by Mel Odom
“Why?” She didn’t look at him.
“Well, I’d kind of like to know who to thank for saving my life.”
“You don’t have to thank anyone.”
“Actually, I feel like I do. I was so toast when you stepped into that little adventure.”
She glanced at him then, and a timid smile lighted those golden hazel eyes. “You are very polite.”
“And normally hygienic,” Xander reminded. Gotta remind her that you don’t always smell this bad.
“Of course.”
Xander looked at her. “So, thank you—” He let it hang, hoping she would supply a name.
“You are very welcome,” she said, tilting her head to the side and still smiling slightly.
“My name is Xander.” Okay, drawing on response reflex here.
“I thank you, Xander, for saving my life. You are very brave.”
“I am?” Xander caught himself. “No. I mean, I only did what I had to.”
“I think, under the circumstances, most men would have ran.”
“I think, under the circumstances, you should let me buy you dinner.”
She stopped and looked at him. “You do.”
Xander stared at her, loving the way she looked, knowing he’d never get her out of his mind. How many girls can look that sexy with a naked sword in their hand? That aren’t the Slayer? And then he wondered if the smile she’d been trying to hide was just her way of being polite and not laughing outright at him.
“Yeah,” Xander said, looking into her eyes. “ Absolutely.” He felt like he was suddenly standing on the edge of a chasm, looking into a bottomless pit, and his heart kept accelerating. A little quiet voice in the back of his head insisted he back off and remember how badly things had gone with Cordelia Chase.
He wasn’t one to have luck with women, yet he pressed that luck every chance he got. Buffy insisted on looking at him like a good friend. He’d gotten over the good friend thing with Willow just in time to nearly screw up both their relationships instead of just Cordy’s and his.
“It would be better,” the swordswoman said, “if you were to forget you ever saw me tonight.”
“For me or for you?” Xander asked, taking a step closer to her. The lemony smell of her filled his senses.
“For you.”
“Too late,” Xander told her, grinning. “Can’t. Wouldn’t even want to.”
Her smile took on a hint of sadness. “You might.”
For a moment, the seriousness of her words touched Xander. She’s not kidding. Self-preservation pinged on his overloaded radar then and some of the ardor he felt cooled.
As if sensing where his thoughts were headed, the swordswoman started walking again.
Xander watched her take two steps, the dress seeming to glide around her hips, the holstered flintlocks behind her back clearly visible. I’ve been involved with She-Mantis who wanted to eat my head, took Inca Mummy Girl to the school dance and almost got mummified, and well . . . Cordy. World’s Worst Dates, been there, done that, and got the tee shirt. The young woman took another step. What’s the worst thing that could happen? At least this girl saved my life a couple times tonight.
Xander went after her. “Hey, wait up.”
She kept walking.
“Please,” Xander said.
Slowly, her stride shortened and she waited. Xander joined her, standing at her side. “You can’t just save my life and run off.”
“Yes,” she replied, “I can. I will be doing a disservice to you, and perhaps endangering your life if I don’t.”
Xander showed her a cocky grin. “From who? These mooks? I could have taken them.” He shrugged. “Maybe I don’t quite have that green glop thing down that you do so well, but I’ve managed before.”
The young woman laughed. “You have a good sense of humor.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Not really,” she told him. “Too many people who die young have good senses of humor.”
“And here I was always told laughter was the best medicine.”
“It doesn’t resuscitate you when you’re dead.”
Xander stopped cold, unable to work with that statement. “Okay, point. But I’d really like to get to know you better. Do you know how many girls you can take out on a date, have this kind of thing happen to you, and have them not totally freak on you?”
Still amused, the golden hazel eyes glittering, the young swordswoman said, “No. Is this your idea of a fun . . . date?” She used the word like it was foreign to her.
“Not really,” Xander answered. “I was thinking more along the lines of dinner, a movie, maybe some ice cream. And talk. Lots of getting-to-know-you talk.”
