The Xander Years, Vol.2

by Jeff Mariotte

He was right about that. “Right now I’m imagining you in jail,” Buffy said. “You’re wearing a big orange suit and — oh, look! The guards are beating you up!”

  “You don’t have any proof that —”

  She cut him off. “Tell me what’s in the steam,” she insisted. He knows — he has to. She had no doubt of that anymore.

  And, amazingly, he told her. “After the fall of the Soviet Union, documents came into light detailing experiments with fish DNA on their Olympic swimmers. Tarpon, mako shark . . . But they couldn’t crack it.”

  “And you did. Sort of.” Buffy was astonished that the swim coach, not a gentleman known for overexercising his brain cells, could succeed where who knew how many Soviet scientists had failed. Chalk one up for American ingenuity. But one question remained. “Why?”

  “What kind of a question is that?” he asked. He seemed to genuinely not get it. “For the win. To make my team the best they could be. Do you understand we have a shot at the state championship?”

  “Do you understand that I don’t care? It’s over. There’s not gonna be any swim team.” What does it take to get through to some people? she wondered.

  And still he couldn’t buy a clue. “Boy, when they were handing out school spirit you didn’t even stand in line, did you?”

  “No, I was in the line for ‘shred of sanity.’”

  As Buffy spoke, Coach Marin turned away from her, toward a cabinet of some kind, reached into a drawer. When he turned back, his hand was full of black metal. A gun.

  From her vantage point it looked like a big one. Mostly hole. From which a big bullet could come blasting out at any time.

  She finished her thought anyway. The “sanity” line. Not even a shred here. “Which you obviously skipped.”

  “Get in the hole,” the coach demanded. He gestured with the gun toward a big square hole in the floor. The grate that should have covered it was off to the side.

  She didn’t move. He wouldn’t really shoot her, would he?

  But then again, she thought, he’s been busy turning his swimmers into gilled creatures who hide out in sewers. Not the kind of guy you want to underestimate when he’s holding a gun on you.

  “In,” he commanded. When she still didn’t go, he barked, “Now!”

  She sat down on the edge of the hole, legs dangling into the cool darkness below. “This isn’t over.”

  “In!” he repeated.

  She pushed off and dropped.

  The water was nasty and cold, but not deep. She submerged when she hit, but surfaced again quickly. Wiping her eyes, she looked up at the coach’s smiling, insane face through the hole. He waved the gun at her.

  “You think I don’t care about my boys,” he said. “But I do. They count on me.”

  Something moved in the water around her, and she started. The fish monsters? Something else. Big and white and red, floating. It almost bumped into her as it drifted past, and it took her a moment of looking at it to realize what it was.

  The corpse of Nurse Greenleigh.

  Or most of it, anyway.

  But there were big chunks of her missing, which was where the red came in, staining her once-white uniform.

  Buffy felt herself on the edge of panic, but knew she had to keep it together. “So, what,” she said. “You’re just gonna feed me to them?”

  “Oh, they’ve already had their dinner,” he explained patiently, like some demented daddy. “But boys have other needs.”

  “No one,” Cordelia said. “Willow and Giles must’ve rounded up the rest of the swim team.”

  They were at the pool, but hadn’t been able to find any more of Xander’s teammates. Although, Cordelia thought, if Xander did a little more searching and a little less pawing at himself, we might have had more luck.

  “Does my neck look scaly to you?” he asked.

  “Of course it looks scaly, the way you’ve been rubbing it dry like an idiot.” Don’t boys know anything about skin care? she wondered. Moisturize, don’t irritate.

  Xander stopped outside the door to the boys’ locker room. “I need to look in the mirror,” he said. “Wait here. But feel free to come in if you hear me scream.”

  He dashed inside, and she briefly considered going into the girls’ locker room to check herself in the mirror there. But no, she thought. There was more at stake here than making sure her hair was just so and her skin wasn’t in any danger as a result of Xander’s paranoia. The state championship. She continued around the pool.

