Summer Special 1993

Specials? For a weekly TV series? Well, yes. This is the early '90s, after all, era of cheap ratings stunts like Summer 90210. This is sort of like that, only with Nazis other than Aaron Spelling. Wait, did we say Nazis?

Opening Credits

SP3.1 Give Me Freedom
Written and directed by Jodi Roosenraad.
The events of this episode take place between Sunday, June 14th and Monday, June 21st, 1993.
Slayer Club flies British Airways from JFK to Heathrow where they're met by Watchers Ralph Jenkins, Daniel Wong, and young intern Wesley Windham-Pryce (Alexis Denishof). Ada and Sam go with the senior Watchers to an intensive training session at Watcher Central, while Wesley and Pandora serve as chauffeur and tour guide for the rest of Slayer Club. Michael is paged to receive a phone call. At the white courtesy phone, an old friend stands in the next booth. Matthias Lieberman (John Rhys-Davies), a Templar mage specializing in exorcisms, relates how Joshua Abernathy hanged himself in his Temple prison cell three days ago using strips of his clothing. One of the guards who found the body, Ari Dann, is missing. Lieberman provides photos and requests Michael's help to locate him. Michael shares this Intel. with Slayer Club and the Watchers, since Hartsdale was involved in bringing Abernathy to justice.

While Sam trains, Drew, Erik, Tori, Joshua, and Michael see the sights of London, including a private tour of the Tower of London given by a Beefeater associate of the Watchers. The guard allows them to try out the weapons in the Hall of Arms and Armor, and Tori gazes in awe and envy both at the swords and the Crown Jewels. Drew gets a "very bad feeling" around the headsman's axe and on the Green. Wesley is a trove of information about good restaurants, and once he has a couple of beers at dinner, relaxes enough that Slayer Club decides not to ditch him after all. Erik flirts with a pretty, punk girl on the Tube, and nearly gets pick pocketed by her friends, but Michael pulls him out of the line of fire, though not before the girl gives Erik a card for Club Odyssey, where her band Tambourlaine is playing.

On the way back to their hotel near Marble Arch, Slayer Club spots a man at Speaker's Corner raving about FREEDOM! How every man, woman, child, and creature on earth ought to be FREE! And then he strips out of his clothes. Michael notes the Templar tattoo on the young man's shoulder and wrestles him into a coat before a constable can arrest him for indecent exposure. He is indeed Ari, the missing Templar guard, and Michael turns him over to Matthias. Nothing seems wrong with him, but the next morning's headlines scream that a Beefeater Guard was killed and something stolen from the Tower. Slayer Club goes back to make sure it wasn't the Watcher-friendly guard. It wasn't, but he's gone AWOL. The item stolen was the headsman's axe. A tour guide mentioned that he saw a Bobby tearing rocks off of the piece of Roman wall that stands near the Tower, ranting about breaking walls and setting prisoners free.

Slayer Club scries to find Abernathy's ghost, but there are several possible locations - it's jumped bodies again. Lord Byron's grave in Westminster Abbey is broken into, and the hands and feet of the skeleton stolen. Putting together the bits of information they've managed to acquire so far, the Watchers find an obscure spell whereby every lock and cage for miles would spontaneously open, including those in prisons and zoos, with the component list couched in a poem:

Blood of Oppressor, severed in twain
Bones of Downtrodden, raised up again
Eyes of history the prison to see
Artist's hands to turn the key

From the crypt of the Magi on Midsummer's day
Every lock open, every door sway
Freedom for all, or else freedom for none
In nomine Janus, Thy will be done.

'Blood of oppressor' could be the headsman's axe and 'artist's hands' sounds like the bones stolen from Byron's grave. While they search for 'Eyes of History,' Slayer Club tours the HMS Belfast (at Tori's request) and the Observatory at Greenwich (at Drew's). That evening, they try a new Indian restaurant with Wesley and then go to Club Odyssey to dance. Erik spots his new "friend" Tatiana on stage. They flirt, and she invites him to her dressing room. He goes, and gets to know her better, although not quite in the Biblical sense. But at closing, when the others try to find Erik, the band says that he left with Tatiana, which is strange. Erik would have at least told somebody before he left. And he's still nominally dating Juanita, who would kill him for a week if he cheated on her again. No one can find where Erik went. Slayer Club returns to their hotel, where Pandora takes a strand of Erik's hair from his hairbrush to scry his location.

