The lightning strikes. The rain pours. The clouds roll thick across the St. Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, the waves uncontrollable. The sun should be high in the sky and shining brightly, except it isn’t. It’s two in the afternoon and it’s pitch black.

A lunar eclipse has blocked out the sun.

It becomes an excuse. An invitation for the darkness to come out and play. And menace. And kill. One such creature has just propelled himself, tentacles first from the St. Thomas Bridge and is headed straight for the murky depths below.

A sixteen year old boy jumps after it, glowing lightly. He leaps, watching as the demon falls, wondering how he found himself here of all places.

I am that guy.

A death merchant. Dooming everything I touch. So, on this day without light, my sins laid bare, I condemn myself to death. Yet, through her bloody kiss I will be reborn. Immortal. Because living life in Heaven’s Hell and chasing demons is chasing one’s own tale. And all of this for… a girl. Well. Kinda.

“Love Sucks!” he yells jubilantly as he falls. He takes a deep breath and then hits the water. He looks around for what he needs.

Four weeks earlier, in the lower levels of the Living Legend Academy Charter School, two teenagers have come to the basement. One, a girl in a blue hoodie pulls her hoodie up as they descend metal stairs into the dark, dank and wet hole. Nobody seems to have been down here in years, she thinks.

I can’t breathe. It’s stinks down here. The dogs are barking. And I’m hungry. I’m always hungry. High school. Nothing ever changes. Just the wallpaper. But the body, the bones, stay intact.

Was there a flood? What’s that smell?

She turns to her companion. “Watch it! That’s not floor. That’s water. There’s been a flood.”

“Trippy. So? Our deal? You gonna do me or what?” This is Truman’s only response back to the girl. Typical teenage boy.

“I’ll do you, Truman, But first, look up.” A dog can continuously be heard, barking somewhere nearby.

No one ever looks up. Too bad. Miss half the world.

He looks up. Doesn’t see the tentacles coming from the water below. “This hurt’ll,” she tells him quietly. “Sorry.” She smells the air.

Barking. Lots of it. And peaches?

“And demons, oh my.”

More tentacles are around now. They’ve grabbed Truman and have started to haul him away and he cries for help in vain. His friend seems just as frightened as he does, but as pink energy seems to glow from the water around her, she runs. She doesn’t look back. But she isn’t able to slow her thoughts.

That purple thing killed him…

But Hell… We all die a little in high school.”*

In the shadow of the 710 Freeway and Artesia Blvd., near Compton but not part of it, stands an impressive school. One and a half weeks later, as he walks through the quad and takes in his surroundings, Rupert Giles thinks back to the words Willow Rosenberg told him only a week before:

“You going to Living Legend Academy and Charter High School, Giles. When rumours of vampire killings there reached the camp, we knew it would be perfect for you to enrol as a new transfer student and investigate!

“You might love it. This school has a strong rep of achievers, so you’ll fit right in – but don’t be too achieve-y… And don’t use any magic! You can’t be discovered and get carted off to the ‘Safe Zone’ with us.

“Buffy picked out ‘Ralph Columbo’ as your new alias. This really is a good set up. You can be undercover and investigate in plain sight.

I’m jealous, really. You get to leave the past behind, Ralph. Enjoy it. Be someone else. You’ll be okay. Right, Giles?

“Oh. And protect your neck.”

“Ralph Columbo,” he sighs. “God, I hate high school.” He begins his trek through the Quad, ignoring the stupid name clearly designed to annoy him. He decides to get to know his new surroundings, observing everything: students, subjects discussed in conversations, posters on walls, teachers and lecturers, trophies in the cases. He wants… no, needs… to get the measure of this place.

How many years has it been? Nothing’s changed. Not even the wallpaper. High school. A world without end. “Be someone else”? No thanks, Willow.

He takes in the non-conformists with their hoodies and thinks them ghastly. The hoodies, not the students. He sees the old trophies from decades ago, buried in dust, with no new ones to shine. He finds a sleeping teacher.

