Lina grabbed her jacket and purse and awkwardly bumped through the sea of people to the exit.  She had decided that Buffy couldn’t give one choice word or another whether she left early or not.  It was obvious that Xander and Willow were scared of Lina but that Buffy just couldn’t care less. Lina grumbled under her breath.  It was amazingly difficult trying to be someone she wasn’t - someone sweet with perfect manners and incredible brains.  Sometimes she had wondered what it would be like to start at a completely different school, where no one knew you and just be a very different person.  Now she knew.   And it took all the restraint she had mustered up that day not to reveal her true colors, turn around and swat some of those annoying people because of the annoying things they said.
    She rounded the street corner and headed down Blankman road.  Lina had decided that she liked Buffy, at least for the most part.  She wasn’t annoying or prying and she didn’t say stupid things all the time.  She was fairly indifferent most of the time, and that was a characteristic that Lina had no trouble getting along with.  Willow didn’t bother her much either, because she was genuine and sweet and polite, a little overdone that way, but she was sure Willow couldn’t do much about that.  She was made of sugar and spice and everything nice though, that much was certain.  Xander was a completely different story, as he was constantly getting on her nerves. Always had to insert something stupid into every conversation.  He either stated the obvious or added something very unobvious or said something rude or even mean about her, but she had done her best to just brush it off and not swat him, even if he totally deserved it.  Good job, Lina!  she told herself.
    Lina stood on the corner of Mead and Lengthon.  Now what? It was all very well and good to be able to find your way to a club in daylight in an unfamiliar city but it was a different task altogether to find your way through Sunnydale in the dark.  She pulled her red denim jacket more tightly around her and this sickening feeling in her stomach that she didn’t know where to go to get home.  She briefly thought about going back to the club and asking Buffy but not only would that blow her cover but Buffy didn’t know where she lived and no one there had a car anyway.
    She sighed, and looked down an alley across the street.  Should she head down there?  The other end of the alley was brightly light, and there seemed to be traffic over there, not like these streets.  These streets seemed dead, or deserted.
    Lina decided not to reason with herself about and crossed the street towards the alley.  She wasn’t sure whether she felt really stupid for doing something that always gets the heroine of horror movies in trouble or if she just felt lucky.
    Lina found her way into the darkness but then stopped for a second.  Had she heard something?  No, that was her imagination.  On the other hand, however, she wasn’t the type of girl to dread walking alone at 1:00 in the morning, even in an unknown town.  Her adrenaline started to rush and so did she.  She turned around to see if anyone was following her and ran head-on into a wall.
    Lina looked up and her stomach tightened.  It was not a wall she had run into but a tall, cloaked man.  Most of his face was covered, and his hair fell over one eye.  The other eye though, was so deep she felt as though she might drown in it.  It was a mysterious blue, or maybe beyond blue.
    The man broke the spell, as he brushed by her and headed towards the other side of the alley.  A word slipped into her mind and onto her tongue.
    “Akahoshi.” She said, not knowing the meaning of the word.
    “Aka-.”  The man turned to look at her.  “What’s your name?  Who sent you?”
    Lina wasn’t sure she should tell him anything, but he had several advantages over her right now, aside from height and strength.  When would she learn to keep her mouth shut?
    “Lina.  That’s my name.” She said slowly and carefully.  “No one sent me.  I don’t even know what Akahoshi means.”
    His eyes narrowed into slits and charged at her, grabbing her neck and pressing her back hard against the brick wall behind her.
    “Don’t play stupid with me.  Who sent you?”
    Lina couldn’t say anything.  Her stomach knotted and all her muscles tightened but she knew that fighting back was pretty hopeless with this guy.
    “I could kill you now.  Tell me!”
    Lina frowned, and then managed a thin half smile.  “Are you a vampire?” She was astonished to realize that that concept didn’t frighten her.
His eyes softened and with them his grip loosed and he turned away.  “Akahoshi wasn’t what people said he was.” He said quietly.  “He was a monster and he killed or deformed those who got in the way of his plans.  I got in the way.”  That last bit was barely audible.  “I knew they had formed a new order or worshippers, but so young?  So young?”  He seemed lost in a mixture of anger and depression.  He finally turned to her.  “I killed him.  Long ago.  Worshipping him will bring you nothing but hate.  You’re too young…”
    “What’s your name?”  Lina felt that an important question, though she didn’t know why.  She didn’t understand about Akahoshi but the vampire wasn’t killing her yet so she thought she’d let it go.
    He looked at her again.  His eye had the same impossibly deep blue quality.  They seemed so eternal.  “Zelgadis.”
    “Zelgadis” she repeated.  It suited him, it suited his eyes.  “Why don’t you kill me?”  It was a decidedly stupid question, she understood, but she really wanted know why he hadn’t.
