"Are you sure your arm's okay?," Deb asks Dev as he drives into downtown San Diego.
"I'm healed," a slightly annoyed Dev assures her.
"I don't mean to be rude. But if I got sliced that badly, it would take me more than two days to recover."
"I heal faster than you. Slayer or not, you're still human."
"Thanks for the reminder," she says sarcastically.
"It's always important to be careful."
"I meant, thanks for reminding me of your nature. But, what I really meant is, I wish you hadn't brought it up."
"Ah yes, sarcasm. I've never been a big fan of that. Even when I was quote-unquote evil. Which I no longer am."
"Then why the quotation marks?"
"I never was self-consciously evil. I never took pleasure in shocking human moral sensibilities by killing babies and such. That's why Spike always said I was an odd one."
"You're saying you've always been kind of good?"
"No. I was just amoral. Neither good nor evil appealed to me. Now I've made a choice."
"So did I. We're either both right, or both wrong. Hope to god it's not the second one." She takes off her crucifix and touches it to Dev's right shoulder.
"Ouch!"
"Maybe I shouldn't be putting my hope in God," she darkly jokes. "Doesn't look like he's on our side."
"He did let me lose my soul. He did let my family get murdered. He appears to be on neither side." The effectiveness of religious talismans has always intrigued Dev. On the one hand, it proves that vampires are enemies of God. Yet this same God allows them to kill with impunity. Furthermore, the symbols can be used even by non-believers, which, in his view, cheapens them.
Devlin drives into the parking garage at Horton Plaza, a twenty five acre mall in the heart of downtown San Diego. Deb's friends follow him down to the basement level. Everyone gets out. Harmony comes running over. "This is your intelligence?," Debbie asks. "Her!?"
"Just cause you're a Slayer doesn't mean you have to get all bitchy," Harmony responds. Then she yawns. "Did we really have to do this so late? I have to get up in five hours, and it's a ninety minute drive back home. Which means I'll only get like - "
"It still cracks me up that you've gone straight," Sidney says. Harmony gasps.
"I was never NOT straight! You're the one who talked about getting lesbian urges."
"You get what?," Diego asks.
"Baby, she's taking that way out of context. Just like she mistook what I just said."
"Can we get on with the slaying?," Debbie asks.
"Just as long as I'm not one of the slayed," Harmony responds.
"Fine. You lead the way."
"So you can stake me in the back?" Devlin puts his left arm around Harmony's shoulder.
"Relax Harm. I got your back. It's not like I'd have my girlfriend kill you so I wouldn't have to pay you," he jokes before walking away. Naturally, Harmony doesn't appreciate the joke. Sidney walks up.
"Don't worry. I got your back, too. We all do." Harmony looks around, counting six humans and five vampires, including herself. Those seemed like good odds to ensure her survival.
"Follow me," Harmony says, enjoying being the center of attention even for a brief while. "Living at the mall seems cool," she comments as they wind down dark, labrynthine halls leading to basement storage and utility rooms. "All the people you can eat. Lots of clothes. Tons of stuff to steal. Plus, a multiplex with IMAX. You'd never even have to go outside."
"But there haven't been any killings at this mall," Cynthia notes from their research.
"Of course not," Dev adds. "Why ruin a good thing? Why draw attention?"
"How old are these vampires?," Theo asks. "In human years. Living at the mall seems like such a teenager thing to do."
"I think two of the four guys are in their late twenties. The two girls are older than me - like, early twenties. They say they like it cause there's lot of places to hide and run away to."
"Good point Harm," Dev compliments. "First thing we do is surround them, cut off all routes of escape."
"The room's not that wide, but it's really long," Harmony reports. "There's air vents, and I think a hidden door in back."
"What did you have to do to get in so good with these bad guys?," Debbie asks, implying sex or murder.
"One of them really wants me. Which is sorta disappointing. There's four guys, and usually I expect least half the guys to drool over me."
"You don't know. A couple of 'em could be gay," Sidney jokes.
"Are we close?," Devlin whispers.
"Yeah. It's right around the corner."
"Then quiet. The rest of you, wait for the signal." When they get to the door, Dev hides along the wall and Harmony knocks. A vampire slides back an eye slit and takes a look out.
