Season 5

Opening Credits

5.1 The Freshman Fifteen
Written and directed by Greg Pearson.
The events of this episode take place on Monday and Tuesday, August 29th and 30th, 1994.
Intro: Sunday night, alone in her bed in her father's house, Samantha Kessler dreams of a line of Slayers standing against the dark, stretching back thousands of years in the past, and possibly just as far into the future. She seems to be in the center of an infinite line, but that is an illusion. As she focuses farther away on both sides, Sam realizes that there is both a beginning, and an end. The final woman, the very last Slayer of all, seems ghostly in form, nearly transparent, and then, as Sam watches, she fades out of existence. The Slayer next to her, her predecessor, also begins to fade. Sam is jerked back to her own body by a touch on her shoulder. A young woman with fair skin and brown hair says, "Help us." And Sam wakes up.

Just across town in his own bed, Erik Sorensen also dreams: of a many-towered castle set in lush hills and green valleys right out of a fairy tale. He stands at the top of the stairs to the topmost tower looking into a red and gold bedchamber, softly lit with candles. But instead of a Princess, on the canopied bed he finds a sleeping vampire. Gwen! Although she is beautiful with her red-gold hair spread out on satin pillows, she's not breathing and Erik is repulsed. He has a real girlfriend in this world! This must be a dream. Erik tries to control the image, whispering. "Don't be Gwen. Be Juanita instead." The dream breaks apart, and he wakes up. Credits.

Monday morning, Marcy arrives at St. Hubert's in her father's Sheriff SUV promptly at 7 AM, thinking that she'd get there early to pick the best side of the room. But Juanita got there at five. Erik's room gets its first spray of fantasy wall-art. Even with Juanita's donation of a laundry hamper and free organizing skills, Erik practically has a bathroom to himself, since no one is willing to share with him. Tony decorates his room with posters of the women of American Gladiators. Joshua puts his campus-standard furniture in storage, exchanging them for a hammock, a pile of large pillows, and a set of shelves installed up near the ceiling, with hand-holds along the wall nearby. He also installs heavy-duty burglar bars on his window, and a state-of-the-art deadbolt on his door. Tori arrives with her first carload of stuff about noon, with Days of Thunder added to her Risky Business and Top Gun posters. In minutes she has everything put away and military-neat. Sam installs her chin-up bar and climbing rungs like Joshua's, once she finds the studs in the ceiling of her room. Drew wanders in just as the stud-finder beeps. His room isn't as messy as Erik's, but it is cluttered with books, computer, floppy disks, and assorted weaponry jammed in the closet. Next door, Mari Jergen brings in several cloth-covered cages and locks her door behind her. She got special permission from the Bio Department to keep her experiments in her room, since they are better behaved when she's around. The last to arrive from the airport are the overseas contingent, Magnus and Xiu Mei.

At the first house meeting, Xiu Mei establishes the rule that there will be no TV in the upstairs common room after midnight on weeknights, or 2 AM on weekends, since there is no way to completely block the stairwell that connects her tower room to the common room. House dues are decided on, and elections held. Joshua narrowly edges Jezebel for House President, and graciously asks her to be his alternate, for times he can't make College Council meetings. She accepts, reluctantly. "Co-president" doesn't sound as good as "President" on her school resume, but it's a start. Magnus volunteers to be house Buildings and Grounds Rep. since that's a paid job and he needs the money. The first party of the year is planned for Tuesday night, themed "Heaven and Hellmouth." Erik and Juanita enthusiastically plan decorations for Hell (with beer and rave music) on the main floor and Heaven upstairs (with Tony bartending in a white tux and Bobby Mcferrin on the stereo). After dinner, Tony approaches Sam with a sealed envelope from Security Director Wilson. The letter explains how the Director can't officially endorse Slayer Club's activities this year. Because they were arrested last spring, they can't serve on Campus Security, even though the charges were dropped. But the Director does hope (unofficially, of course) that they'll still be protecting the campus with their "unique set of abilities," and perhaps Sam could shed some light on a mystery. Over the past three years, fifteen students have gone missing, never to be seen again. They came from all over the country, three from Massachusetts, although none were Solomon locals. They were all freshmen, but there are no obvious patterns to their family backgrounds, class selections, dorm, or club affiliations. They just disappeared during the first week, before classes began. The file includes pictures of the nine boys and six girls. After reading everything, Sam tells Erik, Drew, Joshua, and Tori about it. If these students were vamped, then Blaire might know something. Slayer Club hasn't visited the demon bar since Nazis burned it down and Blaire re-built. It's time to pay her a visit.

Monday night is Karaoke night!!! The acid-green sign on the door drips what looks like blood and the demon bar is hopping. Sam pushes a way in, and for once, no one even glances at her as she clears a path toward the bar. They're all riveted on the stage, where a vampire in game-face with long, matted gray hair and a tie-dyed T-shirt is singing a Beatles tune. Blaire is mixing a tall tumbler of livid orange fluid for a creature with three noses. As Slayer club reaches the bar, the vampire's filk-lyrics come through. "Imagine there's no Slayer, it's easy if you try... no midnight stakings or crucifixes through the eye... Imagine all those demons, killing without fear... oo-ooh! You might say-ay I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one..." Blaire spots Sam and groans. She's too busy for the usual banter tonight. Sam slips her a twenty, which vanishes quicker than the tumbler of flambéed orange stuff down the demon's sixth nostril, and shows Blaire three pictures of the missing students. Blaire recognizes two that hang out with Aimee near Martense. All summer, they drink here, but once classes start, there's no sign of those ingrates. Sam thanks her and edges back around the crowd, who are crooning along with the hippie vampire, "Imagine there's no sunshine..." Not for the first time, Sam regrets the promise of amnesty she gave Blaire. Her information is usually reliable, but when she gives air space to singing like that. Shudder.

Back at St. Hubert's, Sam presents the evidence to their housemates, asking if anyone wants to help hunt down the former students, now vampires. Tony, Magnus, Callie, and Jezebel join Slayer Club to check out the party-scene. Although the female sophomores get mobbed by frosh-males, no vampires appear. St. Hubert's party is opened to frosh, as long as they come in costume, to try and flush out the vampires that way. On Tuesday, Erik and Juanita decorate the dorm and go through their music collections for danceable tunes. Tony and Magnus, with his perfectly legal passport that swears he's 21 (although he's really closer to 421), drive to New York state to buy the beer and liquor, including a case of Captain Morgan rum. Meanwhile, Sam goes to the library to research scrying and time-displacement spells to try and find out what might be killing the Slayers in her dream. Temporal scrying is a tantalizing field of study, but runs aground where theoretical physics meets magic. Even with Drew's help with the big words, neither of them can make sense of the theorems, and practical spells are just a pipe dream. So, Sam goes back to hunting vampires the old-fashioned way: in chain mail, with her sword and Halloween angel wings to complete the costume. Drew wears all black and a priest's collar. Joshua throws a monk's robe over his regular clothes as St. Peter, guarding the stairs between hell and heaven with Brynhilde (Callie). Tori and Jezebel try to out-do each other in dominatrix outfits: Tori with the brass bustier she brought back from her time as a prisoner in a demon dimsension, Jezebel in black leather with thigh-high boots and a cat-o-nine-tails. Erik and Juanita both display lots of tattoos as they spin records. The party is a rousing success, both in intoxication and demon fighting. Aimee shows up to case the new crop of frosh-meat. Sam makes a flying leap down the stairs, catches the doorframe, and tackles Aimee from above. "We said, no drug dealers!" Sam escorts the "drug dealer" outside and knocks her out for questioning later. After the party, Sam offers Aimee her life, in exchange for the location of her lair and leaving town for good. Aimee pretends to comply. She leads Slayer Club down into the storm-drain tunnels, not to her lair, but to the lair of a lake-monster that she sometimes feeds the bodies of her kills. When the monster attacks, Aimee slips away. Slayer Club kills the creature, then go back to cover some of the later-ending parties. Joshua spots two of the missing frosh. This time, Slayer Club hangs back and follows them to an abandoned house where they're squatting in the basement. Then, they stake the vamps—one with the crucifix through the eye move Sam picked up from the Karaoke singer—so the others won't be warned. After sunrise, Slayer Club returns. Going from cot to cot, they stake all the remaining frosh-vampires and take their IDs to prove to Director Wilson that they are dead.

Epilogue: Just before sunrise, in another quiet neighborhood—it could be anywhere in the Solomon suburbs—another house with a "foreclosed" sign on the door, hidden behind a screen of leafy trees. The garden gate opens, and the elderly-looking hippie vampire slips inside. His eyes are dreamy as he hums the tune to "Imagine" and opens the door to the basement. Inside, the walls are covered with a floor-to-ceiling photograph-mural of John Lennon in concert. Under starry skies, Lennon's arms are spread as if to embrace the audience, or mimic the crucifixion. At one end of the large room stands a table, covered with candles and pictures of Lennon, artificial flowers, and sticks of burning incense. The floor is carpeted with rugs and sleeping bags, and dozens, if not hundreds, of vampires bedding down for the day.

