Trickster´s Treat Sequel –
Janus´ Shadow 15
Xander leaned back against the tree and took shallow breaths as he considered the possibility that he might have broken a rib... or possibly two or three. Buffy sat cross–legged on the ground next to the vent. She filed a nail with total dedication, but Xander didn´t miss how the file would occasionally pause for just a beat, Buffy´s eyes scanning the area before the regular thwaa–thw of the nail file returned.
"So, Nusa?" she finally asked in the darkness. Xander wondered whether faking unconsciousness would work. After a long silence, he decided that chickening out now really was a little... well... chicken–shit.
"You don´t want to know," he finally answered. For a long time, the night was so quiet that Xander could hear drunken shouts from the dorms on the far side of the chem building. Just when he thought he´d escaped, Buffy sighed.
"You know, there are lots of things I don´t want to know, like what my mother and Giles were doing with handcuffs. And now that I stop and think about it, that was Ethan´s fault too. I really need to go kick his ass."
"Want his address?" Xander asked with a laugh.
"You have it?" Buffy´s shocked voice made Xander review what he had just said and then flinch at his own stupidity.
"Um, maybe?" he admitted.
"Xander, whose side are you on here?" Buffy asked as she dropped the nail file to the grass and turned to face him. Even by the light of the fading moon, Xander could see the betrayal and anger in her face. Cold fingers crawled down his backbone, and Xander had to force himself to take even breaths. This was Buffy. She wasn´t "a" slayer, she was "his" slayer... as in a best friends, used to have an unrequited love thing.
"I´m on your side. Hey, supporto–man here," he protested.
"And why didn´t you tell me Ethan had slimed his way back into town?"
"Um, actually, he never slimed his way out," Xander corrected her.
"Great. And you´ve what? Covered for him?"
"Hey, no coverage!" Xander immediately protested. "If you want his address, I will gladly provide it and bring popcorn to the official ass–kicking. It´s just–" Xander paused. He knew what he wanted to say, but figuring out how to say it with all these vamp thoughts crowding into his head wasn´t easy. "He´s human, Buffy. It´s not as easy as going in there and putting on a good slay."
"Like you and the soldier you hit?" she immediately asked. Xander cringed at that, but then he´d gone for her scar after feeding Angel, so he figured he had a cheap shot or two coming. He bit his lip rather than snap back.
"Okay, that was bitchy," Buffy offered after a few seconds of silence. Xander shrugged.
"Had it coming," he admitted. Buffy snatched her nail file back and sat staring down at it.
"So, Nusa?" she repeated.
"You´re just like a dog with a bone, you know that?" Xander sighed as he realized he would not be distracting, confusing, or not talking his way out of this one.
"And this is news to you?"
"No, just saying," Xander rolled his eyes in defeat. "She was my... my vampire self´s sire."
"And that´s whose clan you´re in? You could call yourself a Harris or a Scooby or part of Giles´ clan or the slayer clan or the Flintstones for all I care, but you call yourself part of Nusa´s clan?" In the still pre–dawn air, Buffy´s voice cut through the air so that Xander half expected soldiers to hear her through the earth and concrete.
"Just a thought, but maybe we shouldn´t be talking about this here."
"Not really anything else going on, at least not until Giles and Willow get here." Buffy looked up at the stars and stretched her neck in a way that reminded Xander of Spike. They both had predator´s reflexes. Funny enough, Spike scared him a lot less. The worst thing Spike could do was eat him.
"Xander, explain this in a way that I can understand. I just don´t get it," Buffy practically begged.
"Buffy," Xander stopped, helpless in the face of slayer confusion and betrayal. She sat on the cool ground watching and waiting, and he struggled again to put words together that would make her understand. "Angel. You love him," Xander held up a hand to stop Buffy from launching a defensive attack as her back went stiff. "And I´m okay with that, mostly. But what I think doesn´t matter. You love him, right?" Xander asked.
"Yeah," Buffy said softly, and all the anger and frustration drained from her like the time he had popped the inflated kiddie pool in his back yard and the thing had turned to flabby, damp plastic pile while water flooded the garage. Only now Buffy turned into a flabby, damp slayer, and Xander could feel the guilt wash over him at bringing back all the pain.
"But he has Angelus down there. He thinks Angelusy thoughts and then does the guilt trip for thinking them. He remembers killing and raping and part of him treasures the feeling of power and that´s why the rest of him broods."
"We´ve had this discussion before, and I don´t need a lecture." Buffy´s voice carried a clear warning.
"Not lecturing. I´m just telling you that it´s the same for me. I have my own Angelus, only not so much with the insane bastard who would send the whole world to hell. But I remember those things I did, okay the things I didn´t *technically* do, and part of me liked the feeling of power."
Buffy looked at him with a slightly concerned expression. "Am I going to have to worry about you digging up any obelisks?"