Appalling. A napping instructor. The commonness of this core is rotten, the stench familiar. But is it evil or merely neglect? Is there a difference?

He’s shaken out of his thoughts by someone yelling ‘Nerd face’. He sighs to himself. “Brilliant. I’ve been made.”

“Hey girl!”

Girl?

“Blue!”

He suddenly realises that he was wrong. He looks around and sees the gathering of teenagers, all different, all loud and all talking at the same time.

Hunter… meet the hunted. Surrounded.

He watches as the meathead who yelled gets in a girl’s face at her locker. He’s making enough noise to be noticed by his peers, probably his intention Giles thinks. He looks at the girl, Blue, nervous against her locker.

That used to be me.

Giles, this is 21 Vamp Street. You’re undercover. You’re here to hunt for vampires. Not to save girls from bullies.

“Be someone else”? Impossible. But how to do it, without magic? I’ll create a diversion. Just this once. Give new prey for the hunters.

He deliberately drops his book bag on the floor, causing a louder fuss than the jerkwad annoying the girl. He silently urges her to move while everyone’s eyes are on him.

It works. He’s slammed against the locker by the bully, who proceeds to impersonate and mock Giles’s accent. “Are you lost? One of those magical people? Or just stupid?”

Giles sputters back. “Not magical. Never plain. Just stupid.”

“Magically stupid.”

“It’s beats overcompensating for a small wil…”

Before Giles can complete his insult, a shout goes through the corridor. The principal is incoming, ordering the students to disperse.

The students rush away, the bully dropping him to the floor, his books scattered like trash around him. A girl in a blue hoodie comes from around a corner and whispers at him to run. He doesn’t have much of a choice.

The bully kicks Giles’s bag in his direction and it ends up sliding right in front of the principal, who is not amused. “Whose bag is this? Pick it up! This ain’t your house! And if you see something, say something!”

She carries on with her day, and Giles, in all the chaos, loses sight of his bag.*

He waits a while for the students to head to class. He looks around for his bag, but finds only some of his books lying in the corridor. The person who has his bag hasn’t secured it – its contents are falling out. As he wanders after the next book, like a child following bread crumbs, he hears an English accent, a familiar one, loud and slightly angry.

“Suck a lemon and dash it all!”

Giles is surprised. He knows that voice. There’s only one person he’s ever met that used that expression. He follows the voice to a classroom where a teacher is sitting under his desk, clearly upset and in discomfort.

Giles approaches the older man, calls out his name. “Lloyd? Lloyd Addison? It’s me, Giles? Can you stand?”

Addison doesn’t look up. He just stares down, his eyes closed. “Can I stand? No, mate. I don’t think I can. But what good are feet if mine brain won’t work. That was Shakespearean-esque. Arrrgh, this place has poisoned me!”

Giles helps the adult to his feet, noting that his old friend has put on weight. “Don’t hate,” the teacher says. “Tiny accomplishments poke holes in the universe.”

Giles is shocked by his friend’s distress. “What’s happened to you?” He looks around, realises which classroom he’s in. “You’re the math and science teacher here? Thirty years ago you were a spry fellow translating NASA’s torrid string theory into honeyed prose.”

“That was me,” Addison grumbles, his voice muffled from under the desk. “Hunting elegant solutions for a multiverse.” He giggles for a second. “Yes, well, I was delayed by a comet. Her name was Hazel.”

Giles recognises the name and grins. “You married Hazel? Lucky dog. She kissed us both. I guess I lost ten quid.”

“Ah, you were always so arrogant about your kissing skills… Hey, how did you know? No, it can’t be. He’d be an older bloke and you’re so young.” He looks at his young friend for a moment, squinting, trying to see what he remembers. “Rupert?”

Realising what exposure could mean, Giles makes his excuses and runs for the exit, late for homeroom. Addison tries to get up and follow, but bumps his head on the top of his desk.

“Rupert Giles? Ow!”

He slopes downwards to the floor, the blow knocking him unconscious. No one sees the tentacle come from under his desk. Nobody sees it pull Lloyd Addison, science and math teacher, under the desk and whisper in delight.