5.2 Ghosts In The Machine
Written and directed by Tim Ballew.
The events of this episode take place on Friday and Saturday, September 9th and 10th, 1994.
Intro: It's a dark and stormy night in Solomon, Massachusetts. In Martense's historic cemetery, Samantha Kessler faces a linebacker-sized vampire wearing a varsity football jacket. In the sleeting downpour, it's more like mud wrestling than a clean fight. Drew holds his poncho over his crossbow to keep it dry, but the bolt misses by at least ten yards. Overshot! Loss of down! Dr. Gersham appears around the corner of a mausoleum, walking his mastiff golem, which leaps into the fight. Football-vamp shoulders the clay dog like an offensive lineman. Up on the mausoleum roof, Joshua faces a second vampire carrying a large, wriggling bundle over its shoulder. Rather than get caught, the vamp throws the bundle and jumps down to the next crypt. Joshua catches the bag and slides down the roof. Intercepted! Tori decapitates football vamp while Joshua unlaces the U.S. mail bag and helps out a pretty brunette wearing a Martense cheerleading sweater. Slayer Club goes back to St. Hubert's for showers and hot chocolate. Joshua disappears with Erica, the cheerleader, and everyone goes to bed. Meanwhile, (camera cuts back and forth) Erik and Juanita dance at a rave. Multi-colored lights strobe over the crowd of surging bodies, making their tattoos seem almost alive. Erik pulls Juanita close. Unnoticed around them, four men in black turtlenecks and narrow glasses exchange glances and nod. Juanita and Erik leave the crowd to buy energy drinks. Juanita downs hers and wipes her lips, but when she looks around, Erik is gone. Credits.

The next day, Joshua struts his "walk of shame" (he has no shame) and Erik doesn't show up for classes. Juanita is worried. She and Sam borrow some of Erik's art supplies to do a seeker spell, but the result is strange. On the map of Solomon, the dust swirls and collects in several places, including the media center of the computer science building, which is a place Erik would never set foot in. Sam and Juanita try again with a larger map. Across the U.S. the "Erik-charged" particles again settle in several locations. Drew recognizes U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champlain, Berkley, and Redmond, Washington, all places that are home to major Internet routing centers. Drew guesses that if Erik were digitized, like in Tron, he could be zipping though the wires at the speed of light. He logs onto his computer and sends Erik e-mail—"Are you in there?"—but gets no response. Joshua asks Erica how she got abducted. She'd gone to the library, where a nerdy guy named Max Minier hesitantly asked her out. She laughed at him. Shortly after, a big football player asked her out and she left the library with him. Bad choice. According to the Martense directory, Max Minier is a grad student at the Martense media lab. Dr. Gersham recalls that there's a brand new department chair this semester—Prof. Gary Veckner, who left the IT department of Wolfram & Hart to come to Martense. Rumors floating around the faculty said that the law firm wanted Veckner back in the worst kind of way, and the new professor has hired some serious protection from his former employers.

Drew and Joshua go to the Media lab posing as a reporter and photographer from the Monitor, writing a story about the new computer projects. They walk in on an argument between Veckner and Minier, about some missing equipment. When Minier leaves, Drew follows. Joshua stays to question Prof. Veckner about his project. Veckner won't talk until Joshua tells how Slayer Club encountered Wolfram & Hart before, at the Paradise Theater and Drew's bottomless pit in Jamaica. Although paranoid, Veckner begins to trust that Joshua is not from W&H. When he left the company, Veckner took the master copy of a virtual reality program he'd helped create. It was meant to release a "digital entity" (i.e., a Net Demon) into the world, but when Veckner caught a glimpse of the entity, he was terrified. The one place he thought he'd be safe was his alma mater. He'd planned to shut down the program from the inside, but hadn't yet figured out a way to do this when an interface module and several headsets were stolen last night. From Max, Drew finds out what happened: other grad students "borrowed" the equipment to try the VR world themselves. Wolfram & Hart has posted a $10 million prize to any person or team who returns the stolen 'Easter egg' buried in the code. So, the grad students thought they'd give it a shot, but the game was getting pretty hairy in the weirdness factor. They needed someone who could grok the magic, so they asked Erik Sorensen for help. The guy's into all that voodoo shit, and knows games too. Last Max heard, Erik was logged in all night.

Slayer Club splits up to do more virtual damage. After a big lunch, Drew, Juanita, and Tori go to the apartment Max shares with his grad student roomies. Erik is lying on the couch, wearing a headset and drooling. Juanita volunteers to go first, so she can be the first to virtually kill Erik for making her crazy worried like that. But there's a little matter of a contract on W&H stationary, with lots of sub-clauses and sealed with dark red ink that could be blood. Drew won't sign that paper, but agrees to sign a separate contract with the grad students, promising to split the $10 million evenly, no matter what happens. That's acceptable. Drew writes up the second contract on notebook paper and signs it. Juanita and Tori do too. The grad students sign, and then hook them up to the machine. Meanwhile, Sam, Joshua, and Dr. Gersham go to the Media lab where the professors greet each other as brothers. Magic bridges all specialties, even computer science and ancient history. Here, there's no contract, just an extra bit of code, a "cheat sheet" that will help Slayer Club find equipment in VR world. Their mission is to find the hollow tether to an orbital station, like Jack's beanstalk, that'll take them up to the contact point where the Net Demon will emerge. Severing the tether or closing down the contact will return the Net Demon to its own dimension. Prof. Veckner wishes them luck.

Slayer Club meets in VR world, high up in a skyscraper looking out on a horizon-wide city somewhere between Coruscant and the Fifth Element. Their clothing is vintage Star Wars—Dr. Gersham has a light brown Jedi robe, Drew is Han Solo, Joshua's all in black like a dark Jedi, Sam is wearing a white and orange space suit, Tori has Princess Leia's outfit from Jabba's throne room in Empire Strikes Back, and Juanita has sprouted the head tails of a Twi'lek dancer. Juanita and Tori agree that when they return, those grad students are in for a bad time. A clear, curved wall opens out to helipad for hover cars. Along the edge stand several white barrels. Drew concentrates on what he wants to find: a set of power armor, before Sam smashes the first barrel. What they wish for, they get. Drew gives Sam the armor, and Sam gives Juanita her space suit. Juanita asks for a pulse rifle with a clip of ammo. Doctor Gersham gets a light saber. Joshua asks for a thermal detonator, on the theory that if you get everything you asked for, you didn't ask for enough. He gets it, which is either good, or worrying. Next, Joshua wants to try for a TIE Fighter, but there are no more barrels. On the horizon loom several obelisks, a glass pyramid, and the shining space elevator that is their goal. While looking for a pedestrian chute or flying taxi stand, Drew spots one guy who doesn't fit in: he's wearing a black suit and sunglasses. The Matrix hasn't been invented yet, so he must be from Wolfram & Hart. Sam tackles him. Drew confiscates his gun. Sam beheads him with a knife and he sparkles out of existence. Police in riot gear converge. Slayer Club takes the W&H guy's hovercar and peel off looking for more white barrels. Before long, Slayer Club are all outfitted in either Boba Fett-style power armor or Storm Trooper-style rigid armor, and carry pulse rifles, light sabers, or blasters. But on one rooftop, battledroids attack. Drew blasts a hole under the first row and Dr. Gersham uses "Jedi mind tricks" to melt the rest with a plasma fireball. Unfortunately, the explosion blasts Drew and Tori off the roof, right into a chase scene. Drew falls into an open-topped hover car with four gangster-types. Tori lands on the roof of a squad car in hot pursuit. Drew grabs the wheel and aims the gangster car right through a flying fruit stand and into a fuel depot. He bails out just before it hits. Sam pushes Joshua aside and catches Drew before he can fall too far. Joshua maneuvers under the cops and Tori jumps back into their own hover car. Slayer Club speeds off toward the space elevator.

Halfway up the tether, Slayer Club finds another team of W&H operatives in black suits and sunglasses. Battle ensues with deflecting blaster bolts and flying jumps. Another level of the beanstalk opens onto an anachronistic bedchamber, draped with red tapestries and golden candelabra. Erik stands just inside the doorway. In the bed lies Gwen, her eyes opening in super slo-mo. Juanita is not amused. She yanks Erik up. He gushes thanks for finding him and getting him the heck out of here. Somehow, he got stuck in this room, his dream again, on his way up the VR beanstalk. Juanita blasts a door in the wall to the next level, a security room with x-ray machines and retinal scans. Sam and Joshua wrench two mini-guns off the wall and make another door. The room at the top is a darkened amphitheater, except for the glowing, spherical portal in the middle of the air. A third W&H team mills about in zero gravity while a robed figure floats under the portal chanting. The portal cracks open along one edge and a fringe of glowing tentacles writhes out into the room. Joshua and Sam spray mini-gun fire into the W&H clones, while Tori vaporizes the mage with her pulse rifle. Red mist spreads out, along with two artifacts that Dr. Gersham catches, and then wishes he didn't: a severed human hand, and a bloodshot eyeball the size of a grapefruit. Drew groans, "The eye and hand of Veckner. Of course!" Dr. Gersham holds up the artifacts and shouts "close!" in every language he knows, which is lot. When he gets to Babylonian, a hideous shriek echoes and the glowing doorway snaps shut, severing the tentacles. Joshua sets his thermal detonator in the wall of the security room and Slayer Club speeds back down the tether just ahead of the fireball. Back on the ground, they find the nearest glowing EXIT sign and log out. Tori and Juanita take turns slapping the grad students around while Sam reports to Prof. Veckner that his program is now useless, which is a great relief.

