On a summer night in Portland, Oregon, violence erupts at a Little League game -- and attorney Ami Vergano watches in horror as the quiet, gentle artist she recently befriended does the unexpected and unthinkable. In a cheap motel room in Washington, D.C., Vanessa Kohler -- ex-mental patient, supermarket tabloid reporter, and estranged daughter of a powerful general running for president -- views a news broadcast of the bizarre incident and believes...

Buffy returns to find that her friends have been battling the forces of evil without her. As she struggles to regain her mother's and her friends' trust, a new slayer named Faith arrives in town and quickly wins over all of Buffy's friends. But Faith's arrival is just the beginning of new forces Buffy might face. A few nights after her return, she encounters Angel, who has somehow returned, feral and violent from the hellish demon dimension where...