Red Ned Campbell had very little to show for the years of education that the city of Glasgow had tried to give the teenage thug, aside from two things. One was the delightful experience at the age of fourteen in breaking his maths teacher's jaw, which had ended any kind of subsequent schooling without bars on the windows. The other was the sullen resentment caused by discovering in history class that he'd been born more than a millennium out of his proper circumstances. Considering that he was six and a half feet tall and over a yard wide at the shoulders, while also possessing enough fiery-red hair on his head and face to stuff a mattress, twelve hundred years ago this vicious young hooligan would have been more than happy to take up his natural career as a Viking, ravaging the Sassenach whenever possible. Aye, raping and looting and pillaging (and then burning) sounded like a proper life for a bloke.

Well, unlife as a forever-twenty vampire wasn't all that bad, either. Ned had managed to put the boot to the first two arse-faced attackers, but the third one had gotten him, right in the neck. Over the next couple of days, nobody found his body in the filthy cellar where he'd nipped in to have a quick piss, so there wasn't the tiresome bother of digging himself out of a bloody grave. Instead, the fledgling vampire had swaggered out of his resting place, not feeling particularly different from his former existence as a human despite losing his soul and being possessed by a demon. Instead, Ned now took the yearned-for opportunity to really go to town.

A wee bit of a mistake, that. It'd ended with those damn Slayers tracking him down and giving him a good thumping, before dragging off the monster that had once been Edward Campbell to wherever this shitehole was. Och, he'd made them pay in full for their victory, back then and even now, whenever he was released from his cell. In between the time spent plotting his escape, after which he'd show the entire world how a Scots lad would do a proper slaughter, Ned had managed to fight to a draw a couple of those superhuman bitches. It surely would've been glorious to end their matches by draining the sweet blood of a Slayer, but either as a human or a vampire, Red Ned wasn't totally stupid. Any actual attempt at sinking a single fang into a smooth neck would definitely result in leaving nothing of a red-haired demon except about a half-stone of ashes, after being immediately blasted by the protective magics laid upon those pretty lassies.

At least today was going to give him another chance of a good stramash, Ned decided, as he cracked his knuckles several times while standing before his cell door. Things looked to be just like the same as what he'd previously gone through, the other occasions when the vampire had been brought into this room and then he went up against whoever was behind that sliding door. Fine, then. Ned was more than eager to start what his all-time favorite movie referred to as 'the old ultra-violence', if only to get the horrid taste out of his mouth from breakfast earlier. The foul muck his jailers served was no decent nourishment for a vampire. Cold pig's blood, his arse. Couldn't those bastards at any rate warm it up? Not to mention Ned was positive that someone was gobbing into the full bowl of liquid whenever they got a chance. He'd have done it, after all.

Just when Ned had gotten into the proper mood to make one of those little bitches cry, the door separating his cell from the larger room beyond smoothly slid open. As he'd decided in advance several minutes ago, instead of his previous rushes through the doorway, Ned quickly leapt forward only as far enough to get inside, and the instant he landed on his feet, the vampire hurriedly jumped again to the left, keeping his back close to the room's rear wall. It was never a good idea to always do the same thing in a fight, except for the last part, when you kicked in their ribs, both feeling and hearing the wonderful crunch of-

*What the fookin' hell is this?*

Freezing in complete bewilderment, Ned allowed his fanged mouth to fall open, as he gaped at the only other person besides himself in the room, about thirty feet away on the other side of the basement area.

It was a wee bitty girl.

About ten years old or younger, with bright blonde hair curled in ringlets on the sides of her small head, wearing one of those knee-length fluffy dresses and shiny black shoes with blindingly white socks, this charming child was also cradling in her dainty arms a toy doll that perfectly resembled herself, down to the wide smile now present on the faces of both young females. However, the actually living little lady then in fact batted her cornflower-blue eyes at Ned, while also merrily giggling in absolute delight, "Hello, mithter vampire!"

Maybe it was the lisp which instantly made Red Ned lose any bit of whatever control or caution that might have ordinarily held back the creature of the night, given things had just gone a trifle weird here. However, this minor speech impediment, the very embodiment of vulnerability possessed by such a defenseless human child, now had about the same effect upon the slavering vampire that a dead and rotting humpback whale drifting in the ocean would have had upon a starving great white shark.

HUNGRY! EAT! NOW!

In an immense bound, Ned jumped directly at the little girl, landing right before this youngster, to then scoop her up in his clawed hands. Triumphantly lifting the captured child high into the air, the ecstatic vampire opened his jaws as wide as possible, about to devour that absolutely scrumptious meal in one splendid bite.

As for his potential victim still in Ned's grip…

Still clutching at her doll, Cindy Brady interestedly looked down, right into the glowing yellow eyes and fanged maw surrounded by a mane of red hair, all which belonged to the massive monster with the wide shoulders, brawny arms, and powerful hands with the steel-hard fingers from which the little girl had no possible hope of escaping before the vampire ate her.

Except at that very moment, these same fingers and hands then incredibly crumbled into fine brown ashes.

Held immobile by sheer shock as his body disintegrated, Ned ignored how his freed prisoner then plunged vertically to the floor, only to land lightly upon her tiny feet without any sign of harm. Instead, Cindy started smirking evilly upwards at her latest prey, who'd unknowingly gotten close enough for the young human to once again demonstrate her sickeningly-sweet superpower of transmuting anything that came near herself into sugar.

Magical, bizarre sugar that could still retain for a few more seconds the sentience and intelligence of whatever being which had just been transformed into several hundred pounds of a saccharine-tasting substance.

Ned was still unable to move as he watched with utter amazement the rest of his arms dissolve away, with the vanishing of the undead flesh continuing onto his shoulders, chest, torso, legs, and last of all, his head. The latter event happened too quickly for the destroyed vampire to hear his victorious adversary's next words, as Cindy Brady haughtily lisped, "Thuth a thilly vampire!"