On the private jet owned by Kennedy, Faith Lehane decides she’s had better moments.

Faith herself is bored as she sits on the first class chair. She’s never been a book person, and she doesn’t know how to work the in-flight entertainment system that the wordy assistant told her about. Kennedy comes up to her, more than once, talking away, but Faith doesn’t really hear anything. She’s too busy elsewhere in her mind.

When Kennedy approaches her for the fourth time, Faith doesn’t even hear her approach. “We’ve got full facilities on board – if you want a shower, or something?”

Faith doesn’t look at Kennedy when she answers. She’s not even sure she’s formed an actual sentence to reply with, but it comes out to her sounding like: “Cool. Maybe later. Right now, I’m just checking out the view.”

And that’s what she does: she simply stares out of the window, thinking about the recent goodbye she shared with her mentor.

Back to the moment she walked away from Giles.

“FAITH!”

Faith sighs slightly when she hears the younger Giles call after her, clearly not wanting what’s coming. At first, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but she decides that she’s better than that – and her mentor deserves her respect. She turns to face the young twelve-year-old slowly. “What’s wrong?”

Out of breath from running after the Slayer’s brisk exit, the boy puts his hands on his knees to steady his breathing. “Nothing. I mean, no emergency. It’s just that, well…”

Faith sees that he’s having a rough time for a moment, and instinctively crouches down to his level. “It’s cool, Little G. We made our goodbyes. Fork in the road time.”

Giles has a look of defiance in his eyes. He almost looks teary to the Slayer. “I daresay that particular goodbye wasn’t satisfactory for either of us.”

Faith waves her arms up in exasperation. “Hey, I don’t want to crowd you. You and Buffy are a duo again. I get it.”

Giles looks at her now, stern look on his face, but honest. “It’s true, I chose Buffy.” Faith’s face drops without meaning to. She doesn’t look at Giles, but she can feel his eyes staring into her soul.

“But the fact is you made that choice possible. I don’t mean the resurrection. That was a bit of a mess, actually. I mean, you know how to be alone. There is strength in you, something very basic at your core. Something Buffy, doesn’t have, not yet. I know you’ll be fine.”

Faith quietly smiles at that and is surprised when she hugs Giles first. The youngster returns the affection and also wraps his arms around her neck, as Faith thinks about their words.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much time. The tannoy system on board the jet shakes her from her reverie. Still, she still stares out the window.

The plane announcer tells the passengers to prepare for take off. They haven’t even left the ground yet.

In Magic Town, or rather in a refuge underneath it, Angel is stunned to find a familiar, but changed face in front of him. The last person he expected to find.

He chooses his words carefully. After all, the last time he saw this Slayer, she wasn’t exactly his number one fan. “Nadira… You were pretty banged up last time I saw you. You’re looking better. And glossier.”

To Angel’s surprise, there’s a calmness to the Slayer’s voice. It’s almost musical, the way it skips out of her mouth. Like a faint tune on the breeze.

“I’m so very glad to see you, Angel. Glad you’re here. Although I’d hoped you’d find your way to me sooner. I’d seen your approach, of course, like some hazy dream coming into focus so slowly.”

Now Angel looks at her with full scepticism. He’s unconvinced. “‘Glad to see you, Angel’ aren’t words I thought I’d ever hear come out of your mouth.”

Nadira spreads her arms, gesturing at the room. Angel notices now just how many candles are in the room. He counts them subconsciously, aware that the walls of the structure are made of wood. Candles and wood. Not a good combination. Nadira speaks in that lyrical tone. “Grudges are like stones in your pocket. That was literally a lifetime ago, because this is a new life for me.”

Angel looks at her, question straight to his lips. “So you’ve been what? Reborn?”

Nadira turns to him, and he can see the side of her face plainly now. Where the burns were, is just plain, black, skin, almost like the skin is living shadow. From her legs up to the top of her head, her left side is dark, with green tendrils stretching over the black, their emphasis in the light making Nadira glow in the near darkness of the room. “Let’s say evolved. I suppose I have you to… Thank?” She hesitates before saying the last word, unsure if it’s the correct one.

“Nadira, you have to know I never meant for…”

“Hush now. We’re all standing in a river everything flows on.” She takes him from her room and the candles, and Angel can’t help but be slightly less tense. She guides him back the way he came, back to the group of homeless that have come here for sanctuary. Angel notices Kent, the man who showed him in, and notices him with a stranger, a young man he’s never seen.

Nadira has also noticed the man. He’s in deep distress, which is evident from his face alone. As soon as he speaks, his voice quivers like jelly.

“Who’s this, Kent? Someone new?”

