Disclaimer: Don't own. Just playing.

Author's note: I have slightly altered the time line of the episode The Dark Ages to better fit my story. Not a lot, some things just happen later in the day rather instead of at the start of it.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 2

By blood a king, in heart a clown. ~Alfred Lord Tennyson

Xander sighed as he squirted a stream of soap into the rising water in the sink and haphazardly dumped the dishes from his Home Economics class into the sudsy liquid. He hated clean up detail for this course, but he put up with it as he usually enjoyed eating what they made. However lately, he found he didn't have much of an appetite for what was prepared. A sad thing, because eating really was one of his favourite things. So much so that the reason he was taking this class was not to meet girls, well… maybe that was a little bit of the reason, but mostly it was to learn how to cook. If he ever wanted to eat home cooking, it would have to be his own. It followed then that if he wanted to avoid death by food poisoning, he would need to learn to do it properly. His mother had been of little help in this regard, as her idea of cooking was deciding which restaurant to call that evening. Xander was now at a point in his life were he was starting to loath left over pizza and Chinese food, and for a teenager that was almost unthinkable.

Glasses and silverware clinked together as he soaped up and rinsed off the plates. He handed them off one by one to his lab partner, so she could dry them and put them away.

The motions were automatic. So instead of paying strict attention to what he was doing, Xander's mind wandered off to think about a subject that took up most of his time these days.

Buffy.

She seemed to be doing all right. Although, he did not trust that rightness completely. After all, she had just had a former crush/flame set her up and try to kill her. He did not believe that she had totally shaken off having to dust the jerk once the idiot's plans were foiled, and he'd been turned into a vampire.

Sure, the vampire thing was what he'd been aiming for, but existing for longer than two seconds as one had probably also been on the menu. Buffy had deep-sixed that scheme no more than a week ago.

"Ow."

Xander winced as he cut himself. Completely ignoring established protocols, he stuck his right index finger into his mouth. He'd been thinking so hard about Buffy that he was not as careful as he should have been. He'd sliced himself a good one on the knife they'd used to dice vegetables. The teacher would probably ream him out for doing something as unsanitary as putting his bleeding finger into his mouth, but he had reacted instinctively to the situation, minor though it seemed at that moment.

"Xander?" His lab partner, a somewhat uptight and too thin teen with short caramel coloured hair reached towards him. She froze midway; her breath dying in her throat as dread somehow became a physical substance and began to spill like frozen mist from the boy.

"Oh hell, that's not good," a hoarse voice said, sounding as if it came from Xander's left hip. Of course, neither his lab partner, nor the rest of the class really noticed. In moments, all of the students and the teacher were pressed up against the wall at the back of the room, eyes wide and bodies shaking. It was as far as they could move before their minds gibbered to a stop. As such, it was a poor attempt to put space between themselves and what now stood at the sink.

The moment the blood touched his tongue Xander felt… well, he never would be able to fully explain what this felt like. At least not to his complete satisfaction. Still, it was sort of like taking a lightening hit, at the same time that all of his cells learned to breathe in power.

Power, yes, that was usually how he would in future explain it. It was the closest he could come to the truth, even if the word was too pale to do it justice. Even sex, sadly, would never be as good as this.

In that moment, Xander was deaf to everything around him. It took more than even he knew he had to give, but he managed to force his finger out of his mouth. A true feat of strength, as everything in him told him to bite down and drink in more of his own blood. His body apparently didn't care that he wouldn't be doing much more than recycling his own fluids, just as long as it could taste it.

Staring at the blank wall in front of him, his hands gripped convulsively at the edge of the sink, the metal tub creaking under his fingers. His breath came out in harsh, shuddering gasps as he fought for control, although over what, he wasn't sure.

As that control thinned more and more his eyes started to shine with an unholy light. Behind him there was something. Many something's. And they were all warm and full of exactly what he needed to fill the sudden aching hole that was drilling its way into his stomach. His mouth felt odd, but he didn't realize that his canine teeth were pushing out, becoming longer and sharper. His face changed, taking on the mien of a vampire, without actually twisting into the game face that the local vamps took on in their blood lust.

He clutched onto the sink tighter, his restraint little more than hair fine. In that position it took five long minutes for the changes to recede, returning him to his normal appearance. As it did, his awareness of the warm, living, blood-filled bodies behind him faded.

