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  “THE HELLMOUTH.” XANDER SAID WITH A GRIM SORT OF PRIDE. “KIND OF LIKE THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE OF EVIL CREATURES. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO WIN.”

  “I would not call it evil, exactly,” Giles corrected. “Merely, well, malicious.” He stood behind Willow, thumbing through his book slowly and comparing his source to hers.

  Buffy shook her head. “Slight change of definitions, Giles. If it goes after humans, it’s evil. End of story. And besides, it’s giving me the creeps.”

  “Okay, so now we know what it is,” Cordelia said so suddenly that everyone else started. Putting down her book, she glanced expectantly about at the others. “How do we make it go away? Because, you know, if it keeps hanging around, it’s going to start killing people. They always do.”

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  Laura Anne Gilman and Josepha Sherman

  An original novel based on the hit TV series

  created by Joss Whedon

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  To Joss Whedon, and the cast and crew of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Thanks for inviting us to Sunnydale. Only you could have gotten us to go back to high school—and enjoy it!

  Thanks are due, and gratefully given, to:

  Jennifer Heddle, for never even threatening to quit, Lucienne Diver (psst: tweed!), Peter R. Liverakos, the regulars at Malibu, the folk of JYGML, and everyone on #gasp, for being there when one or the other of us was losing it. And of course, our editor Lisa Clancy, and her assistant Elizabeth Shiflett. You guys epitomize calm under pressure. You scare us.

  PROLOGUE

  Buffy Summers took a deep breath of the night air and exhaled happily. Spring in Sunnydale. The air was fresh, the grass was growing—and the vampires were hunting.

  Then again, the vamps never really do stop hunting, do they? It’s not like they have game wardens or anything. . . .

  “Now there’s a job I’d like to see,” she muttered, turning the corner and walking down a side street. “I’m sorry, Fangface, but your permit’s expired. Oh yeah. Gotta remember that line.”

  The light from the streetlamps overhead was barely enough to cut the shadows, but she moved with perfect confidence. Muggers were not high up on Buffy Summers’s list of Things to Worry About. There were worse things out at night in the town once known as Boca del Infierno, the Hellmouth.

  On that thought, Buffy Summers turned around and confirmed that there were indeed two undead creatures of the night stalking her.

  Or trying to, anyway. One of the few good things about being the Slayer, the one girl in all the world with the strength and skills, yada yada yada, was that it made it a major chore for anyone to creep up on her.

  And she did mean creep.

  “So, you boys going to dance, or are we going to stand here in one of those awkward who-asks-who-out moments?”

  The vamp on her left hand moved forward at that, his snarl showing fangs that hadn’t seen a dentist since, well, never. A round kick to the chest sent him staggering back a pace, giving Buffy enough time to pull a stake out and lunge forward to bury it through his heart.

  “Tag, you’re it!” she sang out, turning to deal with the second vamp. He came at her a little more warily, circling, trying to see if there was a weak spot in her moves.

  But there wasn’t.

  As the second vamp burst into dust, Buffy froze. The slightest shiver ran across the back of her neck, where the strands which had escaped from her ponytail lay damp against the skin. It might have just been the wind—or it could have been her spider sense kicking in again, warning her of bloodsucking reinforcement on the way.

  “Whatever,” she muttered. “Come on, grave meat. I’ve got a history test tomorrow I might actually pass, if I get some study time in. So let’s make this quick, okay?”

  A heartbeat. Another . . .

  Buffy let out her breath in the softest of sighs. “No? All right, then, guess not.”

  Tucking the stake away and wiping the last of the cold dust off her hands, she shook her head in disgust.

  “One of these days they’re going to figure out coming at me one at a time’s a good way to make like a shish kebab. Remind me not to put that in the vamp training manual.”

  She looked at her watch, then considered the now quiet residential street. Enough world-saveage for one night. Time to go home and turn into Study Girl. As for that moment of weirdness after she’d staked the second vamp . . . Buffy shrugged it off. If there had been more vamps on the way, they had obviously gotten severe second thoughts.

  Hidden in shadow, the creature grinned, a quick flash of jagged teeth, then slid silently away. The young female had an aura like none other, more hunter than prey—hunter, like itself, yes, but still human. What human, what kind? Hunting down those drinkers of common blood, and without fear—so much power, so strong within her.

