Five

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP

Use your enemy’s size and strength against him. Unify with his rhythm and intent, find the right position, find the right timing. Redirect his energy. Make it work for you.

Keep your guard up, watch his feet, stick and move. Always on the balls of your feet, always shuffling, always moving.

Fight dirty. Get inside his guard and hit the weak spots. A finger to the eye, an elbow to the neck, a kick in the balls. Quick, efficient, brutal.

Hour after hour, day after day, drill after drill until Faith got it right...

Three months passed. Faith became a terror.

With Rebecca’s guidance, Faith swept through Boston like a hurricane, stalking and destroying vampires with ruthless, brutal tactics. Every day she grew a little more skilled, a little more confident, until finally her name was whispered in fear in old crypts and boarded-up tenements, in crack houses and sewers, anywhere vampires hid from the light. Word spread quickly that a strong new Slayer was marking her territory in Boston, that it was no longer a place where the vampires could hunt as they pleased. Faith’s name spread throughout the city...

And far beyond...

The three vampires had Faith surrounded.

It was August, and scorching hot in Boston. But Faith liked the heat; it loosened her up. She was in her work clothes: broken-in jeans, a tee-shirt and steel-toed Doc Marten boots, excellent for kicking vampires across cemeteries. The vampires were nowhere near as fab: like most vampires Faith had fought, they looked like eighties rejects. One of these nights Faith just knew she’d be taking on REO Speedwagon in some cemetery somewhere. She wondered if vampires were different on the West Coast...she wondered about Buffy, and how things were for her. She wanted to see her. She knew they could be friends.

What the vampires lacked in style they made up for with lots and lots of muscle. They were big and mean and by the way they moved, Faith could tell they knew how to fight. She smiled.

Faith reached out with all her senses: the old cemetery in the rich part of West Roxbury with its beautifully preserved statues and ivy-grown mausoleums was quiet; the only sound was the chirping of crickets. It was late, and there was no moon to see by; the elm trees cast long shadows in the glow of the streetlights outside. The night was humid and the vampires’ scents were strong. Rebecca was twenty yards behind her. One of the vampires wore a gold chain with an Italian horn on it. Faith’s stake felt smooth in her hand. A cat hid in the bushes to her right; she was a yellow tabby with black stripes and white paws and green, staring eyes. Rebecca’s perfume smelled nice, kind of flowery. The vampires ran at Faith, their boots pounding the soft earth like drums.

“Go ahead,” Faith said. “Make my day.”

They were big but they were slow and Faith ran rings around them. The one with the long ratty gray hair and the droopy moustache tried to grab her. She ducked under him, spun around, and staked him through the back. The other two leaped at her from her left, but she wasn’t there anymore. She somersaulted away and came up facing them as the vampires hit the dirt. They got up, growling.

The cat growled back at them. So did Faith.

“So what’s up? You guys talked real big before. Gonna show me something before I dust you?” Faith said.

“Got a fuckin’ mouth on you girl, I’ll give you that,” the bald one with the beard and the earring said. “I’ll shut you the fuck up though. You come into my house? Gonna get smacked down.”

“Wow, baldy,” Faith said. “Gotta tell ya, I’m positively shaking in my fabulous boots after that speech. Damn, guess I should probably just run, huh?”

The bald vampire pulled out a switchblade. The other one, a guy with a moustache and a crew cut who looked like he used to be a motorcycle cop, had a big, shit-eating grin on his face. But not for much longer.

“Aw, you brought me a present,” Faith said, as they both came at her. “That was really thoughtful.”

Baldy came first, with Motorcycle Cop behind him. To Faith they were moving in slow motion. She stepped to her right, grabbed Baldy’s arm, took his knife away and flipped him over her shoulder. She stuck the knife in Motorcycle Cop’s eye, spun and kicked Baldy in the face. He slammed into a tree and went down. She staked Motorcycle Cop as he screamed and tried to pull the knife from his eye, then she spun and faced Baldy as he got up. He threw a big roundhouse punch; Faith blocked it. It sent her flying, but she rolled right back up to her feet.

Baldy ran at her, throwing wild punches which Faith dodged easily. Then he leaned in too close with another roundhouse punch and Faith ducked it, got under his guard and hit him with a right uppercut and a beauty of a left hook. He wasn’t ready and he went down. He got back up, a little wobbly now. Faith planted her left leg, whipped around, and kicked him with her right. It sent him flying and he landed hard on the ground. He managed to get himself up again, but Faith could see he was almost done. She walked toward him, anticipating the kill.

“It’s my house,” Faith said. “This whole city’s my house.”

He took one last run at her and threw another big punch, but it was slow and Faith slipped it with ease, kneeing him in the balls for good measure. He lowered his hands to protect the area, and Faith hit him with two quick jabs and the sledgehammer of a right cross she had and he was out cold on the ground.

Faith stood over the unconscious vampire, and looked down at him, predator to prey.

Boston was hers.

“Hasta la vista, baby,” she said.

She staked the vampire, and walked back to Rebecca.

“Wonderful, Faith!” Rebecca said with a big smile. “You’re getting better every day.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Becca,” Faith said, and hugged her. She liked hugging Rebecca. She liked leaning in against Rebecca, and she liked how warm Rebecca always felt, and the way she smelled. Faith had trouble letting go of her sometimes.

