– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Sunnydale Cemetery #12

An Hour or So Before Midnight

The night air was thick with an eerie stillness, the only sound the occasional rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze. The moon hung low in the sky, casting a pale, ethereal glow over the gravestones that dotted the landscape, their shadows stretching long and sinister across the dead grass.

In the center of this macabre scene stood a group of four teenagers, their faces full of determination and naive eagerness, a stark contrast to the deathly atmosphere that surrounded them.

"Tonight, we strike a final and decisive blow against the Slayer," a girl declared, her voice high-pitched but adamant, befitting the eternal sixteen-year-old she now was. She stood triumphantly in the center of the near-empty cemetery, a ritual circle drawn in salt on the dead grass out in front of her, its lines almost glowing in the moonlight. "We do what no vampire has ever done."

The girl—Hester Goody—wore a dark leather jacket with rolled-up sleeves, a pink shirt beneath that with fishnets and a short leather skirt. Large gold hoop earrings dangled from her ears, catching the light with each turn of her head, and around her neck was a beaded necklace and a collar, the latter a touch that seemed more for show than any practical purpose. Her face was done up in makeup that could only be described as amateurish at best, almost clown-like even, with an excess of blush over her freckles, black lipstick, black eyeliner, a large amount of purple eyeshadow, and a long black line starting from her forehead and going down to the sides of her mouth on each eye, again doubling down on the clownery.

Despite her youthful appearance, Hester was a vampire, a very very young one at only three months old, but still a vampire, and that meant something, goddamn it.

She held up a black flier with red script in one hand and a book bound in black leather with odd symbols on the cover in the other, the latter looking far too old and ominous to be in the hands of a teenage girl. "Now, with this flier," she announced dramatically, her voice echoing through the empty graveyard, "and this book, we will summon and bind a true demon to kill the Slayer. Then, we will take our rightful place among our vampire brothers and sisters."

"Hester, are you sure about this?" the other girl in the cemetery asked, her voice tentative as she stepped forward, her hands clasped in front of her. "I mean, summoning a demon? That's pretty heavy stuff."

Directly opposite Hester stood Lisett Kurobara, a chubby Asian girl in round glasses and Hester's fellow vampire friend. Lisette wore her hair in pigtails and sported similarly horrendous makeup, with the exception of the lines. She had on an ill-fitting tight purple dress and a set of pearls around her neck that definitely did not belong to her.

"Of course I'm sure!" Hester snapped, her eyes flashing with annoyance as she looked from Lisette to the other people standing around the salt circle. "This is our chance, Lissy, Greg, Stevie. Our chance to prove ourselves, to show everyone that we're not just some dumb kids playing at being vampires."

To Hester's right and left stood two boys, Gregory Braun and Steven Kurobara, both with makeup on but thankfully to a far lesser degree. Gregory, thin and tall, wore a midriff-baring sleeveless tight black leather turtleneck and pants of the same material, along with some black eyeshadow around his eyes, an attempt at looking edgy that fell somewhat flat.

Steven, sporting the same eyeshadow as Greg behind his rectangular glasses, simply wore the same clothes he normally did, not bothering to change like the rest of the vampiric teenagers. His white button-up was untucked with the collar popped, and his hands were in his pockets, trying to give off an air of cool the same way all his friends attempted, but coming across as more awkward than anything…

Which, more than anything else, was actually rather appropriate.

"I don't know, Hess," Greg spoke up, his voice hesitant. "This seems like a bad idea. I mean, what if we can't control the demon? What if it turns on us?"

Hester scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Don't be such a pussy, Greg. We're vampires. We can handle one little demon."

The other three shared a look, used to their friend's bouts of overconfidence but even still…

"Besides," Hester raised a clawed hand in the air, "I saw the weakness in the Slayer's eyes last night! She is tired, alone, and weak," she continued, crowing eagerly as her voice rose with each word until she was almost yelling. "Soon, we will destroy her completely!"

Her three friends listened with rapt attention, a fervent innocence in their eyes and placid yet eager smiles that made them look all their sixteen years of age and not at all like undead creatures of the night.

"By the way," Hester grinned, holding the book even higher as its pages rustled in the breeze, "I got this thing off Ebay a couple months back when I was human. I always knew it'd come in handy. It's amazing what you can buy online. Internet shopping, it's gonna be big."