Erik wakes up naked on fur-covered cushions in a tent, in what seems to be a Medieval Scandinavian village. He dresses in clothes provided and speaks to an elderly woman at the next tent in Old Norse. She laughs and replies that he is more authentic than most. He's in a Medieval Faire outside of Oslo, which Tatiana likes because it reminds her of home -- the Summer Country -- where she wants to take Erik as her newest consort. Drew, Tori, Joshua and Michael catch up after a hasty plane-ride. Erik tries to talk his way out of the situation, but only digs himself deeper. Michael recognizes Tatiana's magical nature and reveals a little of his own, telling her that Erik has taken oaths that he must fulfill before he could possibly go with her. Tatiana is put out, but agrees that Erik can go free, if one of them can beat her at a game of darts. Tori steps up to the challenge, and wins the contest. Slayer Club, with Erik, leaves the Faire and heads south, to where Abernathy's blip has shown up again in Paris.

In Paris, Slayer Club chases Abernathy's host down into the catacombs, through a smoking club where Joshua buys a box of Cuban cigars for his father and talks the owner into joining him for a drink of absinthe, to distract him while the others investigate down below. Drew gets a serious case of the wiggins from all the bones. Of course, vampires live in the catacombs too. Several attack, and Tori and Erik dust two of them. The rest run off, screaming that "The Slayer is here." Tori is amused they think she's Sam. At an intersection, they find a cave-in where some bones were removed. Drew says that this section was from the 1800s and most of the people were poor. 'Bones of the Downtrodden.' But, thanks the the untimely vampire attack, Abernathy escapes again.

Slayer Club concludes that 'The Crypt of the Magi' probably means the Dom in Cologne, Germany where relics of the Three Magi are kept, and Midsummer's Day is tomorrow. Slayer Club goes there to stop the ritual. Sam, Ada and Matthias join them. Abernathy possesses one of the priests, intoning the ritual from a catwalk halfway up the dome. As Slayer Club closes in on him, he abandons his host, swearing that he will never be incarcerated again. The priest falls, unconscious and hurt, but alive. Joshua, climbing up the scaffolding toward him, jumps down at his side. Erik calls an ambulance and Sam and Matthias make sure that the ritual circle is broken and the ghost is really gone. Ada says that she will return the axe and Byron's bones to London, and the French bones to Paris. Sam relates her experiences with the Watchers -- no anti-Slayer drugs this time, but meditative exercises and they gave her the name of a swordsmith in Dusseldorf who can help her research the background of the Kessler Sword in more detail.

SP3.2 Knight of the Sword (part 1)
Written and directed by Chris Roosenraad.
The events of this episode take place between Tuesday, June 22nd and Wednesday, June 30th, 1993.
Teaser: The Witch tunnels under Solomon -- Marcy, Callie, and Jonathan fight two greasy-haired vampires. Jonathan gets beat up, Marcy swirls around ineffectually, and Callie dusts them after a long, awkward fight. Callie: "Geez, I hope Sam gets home soon."

The Benandanti library -- a gaggle of pretty Italian girls gossip over their books. Juanita sits alone, studying. Later, a nun lectures her while the girls whisper behind their hands. At night, Juanita gets up, sneaks out of the dormitory and goes downstairs to the kitchen. She sees a light under a door and investigates. Bright light. "Oh, crap!" Roll credits.

A beautiful morning in Dusseldorf. While Joshua heads back to Paris for a gymnastics tournament, the rest of Slayer Club has an appointment, arranged by the Watchers, for Sam to meet Herr Doktor Professor Ernst Schmitt, an expert in chemistry, metallurgy, and all styles of weaponcraft. When they meet, Erik and Drew can't help referring to him as a Dwarf, because HDP Schmitt is barely five feet tall, well-muscled and whiskered, not to mention the whole smithy thing. Sam unwraps the Kessler Sword and Schmitt's eyes glaze over with joy. First, he removes the hilt and crosspiece, pronouncing them "baroque garbage," exposing more of the blade and etched symbols that go down to the end of the tang. A frenzy of research follows that his business manager, Helga, tells Sam might last for days. Sam agrees to leave the sword with him and makes an appointment to return on Monday. Then she and her friends go to the Nurenring, south of Cologne, for an afternoon of driving on the racetrack, where Sam blows her savings putting a red Porsche 944 through its paces. That night at their hotel, Slayer Club receives a fax from the Benandanti -- Come to Rome, quickly! A box was stolen from their basement storeroom. They don't know what was in it, but as most of the senior members are still recuperating from the attack on the Orbs of Creation (which are safe, for once), they need help to recover it. And Juanita would love to have someone around to talk to.