"It's me," Harmony says with a smile.
"At this hour?" She bites her lip, smiles and bats her eyelashes.
"I wanted to spent the night. Not the whole night, cause I can't drive back in the daytime. But, enough of it to, you know." The man walks away, and another man approaches. He looks out.
"I knew you'd be back."
"I knew you'd want me to be back." The door opens, concealing Devlin.
"Gilly!" Harmony wraps her arms around a tall, swarthy, stubbly man. "Oh Gilly." Dev grabs the door before it closes, sticks his gun in and blows Gil's brains out while Harmony rests her head on his chest. He falls down. "You fucking idiot," Harmony adds, enjoying being on the winning side and getting to make taunts. Dev steps through the door, and Deb races up behind him. The vampires leap off their futons and bean bag chairs.
"That's disappointing," Dev says as he strides forward and points his gun at the remaining five. "I was expecting more fear." The vampires go bumpy.
"We're not scared of you."
"Or me?," Deb asks. Her friends and vampires pour in.
"Or us?," Sidney asks. Like Paul, Luiz, Dev, and Harmony, she has her fangs out. The vampires do a quick head count and realize they're screwed. Three of them try to break on through to the front door. One climbs on top of the big screen tv, pulls open the duct and tries to crawl out. The final vampire races for the back door, which is one hundred feet from the front door. Dev can't catch him. But his bullets can, and Dev puts one in the back of the vampire's head (from eighty feet away) as he opens the door. Debbie runs over to the tv, leaps in the air, grabs the vampire's right ankle and pulls him back into the room.
"Coward."
"Sorry, didn't notice it was you," he replies, landing a right hook. "Guess that instead of running, I should have tried my best pickup line." She kicks his face with her right foot, but when she steps forward to try a punch he nails her with a left cross. "You're one of those Slayers who can't decide whether to kill us or fuck us." Dev lands a left hook and throws the vampire into the opposite wall. The vampire bounces off the wall, off the couch, onto his feet. "You think you'll be the only one?," he asks Dev with a chuckle. "Once they go vamp, they never go back. And they can't stop with just one."
"Is that an attempt to distract the Slayer and enable your escape?," Dev asks. Deb and the vampire exchange right hooks. He ducks a right cross, kicks her in the chest, turns left and races for the back door. Devlin's already there, his arms folded across his chest, a lit cigarette between his lips. A few seconds ago, Dev was to his right, fifty feet from the door. The dejected vampire turns around and gets nailed by Deb's left uppercut.
Meanwhile, Sid, Paul and Luiz each grab hold of one fleeing vampire to prevent them from attacking their human honeys. Paul finds himself on top of a female vampire. "A position you could get used to?," she asks with a smile. He tries a right jab, but hits only the floor as she slithers free. Diego hits her in the head with a baseball bat. Paul gets up and lands a right hook that sends her into the side wall, and his girlfriend Melanie drives a stave through her heart, getting the vampire back for hitting on her man. (Dev's equipped the humans with three foot-long wooden staves instead of one foot-long stakes because they're harder for vampires to block and the humans can use both hands to put more force behind them.) Sidney grapples with the other female vamp and gets pushed into the wall just to the left of the door. She lands a left jab and a right cross, taking a right hook to the face. The vampire reaches for the door, but Sidney grabs her shoulders. Cynthia, who's behind the vampire, drives a stave through her heart. The point comes out the front and ends up two inches from Sid's chest. Had she not leaned back at the last instant, it could have killed her. The vampire disintegrates, and Cynthia sees a spooked Sidney leaning against the wall.
"Gosh Cynth, I knew you didn't like me, but isn't this a little extreme?," Sidney jokes. Luiz and a male vampire end up rolling on the ground, so Danielle holds off with the staking for fear of accidentally slaying her boyfriend. The opponent eventually gains the upper hand, tries to rise to his feet and reaches for the door knob. Luiz drives his head into the metal door, gets up and throws the vampire back away from the door. Theo leaps to the ground in the path of the vampire, who trips over him and falls on his back. Diego stakes him, then helps Theo up. They high-five.
"Yeah! I make a mean speed bump," Theo jokes. Forty feet further down the room, Debbie, lands left and right punches to the face and a right roundhouse kick to the chest that sends the vampire back and onto the couch. She takes out her stake and dusts him while he's still sitting. Deb immediately rushes to her friends, and is relieved to see that their job is already finished.
