The steel bars were nothing compared to the thin band angling across the concrete floor. His fever rose as that golden beam of light, impenetrable as a raging wall of fire, inched closer. Heat and light brought hallucination: Buffy standing outside the cage. Just above the bridge of her nose he saw that crinkle, the one she got when he couldn't keep up with her pop references. How was he supposed to know the Dead Kennedys were a band and not a whole family turned demon? Between him and Buffy lay neither locks nor sunlight but an abyss, an impenetrable chasm: centuries of change. He'd thought they could have a life together, that mere words could bridge the gap between them. But this was beyond anything he could ever understand. Who would name a band the dead anything?