Most teenagers think that their high school is hell itself, in Darling's case it just so happened to be true. Ever After High sat smack dab on top of the the hellmouth, meaning that whenever Darling and her friends went to school they were literally walking into hell. It would have been ironic had it not been Darling's calling-her destiny-to stop all of the nasty monsters who wanted to open the hellmouth and unleash, well, hell on earth.

Sometimes, Darling really wished that someone else had been the chosen one. Right now was one of those times.

Tonight was the night of the school dance. Tonight was the night that hundreds of students were gathering in the school gymnasium, dancing, flirting, and having an altogether good time. Tonight was the night that a group of maniac vampires decided to summon an ancient demon, which was why Darling was currently in the cemetery with her stake in hand instead of in the gymnasium watching as Dexter pathetically flirted with Raven and her other brother tried to ignore his feelings for her werewolf best friend.

Darling kicked at a gravestone, her toe taking off a fragment of stone. "Stupid vampires with their stupid rituals. Why couldn't they do demon raising some other time?"

"I imagine that it has something to do with star alignment." Darling practically jumped out of her skin. Her instincts kicking in, she whirled around, stake raised to fight off the intruder.

Darling froze as she realized who exactly it was who had sneaked up on her. Standing in front of her, wearing his signature black leather jacket, was very much a vampire, but not the kind that she killed. Darling Charming didn't kill vampires with souls. She could practically hear Raven and Cerise's snickers. No. She didn't kill vampires with souls, because there was only one vampire with a soul.

"And you don't kill him," said ghost Cerise, "You make out with him."

"Shut up," Darling snapped.

"I didn't say anything," said Chase.

"I wasn't talking to you." Darling tucked her stake back into her jacket and resumed her walk through the cemetery. Chase fell in step beside her. She glanced at the tall figure. He was handsome, incredibly so. He appeared to be only a few years older than herself, but that was very deceiving. She wasn't exactly sure how old he was, but she knew that he had been alive during Elizabethan times. Darling almost laughed. If her mother knew that she liked an older guy, she would freak.

Then again, her mother would freak if she found out about the whole slaying thing.

"What are you doing here?" Cerise asked.

"The same thing that you are, I would imagine," said Chase, "I heard that the Five were trying to raise Abbadon."

"So these vampires have a name for their little club?" Darling pondered. "Isn't that just wonderful."

"I thought that you could use a hand," Chase said.

"Thanks," Darling said, "but, I've already got two of my own."

Chase stopped in his tracks, and Darling turned around, wondering what was going on. "Did I do something?" Chase asked.

Darling shook her head. "I'm just in a mood about the vampires. They decided to raise this super-powerful demon dude on the night of homecoming."

"Oh." Chase nodded as if that meant something to him, which Darling knew that it didn't. "Did you have a date to this dance?"

A slow smile made its way across Darling's face. "Way to be subtle." She resumed walking, searching for the mausoleum that Mariam had pointed out. She could feel Chase only a step behind her, watching her back with those striking blue eyes.

It was hard for her to explain their relationship. They weren't dating, she didn't know if they ever would be. He had been there since her arrival to Book End a few months earlier. She had been instantly attracted to him, and him to her. She hadn't know that he was a vampire then, though. She hadn't discovered that until after she invited him into her house and they had made out. They hadn't done anything since then, but the attraction was still there, simmering just beneath the surface.

Darling came to a stop in front of an old, marble mausoleum with a pair of twin angels caved into the entrance. "This is it."

"After you," Chase said, stepping to the side to let Darling enter first.

"Thanks." Darling didn't know if the butterflies in her stomach were from nerves or from the intense look on Chase's face. Probably the latter.

Darling reached for the door handle and pulled. It opened easily. Darling shook her head. These vampires had no idea what was coming to them. They may have been powerful, with their own fancy name, trying to raise one of the most powerful demons ever mentioned, but they had ruined her Homecoming. Darling wasn't about to let that slide.

The inside of the mausoleum was spacious. Five vampires stood in the middle of the floor, each of them standing at a different point of a pentagram chanting in archaic latin. Darling was upon them before they even realized what had happened, stabbing her stake into the two closest to the door, breaking their spell and grabbing the attention of the other three.

The one closest to her snarled and jumped at her. Darling easily ducked his attack, making a jab at him as Chase rushed at the other two. A second later, all three vampires had turned to dust. Darling stared at the pile of vampire on the floor, wishing that they had chosen another night to do their stupid ritual thing. She had really wanted to go to homecoming.

"Your school's only a few miles away," Chase said, "Are you going to the dance?"

Darling pocketed her stake. "There's no point. It's almost over."

Chase nodded. "I see." He took his phone out of his pocket.

"I guess that I'll be seeing you," Darling said, "You know, the next time that my life is in grave danger or something."

Music started playing from Chase's phone, and he took a step forward so that he was only a few inches away from her. "May I have the honor?" he asked, offering her his hand.

Darling's stomach started tying itself into knots of its own accord. "Yes," she squeaked in a very un-slayer-like manner. She placed her hand into Chase's. His hand went to her waist as hers went to his shoulder. She followed his lead as the music played from his cell phone, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach.

They made a strange picture: the slayer and a vampire dancing in a mausoleum as music quietly played from Chase's pocket, but somehow it was perfect. Absolutely and totally perfect.