Rupert Giles? Wee! I found you… Mother…*

Not looking where he’s going as he tumbles back into the corridor, Giles collides with the blue hoodie-wearing girl who told him to run. They both go spiralling into a nearby locker and fall to the floor.

“Pardon me,” Giles exclaims, slightly out of breath.

“You’re clumsy dude,” the girl responds. “But okay. Ego te absolvo.“

Now, what else can make this day suck more?

A security guard named Sheffield rounds the corner and spies them. In a deep, monotone voice, he stares at the two. “Runners.”

That’s not a security guard. That’s a mountain.

Sheffield’s taking this gig way too seriously. Give a man a badge…

“Sheffield,” the girl grins. “You’re as blind as your brother? Dude ran into me.”

Giles stammers back. “Yes. And I apologised, ‘Dude’. So, Officer Sheffield, if you’ll excuse me…”

He yells as Sheffield silently grabs his hand and pulls it closer. He pulls the girl’s as well, tying them together with a cord, like make-shift handcuffs. “Principal Boake’ll settle it,” he says, that monotone sound again.

“Seriously?” the girl screams.

“You’re not serious?” Giles questions. The look they’re given back answers their questions.

“He’s serious,” the girl tells Giles.

“Yep,” he replies. “He’s serious. And quite bald.”

A few minutes later, they’re both sat in the main office, waiting to be seen, bored already of the hustle and bustle of the admin staff. It’s just gone two in the afternoon. The girl in the hoodie hasn’t even taken it down, let alone told him her name. But now, it seems, she wants to start a conversation with her co-conspirator.

“What are you running from?”

There’s shouting about someone named Wong in the Principal’s office.

Giles doesn’t hear the girl. He’s too busy listening in, much to her annoyance.

Inside her office, believing herself far quieter than she actually is, Principal Boake is talking to security guards. A witness saw a teacher named Crowe enter the basement, but it’s clear now and there’s no sign of him anywhere. Her secretary, the aforementioned Miss Wong also vanished and now another student, Truman, has gone missing!

“This will kill my accreditation,” she snarls.

Three?

“Missing or dead?” Giles whispers to himself, eavesdropping now even closer to the door.

Eventually, the girl, sitting in front of a poster of the missing Mr. Crowe, decides to join his conversation. “What’s the difference?” she asks.

“There are levels.”

She grumbles and Giles tuts slightly. “Why is everyone here so angry and lethargic? It’s like they’re all…”

“Walking dumb.” The girl’s statement sounds like a question, but she says it like its fact. She gets Giles’s full attention.*

“Bingo,” he says, his face lighting up. “What is this affliction? This force mysterieuse?”

She answers him back in French, surprising him slightly. “C’est un signe de l’epoque. This school ain’t unique. Everywhere everything’s vanishing. Teachers. Magic makers. Even the ground under your feet.”

“Vous parlias francais? Bonne. What’s with the hoodies?”

“And the peaches?”

Giles looks at her, uncertain what he should say. “The peaches…”

Then they both say it.

“You smell ’em too?”

My God, she’s hot.

She looks at him for a moment. “You’re small.”

“I’m big where it counts.” He closes his eyes in embarrassment. “I mean… Oh God…”

Did he just…?

“You’re strange…”

“…ger than fiction. I watch Blue Girl.”

“You’re a Watcher?”

Why did I tell him that?

She points out to the hallway where the bully from earlier is shouting at someone else in the corridor, no doubt up to no good. “I get in between Blue and that.”

“I see,” Giles says, following her gaze. “Well, I ‘watch’ too. Got any tips?”

“My tip? Get out. You look like you got options.”

“And it was just getting interesting.” She’s impressing him more every time she says something. Then she undoes the cord securing them effortlessly. “Well done. A Watcher and an escape artist,” he smiles. “What about Boake?”

“She’s mindless,” the girl replies. The school is all about the money. She excuses herself and, without looking back at him, walks away.

He calls after her. “Blue Watcher, what’s your name?”

She tells him to look up.