Sound came back, as both the elation and the blood rushing in his ears started to subside. Whimpering and the quiet voice of someone praying filtered in from behind him over the noise of his own breathing.

He looked down at the sink and let it go in shock. He had gripped it so hard that finger groves were now dug into the stainless steel and the Formica countertop that ran along the edge had palm marks crushed into it. Someone whimpered again and he turned to see his classmates piled up and shaking along the far wall.

Xander took one slightly stumbling and confused step toward them. That one step overloaded their terror. Eye's blank with horror some of them broke and ran. The rest either passed out, or huddled in on them selves, sliding down the wall to end up as a shaking mass on the floor.

"Kid, get out of here."

If Xander had not been as shocked as his classmates, he might have cared where that voice came from. However right now, it was the push he needed to grab his schoolbooks and run.

Xander hit the door of the thankfully empty boy's bathroom and tumbled into the room, tossing his books down next to one of the sinks. Carefully gripping the porcelain edge of the basin, he took a second to catch his breath before turning on the cold water. Cupping it in his hands, he splashed it on to his face in a couple of applications. Foregoing the paper towels, he wiped the excess off with his right hand as he looked up into the mirror on the wall above of counter.

"Holy crap!"

Xander stumbled backwards and found that he was sitting on one of the toilet seats. He had moved away from the mirror so fast he'd ended up in one of the stalls and he was fairly certain that he'd just broken the door to this one. His eyes flicked from it and back to the mirror as he stood. He saw it, but his mind did not want to process it. Because, while he did reflect in the glass's surface, the image was weaker and waterier than the stuff he'd just splashed on his face.

"What the hell is going on?"

"I would have thought you remembered enough from Halloween to figure that out."

Xander was sure that he could feel the blood and breath in his body slow and freeze. With a mounting sense of horror, he turned over his left hand to look at the palm of it.

"Just, don't freak out kid."

Of course, that's exactly what he did.

Xander slammed into the doors of the library with enough force that by sound and action the move was equal to that of an explosion.

"G-Man..." Whatever Xander was going to say trailed off as he took in the presence of the annoyed librarian, two police officers, a woman he would have made bets on being a police detective and for some reason, Cordelia, although the cheerleader did appears as if she'd been about to leave.

"Xander, please be more careful with the doors, actually, just be more careful."

"Uhhh."

Cordelia rolled her eyes at him and dismissed Xander with a little shake of her head before wandering out of the library.

Feeling swamped by how surreal his day had become, Xander watched her go for a moment. He returned his attention to Giles once she was out of the room. The librarian was in the act of reaching behind the checkout desk. He pulled a set of keys out of one of the cubbyholes and he tossed to the teen. Xander plucked them out of the air effortlessly, his body moving without conscious thought.

"Xander, I have to be off campus for a time. Lock up and put out the closed sign as you leave, please. You can slide the keys in through the book drop and I'll collect them later."

Xander nodded to the back of Giles' head as the librarian, the detective and the two officers left.

"Man, you just can not catch a break, can you kid?"

Xander grit his teeth, barely managing not to give into the impulse to clench his left hand until the little face in his palm would cry out from the pain of it.

Xander put out the closed sign and locked the door, from the inside. He turned out the lights closest to the entrance and headed over to the main reading table, tossing the keys onto it before sitting down heavily in one of the chairs. Resting his elbows on the table, he brought his left hand up to eye level to ask it one simple question.

"How?"

The small, wizened face in the palm of his hand smiled up at him in a mix of emotion. His expression slightly embarrassed, strangely hopeful and suspiciously happy.

"Do you want to elaborate on that question?"

Xander glared at the face and it blinked. It was the first time it could actually understand why the kid had retained so much of D after the spell had ended.

"How are you here?" Xander asked him. "You're fictional. So is D. And even if you weren't, you should still be with him. Besides, I looked you guys up. Hell, I even managed to rent the video. It doesn't quite match with what I remember, but it's close. And if I ever find that little girl again, I'm telling her mother to get a new babysitter.

Left Hand chuckled at the last line. He had always wondered what would happen if D's sense of humour could unearth itself from the persona he usually showed people. With Xander, he might actually find out.

"How much do you remember about D?" He asked the ranting teen.