“And I see you managed to work your catchphrases in again,” Rebecca said, with a raised eyebrow.

“Come on Becca, don’t tell me you don’t think they’re just a little bit cool,” Faith said, and grinned.

“Yes, they’re very clever, darling.”

“Got another one I’m getting ready to try out. How about, whenever I pull out my stake from now on? I say, ‘Say hello to my little friend!’ Al Pacino said it in Scarface when he was all like, playing this psycho drug kingpin guy.”

“Who’s his little friend?”

“A gun with a grenade launcher. He has it in the house along with like, eighty-two pounds of cocaine.”

“I see. I suppose you couldn’t just say ‘God save the Queen’ instead?”

“I’ll try to work it in,” Faith said, and laughed.

Faith was a jeans and leather kind of girl; she owned dresses and skirts because Rebecca insisted on it, but she rarely wore them. Faith dressed up when they ate at a restaurant with a dress code, or when they went to a museum, but that was about it. So when Rebecca walked by Faith’s room and saw her wearing high heeled shoes and a black dress and checking herself out in the mirror a few nights later, she raised her eyebrow and said, “Well. This is a change.”

“What do you think?” Faith said. Rebecca walked in and looked in the mirror with her.

“I think you look beautiful,” Rebecca said. “I’ve always said you should dress up more often. Aren’t you glad we bought you the dresses now?”

Rebecca’s birthday had just passed, and Faith’s present to her was two tickets to Les Misérables, a musical which Rebecca had mentioned was a particular favorite of hers and which Faith found out was just starting an engagement in Boston. They had gone to the show together, and Faith was surprised to find herself liking it. She hadn’t understood what a musical was, and she’d been prepared for a long, boring night, but once she acclimated herself to the fact that people would just start singing in the middle of the story, she had a great time. And she liked the singing too.

And she’d had to wear a dress, and that hadn’t been so bad either. She had decided she’d try wearing dresses and skirts more often. She knew she had the legs for it...why not show them off? Tonight would be the perfect opportunity.

“Still feels a little weird,” Faith said. “Kinda like...exposed a little. You sure I look okay?”

Rebecca smiled. “Ask Evan,” she said. “You’re seeing him tonight.”

Somehow, Rebecca always knew everything.

“We’re going to the Feast in the North End,” Faith said. “Evan says the food’s great and it’s like a big party in the street.”

“If you see those nice Italian gentlemen, tell them I said hi,” Rebecca said.

“Hello, Evan,” Rebecca said, fifteen minutes later, answering the door with a big smile when Evan arrived to pick Faith up. “Don’t you look handsome.”

And he did. But he didn’t look as good as Faith. She stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at him. Evan looked up at her, and said, “Oh my God.”

“Hey, Ev,” Faith said, fussing with her hair.

“That’s...wow,” Evan said, his eyes glued to her.

“Yes, I’m sure, but why don’t you come in?” Rebecca said, as Evan was still standing on the step.

“Yeah...thanks...” Evan said, and came in.

“Uh...you like my outfit?” Faith said, and walked down the stairs to him. She moved her arms around in front of her, as if she wanted to hide herself.

Rebecca gently lowered Faith’s arms to her side.

“Can you wear that dress every day forever?” Evan said, finally recovering his wits, and smiling his wolfish smile.

Faith laughed, and started to relax a little. “Okay, gonna call that a yes on the outfit,” she said.

“I think I’m gonna need a baseball bat to keep the guys away from her, Rebecca,” Evan said.

“Oh, I’m sure Faith can take care of herself,” Rebecca said.

“Besides, maybe I don’t want you to keep the guys away,” Faith said, with a sexy smile of her own that went up against Evan’s and gave as good as it got.

Rebecca watched their banter, watched the way Faith looked at Evan. Evan would have to be a complete idiot not to know how Faith felt about him. And though Rebecca didn’t know Evan very well--she had only met him a few times--she knew he wasn’t an idiot. Evan could hurt Faith, very badly. It was the one thing Rebecca couldn’t protect her from.

“Have fun tonight,” Rebecca said, and kissed Faith’s cheek.

After a week of deceptively cool weather August returned to form and Boston got sucker-punched with another heat wave that held the city in its grip like a dog gnawing a bone. It was after sunset and it was ninety-two degrees. Even the vampires had been laying low, trying to stay cool. Perversely, Rebecca and Trevor had decided to go dancing. Faith had much more sensibly decided to stay inside curled up in front of the VCR, which was strategically located next to the air conditioner. Evan would be coming over with rented movies and they were going to pop popcorn and order pizza and have a cool, relaxing night.

Faith had staked a couple of vampires the night before, so she wasn’t feeling restless. She lay stretched out on the couch in front of the television like a cat: indolent, satisfied, comfortable...but always ready to pounce.

Rebecca watched her from the dining room, while she waited for Trevor to arrive. Faith was relaxed, her whole body slack. Rebecca knew that was an illusion. Faith could spring into action, fully alert and ready to fight, in a split-second; Rebecca had seen her do it before. Faith seemed to be concentrating on the television. But Rebecca knew Faith’s senses were aware of everything around her. If a single sight, sound or smell was out of place Faith would instantly be ready to fight. And she knew that Faith knew she was watching.