  Anyway, he wasn’t gone long. She heard a door close behind her. “Any gills yet?” she asked over her shoulder.

  But instead of joining her, there was a huge splash in the pool. The tang of chlorine filled the air as the calm water was disturbed. “Xander, what are you doing?”

  She looked into the water. He was swimming fast, a blur of motion and bubbles, and at first she couldn’t get a good look at him.

  But then his strokes became smoother, and he rushed through the water like a . . .

  Well, like a fish.

  “Xander?”

  Because he was a fish, or a fish-man, anyway, all gills and spikes and fins and scales, and he was kind of a dark green, and this just wouldn’t do at all.

  Oh no!

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Xander . . . it’s me. Cordelia. I — I know you can’t answer me, but God . . . this is all my fault. You joined the swim team to impress me. You were so courageous and you looked really hot in those Speedos.”

  What a waste! I could just cry!

  He went on swimming, and there was no way to tell if he could hear her. But she felt she had to say it anyway. “And I want you to know that I still care for you, no matter what you look like,” she bravely went on. “And we can still date — or not. I mean, I’ll understand if you want to see other fish.”

  She crouched by the water’s edge, wanting to make sure he understood what she was saying, while still keeping her dress dry. “I’ll try to make your quality of life better, whether that means little bath toys or whatever — ”

  “Uh . . .” someone said in her ear. She gasped. “That’s not me.”

  Xander stood beside her, pointing at the creature in the pool. But if this is Xander, and he’s human, then who’s —

  The sea beast lunged at them.

  “Oh my God!” Cordelia shrieked. “Ohhh!”

  They ran. Through her panic, Cordelia was pleased to note that, at least, Xander was running like a man.

  Giles closed the door of the library’s book cage behind the five swim team members he had herded into it. “Stay calm, chaps,” he said. “Either we’ll find an effective antidote, or, uh . . .” Without a follow-up, he threw the bolt, locking them in. “Stay calm.”

  Willow checked her list. “Everyone’s accounted for, except Sean,” she said.

  Xander and Cordelia, hurrying into the relative safety of the library, overheard. “I think we can safely say we found Sean,” Cordelia pointed out. “He was in the pool, skinless-dipping.”

  “Where’s Buffy?” Xander asked, figuring it was about time she start slaying something, already.

  “She hasn’t come back yet,” Willow replied.

  Which, to Xander, was just a little bit more than disturbing.

  Where Buffy was, was still in the disgusting water of the tunnel beneath the pump room. There were noises all around her. Water dripping from above, low growls from here and there, unidentified sloshing and splashing.

  “Great,” she said to herself, turning slowly to see them. “This is just what my reputation needs. That I did it with the entire swim team.”

  They were closing in, she knew. She gasped at a nearby splash. The water was being stirred up, but so far she hadn’t actually seen any of them. They hadn’t attacked. But they were out there, and she should have been circling her wagons except that she was the only wagon she had.

  In the pump room, Xander found Coach Marin, kneeling on the floor looking at something beneath him. Xander c
ouldn’t see what it was. But since Buffy had been on her way to see the coach last time she’d been seen, he knew it wasn’t something nice and sunny.

  “What’s up, Coach?” he asked.

  Coach Marin swung around, startled. “Oh, uh, Harris. How are you feeling?” He smiled, all casual, like a four year old caught in the act.

  “A little dry,” Xander replied. “Nothing a lemon butter sauce won’t cure.” He left all pretense of humor behind. “Where’s Buffy?”

  The coach’s gaze drifted to his side, to a fifty-gallon drum that stood near him.

  Or, more accurately, to the pistol laying on top of that drum.

  One of the creatures broke the surface next to Buffy. She let out a cry as it dove at her. She caught its arms, turned with it, and it sailed harmlessly past her.

  But it had a friend.

  This one came up behind her. She tried to push it away when the first one, still underwater, grabbed her legs in its powerful grip. It yanked her under the surface.