Xander leaned back and slide down lower into his seat. "Everything, well, sort of. "

That gave the parasite pause. "Really? And what do you mean by, sort of?"

Xander shrugged. "Accessing specific memories is difficult, and there are holes, although those feel artificial. Almost as if some outside force had managed to alter some of the memories. But I can't think of who would actually be able to do that to D."

"Can't you?"

Xander swallowed dryly. Yeah, he could think of one such person.

"Okay, yeah, HE could have done it. I don't know why he would have, but half of what that guy does make's little to no sense to me and was there a point to your first question?"

"Do you remember how my kind reproduces?"

Xander looked vaguely ill; he'd wondered why that memory had insisted on visiting his nightmares. Looked like the reason was in his left hand. "You break off a piece of yourself and insert it into a person. It matures in whatever part of the body it went into until it gains enough power to take over, making that body…. Oh my God, you didn't."

"Yep, I left a piece of myself behind when the spell ended. I'm Left Hand second edition. I know everything my predecessor did up until the split. As for being fictional… I think that spell actually pulled from other realities when it could. It was probably easier than building characters from scratch."

Xander looked at the thing in horror. The little face sort of shrugged, or at least it gave the impression of shrugging. "It wasn't intentional. Being connected to D means I wouldn't normally be able to do it anyway. The spell was just an odd enough event that it shook what binds me, breaking off a little piece that stayed behind when it ended.

In shock, Xander stood up, slowly turned and moved towards the book cage.

"Uh, where are you going?"

"To get a sword," Xander said, mechanically.

"Why?"

"SO I CAN CUT YOU OFF OF ME!" Xander shouted.

"I'd just reconnect myself."

"Not if I pinned you to the floor and cut you off from all four elements."

Left Hand winced. Oh yeah, the kid definitely had D's memories. Worse, he also suspected that the kid had the backbone to go through with taking his hand off. Moreover, being cut off from earth, air, water and fire would weaken the parasite, possibly enough that Xander could kill him.

Xander pulled the mesh door of the book cage open and walked over to the weapon's cabinet inside. He gave the door to it a useless shake, finding it locked. Giles probably had the key on him. Unless there was another one on the set of keys Giles left him.

Xander stalked back to the table and snatched up the keys, turning them over in his right hand. With a growl of disgust, he dropped them back onto the wooden tabletop. None of them was the right size to open the cabinet.

"Kid, you don't really want to do it, do you? I mean, you would have to go through the rest of your life with only one hand. Besides, I can be useful."

"Great, but while you're being useful, I'll be dead. Having a parasitic whatever take over my body isn't on my too do list." Xander scrunched up his face in painful memory. "At least, not this week."

Left hand chuckled lightly, ignoring Xander's glower. "I don't think you have to worry about it. After all, I couldn't take over D, so I shouldn't be able to take you over." It sort of shook its head. "Trust me to land in a dhampir both times."

Xander sat down suddenly, on the floor.

"What?" His voice squeaked, but he was in no condition to care how much he suddenly sounded like Minnie Mouse.

"Oh, you hadn't figured that part out yet, huh? You must have kind of missed the whole drank blood, gave your brand new biology a kick-start, terrified everyone in a thirty or so foot radius and became somewhat reflectively challenged."

"I didn't drink blood, I was just soothing a cut finger." Xander looked at the aforementioned appendage, quickly turning his attention elsewhere when he realized that the wound had healed. "As for the rest, I plan to cheerfully repress it."

"Not something you can really afford to do."

Xander slowly pulled himself up onto the closest chair and sat. "How do I get rid of you?"

Left Hand shook his head, as much as he could. Why did he always get the straightforward ones? "You don't kid, not if you know what's good for you."

Xander sat up straight. "Was that a threat?"

Left Hand made an annoyed sound. "No, dammit kid, don't you understand? If you weren't as strong as you are not only would you not have been able to resist trying to drink more of your own blood, but the class you just left would be filled with dead, drained bodies. Not whimpering ones."

Xander blinked at being called strong, but shook his head, dismissing the statement.

"You are going to need help kid. You need someone to remind you when you are about to do something… unfortunate. Why do you think D is willing to put up with me … or parent me? Sure, I could bring him back to life if things got out of hand, but what I really did was remind him of what the wrong path would be so that he could take the right one. You are a dhampir kid. You can't get away from that. Even with D's memories, if you don't have someone to show you the ropes you will, sooner or later, screw up big time."

