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1
It starts like this:
She and Tony are drunk, lying together on a blanket in the garden and staring up at the stars. There’s literally millions of them, and she can’t tell if they’re real or not. Tony’s lighting a spliff next to her; the rush of lighter fluid sounds like a tidal wave.
He hands it over to her and she forgets all about it after just one toke, and then he starts tickling her to get it back – fingers digging into her sides, and a rush of laughter explodes from her. She shoves him off.
“Fucking hell, Ef,” he says, and when she looks up, he’s half-in-and-out of a pot of gardenias. It’s on the other side of the garden.
She starts laughing harder and when he joins her, she forgets all about it.
2
Kevin or Mike or Barry or – whatever his bloody name is, he’s taking too long. She’s started thinking of her coursework, of all things. Wishes she could light a fag while he’s at it.
He’s mumbling about her uniform; how predictable is that, she thinks, and wishes she could cram her little hat down his throat.
Finally, he groans, and she slips off him and tosses his boxers in his general direction. “Get out.”
“What?” Kevin-Mike-Barry asks, looking befuddled.
“Brother’s coming home soon; doesn’t need to see that,” she adds, with a nod towards his limp little third leg.
“But I’ll see you again, right?” he asks.
Moron. She doesn’t even bother responding; just shrugs and tugs on a stringy little tank, going for that much-wanted cigarette.
A hand on her shoulder; she bats it off, and then the oddest thing happens. Kevin-Mike-Barry positively howls.
“What the fuck,” she asks him, flatly, and then looks at the angle on his wrist. The next ‘what—the–fuck’ stays in her head, but echoes there relentlessly. Her blood starts thrumming, and she realizes that she’d like nothing better than to break his other wrist; hit him somewhere else, hurt him somewhere else.
“Crazy bitch,” he slur-spits at her, and then backs out of her room in just his boxers.
She watches him go out the window; he runs into Tony, who looks at him with nothing but amusement before shooting a look up at Effy.
A wide smile on his face. She can’t return it.
“Something’s wrong,” she mouths at the glass, and Tony’s eyebrows contract.
He takes the stairs two at a time, and watches as Effy sits down at the foot of her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest.
3
She’s bench-pressing her brother.
She doesn’t even know how to bench-press.
They decide to get really fucked up on some pills Tony got from Maxxie, and when he asks her if she’s okay, she says that she’s fine; ignores the rushing of blood to her head that says that she shouldn’t be sat about in her robe with Tony, that there’s something bigger to be done tonight. And every other night. Until –
She takes another pill.
“Ef – that’s the fifth,” Tony tells her blurrily. “You should be – well, in a hospital by now.”
She stares ahead mutely and then says, “I can barely feel it. I need more.”
“No,” Tony says, firmly. Or as firmly as someone halfway out of his mind can, anyway.
Effy turns to him and smiles at him wryly, before brushing a lock of hair out of his face. “And who’s going to stop me?”
4
For just one second, Tony looks afraid of her – like he’s really seeing her, for the first time.
Effy heads out shortly afterwards and ignores his text messages.
Of course he meant it.
5
She feels it in her blood: she needs to go dancing.
There’s a rave – or something like it, anyway. Michelle is there; slutting it up with someone who isn’t her brother. Good on her, Effy thinks, and then finds the nearest available body. Tall, dancing ridiculously; she’s laughing straight at him and he’s just laughing back.
Maybe this is just a new form of high – he twirls her, and she spins into him so quickly that they both nearly fall over. She’s still laughing, but he’s looking at her with a whole new kind of look.
Respect, maybe – but it’s more than that.
“Slayer,” he says. Maybe he asks. Either way, Effy goes, “What?”
He’s already backing away by the time it occurs to her that maybe, he knows something she needs to know. He didn’t sound like he was talking about the band, and besides, this is a rave – who the fuck would play Slayer at a rave?
6
When she stumbles out, more tired than fucked up, there are three of them waiting for her.
“Ooh, look at her,” the tallest says. He’s got a biker jacket that dates back to – when her dad wore biker jackets. It’s depressing. “I think we’ve got ourselves a green one.”
“Just activated, didn’t she,” the one next to him sort of lisps. My, grandmother, you have really big teeth, Effy thinks, and feels another swell of laughter come up.