  She tasted the foul water. It stung her eyes.

  She kicked and fought, struggling not to swallow any of the water as it held her down. She could feel the thing’s teeth graze her leg, trying to find purchase. Mustering all the strength she could, she kicked again, jerked her leg free.

  She broke the surface, grabbed the monster.

  Hurled him against the wall.

  Another lunged for her. She caught its outstretched arms. The water made judo harder, but she pivoted, brought it over her shoulder. Slammed him into another wall.

  Above Buffy, Coach Marin went for the gun. Xander saw him make the move, and grabbed the coach’s right arm with both hands. The coach was strong, but he didn’t have any leverage. Xander did. He brought Coach Marin’s arm up, and drove it down again, hard, on the edge of the barrel. The coach’s hand spasmed, releasing the gun.

  Xander pressed the advantage, spinning and driving an elbow into Coach Marin’s jaw. The older man fell back.

  Buffy was getting tired. Moving through the water, fighting in it, was harder than fighting on land. It opposed her with every motion.

  The fish-guys, however, thrived in it. No matter how many times she punched them or threw them or kicked them, they came back for more.

  She wouldn’t go down easy. But, as three of them surrounded her, edging closer with every heartbeat, she finally started to think that she might be going down.

  “Buffy! Hurry! Your hand!”

  It was Xander, stretching an arm down from the opening in the pump room above.

  But he was as fully extended as he could get, and it was way too high to jump.

  For any normal girl.

  Buffy hadn’t been normal for a long time. She was the Slayer.

  She submerged herself, coiling herself like a spring.

  And like a spring, she sprang.

  Uncoiling, shooting up out of the water, just as the three gill-things came at her.

  She caught Xander’s wrist. He had hers.

  But was he strong enough to lift her?

  One of the creatures jumped up, catching her leg. Then they all started leaping, claws raking her feet, her calves. She kicked them away.

  But that threatened to break Xander’s grip. She tightened hers on his arm, and he began to pull her up.

  The monsters weren’t giving up, though. Two of them got grips on her feet. She shook them off.

  “Hold on! “Xander called. “Come on!”

  “Pull!” Buffy cried.

  And — miraculously — he was lifting her. The monsters growled ferociously as she was raised beyond their range. She caught Xander’s upper arm now, practically climbing him to get out of that hole.

  Finally, she cleared the floor. Put a hand on it to help haul herself out, then her legs were free and she was on her hands and knees, choking and spitting out the wretched water.

  “Ohhhh . . .” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Thanks.”

  “Just doing my part for our team,” Xander replied, shaking a little with relief. Not to mention, exertion. Oughta hit the weights more often, he thought.

  Buffy coughed again, shook the water out of her eyes, and looked up just in time to see Coach Marin swinging a pipe wrench down on the back of Xander’s skull.

  Xander slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  And Buffy kicked out, sweeping the coach’s legs out from under him. The man went head-first through the hole.

  She snagged his leg as he went.

  “Help me!” he bellowed. “Help me!”

  But Coach Marin was not a small man. He had momentum, and he had weight, and he was thrashing like a wounded buffalo.

  She lost her grip.

  He splashed into the water below.

  Buffy flattened herself on the floor, extending her arm down. “Grab my hand!” she called to him.

  He didn’t even notice her there. Couldn’t have made the leap that she did, anyway, she knew. But there was no other way to reach him.

  “Uh, boys? Boys!” the coach said. Dark shapes closed in on him. “No, no, boys!”

  And then they were on him, all of them. He disappeared in a burgundy and gold blur beneath the water, beneath the scales and fins and gills of his star swimmers.

  His championship days are behind him now, Buffy realized.

  Xander stirred, joining Buffy at the opening. He looked down. “Those boys really love their coach,” she observed.

  Some days, Xander thought, you have to consider yourself lucky just to be walking around. His head was still sore, and there was a tender swelling there from the pipe wrench.