Slayer Club books train tickets from Cologne to Bern, Switzerland, and then south to Rome. When they arrive, Sylvia explains that they captured one of the thieves, a tall blond man, but he committed suicide before they could question him. A cyanide tooth, or magical equivalent. Searching the area, Tori spots a small piece of red cloth caught on a nail. When Drew touches the scrap, he gets a powerful vision: bonfires and martial music, a huge crowd chanting, high emotions whipped higher. Drew feels physically lifted up, and things pressed against him. When he comes to, he describes the scene -- a Nazi rally in Munich, sometime in the '30s. The red cloth was a piece of the Nazi Blood Flag, stained with the blood of the first Nazi soldier to fall in battle, and used to anoint other flags to share the aura of the martyr. The box containing the flag came to the Benedanti via the Catholic Church, which asked them to store it for them. The box, and several others like it from the same shipment, were miscellaneous loot taken from the Nazis after the war; probably nobody in either organization had any idea of what they had. But if Neo-Nazis stole it, it would become a rallying point for them. Sylvia attempts a tracking spell with the scrap, but it incinerates. More Nazis attack to recover their dead comrade but Slayer Club fights them off, killing several. Sylvia uses one of the bodies to summon its ghost for questioning, but it refuses to talk. Slayer Club tips their hand by talking in front of it. Not much they can do about that; they release the ghost to hell.

Sam wants to retrieve her sword before doing anything else, but when they arrive back at Schmitt's workshop, the good Doktor has been kidnapped and the Kessler Sword taken. Among the notes scattered on the floor, a partial history: the sword was originally forged during the Crusades for Johann Kessler, the first Knight sworn into the Teutonic Order, an offshoot of the Knights Templar (no relation to the Temple of Solomon, which Michael serves). The symbols etched on the blade told the story of his tour of duty: a stylized map of the Holy Land with three dots representing Jerusalem, Antioch, and Akra; a turreted castle (Romania); a Greek helmet (the Peloponnesus); a lion with wings (Venice); a Templar cross (his knighthood); and another stylized map of a city on a river, which Schmitt thought might be Malbork, in present-day Poland. That was the headquarters of the Teutonic Order when they ruled eastern Prussia. Centuries ago, the Great Hall at Malbork Castle held a statue of Johann Kessler, who was extolled as the "Perfect Teutonic Knight."

Slayer Club makes arrangements to go to Malbork, buying some surplus Soviet equipment on the way. When they arrive, they bribe a tour guide to let them into the castle at night. They interrupt thirteen robed cultists performing a ritual where the Blood Flag is draped over an altar and a woman is sacrificed under it, using the Kessler Sword as the sacrificial blade. Sam is incensed; Michael, apoplectic. Tori sets the flag on fire and many cultists die, but one of them escapes with both the sword the now partially-burned flag. Slayer Club finds and releases Schmitt. As a survivor of the Holocaust, he swears that he will help them recover the sword and destroy the flag any way he can. Meanwhile, the tour guide has called the cops and it's time to beat a hasty retreat from Malbork.

SP3.3 Knight of the Sword (part 2)
Written and directed by Chris Roosenraad.
The events of this episode take place between Thursday, July 1st and Sunday, July 4th, 1993.
Teaser: The final surviving Nazi stumbles into a safe house with the Blood Flag and the Kessler Sword. He gasps the tale of what happened at the castle, and then is shot and the relics taken by another cowled figure.

Meanwhile, Slayer Club flees Malbork to the tune of police sirens. Fortunately, the Polish police aren't too gung-ho about tracking down the killers of Neo-Nazis. Next stop: Dracula's castle in Brasov, Romania. On the way, HDP Schmitt relates an abridged history of the Teutonic Order, focusing on Johann Kessler, Sam's way-distant ancestor. Kessler was knighted at Akra and became Sergeant Major of the Order's army. Under his leadership, many non-Christian peoples were 'subdued' in Romania and their lands re-populated with Christian Germans, until King Andrew un-invited the Teutonic Order from his country. Then, Kessler went to Prussia and began a crusade against pagans there, again importing Christian Germans to consolidate the Order's hold. After Kessler and his oldest son died in 1236 under mysterious circumstances, the Teutonic Order merged with the Knights of the Sword from Livonia, and ruled eastern Prussia until the Poles rose up and kicked them out in the 16th century. Much later, in the 1940s, the National Socialist Party resurrected the Teutonic Order as a secret organization under Heinrich Himmler. This group of ten men was named in homage to the original Teutonic Knights, but had no other connection to them. However, Himmler's fascination with the occult is well known. Any modern Nazis following in his footsteps would value the sword wielded by the very first and most emblematic Teutonic Knight.

However, that sword now belongs to the Slayer, and she wants it back.