Rebecca came into the living room and sat next to her on the couch.

“Hey, Becca,” Faith said, and stretched, and yawned, and smiled.

“Any good movies lined up?” Rebecca said.

“Pulp Fiction, and a Clint Eastwood western. Plus Evan got some Burt Reynolds movie where they all like, race cars and chew bubble gum and laugh over the credits at the end. Evan’s a guy so of course he thinks that’s hilarious.”

“So how are you and Evan? You’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately.”

“You know. We’re five by five.”

“Faith...will you promise me that you’ll...be careful with him?”

“What do you mean? Becca...Ev and I are just friends. We’re not... y’know...like that.”

Rebecca was torn. Faith had a right to her privacy. Rebecca had very quickly taken over nearly every part of Faith’s life since that November night when they first met; she understood what that meant, and the responsibility she had to Faith. But that made it even more important that Faith have something--anything--that was hers, and hers alone. Evan was hers.

“Okay,” Rebecca said, and smiled. “Have a good time.”

She hugged Faith, and walked away.

When Rebecca got home a little after two, she went to check on Faith on her way up to bed.

Faith’s bedroom door was open. When Rebecca peeked her head inside, she saw Faith and Evan in bed together.

They were asleep. Faith was wearing her nightgown, and Evan was still fully dressed. Faith was curled up against him with her head on his chest. Evan had his arms around her.

Faith woke up, and opened her eyes. The little clock said 2:16 a.m. She was confused. Someone was in bed with her...Evan. She recognized his scent.

She remembered. They had come back to her room to listen to music...

There was another scent. Rebecca’s. Faith turned over, and looked up.

Rebecca was standing beside the bed.

“Let’s talk,” Rebecca said.

Faith sat at the kitchen table, and Rebecca made coffee.

“Uh...okay, Becca, look...seriously? Nothing happened. I mean...I don’t know, I think we just kinda like, fell asleep and...” Faith stammered.

Rebecca turned around. Something in Faith’s voice wasn’t right. She was nervous...verging on scared.

“I...you know I’d never...I’d never lie to you right?” Faith said. “I mean... you know that, right? We, we didn’t do anything, Becca, I swear...”

As Rebecca watched her she could see that Faith was shaking now, and was nearly in tears. What the devil was wrong with her?

And then, Rebecca understood.

She knelt down in front of Faith, and took her hand.

“It’s all right, Faith,” Rebecca said.

“We didn’t, we didn’t...” Faith whimpered, shaking her head back and forth, with tears in her eyes.

Rebecca hugged her.

“Sshhh. It’s all right,” Rebecca said again. “I’m not angry. I know you wouldn’t lie to me. I trust you. I always have. Okay?”

Faith nodded, holding on tight to her.

“Faith,” Rebecca said. “I’m not...”

I’m not your mother, Rebecca was about to say. But somehow, she couldn’t make herself say it...

“I won’t...I won’t do what your mother did,” Rebecca said.

She could feel Faith crying now.

“I’m just...sorry and...we weren’t supposed to and...I won’t do it again, I promise...” Faith said, sniffling and sobbing, her tears falling on Rebecca’s shoulder, and in Rebecca’s hair.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Faith,” Rebecca said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

She looked Faith in the eyes. “Faith,” she said, softly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Rebecca wiped Faith’s tears away, and stroked her hair. “Listen to me,” she said. “You’ll always have a place with me. You’ll always be my girl. I won’t stop caring about you. I won’t. Do you understand?”

Faith nodded, still shaking a little.

“You don’t have to be on your best behavior all the time,” Rebecca said. “You don’t have to be perfect all the time. That’s not what I want, Faith. I don’t care if you make a mistake...I make mistakes too. Everybody does. All I want is for you to be happy. Okay?”

“Okay,” Faith whispered.

“I trust you,” Rebecca said. “And I’m proud of you. If you make a mistake, if you do something you think you shouldn’t have, you can always come to me, no matter what it is, no matter how bad you think it is. I’ll always be here for you. And I don’t ever...ever...want you to be afraid of me. All right?”

Faith nodded again, and smiled.

“That’s my girl,” Rebecca said, and kissed her cheek, and hugged her again. “That’s my girl.”

Eventually, Faith stopped shaking.

“Are you okay?” Rebecca said after awhile, still holding her.

“I guess I get...kinda goofy sometimes, huh?” Faith said, sniffling, her eyes red.

“It’s one of the things I like about you,” Rebecca said, and smiled. Faith giggled, and nodded.

Rebecca took a napkin from the table. Faith’s nose was running. Rebecca held the napkin against it.

“Blow,” Rebecca said.

Faith blew her nose. Rebecca wiped it, and smiled again.

Then she got up, and poured some coffee. The thought occurred to her that caffeine might not be the best thing for Faith right now--the poor girl would probably do better with a good stiff shot of scotch at the moment--so Rebecca went to the refrigerator and poured Faith a glass of milk instead. Faith drank it.

“Now,” Rebecca said. “Let’s have our little talk...about safe sex.”

“Oh...crap,” Faith said.

“Can we please stop talking about penises now?” Evan heard Faith saying as he walked downstairs in his socks fifteen minutes later.

“I just want to be sure we’ve covered all the bases,” Rebecca said.

