Chapter 2: the chosen one

“It's the freedom! As Seniors, you guys can go off-campus now for lunch. It's no longer cutting. It's legal! Heck, it's expected! Wow, it's, uh, also a big step forward, a Senior moment, one that has to be savored.”

“No one is going to arrest you for slipping out with us, Alvin,” Lilith said, laughing.

“But what if Snyder sees and-”

“We’re walking twenty feet from campus,” Tiffany said. “To the school’s front lawn.”

“Oh look, it’s Barton,” Jenny said, smiling and waving at the Sunnydale High librarian. Then she grimaced. “Why is Snyder approaching him?”

“Uh oh,” Lilith said as the two men grew closer. She, Jenny, Tiffany, and Alvin were standing on the front steps of the school. They were preparing to walk down to the picnic tables on the front lawn. Crowds of seniors were rushing for the long-forbidden lawn. Many of them – like Lilith and Jenny – were trying to sneak younger friends with them.

“The first day back, it always gets me,” Snyder said.

“Yes,” Barton said.

“I mean, it’s incredible. One day the campus is completely bare, empty. The next, there are children everywhere. Like locusts, crawling around, mindlessly bent on feeding and mating, destroying everything in sight in their relentless, pointless desire to exist.”

“Right,” Barton said. “Um, I do enjoy these pep talks.”

“Baltazar, James,” Snyder said, eyeing Tiffany and Alvin as he and Barton reached their group. “I’m sure you’re not planning to join your senior classmates in the pointless and disgusting tradition of ditching school to-”

“No,” Jenny said in a hurry. “They were just walking us out.” She patted a glaring Tiffany’s arm and gave Alvin a sympathetic look. “See you guys later.”

Snyder smirked, watching Alvin and Tiffany sulk back inside. Then he turned to Lilith and Jenny. “I hope you girls aren’t planning to set any more fires.”

“Principal Snyder, you’re missing the big picture,” Jenny said.

“Yeah,” Lilith said. “The school was crawling with vamp-” she stopped. “Uh, asbestos. Plus – you have no evidence that it was us who caused that fire. I heard something about an infestation in the vents.”

“Hm,” Snyder said. “Well, I’ve got my eye on you, Enuaraq. At the first sign of trouble-”

“Right, expulsion, death, etcetera,” Lilith said, sighing. “I get it.”

Snyder made a gross sound that might have been meant as an affirmative. Then he disappeared to yell at another group. Lilith and Jenny exchanged a look and they both sighed.

“Hi Barton,” Lilith said, smiling. “How’s your first day back going?”

“Thrilling as always,” Barton said. “And yours?”

“The same,” Lilith said.

“Tell your impatiently waiting brother I said hello,” Barton said, nodding to Mark, who was sitting at a picnic table on the lawn, watching them and gesturing. Barton smiled and waved and Mark did the same before again waving Lilith and Jenny over.

“I will,” Lilith said, laughing. “Uh – see you after school for training?”

Barton frowned. “You’ve been training day and night all summer Lilith,” he said. “It’s the first day of school. Why don’t you take a night off?”

“Who are you and what have you done with my watcher?”

“I’m serious,” Barton said, looking concerned. “We’ll start up again tomorrow.”

Lilith nodded, disappointed. Then she and Jenny walked down the steps where they greeted Mark at the picnic table. He dug in the giant basket he’d brought, pulling out several Ziploc baggies of sandwiches as well as a few cans of soda.

“Mark,” Jenny said, grinning. “Banned from campus, but not from our hearts. How are you and what’s for lunch?”

“I’m not banned,” Mark said. “I just graduated. Geez. And I’ve got ham, I’ve got salami, I’ve got chicken, I’ve got tofu, here-” he handed the tofu sandwich baggie to Lilith. “Give this to Alvin when you go back in, will ya?”

“Of course,” Lilith said. She grabbed a chicken sandwich for herself. “Thank you!”

“Are you excited for your UC Sunnydale classes next week, Mark?” Jenny asked.

“Oh, big time,” Mark said. “College is gonna be great. I mean – the size of the library alone? Don’t tell Barton but I fell in love on my tour. Plus, in high school, knowledge is pretty much frowned upon. You really have to work to learn anything. I just can’t wait to be in a classroom filled with people who wanna be there ya know?”

“That’s us next year,” Jenny said, grinning at Lilith.