Kent looks at the young man, breathing calming down now. “Nadira, this is Parker. He’s had a rough time.”

Nadira looks at the young Parker. He must be 18, if that. She doesn’t introduce herself, there’s no need, Angel thinks. She already seems to know and her reputation has certainly grown.

“Tell me,” Nadira asks Parker, with a strong command rather than a question, but in the gentlest way a person can issue one.

Nervously, and with sweat dripping down his face and tears in his eyes, Parker begins to speak. “The blokes in the flats across the hall. I mean, I knew those fellows, right? And then… and then they were monsters and they ate Mrs. Miggins in 2B and hung her bones in the hallway. I barely got out of there. So much blood and the screams…”

He loses it, stops speaking and lowers his head into his hands. Nadira walks towards the sitting man and stands in front of him, his head at her waist. She places her right hand on his head, care and concern in her entire stance. “This is a safe place, Parker. And you can stay as long as you wish. Be at ease.”

She turns away from the boy as Kent helps him with some food. She looks at Angel and gestures around her. “You see how it is, Angel. Fear has Magic Town by the throat. It’s why I need your help.”

Angel is slightly taken aback by her request. “My help?”

Realising how quickly that came out of his mouth, he backtracks, coughing before continuing. “I mean, look, I’m happy to help if I can. But it’s not like I don’t have my hands full. There’s a gang of nasty little Pixies who left a dead body in my apartment.”

Nadira puts her hand to her forehead, as if she’s feeling something inside her head. “No. I mean, yes, of course. Corky and his Pixies have to be dealt with, but not like this. You’re so full of noisy music, Angel. This isn’t going to work if you don’t go about it the way I tell you.”

Angel doesn’t like that last sentence. “The way you tell?”

But he’s shushed by Nadira, raising her hand to stop his words. It appears to Angel that she’s whispering. No, not just whispering… she’s talking.

To herself?

“What? Oh. Yes. Okay.“

Angel walks closer, curious more than concerned. “Nadira?”

She shushes him away and then resumes her whispering. “Angel, please, I’m trying to… Yes I see.“

Then, just as quick as she started speaking in that ethereal low whisper, she stops as if she never said anything. “The key is the Glass Blower. Find him and it all falls into place. Can you do that for me, Angel?”

The confusion on his face must show. “Maybe if I had any idea what you were talking about.”

She looks at him now, straight into the eyes. “I don’t need you to understand. I need you to do it.”

High above the ground, on the top floor of DeepScan Inc.’s headquarters, Faith Lehane finds herself, once again, bored.

She’s standing in front of a desk. Behind it is an older lady, grey hair tightly-pulled back into an efficient bun. She’s clearly the head of Human Resources, and she’s going through a list of things Faith needs to know for her employment package. Even the woman looks bored, talking monotonously like a robot. She’s clearly done this before. Many times.

“And please do not park in the DeepScan parking lot unless you display your parking decal. You will be towed. And these are the health insurance forms. You have five plans to choose from, and they all include birth control now.”

Faith has stopped listening, pretty much from the moment the woman started speaking, but she’s stopped to look at the Slayer now, feeling that last particularly job perk needed stressing. “Um… Good?” Faith smells a lawsuit somewhere.

“And here is your employee handbook, safety release waivers, risk management guide – there’s a seminar after lunch, by the way – blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!”

The woman drones on for another twenty minutes, and Faith switches off. She doesn’t care about the red tape, and ends up sighing and staring her way through the woman’s list. As the woman continues on about a seemingly endless amount of forms she needs to fill out, Faith eventually snaps and interrupts the woman, who is clearly (a) not amused and (b) not accustomed to being spoken to in this manner.

“Look it’s cool. I get you’ve got a whole corporate red-tape thing going here. But I’m not one of the cubicle jockeys. No offense. I’m the new Slayer. Don’t you have an express lane or something?”

The woman looks at Faith as if she’s floating above the clouds somewhere. She coughs and stares straight at Faith, pushing a mountain of paperwork at her. She tells her that all employees at DeepScan are required to go through this process, and each and every employee is treated exactly the same, with no exceptions, she points out, even with years of experience and a humongous attitude.

She shifts back in her chair, handing Faith an ID card. “I believe that should be the final word on the matter, unless of course, it’s to say ‘Welcome to DeepScan.’”

Faith looks blankly back at the woman. Not for the first time since leaving her mentor, she feels she may have made a mistake.

In London, Angel is still searching for Corky, passing deals made in alley ways, fighting his way through message boys and demon runners. Nobody so far has been willing to give the Pixie’s location away. So, Angel goes through everything in his head, his detective brain forming a coherent theory as he goes.