    He looked down at her, almost in amusement.  “Do you want to die?”
    “No.”
    He said nothing, as though having a victims consent was the only way he killed.
    “Others would,” he sighed, “And not just vampires.  Why are you walking alone at this time of night?”
    So not only was this vampire not going to kill her, but he was going to lecture her in safety?  The theme to the Twighlight Zone rolled through her head and she did what she could to keep from humming it.
    “It’s dangerous.” He said, uselessly.  Lina had figured that much out.  He sighed in resignation.  “Where do you live?”
    Aside from the fact that he didn’t kill her and seemed to be interested in her safety, he seemed very trustworthy.  Something about him made her trust him implicitly.  If all else failed, he couldn’t come in unless he was invited.
    “I live on Taleeth Place.”
    “Well, you’re going the wrong way.”  Zelgadis pointed out and turned and she followed him.
    “I’m new here.  I just moved here yesterday and I managed to find my way to the Bronze in daylight but I couldn’t find my way back in the dark.”
He acknowledged that with a nod but no more.  It made sense that he had gotten to know where everything was in the dark, because night was all he ever got to see.  Zelgadis probably knew every short cut ever created through Sunnydale and several more.
    He turned and she followed, across Mead and Lengthon, to a quieter alley, and a much narrower one.  They walked single file but Lina had to almost jog to keep with his stride.  It was dark, much darker than the other alley with no light seeping through or at the other end and she was afraid she would loose sight of him and be lost again.
    “Zel?”  Lina was going to ask that he slow up, but he stopped anyway and she ran into him again.
    “Shhh!” he said and he stood absolutely still for a few moments, just listening.
    “I don’t hear anything.”  Lina whispered but he ignored her.
    Abruptly, Zelgadis grabbed Lina’s hand and ran down the alley, and she struggled to keep up.  At the end of the alley she found a door decorated crudely with orange spray paint.  Zel swung it open and dragged Lina through.  The room was utterly dark and she couldn’t see anything even if her eyes had been given time to adjust.  Zel pulled her to the far side of the room, and she felt cloth brush her face, as though there were curtain dangling from the ceiling.  That startled her and she did her best not to shout out.
    Lina’s arm was pulled abruptly and she staggered into Zel again.  He rapped his cloak around both him and her.
    “There used to be a fire escape at the back where we are now.  I thought we could get out this way.”  Zelgadis whispered.  “Stay still, don’t talk, don’t even whisper.  If you hear voices in this room, pretend to be dead.”
    Lina shook.  If it scared a vampire, it scared her.  She realized that he was trying to look like one of the cloths that were hanging from the ceiling by rapping his cape around them both and her red jacket wasn’t helping.
    She tensed as she heard a door opening.  Zelgadis tensed too.  She faintly saw, in the darkness, as her eyes focused somewhat that Zel ran the side of his index finger across his teeth.  He pressed the finger to the side of her neck and then to his own lips.
    Lina panicked as she heard several drunken voices.  The dim light they had brought with them when they opened the door revealed to her that Zel’s lips where covered in blood, and realized her neck was too.  Realizing his plan she allowed herself to go limp and pretend to be dead.
    The three men who belonged to the drunken voices rounded the corner and pushed back the cloths.  Zel lowered his cloak and steadied Lina so she didn’t fall over.  He put his face to close to her neck that she expected to feel each uneven breath.  But the she remembered that he wasn’t alive.
    “Well, what have we got here?” a vampire with a low-class British accent asked his friends.
    Another vampire grinned at Zel.  “Was she good?”
    “How’s about we give it a bite?” The Brit asked again.
    Lina’s pulsed quickened.  Zel picked her up in his arms and she remembered to play it limp.
    “It wouldn’t do you any good.  She’s already dead.” Zel glared at them.
    “Couldn’t we be the judge of that?”  Brit met Zel’s glare, and it intensified.
    “I don’t ask you to share your food.”
    Zel was met with the response, “You’re missing out.”
    “She’s dead, and I’m leaving.” Zel said firmly.
    “What are you going to do with her now?”  A mischievous voice piped up.
    Zel hesitated a moment before replying, “What do you think I’m going to do?”
    That response was met with a chorus of knowing “Oh” s and it made Zel cringe to think they were that twisted.
    As he left the dark room, Brit wittingly retorted, “Aren’t you supposed to do that before you kill her?” Which was only met with more laughter.
    Zel jogged, Lina in his arms, down to the end of the ally the way they came.  Only then did she act alive again as he set her down and stammered a weak, half-apology for what she had heard.
    Zel wiped his lips off on the back of his hand and Lina wiped her neck off.
    “Thanks for doing that.” She smiled up at him, with new admiration.  She had been right to trust him.
    Zel blushed a little and responded, “Well, I guess now we’ll just have to go the long way.”
 

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