Clearly she’s going insane. She opts to enjoy it.
“Anyone got a light?” she asks, before fumbling for her cigarettes.
They look at her in confusion, before the third – her earlier dance partner – steps forward with a rusty old Zippo. “Here you go, sweetheart.”
“Cheers,” she says, sucking to light, and then glancing up at his face.
Fuck –
[It’s just a reflex; that’s all it is, but seconds later, a hot, wet sizzling is what’s left of his eye.]
“Fucking cunt,” her former date spits.
She feels the urge to look at her own hand, at what it just did, but they’re all closing in on her.
I can bench-press Tony, she reminds herself, and before they can back her into a real corner, she lifts her knee into the general groin area of the one closest to her and then shoves at the second.
They stumble into each other, and her first thought is, they’re green, too. She doesn’t know how she knows, but she does.
She runs home.
7
Only when she gets home does she remember that she took a taxi out to the rave. It was about 8 miles away, and she ran all the way back, without stopping.
She isn’t even out of breath.
She sits down next to the bin that contains her pyjamas and smokes the rest of her cigarettes. This is where they find her.
8
“Shit; and I thought I was a mess at sixteen,” the girl says.
The older man with her pushes his glasses up his nose and says, “Yes, well, perhaps… youth today, in England,…”
“Whatever, G-man,” the girl says with an easy shrug, before hopping onto the wall across from Effy. “You Elizabeth?”
“Who wants to know?” Effy asks, even though she already knows – can just feel – that she’s going to go along with whatever these two want from her.
“’m Faith; this is Giles.” The girl swings her legs and then grins. “So – Elizabeth. Any interesting discoveries in the last few weeks?”
Effy doesn’t bother responding with words; instead, pokes at the garbage can with her pinkie finger and watches it tumble over.
“Very well,” the old man says. “I suppose that we can cut to the chase then.”
“You wanna invite us in? G here could use some tea; dunno what it is about you English types but it’s like you actually evaporate if you don’t drink it every few hours.”
Effy gets up wearily and says, “Fine.”
They follow her into her the house. She closes the living room door when her mother’s passed out on the sofa there, and doesn’t bother telling them to be quiet while they head to the kitchen. They both walk like whispers. It’s beyond strange, and yet all she thinks is, I could move like that.
She makes tea and then sits down again; Faith’s peering out the window, up at the sky, before sniffing just once and saying, “Something nearby – think it’s just fang action, but you don’t know.”
“Indeed,” Giles agrees, blowing onto his tea.
“Fang action,” Effy repeats flatly. “Like—“ and all she can think to do is make an intensely stupid face, poking out her incisors.
“Yeah, like those,” Faith agrees. “You seen any lately?”
Effy lights another cigarette, wondering if her hands should be shaking; Faith eyeballs the pack until she hands it over. “Tonight, I think. At a party.”
“You kill ‘em?” Faith asks, lighting up, and then rolls her eyes when Giles glares at them both. “Don’t even, man, I’ve spent the last three years of my life in prison – and this minor's already been corrupted. It ain't on me.”
Effy wonders if she should be disturbed by that. Before she can decide, Tony comes downstairs, looking like a twelve year old with his Pac-Man boxers and his tussled hair.
“Christ, Ef – what is this?” he asks; perks up a bit when he notices Faith, and then his eyes bug out when he spots Giles. “Are you going to—? With him, little sis?”
“I beg your pardon,” Giles says, with a hint of steel. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but we are merely here to have a discussion with your—your sister.”
“I’m sure that’s what you say to all the girls that you randomly visit at bloody five in the morning, you filthy codger,” Tony snaps back.
Faith exhales slowly before saying, “Hey, take it easy,” in a tone of voice that makes Effy’s skin crinkle. “Nobody’s here to nail your sister, and you might as well stop looking at my tits, because that’s not going to happen, either.”
Tony blushes. Effy tries not to grin.
“I have a speech,” Giles says, after a moment. “It’s a bit out-dated, and no longer wholly accurate, but it will explain some things.”
“Oh, fucking spare me,” Faith says, before beckoning Tony. “Here, champ. You can show me the outside air, or whatever the fuck.”