5.3 Samantha Jane and the Incident at Calico Gulch
Written and directed by Chris Roosenraad.
The events of this episode take place between Friday, September 23rd and Sunday, September 25th, 1994.
Teaser: A tall, blonde woman in khaki shorts and a Stanford T-shirt hikes a rocky trail through a dusty landscape much rougher than the hills around Solomon. She's carrying a large backpack, a tripod, and a map. At the top of a rise, she takes off her California Angels baseball cap to wipe her forehead. It's Anne Crewe, who left Solomon two years ago when her parents moved to San Francisco. She takes a sip from her canteen, checks her compass, and sets up her tripod with a surveyor's scope, making careful notes on a clipboard that reads "Mt. Locke, Texas Observatory—Initial Survey." As she sights through the scope, there's a shift underfoot and a grinding sound. The ground cracks open. Anne falls down into darkness and a shooting star-field, to land with a thump on a dirt floor. Torchlight dazzles her eyes and a voice with a deep southern drawl says, "Just where did you come from, darlin'?" (Credits)

At Martense, Dylan Reese recruits Slayer Club to join a reenactment of the Battle of Chantilly. Two other companies, from New York and Virginia, are visiting for the event, so it should be a good time, if you like period costumes and hardtack for lunch. Erik and Tori, who know how to ride, join the cavalry. Drew joins the gunnery squad. Dylan presents Sam with a gingham dress to fill the role of a wife, or "camp follower," but Sam refuses. She'll wear a fake beard and join the medics instead. Dylan is disappointed. They never have enough camp followers. It's just not authentic without them. But it's authentic enough. Cannons spew white smoke. Tori's horse responds to her directions perfectly; Erik's mount, less so. Sam's fellow medic shows off his case of Civil War surgeon's tools—mostly saws—that look like they haven't been cleaned since 1845. During the lunch break, traveling merchants set out tables of pewter tableware and jewelry, Indian beads, and feathered charms. One of the merchants wears a wide-brimmed hat and long cloak, an authentic costume, if a little heavy for the warm day.

During the afternoon counter-charge, Drew notices the other gunnery officers acting strange and staring blankly at nothing. Tori's war-sense kicks in and she shies her horse sideways just as a real cannonball plows into the dirt next to her. She kicks her mount to a gallop, charging the cannon before they can re-load. Drew draws his saber and cuts the fuse of the next cannon before it can go off. From twenty yards way, Tori snuffs the burning match of the third cannon. All the gunners except Drew are wearing braided necklaces of glass beads. The heavily cloaked merchant was selling things like this, but he's gone now. When Erik and Drew confiscate the necklaces, the gunners pass out and Drew gets a vision—bleak, dry, western mountains. Parched. Trapped. And deep, centuries-old anger. He sees a flare of torchlight, and a face he recognizes: Anne, as we last saw her, tied up in the corner of a cave. Slayer club abandons the reenactment and takes the necklaces to Professor Audley, expert on Native American lore. He examines them and declares that the construction is not Native American, but they are old, concurrent with the War Between the States. Sam calls Anne's number at Stanford, but gets her answering machine. She's supposed to be on a Geology/Astrophysics trip, surveying sites for the new Mt. Locke observatory outside of Houston, Texas. Except she's not in Texas, 1994. Trusting the age of the artifacts and Drew's visions, Anne's in deep trouble somewhere in the mid-1800s.

Juanita and Pandora set up a dream-travel spell, using the necklaces as foci so they can go back to rescue Anne. Slayer Club dreams: Erik sees Gwen wake up and look at him before Juanita yanks him away. Sam's line of Slayers is still shorter than it was before. She can see the length of the line, or concentrate on the individual faces, but with Heisenbergian uncertainty she can't be sure of both. The Slayer who asked for her help introduces herself as Kate and says she's Sam's guide for this vision. The Slayers in the vision represent the most probable future; they're fading away because something in Sam's time is making them less probable. But, when she asks what she has to do, Juanita pulls her out of the dream before Kate can answer. Tori appears in medieval armor. Drew is dressed as Burt Ward's Robin, and the fewer questions asked about that dream, the better. Pandora is wearing an academic robe, with a Nobel Prize around her neck. When Juanita collects them in dreamtime, Slayer Club changes clothes with a thought. Erik puts a chainmail shirt under his regular T-shirt and cargo pants, with his gloves and hammer tucked into his belt. Drew wears a cowboy hat and leather jacket with his Star Trek T-shirt jeans, rapier, and flashlight/crossbow. Tori opts for something fashionable, which means a big, ribboned bonnet and a full skirt to easily hide her sword and lighter. Sam wears her usual Slaying gear: jeans, T-shirt with flannel, brown leather jacket, and the Kessler sword strapped across her back. Pandora insists on going, with her St. Germain's plaid skirt and jacket, and a big backpack full of books. Juanita stays behind to be their anchor in the present, and agrees to meet them in their dreams again in three nights.

1867 Texas. There's a small town—if you want to call a meagre trading post and couple tents a town—about a quarter mile away, where a squad of men in Union blue works on building some earthworks. At the trading post, they find everything a homesteader could want, and some things they obviously don't, like a whole box of cheap bead necklaces like the ones at the reenactment. According to the shopkeeper, they were made by some old Johnnie Rebs who took up mining out in the hills. Sam trades her watch, and Drew his flashlight—"Tesla-lamp: lights itself!" (at least until the batteries die)—for supplies, including a pearl-handled revolver that Tori drools over. Slayer Club hikes all day looking for caves like Drew saw in his vision. At sunset, Sam makes camp. Just before dark, Drew spots someone on running down the next mountain, followed by three burly-looking men. Slayer Club runs over to lend assistance. It's Anne and the three "Johnny Rebs" that the storekeeper spoke of. Stanley, David, and Joseph don't stand a chance against Sam and Tori. One look at the guns, and they're off down the mountain into the dark. A fourth man, Lloyd, sets off Sam's "vampire-sense." Drew takes a shot at him, but misses, and he's gone, too. In the dark, Sam doesn't trust tracking them down an unknown mountain. Anne leads them back to the prospectors' cave, which they appropriate for their own camp. The prospectors have dug a hole in one corner with torches set around the perimeter. In the center of the floor, a large vein of gray-black ore curves through the lighter granite, forming a stylized Nordic dragon eating its own tail.

That night in the cave, Erik doesn't dream about Gwen in her Sleeping-Beauty castle. He doesn't dream at all, and has the best night's rest he's had in months. Instead of her Slayer-line, Sam dreams of brilliant white light and a sensation of flying, complete freedom and peace. Drew sees himself as the Weatherman, standing on a raised platform in front of the biggest bank of computer screens ever. In each screen, a girl's face, or a monster, or a clip of landscape. Drew is directing an army of Slayers via satellite communication, with GPS tracking, on-call mystics, and all the other toys the Watchers won't let Sam have! Anne also dreams of computers, roomfuls of them, large and small, racks of CPUs and data storage, all networked to form something just shy of actual sentience. She knows this isn't possible in 1994, but it could be, someday. Pandora dreams of dancing in a storm of confetti: the party after the Nobel Prize presentation. Tori 's dream is of a lake of liquid fire ringed by mountains of glass: the hell-dimension that once belonged to Baal, which her minions have been conquering piece by piece for two years. At the head of the army, a bright pink beret shows where Lenth, Generalissimo of the Tori-ites, exhorts his men to take the field in Tori's honor. They do, but with high casualties. Not quite a Pyrrhic victory, but they are definitely going to need reinforcements.

In the morning, everyone relates their dreams and brainstorms about why there would be an image of the Midgard Serpent hidden in a cave in Texas. Sam tries to track the men who fled, but the ground is too hard to take prints. About lunchtime, Drew makes a startling observation: the image in the rock is moving! Not quickly, but since dawn, the dragon's foreleg has rotated a couple degrees. Drew carves notches in the floor with a shovel and Anne calculates the rate of revolution. The cave-mouth points due south. The Dragon's head is currently at W, NW and moving clockwise. At its current rate, the Dragon's head, where the tail meets teeth, will be at due north in eight and a half days. Slayer Club investigates the hole in the corner and finds the floor is a single plate of silvery-gray metal and, according to Anne's readings, ever so slightly curved: part of a sphere, or ellipsoid, about a kilometer across, or roughly the entire volume of the hill under the cave.

The third night, Erik sleeps in the cave, but everyone else pitches tents on top of the hill. When Juanita appears in their dreams, she is puzzled. She couldn't reach Erik. When Sam explains what they found, Juanita switches places with Pandora, who's been bored stiff with all the wrong books. Pandora promises to hit the Martense library for everything they have about the Midgard Serpent, and history of this part of Texas in 1867. If this "egg" hatched there should be records of it at least as an earthquake or eruption. Juanita takes one look at the dragon markings, and falls in love. This whole area is strongly magical and aspected toward serpents. She lies down right at the dragon's head, closes her eyes, and goes into a trance. She stays like that all day, while the others keep searching the hills. The fourth evening, Sam smacks her forehead. In the back of the cave there's a pile of the miner's equipment Lloyd and his gang left behind. She sits down with the rough map they bought at the Trading Post and casts a Seeker spell. The three miners and their vampire friend are holed up on the far side of Black Mountain, which, according to Anne's surveying, is exactly the same size and shape as Mt. Locke and due east of it. Both cave-mouths face due south.