"I´m not sure I could dig up the spare key to the basement I buried in my parents´ back yard ´just in case´," Xander admitted. "But broken bones or no, I don´t want to go on some killing spree just because some part of me remembers really having fun when the whole Turk war meant you could leave bodies lying all over the place and no one even raised an eyebrow."
"Disturbing much? Geez, Xander, that´s a little more than I want to know."
"Yeah, but that´s just it. Angel and I both remember our bodies doing these things that felt really good, but that doesn´t mean we´re bad. It just means we have very serious psychological issues that probably require serious therapy." Xander watched as Buffy´s body slowly slumped toward the earth. Muscles that had been tight, loosened. And really, he found it rather amusing that she had been upset enough to get that battle ready around him because he wasn´t exactly a threat right now.
"So, you don´t actually hate Angel?" She asked.
"I never hated Angel." Xander paused and did an internal honesty check. "Okay, I kinda hated him at first when I thought I had a chance at getting in your pants, but as soon as that bit of stupidity passed, I felt only mild annoyance at the vamp. And then there was the whole me raping him thing, and the him raping me thing, and now we´re okay." Xander smiled as Buffy expression turned almost lemon–sucking squinchy horrified.
"You do need therapy. Serious, expensive, professional therapy," she announced. "And Willow´s coming, so don´t go getting her all upset or she´ll burn your eyebrows off with her magic fire," Buffy warned. Xander looked at her strangely, and Buffy just shrugged. "I drank the last of the milk and she got all cranky. But it all worked out because I got like pounds of guilt–chocolate."
"Ah, the best kind of chocolate," Xander said with a knowing nod.
"Chocolate?" a voice in the dark asked, and Willow came around the end of a row of bushes. "Did someone say chocolate?"
"Good lord, people, this is not a slumber party." Giles came around the bushes behind her, carrying a large satchel that clinked with each step.
"Willow, G–man!" Xander happily greeted them. "Tell me you brought nightshade," he said with his fingers crossed. "Cause I really don´t want to rescue the guys and then get them burned to dust."
"Right here," Willow offered as she held up green leaves that still had tiny purple flowers attached.
"That´s my girl," Xander said as he held out his hand.
"Despite its rather ominous name, the plant really isn´t useful for much other than poison," Giles said as he knelt down in the grass. One by one, he efficiently pulled vials and dishes and clumps of herbs from his bag until he had a regular magical buffet, not that Xander would eat any of the ingredients. The drooping heads and fuzzy stalks of borage, the fern–like leaves of yarrow, and the heavy blue Monkshead flowers balanced on thin stalks lay next to ingots of pewter and a dish of salt and enough talismans to chase the Pope back to Italy crying for his mother.
"A poison, a cure for spasms, the main ingredient in a spell that can steal someone voice, and the activating ingredient in a nox noctis spell," Xander corrected him about the harmless–looking plant Willow had handed him.
"Really? I hadn´t known any nox noctis spells survived the Inquisition. La Beata de Piedrahita supposedly had the last known spells in her library when the Inquisition arrested her."
"Yeah, but I learned the spell before they got burned," Xander said with a smile and a waggle of his eyebrows as he pulled a small talisman from his belt. The nox noctis was the first spell he ever learned, one that gave Dracula and Nusa some of their most powerful advantages.
"Oh," Giles offered quietly. Willow made little wet noises, and Xander realized she was on the verge of crying.
"Hey, I´m still Xander. Do you want me to say something stupid to prove it to you?" he asked as he pushed himself forward and tried to ignore the sharp pain just under his left armpit.
"I hardly think that´s necessary. Before the night is out, I trust you to say something stupid on your own without prompting," Giles commented. Xander froze, trying to decide if he´d been insulted or allowed in on a Giles–joke. True, it wasn´t funny, but it still had the ring of joke to it.
"How can I ever live up to such faith?" Xander joked back. Giles gave him a quick smile as he pulled out some of the more explosive ingredients.
"And what´s the plan once we get inside?" Giles asked as he carefully pulled a vial from out of his pocket.
"We break in, we make a lot of noise, we grab our vampires, and we run out," Buffy said as she pulled her crossbow around to the front.
"Yes, well, as good as that sounds, I would feel better if there were an actual plan in that plan," Giles commented. Carefully tipping a vial, he poured a thick liquid over the bolts on one side of the grate.
"I could cast a confusion spell. It would make it hard for them to fight back, and as a bonus, they would walk into walls and trip over their own feet."
"A Three Stooges spell? Now that´s magic I can get behind," Buffy said with a smile. The first traces of grey appeared in the east, making the campus buildings look like someone had traced outlines around them.
"And have you practiced this spell?" Giles asked.
"Yes," Willow immediately insisted as Giles kept mixing ingredients in a thick white bowl. "Once," she added softly.