Effy watches them both leave; watches how, in particular, Faith looks back to her before ushering Tony out of the garden. That’s new, she thinks, and then forces herself to focus on Giles.
He says something like, “In every generation, there is a Chosen one. Well, except for the current generation, in which there are several thousand chosen, but—hypothetically, at least, there is just one, and she is meant to fight the vampires.”
It takes a second, and then Effy has to cover her own mouth not to start laughing hysterically.
Giles rolls his eyes. “Yes, I know how it sounds… damn, I should’ve brought the old book; what does Faith know about any of this…”
Effy realizes about five minutes further into the explanation that Giles is not joking, nor is he crazy.
She wishes she was drunk, or at least had a drink.
9
Tony and Faith come back with a bottle of whiskey from the garden shed.
Tony makes as though to pour a glass, but Effy just takes the bottle and drinks about a third of it.
“Jesus Christ,” Tony says.
“Relax, it’ll barely get me tipsy,” Effy says, before looking at Faith. “Right?”
“Yep,” Faith says, shoving her hands into her pockets and leaning against the wall, like she randomly has a round of drinks a total stranger’s house all the time. “Going to have to find your kicks elsewhere these days.”
“Like where?” Effy asks.
There are two other people in the room, but it hardly matters; she can feel something thread inside of her, and it’s reaching almost directly for Faith; a twitch of Faith’s lips means she can feel it too, and the response is almost in Effy’s head before Faith says the words.
“Like the chase. The hunt, and then the kill.”
“The what?” Tony asks, but Effy silences him with a look.
“So show me,” she says.
Someone clears their throat. “Elizabeth, it is very late, and it’s been a very long day; we have an academy, you know, where we train—well, the newly awakened. You are free to enroll. It’s in London, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you too—“
“Show me,” Effy repeats, looking at nobody but Faith.
Faith’s smile is slow and dangerous. “You heard the girl, Rupes. I don’t think she’s going to roll like B.”
Effy faintly hears Giles’ sigh, and feels Tony’s questioning look, but when Faith motions with her shoulder to follow, she’s found the only thing in the room that matters.
10
“So, Elizabeth, huh,” Faith says. “Fuckin’ mouthful, that. Mind if I call you Lizzie?”
They’ve been walking for two blocks now, without a person in sight. Faith seems to know where she’s going, though, and when Effy pays attention, she can also feel that they’ve got a clear goal in mind.
She’s not truly surprised when they end up in front of the borough cemetery; instead, just says, “Effy. I go by Effy.”
Faith releases a pained chuckle and says, “You’re fucking joking.”
Effy just shrugs and watches as Faith leaps up at the gate, before neatly twisting her body over it. It takes her another ten seconds to decide she should be able to do the same.
“Effy… fuck, that’s just too rich,” Faith says, when she lands, and then tilts her head. “You ever wanted to be a cheerleader?”
Effy raises her eyebrows. “Have you?”
Faith’s smile is still dangerous, but this time it seems full of promise. “I think we’re going to get on just fine, E.”
11
Faith does one, Effy watches.
Faith does another, Effy watches again.
Then there are three, and Effy tries one, spinning around him like they’re doing the twist.
“This is where we get our kicks, huh,” she asks, after the fourth one; her skin is tingling and her heart is racing, and she can’t even tell if she just wants to kill another one—stake him, that’s what Faith calls it, even though Effy’s merely poking them with a make-shift branch—or if she wants to press Faith up against the nearest headstone and fuck the daylights out of her.
Faith laughs wildly and spreads her arms open. “Hey, I gave you the truth. Your call what you do with it.”
Effy hops onto a marker and then jumps to the next, and the next, until she’s right next to Faith. “Can’t exactly do what I want to do by myself.”
Faith looks a little bitter, just for a second; then, she slings an arm around Effy’s back and says, “You’re way too fucking young for me. You know that, right?”
Effy can smell another one in the air, but takes just one more moment to tell Faith how it’s going to be. “I’m just like you, and I think you know that. Right?”
Faith shakes her head, and then they’re off again.
12
It doesn’t happen that night. Faith says no, and Effy takes it in stride.