"Told you they didn't need help," Dev says, having chosen to abstain from most of the fighting. The friends by the door hear a vampire moaning, and see Gil, who's had his brains blown out. Danielle walks over and raises her stave.
"Mind if I get this one?," Harmony asks. Devlin looks at Danielle and nods. She pouts.
"There's one more over here," Devlin assures her. He tosses his stake across the room to Harmony, who catches it in midair, smiles and dusts the erstwhile bad boy whose thing for her ended up doing him in. Danielle rushes down and puts the vampire lying in the back doorway out of his misery.
"You can stake one tomorrow night," Cynthia says to her boyfriend Theo, the only human not to get a kill.
"I don't mind. I'm a team player. Plus, I don't like getting dust on my clothes," he quips. "By the way, Devlin, couldn't you have just shot all the vampires in the head and saved the rest of us a lot of danger?"
"Yes, but where's the fun? Plus, you guys need practice."
Luiz and Paul check out the hideout. "Look at all this stuff!," Paul enthuses.
"Man, I want this stereo," Luiz adds.
"It's yours," Dev responds. "If you can carry it all the way back to the car."
"Alright."
"It's a long walk."
"I'm strong enough."
"You already have a perfectly good sound system."
"In the living room. Not in my bedroom."
"Exactly. I let you have one, pretty soon Paul and Sid each want one for themselves. Take this tv for instance. Thirty five inches." He puts his right foot through the screen. "How could I fit three of these into your apartment?" He slams his left fist through the top of the set. "Mind you, the apartment is spacious, but then I'd have give each of you digital cable in your own room. I'd have to buy some sort of splitter. Pay a little bit more a month." He continues trashing the set as he talks. "And then you'd never spend any time together. You'd loose your tactical cohesiveness. Your fighting would suffer, and some of you could even die." He finishes turning the tv into a pile of strewn glass, plastic and electronics. "Avarice destroys armies. The only way out is to destroy the stuff before the stuff destroys you."
"Is that your long-winded way of saying we should trash the place?," Sidney asks.
"Why yes. Yes it is." They smile and get to work, tearing down shelving, hurling couches, smashing chairs and bashing holes in the walls. The humans watch, Diego is bemusement, the rest in confusion.
"It's a harmless way of releasing pent-up energy," Devlin explains.
"Aren't their equally harmless but much more fun ways to do that?," Diego asks with a smile. Ah yes, sex. Dev had almost forgotten about the joys of post-fight sex.
"It's a different kind of energy. I trust Sidney isn't in the habit of breaking you in half like she did that coffee table. Is that mahogany? Pity."
"Is this part of the whole vampires-act-like-rock-stars and rock-stars-act-like-vampires phenomena?," Theo inquires, since this bares a striking resemblance to a band trashing their hotel room or smashing their stage equipment.
"You want an example of that, you should meet Dev's sire," Debbie says with a smirk. Devlin groans.
"Spike had the look way before Billy Idol. And at least he doesn't look Nick Lachey."
"What? Oh. Oh! Angel does NOT look like Nick Lachey."
Harmony's also weirded out by this comparison. "I completely agree. And if a Slayer and me agree on something, it must be right."
"Don't look at me," Dev responds. "I'm not the one who said it."
"Then who did?," Harmony asks.
Three nights after leaving Laguna Hills, Elektra arrives at the Hellmouth in Cleveland. "Man, what a dump," she says, laughing because it actually is a garbage dump.
Just to the south of downtown, in the heart of metropolitan Cleveland, is a wasteland five-and-a-half miles long and one-and-a-half miles wide, bordered on the west by interstate 71, on the north and east by interstate 77, and on the south by interstate 480. Running through the center is the Cuyahoga River, famous for once catching fire. Less than ten percent of the 5000 acre expanse is inhabited. A tiny sliver is parkland. The rest is waste, unwanted and unused. And for a reason. It's an epicenter of evil paranormal energy. The wise people of Cleveland learned long ago to steer clear of the Hellmouth. And when they got the chance, they further isolated this district by surrounding it with highways, none of which has an exit leading into the wasteland. Because of this, Cleveland's had far less trouble with its Hellmouth than Sunnydale. Yes, factories were built along the river, and a railroad to serve them, but demons are not in the habit of attacking iron foundries. And neighborhoods to house the workers and schools to educate their children sprouted up a safe distance away from the Hellmouth.