“Perhaps,” the young woman said wistfully, “in the next turn of the wheel.” She ran from him then, gaining speed.
“Hey!” Xander shouted. “Hey!” He started after her, watching as she made another of those incredible leaps that took her deep into the shadows. He spotted the chain link fence in front of him too late to stop and smashed into it with a resounding clank!
He only caught another glimpse of the young swordswoman as she hurtled down on the other side of the fence. She hit the ground running and disappeared between heartbeats, her black silk dress blending in with the shadows.
Glumly, Xander peered through the trees in the darkened park.
“Xander!”
Reluctantly, feeling completely bummed, Xander turned from the fence and trotted back toward the Watcher. Despite his brave words, he really didn’t want to be at the park in case the vampires came back or other gang members showed up looking for their friends.
Halfway across the basketball court, something glittered darkly in the moonlight. As he neared the object, Xander saw that it was the necklace the young swordswoman had been wearing. The leather string looked aged and supple, and he supposed it was possible that the necklace had slipped off during the battle.
Xander knelt and picked it up, feeling the silver resting almost ice-cold against his skin. He stood and looked back in the direction that the swordswoman had gone, but there was still no sign of her. He closed his fist over the necklace and ran to join Giles in the car.
Not exactly Cinderella’s glass slipper, he told himself as he slid into the car. But it was something.
Chapter 12
XANDER STARED AT THE DEBRIS STREWN ACROSS THE Bronze’s small dance floor. Unaccustomed bright lights replaced the dimness that usually filled the club. Broken chairs and tables lay in scattered disarray, and the floor was sticky with drinks and, in thankfully few areas, blood. “My God,” Giles muttered as he surveyed the wreckage. “This is from the concert?”
“Actually,” Oz said, carrying a chair with three legs over to a pile that had been made by the stage, “this is from the war.” He wore a pumpkin orange tie-dyed shirt that included green and purple pigments, and khaki pants.
“What war?” Giles asked.
“We got invaded.” Oz put the chair on the pile. Blood trickled from a cut over his left eye. “Some kind of gang broke up the show and held up the bar.”
Xander pointed at his hair. “Asian guys with green and white hair?”
Oz nodded toward a television someone had brought out and set up on stage. “Yeah. We noticed that those guys seem to have been everywhere tonight.”
Xander nodded. He and Giles had listened to news reports on the radio on the way over to the Bronze. With everything that was going on in town, Xander had figured Buffy and Willow would head for the Bronze to check on Oz. “We had a run-in with them, too.”
“A couple, actually,” Giles said. He gazed around. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
Oz shook his head. “I’m just helping clean up. It kept me from running out looking for Willow. I figure she’ll be here as soon as she can, and I wouldn’t know where to start looking for her.” He looked at Xander hopefully.
Xander shook his head.
“Anyway, we’ve alr
eady got the wounded to the ER,” Oz went on. “With everything going on in Sunnydale tonight, the ambulance service was overworked.”
“How bad was it?” Giles asked.
“Nobody died,” Oz answered, “but a few of the injured people are going to spend some serious time in the hospital.” He shrugged. “Those were mostly some of the lowlifes who hang around pushing bad business.”
“The Black Wind gang members targeted those people?” Giles asked.
Oz gazed at the Watcher. “Seemed to. Something going on that I don’t know about?”
Giles took his glasses off and polished them. “Oh, there’s something going on, but I’m afraid we’re all clueless at this point. Unless Buffy, Angel, or Willow have discovered something.”
“Oh, we might have discovered a thing or two.”
Xander turned, spotting Buffy and Angel walking through the rubble that was the Bronze tonight. Where’s Willow? Concern filled him, but he didn’t let it run rampant. She’s okay. Willow had to be okay; his world wouldn’t be the same any other way.
“What have you found out?” Giles asked.
Buffy flipped a small rectangular photograph into view. “Recognize this?”