Slayer Club arrives in Brasov and hires a former history professor to guide them around town and through the castle. After dinner, they ditch the guide and try to sneak in through the secret entrance that Drew and Michael remember from when they were here in the 1500s, but in the dark, the river-gorge is difficult to negotiate, so Slayer Club goes back to the hotel and decides to try the front door the next day. Drew excitedly whispers to Sam all about his battle against Dracula while the tour guide tries to show them around. The castle is undergoing renovations; plenty of equipment and scaffolding, but no workers present. Down in the basement, brand-new plasterwork covers a doorway. Drew "takes one for the team," asking the guide to show him where the bathroom is, to get him out of the way. Although 'bathroom' is far too nice a word for the hole in the ground used for that purpose. Michael and Erik demolish the plaster and open the door. Down the hall, they find two dead guards dumped in a side-chamber and a larger meeting of hallways, where the Nazi cultists are just finishing a second sacrifice. Michael hears sounds from another chamber, and opens it to find a young man in chains. Once he releases the 'prisoner,' Michael realizes that he is a vampire. Fighting ensues. Sam tries to reach her sword, but a magical barrier prevents it. One Nazi throws back his hood and grins. The other walks off with the artifacts. Sam tries to reach out with her magic, and gets a full-color 3-D smell-o-vision of the same Nazi ritual that Drew saw, with added imperative from the Kessler sword. Sam resists the call of the Kessler blood, and Tori smacks her to bring her around.

Since they are following Johann Kessler's path backwards, from the place of his death to the Holy Land where he was knighted -- and since the Nazis have a helicopter -- Slayer Club decides to skip the Peloponnesus and head straight to Akra to try to get ahead of them. HDP Schmidt, meanwhile, returns to Germany. In Israel, Michael meets his Temple contacts and briefs them on the situation. While the Nazis are busy in Greece, Slayer Club scouts possible locations for the final ritual and learns of a tunnel, recently discovered, that runs from the sites of the former Teutonic castle to the former tower that protected the harbor. Neither structure still stands. Rubble from them was used to build other things, like extending the breakwater in the harbor. The tunnel is busy with archaeologists and guarded by the police during the day and the army at night. There are also several Christian churches in the city that could be taken over, in a pinch. Nazis probably wouldn't worry about killing a couple of soldiers, or even a priest, if one stood in their way. Once past the rubble built up at either end, the middle of the tunnel is open, and runs directly beneath where the Teutonic Order's chapel once stood.

But what if they're wrong? If Slayer Club misses the ritual here, there is no fallback place. The Nazis would win. Michael declares that outcome unacceptable. He suggests summoning the sword back to Sam. They've done it before, when the nightmare-demon took over Solomon. But that was in an alternate reality based on Sam's nightmare. The real world is different (we hope!) and probably a little less Sam-centric. With Erik's help, they outline a ritual. Erik draws pictures both of the sword, and of Sam wielding it. Sam prays to St. Anthony, patron of lost things. Michael writes out "the Kessler Sword" in Hebrew to tap the mystery of the Kabala and concentrates on his battle with Vampire-Sam, the need to find that specific weapon, heirloom of her family and touchstone of the Slayer's will. When all is ready, Michael reaches into his "bag of tricks" and pulls out a sword.

It looks like the Kessler Sword, hilt-less as HDP Schmitt left it. The symbols are the same, the heft and balance is the same. Drew touches it, and sees the Nazis they faced before, placing the sword in a wooden crate and nailing the top on. Everyone wants to see the cultist's faces when they discover the sword gone, so Slayer Club gets a good night's sleep (especially Michael and Sam) and waits to hear from the Templars, who have circulated Erik's drawings and descriptions of the Nazis though Haifa airport security and Akra's police department.

Airport security IDs the Nazis, traveling under Dutch passports, but loses them after they pick up their rental van. Slayer Club moves to stake out the less-busy end of the tunnel from a market square down the street. From there, they can see the harbor. Tori spots the small pleasure yacht flying the Dutch flag. It deploys a speedboat, which heads directly for the breakwater. The ritual-site isn't the tunnel at all; the Nazis must know which stone in the causeway was once part of the Teutonic Order's chapel altar. Slayer Club pulls up stakes and heads for the harbor. They watch the causeway through binocs and cameras.

The crate is opened, empty. An argument breaks out. Michael takes photographs as one of the Nazis shoots an underling dead, then calls the police. Using grenades provided by the Templars, Slayer Club raises a smoke screen around the Nazis' position and flanks them along both sides of the causeway. Michael uses a gelato cart for cover and charges right down the middle. The Nazis have guns, but they can't compete with Tori's firepower. Erik takes out the speedboat with a grenade before the Nazis can bring a machine gun to bear, and then the Akra police arrive and clean up the rest. When the smoke clears and bodies are counted, the two Nazi ritualists have disappeared, and with them, the Blood Flag. But the Kessler Sword is back in Kessler hands.