After the destruction of Sunnydale, many demons flocked to what was the one remaining Hellmouth in the world. But they soon found themselves depressingly isolated, and took up residence in the abandoned, cavernous mills and factories. While the demons chose to stay close to the Hellmouth's reassuring energy, vampires made forays into the populated parts of town, drawing the attention of local demon fighters and of the Council. Robin Wood, recently unemployed, became the principal of an inner city school near the Hellmouth. No matter what problems he encountered – gang violence, low test scores, high dropout rates, students attacking teachers – he could always tell himself it wasn't as bad as Sunnydale, and soldier through crises that would drive normal men to premature retirement. In his spare time, Wood acted as liaison between the demon fighters and the Slayers, reporting to Giles on what the locals needed to keep the peace. The arrival of Rona and Vi with the Scythe allowed him to not just keep the demons in check, but put them on the defensive. The two Sunnydale veterans were more than eager to kick butt, rule the Hellmouth and become the scourge of the demons. In less than two weeks, they drove the demons from their spacious above-ground abodes and laid virtual siege to the Hellmouth. It helped that their enemies were pitifully unorganized, as demons tend to be, especially demons not used to dealing with super-powered enemies. The full-blooded demons stayed in the sewers, fearful of popping their heads up to the surface lest a Slayer cut it off. They patiently bided their time, confident the Slayers would one day get bored and leave.
The vampires, who had to regularly feed and therefore expose themselves to danger, weren't so fortunate. The girls were called Vampire Slayers, not Demon Slayers, for a reason. While Slayers could learn to live with demons, so long as they didn't cause trouble, vampires were given no quarter. Not burdened with attending school, Rona and Vi were free to attack vampires night and day, bursting into their hideouts while the vampires were sleeping, catching them unprepared and unable to flee because of the sunlight. Most of those who were not slain fled the city. The stubborn few who remained huddled near the Hellmouth in constant fear of an attack.
Elektra finds them cowering in a cave cut into a giant slag heap. She pushes a heavy rock to her right to reveal another heavy rock blocking an opening. Inside, the vampires hear the outer rock being moved. Two of them grab weapons and rush to the entrance. "Hey open up," Leks screams. "Yo, I'm a vampire! Like you." She looks around at the post-apocalyptic landscape. "Only better," she adds under her breath.
"It's a trick," one of the vamps on the inside says to the other. "She's just some kid they brought to fool us."
"What's your name?," the other one yells.
"Elektra!"
"Never heard of it." A furious Lex goes bumpy, takes a few steps back, leaps at the door and knocks the rock over with a flying right kick. She is greeted with a blast of fire from a homemade flame thrower fashioned out of a blow torch and four cans of 10/W40. She spins to her left to avoid being incinerated.
"What the fuck!" The vampires stick their heads out and don't see or hear anyone else. Leks grabs them by their ears. "I said, what the fuck."
"Ow, ow ow. Okay, stop. We can see you're one of us." She lets go.
"You've really never heard of Elektra?"
"Sorry."
"Yeah. You're gonna be sorry."
"Come on in," the other one says with a smile. It's hard not to welcome such a beautiful, and evidently powerful, vampire. She barges past them and makes her way towards the artificial cavern. A third stone has to be moved to allow her into the main chamber.
"And I thought the dump was outside," she quips as she looks around with contempt. There's candle light and some battery-powered lamps. Stringing power cables or running a generator would only attract attention and bring about their doom. There are eight men and six women. Their clothes, hands and faces are dirty. "Fucking refugees," she says with a chuckle.
"We didn't run, like the cowards. And we weren't killed, like the weaklings," a woman says to the incredibly rude visitor in their defense.
"I didn't say you were without your good qualities. They're just not readily apparent." Elektra follows in her father's footsteps when it comes to diplomacy.
"You want in, I'd stop mouthing off," a man says to her a he and three others surround her menacingly.