“We grand slammed the bases,” Faith said.

“And you’ll be certain to use protection.”

“I will, Becca, I promise. And I already told you, Evan and I aren’t--”

“Uh...hi,” Evan said, walking into the kitchen.

“Hello, Evan,” Rebecca said, and looked at him with her arms folded across her chest, and waited. It wasn’t an unfriendly look, but it wasn’t welcoming, either. If Faith was going to give her heart to this boy, Rebecca wanted to see what he was made of. It was time for him to show his quality. Her stern blue eyes fixed on him, and she waited.

“So, uh...” Faith said, looking from Rebecca to Evan.

“Let Evan talk,” Rebecca said, in that tone that meant now.

“Okay, look, this was my fault,” Evan said. “We went to Faith’s room to listen to music, and it was late, and I really should have gone home, Faith told me I should be getting home before I fell asleep. But I thought we could stay up a little longer. I was stupid and I apologize. We fell asleep in the bed but I swear, Rebecca, nothing happened. So if, you know, you’re angry? Take it out on me, not Faith. If you don’t want me coming over anymore I’ll understand.”

He was trying to cover for Faith, Rebecca could tell. But he had showed his quality. Rebecca’s eyes softened. Evan didn’t know her well enough to notice, but Faith did, and she sighed with relief.

“Would you like some coffee, Evan?” Rebecca said.

“That’d be great,” Evan said, and smiled.

“How do you take it?”

“Light, two sugars?”

Rebecca poured him a cup of coffee, added milk, cream and sugar, and handed it to him with a smile.

“Take your coffee in the dining room, and we’ll talk there,” she said.

“Uh...okay,” Evan said.

“Evan and I are going to talk,” Rebecca said, before Faith could interject. “We won’t be long.”

“Y’know, I’m pretty sure he already knows about...” Faith began to say.

“I should hope so, but we won’t be talking about that,” Rebecca said, and put her arm on Evan’s shoulder and walked him out of the kitchen.

Just before they left the kitchen she glanced back at Faith, and winked.

“Faith is important to me, Evan.”

They sat at the dining room table together, and drank coffee. Rebecca looked straight at Evan, her dark blue eyes unwavering. Evan didn’t blink.

Rebecca liked that in a man. She almost smiled.

“I don’t want to see her hurt,” she said.

“Neither do I, Rebecca,” Evan said.

“Do you...care about her?”

“I’d jump in front of a truck for her.”

“An interesting way of putting it. She cares about you, very much.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Faith says you two are...just friends.”

“Best friends.”

“Evan...if that’s all you want...you may not be able to avoid hurting her.”

Evan got up and walked to the window, and looked out into the darkness.

“Have you ever met someone, and knew...really knew...that you were meant to be with them?” he said.

He turned to her.

“That the world brought you together with that person for a reason,” he said. “That no matter what you did, what path your life went down, no matter what mistakes you made, you were meant to be with that person in the end?”

Rebecca thought about the night she first met Faith...in the alley.

I don’t want it to be like this anymore, Faith had said. I don’t want this to be my life. Rebecca saved her...

And she knew that if she had gotten there even a minute later, Faith would have been dead.

“I met someone like that once,” Evan said. “We were best friends all through high school in Chicago. Her name was Maggie. I loved her.”

He smiled.

“We hung out all the time,” he said. “We were in the Drama Club together. She always made me laugh.”

Then he turned back to the window.

“I don’t know when it happened, when I stopped seeing her as a friend and started seeing her as...something more,” he said. “I was dating this girl named Samantha. And we were getting serious...and then I suddenly just realized one day I was in love with Maggie. I broke up with Samantha, told her I was in love with someone else. A few days later I told Maggie I loved her. She was worried...she didn’t think it would work. We tried...but she was right. It didn’t work.”

He looked at Rebecca, and she could see he was close to tears.

“A month later...Samantha...she killed herself,” Evan said. “She left a note...it turns out she had been in love with me, and never told me.”

“Oh...oh God, Evan. I’m...so sorry...” Rebecca said.

“Yeah. She deserved better than that. She deserved better than me.”

He sat down, and looked down at the table.

“I took off,” he said. “Maggie was planning on going to school overseas... partly to get away from me, I guess. I was planning on going to Northwestern but I had to get the hell out of there. I applied only to out of state colleges after that and ended up here at Tufts. So these days, yeah, you could say I’m a little gun shy about mixing friendship and romance. It’s too much of a risk. If I’d been smart enough to figure that out a few years ago I’d still have my friend and Samantha wouldn’t be in the fucking ground somewhere.”

He looked up at Rebecca.

“Sorry,” he said. “That was rude. I didn’t mean to swear.”

“It’s all right,” Rebecca said, and smiled.

“Every day, all the time, you know what I think about? Faith. You think I don’t know how she feels? That I don’t feel it too? That I wouldn’t love it if she was my girlfriend? But...take that chance? You can ruin a friendship. Or a life.”

“I know Faith. She’s going to put you to a decision soon, Evan.”

Evan nodded, looking down at the table again.

“I can’t guarantee that if you and Faith dated, it wouldn’t end badly, and you wouldn’t lose her,” Rebecca said. “That could happen. You’re both young, and not so alike as you think. Faith...has had a hard life. It isn’t easy for her to trust...to let new people in. But once she does, she’s the most loyal friend you’ll ever have.”

