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Part 1
Xander wandered the streets of Sunnydale keeping to the shadows as much as possible. He was only a brief shadow himself when he walked in the pools of light made by the street lamps. As he followed the black bird that flew ahead of him, the street names and houses became more familiar and his step became more determined. Soon he was standing in front of a dark house that he knew well. The crow perched on the roof over the entrance. Watching him. Waiting.
No one was home. He knew that without even thinking. There was no life here. The house was as quiet as the grave he had just left behind so he walked up to the front door. It was locked, as he expected, and with a slight effort, he shoved, and the doorjamb splintered, the door swinging freely. He stepped into his old home and made his way down the familiar halls to the door with a hazardous waste area sign on it. He pushed lightly against the door and it opened with a slight squeak. His parents left the room the way he had lived in it except that they had picked up the clutter. His many clocks still sat in their various arrangements around the room. His clothes still hung in the closet.
Xander turned on a light that he did not need anymore and walked into the middle of the room. He looked at the photos lined up on the dresser. There was the picture of the whole gang of slayerettes, Willow, Oz, Cordelia and himself. There was the picture of Buffy and Willow horsing around one Saturday afternoon without a care in the world. There was even a picture of Anya, smiling big for the camera, which he had taken when she first came back that summer after graduation. For some reason he easily forgave her for leaving them in the lurch when they needed her help during the mayor’s ascension. And there was the picture of Willow with her sweet smile that he took in one of her rare unself-conscious moments. He was confused as the memories came back fast and overwhelmed him with their intensity.
Then he saw himself in the mirror. What he saw was a ghoul. His face was gaunt and as pale as the moon in the sky. His damp, dark hair was matted and hung across his forehead. The two scars from the cuts the vampire had given him ran lividly down his cheeks. His last memory wiped away every other memory he had as his last emotions washed over him. The sorrow for what he had lost and the anger for what he would never have seared away everything except the need for vengeance.
“If he wants to declare a war, I’ll give him a war.” Xander stripped off the jacket he had taken from the vampire as he headed for the closet. There he found an old black t-shirt that he put on and the combat boots he had once worn on a Halloween night. He also found the face paint that he had not used since he was a child. He stalked back to the mirror and used the black paint to color his lips and darken the area around his eyes. He painted the scars running down his cheek to make them more prominent. What stared back at him was a death mask. He grabbed the jacket and put it back on. Then he heard a tapping at the window.
The crow was looking in at Xander, as if telling him it was time to go. It squawked and took flight, leading him to the first target for his vengeance.
Xander launched himself through the window, shattering the glass and the pane, ripping the skin of his hands, shredding the leather of the jacket. He soared down to the grass below, landed on his hands, went into a tuck and a roll and came up standing on his feet without any effort. He looked at his hands and watched them heal in just a few seconds. He could feel a power surge through him, and he knew it had only one purpose, but oh the feel of it. He laughed. A long, angry, maniacal laugh.
CAW!
Xander looked up as the black bird circled and then flew in a straight line for the other side of town. Acting without thinking, Xander took off running, not bothering with streets or sidewalks now. With a speed he did not know possible he ran across yards and alleys, vaulted fences and hedges as if they were not there, the tatters of the jacket fluttering around him like the feathers of the bird who brought him back. It was as if he was flying, following his dark guide, a black messenger of death. As he ran, he could see through the crow’s eyes the rooftops, the streetlights, the cars, the inhabitants of the city, until he found the one he was looking for.
While he ran the clouds rolled across the sky, covering the moon. And the rain began to fall slowly as if the tears of untold numbers of souls were being shed.
Willow heard the distant thunder of a storm as the rain slowly fell around her while she tried to stay in the light along the sidewalk. “Great,” she said to herself. “I stay in the library too long researching this stupid project after it’s dark. Buffy and Giles told me not to be out after dark by myself. But, noooo. I have to be little miss independent. I can take care of myself. And now it’s started raining. Why does parking have to be all the way across campus?”
As Willow passed a construction site where the new computer science building was going up she walked into an area where campus security had not installed lights yet. She clutched her books a little tighter and increased her pace. “I just have to make it to the car,” she thought to herself. She heard the footsteps behind her but did not turn around. “Nothing back there. Just my imagination.” The footsteps came closer. “Okay, not my imagination. Think, Willow Rosenberg, you can handle this.” She was just a few paces from the lights of the parking lot when her pursuer caught up to her. “Well, if it isn’t the slayer’s little witch friend,” she heard a taunting voice say. “Took me a while to catch you off by yourself, but patience rewards those who wait.”
