FYI: I don't write disclaimers for every chapter. I'm stingy. Refer to first two chapters, coz they apply to the whole thing. Oh, and this school is based on an actual school in Adelaide. See if you can pick it, hee hee. (It's not St Mary's)

Even after the brightness faded, the three men squinted, their hands before their eyes. It was daytime, and they were outside. Silently, they took a moment to comprehend this, breathing in the springtime air. One by one, they looked around. They were standing on a grassed area near some brick two-story buildings with blue-painted rooves. There were benches and trees on the grass, and a rose garden at the farthest corner. They were near a path leading from a green barred gate through between two of the buildings. The path also branched off to go down a wheelchair ramp, next to the two-story building on the left. The green fence went right around the school. Next door to the property was the car park of a centre-link building, and the school appeared to be located on a main road, evidenced by the constant rush of cars. On the concrete path was a sign.

"Welcome past, present and future students, to Saint Mary's College Open Day. Tours start in the office." Spike read out. "This isn't one of those Catholic all-girl schools is it?" he asked, grinning.

"Could be." Angel replied, giving him a disapproving glance before looking toward the doors of what he guessed was the main office.

"So what now, chief?" Lawson asked Angel. Angel gave him an unreadable expression before glancing back toward the other buildings. He was still reserving his judgement about this literally born-again vampire he barely knew.

"We find Erica." He said simply.

"How?" Spike asked, "She didn't give us a last name, or say what year she's supposed to be in. Just that she was here. She'd be younger too, so we might not even recognise her, and she's not gonna know who we are."

"We don't look very friendly, either," Lawson added. Their clothes were scruffy and bloody from the fight, and Angel and Spike were still carrying their weapons.

"There's gonna be trouble," Angel said, "that's how we'll find her. We'll split up. Look for Cordelia too, she'll probably know who Erica is."

"I've never met her," Lawson protested.

"Medium height, brunette, pretty." Angel explained. "I really doubt she'll be wearing a uniform, and she'd know us."

"Right." Spike said. "I think I'll go take a tour of the place." He threw his weapon onto the roof of the building, just as two uniformed girls walked around the side of it, followed by a man in a suit and a young plain-clothed girl who was likely his daughter. They looked up at the sound of the bang, but hadn't seen the weapon. They gave the trio an apprehensive look before continuing into the office. Angel had hidden his axe behind his back, and Lawson's had disappeared at the end of the fight, so luckily the humans hadn't seen anything more suspicious than scruffy-looking men.

The girls had worn blue blazers and socks, a blue, red and yellow plaid skirt, a white shirt, a red tie and black lace-up shoes. Spike looked cheered at the thought of a whole building full of 'innocent', Catholic school-girls. Angel gave him another disapproving look as Spike followed the humans into the office, using a handkerchief to clean up his face as he walked. At least Spike had a decent soul, so he wasn't going to act on his predatory impulses.

When the front garden was empty again, Angel had followed Spike's lead and thrown his axe up onto the roof, then walked down the path toward the other building, and Lawson followed him. As they passed the office, they saw another grassed area, and two more buildings. On the glass double-doors on the building ahead of them was a sign that said "Hall – Extra-curricular displays". To the left was a walkway into a courtyard, and to the right were some steps leading up toward a one-story building that said "Music Suite", which was to the right of the Hall. Ahead of that building was another car park, and the school boundary. This was on the other side of the office.

They could hear conversation within the hall and the music suite, and there were people in the building on the left too. Angel looked over at Lawson. "You go that way," he said, pointing through the walkway toward the courtyard. "I'll take these two." He pointed toward the hall and the music rooms.

"Right," Lawson replied, walking away.

Spike found himself at the front desk of the office, behind which one grey-haired woman sat at a computer, another was speaking on the phone. He'd first stood in the entrance room, looking up at the class formal photos. He saw Erica, but her last name wasn't listed, and neither was her class.

The woman on the phone gave him a confused look when he gave his best charming smile. Behind the desks he could see filing cabinets and a photocopier. Off to his left were the staff rooms and teacher offices. The woman on the computer turned around, looked at Spike through her wire-rimmed glasses and asked, "Yes?"

"Oh," Spike said, "the, uh, the sign said that there were tours in here."

"Yes, but at the moment all the girls are already out. Are you just looking, or do you have a family member who is interested in attending?"

"Well," Spike said, thinking quickly, "my niece is thinking of coming here, as it was recommended by my neighbour, a girl named Erica. I suppose you'd know her, she's about this tall," he held his hand up about shoulder-height, "she's got kinda dark reddish-brown hair, and blue eyes? She said she'd be here today, do you know where she is?"

"There are no Erica's going to school this year," the receptionist said. "But I think I know who you're talking about. She's one of the past students who volunteered to help out today. You'll either find her in the hall or the year nine corridors. It's an open day today, so if you'd like to go and find her, you don't need to have a guide; visitors are quite welcome to wander around."

"Thank you very much," Spike said politely, nodding his head to the woman and walking back the way he had come.

888

In one of the year nine classrooms sat a group of past-students with a favourite English teacher, who had left the school herself since their year, and returned for the open day. All the chairs were being used in the hall, so they were sitting on the carpet, talking about the time they'd spent at Saint Mary's. The topic had turned to weird things they'd experienced.

"I heard that the ghost of one of the nuns still hangs around the chapel." A blond girl with ringlets and a red sleeveless top said.

"Yeah?" a girl in jeans and a black tank top said. She wore a blue, unbuttoned half-sleeve shirt over the top of her tank top. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and, though looking younger and a little shorter, she was unmistakably Erica. "A friend of mine," she continued, "who's in year twelve now, she saw something at the end of this corridor that wasn't there when she looked again, and she felt all tired and weak, like she was stuck to the floor or something had grabbed her legs."

There were four other girls with them. One was a slightly chubby and energetic Lebanese girl, Lora, with long black hair that reached the floor when she sat down. There was a strawberry-blonde haired girl, Sara, sitting next to the other blonde, Rachel. There was a short Greek girl, Kara, with short mousy brown hair and a tall, thin Italian girl, Cassie, next to her with dark brown, almost black hair tied up in a ponytail. The teacher, Miss Ellen Pritchard, was short, had short dark hair and an infectious smile. "Didn't you say once that something pushed you off the stairs, too?" Kara asked Erica.

"Yeah," Erica replied, "that was in year nine. I was only a metre off the ground, and I was leaning against the railing. I could have sworn I felt something slowly but strongly push on my shoulders until I'd been tipped over onto the floor."

"Yeah," Sara said, "I remember that. I had to help you back to your feet while you were asking who pushed you. There wasn't anyone in front of or behind you, and you went white when I told you that."

"Well that's when I thought it was a ghost," Erica said with one eyebrow raised dismissively, "later I just figured that I'd been off balance without realising it or something stupid like that." She shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

Miss Pritchard stretched her arms and then looked at her watch. "Well, it's about time we got back to set up the drama stage."

The girls jokingly grumbled about it but got to their feet. Miss Pritchard led the way out while a couple of the girls stretched before moving. Kara turned to Erica and asked, "Whereabouts did you say you fell over?"

"Oh god," Erica joked, rolling her eyes, "My klutziness is gonna become a tourist attraction now, huh?"

"No," Kara said, "I just wondered, because when I came up those stairs just out there today, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck just stick up and I got a shiver right through me."

"Yeah it was those stairs." Erica said, "Come on, I'll show you exactly where it was."

"I'm coming too," Lora said. "I love that spooky crap."