"In this crap hole? You gotta be kidding." She leaps up onto the ceiling and walks backwards towards the wall, which she climbs down, well out of danger. "But I will help you kill your Slayers." Several men sitting on stone benches carved into the wall laugh. "Fine. Don't take my help. And keep living like this forever. I don't have to be here. I can go anywhere I want. Do anything I want. Slayers or no Slayers. I've fought 'em in Chicago. I've fought 'em in Denver. I've fought 'em in Orange County. Then I made a detour to Los Angeles. You know, Angel's town. When I was done with him, the boy wasn't able to stand."
"Bullshit!," a vampire yells. "I got friends in L.A. Ain't no way your skinny ass took him down."
"You got friends at Wolfram & Hart? Go ask them if he was limping this week. I can take on two Slayers alone, and walk away. I can take on one, and kill her. But I can't kill two. That's what I need your help for."
"How many have you killed?"
"None." They nod, confident this proves she's all talk. "But I have a distinguished heritage. Both of my parents are Slayer killers."
"Parents?"
"You think someone this fabulous could be made with just one?"
"Who?," the leader asks, standing up at the far end of the room. Elektra strolls to the near end.
"Drusilla. And Spike." A couple men snicker.
"Are you a lesbian?," the leader asks.
"No," she replies. "Sorry laddies," Elektra whispers.
"Then at least you won't fall in love with a Slayer," he jokes. Everyone laughs, making Elektra very angry. Apparently her beloved father had become something of a laughingstock. She couldn't stand for such a show of disrespect. Elektra takes out her pocket knife and hurls it at the leader's throat thirty feet away. It goes in while he's still laughing, and the tip pierces his spine between two vertebra. As he turns to dust, she whooshes across the room and grabs her knife before it hits the ground. Everyone shuts up. Elektra sits down in a throne the deceased leader had carved for himself.
"Very well then," she says with a smile. "The Hellmouth has a new queen. Any objections?" There's a long spell of silence, as the ten remaining vampires take stock of this seeming force of nature and decide to give her a chance to help them. The women look nervous, since the new queen will surely vie for the men's affections. The lopsided gender ratio had given them a newfound power that helped overcome the terror and tedium of life on the lam. Now they feared they would be forgotten. But when it comes to the new girl, the men are torn between lust and fear. Three of them carefully approach Elektra and move the lamps to better illuminate her majesty. "Thank you. Your kindness will not go unrewarded," by which she means she won't kill them anytime soon.
"Elektra. We're glad you're here."
"Really glad."
"Really really glad."
"Really?," she replies with a giggle. "On your knees," she orders the last one who spoke. After initial hesitation, he obeys. She smiles. "Come closer." He crawls on his knees until they're at her outstretched feet. "Closer." He leans forward. "Closer," she seductively coos, spreading her knees out wide. He smiles and moves his head towards her groin. Suddenly, she brings her knees in, slamming them into his ears. He moans in pain, rolls on the ground and grabs his sore head. She stands up and walks by her other two stunned would-be suitors. "That's as close as you'll get to me," she vows as she strolls powerfully across the room. When near the front door, she stops on a dime and spins around. "Until you kill a Slayer. I've been known to commit unspeakable acts of delightful degradation with Slayer killers." Just what these men needed to motivate them to risk their lives, Elektra thought.
"But that's for later. Right now, I'm going to leave this stinkhole, check into a very expensive hotel, have a long bubble bath, meet a clean, handsome man, fuck his brains out, suck his blood out, drop him in the river, and return to my soft bed for a good day's sleep." The girls smile, imagining themselves having such a dream night once the hated Slayers are no more and the town is theirs again. "Then I'm going shopping. Them I'm going to find these Slayer beyotches and observe them, spotting their strengths, and discovering their weaknesses." Elektra mixes Spike's arrogant contempt for his peers and Devlin's obsessional preparation with her own bubbly adolescent joi-de-vivre. "And then I'll return to prepare you for the fight of your lives." She walks to the door, then turns round once more. "Oh, and one more thing. Before I leave this town, I will put the bodies of those two Slayers on the Hellmouth trash heap to be picked over by birds. "Bye-bye," she says with a girlish wave before disappearing. Maybe she was a fraud, nothing but big talk. But she gave them hope, which was something these vampires had given up on.