"And you're going to show me these ropes?" Xander's tone bordered on sarcastic, which meant that his natural defence mechanism had finally woken up.

"You know anyone else that could? I mean, sure, you could go to that Angel guy…"

Xander shuddered.

"That's what I thought."

"I have a better idea," Xander said. "I talk to Giles and he gets rid of the rest of the spell. Then both you and what's left of D, goes away." Xander had to smirk as the little face twisted up in annoyance.

"Yeah, I suppose you could do that. It might even have worked, normally. However, given that I think Janus is pissed at you, I doubt it will."

"You're telling me that I have a Roman god ticked at me?"

"Well, you and D. However, that guy has more than enough troubles and is possibly unreachable, so he's probably safe enough. You however…

"Hey, anything that happened that night was all D's fault. Well, okay, really, it was that guy Ethan's fault, but D is next in line and I can't believe that I'm bothering to argue this with you. I'm talking to Giles and you are going down."

"Fine!" Left hand said in a snit and clearly at the end of his patience.

"Fine." Xander agreed, equally snitty.

"Good!" Left Hand said, glaring.

"Double good." Xander threw back. "You'll be gone before I know it."

"Yep."

Xander closed his eyes and planted his face into his right hand. "I'm completely screwed, aren't I?"

"Uh huh."

Xander wandered zombie like through the rest of his classes. This didn't make it much different from any other day. Sadly, he discovered that the effect that their group had not so lovingly nicknamed Sunnydale Syndrome was not as good at covering for him as it was for most other supernatural events.

The majority of the other members of the Home Ec. class had gone home sick. The principal's office had officially declared the mass illness as being due to food poisoning. Those few who managed to convince themselves that nothing had happened, attempted to continue their school day. It was a bad choice, as they tended to break down into hysterics when Xander passed them in the halls. He could only hope that the full Sunnydale Syndrome would kick in by tomorrow, because he didn't think he could take one more student falling apart in front of him, because of him.

"Okay, what is with everyone? You'd think somebody had died, again."

Xander had to shake his head and yet he couldn't help but smile at the same time, as Cordelia came abreast of him. Normally he would have found her presence to be annoying, but right now, she was a breath of fresh air in the morbidly stagnant and still somewhat terrified hallways.

Cordelia gave a large sigh. "Bad enough that today is trying for weird, but I'm going to have to spend tomorrow morning, a Saturday no less, in class, with you."

Xander groaned. He had completely forgotten about tomorrow's remedial computer class.

On the way home from school Xander almost jumped out of his skin when his left hand reminded him that it could talk and started to do so. "So kid, how come you have to go to school tomorrow?"

Xander quickly check the area around him, to make sure that no one would notice him talking to what would appear to be thin air. "I'm not doing so well in my computer class. Something I would have thought you would have know about, since you've been here since Halloween." He started walking home again, keeping an eye out for anyone who might wander into listening range.

"Normally, sure, but my birthing took a little longer than usual. There was only a very small bit of the original me left behind, so I took longer to mature than I normally would. Also, even though your body hadn't completely acknowledged it, you are a dhampir and I had to fight against that as well. I didn't really wake up until a couple of days ago."

"Oh."

"But back to my original question, why are you doing so badly at computers? D knew quite a bit about them. He'd worked with them since they were first invented. So even though these are completely primitive, you still shouldn't have any problems with them."

Xander winced. "Yeah, I have D's memories, but like I said, sort of. Over the last few days, most of them have… I don't know… slotted…? themselves into their own place in my mind and I try not to go there too much, especially for technical information. I tried to tap into them early on. "Xander sighed and shrugged. "I knew that D knew a lot of languages, so I figured hey, French class, easy A. Except that when the teacher walked in and said Bonjour, I got everything all at once and passed out."

"Yeah, but how's your French now?"

Xander gave his forehead a rub, as if he were fighting off a headache. "Fluent. But I really don't want to try that again."

"You may have to, at some point." His hand seemed to mull things over for a moment. "You really are lucky, you know."

"Lucky?"

"Yeah, if your body hadn't decided to keep the physical along with the mental it would be a real mess. All those memories without a dhampir's or vampire's ability to store them? They would have driven you crazy and catatonic in a matter of days."