“Yeah, I know,” Evan said. “I was adopted too.”

“Adopted...?”

“My parents couldn’t have kids, so they adopted me. They didn’t tell me until I was thirteen. For a long time I was really desperate to find out about my birth parents, but the records were sealed. I got over it though. I know my Mom and Dad love me. It doesn’t matter if they gave birth to me or not.”

“Faith told you...?”

“Well, yeah. I told her about my parents. I guess that made her want to open up about you. She told me how you adopted her when she was really little... she said she doesn’t remember her birth parents at all. Faith’s a great girl, Rebecca. You did a great job with her. She loves you a lot.”

Rebecca was silent for a moment.

“Yes,” Rebecca said. “She’s a great girl.”

Rebecca and Faith drove Evan home an hour later. It was a clear night, with a big yellow crescent moon that hung low in the sky and shone very bright on the water as they drove back home along the Massachusetts Avenue bridge that crossed the Charles River, connecting Cambridge to Boston.
“So...you and Ev have a good talk?” Faith said.

“Mmm-hmm,” Rebecca said. “He’s a good young man. I like him.”

“He asks questions sometimes. I’m not in school and I don’t have a job and everything and he asks questions so...I told him I’m going to Boston Latin.”

“At least you picked a good school. But be careful with lying, Faith. Don’t let it become a habit. Someday, you may want to tell Evan the truth.”

“With the Slayer thing...my life’s so weird. It’s just I had to tell him something, y’know?”

“Faith, I want you to get your high school diploma. I can teach you things, and you’re doing a good job with your reading, but it’s still important to have a high school diploma.”

“Do I have to? I mean, if you really want me to I will but...going to classes will be a drag.”

“I’ve looked into it. They have something called a GED. It’s a test you can take to prove you know what you need to know to be a high school graduate. Pass the test and you get a diploma. Fair enough?”

“So like, I won’t have to go to school? Just pass the test?”

“Yes. But the test isn’t easy. When you’re ready I’ll start tutoring you. I’ve already bought all the textbooks.”

“He keeps asking me where I want to go for college.”

“Do you want to go to college?”

“Maybe. Sounds better than high school.”

“If you want to go, Trevor will make some calls.”

Faith looked away from Rebecca, staring out the window at the sky as they turned onto Commonwealth Avenue. “Just in case Evan brings it up? I sorta told him you adopted me when I was a little kid,” she said.

Faith watched Rebecca out of the corner of her eye.

“It’ll be our secret,” Rebecca said, and smiled.

It was September and autumn was a few days away; Boston didn’t feel like an oven anymore. The weather was holding steady at cool and comfortable for the moment and Rebecca had pronounced it excellent for antique shopping. She and Trevor had gone to Salem to “have a look about” the antique shops the day before, and had come back convinced that there was a vampire lairing somewhere in the little amusement park by the beach out there.

“There’s something rotten in Denmark,” Trevor said to Faith, after he and Rebecca told her about it.

“I thought the vamp was in Salem?” Faith said.

And so, after Rebecca explained to her about Hamlet, she and Faith had made plans to take their own little trip to Salem to have a look about.

It was a pleasant drive a half hour north of Boston, along the ocean. Faith had never been to Salem before and she was curious. So she looked out the window at everything as they drove along the little winding streets of the old port town that Sunday morning: the colonial houses, square-built, with sloping gambrel roofs and columns on either side of the doors; the famous House of Seven Gables, sullen and gray and foreboding even in the sun, its sharp-angled gables making it seem more like a sprawling assortment of geometric shapes than a house; the cobblestone streets in the upscale shopping district; the girls playing at being Wiccans who hung around all the new-age “magic shops” downtown. It all seemed defined by the ocean: the big sweep of the Harbor was always there in the corner of Faith’s eye, and there were yachts, glinting in the sun; the air smelled like the sea.

Billboards all over town proclaimed Salem “The Witch City”, and the police cars all had witch insignia on the doors. As they explored the town they drove down a street called Witch Way and passed a school called Witchcraft Heights Elementary.

“Witchcraft Heights Elementary?” Faith said.

“They’ve gone somewhat overboard, haven’t they?” Rebecca said. “And the high school football team is called ‘The Witches’. It’s a tourism thing.”

“They should stick with the boats and the ocean and the old houses. The witch stuff all seems fake. They really burned witches in this place?”

“Yes, in the seventeenth century, though I believe the actual site is closer to modern Danvers, which borders Salem. Not a good idea to mess about with Puritans, they were quick with the torches. They were stupid, joyless people; they’d burn their own daughter for looking at them the wrong way. With idiots like them starting it off it’s a miracle your country amounted to anything at all.”

“They burn any real witches? You told me witches really exist, right?”

“No, they never managed to burn any witches. And oh yes, there are witches. My aunt Jane on my mother’s side was a witch. Horrible old woman.”

“Was she like, evil?”

“No, but she insisted I go to bed by eight sharp whenever she babysat and she never let me have dessert. Said it would rot my teeth. As for the actual witchcraft, she mostly minced about in the woods having one-sided conversations with Dionysus and creating noxious potions for various ailments. Though she did turn one of her neighbors into a warthog when he called her an ugly old sow, or so the rumor goes.”