Just after dawn, Slayer Club goes to confront the miners. Their cave has red poles stuck around the dragon's circle, and calculations marked on the walls. Sam and Tori beat up the humans, but don't kill them. The men run off toward the settlement and the vampire wakes up. Drew and Sam question him. Lloyd found these hills very conducive to magic, and so set his coffin facing the dragon's mouth, the same way Juanita set herself up. Apparently, these two dragons have been rotating, clockwise and counter-clockwise, at the same rate, for eight years that Lloyd knows of. Drew suggests that they let this vampire go, because he's the "traveling merchant" that sold the necklaces that got Slayer Club involved in the first place. But Sam suggests that he find a new lair, since she and "her posse" are going to be checking on this place from time to time. Juanita makes a note of the exact location so she can come back whenever she likes, and then opens the dream-portal to return everyone to their proper time and place. Anne reports that Mt. Locke and nearby Black Mountain are not geologically stable, and so would not make a good location for the observatory. Slayer Club get back to Martense in time for their Monday morning classes, while the dragon-clocks continue to tick away the centuries, buried in the west Texas hills.

5.4 Guerrillas in the Mist
Written and directed by Greg Pearson.
The events of this episode take place between Saturday, October 8th and Monday, October 10th, 1994.
Intro: Michael and Dr. Gersham are sitting in Michael's living room, glasses of Maniescewicz and Schnapps at hand, discussing 18th century imperialism and their syllabi for next semester. Michael's phone rings. He answers, listens, and curses in Ancient Aramaic. After hanging up, Michael invites Dr. Gersham to join him on a road trip, since Michael doesn't drive. A Temple seer picked up a vibe from a cult known as "The Order of the Solar Temple" that claimed to be a direct descendant of the Temple of Solomon, much to the amusement of the actual Temple of Solomon. But an hour ago, they not so amusingly killed themselves (or were killed) en masse. Two branches of the Order were in Switzerland, and one was in Quebec. Being the only real Temple of Solomon agent on the east coast, Michael is ordered to Morin Heights to investigate. As the two professors drive out of town, thick, clinging mist rolls over Solomon's Main Street and an airport shuttle bus drives into town, stopping in front of the Sacred Grounds. Ada emerges, wearing a London Fog trench coat and Burberry scarf. She pulls out three suitcases with prominent British Airways stickers, looks over her shoulder, rummages in her bag for the keys to the store, and then looks up again. In her very precise Queen's English: "You have got to be kidding me!" Credits.

It's Columbus Day weekend, which in Solomon, is a big deal. There was a battle fought here during the Revolution, "The Columbus Day Massacre"—three people were killed and the British fort up on Solomon Heights was burned to the ground. (Okay, three buildings, two cannon, a lean-to for horses and a latrine. But there was a stockade, so it was still a fort!) In late September of 1777, the British commander got tired of local guerrillas—ahem, "Freedom Fighters"&mdash'cutting the British supply lines, so he arrested Solomon's mayor and the four town council members to enforce obedience. Instead, the town rose up to rescue them. Someone spilled a lantern on the horses' hay and the five prisoners overpowered their guards, only to have half of them get shot trying to get over the wall. Mayor Edward Clark and two councilmen died. Robert Sorensen and another councilman escaped to fight another day. If those names sound familiar, they should. They have direct, male-line descendants in Solomon today.

One of those descendants has begun dabbling in an ancient art, practiced by colonials for centuries, sometimes with almost mystical effects. Other times, it just produces a nasty mess that only a frat member would dare drink. Erik is brewing his own beer for St. Hubert's Columbus Day party. Magnus started fermenting a cask of mead in the janitor's closet over a month ago. Joshua also seems to be fermenting something in his room. Strange smells like pine tar leak under the door, but no one is brave enough to find out what it is. As at all St. Hubert's parties, costumes are required before 10 pm. Erik plans to dress as Samuel Adams. Drew resurrects his pirate outfit as Laffayette. Sam gets a dress and a large earthenware jug to play Molly Pitcher, and Tori borrows a set of panniers from a friend in the theater. Bets are made about how many weapons she can conceal under her skirt. However, that's for the party, which isn't until Sunday night.

Saturday, Sam overhears Marcy and Callie discussing a security case of a student who went missing from the Crimson & Gray bar. It's only two blocks from campus, and they never card anyone, so it's a favorite hangout for students. Sam and Drew stake out the bar, sitting in her Jeep a block away, although with the windows fogging up, it's a wonder they can see anything. Eventually, two students leave, weaving and holding on to each other. Two other figures emerge from an alley and follow. Even without Sam's vampire sense, it's obvious these two are holdovers from the seventies. The female is wearing tie-dyed everything; the male, a horizontal-striped velour shirt and bell bottoms. Sam and Drew disentangle and follow them. During the fight, tie-dye vamp chick bites Drew, but Sam pulls her off and holds her in a half nelson while she stakes velour vamp, and then finishes off tie-dye. The drunken students run back to campus. Sam gets a sad look in her eye when she sees the blood on Drew's neck, but he isn't badly hurt, and they both shake it off.

Saturday night, Erik has another slow motion, Gwen-waking-up-in-a-fairy-tale-castle dream. Tonight, she sits all the way up, and almost looks like she might speak. But then he wakes and it's over. Good thing Juanita's in Texas again, or she'd be pissed. Not that he can help his dreams, just like he can't control the drifting clutter and dirty laundry when she's not around. Sam dreams about her Slayer lineage again: Vivian and others in the past, Faith and others in the future, the line of Slayers a little shorter than it was last time. Kate is there, Sam's Slayer spirit guide with her big doe eyes and cryptic answers. Sam's wracked her brain, the Martense library, and all the books that Slayer Club stole from Hartsdale. No one seems to know of any being or force that can make the future even less certain than it already is. Pure chaos, maybe, but how could someone focus pure chaos specifically on the Slayers? Or the power that makes a Slayer? Even the Watchers don't know everything about that. One Slayer dies, the next one is Called. The power flows from Potential to Potential, like electricity to a lightning rod. So, what if the problem is a kind of magic capacitor, tuned to catch the Slayer power at the time of her death, before it can reach the blonde girl who seems destined to follow? That would make the entire future line disappear, sure. But Sam's going to do her best to keep that from happening.

Sam's phone wakes her up at 6 AM. It's Jonathan. The Sacred Grounds was attacked last night. She gets up and Drew blearily follows. Even though they're abstaining from sex, he still wants to sleep in her bed, because it's the only place he feels safe. Sam lets him on the weekends, even though it's difficult to keep her hands off him. When they arrive, the Sacred Grounds is trashed. Windows broken, coffee canisters smashed, and several black suitcases and women's clothes scattered everywhere. Sam checks the basement, where their practice weapons are scattered, but nothing seems to be missing, except the owner of the clothing: a new Watcher, presumably, who doesn't know what she's in for. Jonathan finally calls the cops, and then has to stand around answering questions. Sam pockets one of the Watcher's bras to use for scrying. A woman puts a lot more thought into choosing a bra than socks or t-shirt, and it's worn close to the heart. However, the scrying has no result with maps of Solomon, the United States, or the world. Either the new Watcher is dead, or abducted to another world or time period. This being Solomon, none of those are unlikely scenarios. After his ROTC run up and down Solomon Heights, Joshua goes to Blaire's to question her, and also warn her about the other drinking establishments being trashed: the Sacred Grounds, and Sullivan's, a faux-English pub that caters mostly to yuppies and tourists. Drew immediately calls Pandora to ask for her help. She's reluctant to leave her current project—trying to trace some mysterious noises she's heard on the St. Germain's grounds the past couple of nights—but agrees that finding Ada takes precedence. Pandora scans both vandalism sites for mystical clues. At Sullivan's, there's a pungent residue of liquor and bits of faux English décor litter the floor, but no sign of a temporal or dimensional portal.

Thinking that the demon might be targetting things British, Slayer Club Britishizes their party on Sunday night. Their housemates don't care what the decorations are, as long as the beer is good, so Union Jacks fly and Joshua unveils his costume and homemade libation: King George III, serving bathtub gin. He even has a crown, which he found at Sullivan's. Tori modifies her gown as a British lady: Tori, the Tory. Sam gives up Molly Pitcher to become a Hessian mercenary. Drew's creativity was exhausted by his Laffayette costume, though, and he stubbornly refuses to change. Erik doesn't change his costume, either, but he claims to be Benedict Arnold, rather than Samuel Adams. His beer isn't bad, for an amateur. Better than the average swill. Magnus's mead is quite good, but the bathtub gin goes over better. After midnight, the party winds down, but no demons show up. Joshua decides to royally promenade with his lady and bodyguards, and a loyal royalist at his side, but the promenade also fails to draw out any demons. Slayer Club changes back into street clothes and go to check on Pandora. St. Germain's campus is heavily warded, so they can't get too close. Drew and Erik go back to get Drew's telescope. Realizing that they're training a high-powered telescope on a fifteen-year-old girl's bedroom window gives them the "eewws." Pandora's window is open and her room is trashed and empty. Joshua and Sam damn the wards, full steam ahead, up a tree, over the roof, into the courtyard. Joshua pauses to knock out the two guards who investigate the alarm. He pantses them, ties them up with their belts, and puts their magic wands under a separate shrub from the sleeping bodies. Five sets of footprints trail out over the grass, gradually lighten, and disappear near the river, heading straight back to Solomon Heights.

