Interlude
As Lorne read the words while standing in front of the pentagram, and Angel, Spike and Illyria prepared to jump into another dimension, DD stirred from his resting place on the grass by the convertible. He dumbly touched his brow, which was bleeding.
"Fuck," he muttered. "Where am I?"
"You're at the forest preserve," a chipper voice said.
He turned and saw the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She couldn't have been more than eighteen, and she was wearing a blue shirt over the tightest yoga pants ever. He locked his eyes on her camel toe, and he started panting.
"I'm DD. What's your name?"
"Desdemona," she said.
"That's a pretty name." He thought about standing up, but he liked the eye-level view of her camel toe too much. "Do you know where I parked?"
"Back at Tailgators," she said. "But the guy in the van sideswiped your ride. It looks like hell. Thousands of dollars of damage. I think his name is Brandon."
"Fuck," DD said. "I'll, like, kill him."
"Well, that would be a bonus. But your main target is the one known as Zim the Courageous. You need to kill him. Killing his friends is just for extra credit."
"Do you wanna get out of here?" DD asked. "I think Tailgators is still open, and I need to get my drink on. What do you say?"
"No, I think we need to get you on Zim's trail."
DD considered asking her for money since he didn't have any to buy her a drink with. Then he remembered that chicks tended to frown upon that. "Forget about that," he said. "Let's get wasted. You wanna come over and watch 300 with me? I just got it on DVD, and it's awesome."
Desdemona rolled her eyes, and her smile disappeared. "You just had to play hard to get, didn't you?"
DD laughed. "I'm pretty easy."
Desdemona's face shifted, and suddenly she was covered with boils and teeth. The latter of the two was not limited to just her mouth; teeth had sprouted all over her face.
"Whoa," DD said. He was unaware of his own Keanu Reeves reference.
She lurched forward in a ray of light, and tendrils of her found their way into his mouth and nostrils. Some of her even managed to get in his ears. He tried to scream, but he gagged on her essence.
And then the pressure was gone. DD stood, his eyes glowing slightly yellow, and he began walking toward the Shelpshov demon's tree.