They visited the Salem Witch Museum (“When in Rome, I suppose,” Rebecca said) and to Faith’s surprise she found herself enjoying it.

“They tried to burn a Slayer once,” Rebecca said, speaking softly in the dark room with its creaky wood floor and little windows and peeling paint that reminded Faith of her classroom in elementary school, as they looked up at the painting of Reverend Samuel Parris’s slave Tituba, telling tales of the devil to a group of rapt girls sitting by the fire. “She was an Indian girl of the Pennacook tribe whom some of the townspeople saw killing a vampire, and of course they were frightened, and reacted the way they always did when faced with the unknown: they tried to burn her. Let’s just say it didn’t go too well for them.”

Looking at the paintings and wax statues of those poor girls, Faith felt a kinship with them. They were caught up in something bigger than themselves, something they couldn’t control. On the way out of the Museum, she bought a book about the Salem Witch Trials from the gift shop.

“I see you enjoyed yourself,” Rebecca said, looking at Faith’s book, as they walked out into the sunlight. “I told you history can be interesting.”

“It’s all about the presentation,” Faith said. “I like when you talk about it. You make it sound all cool, y’know? Like you’re telling stories. Wasn’t liking it so much when my high school history teacher talked about it though. Maybe there should be like a hotness requirement for guy history teachers. You know, like ‘you must be at least this hot to teach history to high school girls’. Then we’d all pay attention. Maybe Brad Pitt should teach history.”

“Maybe Mel Gibson should,” Rebecca said.

Faith stopped and grinned at her. “Becca!” she said. “You naughty girl! What would Trevor say?”

“But Mel’s so pretty,” Rebecca said. “It’s just not fair, how he toys with my heart.”

“Mel sure can wear leather pants,” Faith said.

“Oh my, yes,” Rebecca said.

They walked down Essex Street, laughing and looking in the windows of all the little shops and restaurants, scouting out likely places for dinner.

“That looks like an interesting book,” Rebecca said. “I’d like to read it, when you’re done.”

“There’s just something about those girls,” Faith said. “It’s like...they didn’t ask for what they got.”

They had lunch, a clam plate for Rebecca and a burger for Faith, at a little place on the beach, and then they hit the shopping district, poking around in the antique stores, all of which seemed to specialize in things from the sea. Rebecca bought an antique rocking chair for the living room, and a scrimshaw carving for Faith. They took a look around the little shops in the “Witch District”, all jammed full of crystals and magic wands and books about Tantric healing and discovering your past lives (“Not one witch among ’em”, Rebecca said, eyeing the wide-eyed goth girls and shaking her head), and after dinner at an Indian restaurant on Essex Street, they were ready to hunt when the sun set.

Salem Willows, the park was called, because of the old willow trees that dotted the grounds, and in summer people flocked there to picnic under those trees and look out at the sea, and teenagers smoked joints under the pier and made out in their cars. There was a little amusement park and arcade there too, and in summer the smell of the ocean and the sounds of seagulls mingled with the smell of barbecues and the laughing screams of children playing Skee-Ball and video games and running along the beach. But the park was closed for the season now, and the only smell was the smell of the ocean, the only sound a cold wind raking through the trees.

And as Faith walked through the park with Rebecca that night, all her senses alert, she thought about the fact that it had been a few days since she had killed a vampire and she was restless. She needed this, she had come to realize. Something happened to her that night in May, when she took that first vampire. It felt as if a switch had been thrown in her head...as if she used to be one thing, but now she was something else. Like she had gained something...or lost something. She was the Slayer now, for the rest of her life. She wasn’t complaining.

It was a big park, with lots of potential hiding places among the closed shops and arcades and one large area of pretty thick trees that would take a long time to search through if it came to that. But Faith knew they wouldn’t have to look around for long. Two women, walking through a park alone at night? If there was a vampire here, he’d find them.

And he did, a minute later. He came out of the arcade and crossed the street toward them with a jaunty stride, smiling, as if he were meeting friends...or women who couldn’t fight back. Faith could see him clearly now under the little black antique streetlamp as he entered the park. He looked about twenty-five, tall and thin, wearing a black trenchcoat and combat boots. He had long black hair combed in front of his eyes and he was wearing makeup. A former boyfriend of one of the goth girls in the magic shops, maybe. Faith smiled back at him.

That knocked the jaunt right out of him. They weren’t supposed to smile.

He stopped and stared at Faith, confused. Rebecca was behind Faith now, giving her room to work. Rebecca always stayed close, in case Faith needed help. But she hadn’t ever needed help yet.

Faith walked toward the vampire with a jaunty stride of her own. A few yards away from him, she pulled out her stake...and the vampire finally realized just who she was.

“Say hello to my little friend,” Faith said.

The vampire didn’t want to meet Faith’s friend. He turned and ran.

He didn’t get far. Faith leaped after him with a laugh that echoed through the park, and tackled him a few feet away from the arcade.

He tried to throw her off, but she didn’t move. His face changed to vampire form and he tried to tear into her throat with his fangs, but she cracked his head against the pavement with her forearm. She had him pinned, one knee on his left arm, his right arm in a wrist lock. Her stake hovering above him.

“All you got?” she said.