Slayer Club burns rubber up the hill. In the moonlight, the outline of the fort emerges from the mist. Two spectral guards stand in the courtyard, two more in the stockade, one sits at the Commander's desk in the office, and three prisoners huddle in the cells: Ada and Pandora, and a young man Slayer Club doesn't recognize. Erik consults his portable grimoire of voodoo knowledge—his tattoos. There is a spell invoking Legba, guardian of portals, which opens a path to the spirit world. Erik tries it and Joshua, with the Legba tattoo on his foot, goes ghostly. The guards—spirits of the dead councilmen—jump when he appears out of nowhere and they take him to the office. Joshua's accent and clothing (thank God he changed!) convince Mayor Clark that he's not a British loyalist. They let Joshua speak to Ada and Pandora, and he sends a message to the rest of Slayer Club by writing in the dirt with his magical katana. The third prisoner is Oliver Brant, the missing student from the Crimson & Gray. Sam writes back using her sword. More research is needed, either to bring this Colonial Brigadoon all the way solid, or communicate with the ghosts, because otherwise the three British citizens are going to be shot on Monday night: blood for blood shed in the Columbus Day Massacre 217 years ago.

Monday afternoon is the parade, starring Erik's grandfather, the Congressman. Slayer Club spends the day in the Martense library. After much searching, Erik finds a Celtic ritual that brings a piece of land from one plane into another. Originally used to recover someone stolen by the fey (Erik can relate), the ritual requires powdered silver and a personal artifact for each person, as well as the place and time. Tori buys out the magic shop's entire stock of powdered argent and Magnus grinds up a silver dagger from Slayer Club's weapon stash to make up the rest. Although way under-dressed, Erik, Sam, and Drew go to Grandpa Sorensen's reception. While Erik chats with his grandfather and the security guards, Sam manages to swipe an authentic Colonial quill from the display table. With one of Pandora's books, Joshua's belt knife, a notebook from Oliver's room, and Ada's black, lacy bra, they have all the artifacts. At sunset, Slayer Club sprinkles the silver powder all the way around the ruined fort's foundations. Erik draws Celtic knots on poster board with the Colonial pen and arranges the artifacts around them. He gets momentarily distracted by Ada's bra, but hands out 3x5 cards with the phonetic spelling of the Gaelic chant. As the sun disappears behind the horizon, the fort comes into ghostly being, and then all the way solid.

He did it! The biggest spell Erik's ever attempted, and there was no rain of coffee mugs this time. Sam kicks down the door and Erik throws his hammer. The thunderclap brings the ghosts running. Erik charges directly into musket fire, which is notoriously inaccurate. To a point. One musket ball misses, but another hits and drops Erik to his knees. Joshua shoots two of the councilmen in the kneecaps, and Sam and Tori punch out the other two. Joshua challenges Mayor Clark to a duel and coolly stands, not firing even when fired upon. The smallest turn of his shoulders causes the Mayor's shot to miss, and Joshua shoots the ground at his feet. The Mayor is impressed. Slayer Club could have killed them, again, but chose not to. Joshua's cool logic combined with an impassioned rant from Tori convinces Mayor Clark that it's time to give up his blood vendetta and rest. Two of the prisoners are Tori's personal friends. She's very upset with her ancestor. Why is her father's family all jerks? Almost makes her want to change her name. Sam binds Erik's wound, which is messy but superficial, and Robert Sorensen apologizes for shooting his many-greats grandson. Slayer Club takes Ada, Pandora, and Oliver back to present day Solomon as the ghostly fort vanishes into the mist.

5.5 Demon Days
Written and directed by Tim Ballew.
The events of this episode take place between Sunday, October 30th and Tuesday, November 1st, 1994.
Intro: Halloween morning hasn't even dawned yet, but Slayer Club is getting an early start. Camera POV is dim, Rami-esque bobbing along the contours of a rock passage. Battle noises and the 'poof' of vampire dusting come from ahead. Closer in are chattering voices and occasional glimpse of greenish brown, gnarled hands at the edges of the frame. The passage ends at a twelve foot cliff and the camera looks down at Slayer Club, fighting a roomful of stoned vampires, 70s rejects, surrounded by lava lamps and black-light glowing posters. The right side of the camera dips slightly, and a pale wooden wand comes into view. The wand points downward, directly at Sam Kessler. A louder chatter sounds like an incantation, then a bright flash of light, acrid smoke, and darkness. Credits.

The camera pans around the small tunnel at six confused looking creatures. They put hands to their faces and look down at themselves and around at each other, squeaking in alarm. In the cavern below, Sam Kessler stands up and flexes her muscles, grinning wide. Drew is next to come around, hefting his crossbow. Michael Saiyer sits up and looks at his hands like he's never seen anything so marvelous. Just at his fingertips, the swirling sandstorm that is Michael's true form flickers into view. A thin smile splits his lips. One by one, the others come to their senses. Dr. Gersham seems disappointed, but then he finds his hip flask and takes a deep swig. Seeing this, Tori tries to take the flask away from him. Dr. Gersham swats her. Joshua jumps up to help, springs five feet in the air, and lands with an ungainly crash. Within minutes, Slayer Club is fighting like a bunch of four-year-olds. Sam tosses her friends around like ragdolls and roars incoherent oaths. Only Michael stands apart, watching the brawl with his arms crossed sardonically. Tori finally gets Dr. Gersham's flask away from him and finishes off the schnapps, then scowls and tosses the empty over her shoulder. Sam roars something loud and guttural, and everyone falls into a ragtag line to troop out of the cavern toward the surface.

Behind on the ledge, six lumpy, misshapen creatures stare with open mouths at the scene below. The largest, fattest one, with a shock of crayon-red hair and a shiny bronze breastplate lets off a poisonous fart. "'Scuse me. Roll call! I'm Sam Kessler. Who are you?" The rail-thin one covered in oily sweat wearing a bowler hat sheepishly admits, "I'm Drew." "Tori" is a lumpy female, vastly endowed, with a poofy dress, carrying a largeish blunderbuss over her shoulder. She reaches into one pocket and pulls out a large caliber matchlock pistol, puts it back, and then pulls out a black powder bomb, and again hides it somewhere on her person. "Michael" laughs, a thin wheeze, and identifies himself. He has yellow skin, gaunt features, and a long, black robe. In one hand, he holds a wicked straight razor and in a pouch around his waist, there are a set of thumbscrews, pinchers, assorted knives and other torture implements. Dr. Gersham is rotund, with a nose like a ripe tomato and food-stained burgundy robes, a wizard's hat, and gnarled staff. In his satchel is a large book, Snuggletuck's Nearly Useful Book of Spells. And in the corner, what appears to be a helmet on legs tilts back to reveal a tiny little creature with big, bright eyes that claims to be Joshua. He's got the helmet, an axe, and a shield, any one of which is bigger than he is.

Down in the cavern, one last vampire peeks out from behind a woven mandala hanging on the wall and blows a cloud of ganja smoke. "Sam-demon" immediately jumps down the side of the cliff, bouncing and rolling to the bottom, and runs over to attack the vamp with her "Beat Stick," a large club. Unfortunately, she's only four feet tall and more roly-poly than agile. Michael summons a rope ladder from his satchel and the rest of the Slayer Club demons climb down to help dust the vamp. Dr. Gersham's ferrethund golem cautiously slinks over, sniffing at the Dr. Gersham demon, finally deciding that this is, indeed, its master, even if it smells funky. Dr. Gersham sends the golem out to find Erik, and if possible, Juanita or Pandora as well.

Joshua-demon and Drew-demon go back through the tunnel the demons came from. They find a pair of distracted demon guards discussing how much of what kind of compost results in the best turnips, and sneak past them. Beyond the guard post is a gigantic cavern pocked with caves and suspended buildings, surrounding a moldering pile of a castle. Demons, both the gobliny ones that Slayer Club has become and others, even the occasional vampire, wander the streets of "Demon Town," or "Pitsberg" in their language. Joshua-demon trundles into a bar and eavesdrops. Here, it seems unmentionable social diseases are quite mentionable. He moves on to the next table, where two demons are talking about someone named "Snotstone," the Chief's torturer, and wondering why someone like that would hang around with losers like "Bronzebottom" and his cronies. And why they went to "Sekket the Profound" for a favor. One of the demons says he heard that Snotstone was on a secret mission, something to do with the Vampire Slayer. At the mention of the Slayer, the bar empties. Joshua-demon hides under his helmet and sneaks out the door while the two conversationalists help themselves to more alcohol. Joshua-demon and Drew-demon sneak back to report what they heard.

Meanwhile, the ferrethund golem finds Erik, just waking up for his 6 AM yoga class. With a combination of charades and scratching words on the floor, the golem gets Erik to follow him. On the way, Erik sees "Sam" on the street, and she casually decks him, but not as hard as the Slayer usually punches. When Erik and the golem arrive back at the cave, the demons squeak, chatter and growl at him, but he doesn't speak goblin demon. Fortunately, Erik is taking Spanish this semester, which Tori, Joshua, and Dr. Gersham also know, even though Dr. Gersham speakths Casthillian Spthanish. Between the three of them, they get the message across: Get Pandora, Juanita, and Ada! Do research on how to switch bodies back! Meet back here at dusk! Hopefully, one day is not too much for the demons in Slayer Club's bodies to do too much damage. Erik goes back to the surface and the Slayer Club demons all climb back up the rope and return to Pitsberg to find Sekket the Profound.