The next day, she’s got a bag packed and a kiss on Tony’s cheek. “I’ll call.”
“No you won’t,” he says, before giving her a big hug. “But maybe you’ll send some mysterious postcards, detailing the absolutely-nothings of your life.”
“He give you the speech?” Effy asks. “Giles, I mean?”
“He seems like he knows what he’s doing. Plus, good taste in music,” Tony says, with a slightly wry smile. “It was an interesting night.”
“E – time to motor, come on,” Faith calls from the car, idling in front of their house.
“Say bye to Mum for me, when she wakes up,” Effy says.
Her hand slips from Tony’s with a bit of unease, but when she gets into the back of Giles’ ancient Mini, peddling off to London at a pace that’s so fucking slow she considers knocking him out and taking over, she knows she’s done the right thing.
13
There are hundreds of them.
When it comes down to it, though, there are only two that matter; and Effy finds that she gives a shit about only one of them.
“C’mon, Princess. What, you gonna keep on not eating and being used like a punching bag by the rest of these bitches? Pull it together, or you’re going to be some vamp’s little plaything in the next week,” that one says.
Within a week, Effy grows to dislike her a little; grows to loathe the way her eyes flit back and forth between Effy and what feels a whole lot like unfinished business.
Effy doesn’t like messy, and this has clusterfuck written all over it. But even then…
[Every time she thinks about her drugged up mother or Tony in a coma these days, she takes it out on one of them. She knows she’s not the only one, either. She sees it in Faith’s eyes when she fights.]
Within two weeks, Effy stops fucking the rest of her classmates and decides it’s not worth it, when she knows what she really wants.
14
She almost loses an arm on the fifth proper patrol, six months after she arrived at the academy.
[She’s in Faith’s squad – but not directly under Faith. Still not directly under Faith at all, actually.]
Back at the dorms, Faith curses and bandages her up; Buffy stands over them both like a very irate Mother Theresa. She doesn’t even have to say anything; Faith cowers under her like this is a very old story indeed, and nobody needs to remember their lines.
“She told me to keep formation,” Effy says flatly. “I opted to go out solo.”
“If she’d instilled a proper sense of discipline in you, you wouldn’t have.”
“B—“ Faith says, suddenly sounding exhausted.
“If she loses a limb, it’s on you, F,” Buffy says, sharply.
When Faith gets up, the edge of her tank top rides up with the movement, and Buffy’s eyes dart away uncomfortably at the sight of an old, faded scar.
“I’m sorry,” she then says, and focuses her ire on Effy. “No patrols for a month. Figure out a way to keep it in check, Stonem, or we’ll bench you for longer.”
Effy salutes her fading figure at the end of the hallway, expecting maybe a smirk from Faith, but instead she gets the second wave.
“Fuck you – what the fuck was that about? I told you that one was old and you weren’t ready. You don’t fucking believe me now?”
Effy can’t decide if Faith is close to punching her in the face or crying. It looks like a bit of both.
“I’ll be fine,” she says, holding up her makeshift sling. “We heal fast, remember.”
The fist is faster than the rest of Faith, who looks like she wants to apologize – but then just stalks off, punching the wall instead of Effy when she needs to let off a little more steam.
Effy wonders what it says about her new self that the slight tang of blood in her mouth just makes her want to hobble after Faith and say, “Again. But make it hurt this time.”
15
When it finally happens, it’s not in the wild surge of post-slay need that Effy always thinks is her window of opportunity. Instead, it’s the morning after her sling comes off, and Faith hovers in the doorway uncertainly.
“You gonna be good?” she asks, but it’s clearly not what she’s actually thinking.
“You wouldn’t like me if I was good,” Effy says. She’s not sure of the words until she sees Faith’s reaction to them, and then the door slams shut behind her.
“You don’t want to go there, E,” Faith says, taking a few tentative steps towards the bed.
“Go where?”
Faith crawls up the bed lightly, like a cat stretching in the sunlight, but Effy knows her muscles better than she knows her mind. “You don’t want to be me.”
“No, Faith. What I don’t want to be is her,” Effy exhales softly, when Faith is just an inch away from her face. Then, she smiles.