"Why would being a vampire make you store memories differently?"

"Well think about it. Vampires and some dhampirs live a long time. After a few thousand years you could run out of places to put memories if your brain didn't take advantage of all of its space and arrange them properly."

Xander wobbled and sat down suddenly on someone's lawn. "A few… THOUSAND… years?"

"You had to know how old D was."

Xander rubbed at his forehead again, the headache now fully realized. "Yeah I know, but I didn't think…. Will I be like that too? Arggg. What am I saying; of course I won't, because Giles and the guys will fix this. Ha!"

Left Hand heaved out a great sigh, but decided to let the boy have his delusions, for now.

The next morning, far too bright and early for a Saturday, Xander, Willow, Cordelia and Ms. Calendar were walking down the hall at Sunnydale High, kibitzing good naturally about the unnaturalness of school on a Saturday and how computers were on the way out.

As Ms. Calendar opened the classroom, Xander looked over at the library, which was just across the hall. It seemed that Giles hadn't been back yesterday. The closed sign still hung in exactly the same position he had placed it in when locking up and the light he had gone and forgotten to turn off at the back of the library was still on.

Guess that meant that even maintenance hadn't been in to clean the space yet. Well, he still had the keys. Being a little preoccupied at the time by his left hand he had forgotten to slide them through the book return. He could go in and turn the lights off after class.

Miss Calendar was just starting her instructions when a worried Buffy showed up, wanting to talk to Miss Calendar about Giles. Apparently he hadn't shown up for a meeting with Buffy the night before and when she went to check on him at his place he wouldn't let her in and appeared to have been drinking.

"None of you have noticed anything different about him lately, have you?" Buffy asked.

Both Willow and Jenny replied in the negative.

"You haven't seen anything weird?"

"He was with some cops yesterday afternoon." A hoarse voice said.

Everyone turned to look at Xander, who started to cough into his left hand. "Sorry," he said weakly, "Frog in my throat."

Cordelia nodded to what she believed was Xander's previous statement. "He seemed perfectly normal when he was talking to them."

Xander gave one more little cough. "Do you know what they were talking about? I came in just as Giles and they were leaving."

"Oh, I know this one… it was a homicide."

"That's it, I'm calling him." Buffy turned to leave the classroom.

"Buff." Buffy turned back to Xander and caught the keys he threw her. "You might as well use the phone in the library, it's closest."

Buffy looked a little surprised that Xander had the keys, but she didn't bother to say anything about it and just nodded and left. She crossed the hall and unlocked the door to the library, flipping the lights on as she entered. She headed for the phone at the desk, and then stopped, frowning. Narrowing her eyes, she looked up towards the stacks on the mezzanine level, certain that she had just heard a noise from that direction.

As Buffy left, Xander sadly turned back to his computer and Ms. Calendar continued the lesson. They were about fifteen minutes into it when the sound of crashing glass and physical violence came from the direction of the library. As one, they stood and raced across the hall, entering the library just in time for Xander to grab onto Ethan Rayne as he attempted to escape. Xander hadn't realize just how much stronger he was now. He would have had little trouble holding him, despite the sorcerer's attempts to struggle free.

What Xander also did not realize was just how angry he was with this man. Angry enough that the desire to rip a bleeding hole in his throat and drink from it slammed into him so hard that he froze. Shocked, Xander lost his grip on him. Luckily, Cordelia was up for the challenge. She kicked the mage in the groin as he tried to pass her on the way out the door. The man folded up and hit the ground, clutching at some of his very private bits.

Taking a shaky breath and trying shake off the surge of bloodlust, Xander turned his attentions back to Buffy, who was fighting what appeared to be some kind of zombie. Not trusting himself to move just yet, he watched as she tossed that thing into the open book cage, shutting and locking the door on it.

A very annoyed Buffy hauled Ethan up off the floor and dragged him back into the library to drop him painfully into a chair. Willow and Ms. Carpenter went over to the cage to look at what Buffy had shoved in there earlier and Xander joined them, trying to keep an eye on both the dead guy and the guy he suspected he wanted dead.

After a few minutes watching the guy in the cage pace back and forward, Willow shook her head and moved away, to stand closer to Buffy.

"I'm not gonna get close enough to feel his pulse, but... he looks dead."