  But not so strong as to be invincible, never that! The creature shook itself in delight with a shimmering of shadowy fur. Drinking down that pow
er, draining that strong life force . . . what a delicious thought!

  Not yet, though. No. Not till it was certain of the bounds and limits of her strength.

  No need for haste. There were so many other lives awaiting it in this new place. Life forces that would have no resistance to it, life forces to be taken so easily and amusingly.

  And as for that one human, the hunter who would be one night the hunted . . . ah, yes! Even if the young female had taken the time to hunt a little more, she wouldn’t have found anything. Because what had triggered her alarm had indeed moved on.

  But it wasn’t a vampire.

  And it wasn’t afraid of her.

  Quite the opposite, in fact . . .

  CHAPTER 1

  “Good heavens.” Rupert Giles, a folded airmail letter still clutched in one hand, stopped short in the doorway of his sanctuary—Sunnydale High School’s library—so suddenly that Buffy nearly crashed into him.

  “Giles—”

  He was looking about him in dismay. “The library is full of people.”

  “It is a library,” Buffy pointed out. “People are allowed in here. If they want.”

  “Well, yes, of course. But normally, it is, uh, strikingly empty.”

  Which, Buffy suspected, was how Giles liked it. Empty meant that he didn’t have to go through the motions of being a high school librarian and could instead focus on his true reason for being in Sunnydale. That reason, of course, was to be the Watcher to the current Slayer of vampires, and to keep an eye on anything else that happened to come visiting the Hellmouth.

  Said Slayer being, duh, herself.

  But today, the long low table at which the Slayer and her Slayerettes—Will, Xander, and Cordelia—usually sat, was filled with strangers: five chattering, gesturing fems and one guy, all a little on the old side to be your typical Sunnydale students.

  Then again, Buffy thought, what’s typical around here? Werewolves, witches, invisible girls, Cordelia . . .

  The strangers’ books and belongings were spread out across the table’s polished surface as though they owned it. Not exactly full of people, but she saw Giles’s point. They had definitely made themselves at home. A sight which did not give her warm and fuzzy feelings. Her library. Her librarian.

  “Ah, may I help you?” Giles asked them all, shoving the letter he was still clutching into his pocket and doing a pretty good impersonation of a stuffy British librarian.

  He doesn’t have to act real hard.

  “No, we’re cool.”

  The young woman who’d spoken was striking, Buffy admitted, if one liked the snooty sort. A brunette, with a real I-am-the-leader ’tude. But natural, like she was used to taking charge, and people were used to letting her do it.

  “Student teachers,” Giles said suddenly, oblivious to the fact that he was standing there in front of them. “Of course. Principal Snyder was muttering about them all last week.”

  Buffy remembered now. Some new program from the local community college. One of those “real-life experiences” her mom was always so hot on, that usually involved extra credit and weekends.

  Great. Just what we all need, more teachers. At least the invasion would only be for a few weeks.

  “Hey Giles, Buffy says—”

  Willow Rosenberg burst through the library doors and skidded to a stop as she took in the sight of the other occupants. Her face raced through surprise, dismay, calculation, and then a pleasant blandness settled over it like a mask.

  Buffy had to give her redheaded bud credit—Willow was really getting the hang of that expression. Much more, and she’d be recruited by the CIA, as well as one of those take-over-the-world software companies.

  Making an obvious effort to ignore the strangers, Willow added in a quieter voice, “Buffy says—oh. Hi, Buffy. You’re there. I mean, here. Okay. I guess you can tell him yourself.”

  “I told you I was going to stop by and see him before seventh. You just forgot. She,” Buffy said to Giles, “is obsessed.”

  “I am not!”

  “Are.”

  “Not! Maybe . . . a little.”

  “Could someone perhaps, ah, clue me in?” Giles asked.

  “The Battle of the Bands, you know?” No, the man clearly didn’t, so Buffy tried the brief version. “Oz’s band is going to be in a contest—lots of bands from all over the area—and that’s all she’s thinking about.”

  “I am not!” Willow protested again, more feebly this time.

  “Are too. Trust me on this, Will. Your brain has turned into happy gray mush. And what I was going to tell you,” Buffy continued to Giles, “is that I won’t be able to make it this afternoon. It’s, you know, Quality Time with Mom Day.”