"I should be feeling stark raving terror, and yet I can´t seem to rally more than minor annoyance," Giles said as he pulled out a lighter and lit the end of a small twig.
"You broke Giles," Buffy jokingly accused Willow, but Willow just gathered her own supplies from the pile laid on the ground.
Giles made a small chant as he set fire to a broad leaf and dropped it in the bowl. Xander recognized the smothering spell just as Giles set fire to the liquid explosives pooled in the cracks of the grate. Fire popped loudly, sending a spear of bright light into the air before the grate groaned and collapsed in. The two surviving hinges meant the grate bounced against the side of the shaft, but instead of the crash of metal against metal, the smother–spell meant that only a soft thumping noise disturbed the night.
"And into the belly of the whale," Giles said as he gathered up the materials Willow hadn´t already scooped up.
"No whale, but I´ll settle for arrogant government types who´ve stuck their noses in where they doesn´t belong, Buffy suggested as she swung her legs into the shaft. With a quick flip, Buffy disappeared into the darkness. Xander groaned at the thought of that drop, but he pushed himself toward the dark hole.
"Oh no, mister, no way are you going down there."
"Try to stop me," Xander practically snarled at Willow as he headed for the opening. Unfortunately, Willow held him back with one hand, and Xander´s side rippled in pain that left him sagging back against the tree. "Okay, that was a pretty good try," Xander admitted as he gritted his teeth.
"Sorry. God, I´m sorry. Are you okay?" Willow hand immediately moved from his chest to his wrist where she curled her fingers around, obviously seeking a pulse.
"Great, I make these wheezing sounds for the comedic effect," Xander answered as he struggled to catch his breath again.
"And my faith is upheld. The night is clearly not over yet," Giles commented. It took Xander a second to connect that to the earlier not–funny joke.
"Hey, that wasn´t stupid."
"The thought of you trying to take on the Initiative while too injured to even sit up isn´t your finest piece of reasoning," Giles pointed out. "Unfortunately, I think Buffy needs to handle the fighting."
"Oh, the spell, I need to do the spell," Willow hugged her supplies to her pink sweater and disappeared down the hole.
"Well, I guess we guys gotta just sit here and wait ´til the fighting women–folk get back, huh?" Xander said as he shifted to try to take the strain off his side. His sore knee rewarded him with a dull aching throb.
"I think getting you to hospital might be the best move," Giles said as he moved over to sit in the dirt next to Xander.
"I´m not moving. If Spike and Angel don´t get up here before dawn..." Xander looked to the east where the buildings were now highlighted in pink as the sunrise approached.
"I have blankets in my trunk. I´ll get them, and they can run for the car," Giles offered.
"Across the campus, over a wall, and into your car. Giles, I´m not the only one talking stupid here. I need to do the spell."
"Maybe you could show me how to–" Giles stopped in the middle of his sentence. He stood up and paced the space between the tree and the shaft. "I really hate being this helpless," he muttered.
"Tell me about it," Xander agreed as he tried to breathe without moving.
As the sun crept up in the sky, Xander leaned back and prayed for the first time in years. Streaks of light appeared, and a quiet fell over the campus: The drinkers had already wandered home, and the early risers hadn´t risen yet. He imagined he could hear the sounds of Buffy knocking soldier heads together. However, as the sun rose, fears of her stuffed in one of the cells Spike had described started gnawing at the edges of that confidence.
Giles stood leaning against the tree absent–mindedly cleaning his glasses. When a hand grasped the edge of the vent, his glasses tumbled to the ground as he hurried to grab the wrist. Xander sat up so quickly that he got light–headed as he ripped the nightshade leaves he had clutched the whole time. He began the spell.
"Willow, thank god," Giles muttered before he knelt at the edge of the shaft and peered into the dark. Xander concentrated on his chant even as the lack of any more hands at the top of the shaft sent cold fear stabbing through his stomach more painfully than the obviously broken ribs.
A grunt announced another survivor, and this time Angel appeared, ducking into the deepest shade next to Xander. Xander could distantly hear voices, but he concentrated on weaving his spell out of the threads of magic that constantly hovered over the Hellmouth. When the morning light started darkening as though a cloud had passed over, Xander breathed a sigh of relief.
A brash voice echoed through the metal corridor, the words lost to Xander as he struggled to keep up the illusion. But the tone of glee and violence could only come from one person. Familiar hands brushed his face, blue eyes appearing in front of him for a moment, but Xander focused on the chant. Strong arms lifted him, and then Xander felt movement as the world blurred to the feeling of Spike´s arms under him and the smell of leather and cigarettes.
Dimly, Xander realized they had reached the car, and the rumbling of the motor gave him a rhythm for the chant as the magic slid away from him in slick puddles, the darkness deepening when he tapped one source only to lose it again. He could feel his lungs strain as though he were holding his breath, but he ignored the pain. At least he did until the feeling of floating warned him of imminent unconsciousness.