Xander shook his head at what Willow had just said. Of course the guy was dead. He didn't have a heartbeat. He winced as he realized that he was probably the only one in the room that could tell just by listening that the muscle in that guy's chest was silent. He winced a second time as he realized that he had extended his senses to check on that, without consciously intending to do so.

"He's dead. Sorry, Philip. Really I am." Ethan sounded like he might actually be sad about that for all of a couple of minutes. Which, when Xander thought about it, was two minutes longer than he thought the mage would care.

Giles burst into the library, Buffy had called him shortly before the zombie attack. "Is everyone alright?"

"Super!" Cordelia said, "I kicked a guy!"

"We're okay." Ms. Calendar added in.

"Deadguy here interrupted our tutorial." Xander turned to address said dead guy. "Been meaning to thank you for that." Phillip lunged at him and Xander shied back, clutching his left hand closed when it started to chuckle. Thankfully, everyone was a little too busy with other problems to notice. It wasn't that he didn't intend to tell everyone what was going on. In fact, with Ethan here it would have been a good time to get help for his Halloween hangover, if it just hadn't been for the dead guy in the cage.

A dead guy that Giles apparently knew. And if the way he and Ethan were reacting to each other was a clue, then the two of them probably went back a ways as well.

Xander realized that he was enjoying watching Giles hold the spell caster up by his hair just a little too much.

"I would have thought you would have had enough sense to leave town after Halloween."

"Well, you know me Ripper." Ethan gasped out in some pain. "Couldn't go leaving when I still had the shop leased to the end of the month."

Giles let go of Ethan and looked at the man with an expression that said he was about to do more to him than just a little hair pulling.

"Giles?" Buffy ask, in a tone that while uncertain also said she wasn't about to let him dodge an explanation for what was going on. Sadly, before she and the rest of them could pile up on Giles and make him spill, Phillip chose that moment to break out of the cage. The door swung open hard, knocking Ms. Calendar to the floor. Xander grabbed Cordelia, moving the two of them out of the way so that Buffy could come in and lay some whoop ass down on the dead guy. She was just getting into her groove when Phillip suddenly got a strange look on his face and collapsed into a green puddle of goo.

'Now, there's something you don't see everyday." Willow said, looking down at the puddle in shock.

Cordelia agreed with her. "I'm gonna be in therapy till I'm thirty. "

"Hey, Ethan's bolted."

"Man, Xander," Cordelia said, "You need to do something about that throat problem."

Xander gave a slight cough as Buffy ran out into the halls to see if she could track Ethan.

Ms Calendar gave a small twitch and came too. Giles helped her up, fussing as he did.

Xander waited until Buffy came back, having not found Ethan. Then he slipped out of the library.

"So, where are we going?" Left Hand asked.

"The costume shop. If he stayed because he had a lease on it, then he probably doesn't have anywhere else to go."

"Given the damage we caused Halloween night I'm surprised the place would be liveable. Still, I suppose it was mostly cosmetic."

"Mmm."

"Kid, what are you going to do with him if you do find him there?"

"Make him tell me how to get rid of the rest of this spell, then drag him back here so we can find out what the hell is going on with him and Giles and Deadguys."

"Works."

Giles blew off Buffy's questions and left to take Ms. Calendar home. Not willing to let this lie, Buffy got Willow checking through Giles book for the Mark of Eyghon thing Ethan had been talking about when she first found him. She sent a slightly reluctant Cordelia off to check into Giles' personal records and she vowed to throttle Xander just as soon as he came back from wherever it was that he'd run off to.

The shop Ethan had rented for Halloween had its windows boarded up with plywood as the glass had been destroyed when D had gone and split Janus in half. The inside was near empty. All of the shelving and counters were gone; no doubt because they were all now so much twisted debris. The parts for a couple of mannequins that had survived were piled up to one side of the room. The walls of the shop still held, although they looked like they'd been pelted with a small tornadoes worth of junk that someone was slowly patching up.

"You know, I'm probably never going to get my deposit back because of you." Ethan stepped out from the back room.

"My heart breaks." Xander told him.

"I'm surprised you're the one who came. I was rather expecting the Slayer."

"I'm sure she's busy, besides, there are things I need to ask you."