Their eyes met. She saw him surrender, saw it there in his eyes. He was hers and they both knew it.

“Hasta la vista, baby,” she said, and staked him.

She stood up, and dusted what was left of him off of her clothes.

“All this way for that?” she said. “Now I’m gonna be all frustrated the whole way home...”

“Faith!” Rebecca shouted, her voice echoing through the park. At the same moment, Faith sensed something above her and instinctively back-flipped out of the way, before Rebecca’s voice even registered.

A vampire landed where she had just been. A female, one of the goth girls who hung around the magic shops, her face twisted and deformed, her long fangs dripping saliva, her eyes narrowed to angry yellow slits. And unlike the boyfriend, she looked tough. Faith could tell by the way she positioned her feet that she knew how to fight.

“Think your mascara’s running, honey,” Faith said.

“Shut up!” the vampire screamed, and raked at Faith’s neck with her claws. Faith dodged barely in time. An instant later and her throat would have been torn out. The vampire leaped at Faith and Faith went with her rhythm, didn’t try to take the charge or meet it with force but instead redirected it, taking hold of the vampire’s arm and using her momentum to flip her over her head. The vampire landed on her feet.

“What’s up with the dye job? You lose a bet?” Faith said. She’d have to concentrate. Focus. This girl could fight. Faith threw out talk to throw the vampire off her game, but in her head she was all business. The vampire came at her again, getting in range, moving into her fighting stance and eyeing Faith warily. And that rage, that boiling rage that made her eyes two cat slits, was still there.

Forget her eyes, Faith thought. Watch her feet.

Faith’s senses reached out. She felt Rebecca without seeing her. The wind kicked up. Somewhere, a dog barked. The vampire smelled foul to Faith, like all vampires did; she smelled like rotten meat. Faith catalogued her surroundings. Arcade. Plate glass window. Trees. Pavement. Hydrant. Fire escape.

The vampire threw a flurry of punches. Faith dodged the first two and blocked the third, but the fourth one got by her and staggered her. The vampire spun and kicked Faith in the face, sending her flying. Faith hit the sidewalk and rolled, anticipating the vampire’s next move without seeing it. The vampire pounced where Faith had been a second before.

Faith kicked her in the face and leaped to her feet; the vampire stumbled and her guard dropped for a second and Faith was able to shuffle inside and hit her with a jab and her big right cross and put her down. But before she could follow up the vampire flipped herself away from her. Then she surprised Faith, leaping at her instead of regrouping for another attack, and knocked her down. She punched Faith in the face, cracking her head against the sidewalk.

They rolled on the sidewalk, the vampire slashing at her, and Faith desperately blocking, trying to keep those claws away from her face. With a roar, the vampire punched Faith in the face again and again, cracking her head against the sidewalk repeatedly. Faith nearly lost consciousness. She felt Rebecca, a few feet away, about to jump in. Faith didn’t want that; she didn’t want to chance Rebecca getting hurt. The vampire went for her throat, giving Faith just enough of an opening to ram two fingers in her eyes. The vampire screamed and released her grip; Faith head-butted her in the nose and kicked her off.

Faith jumped back up, and again the vampire was back on her feet almost instantly. Faith could see out of the corner of her eye that Rebecca had backed away, but she was staying closer now. Faith could feel blood dripping from her nose down her chin. The vampire’s nose was bleeding too, and she was squinting in order to see. Faith looked down at her denim jacket. The vampire’s claws had slashed it to ribbons.

“Wait, I got it. The outfit, the makeup, the hairdo...you’re running away to join the circus, right?” Faith said. Her tough talk was bullshit and she knew it. She had gotten lucky with that last move. She couldn’t afford another mistake with this girl.

“You killed my boyfriend! You killed David! You killed him!” the vampire screamed.

A Slayer catalogues her opponent as well, both physically and psychologically...

She’s angry, Faith thought. Use it.

“Hate to break it to ya Elvira, but Dave fought like my Grandma,” Faith said. “Thinkin’ I did you a favor, y’know? You can do better.”

Still half blind and squinting, the vampire sprang at Faith, snarling. Faith dodged her, grabbed her right arm as she passed, spun around, twisted the arm up high behind the vampire’s back and broke it. The vampire screamed and turned for one last run at Faith, but Faith spun again and kicked her in the face. The vampire flew through the air, smashed through the window of the arcade, and landed flat on the floor. Faith leaped into the dark arcade after her, jumped on her back and got her in a headlock, twisting the vampire’s one good arm behind her back. She broke that arm too, with a crack that echoed through the room. The vampire screamed again.

“Give?” Faith said.

The vampire was crying.

“He’s dead. He’s dead...you killed him...” she said.

She twisted her head around to look at Faith, with tears in her eyes. “Get it over with,” she said.

The girl went limp. She lay completely still on the floor under Faith, waiting to die. Faith took out her stake.

“What’s...what’s your name?” Faith said.

“Why do you care?” the girl said.

Faith held her stake poised above the girl’s back. But she hesitated.

“Tell me your name,” Faith said.

“Emily,” the girl said.

“I’m Faith.”

“I know who you are, Slayer.”

“You put up a good fight. Best anyone’s ever given me. Almost had me.”

Emily looked back at Faith again. Her face changed to human form. She was pretty.

