushes rustled. She held up a finger. William leaned against the dampish wall of a marble mausoleum.

The vampire who attacked was stereotypical Sid & Nancy variety – ripped jeans, wife-beater T-shirt, spiked hair dyed black. He even wore a padlocked chain around his neck. The vamp leapt in, chains rattling, way over-balanced. Buffy swiped him on the fly by. He sailed headlong into a grave marker. As he regained his footing, Buffy turned to William.

“Watch this,” she said.

The vampire showed them his pointies. He charged straight for Buffy. Just before he struck her, she sidestepped. She caught his arm, swung him to the spot between her and William, and kicked the vampire squarely in the face with the thick wooden platform of her shoe.

The vamp clapped both hands over his face. He staggered back into William. “Oh blimey!” he said, all nasally. “You’ve banjaxed my nose.” And then he evaporated to dust.

William tucked the stake into his pocket. Clapping dust from his hands, he said, “Standing corrected.”

Buffy simpered. William pursed his lips. She continued down the path ahead of him, quite pleased with herself. She found a cube-ish headstone along the path and reclined against it.

“Got the papers?” Buffy asked. She crossed her legs at the ankles.

William pulled the Guardianfrom his coat. He passed it to her. She flipped to the film listings.

William’s brow crinkled. “Buffy. There’s a thing,” he said.

“I got it,” she said. “No Catwoman. I told you I’m down with that. I’m of the opinion that Halle Berry winning an Oscar is a sign of the coming apocalypse.”

“No, no,” he said, waving his hand. “About vampires. There’s a thing. Iconic...”

Buffy curled the edge of the page back. “You figuring things again?”

William nodded, fervently. “Vampires don’t change. They don’t grow. Can’t evolve. Get it? They’re in a state of stasis. Suspended like... like fruit bits in a gelatin salad.”

Over the page, Buffy said, “That’s it? Your big vampire epiphany: They’re fruit. Trapped in Jello?”

“Trapped,” William said, pointing to her. “Yeah. Like that.”

Buffy looked skyward. “Well,” she said. “You changed. You’ve been a regular Evolve-o-matic.”

“I was hardly typical, luv,” he said. “But it is important. Or will be...”

“Yeah? Well, here endeth the lesson, Professor. Our movie starts in,” she checked her watch, “22 minutes.”

“Fine,” he said. “Which is it, then?”

Buffy grinned. “13 Going on 30,” she said.

William’s eyes flashed in panic. “I can’t do it. Not again. There must be something else?”

Buffy eased onto her feet. “I was only kidding, William. I, Robot?”

He sighed, relieved. “Better,” he said.

They started down the path together.

“By the way,” William said. “Movie theaters: Big vamp hangouts, traditionally.”

“That so?” she said.

“Oh yeah. Dark, loud, lots of people. Dinner, and a show.”

Buffy gave him a sidelong glance. “You never shared that tidbit,” she said.

William scoffed. “I had to have something for myself, didn’t I?”

~*~

Sunday morning was the first genuinely chilly morning of the year. The first in which Buffy awoke thinking they had left the air conditioning on over night, only to discover that they didn’t have air conditioning, and that the clamminess in the September morning air was actually the reason Englishmen drank so much Earl Grey, hot. She came downstairs in stocking feet and her blue flannel pajamas to find Dawn, Andrew and Giles packing for their excursion to the hidden archive Giles had discovered near Stonehenge.

Giles, wearing a formless, colorless canvas hat pulled down over his forehead, stood with Dawn in the dining area going over their extensive excursion gear. Around the corner, she could hear Andrew in the kitchen, tooling around with the blender.

“Hey guys,” Buffy said. “All set for the field trip?”

Dawn wriggled with excitement. “We each
have our own pick ax and rock hammer,” she said.

Buffy frowned. “Giles, you’ve transformed my sister into a geek,” she said.

Giles looked up from his clip-boarded checklist. “Um, what’s that?” he said. Then, “Oh yes, Buffy. There you are. We’ve almost finished packing up, and I wanted to go over a few things...”

Andrew came in, balancing three extra tall plastic tumblers in his steepled fingers.

“Here we go,” he said. “Breakfast smoothies. Dawn, yours is up front – soymilk. Big on berries. Good morning, Buffy. Giles, big on banana. Oh, and I added just a squidgen of lemon, you know, to ward off scurvy.”