"After you." Ethan gestured for Xander to move past him towards the back rooms. Xander wasn't exactly comfortable doing so, but he started to move that way anyway. As soon as he stepped past the magician, his left hand whipped up of its own accord and caught the arm of a mannequin that Ethan swung at the back of his head. The hand yanked it from Ethan's grip as Xander turned back to the mage and he tossed the arm to the other side of the room.

Ethan made an unmanly eep sound as Xander grabbed him by the throat by one hand and lifted him a couple of feet before slamming him into a wall, adding more damage to it.

Ethan gasped and clutched at Xander's hand, trying to pry it free. Snarling the teen let him go suddenly and the mage collapsed to the ground, coughing and wheezing. If Ethan had looked up at Xander at that moment the expression on the boy's face would have caused him to wet himself.

"Kid, if you want to know what's what, then let me have a go at him."

Xander hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.

Ethan finally got control of his breathing and looked up just in time to see a small face in the palm of a hand coming towards him, before it latched onto his forehead.

"Halloween or the Eyghon thing first?" Asked Left Hand's slightly muffled voice.

"Grr, Argg. Eyghon." Much as he wanted a fix for his problem, current dangers were more important.

Under Left Hand's influence, Ethan spilled it all. How when they were young they found a great high by letting Eyghon possess them and how one day it all went wrong and they had to kill one of their group to stop the demon. They thought they were free of the thing, but somehow it had made its way back into the 'real' world.

"So you and Giles are the only two left from the group and it's coming for both of you."

"Yes." Ethan replied, somewhat mechanically.

"Halloween now?" A muffled horse voice asked.

"How do I get rid of the rest of the Halloween spell?"

Ethan blinked. "You still remember all that you were that night."

"Yes."

"Nothing to get rid of. Magic favours you."

"What?"

"Magic favours you. There are probably a few others out there that did not lose all they were that night, for the same reason. Magic just seems to work… well, not better, so much as more for a select few. Of course, it does tend to cause some spells to act oddly."

"Such as?"

Ethan shrugged. "Well, if you tried a love spell, instead of just getting the person you wanted you'd probably get every female in a ten block radius."

"Ah, note to self, never use a love spell." Xander said, with just a little regret.

"Okay, that explains memory, but I also have a… Medical condition that the person I dressed as had and I didn't have it before your spell came along."

Ethan smiled, clearly amused by what he had wrought that night, but as he was still under Left Hand's control, not able to fully express it. "I do hope it's something embarrassing and sexually transmitted." Xander's left hand tightened on Ethan's forehead and the mage grunted in mild pain. "To answer your implied question, I suspect Janus bumped up the effect. Believe me; he is very unhappy about having his fun that night spoiled. And, before you ask, no, I can't get rid of it for you. If I tried I would probably get my face melted off and you wouldn't be any further along than you all ready are."

Xander slumped and Left Hand let go of the mage. "Well, you can always talk to the librarian. He might know something this idiot doesn't."

"True." Xander said, trying to be optimistic, his body slumping again as he failed miserably at it.

"So what are we doing now?"

Xander grabbed hold of a recovering Ethan and pulled him into the back rooms, looking for a phone. Thankfully, there was one near the back door and it still had tone. The shop must not have been the only thing that Ethan had paid for until the end of the month.

"Xander where are you? Buffy's going to kill you." Willow told him frantically over the phone.

"Chill, Wills…heh, I rhymed."

"Xander!"

"Sorry, sorry. I tracked down that Ethan guy at the costume shop and … well, he told me everything."

"Did he tell you that Ms. Carpenter was probably possessed by the demon? 'Cause it can only take over dead bodies and unconscious live ones."

Xander glared Ethan, who was still trying to shake off the effect of Left Hand forcing him to be truthful. "No, somehow we missed that part."

"Buffy's gone over to help Giles. We're trying to figure out some way to get Eyghon out of Ms. Calendar without killing her."

Xander's left hand rose up of its own accord so it was close to the telephone receiver. "All you have to do is convince the demon that you are about to destroy the person it's in and have a dead body near by for it to pass into." Left Hand's harsh voice told her.

"Wow, Cordelia's right, you should really see someone about your throat."

"Willow, focus."

"Okay, sure we could do that, but it wouldn't kill the demon it would just give it a change of scenery. " There was a pause and even over the phone, Xander could almost see the light bulb that went off over Willow's head. "Oh, oh, I've got it. You said you're at the costume shop?"