Willow reached into her coat pocket and clutched the crucifix that she had carried for years now. She just had a few more yards to go to reach her car if she could hold the vampire off that long. She was ready to turn around and brandish her crucifix when a shadow rushed past her and knocked her down to the sidewalk. In amazement, she watched the dark figure tackle the vampire with such force that they landed twenty feet away from her, deeper in the shadows.
The vampire let out a loud, “Oooof,” as he hit the ground. He threw off his assailant and got to his feet. “You’ve got a lot of gall, boy, coming between me my meal. Now be a good boy and maybe I’ll kill you quick.”
Xander did not say a word, he just sneered at the vampire as he got back to his feet. “What? Cat got your tongue?” the vampire asked as he lunged. Xander stepped into the vampire and drove his fist into the vampire’s gut then stepped away. The vampire doubled over and went to his knees. He looked up and asked, “Who are you?” as he slowly stood up.
In a derisive voice Xander replied, “What? You don’t recognize me? I’m hurt. You should have a better memory for those you kill.” He threw a punch, hitting the vampire in the nose and making it stagger back a few steps. As he closed in on the vampire again he growled, “I thought you guys could see in the dark? Use your stinking vampire sight and look at me!”
The vampire shook his head trying to clear the cobwebs out of his vision and looked at this dark figure stalking in on him. He saw the black scars running down his attackers’ face and then he recognized the boy he had helped to kill. For the first time in his undead life, he knew what fear was. “You. But you’re dead.”
“Yeah, and so are you,” Xander said as he moved in. In desperation, the vampire swung his fist at Xander with everything he had. Xander caught the fist in his open palm, then closed his hand and crushed the vampire’s fingers. “Aauuugh!” In pain and surprise the vampire tried to pull away, but Xander twisted the vampire’s hand up behind its back until the shoulder popped and shoved the vampire into a pile of stacked lumber. “We didn’t turn you. You’re not supposed to come back!”
Xander grabbed a two by four from the lumber pile and began swinging it like a baseball bat, using the vampire for batting practice. With each swing he asked a question. “Remember holding me while your boss cut me up?” THWACK! The vampire’s ribs caved in on one side. “Remember a young woman who had just begun to live and the sound of her neck popping?!” THWACK! The vampire’s knee shattered and the vampire crumpled to the ground. Xander broke the board over his knee to get a sharp point and stood over the beaten vampire. “Where is your boss so I can pay him back for all this fun?”
In pain that the vampire did not think possible, he looked up at this hateful ghost. “Go to hell,” he said.
“Been there. Done that,” Xander said as he brought the board down point first. It sliced through the vampire’s chest and heart, turning it into dust.
Willow sat on the wet concrete through the whole fight staring in amazement. Her rescuer took the vampire apart piece by piece with an anger that she had never seen. Not even Buffy, in the past few months, killed vampires with such viciousness. After her rescuer dusted the vampire he tossed away the two by four and started walking toward her. She could not move. She stared with her mouth open. She tried to see who he was but there was not enough light. All she could make out was shadows.
Xander reached down to help up the young woman, but when he grabbed her arm the memories flowed from her with such force, he was staggered. The birthday parties. The nights in the Bronze with Buffy and the rest of the group. Marathon research sessions and junk food. Willow holding him while his life drained out of him. Willow crying at his funeral. He stumbled away into the light of the parking lot. “Willow?”
Willow looked on in horror as the apparition in front of her stepped into the light and she saw her best friend. He was dressed in black, and he was pale, and those scars on his face, and, and… “Xander?”
He looked at her like a wild animal caught in a car’s headlights.
He whirled and was gone back into the shadows where he came from and Willow
could not even hear his footsteps. “Xander, wait!” She saw
a crow swoop down under the light post and fly in the direction that Xander
had run. “Xander?” She began running for her car, fumbling
for the keys in her pocket. When she finally got inside and sat down,
she repeated, “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God,” and tried not to
hyperventilate. When her breathing was back under control she started
the car and took off with the wheels squealing, which was quite an accomplishment
considering her car was an old VW Bug. “Oh, God, Buffy please be
home.”