Buffy arched her brows. “Because what? You’re going on a long sea journey?” She appraised the gear spread out on the tabletop, then eyed Giles. “This is a day trip, right?”

Giles sipped his smoothie and nodded approvingly. “Right. We should be home well before sundown.”

“Good,” Buffy said. “Dawn has classes tomorrow. She can’t afford to miss.”

Dawn gave an obligatory groan.

Andrew said, “We have to pack a lot, you know, because Watchers must be prepared for any possible outcome. So we have stuff for cataloguing, and excavation work, and also weapons in case there are guardian beasts guarding the entrances. Oh, and I packed a picnic lunch because, well, nobody does their best on an empty stomach. Speaking of, want a smoothie?”

“You should have one. Andrew’s the sultan of smoothie,” Dawn said.

Buffy shook her head. “No. Thanks.” She looked to Giles. “Guardian beasts? Should I worry?”

“No reason to worry, Buffy. It is just an archive,” Giles said.

Dawn’s enthusiasm resurfaced. “One that’s been sealed for five hundred years,” she said, eyes glimmering.

“Well, yes,” Giles said, nodding. “Specifically sealed by the Watcher Council. All records were lost. Intentionally lost. I managed to uncover them only by chance when I took on the task of rebuilding the Council.”

“So there’s really no telling what you may find down there?” Buffy said, brows still worry-furrowed.

“I assure you, nothing points to beasts or demons of any kind. But before we go, I did want to follow up with you about your experience the other night. With the Sisters. We haven’t had the chance. That is...” Giles trailed off. He stared at her, unsure and uneasy. He had been that way since the night of the disenchant spell. A little distant and a lot stammery, like a dad who’s just learned that his daughter has a sex life. It was one of those best-drop-it topics.

Buffy decided to rescue him. “There’s not much to tell, really,” she said. Wasn’t exactly the truth, she knew, but how much of the whole time-warp caterpillar wrap could be pertinent information? Plus, her paying a visit to William’s childhood... that part seemed too intimate a thing to just share out with everyone. She didn’t even understand why she felt so protective. But she hadn’t told anyone, and didn’t want to.

“Well, Buffy, as you know the smallest detail can have significance,” Giles said.

“Yeah. Like who would have ever guessed that tiny little drain in the base of the Deeping Wall could bring down the whole of Helm’s Deep?” Andrew asked. A dollop of smoothie cream clung to the tip of his nose.

Buffy gaped at him. She said, “I never know what you’re saying.”

Dawn gestured to Andrew to wipe his nose. Giles went on.

“You said that you met with one,” Giles said.

“Yep. Ea. One of the Seven,” Buffy told him. “She went on about being some kind of protector. Daughters of the Nymph-phylum. Or something. I didn’t quite catch...”

Giles held up a hand. “Nephillim?” he said, quietly.

“Sure. Okay. Nephlegm,” Buffy said. “Is it big?”

“The offspring of angels,” Dawn replied.

“Yes,” Giles said. He took off his glasses and polished them slowly. His features took on the look of grave concern.

“Angels are good, right?” Andrew said. “We’re still on the good side with angels...”

Giles said, “The Nephillim are the product of a union between human and angel. They were legendary giants. Demigods. It is said that the Nephillim could be dismembered, their various parts scattered to the ends of the earth, then once re-assembled, would return to life...”

“That’s... brutal,” Dawn said.

“As well, they are said to possess phenomenal strength and agility, much like the Titans of Greek mythology,” Giles said.

“These ladies had all that going on,” Buffy said. “But not the giant part. They were woman-sized.”

“You said daughters of the Nephillim,” Giles went on. “They must be the next generation. This... this changes things, Buffy. Don’t you see?”

Buffy, Dawn and Andrew all shook their heads to indicate that they did not yet follow along.

Giles replaced his glasses. “The return of the Nephillim is a harbinger of what is to come,” he said. “Our final battle is at hand.”

The heavy truth of it rolled into the pit of Buffy’s stomach. “The world will witness,” she said. She thought she might actually be sick.

“I’m afraid so,” Giles said.

Buffy edged instinctively closer to Dawn. Giles studied the equipment strewn across the table, and sighed.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Dawn said.

The four of them stood in solemn silence, staring blankly at nothing.