I hadn’t expected to find Nadira. And I certainly hadn’t figured to find her like that. Trauma can send a person over the edge. It happened to Dru. I’d know. Knowing that and knowing what to do about it aren’t exactly the same thing.

When Dru was briefly ‘okay’ she’d collected followers. They needed her. Lost souls looking for answers. Nadira’s like some twisted turnaround of that situation, attracting disciples to her cult of crazy.

Maybe in a mad world, people need a mad saviour.

In a sewer tunnel, he turns the opposite way from his last visit, away from the direction of Nadira’s Sanctuary. He turns and opens doors that look like they belong in an old Wild West Saloon rather than a sewer chamber.

Last time I was here, I took a wrong turn. I need to try something different.

“Hey. Remember me?”

Everyone in the chamber turns to look at him. It’s an underground demon bar, a refuge for all who have been transformed or changed. Angel sees several customers look at him, put their drinks down and head for the exit.

His previous fight the night before had been noticed, clearly.

The barman and owner, a werewolf hybrid named Rory, takes one look at the vampire and proclaims “Oh, bloody Hell!” a lot louder that he thought he sounded.

As Angel approaches the bar, a green-skinned demon on the other end of it watches Angel’s exchange closely. He has a red cloak with a hood that disguises most of his features, and, when he notices Angel looking at him, he seems kind of nervous.

Not wanting to give anything away, Angel turns to Rory, offering an explanation. “I think we got off on the wrong foot last time. How about a pint of whatever?”

The barman smiles and then shrugs. “First one’s free if you can lay off knocking seven bells out of the place.”

Angel nods and takes the pint put in front of him. “I’m looking for the Pixie. Last time I was in here, I got pointed in the wrong direction.”

Rory just carries on serving as he speaks to Angel. “There’s no percentage in crossing Corky Smallwood, mate.”

Angel shakes his head. “And there’s no percentage in being on the wrong side of this when I do find him.”

Rory, slightly nervous at that, hesitates for a moment. “Well… I dunno… Might be a bit tricky. It’s not that I don’t want to help a fellow out. You understand. I’m trying to run a pub here and that usually means keeping my snout out of other people’s business.”

As he speaks, if anyone notices the green-skinned demon get up, reach for his coat and leave, it’s not acknowledged. But the demon shares a lingering look at the bar as he leaves.

Angel is too busy listening to Rory to notice, his mind overly focussed on the task at hand. He can still smell Andy’s blood around him.

“On the other hand, you’re bound to stumble on it sooner or later, so I might as well score a few points helping you out, eh? Just one condition.”

Angel looks up, small smile on his lips. He expected this. “And what would that be?”

Rory stutters for a moment, but then grins broadly with a look of pleading in his eyes. “Just don’t tell those bloody Pixies it was old Rory what put you onto them.”

With the info he needs, Angel leaves the bar, and is soon walking the streets again.

I thought about mentioning the Glass Blower to Rory, but I didn’t want to get sidetracked. Am I curious what Nadira was babbling about? Sure. But none of that gets me Corky.

And right now, everything else can wait. I don’t trust Rory, but I still think he could be useful. Back in the pub, he was setting me up. But this dank tunnel seems deserted.

Suddenly, a massive fist collides with Angel’s face, throwing the vampire back against the nearest wall with a thud.

I stand corrected.

In front of him is Corky, floating above a Minotaur-like creature. Corky’s Irish brogue is starting to grate on Angel’s nerves.

“You’ve got loud footsteps, Angel. Heard you coming a mile away, didn’t we, Tommy?”

He chuckles at the bull-demon, clearly Tommy. “Since you don’t take hints, my muscle here’s going to make the case more directly. And he has instruction to leave whatever pieces are left of you out for sunrise.”

Angel isn’t impressed and picks himself up at a speed that surprises his opponents. “Corky and Porky. Quite a team. If you think I’m going to roll over for a couple of jokers like you…”

He doesn’t have time to finish his sentence this time, as Tommy’s next shattering blow hits his jaw and renders the vampire unconscious.

At DeepScan, Kennedy comes down into the bowels of the building. Before she even enters the shooting range she knows what she’ll find. “I should have guessed I’d find you here.”

Faith is firing repeatedly, shooting at a target with various automatic weapons. Training with guns.

“Tasers and Glocks are the new stakes and swords. Just getting the feel.”

Kennedy doesn’t seem impressed at her progress. “Keep at it. You’ll get better.”

Faith shakes her head. “Not quite as satisfying as the feel of a sharp blade hacking into a demon’s neck meat, but it’s fun I guess.”

