Rating:  PG, you know, for fairy tale-ish stuff… oh, and insanity.  Lots of insanity.

Feedback:  I'd like that, thank you.

Distribution:  At the moment, here.  If someone wants it, I'd really appreciate it if you would ask me, please.  I would also be completely shocked.

Spoilers:  Not a single thing.

Disclaimer:  All characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy.  Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you.  Thank you.

Chapter Nine

Twilight had just tinged the sky with gray and the last rays of the sun had barely disappeared below the horizon when the wicked debutante heard the sound of a motor approaching from afar. 

"Must be the masseuse.  He got here awfully fast, though," the debutante pondered aloud.

However, the car didn't simply pull into the drive.  Instead, it shot directly at the castle's thick oak door, hurtling over the moat like a scene from The Dukes of Hazard and battering the portal down with a tremendous sound of splintering wood.  Needless to say, the sorceress was not pleased.

"This guy is so not getting a tip after that!" she angrily proclaimed. 

Powerfully ticked off, she strode into the castle and, since she wasn't blind as a bat, immediately noticed the black Desoto parked in the living room.

"Hey!  You ran over a whole rack of my Prada capris, you moron!  How am I supposed to get skid marks off of silk?" she raged as the blond driver exited the vehicle with a smug grin.

"Which way to my princess, you overdressed sow?"

Obviously, this was neither the most polite nor the most intelligent thing our dear William could have said.  If the enchantress's anger level had been at a ten before, it had just shot to two hundred and twenty-six point three.  Sparks flashed from her eyes, which was a truly stupid thing to do since said sparks then fell on her brand-new espadrilles, leaving highly noticeably scorch marks.

"You want to find the little lunatic?  Go ahead and try it, you bleached freak.  You'll never make it up there alive!"

"I'm already dead, nitwit.  Ease up on the mousse already; it's starting to clog your brain cells."

With a shriek of rage, the girl proceeded to bludgeon our high-cheekboned hero with a series of nasty enchantments.

"May your roots show forevermore!  May your eyes turn an icky shade of puce!  May the Auto Club refuse to accept you as a member because you don't have a pulse!"  As she made each of these ghastly pronouncements, a ball of light flew from her Gold Card straight at the vampire, only to fizzle out like cheap sparklers the moment they touched his duster.

"Huh?  What gives?" she whined.  "One more try.  On your twenty-third deathday, may you get a paper cut on your pinky and die!"

Once again, the glimmering sphere that shot from her credit card went kerplooey.  And, might I add, that had to be the lamest curse I've ever heard in my life. 

"Yeah, well, pricking your finger on a spindle ain't exactly high on the fatality menu either."

Point taken.  It finally sunk through the well accessorized one's head that the vamp's coat was deflecting all of her direct attacks.  The debutante, however, was nowhere near as stupid as she sometimes acted.

"Hey!"

Can it, cheerleader.  You're about to do something fairly impressive.  In the blink of an eye, she had disappeared, leaving a very large ball of flame behind her.  It's a little known fact that designer duds are nototoriously flammable, and the eighteen floors of wardrobe were suddenly set ablaze.  The debutante didn't particularly care about this since she'd come to the conclusion most of her clothes were from last season's collections anyway, and she didn't want to look outdated.

Since she hadn't aimed the magic directly at the vampire, his coat was powerless to block the fire.  Besieged on all sides by crimson and saffron tongues of flame that were almost as hot as he was, the blond demon bravely stared into the face of death for the second time in twenty-four hours.

"Wait half a second here, pet!  You've left me, a highly combustible vampire, stuck under eighteen floors of bright, shiny fire?  How the bloody hell am I supposed to get to my ladylove?  What are you planning to do, kill me off so you don't have to live up to our little agreement?"

Trust me, oh sapphire-eyed one; I'll get you there.  Just at that moment, when all seemed hopelessly lost, what should appear but a fire extinguisher, floating in mid-air. The vampire grabbed it and proceeded to blast a path for himself through the inferno.

"But how…?"

Annoyed beyond belief at her incessant narcissism, the ghost who roomed with the evil witch had decided to take matters into his own hands… well, more or less, considering he didn't actually have hands anymore.  Led onward by the friendly poltergeist opening the correct doors for him so he would know which way to go, William was able to reach the top of the tallest tower with only the slightest of singes on his Doc Martin's.

Unfortunately, there, blocking the doorway to the chamber where the Three Good Beings and Rose were catching forty winks, was the sorceress.  In case the fire didn't finish him off, she'd transported herself to his final destination to stop the whole happily-ever-after segment of the story.  See, the queen was right:  major bitca.

With the predatory grace of a leopard, William advanced upon the villainess, growling threateningly, his game face firmly in place.  For one brief second, she thought about backing down and letting him pass, but then she remembered the rumor she'd heard earlier that day at the mall.

"Ha!  That chip in your brain won't let you do anything to me, and the only way you're getting through this door is over my dead body!  Say goodbye, short stuff," she crowed in glee as she prepared to shoot a jet of holy water at him, propelling him back down the eighteen flights of steps and into the fiery swirl that still blazed below.

"Short stuff?" he uttered in disbelief.  "I'm taller than you are, you foul hag!"

With that, he withdrew the Swiss Army knife from his pocket, took careful aim, and hurled the small, sharp blade end over end at the his chosen target.

"Shouldn't he be grabbing his skull and screaming like a woman?"

Nope.  He's not aiming at you.  His nifty little pocketknife found its mark perfectly…

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"

… slicing the witch's Gold Card cleanly in two.  The source of her power was utterly destroyed.

Immediately, a truck pulled up in front of the castle.  Within ten seconds her entire ill-gotten (and now heavily fried) wardrobe was repossessed, and the witch herself was arrested for indecently egotistical behavior and carted off to work at the local McDonald's until her debts to society were paid. 

"But, but, the grease!  It's murder on my complexion!" she moaned as she was led away by the officers of the law.  "And that tacky uniform isn't even close to being my color!"

"Question."

Go ahead.

"Couldn't you have let me use a machete or a scimitar or something a bit more manly than a Swiss Army knife?"

Hey, the Swiss are manly!  They make the best chocolate in the world!  I will not hear a word against the Swiss!  Besides, I think all those little gizmos are pretty cool.

"Right.  Whatever.  Now then, considering there was nothing behind the bimbo but a brick wall, how do I get to Rose?"

Walk right through the wall like it's not even there.  Please note that I stress walk as opposed to run.  I don't want to be fishing any more vampires out of the moat.

With a curt nod of thanks to the narrator, William strode through the seemingly solid stone wall to awaken his love with a kiss.

And then abruptly walked right back through it again with a baffled look on his face.  What gives? 

"We've got a bit of a problem, ducks."