“Well, apparently, I’m working a little too hard lately,” Lilith said. She was still miffed by Barton’s comment and having trouble moving past it. She thought she was training a normal amount for someone responsible for the fate of the world.

“Ah yes, Barton told Lilith to take it easy,” Jenny explained to Mark. “So – Bronze tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Lilith muttered. “Maybe I should patrol.”

“You can take one night off,” Mark said. “You’ve been going at it like crazy all summer. Vampires take nights off. Probably. I’m sure of it.”

“Nights off from murdering the innocent?” Lilith said. “I don’t think so.”

“I know a vampire that would probably like you to take a night off to chill,” Jenny said.

“What – is there a new big bad? What did you hear?” Lilith asked, her heart racing.

Mark and Jenny exchanged a look. After a moment, Mark laughed. “Look, I’m not the guy’s biggest fan but uh, you get what Jenny was saying, right?”

“Oh,” Lilith said, letting out a breath. “James. Right. I haven’t been blowing him off.” Mark and Jenny both stared with raised eyebrows. Lilith glared at them. “We’ve been hanging out every night this week.”

“Does patrolling really count as hanging out though?” Jenny asked.

“For us it does,” Lilith said. “The forces of evil don’t care if I want a date night, okay?” Then Lilith frowned. “What did he – say something?”

“He might have mentioned missing just spending – ya know – regular time with you,” Jenny said. “And he’s not the only one.”

“Okay fine,” Lilith said. “I’ll go to the Bronze tonight.”

The conversation changed to Mark’s class schedule for next week after that. He was especially excited about a class in robotics, which he hoped to use to create some helpful tools for Lilith’s slaying. Their father did not know – and as far as Lilith was concerned could never learn – about her slaying. Mark had found out almost right away though, when Lilith burned down their last school in LA. Having a confidante in the house meant everything.

Lilith counted on Mark more than she did most people. To cover for her when she needed to sneak out to patrol. To help her clean up nasty wounds she didn’t want their father finding out about. Sometimes, just to talk about the struggles of slaying.

But he didn’t understand. Not really. No one did. Not even James, who had his own reasons for wanting to fight the forces of darkness. Lilith had a responsibility that most people – actually all people who weren’t slayers – just couldn’t comprehend. And there could only be one slayer.

It was the slayer’s job to protect the innocent. One girl in all the world standing between humanity and Hell on earth. That was why Lilith and her family were in Sunnydale. It wasn’t an accident that Harry had been offered a great deal on an art gallery here of all places. The watcher’s council had arranged it so.

Ever since her close call with the master at the end of last year, Lilith had been stepping up her game. She had died – and she had played it off at the time. Sure. No big deal. Little thing like that wouldn’t stop her.

But what if it had? What if the master had won? The nightmares about that night – waking up in her prom dress gagging on water – had been haunting Lilith all summer. Also, other nightmares.

A boy with a scarred face and hate in his eyes. A giant snakelike monster, coiling around Sunnydale High. A strange man with godlike strength. A shimmering blue orb of energy and light, and a young girl crying for her sister.

Lilith’s dreams had been prophetic before. Like the super strength and the instinct for fighting evil, dreams that foretold the future were part of a slayer’s arsenal. So why Barton wasn’t taking her seriously, Lilith wasn’t sure.

“I heard something,” Lilith said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Babe,” James said. “Let’s just go in. The band is starting their set.”

“Come on, Lili, you’re always hearing something,” Tiffany said. “Last week we spent twenty minutes digging through the dumpster for raccoons.”

“I’m not kidding,” Lilith snapped, walking further from the line of people entering the Bronze.

Mark, Alvin, Jenny and James exchanged a look that Lilith did not miss. She ignored them. There was another sound in the alley, like breaking glass. Then a girl, grunting perhaps in pain.

“Sounds like some people making out,” James said.

Lilith ignored him, rushing for the alley. Despite some exasperated sighing, everyone followed. Lilith froze when she saw a man, holding a young girl against the metal fence. The man was baring his fangs, about to bite down on the girl’s neck.

“Shit,” James said. “You were right.” He tossed a wooden stake to Lilith.

Lilith caught the stake but before she could do anything, the girl had flipped her assailant over on his back. Lilith gaped, watching as this tiny girl – short and slender and definitely not built for fighting – did a backflip in the air kicking the vampire in the face. The vamp smashed into the fence, groaning. Is that what Lilith looked like fighting vampires? She was about the same size as this girl - did she look that bizarre kicking the crap out of giant ghouls and monsters?