Bronzebottom and his friends are not welcome in Pitsberg. The guards nearly don't let them through, and this time they can't sneak around. Michael uses Snotstone's reputation and some sly threats to intimidate the guards into letting them pass. Once inside the town, though, Tori smells an ambush, not just the general stench. Slayer Club chooses their spot to break into a run, taking the ambushers by surprise. There's a fight around an overturned cart of manure (best not ask what animal it came from), which Drew jumps into and fails to get out again, until Sam pulls him out by the ankles. Now, he's covered in slick, oily sweat and manure. Not an improvement. Tori's blunderbuss takes out several attackers, and Joshua hamstrings several more. Slayer Club takes two crossbows from their downed foes and continues on to Sekket the Profound's Magical Emporium. They claim that the magic wands didn't work, and demand new ones. Sekket is suspicious, since Joshua and Drew do most of the talking, while Sam/Bronzebottom is strangely quiet and glowering. Even Michael's acting is slightly out of character, and he doesn't know things the Chief's torturer should know. Sekket shouts "Code 23!" (Get help!) to his Igor, who shuffles out the back. Slayer Club drops the pretense. When Sekket realizes that he has the Slayer standing in his shop, (even though he's not sure which one is Sam) he gets much more cooperative. He'd love to make more wands for them. He still has the one that was supposed to be Knuckle Nose's, before he met with the unfortunate accident involving a Chaos demon. But Sekket needs more of the special wood to make the wands. Joshua-demon runs off to his crosstown rival's store. The rival was very pleased to have sold a board of Whitethorn wood to Sekket, at a premium. Joshua evens the score by stealing a second board of Whitethorn out from under the rival's very long nose. Sam/Bronzebottom and Michael/Snotstone hustle Sekket out of his shop and everyone meets back at the 70s vampire lair. Sekket is pleased to find the vampires' stash of hash, an integral ingredient to the Wands of Transference, and sets to work under the watchful eyes of Dr. Gersham. Sam watches the cave entrance in case more demons come that way, while Michael takes a crossbow and goes down the other cavern. He spots two non-hippie vampires dressed in black leather and jeans, using a copy of Sam's high school yearbook photo as a dart board.

Hours later, four of the six wands are complete when the vampires that Michael is watching get alert. Someone is coming! They hide on either side of their cave door in wait. Erik is running full tilt down the corridor, followed by Michael's body, inhabited by Snotstone, the "special kind of evil" demon. A knife lodges in Erik's shoulder, and he goes down. Taking careful aim, with a prayer to El for steadiness, Michael/Snotstone shoots his own body in the head and raises the alarm. Sam, Tori, and Michael take three of the wands, and Drew and Joshua do Rock, Paper, Scissors for the last one. Drew wins. Michael transfers back to his own body, even though it's unconscious. Once inside, he can use his magic to begin healing himself. Tori gets her own body back, and kills Snotstone. Sam brains Bessie, the gun-toting demoness, before trying for her own. Unfortunately, Drew who was next on the draw, aims for his own body, but just as he fires Bronzebottom stumbles into the path of the bolt.

Drew's fondest wish has now come true. He's the Slayer, a real superhero! Using Sam's strength and reflexes, Drew lays waste around him, knocking out Dr. Gersham's body and killing the mixed up Bronzebottom/oily demon. Joshua's body turns and runs, but Joshua/helmet demon barrels into himself and knocks himself out. Sam shoots herself with the last wand, and switches with Drew. She now has her own body back, and Drew is in the flatulent body of Bronzebottom. Revenge is sweet! She puts Drew's body in a headlock so he can't run either, and everybody roll calls again, using the secret word "Il Fuego." After the dust settles, Sekket makes three more wands, so Joshua, Drew, and Dr. Gersham can get their own bodies back. First aid is done on Erik's wound, but nothing medically can be done to save Michael. He changes into his true form, so that the crossbow bolt can be removed and he can regenerate. Sekket is awed by the djinn, and Dr. Gersham, who didn't know Michael's secret before, does now.

Michael doesn't mind his fellow professor knowing what he really is, as long as Dr. Gersham promises to keep the secret as the rest of Slayer Club has done. But letting the demon wizard know is another story. If one demon knows, pretty soon, they all will know that the human, Michael Saiyer, who fights alongside the Slayer, is really a djinn, and the secret Michael has kept for three thousand years would be lost forever. After a moment's thought, Michael takes a silver dollar out of his pocket and approaches Sekket. He makes a little speech about how they are in his debt for making the wands, and the demon could use the coin to summon Michael, if he should ever need help. Michael tucks the coin behind the demon's batlike ear, pats him on the cheek, and suddenly snaps his neck. Honor takes a back seat in this case. The secret is kept.

Slayer Club piles the demons' bodies up in the middle of the 70s cavern, douses them with patchouli oil, and Tori sets them ablaze. Sekket, however, will get a decent burial in another part of the caverns. He helped willingly in the end, and didn't seem a bad sort, for a demon. As a final gesture, Sam writes a letter to the demon chief, telling how Snotstone and Bronzebottom conspired to attack the Slayer and her friends, and were destroyed. From some things Sekket mentioned, it seems that a faction of demons were working against the Chief, and had hatched this plot to use Slayer Club's bodies as war machines. Sam writes, "clean up your house, or we'll do it for you." She and Michael take the letter under a flag of truce to the guard post and give it to a royal courier to take to their chief. Hopefully, this will be the last Slayer Club will hear from Pitsberg.

5.6 The Book of Prophecy
Written and directed by Greg Pearson.
The events of this episode take place on Wednesday, November 9th and Thursday, November 10th, 1994.
Interminable Intro: It's the day after the 1994 Elections, and four days after Sam Kessler's 20th birthday. Joshua and Erik threw her a keg party, with half beer and half root beer, although not in the same glasses until at least one o'clock. Her father had a birthday cake delivered to St. Hubert's—angel food with chocolate frosting. Wednesday night, while studying for her Applied Theology course, Sam gets a phone call from Blaire. Some information has come her way, and for once, she's not shy about wanting to share it. For a price, of course. Although this has "TRAP" written in big letters, Slayer Club goes down to Blaire's to find out what's up. What's up is Blaire wants Slayer Club to collect on a debt for her. Some deadbeat vampires ran up a $50 bar tab, and for exactly $50, Blaire will gladly tell Sam where those six vampires have their lair. All in a LOUD VOICE, to make sure her customers get the real message—pay up, or the Slayer will get you. Sam rolls her eyes. Being Blaire's debt collector is icky. But they can't very well let the vampires get away, either. Sam doesn't have that much cash on her, but Joshua does. Blaire gets her money, and Slayer Club get an address of an abandoned farm down on Rte. 7. Of course, this could be a distraction for something else going on, but if they don't move now, these vamps could just leave town. So, Slayer Club gets to slaying. Joshua reconnoiters the house, the barn, and an empty tool shed, which is as ramshackle as a shed can be without actually collapsing. The vampires sit in the living room, listening to grunge music and watching Saved by the Bell. Joshua and Sam go in through the windows. Erik and Michael take the front door, while Tori and Drew take the back. Immediately, Sam and Joshua dust one-third of the vampires. Michael runs upstairs to see if there are any "midnight snacks" hidden there. Tori finds nothing but roaches and a half case of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the kitchen. Erik throws his hammer at one of the remaining vampires, dusts it on impact, and the thunder-boom blows out all of the house's windows, and flattens the shed a moment later. Upstairs is empty, as well as the outside root cellar, and there is no sign of anyone outside who might be watching, with a camera, or otherwise. Michael is paranoid about discovery, but no one minds. All the vamps dead, Tori torches the house, barn, and what's left of the shed, controlling the fire so it doesn't spread.

On the way back to Solomon, Joshua spots a firefight on the side of the road. In the ditch, a dirt-brown Plymouth Valiant has weed butts in the ashtray and an 8-track playing the Doors "Riders on the Storm". Nearby in a field, a black BMW is stuck in the mud. Two men crouch behind the open doors, firing guns at five more figures circling the Beemer. Sam's vampire-sense tingles. Joshua roars his dirt bike across the field as a distraction. Sam and Tori fire crossbows and dust two vamps. Drew hits a third, but misses the heart. It runs away. Erik dusts a fourth with his hammer, blowing out all the windows on the Beemer. Joshua rides down the fifth vampire and decapitates him from his bike. Sam greets the men in the Beemer, who are Misha and Ivan, the Russian "traders" we last saw in Ep. 2.4. They were actually looking for Sam, since they have something they think would interest her: a large, illuminated tome filled with monkish script in a mixture Latin, Greek, and German. Mostly, the book is a surprisingly accurate prediction of World War II. But the pictures in the appendix are most interesting. Under the heading of "The Slayer" there's a picture of a wild, dark-skinned girl with white face-paint brandishing a sharp stake, labeled "The First". On the next page is a stylized picture of a blonde woman wearing dark blue trousers, a blue and black checked shirt, and carrying a sword. She's labeled "The Last." Misha: "We do business, yes?" Credits.

Slayer Club and the Russians go to the Sacred Grounds to do their haggling. Ivan and Misha are willing to trade the book, which they got in trade from a vampire in Switzerland for a crate of AK-47s, for Slayer Club's snow globe—Virmon's Orb of Confidential Conveyance, which will certainly enhance their arms smuggling business. Joshua counters that Misha can lease the orb, in exchange for the book and a percentage of the profits that they get from smuggling weapons, or whatever, in it. Misha doesn't like the idea of giving up part of their business, but he really wants the orb. In the end, the Russians get a six-year lease on the orb in exchange for the book and the contents of the Valiant's trunk, which were transferred from the Beemer: two AK-47s, a box of ammo, and an SA-18 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile. Tori's eyes light up. The Russians shake hands with everyone and then go off to break the bad news about the Beemer to Avis (good thing Ivan got the Loss/Damage Waiver!). Joshua drives the Valiant. Slayer Club stashes the weapons and book in the vault at the Brew Pub, where the magical wards were reset by Erik and Pandora, and then go to Blaire's to chase away all her customers and leave the Valiant wedged in a tree. It doesn't really make up for having been her goon squad, but it helps a little.