Faith finishes her clip and brings the target up. She pulls the noise reducing head phones from her head and looks at Kennedy. She’s holding a file in her hands that fills Faith with dread. “You’d be surprised how few beheadings you’ll be asked to perform in the line of duty.”

“Please tell me that’s not more paperwork. I’ve already been to clerical Hell and back.”

Kennedy smiles, knowing who and what she’s referring to. “This is your packet for your first gig.

Faith ruffles her hair and pulls the lever for the target. Kennedy places the file down on a bench. “What’s the mission? Stop Cthulhu and his coffee klatch from conquering California?”

“Nothing so glamourous.” Looking at Faith’s target, she notices that Faith has drawn a drawing on it. A familiar head of HR. “Wait, is that Mrs..?”

“Nope.” Faith denies it then moves the target from it’s hook. Replaces it with a new one.

She glosses over Kennedy’s question. “So what’s the job? You say the word and I’m all over it, GI Jane style.”

Kennedy looks at her. “I know you can handle yourself, Faith. Still, for your first time I’ve got something simple. Get your feet wet. You’ve heard of Billy Rage?”

Faith shakes her head. She’s not a people person. “Nope.”

“Rock star. Pretends to be a little bigger than he is. Filling midsized halls up and down the coast. Thinks it’s good for his image if his bodyguards are pretty girls with guns. Your job is to shoo the flies away and make sure he gets to the limo after the show without vomiting on himself. Here’s your homework.”

Faith barely listens, still fiddling with her target. “Shoo the flies and no puke. I don’t think I need a Ph.D.”

As Faith continues to fuss, Kennedy looks at her, says her name sternly, a warning in her tone somewhere.

“I hear you, boss. It’s five by five.” Faith doesn’t say anything more as Kennedy leaves the room. She replaces the headphones, grabs a gun and starts a new shooting session, not even looking at the file. Kennedy clocks this as she leaves.

Back in the tunnels beneath London, Tommy grabs Angel and picks him up. He smashes him against the wall, patiently awaiting Corky’s next order.

“Help a bloke up, Tommy. There’s a good fellow. Now show our Angel here the meaning of pain.”

Tommy brings Angel forward and slams him into the wall again, the metal pipe behind him hitting Angel’s spine like an anvil.

The blow to his face doesn’t help either. The bull-man must get bored easily, because the next thing Angel knows, he’s in the air, flying as the bull tosses him like a baseball.

Angel lands head down in the filthy sewage water below. Corky is delighted, telling Tommy to give Angel a ‘snootful.’ As Tommy holds Angel’s head underwater, it takes a minute or two, but he soon stops squirming beneath Tommy’s hulking size.

Corky looks confused and a little surprised, turning questioningly to the bull-man.

“Crikey, Tommy. Can vampires drown? I mean, do they even breathe or…”

His words are interrupted as, suddenly, Angel’s hands come up behind his head and grabs Tommy by his fingers. Without getting up, Angel snaps the fingers, causing Tommy to roar in agony and let his grip on the vampire go.

Angel gets up and, in one fluid motion, pushes the beast away from him, his fangs exposed and a growl emanating from the back of his throat.

The bull comes towards him, but Angel is thoroughly annoyed now, moving on adrenaline, and one blow is all it takes to smash the creature out for the count. He looks up and snarls loudly at the Pixie.

“CORKY!”

But by the time Angel turns from the beast, now lying unconscious or dead at his feet, submerged in the fetid water, the Pixie seems to have vanished. A voice, an unfamiliar one, startles the vampire more than he would like.

“He’s gone, Angel.” Angel turns and spies a young man, dressed in black. “Smallwood always did know when to hoof it.”

“Who are you?”

The man identifies himself with his face unreadable. “Brandt. Inspector Brandt. And if it’s the same, how about we continue this conversation topside? It’s God awful down here.”

Now Angel can see the grin on the police officer’s face.

Halfway across the world, in a dirty and crowded nightclub called Seaside Hall, Billy Rage ‘sings’ onstage. Faith doesn’t consider it music, but that may be because she doesn’t understand much of the slang being used. As soon as the performance is over, she moves to escort her client from the stage and back into the VIP lounge. She keeps her partner in this venture, a fellow Slayer named Mai, informed that she’s moving the group back now, including a girl who’s being pawed by the rock star.

“Coming through now, team. We’ll be backstage for the V.I.P. Contest winners meet and greet.”

Back stage, the band start celebrating their show, Billy being the most vocal. He’s drunk and possibly high, Faith isn’t sure, but she wouldn’t be surprised. Her skin bristles as she listens to the young man’s words.

“We rocked their asses off, baby. Billy Rage does it again! Oh, and news flash: this just in – My. Life. Is. AWESOME!”