He looks around for a moment confused and then sees a name scrawled on one of the ceiling tiles. It spells R-O-U-X.

“Roux,” he repeats to himself in the now quieter office.*

The school basement, some time later. Giles is walking down the same spiral metal staircase that Truman vanished after descending. There’s a faint rumbling sound all around him.

Three missing or dead. Hmmm.

Nothing amiss here, but death always leaves its mark. A palimpsest. Proof of life.

“Crystal cinders… Hint there’s been a fire. But why no damage? Because one thing burns, earthly hot, yet remains heavenly cool.”

He casts a spell and smoke begins roaming around the room, coming from the floor. Giles also notices the radiation warning on a nearby wall panelling. He knows there’s something here. Or at least there was.

The smoke changes colour as it rides through the air. It’s soon a bright purple. Giles’s hands glow with magical energy, his hands gesturing with expertise.

“Hello demon! You may be gone, but your mischief left a trail. An oily residue, visible only with a magic spell.”

Looking into the smoke, Giles can see it tells a story, a faint blurry image, swirling in the air. He sees Truman and his companion, hears his final words. Giles talks through the smoke, commanding the demon within to show him it’s third victim.

He yells in pain as something solid comes through the smoke and grabs him by the wrist. It howls loudly as it secures it’s tentacle around Giles’s wrist.

“Let me see you,” he yells. He’s surprised when it speaks back.

Yes. Mo-Ther…

Giles shouts out to thin air. “Let me go!” His magical energy encompasses his entire body and it spreads out. Giles gets to his feet and runs out as far as his feet will carry him.*

Running outside, he realises that he can’t breathe.

Whatever was down there knew me.

And I knew it. It was… a part of me.

On the roof of the school building that Giles has just fled from, Roux watches him run. She kicks the book at her feet and bends down, rummaging through Giles’s book bag.

“High school for Dummies? Yeah, right, you’re no student. Who are you, Ralph Columbo?”

Down on the ground, Giles leans against a railing and breathes hard. “A panic attack. After all these decades?” he asks himself aloud.

I’m sixteen going on fifty-something. I’ve been to Hell and back. And I’m having a mid-life crisis in High School?

Run, Ralph Columbo. Run.

What do I do now? Where do I go?

The lunch bell answers his questions.

By the time Giles picks up his tray and walks into the cafeteria, he knows something else is wrong. Although he can walk freely across the room, the rest of the student body and the staff are all frozen in place. Frozen in time. Giles observes the room, stunned.

Now, this is stranger than fiction. A slow-motion palooza at warp-speed. The students, even the food. Yet, I’m still in real time. I guess beef’s not on the menu today.

Nope, the recipe for this stew? Access and time slowly scrambles the mind.

He reaches out to one student, curiously. “This is a demon’s spell. And somewhere around here, we are near to ground zero.”

A voice over the tannoy makes him jump.

“Don’t touch it, fool!”

He looks around and then races to the office where the tannoy system is coming from. As he approaches the door, he hears music. The voice orders him again.

“Come in, Boy. Hurry!”*

As Giles bounds through the door, he’s ordered to close it quickly. The room itself is filled with ancient artefacts and tribal masks. Totem poles, tribal images. It looks more like a museum than an office.

“Wow,” he says in awe, looking around. “This is frightening. Expecting armageddon?”

In front of him is a woman, wearing several Native American charms. “Child. It’s already here.”

She doesn’t extend her hand as she introduces herself. “I’m Mrs. Vega. Teacher’s aide. There were others. I’m all that’s left.”

“Where did the others go?”

“Home, fool. But they lost themselves along the way. I warned them. Repent. They didn’t. They were drained.”

“Drained,” he asks her.

“Open your eyes,” she tells him. “Look. See.”

“Aren’t you a student?”

“Was a student,” Ms. Vega answers. “I self-promoted.”

She tells him that this is purgatory to her. “I was spared because I am faithful. I believe.”

Giles smiles. “I, too, believe, in vampires and demons. There may be a few in the basement. Monsters among us.”