That night, Erik dreams of Gwen waking up, and slowly swinging her legs over the side of the bed, her red silk nightgown snaking over the covers in super-slo-mo. Sam dreams about her line of Slayers, ever shorter from the future end. She tells Kate about finding the book of prophecy, but that they need to translate it. Kate eats a piece of cheddar cheese. Michael wakes up Dr. Gersham, and they begin the work of translating the book, Appendices first.

On Thursday, Sam is preparing for her 11 AM Applied Theology class, and everyone else is already in their 10 AM classes, when all the magic-ward matchbooks go off at once. Sam runs for her car, parked in the student parking lot. Joshua dashes for his dirt bike. Michael quickly gives his students an assignment for a paper due the next class, and lets them out early. Slayer Club heads to the Brew Pub. The front door is open, and the vault as well. Joshua quickly closes it, without even looking inside, and then waits for the others to arrive before opening it again and seeing if he managed to trap anyone inside. Once everyone convenes, it's determined that the book of prophecy is missing, and most everything in the vault is thrown on the floor. The missile and Kalashnikovs are there, easily identifiable. Drew stays to organize the rest and make sure Mr. Barrows's chest with the Jewelry of the Apocalypse inside is still there and locked (it is). Sam and Joshua find oozy tracks in the vat room that lead, backward, to the door down into the demon's belly. Whoever took the book came in that way, and left through the front door, so they could have been in the pub for some time before the wards went off. No one ever thought of warding the inside door. Who would come in through a demon's colon? Sam goes to the hardware store to buy up enough concrete blocks, rebar and cement to build a wall in front of the demon-belly door. She sees her father there, who is pleased to have only paid $100 for a low-mileage Plymouth Valiant with a bent axle. A real steal! Michael and Erik go to get Dr. Gersham and his hand-copied notes from the book. Tori goes to get Juanita to do her "find an object" Seeker spell (Sam's version only finds people). While Sam, Michael, and Joshua build he wall, Erik and Juanita make the compass that will point to the book. There's a moment of panic when Joshua wonders if the book is actually inside the demon, and they'll have to tear their wall down and re-build. But it's not. It's in the Witch Tunnels. Joshua and Tori take the AK-47s, but leave the missile in the vault.

Slayer Club finds six vampires in a lair in the tunnels. Four are asleep, but two are reading the prophecy book. Joshua and Michael shoot those two with bullets and crossbow, neither of which dusts them. Erik's hammer hits the desk they're sitting at, waking up the rest of the vamps. A quick flurry of battle, where half the vamps are dusted and Joshua grabs the book away. One of the vamps TKs the desk right into Joshua and Sam, knocking them down, and then the two readers run off down the hall, pursued by Michael, who is pursued by the remaining vampire-goon. Behind him, Sam, Drew, and Tori give chase. Joshua and Juanita stay behind to loot the vampires' lair, competing to see who gets the best stuff. Juanita gets a spellbook, but it's Joshua who finds the stash of weed, which he trades to her in exchange for letting them know what's in the spellbook. In the hallway, cue Bugs Bunny chase music. Michael tackles the nerdy-looking vampire who he already shot with a crossbow bolt, but he really wants to get the magical TK vampire, so Michael gets up and runs on. Sam klonks the nerdy vampire on the head to knock him out, and keeps running too. Tori comes up on the vampire, rubbing his head and looking for his glasses. She hits him on the head too, but still doesn't knock him out. Drew finally catches up and runs the vamp through with his rapier. The vampire goes to dust with an amazed look on his face. Up ahead, Michael tackles the TK vamp and takes him down, knocks him out for sure, and drags him back to the lair where Sam ties him to a futon frame that they lean against the wall. When the vampire comes to, they all question him, which works out about as well as it ever does. The vamp doesn't say much except that he made a map of the true demon's colon so they could get to the Brew Pub without raising alarm, and he wanted the book to give him an "edge" against the Slayer. So Sam gives him an edge, and dusts him.

When Slayer Club gets back to Martense, Dr. Gersham finishes his translation of the final prophecy in the appendix:

And it shall be,
Each time one falls another shall rise to take her place,
One following the next in an unbroken line down through history.

Until one shall arise in a land not yet known.
And she shall be tall and fair,
And a warrior such as few even of those who came before.
And the line shall end with her.

Epilogue: That night, outside JFK airport, a man in a business suit emerges from the International Arrivals door, and gets into a VW microbus. Driving it is the Karaoke-singing vampire from Ep 5.1, not in game-face. He appears as a gray-haired aging hippie with a loopy smile. "How was Geneva?" "Fine." "I should hope so, you were certainly there long enough." "The only thing those Russians would give me for the book was a case of Kalashnikovs. Do you know how hard it is to unload a case of Kalashnikovs in Geneva? Everybody has one! I finally traded it to a Norwegian biker gang for a kilo of weed. Not very good weed, either. How were things here?" "Perfect. Nearly. Thomas is dead, but I warned him to run. He didn't run fast enough. Still, the plan worked. The Slayer has the book, and she has no reason to believe we had any other purpose in invading her lair than to recover it."

5.7 I Dream of Genie
Written and directed by John Gianopolis.
The events of this episode take place on Sunday, November 13th and Monday, November 14th, 1994.
Previously on Slaying Solomon:

Michael's Voiceover: "For an age we traveled the world. Our paths kissed the waters and grazed the earth. The Sun heated our gales and the currents blew our flames over the earth. We answered the call of power to a dessert of sand..."

Michael battling the Efreet in Solomon when he first met Slayer Club; fade to Michael's body in the witch tunnels returning to Wind and Sand...

Michael's Voiceover: "With vengeance, fire, and wind I swept upon them, scouring the flesh from their bones with the waters of the Sahara..."

A sand storm scouring the warriors attacking Shu, leaving bleached bones and armor...

Michael's Voiceover: "I am named Milchamah Kashaph Saiyer, Warrior of the First Rank in the Temple of Light..."

Michael holding the second set of Iron Bands, found in an alternate Solomon...

Michael's Voiceover: "Internet white hat hacker handled 'Dodger', and to the teenagers of Solomon Massachusetts, Professor Saiyer."

Michael helping Sam with her Dream/Nightmare, speaking earnestly; fade to: standing in front of a blackboard with the word "Vampires" written on it. Slayer Club sitting in the front row of the classroom. Drew has his hand raised.

Michael's Voiceover: "To a trusted few, I am Djinn."

Sam Kessler goes to sleep Sunday night November 13th, still concerned about the Prophecy. About 3 am, she dreams the "I Dream of Jeannie" theme music. A deep voice, similar to Michael's says: "Slayer, I am imprisoned and can do much damage for my mortal master. Free me, and I will ensure your Professor Saiyer is also freed. Leave me in this prison and my Master will cause great damage to your world. I am easy to find..."

"Ultimate Cosmic Power, itty bitty living space."

Sam wakes up. "Gotta stop watching those Disney specials."

Roll Credits

Sam leaps out of bed to pull the Solomon map from her bookshelf and search her jewelry box for the medallion that Michael gave her. Drew groans when she turns on the light and puts a pillow over his head. When Sam casts her Seeker spell, a wall of ice blocks her. Great skill backed by immense power reverses her spell into an attack. Sam raises mental shields and the magic dissipates. Down the hall, Joshua's phone rings, waking him. He reaches for it, nearly falling out of his hammock, but rights himself at the last second. The word of the week is 'Tabernacle.' His mother is incensed. She rapid-fires questions about where he is, what he's done in the past twenty-four hours, especially what he's spent money on. Someone fast, good, and untraceable has hacked into the Archer family finances and drained their accounts, even the offshore one, which makes this a Federal investigation. Joshua promises to list every nickel spent on pizza and beer and call her back. Across campus, sirens wail. There's a fire in one of the administration buildings! Sam and Drew wake up Tori and go help extinguish the fire, which started in Michael's office. The Fire Marshall is puzzled. There's no sign of electrical short, or accelerants, or lightning. To Sam's Sight, the room glows with magic, similar to what blocked her Seeker, centered on what's left of Michael's desk. The metal desktop has two deep grooves, just where a man would rest his arms, lined with molten iron residue. A small Hebrew symbol is just visible, imprinted on one side, but there are no signs of human remains. Of course, there wouldn't be. Sam thanks the fire Marshall for his help. She, Drew, and Tori go to the Brew Pub to get Michael's spare set of armbands out of the vault, and then to his apartment to look for clues. Erik wakes up for his 6 AM yoga class, but Sam isn't there, and she loves yoga. Something must be up. After class, he goes to the Sacred Grounds for breakfast, and to see if the others have been in. Jonathan answers the phone and hands it to Erik. It's Robert Guerra, Michael's young protégé. The boy had an appointment with Prof. Saiyer for his magic lesson that morning, but the building was cordoned off. There were fire trucks! If something happened to Prof. Saiyer, maybe Robert could help. Erik agrees to meet Robert at the admin building and start looking. Meanwhile, Joshua has a hunch. The best hacker they know is Prof. Saiyer. If Michael wasn't involved in the hacking, maybe he could help find out who was. Joshua motorbikes over to Michael's apartment and breaks in, as he's done before in another universe. Michael's not there, but there's no sign of forced entry or foul play. On the way out, Joshua meets Sam, Drew, and Tori and they share information about the fire and the computer hacking. They all go to the Sacred Grounds for breakfast, just missing Erik.