  But on the bright side, he still breathed through lungs instead of gills. Coach Marin had used a hand tool on him, but had not had a chance to use his gun. He hadn’t been eaten or otherwise violated by any fish monsters.

  And today, he was sitting in the student lounge, fully dressed and dry as a bone. His Speedo days were behind him.

  To make it even better, sitting on the couch next to him was Cordelia, and across from them, Willow and Buffy. Three lovely ladies, one guy . . . couldn’t ask for a better ratio than that.

  “Let’s see,” he said, reviewing the rest of the day ahead. “I’ve got to take a make-up chem test at three, and then I’m meeting some of the guys for plasma transfusions at five. It’s turned into quite the busy afternoon.”

  Buffy graced him with her smile. “The fun never stops with you, does it?”

  “Giles seems pretty confident that the treatments are gonna work,” Will said. Which was good news, as he wasn’t quite sure how to tell his parents he wanted to trade in his old bed for an oversized saltwater tank.

  “Turning into a Creepy Crawly wasn’t in my ‘Top Ten list of things to do before I turn twenty,’” he pointed out.

  Cordelia turned to him. “I want you to know that you’ve really proven yourself to me,” she said, with unexpected tenderness. “And you don’t have to join the new team next year if you don’t want.”

  For which, he thought, my eternal gratitude. And, by the way, no kidding.

  “I’d be just as happy if you played football,” she continued.

  Buffy and Willow exchanged looks.

  Giles entered just then, saving Xander from having to do or say something terrible to Cordelia, from which their relationship might never recover.

  “The people from animal control just left,” Giles said. “Our creatures have apparently made a dash for it. So to speak.”

  Which, Xander thought, is about as close as Giles comes to making a funny. Comedy, the librarian seemed to believe, was a purely Colonial invention.

  “Does that mean we have to hunt them again?” Willow asked.

  Buffy answered her. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ll be seeing them anymore.”

  “Where do you think they’ll go?” Giles asked.

  Buffy looked into space for a moment, as if she were seeing something the others couldn’t. “Home,” she said softly.

&n
bsp; The surf rolled in gently, waves folding upon themselves and breaking as white and frothy as a cappuccino. The beach was quiet today. Students were in school, tourists gone for the season, no surf to speak of so the surfers were elsewhere.

  So there was no one on the shore to look out beyond the breaking waves. If there had been, that person might have seen a dark form break the water and take a final look back toward Sunnydale. Almost, an observer might have thought, as if saying a last goodbye.

  Then, the black shape turned to the vastness of the ocean, and dove into it, striking out for the trackless distance. And if that observer had been especially sharp eyed, he or she might have seen a second shape, and a third.

  All doing the same thing.

  Swimming out to sea.

  Going home.

  INTERLUDE

  It was late — way late, Xander knew. His parents had pretty much given up worrying about when he was going to come home, so he wasn’t too concerned about that. But he’d have to make it to school on time tomorrow — today, he corrected himself. And it’d be easier if he got some sleep rather than no sleep. Even though the night had been an eventful one, he figured at this point he could probably manage to drop off if he could get himself in the general vicinity of a bed.

  He pulled the car out of the beach parking area and headed back toward town. Even though it was really cold now, unpleasantly so, he left the top down because, hey, it was a convertible, after all. And wasn’t that kind of the point?

  Xander figured his parents probably told themselves all kinds of stories about what it was he did with his friends at night that kept him out to all hours. It saddened him that they probably believed the typical teenage stuff. But at least they could deal with that, in their heads. If they knew what was really going on — that he’d almost become a fish-guy, for instance, or been abducted by the villainous vamp Spike, or turned into a vampire himself by a wayward wish of Cordelia’s — they’d probably be a lot more worried and some therapist would be cashing their paychecks as fast as they could earn them.

  So he kept them in the dark, and let them believe whatever they wanted.

  Another sign of maturity, he figured, was taking into account the feelings of others. Especially when those others raised you and kept a roof over your head.