“Just do it. I don’t have any reason to live anymore anyway,” Emily said.

Faith still hesitated. She felt Rebecca behind her. She felt the whole room around her. One of the video games in the arcade was turned on. Faith recognized the sound. Space Invaders. A cold wind blew through the broken glass. Somewhere a dog barked again. The vampire’s eyes were blue. A cockroach skittered across the floor a few yards away. The vampire’s breath smelled like cotton candy.

“David...” Emily whispered, and closed her eyes.

Faith staked her, and she turned to dust.

Faith didn’t move. She knelt there, in the pile of dust, with the Space Invaders sounds and the cold wind through the broken glass. After a moment she felt Rebecca’s hand stroking her hair.

“Are you all right?” Rebecca said.

Faith got up. “I just...I just want to go home,” she said.

Rebecca took a handkerchief from her pocket, and gently dabbed the blood away from Faith’s nose.

Then she put her hand on Faith’s shoulder, and walked her out of the arcade, back to the car.

“Would you like to stop somewhere and grab a bite to eat?” Rebecca said, as they drove away.

Faith shook her head.

“It happens sometimes,” Rebecca said. “One of them manages to hold onto a bit of their humanity. That doesn’t mean she had a soul. It doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have killed you if you let her. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have murdered us both if we were the two helpless women we were pretending to be.”

Faith nodded.

They were quiet, after that...

Two days later the weather did what it had a tendency to do in Boston: surprised you. It was the last day of summer and it was bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky, but the sun was all talk and it somehow managed to be on the wrong side of forty degrees. The day just got colder as it went on, and a raw east wind off the water joined the party, cutting right through whatever you were wearing. The low temperature broke the record in Boston that day, and “dress in layers” was the mantra mothers around the city repeated to their children.

“Dress in layers,” Rebecca said to Faith, after their workout. “It’s cold.”

Rebecca knew the encounter with the vampire at Salem Willows had been hard on Faith. Soulless things that they were, vampires nevertheless were as complex as the people whose bodies they walked in and being a Slayer wasn’t all black and white. Good people did bad things and bad people--even vampires--could have friendships, could care about someone, could choose sometimes to do good things. Faith would work it out for herself, as every Slayer did eventually. But it would take time. Faith hadn’t talked much since yesterday.

“Okay,” Faith said.

“Trevor’s picking me up to take me to that restaurant in that horrible skyscraper tonight...” Rebecca said.

“The Pru,” Faith said.

“Yes, the Prudential building. Horrible eyesore, but Trevor says the view from the restaurant on top is fantastic. We’d really like it if you could join us.”

“Well, uh, I got a thing with Ev and Dan and his girlfriend. We’re going to a movie, then The Roxy.”

“Oh,” Rebecca said, and smiled. “Another time then. And don’t forget to bundle up tonight.”

Faith nodded, and walked away. Then she turned. Rebecca was putting their equipment back on the shelves. Faith wanted to tell her she wasn’t angry with her, that she just needed time to think. But Faith wasn’t sure that was true. Maybe she was angry with Rebecca, a little.

But she knew they could have that talk later. They had plenty of time.

Faith walked out the door.

Faith wasn’t very good company for Evan and Dan and his girl that night, and she begged off right after the movie. She told them she had a headache, and she knew Evan saw right through her. But he respected her space; he always had. So they dropped her back home, and Faith went up to her room, and flung her leather coat on the floor.

She hadn’t dressed in layers. She’d felt cold all night.

She sat on her bed, looking around her room. The only thing that was really hers was the leather coat on the floor. Everything else, Rebecca had given her. She looked up at the painting Rebecca had bought for her, the one she herself had picked out, with all the swirling, liquid blue. Deep, dark blue, like the ocean on a summer day.

She glanced at the alarm clock. Almost ten.

She put on a sweater and a winter coat, and ran out the door.

Someone once called Boston’s Prudential building “a textbook example of urban character assassination”. It shot up fifty-two stories into the sky a few blocks ahead of Faith now, towering above everything around it with all the warmth and charm of an electric razor as Faith sprinted down Boylston Street past Copley Square, with the sleek, lofty, fragile-looking Hancock Building looming over it, all silver glass reflecting the night sky, past the grand old Trinity Church looking ornate and palatial and somehow out of place on her right, and the Public Library on her left with its carved stone lions at the doors and the monumental inscriptions that proclaimed, “Built by the people and dedicated to the advancement of learning”. A beautiful relic from a more optimistic time.

The Pru was in the Back Bay, about a fifteen minute walk from Rebecca’s house. Faith sprinted there in less than ninety seconds.

She walked into the big, quiet foyer, her boots echoing on the polished marble floor, and entered the chrome and glass elevator. As she slowly made her way up to the fifty-second floor, she had a funny feeling in her stomach. She wished the elevator was faster.

She got out of the elevator and her stake was suddenly in her hand, and she found herself stalking toward the restaurant at the end of the carpeted hallway, past the framed prints of the Boston skyline, past the vases on little tables, being careful to make as little noise as possible.

She smelled vampires...

...and blood.

When Faith walked into the restaurant, thirteen vampires were looking right at her. The most she had ever taken on at one time before was three.

“For Kakistos we live,” they snarled, in unison. “For Kakistos you die.”