“Junior year,” Xander said. “But I thought you didn’t like it because it made you look—”
“It does,” Buffy interrupted. “And I’m not carrying it around. Those gang members were.”
“Maybe you’ve got an admirer,” Xander quipped.
Buffy’s gaze let him know immediately that his humor wasn’t appreciated. “A bunch of them had these pictures,” she said.
“Oh.” Xander felt bad, but feeling the necklace in his pocket made him feel a little better. As long as he had the necklace, he felt certain he’d meet the mysterious swordswoman again. “Another Slayerfest?”
“No,” Giles said. “This is something else. The Black Wind members appear to be interested in taking over criminal operations, at least some of them, inside Sunnydale.”
“Black Wind?” Angel asked. He wore a large gauze pad on his cheek.
“That’s what they’re calling themselves,” Giles said, quickly describing the events that had taken place inside the drugstore.
“Oz!”
Xander looked up and saw Willow enter the room. Her eyes immediately centered on Oz and she ran to him.
“Are you all right?” she asked, touching his forehead tenderly.
“I’m fine,” Oz assured her.
Xander looked away, angry with himself for feeling jealous of the care they had for each other. Not that it was Willow, exactly, just that someone he knew could seem to be so involved with someone else he knew. Despite the slip he and Willow had made, her relationship with Oz had endured, seemingly stronger than ever.
Then Xander noticed that Buffy and Angel were holding hands. Angel kills Giles’s girlfriend, menaces her mom and friends, then Buffy kills Angel and sends his soul to Hell for a hundred years or so, and they still find a way to make it work. He made himself breathe out, wishing he could feel happier for his friends instead of feeling the least bit— okay, maybe more than a little —jealous of them all.
“How’s your friend?” Buffy asked. “Any ghosts show up after all?”
“Actually,” Willow said, “I think one did. Maybe.” She glanced around, indicating the attention they were getting from the other Bronze survivors. “Want to find a place with a little more privacy?”
“Lok is in jail?” Buffy asked.
Willow nodded. “He was when I left the Rong residence.” She hugged herself, chilled against the restaurant’s vinyl-covered bench.
They sat at a huge round table in the corner of the allnight diner not far from the Bronze, where the after-concert overflow usually came to grab breakfast before heading home. Both walls that framed the corner were glass, looking out onto the news crew finally covering the attack at the Bronze. Only a few curious passersby watched the live broadcast, all of them a little wary of the dark night around them. The diner’s usual night crowd was missing in action.
“Why is Lok in jail?” Buffy asked.
“He attacked someone named Jameson Percivall,” Willow replied.
“Why?”
Willow shrugged. “I don’t know, and if Jia Li knows, she didn’t mention it.”
“Jameson Percivall,” Giles said quietly, “comes from one of the founding families of Sunnydale. One of the library’s collections was donated, and named after, an ancestor of his who made a fortune during the gold boom in California.”
“Ezekial Percivall,” Willow said, nodding. “I should have recognized the name.”
“Well, you’ve clearly had other things on your mind,” Giles pointed out. “But the attack does bear fruit from what Lok threatened before leaving the Rong household.”
“The part about Lok hoping Willow’s family wasn’t related to any of the families who got wealthy from the mining operations outside Sunnydale,” Oz said. He held Willow’s hand under the table reassuringly, and Willow enjoyed feeling the calm, warm strength of him.
“Yes. Was Percivall harmed?”
“Jia Li told me Percivall was taken to the hospital following the attack,” Willow replied. “But I don’t think she knew how bad it was.”
“How did Lok find Percivall?” Buffy asked.
“I don’t know. He may have used a spell of some kind.” Willow had told them about the box she’d found in his room.
“Can you do that?” Xander asked. “I mean, if you had something that belonged to someone, could you find out where they were?”
“I can’t,” Willow said, noticing the unexplained disappointment flicker in Xander’s eyes, “but someone that’s further along in the craft probably could. I can’t use a candle to talk to ghosts either. Lok can. The flute I found? It’s made of elder wood, which is used to call up spirits. Dandelions and horehound in the candle are used in spells for calling spirits and for clearer communication.”