"Where'd you get the flier?" Steven asked, the teen vamp eyeing the black paper Hester clutched tightly with curiosity.

Hester shrugged, waving her hand dismissively. "These slutty looking demon girls by the mall were handing them out. Figured it might come in handy, you know, for a rainy day."

A moment later, the girl paused as her eyes roamed over the faces of her friends, her grin visibly widening as her face shifted ever so slightly, revealing the sharp fangs that had replaced her once human teeth. "Can you believe it? We're gonna be the ones to take down the Slayer. Us! The Slayer Slayers!"

Lisette giggled, clapping her hands together. "Ooh, I like that! The Slayer Slayers!"

"It's got a nice ring to it," Gregory agreed, nodding his head slowly, "I guess."

Greg, ever the quiet one, simply gave the name a shrug, his all-leather outfit creaking with the movement. "Cool," he said, his tone flat as his eyes continued slowly scanning the cemetery.

Hester rolled her eyes at Greg's lack of enthusiasm, her heavily made-up face twisting into a scowl for a brief moment before smoothing back into a grin, determined not to let his apathy dampen her mood. She held her arms out wide, the book and flier still clutched in her hands, the pages of the former rustling in the gentle breeze. "Now..." she said, her voice dropping to a dramatic whisper, "are you ready to defeat the Slayer once and for all?"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Y-yes, I'm ready," Greg answered, the quiet boy catching the crack in his voice before it became a full-blown stutter.

"Sure, I'm down," Steve parroted, his hands brought together in a single awkward clap.

"Whatever you want, Hester," Lisette said adoringly, her gaze never leaving Hester's face.

Hester's grin widened, her smile turning malicious, a cruel glint in her eyes. "You guys, you're such good friends. That dumb blonde Slayer doesn't stand a chance against us. We're going to tear her apart, piece by piece, until there's nothing left but a bloody smear on the pavement."

Her heart figuratively beating with excitement, Hester opened the aged tome of demon binding, the leather cover cracking and crumbling under her fingers, and placed the black flier next to the spot she would be reading from, prepared for the alterations she was making to the spell. The book felt heavy in her hands as she held it tight, as if afraid it might slip away at any moment, the weight of the ancient knowledge contained within its pages pressing down on her like a physical force.

She cleared her throat, the sound harsh in the quiet of the night, and began to chant, her voice echoing slightly off the surrounding tombstones as the words fell from her lips with practiced ease, the Latin phrases rolling off her tongue as if she had been born speaking them.

"Ex Ore Orci te voco, Alexander,

Daemon parvulus, potestas nascens!"

The air within the crudely drawn ritual circle—drawn in chalk and encircled by a sloppily llaid line of salt—began to stir, the dead leaves and debris that littered the ground swirling in a sudden gust of wind that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. A faint red light seeped from the earth, tracing the intricate chalk lines with a luminosity that resembled flowing blood, thick and ominous. The stolen antique gold coins they had laid down at several points in the circle sunk into the ground, vanishing as if swallowed by the earth itself, as the surrounding air filled with a palpably foreboding energy, a heaviness that seemed to press down on the gathered vampires, making it hard to breathe despite their lack of need for air.

Hester's friends, three figures standing around the other points of the ritual circle, watched with widening eyes, their faces a mix of awe and fear. They stood frozen, their breaths held as they witnessed the earth bleed, the very ground beneath their feet coming to life with an unholy glow. Lisette clutched at her pearls, her fingers trembling slightly, a whimper escaping her throat, while Gregory and Steven exchanged nervous glances, their already slight bravado from earlier nowhere to be seen.

But Hester remained unfazed, her lips curling into a viciously triumphant grin as she continued the chant, her voice rising in volume and intensity, the words pouring out of her like a twisted prayer.

"Audi verba mea, venti damnatorum,

Ad hunc circulum iusso congregamini.

Per sanguinem et cinerem, per ferrum et ignem,

Te invoco,

Pedissequus Principis Umbrarum."