“Yeah. Um...” Andrew said, hands on his hips. “I call shotgun!”

~*~

Maya finished her breakfast of buttered wheat toast in front of her computer station. She dabbed crumbs from her mouth with her fingers. The monitor’s screen showed a single flashing cursor in its top left corner. It was waiting for her.

She felt less cozy today. The morning press of workers on the street seemed less daunting, somehow. She thought she might step outside once the sun rose, just to the recessed black steps that fronted the shop. Maybe she could catch a few amber rays without the strangling fear that usually overtook her when she ventured too near the threshold of her humble bookstore.

Or, more likely, she would log online time, like she always did. It was safer that way.

And yet...

Maya got up from her wooden stool. She crossed to the counter under which she kept a small, carved ebony box. The box was a perfect cube, its edges worn smooth over time. Inside, on a bed of flaking black velvet, rested a looking glass.

Not a mirror, though.

This was a real looking glass – a sphere of slightly pinkish, wholly flawless polished crystal. It had been a gift from her horribly romantic, terminally frail ex-boyfriend Freddie. An heirloom passed down from his great grandmother, the looking glass was her one remaining link to the world beyond the walls of Go Ask Alice. It was also, regrettably, the last positive link she ever shared with dearly departed Fred.

Maya unceremoniously removed the looking glass from its box. She balanced between her hands its familiar icy weight. Soon, it warmed with her touch. A thin ribbon of light blossomed inside the sphere.

“Who will I see today?” Maya whispered. “Mom again? Or...”

The thread of light pulsed at the timbre of Maya’s voice. It fanned out like sunrays slicing through water.

“I know,” she said, eyes brightening. “Show me Xander.”

The glimmering blurred to a haze. Within it, waves of light swam together to form a scene. There was Xander, in the dining room of a modestly furnished house. One wall of the dining room was lined with books. Maya raised her brows. It was her kind of place...

But Xander seemed to be searching for something. He bent to look under the table, moved chairs out, scanned bookshelves, but didn’t find what he sought. After a few minutes of this Chaplinesque searching, a petite blonde woman came into the room. Maya watched as the pair launched into an animated discussion.

Maya shifted the weight of the crystal to her left hand. She dragged a dusty composition notebook from beneath the register. She opened to a blank page and wrote: Xander + Blonde Girl?

Seconds later, another man entered the room. This one was white-blond and very thin. When he came in, he kissed the blonde woman.

Maya grinned. She scribbled underneath: Blonde Girl + Pale Bloke.

She watched the silent interaction of the three with rapt fascination. Obviously, Xander disliked Pale Guy. Was it a love triangle? Was the blonde Xander’s sister? Maya wished, as she always did when she sat at the looking glass, that she had popcorn. And volume control. It had been ages since she had seen a movie. Or daytime TV, for that matter.

After another minute or so, a red-headed girl joined in. Her presence smoothed over whatever the drama between Xander and Pale Bloke. Xander returned to his search. Maya wrote: Xander + Red Head.

But, no. A dark-haired girl with mean eyes came in. She kissed the red head. Maya tapped her pen on the page.

“That’s interesting,” she said. Xander, it appeared, did not match up to anyone. Yet he was there, bright and early, on a Sunday morning. Maya had assumed he lived there, but maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just left something there and came over early to find it...

Suddenly, the overhead lights in the shop flickered twice. The looking glass went dark. Maya cringed, trying to make herself small, tiny, insignificant. She concealed the sphere, cradling it in the space between her chest and her lap.

The lights blinked again.

“All right,” Maya said. Her voice was a croakish groan of fear and supplication. “I’ll put it away. Please. Don’t...”

She didn’t finish the sentence, didn’t need to. The computer screen beside her stirred to life. Maya bowed her head, still unable to breathe. With shaking hands, she placed the looking glass back in its box.

She turned to the monitor. Through her tears, the tiled desktop images blurred into a cold, pitiless blue.

“I promise, I won’t look away,” she whispered, almost prayer-like, to herself. “I promise. I’ll be good.”

Beyond the counter, a line of dawning sunlight drew itself across the dusty, buckled floorboards of the store. Maya didn’t see it. She moused over the icon for Internet Explorer, launching the browser window. Her inbox contained nine new messages. He was waiting for her to answer.





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