The girl, wrapped around Billy Rage, clearly a groupie, thinks Faith, is hesitant to speak, unable to believe her surroundings. “You’re not going to forget your little Peggy, are you, Billy? Do I get to leave in the limo this time? I’m sure I earned it. If you know what I mean…”

The rock star looks at her, regards her with lust in his eyes and a grin on his face. “Hot damn. You got that right. You’re coming back to the hotel with the band, baby!”

Faith turns away from the boy, disgusted, and turns to Mai. “Is this job always so gross?”

“I know, right?” her fellow Slayer replies. “But, hey, it just figures. You read the file.”

Faith gulps and doesn’t look at Mai. “Yup.”

A noise from just outside gets Faith and Mai’s attention. There’s a rumble heard, of people shouting and scuffling. Faith hears security hit the floor before she sees anything, but is stunned when an older man comes storming into the room, knocking the male guards to the other side of the door. “Out of my way! My daughter’s in there!”

Peggy looks up in shock at the sound of her father’s voice. Billy swears under his breath.

Then Peggy’s father is in the room, and, one way or another, has a gun in his hand, now pointed at the rock star. “Get your greasy paws off my little girl. You psychobilly son of a…”

Faith is quick with her warning, on her feet and already running. “Gun! Gun!”

Peggy yells after Faith as she heads for the intruder. “Daddy! Don’t hurt him!”

As Faith wrestles the gun from the father’s grasp, she turns him around, twists his fingers around his back and lowers him to the ground. She’s startled when he speaks directly to her. “Please! She’s only seventeen.”

Faith stops. Looks at the father and then Peggy behind her. Then she looks at Billy Rage. Then she gets angry. “Oh?”

In London, Angel and Brandt are sitting opposite each other at a bar, Angel nestling a bourbon glass as Brandt explains who he is and what he does. “Sometimes you’ve just got to let go. That’s what they say anyway. I don’t suppose I’d be much of a copper if I let things go.”

Angel listens, but starts to get impatient with the human. “It’s been a long night. How about cutting to the chase?”

Brandt smiles and tells Angel about the past in Hackney. “Before Corky Smallwood was a Pixie, he was about the saddest, most petty criminal in this neighbourhood. Funny thing really. Now he’s so small, he’s the biggest he’s ever been.”

Angel smiles at the words. “Whatever he was, he’s our problem now.”

Brandt isn’t arguing. “Oh, I quite agree. Thing is, I used to walk a beat around here, didn’t I? Now, I can’t. The higher-ups say pull out of Magic Town. Let it police itself. That’s what I mean about not letting go, I guess. These are my streets, and I don’t like being told otherwise.”

Putting his glass down, he finishes his drink and looks at Angel from across the table. “I’ve looked into you, Angel.”

“I’m flattered.”

“And I know you’ve got nobody watching your back. Not anymore. I know the people around here, even if some have an extra head or two now. You and I together can sort this place out. And can start with Corky.”

Angel doesn’t move, his face remaining passive. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

Then he stops, thinking about something and looks up at the Inspector. “Don’t suppose you know anything about a Glass Blower?”

At almost the exact same time, backstage at Seaside Hall, Billy Rage is shouting now, infuriated that his fun and games have been interrupted. “This jackass is spoiling the party and I want him out, now. Start earning your bread, honey!”

Faith gets between the star and the angry father, inclined to go with the furious parent than the spoiled brat. “DeepScan’s job is to protect you, not help you procure jailbait.”

“You belong in jail!” The father yells, as Peggy declares her love for the musician.

It’s enough to topple the guy over the edge and he lunges for Billy. “I’ll kill you!” he yells.

Faith moves to get between them, but a thump on her back from Peggy startles her. “You leave my Daddy alone!”

Faith is not amused now, pushing the girl away from her, hard. “This. Is. Not. Happening.”

By now the dad has Billy by the throat, and the boy panics in his grasp. However, as the boy struggles, his muscles grow, literally shedding his shirt and his skin has gone a darker shade of purple.

Faith doesn’t notice as she pulls the father free and practically throws him to his daughter’s side, punching Peggy for good measure. “Hands off the rock star!”

A roaring noise from around her finally gets her attention. Shred clothing, hulking footsteps. She smiles before she turns, knowing what’s coming.

She turns and sees Rage now, living up to his name, morphed into a large chicken-like creature, except this one looks like one from a horror movie. His beak is sharp and wide and he stands on two legs. He has feathers on the back of his head, but no wings that Faith can see. He does however, have razor sharp claws, she notices.

“Okay…” she says, positively smiling now. “Now it’s Slayer time.”