Since she had earned her school certificate the year before, Daisy often went out by herself, for a little while, during the afternoon. Today she found herself in Cathedral Square, sitting on a bench, eating an ice cream cone and watching some street performers who looked like the Beatles and sounded like Bob Dylan.

Her nineteenth birthday was coming soon, and she thought about what she'd like to do. On her last birthday, she had been sick and very weak. She supposed she must have had some virus. She had told Hugh and Quilla that she needed to go to the doctor, but for some reason they hadn't taken her. Then, on top of that, she had gone out to slay and had somehow become trapped in a crypt with a vampire. She had barely been able to figure out a way to kill it and escape alive.

Munching the last bite of the cone, she became aware of a commotion behind her. She turned her head and saw a figure moving towards her. It looked human, but was covered in thick black cloth from its head to its feet. Huge, dark sunglasses were set onto the face. People moved away and gasped as the figure kept moving towards Daisy, taking with it a long shadow on the concrete.

"You must come now."

It was the vampire, Andros's, voice.

"I'm meeting you tomorrow," Daisy said, stumbling over her words.

"I thought we had time. But we do not."

"You mean Ikaros is finished with the spell?"

"Nearly."

"I'll have to go tell my Watcher."

"No. There is no time. You must come now."

"But it'll only take..." She stood and slung her purse over her shoulder.

He grasped her arm in his gloved fingers.

"Okay," she muttered, and walked quickly next to him, across the concrete path, as everyone in the Square watched them go.

Andros ran faster than any human could; any human except the Slayer. Daisy jogged down the sidewalks beside him, not bothering to be slow and conceal her identity. Perhaps every person in every car she passed would have an interesting story to tell around the dinner table tonight, about an inhumanly fast girl and her inhumanly fast, black-clad companion.

They ran through the suburbs, across an open field of parkland, and through some trees, west, towards the mountains. Daisy's purse flew into the air and banged against her back, mirroring the rhythm of her steps.

They were in wilderness, a forest, when Andros stopped. He leaned against a tree and breathed hard.

"He must fly towards the sun. He must get as close as possible for the spell to work. You must stop him before he takes off."

"So what do we do now?"

"Now we must climb."

"Well, let's go."

Still breathing loudly, Andros began to climb. Daisy was behind him.

The wind was ferocious and whipped Daisy's hair into her eyes as she climbed higher and higher. Where there wasn't a foothold there was a tree or a jutting rock to hoist herself further up the mountainside. She was aware of Andros above her, and looked up every minute, to be sure she was climbing in the right direction.

She had seen the mountain from the ground. Its peak was snowy and ringed with clouds. She didn't know where Ikaros's cave was, didn't know how far she'd have to climb. Then she looked down.

No, she thought, it wasn't possible. They couldn't have climbed that distance. Suddenly, her legs felt weak and her arms almost let go. This was more frightening than any cemetery or any monster. People weren't meant to leave the ground. It wasn't right; it threw the world out of balance and it killed you.

She continued to climb.

Andros shouted, but the wind carried away his words. Daisy pulled herself up and her head slammed into a rock.

"I said to stop!" he shouted.

He stood on a ledge, a smooth surface cut into the face of the mountain. Daisy crawled onto it, and felt thick liquid drip down her forehead, into her eyes. Dropping to her knees, she touched her hand to her head, where it had hit the rock. She saw that her fingers were covered with blood.

Andros was silent, and she sensed something different from him, a predator quality that he hadn't shown before. She unzipped her purse and took out a stake. Standing up, she held it close to his chest. "Take me to Ikaros."

She knew he couldn't have heard her above the wind, but he saw the stake. "As you say," he shouted, his black covering flying up and slapping his face.

He moved down the ledge, and Daisy followed, leaving her purse behind, the stake stuck into the waist of her jeans. She held onto anything she could to steady herself as the ledge became more narrow. The freezing wind blew up her shirt and whipped her hair around her face and neck. The gash in her head was throbbing, and the blood stung her eyes.

Andros stopped moving, and she collided into him. He turned his head to shout directly into her ear.

"You must climb around me. You will come to the mouth soon."

He pressed himself flat against the mountainside. Daisy let go with one hand and grasped his shoulder. Everything about him repulsed her, and her own hands disgusted her as she held on to him. Her legs went around his body as she climbed to his other side. Finally, she was away from him, by herself on the ledge.

She took step after step, moving her hands along with her feet. Her face scraped along the rough rock, and she closed her eyes against it and the wind.

The mountainside jutted out, blinding her view. Daisy looked down, then grasped the mountain tighter. She inched along, around the curve.

She came to the mouth of the cave. It was smaller than she'd thought it would be; she would have to bend over and crawl inside. The ledge widened again, and Daisy was able to loosen her grip and stand comfortably.

Just then, a movement. A large black thing. The hole in the side of the mountain was no longer a hole. It was a vampire. And then the vampire was through the hole, in the air. It had wings, and was covered with something that smelled like a newly paved street. Tar would block out the light, and wouldn't come off.

The vampire had jumped.

Daisy hadn't staked him in time.

Now, she had to choose.

If she let him go, he would destroy the world.

If she jumped onto his back, she could drive a stake into his heart.

But then he would turn to dust. She would fall. And the fall would kill her.

No matter what happened, she would die.

Daisy bent her knees.

She jumped.


She held onto the vampire's back as he flew through the air. The tar stuck all over her and his wings hurt her body as they pumped up and down. He was screaming, yelling at her to get off, as he climbed higher and higher, towards the sun.

Daisy had left her body. She breathed the air of Heaven. She had always thought other people experienced life like she never would. But no one had ever lived to this extreme. No one else even knew what life was.

Pulling the stake from her jeans, she closed her eyes and felt the sunlight wash over her.

She drove the stake into the vampire's heart.


Hugh St. James opened his front door. "Did you hear that?" he asked his wife.

"Hear what?"

"A noise. A crash."

He pushed open the storm door and walked across the front porch. Through the open gates, he saw people in the street, hurrying in one direction.

He crossed the front garden, and as he got to the road, began jogging. The street wound to the left, and as he rounded the bend, he saw that a crowd had gathered. He pulled people out of his way as he walked forward. They were looking down, at something in the middle of the street.

She was face-down. Her clothes were off-center, her shirt awry and exposing most of her back. Her dark hair spread in a circle around her head. Blood ran onto the pavement from underneath her body.

He kneeled down. Grasping her shoulder, he pulled her body onto its back. Her arms and legs, all broken, fell the wrong way. He looked at the bloody mess that had been her face, then looked away forever. Putting one arm under her knees and the other under her back, he lifted her body, and carried her home.

His wife waited on the front porch. "Oh, Hugh," she said, putting her hand to her mouth. When he climbed the porch steps with Daisy in his arms, Quilla held open the door, and he turned sideways to carry her into the house.

He lay her body on the sofa and heard his son jog down the stairs. Adrian walked into the living room doorway.

"Dad, she's not…." He walked around the back of the sofa, and saw.

"It's all right, son," Hugh said, taking Adrian in his arms as the boy began to cry. "It's all right. She died to save us all. That's what they do. It's what makes them Slayers."

Adrian looked back at the sofa. Daisy's body lay still, and the cross around her neck shone in the light from the windows.