In between classes, Slayer Club canvasses the town for clues. The Martense museum has an authentic genie lamp and a museum attendant named George who is very talkative, probably desperate for company, since the museum is often empty. George thinks the lamp probably once held a genie captive, but the magic's inactive now. Sam can see that he's right. The lamp is empty. Erik and Tori take Robert to check out antique stores. Solomon has quite a few. At one place, Erik finds a stupendously ugly green-crusted trident and buys it. He thinks it's cool. He's the only one. The shop has no genie lamps for sale. Several brass and crystal chandeliers, though. Next door, the Tiny Cottage Antique Shoppe has more esoteric stuff, and a proprietor with a thing for Dr. Who. One alcove has a subtle space-folding charm, so it's bigger on the inside than on the outside. There's even an authentic blue police-box in the corner. Erik is so enthused about this. He also finds a bag of magical rune stones and haggles a deal—$100 and a permanent protection vever for the store to guard against breaking things. But when they ask about genie lamps, the proprietor says that two weeks ago, two fellows calling themselves Hans and Franz came in and bought "every blessed and cursed lamp" he had. After Erik explains about the kidnapping and computer hacking, the proprietor agrees to help. Hans and Franz bought the lamps on credit from the 2nd National Bank of Solomon, which just got paid this morning. Joshua calls his mother and puts her on the trail of the thieves. After class, the Dean of Special Projects calls Sam into his office. He's very concerned about Professor Saiyer's disappearance and asks Sam if there is anything at all that she can add to help with the investigation. Sam neither confirms nor denies any conclusions about Michael's armbands, their method of destruction, or anything of that nature. She does tell the Dean that she and her friends are doing everything they can to find Michael, and he lets her go.

With the pictures of Hans and Franz from the Tiny Cottage security tapes, Sam casts another Seeker. They're at Blaire's. Slayer Club and Robert arm up and head over, but arrive too late. The Teutonic pair have already left, after trashing the place and beating Blaire to within an inch of her un-life, but they have threatened to return. Blaire hands over the keys to the bar and retreats to her lair to sulk, while Slayer Club stakes the place out. Joshua watches the road outside. Drew fires up the karaoke machine and sings Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." His voice isn't bad, but his choice of music lacks something—like taste. After a few minutes, the temperature in the bar drops to "frosty" and three ghostly figures coalesce. One of them holds up a red gem. Light lances out, focusing on Tori, painfully ripping her mind. The gem sucks a kaleidoscope of memories, thoughts, opinions, and conclusions, all about the Slayer. Sam draws the Kessler Sword and cuts the ghost's arm off. The ghost shrieks. Erik and Robert are stunned, but Drew grabs Erik's hammer and smashes the gem. As painful as the memory-wipe was, it's twice as painful snapping back. Tori just barely controls herself enough to avoid incinerating the whole bar. Sam cuts again and halves a second ghost. The third sinks through the floor into the witch tunnels. Sam runs after it, but all she finds is a cold spot in the air. The ghost vanished without a trace. Back inside, Erik and Robert cast a voodoo version of the Seeker spell, using Blaire's top shelf liquor. Rum to offer to the spirits, and a bottle of expensive vodka to spin and point the way. The bottle spins and comes to rest pointing towards Martense, just a little north of campus, before it shatters, spilling vodka everywhere. Joshua calls his mother again. From the bank records, she got an address that lies exactly on the vector they found. She also gives Joshua the go-ahead to terminate the source of the trouble. Erik casts a Ghost Shirt on Robert. He did promise Mrs. Guerra to keep her son safe, and this will help against any small, flying bits of metal.

The house is either abandoned or repossessed. There's a lot of that in Solomon. But now it's getting a lot of remodeling: a bobcat sits in the middle of the torn up lawn, reinforced doors and shatterproof windows still haven't been painted to match the rest of the house, and there's a security system as comprehensive as it is obvious to Joshua's trained eyes. But it's not perfect. There are two skylights, and several trees overhang enough that someone could jump onto the roof from them. While waiting for Joshua to scope the house, Tori spots Hans outside walking a dog, but with no pooper-scooper. Hans sees her and Sam, and gives a signal to start. Franz, from the second floor of the house, hits Sam in the torso with a shot from a sniper rifle. Robert raises one of his paper umbrella-shields to protect against Hans' submachine gun. Joshua jumps onto the roof. Sam throws her "Frisbee of doom" at Hans and Tori follows up with a crossbow shot. Erik and Drew take the bobcat and drive it through the garage door, smashing the red Corvette inside, and crushing a vampire who was working on it to dust. Joshua jumps through the window to find Franz reloading, and a vampire in game-face with a AA baseball uniform and carrying a baseball bat. Joshua shoots Franz in the head, producing a fine, red mist, and then does his mongoose-impersonation, avoiding and disarming the vampire. Joshua gets in a hit here, a hit there, until he stakes the baseball-vamp with the narrow end of his own bat. From the garage, Erik runs down to the basement, using a light-stick left over from the last rave he went to to see by. Drew pauses to flip on the overhead lights, then follows—it's less cool, but much more practical. Sam takes Robert by the hand into the garage before she retrieves her throwing ring, so he doesn't see Hans' body sliced open. With the crash through the garage, two vampires lurking upstairs run to see what happened. Joshua slips along the wall behind them, lets the first one run by, pushes the second one down the stairs and stakes him at the bottom. Down in the basement, Erik finds a fully equipped laboratory with a huge lab table with cabinets under it, and a storage room filled with crates. One section of blank wall radiates strong magic. Robert draws a sliding door there with his magic chalk, and before anyone can stop him, slides it open. A blast of frigid cold knocks the boy backwards into the boxes. George from the museum steps through the wall with a tiny genie lamp, which radiates strong, active magic, on a chain around his neck. Itty-bitty living space. Sam confronts George, and he admits that, yes, he bound a djinn in his necklace. It made him rich, and powerful, and now it will destroy them! Sam grabs the chain, which pulls George off his feet. A sandstorm blows up, scouring the Slayer's skin. She covers her eyes and holds on, strangling George while Tori and Drew beat him senseless. Sam removes the necklace and rubs it. The last vampire runs down the stairs as the djinn forms out of clouds of smoke: a giant, powerful man with red skin and fiery eyes. The vamp stops short and tries to sneak away but Joshua comes up behind and stakes him. The djinn names Sam as his new Master, and offers her three wishes. Sam only has one: to know exactly who or what is removing Slayers from the future probabilities. But that is beyond the Djinn's knowledge, so she wishes that he go free, and free Professor Saiyer as he promised in her dream. The Djinn winks at her and vanishes in a swirl of sand. The iron bands vanish from Sam's backpack. Slayer Club finds Professor Saiyer, bound and gagged, stuffed in one of the large cabinets under the lab table. His spare armbands are on his wrists and he's very pleased that they found him. Besides renovating the house and filling it with electronic toys, who knows what George might have done with $30 million. Joshua's eyes bug out. His parents started the day with ten million, parlayed from the sale of diamonds and real estate over the last four years. Michael invested well. Sam carries Robert, stunned and chilled but alive, to the infirmary while Joshua loots the house of everything he can carry. After all, it was his family's money that bought the stuff. Slayer Club even has a new place to call their "Secret Lair." Except, like the all rest of their secret lairs, it's not actually very secret.

Epilogue: Another airport pickup in the 70s VW microbus; this time, a slick-looking man in a pinstriped suit. He and the driver (karaoke-vamp) discuss George, who was applying for employment at Wolfram & Hart before meeting his untimely demise. The official story was: George kidnapped Prof. Saiyer, an expert in computers, and forced him to hack the Archers' accounts. Saiyer left each hack signed with his handle "Dodger," in binary code (Joshua's mother noticed this) and that pointed the Federal Investigators to George's bank account in Solomon, and then his home address. Meanwhile, George's hired guns were getting restless. Even with a generous salary paid in advance, they wanted more money, and killed their employer to get it. Unfortunately for them, by that afternoon the bogus accounts were busted and the money returned with interest courtesy of the Dow Jones. Officially, Slayer Club was never there. No neighbors would come forward witnessing five college students and a preteen anywhere on that street. Nobody heard any gunfire. And the Dean of Martense would swear they were all working on a special project for him at the time. However losing George, even with his pet djinn "foolishly released," doesn't faze the suit at all. There's a new marker in play. The boy, Robert Guerra, showed remarkable promise. Just let him age a bit, so he might be harvested at the right time.

5.8 Octopus Prime
Written and directed by Chris Roosenraad.
The events of this episode take place on Wednesday, November 23rd, 1994.
Aired August 2, 2008.

5.9 Heroes and Bards
Written and directed by John Gianopolis.
The events of this episode take place on Friday, December 9th and Saturday, December 10th, 1994.
Aired August 16, 2008.

5.10 Slayer for a Night
Written and directed by Jodi Roosenraad.
The events of this episode take place beginning on December 21st, 1994.
Airs September, 2008.

5.11 Big Trouble
Written and directed by Tim Ballew.
Air date TBD.