“Hello,” the girl said. She was wearing shorts and a crop top, her black hair pulled into a tight topknot. She looked unphased by the vampire rushing her, elbowing her attacker in the face while smiling at Lilith. “You must be Lilith. I’m Ally. Can I borrow that?” Ally snatched the stake from Lilith’s hand, stabbing the vampire in the chest as he ran at her from behind. He exploded into ashes. Ally tossed the stake back to Lilith. “Thanks for your help,” she said, smirking. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“And all of a sudden, I heard this screaming from outside. So, I go rushing out, still nude, and this church bus has broken down, and there are these three vampires feasting on half of the Baptists in South Boston. So, I slay the vampires and the preacher comes rushing out, and he's hugging me as if there's no tomorrow when all of a sudden, the police pull up and they arrested us both.”

“I clearly just missed the beginning of a great story,” Lilith said, sitting down at the corner table in the Bronze where everyone else was listening with rapt attention as Ally shared the story of her summer. “I just got off the phone with Barton. It sounds like your story checks out. You were sent here by the watcher’s council?”

“That’s right,” Ally said. “And now I get to work with you and your merry band of – what do you call yourselves? Slayerettes?”

“Ooh, that’s good,” Mark said. “We’ve been going with the Scooby gang.”

“Like the cartoon?” Ally asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “I suppose if you want to be low brow about it.”

“So,” Lilith said. “You’re uh – you’re from Boston?”

“I’m actually from LA,” Ally said. “I lived in Boston for three years.”

“And now you’re here.”

“Now I’m here,” Ally said. Something about the way she smiled bugged Lilith. It was like there was a joke that everyone else was missing out on. Her makeup was just a little too perfect. Her ruby lips and sharp eyeliner belonged on a magazine cover, not in an alley fighting vampires. Lilith found herself tugging at her braid, staring at Ally’s perfect topknot, not a hair out of place, even after the fight outside. “You know, I was under the impression the whole secret identity thing was, you know, secret,” Ally said.

“We help sometimes,” Alvin offered.

“And sometimes we get in the way,” Mark said.

“But mostly we help,” Jenny said.

“Hey – speak for yourselves,” Tiffany said. “I never get in the way. Remember that vamp I wasted without your help the other night, Lili?”

Lilith forced a smile for everyone else’s sake, nodding. “Yeah,” she said. “You were badass.”

It wasn’t a pleasant memory for Lilith like it was for Tiffany. The cemetery had been crawling with the undead. Lilith almost hadn’t been fast enough. Tiffany couldn’t see, but she could hear amazingly and had tackled the vamp about to chow down on Lilith. Upon feeling the bumpy face, she’d slammed a rock in his face, hard enough to smash it in, causing the creature to explode in ashes.

“I’ve been fighting evil since before I met Lilith,” James said.

“Oh?” Ally asked, looking politely curious. “So, you’re a freelance demon hunter? I’ve met a few of your kind. Your type never lasts long. But I assume you know this work comes with an expiration date for us all.”

“Oh, I’ve been around for a while,” James said, smirking.

“So,” Lilith said. “You were called at the end of last school year, Ally?”

“That’s right,” Ally said. She was still looking at James, curious. Then she turned back to Lilith, even more curious. “I understand there’s only supposed to be one of us.”

“Yeah,” Lilith said. “That’s why I had to call my watcher, to make sure.”

“To make sure I wasn’t some evil ghoul with a plot to destroy you?” Ally asked, taking a sip of her drink. “Smart.”

“Something like that,” Lilith said. “Did anyone else know – anyone back in Boston – about you being a slayer?”

“I had two friends who knew the truth,” Ally said. “And my watcher, of course. Would you believe my uncle was a part of the watcher’s council and I never knew until I was called?”

“Your uncle was your watcher?” Lilith asked. “Can I ask – um, what-?”

“There’s no need for the gory details,” Ally said. For a moment, her perfect calm demeanor shifted, and Lilith saw some of the haunted pain that came with this line of work in her golden eyes. The moment was short though, and Ally was back to looking unbothered, examining her manicured red nails. “Not everyone can make it. That’s something I assume you’ve learned by now. I understand you’ve been slaying for three years?”

“Yeah,” Lilith said, looking down. “It’s something I’ve learned. I’m sorry to hear about your uncle.”