Faith blanches uncomfortably. “You don’t know—“
“Stop calling me E, and stop wondering what I’d look like if I cut and dyed my hair a little, and stop trying to make me gain weight until I look like her when you last fucked her.”
Faith’s hand is fast, but Effy’s is just a bit faster, stopping its progress mid-air.
“If you don’t want people to know, you should probably stop caring so much what she thinks of you.”
Faith looks murderous. “You think it’s that easy? You think I haven’t tried?”
“So try harder,” Effy says, and when she kisses Faith’s lips, it’s with a bite that puts an end to any comparison Faith could make.
16
Nothing much changes. Faith is a bitch in public and a bigger bitch in private; doesn’t like that Effy knows too much, but the concessions are there. She forces herself to use full names, and stops harping on the diet so much.
In turn, Effy doesn’t pester her about a hopeless crush that’s about ten years overdue.
17
Buffy finds out about four months after the first time, which says enough about how involved she is in running Camp Slayer.
She reams Faith out about authority positions and a whole lot of other shit that isn’t quite as impressive when, as Effy knows, Xander is trying to nail a third year named Ruby and Willow has slept with about three Slayers since the academy started.
Faith, of course, goes straight for the gut; bringing up some bloke named Angel who apparently helped Buffy figure out how to be a slayer in the way back.
They almost kill each other.
For once, Faith comes out on top; whispers something in Buffy’s ear, before getting off her and walking out of the training centre. Even gets a round of faint applause from some of the more clueless members present. Dawn hisses, “Go after her” in Effy’s ear, and then heads over to the mat to where Buffy is refusing to get up.
Pride is a real kicker, especially around these parts.
Faith is in the hallway, having a bottle of water and resting the back of her head against the wall. Her eyes, blacking and blue-ing all over, are shut tight.
“I know you’re there,” she says, after a minute of Effy waiting patiently. “And for what it’s worth, that wasn’t for you.”
Effy rolls her eyes. “Duh.”
Faith smiles after a moment. “I never thought I’d still be alive now, you know.”
“Yeah,” Effy agrees easily, and shows Faith some fading track marks. “Almost overdosed when I was fourteen. Tony’s more or less kept me together by accident.”
“And now? What’s keeping you going without Tony?”
Effy takes a deep breath, charges her sarcasm meter to full, and then sighs, “Destiny, I guess.”
Faith laughs and cuffs her in the head.
18
She graduates three years later, and she and Faith skip out on a plane to South America.
“Do you speak Spanish?” Effy asks, when they’re already underway.
“Nope.”
“Portuguese?”
Faith shakes her head, and then slings an arm around Effy’s back, squeezes her shoulder hard enough to bruise. “But then I’m not really coming over here to do much talking, yeah?”
Effy grins and bares her incisors; Faith kisses her like it's a punishment.
19
It’s like dancing; dancing under the stars, every single night of her life, with someone else who’s hearing the same beat.
It lasts forever – and not nearly long enough.
20
When Faith dies, it’s in the way she would have wanted to; a blaze of glory that’s nothing but pride and honor, saving Effy’s life and a whole village from a set of baby-eating goat demons at the same time. It just screams redemption, and it’s hard to begrudge her that.
Effy thinks for days about what goes on the marker; finally decides on, “Six by six.”
Dawn stands next to her at the funeral, and after five minutes of twitching at the inscription, says, “That doesn’t even mean anything.”
“Sure it does,” Effy agrees, in a flat voice that’s broken but not capable of crying more. “It’s better than five by five.”
Dawn snorts and cries at the same time, and Effy watches the coffin go down, feeling nothing at all.
21
Her own last moment, she styles like a Bristolian paso doble; one last time with the bull, in the same cemetery it all started.
“Slayer,” the vampire hisses.
“It’s our lucky night,” she says, in kind.
He looks confused, but comes at her anyway; they’re predictable like that, these single-minded creatures, and when he sweeps under her arm, she thinks of Faith, drunk on some sort of home-grown cactus liquor, howling ‘arriva’ at the moon.
It has been a long five years, and she’s so tired.
Her left flank stays open on the third sweep – right when the music would reach a crescendo. It’s an art, dancing like this. It’s her art, even now.
When he reaches for her on the turn, she closes her eyes; thinks, yes
.