The glow from the ground intensified, pulsating and expanding like a living, breathing thing, the light casting eerie shadows across the faces of the vampires. The initial lines of the ritual circle began to morph, spreading and intertwining into more complex symbols that hadn't been there moments before, ancient runes and sigils that seemed to writhe and shift before their eyes.

"Per portas Orci iter fac, ad me veni,

Pactionem inire volo, nomine tuae potentiae!

Daemon parvulus sed validus,

Veni, veni, Alexander!

Cliens permaneo," Hester declared, the energy sparking like lightning and symbols spreading like blood, as her voice echoed through the cemetery.

A gust of wind whipped violently around the graveyard, bending and swaying the ancient trees that lined the edges. It howled through the tombstones, carrying with it the whispers of the damned, a haunting melody that sent shivers down the spines of the gathered vampires.

Lisette raised an arm to shield her eyes, clutching her glasses tightly to prevent them from being swept away by the sudden localized storm. Her pigtails whipped around her face, lashing at her cheeks like tiny whips, the pearls around her neck clattering together

"Praesidium et secreta mihi concede,

Pactumque accepto, tibi munus meum devoveo!

In hoc signo, hoc tempore, in tuo magno nomine,

Veni, Alexander! Dominiumque tuum ostende!" Hester's voice rose to a fever pitch, her words nearly drowned out by the roaring wind, but she persisted, yelling even louder.

With a blinding flash of light that erupted from the center of the circle, accompanied by a deep, resonant growl that seemed to shake the very ground, the end of Hester's chant was answered with a loud, "THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?"

The vampires stumbled back, their hands raised to shield their eyes from the searing light, their ears ringing from the thunderous voice that had spoken. A figure materialized, one knee pressed against the earth, its head bowed low. Tendrils of smoke curled around its form, obscuring it from view for a moment before dissipating into the night air, carried away by the dying wind.

As the light dimmed and the smoke cleared, Hester leaned forward, a wide grin plastered across her face, her eyes glinting with a manic excitement. Her heart, if it still beat, would have been pounding in her chest, her veins thrumming with anticipation. Her eyes were eager, hungry to behold the demon she had summoned from the depths of Hell, the fearsome creature that would be their key to defeating the Slayer once and for all.

But after a tense moment, as her eyes adjusted to the sudden decrease in light, her grin faltered, replaced by a look of confusion. She blinked, once, twice, as if trying to clear her vision, to make sense of what she was seeing.

A boy, one her age, knelt there, raising his head slowly to stare at her. A boy in a black bomber jacket and jeans.

A boy.

He opened his mouth to speak. "Before you ask, this is a Terminator reference." He smirked at her, expression not matching his eyes. "I'd have taken my clothes off, but you know… these duds were pricey."

Hester felt her eye twitch. "What the Hell?" she muttered, her head tilting to the side as she took in the figure before her.

"Great choice of words," the boy responded, its tongue far from forked, yet still sharp with sarcasm all the same. "Allow me to answer that with a question." It raised its head as it stood to its full height, revealing a set of vicious eyes that locked onto Hester's, flickering between hazel and a violent, bloody red as an odd grimace forced itself on its all-too-human lips. "What kind of borked summoning was that?"

Hester started, taking in the sight of the figure in front of her again—clad in a leather jacket, black chinos, and with a face as youthful, if not quite as pale as her own. This was not the fearsome demon she had imagined, not the monstrous creature of her darkest fantasies. This was just a boy, but she could barely bring herself to believe it.

A boy with a mop of dark hair and a face that wouldn't have looked out of place in her high school yearbook.

"Uhhh… what's with the discount Fonzie getup?" Greg blurted out, eyes wide as the other three vampires.

"First of all, I could only hope to be so cool as the Fonz," the figure shot back, his voice dripping with annoyance. "Second, why the hell did you guys summon me? The flier literally says Monday to Thursday, for new clients. I get weekends off, people."

Frustrated, Hester couldn't handle this insanity.

Eye twitching, she pointed an accusing finger at the boy. "What the hell are you?!" she screeched, voice rising in a shrill demand.

Xander Harris, rose to stand fully in the summoning circle, growled back with a mix of annoyance and confusion. "Uhhh duh, you summoned a Devil, right?"

He gestured to himself with both hands, his leather jacket creaking with the movement. "Well, congratulations. You got one. Happy now?"