She shakes her head, standing on her chair. “Please. That’s TV garbage. Only bats and hounds live in the basement. Do you hear the barking? And all men are monsters. It’s just a matter of degrees.”

Giles looks around the room. Behind all the artefacts and decoration, he can see more radiation warnings. “Vega, this is a lead-lined foreman’s office.” He looks surprised and slightly perplexed.

“A vestige of an old bomb factory. It’s able to block radiation, gamma rays, x-rays and alpha particles. Perhaps that is what has protected you.”

Vega doesn’t agree. In fact, she seems quite disturbed to Giles.

“My belief has protected me! Fools like you will need other help.” She comes closes towards him and hands him a reflective talisman, one side like a mirror. It rests on a chain. She tells him to wear it.

Giles doesn’t think it suits him.

“Suit yourself, but you will be tested.”

Giles heeds her warning and takes the mirror from her. Then Vega speaks in riddles.

“When you can see yourself outside the mirror, you will solve the riddle within.”*

Leaving shortly afterwards, wearing the mirror, Giles leaves the building, his thoughts racing.

He doesn’t see the three bullies follow him from an alley way.

The same jerk from this morning stares at him. His friends throw Giles into the nearest wall.

They race after him as he tries to flee.

As soon as he’s out of their view, Giles conjures up a ball of smoke, filling the small space with it, cutting off the vision of the bullies. Unfortunately for Giles, the ringleader catches up to him in the haze – and pulls out a blade.

“Got you,” he smiles at Giles, who falls backwards, open to an attack.

And then a growl sounds from somewhere.

He sees a familiar blue hoodie coming through the smoke. He sees Roux’s face and then recoils.

Her face has fangs.

Roux? Oh no. Not that. Not her.

Using her vampire reflexes, Roux cuts through the students with ease. She reaches down, growling, at the leader’s throat, snarling.

Then Giles tells her to stop, calling out to her. He uses a telekinetic blast of energy and propels her away from the bully and into the nearest wall. He reforms his magical glow into restraints, keeping Roux pinned.

“You’re a vampire”

“I am,” she responds. “And you are not Ralph Columbo.”

“No. I am not.”

“Who the Hell are you?”

“I am Rupert Giles and I hunt and kill…”

“Vampires.” She finishes his sentence for him.

“Yes,” he says. “Hold on. This is so hot.”

She turns her face human. She smiles. “Got wood?”

“Umm…”

“Awkward.”

Giles grins, pushing his glasses back on his nose.

“Indeed. This is usually when I’d sneak out for popcorn, but I’m in this scene.”*

With the bullies unconscious at her feet, she turns to Giles. ” I thought you were the cavalry.”

Giles is surprised. “You’ve been expecting me?”

“I was expecting somebody taller, but not for me. To kill the demon.”

“The demon?”

“Duh.”

“So you’ve seen it?” Giles asks her.

“We almost kissed,” she tells him. “So, now what? I save you and you kill me?”

Giles doesn’t say anything.

“He who hesitates,” she sings at him.

“No. I think not. Not today.”

As Giles walks away, Roux zips up her hoodie and follows him. “So you want to work together? You’re a vampire killer looking for a demon.”

“And a cure for the brain drain.”

“You need me. And I got some skin in the game.”

“Skin?”

“Blue Girl. I look after her. She’s… It’s complicated.”

“Right. You’re a multi-hyphenate. A vampire and an activist.” His tone suggests he doesn’t quite believe a single word she says.

“Activist? I like that. So, how about it? We’re stronger together. My brains.” She looks him up and down. “Your wood?”

Giles blushes slightly.

Hooking up with a vampire? Intriguing. Suicidal.

“So?” Roux asks again.

Demons are hard to kill. I need her strength. And there was something else… in her eyes.

“Stronger together?” he repeats.

“You can kill me later?”

“Promise?”

She extends her hand. “Cross my heart.” Her wrist has AIX tattooed on it, in black, capital letters.

“Hope to die,” Giles says.

Then, before he lets go. he has one more question. “Roux. Have you seen my book bag?”*