  Once Joyce Summers had gotten over the understandable shock of learning that her only daughter was destined to spend her nights chasing down demons and turning them into dust, she had, Buffy thought, managed to deal well enough. For a card-carrying member of the mom union, anyway. The whole idea of a curfew for Buffy had gone out the window, which was a Good Thing, but a sit-down dinner at least once a week, complete with actual conversation, had been put into place with an iron fist.

  “I see,” Giles said. He left the newcomers to their own devices with only a single, worried glance, as though he was afraid they were going to start playing catch with his precious books. “Quite understandable. Despite the knowledge that the more people who know of your, ah, other responsibilities, the more dangers arise, I can’t help but think that this is a good thing. Contrary to everything I’ve been taught as a Watcher, of course, but nonetheless, a good thing. You, um, will be, that is, you do still plan to study this evening?”

  “Study?” Willow looked downright puzzled.

  “Told you all she can think about is Oz and his band,” Buffy murmured.

  Red-faced, Willow said, “Oh. Right. Study. Lots of studying. After dinner. With her mom.” Trying to change the subject, she added, “So, any new books come in?”

  “No. Willow, I’ve told you already, I am not going to let you read any of the . . .” Giles looked over his shoulder at the student teachers, who were apparently immersed in their own paperwork—“the older books in the collection.”

  “You don’t trust me,” Willow said sadly. “He doesn’t trust me, Buffy.”

  “It is not a question of trust,” Giles cut in. “Not exactly. Ah, could we perhaps finish this conversation another time? I have . . . paperwork that I need to complete before Principal Snyder comes looking for me.”

  “Snyder? Here?” Willow squeaked. “Oh. I have class. Or something. Soon. Gotta go.”

  “Me, too,” Buffy added, and hurried after her friend, catching up with her at the doors.

  A low snort from the table in the wake of the two girls’ exit indicated that a) the student teachers had not been as oblivious as it had seemed, and that b) they already shared the prevailing opinion of the principal after only a few days’ exposure to him.

  Giving them a quick, wary smile, Giles turned and all but dove into his office, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Once safely alone, the Watcher sank into his broken-down chair, looking once again at the letter he’d retrieved from his pocket. And once again, a pang of alarm shot through him.

  A member of the Council was coming here.

  “Why?” Giles muttered. “Haven’t we proven ourselves already? Over and over again, in fact?”

  He glanced at the time . . . good enough. He could call England, demanding an answer—

  No. If the Council is testing us in some way, panicking like that would send the wrong message. Better to treat this visit as a normal occurrence. A routine annoyance. No need to worry Buffy about it, either. She has enough problems right now.

  Such as that dinner with her mother.

  Giles snorted. He wasn’t sure who to feel more sympathy for: his Slayer, or her mother.

  “Buffy, it’s not as though I’m asking you to devote your entire life to helping me out.
Just one evening.”

  Buffy pushed the food around on her plate a little, not wanting to look up at her mother’s face. It had been a really nice dinner up until this point. Well, okay, it had only been ten minutes. But setting the table had been fun. They’d even been singing along to the radio together, the way they used to.

  “Mom, it’s not that I don’t want to. I know how much this opening means to you—”

  “How can you know that? Tell me, Buffy. How many opening nights of exhibits have you attended? No, scratch that. How many shows have you attended, period?”

  Buffy looked up at that, indignant. “Three. There was the really cool fabric thing from Japan, the African masks exhibit, and the West Indian whatsis that had the really weird food. Xander thought he was going to need his stomach pumped.”

  She sat back, triumphant. But the triumph didn’t last long.

  “The first one you attended because Willow wanted to go, and the second one your art teacher strongly suggested you all attend, for extra credit you needed to keep from flunking. And you all thought that the West Indies exhibit would have something to do with sun and sand and tanned guys in tiny swimsuits.”

  Buffy shrugged, contemplating the bit of chicken on her fork. “We had hopes. Your ads were false advertising.”

  “Buffy, all I want is for you to give me one evening of your time. An evening, mind you, that I’m telling you about two weeks in advance. I don’t think that’s at all cruel and unusual of me.”

  “I know, I know.” Buffy wanted to help her mom out. Just not like that. The thought of standing around for hours, handing out canapés and refilling the punch bowl and making polite chitchat to art critics and newspaper reporters and people like Cordelia’s mom, who was always anywhere there was Important Art being discussed—plus a few cameramen to take her picture, natch—made school look appealing.