SPIKE
"I KNEW it," Maria thought to herself as she ran down the deserted California streets. "Why does no one ever listen to me? No, we can't possibly listen to Maria, she's just being irrational. Now, we're all going to be melted into a puddle of mung." "MARIA! ALEX! LIZ! CAN ANYBODY HERE ME???," came Max's voice through the deserted streets. "MAX, I'M OVER HERE, FOLLOW THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!!!", Maria screamed back with all of her might. Then, she saw him turning the corner onto the street she had just turned onto. "Maria, thank god," he said, running up to her and out of breath. "Have you seen any of the others?", he asked while looking around. "Nope, I think when she started to go postal we all picked different directions and got the hell out of dodge. And, Max, I'm glad to see you but perhaps being that Tess is hunting us all down in order to massacre us, it may not be in our best interest to go around screaming," Maria said as she and Max entered a spooky looking graveyard. "And what is up with this town that teenagers keep running around and screaming and no one comes out to help?" Things has been fine the whole week, all of them, including Tess and Kyle had decided to go to sunny, beautiful California for part of the summer break. However, it had all come crumbling down when Liz, Maria and Isabel, while looking for a sweater Tess had "borrowed" from her in her room, had found an orb. It did not have the same markings on it as the orb's they had found previously. This one was smaller. The three girls decided to show it to the rest of the gang. Even together, they could not figure out it's purpose. They were late meeting Tess in the lobby so they hurried to the first floor. As they walked up to her, Isabel realized she still had the orb in her hand. She hid it in her pocket. Then something amazing happened. Isabel and Max's "mom" appeared in the hotel lobby. Isabel quickly realized the truth, Tess had engineered the whole thing at the cave the summer before. Tess turned towards Kyle, "Well, I was hoping to have to do this to all of you humans a little later, just remember, all's fair in love and war." Max realized what she was about to do, use her little fire trick again. "EVERYBODY, RUN!!", he screamed. She fired and missed Kyle by bare inches. This was what had lead Maria and Max to the graveyard. "Let's go in here," Max suggested, "she'll never think to look in a graveyard for us." "Yeah, but it will be much for convenient for her to bury our bodies now," Maria muttered to herself as she followed Max. "Don't you have superhearing or anything that could help us in this situation?" Maria asked as she stepped over yet another headstone. "Well, if Tess does find us and tries to hurt you, I CAN protect you, remember?" "Yeah, well, what if she finds us and goes after you first?" Maria questioned. "Oh, I don't think she would do that. She's after us aliens, most likely, that would be really dumb of her, besides..." Max didn't get to finish his point. Tess, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, sent a blue flame at him, knocking him out. "Max! What did you do to him, you intergalactic hoe?" "Oh, Maria," Tess said as she advanced upon Maria. "That's not the important question, the important question is what am I going to do to you. I've been waiting for this chance for a long time. I knew that you would never trust me. So, after I kill you, I'll just go into everybody's head, it's not like I haven't done it before, and just alter their memories. They won't even remember that you ever existed. See, I need Max, Michael and Isabel and I look forward to having more fun tormenting Liz, Alex and Kyle, but you, you have to go." As Tess spoke, Maria kept backing up. They were now outside of a huge mausoleum. She continued to look around for help. "Give it up, DeLuca, do you really think that anyone is patrolling this graveyard looking for damsels in distress to save? You are really brain dead." "Not as much as you are going to be in a few seconds luv," came a voice with an English accent from behind Tess. Then, as Maria watched, what appeared to be a wooden spike, shot out of nowhere, piercing Tess's heart. She hid the ground, seconds later. Maria turned into the direction of where the weapon had come from. Out of the darkness, came a tall, pale man with dyed white hair. "Hello, luv. No need to thank me other than the obvious, flowers, chocolates, a little bit of loving," the pale stranger to Maria. Maria hurled herself at her savior. "Thank you, how did you know that she was evil so quickly, my friends have been around her for months and they still thought she was ok," "Well blonde," he said, "you could say that I have some personal experience with evil. Demons, werewolves, and the like are my specialty. Name's Spike." He held out his hand to Maria. "Spike," she said, while smiling at him, "I believe this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." "Or a tawdry love affair?", he said with hope in his voice. "I do have a bit of a thing for tough blondes." "Well, your hair is certainly better than my last boyfriend's," she said. "But, being that I am attracted to you, their must be something wrong with you, so, what is it?" "I'm a former vampire, but I have a chip in my head so I can't hurt anyone and I have a huge crush on a woman who's job it is to kill me." Maria is silent. "Well, that's still better than my last boyfriend. Come on, I want to introduce you to my friends." The End