“Unless Lok is only suffering from psychological trauma the family has yet to find out about,” Giles said. “Lok Rong may be somewhat delusional and only thinks he’s talking to ghosts.”
Willow knew Giles was only playing devil’s advocate, so she didn’t argue the point. “That doesn’t explain the vision I had, or the voice that told me I had to find a way to protect Lok.”
“No,” Giles said, “it doesn’t.” He sipped at his tea. “It appears that we have a number of conundrums facing us tonight. Not in the least of which is the sudden influx of this gang.”
“The Black Wind,” Buffy agreed. “Even the name sounds kind of creepy.”
“Not all of them are human,” Angel said.
“No,” Giles said, “they’re certainly not. But the inhuman ones aren’t familiar to me either. This will require some research. As yet, we don’t know if the gang springs from the demon world, or from the human one. Willow, perhaps we could go over the books first thing in the morning.”
“Sure,” Willow replied.
Giles emptied his teacup and rubbed at his face. “I think our first order of business would be to identify these demons if we can.”
“And find out who gave them my picture,” Buffy added.
“Right,” Giles said. “Until we do, perhaps it would be better if you kept a low profile.”
Buffy gazed at the Watcher levelly. “Giles, I’ve never exactly been low-profile. Even before I became the Slayer. And if I’m out hunting them, maybe they won’t be so eager to take me on. Sitting-Target Girl is not my idea of a fun time.”
“I suppose.” The Watcher glanced at Angel.
“I’ll be with her on patrols,” Angel said. “And while you guys are in school tomorrow, maybe I can find out something about the Black Wind gang.”
“That,” Buffy said, “doesn’t sound like an entirely great idea.”
“I’ll be careful. I’ve been getting in and out of places without being noticed for a long time now.”
“The only other piece
of business I believe we need to look into at this moment is the young woman that Xander had the encounter with,” Giles said. “She appears to have an agenda of her own with the Black Wind gang.”
Xander shook his head and held up a hand. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll look into it.”
Being protective? Willow wondered, looking at Xander’s face. Whoever the swordswoman was, she must have made a big impression.
Giles cleared his throat. “You may want to keep in mind that she could be just as dangerous to you as any of the Black Wind members.”
“She saved my life, Giles,” Xander said. “In my book she gets filed under not-dangerous.”
Being protective, Willow decided, definitely. She hesitated. “Maybe looking for this girl isn’t a good idea.”
“Why?” Xander asked defensively.
“Maybe you’re a little . . .” Willow halted, not knowing how to finish her reasoning without sounding offensive. Needy sounded so totally gag-me-with-a-dead-rat, and fragile would have been ego-bruising.
The silence hung for a moment over the table.
“Vulnerable,” Buffy said, nodding, and everyone immediately agreed with her because it was probably the most innocuous thing that could be said.
Xander laughed derisively. “Me? Vulnerable?”
“The breakup with Cordelia hasn’t been exactly easy,” Willow said quietly.
“Her mistake,” Xander said. “Not mine. Maybe I was just born to be Solitary Guy. Love ’em and leave ’em. Maybe it’s on my family crest.”
Willow didn’t think she was the only one who could see through the front Xander was putting up.
“It’s okay,” Buffy said understandingly. “We all have our kryptonite, Xander, and for most of us it’s relationship issues. There’s no shame in that. It’s just how this whole hero biz is.”
“Yeah, well, it’d feel better if I was a comic book hero dating a rich model,” Xander said. “I can handle this. Really. If I can’t, I’ll be the first to ask for help. At least I’m chasing the one person in this whole thing who isn’t trying to kill me.”
“Xander does have a point,” Giles said. “As long as he keeps his head, he should be all right.” He pushed his empty cup away. “And it is getting late. We should talk again tomorrow.”