“We never got along anyway,” Ally said, shrugging and leaning back. She put her feet up on the table, taking another sip of her drink. “I’m looking forward to meeting your watcher.”

“Barton is great,” Lilith said. “You’ll like him.”

“So,” Ally said. She put her feet down and leaned forward, meeting Lilith’s eyes. She looked excited now, like whatever thought had just occurred to her was just delicious. “I hear you died.” She said it like it was some adventure she was jealous of going on. “What was that like?”

Lilith shrugged, shrinking into herself. “It was….”

“Come on,” Ally said. “You can talk to me. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t died.”

“It was cold,” Lilith said. She met Ally’s eyes, and there was a moment of shared intensity Lilith had never felt before – like the air was made of electricity. “And wet,” she said after a moment. “I drowned.”

“I brought her back,” Alvin said.

‘With acclimation, comes deep resentment

I'm forced in a structure I can only oblige

Integral turmoil, it’s time to decide

Choose my victims, draw my lines…’

“Come on,” Ally said, standing. She grabbed Lilith’s hand. “Let’s dance.”

Lilith followed Ally out to the dance floor, allowing herself to be led. Ally’s hands were small – but even in the way she gripped Lilith’s hand the strength only present in a slayer was there. Lilith only glanced back at her group of friends when they were already far from the group, in the midst of the dancing crowd.

“I like your dress,” Ally said, nodding to Lilith’s dark blue sundress. “It’s pretty.”

“Thanks,” Lilith said.

“Not very practical,” Ally went on.

“I’ll have you know; I defeated the master in a prom dress,” Lilith said.

“The master?”

“A very old vampire,” Lilith said. “He’s the one that killed me.”

“And you defeated him in a prom dress?” Ally asked, looking down at Lilith’s dress again, evaluating her. “Impressive.”

They were dancing as they spoke, moving in time with the music, close to one another. Lilith was still reeling from the idea that her death had called another slayer. For so long it had been just her, alone, in this role. It was like Ally said – there was only supposed to be one.

That was sort of the whole thing about the slayer. She had no counterpart. She wasn’t even supposed to have friends who helped her. That was something Lilith had broken the rules on, and Barton had allowed, even encouraged her to do so.

But it didn’t matter. Friends or not, it was always Lilith who had to face the big bad in the end. Just Lilith. Now this girl – this strange girl who would be living an ordinary life if it weren’t for Lilith’s death – was here.

Lilith remembered hearing about her – the girl who came before. The slayer who died so that Lilith could be called. The grief of all the slayers who had come before was something that had always weighed on Lilith, ever since her calling. The tragedy that there could only be one slayer at a time and that the only way for a new slayer to exist was for the old slayer to die was painful to conceive and something Lilith thought of often. So why hadn’t it occurred to her until tonight that her death would lead to another girl’s calling?

Lilith should have thought of this. Barton should have thought of this. James – he had been around for over a century, he’d met slayers before – he should have thought of this. Surely this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

Or was it? Slayers didn’t have friends, as a rule. There would be no one to administer CPR. Maybe a watcher, but watchers didn’t join on the frontlines of fighting. So perhaps this really was a unique situation.

“You’re staring,” Ally said.

“Sorry,” Lilith said. “It’s just – the chosen one thing was pretty much drilled into my head by the watcher’s council from a young age. I was fourteen when I was called, so uh, I’ve been doing this for a while. And I never…” she trailed off. “So where are you staying?”

“What?”

“You came here alone?” Lilith said. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen at the end of November. You?”

“Seventeen,” Lilith said. “Aren’t you a senior in high school then?”

“That’s the plan,” Ally said. “I just need to have a few things finalized with Sunnydale High.”

“So, are you here with your parents?” Lilith asked. “Do they know-?”

“No,” Ally said before Lilith could finish. “It’s just me. I’m staying at the Motel 6 a few blocks from here.”

“Well, I’m sure we can figure something else out,” Lilith said.

Ally half shrugged, still moving in time to the music. “Perhaps. Either way – I’m ready to start training. That’s all I care about.”

“Yeah,” Lilith said. The way Ally said it - ‘that’s all I care about’ - it was easy to believe her. Lilith understood too. The others, they were in this for good reasons. Caring about Lilith, caring about the good of the world, in James’s case, vengeance. But none of them knew what it was like to be in this because of a calling that was impossible to resist or deny. “I get it.”