"Yeah."

"Stay there, we'll come to you."

"Sure." Xander said, reaching out to grasp the back of Ethan's shirt as the man made a first step towards sneaking away. "See you in a bit." He finished and hung up the phone.

"Now, what are we going to do with you until they get here?"

When Buffy came into the shop she found Ethan tied and gagged and sitting on the floor in the middle of the store. Xander was leaning against the back wall. He waved at her with the mannequin arm he was holding as she entered.

"Hey Buff, how's Giles?"

"Xander." She looked from him, to Ethan and back to him. "I'm really annoyed with you at the moment and Giles is mostly alright. Sad to say, he told me everything."

"Ditto for this guy here. I talked to Willow. She and Cordelia are on their way here and Wills has a plan for fixing this. Although I'm not sure where she is hoping to get a dead body on such short notice."

Buffy looked slightly ill at that last part and obviously decided to ignore it. "Were the ropes and gag necessary?"

"Yep. If he wasn't trying to sneak away then he was trying to talk me into letting him go. Besides, the restraints were all sitting in the back room, just waiting to be used. Probably on one of us."

Ethan attempted a puppy dog look at the Slayer and got a snort of derision for his efforts. He sighed through his gag and slumped down in his bonds.

Xander had walked around the shop five times and counted the number of unpatched holes in the walls twice by the time the girls arrive with Angel in tow. Xander frowned at the vampire for a few seconds until his amused companion quietly said something.

"Heh, a dead body."

Xander had to chuckle at that, which of course caused everyone to look at him. He shook his head at their looks, conveying that he had no intention of explaining what he was laughing at.

"Well," Buffy said, looking around. "It looks like the gangs all here. So now all we need is th…"

A sick green light suddenly outlined the front door. It leaked in at the bottom of the entrance to ooze its way across the threshold and into the room. The door started to rattle in its casing. Everyone close to it took a step back and Ethan made a very distressed, if muffled sound and tried to scrunch back as well.

The door burst open and everyone was horrified to see what had become of Ms. Calendar since the demon had gotten hold of her. Her face appeared to be desiccated and the bones had obviously shifted into a position that was reminiscent of a vampire's game face. Her ears had grown out pointed and her skin was spotted and holed, showing darkened flesh and bone underneath.

"Ethan." It hissed out, moving towards the bound mage. "It's your time." The voice was deep and male and nothing at all like Ms. Calendars.

The now demon Calendar leapt towards Ethan, who screamed into his gag. She did not make it. Angel tackled her from the side in mid air. The two of them landed hard and struggled to right themselves. Angel won by little more than a second and grabbed Ms. Calendar by the throat, choking her.

Giles entered the mess right then, stopping in shock as it took a few moments to process what was happening in the shop.

"Angel, no, you're killing her."

He moved to help her, but Willow and Cordelia grabbed him.

"But he's killing her."

"No, it's okay." Willow said. "Trust me, this is going to work."

Angel suddenly dropped Jenny, his body slamming up against the nearest wall as if he'd been thrown. Giles staggered over to the teacher and collapsed to his knees next to her, almost in tears to see that she was herself once again.

Angel started to convulse, his face shifting from Eyghon, to game face, to his normal face until with one push the vampire ejected Eyghon. Without a body to jump into the demon simply dissolved into ash.

Xander had to admit, Willow was brilliant. Not only had she gotten the thing to change bodies, but she had also gotten it to go into one that already had a demon in it. When it came to that kind of possession, co-habitation was not an option.

Once all the congratulations and thank goodness that's over were over, Xander looked down at the still tied and gagged Ethan.

"So, what do we do with him?"

Life was going back to normal. Well, as normal as it ever did in Sunnydale. With some sadness, Xander sat and watched from a hallway bench as Ms. Calendar distanced herself from Giles. Buffy walked up to the librarian as the teacher was leaving. In contrast to the previous conversation Xander had observed, the Watcher's and his Slayer's relationship appeared solid. They talked a bit while walking off towards the library for a training session. Ethan ought to have fun watching it from the book cage. After all he needed something to do while waiting for someone from the Watcher's council to come pick him up. Apparently, Rayne had made a nuisance of himself in several magical communities around the world, including the council. All of them were currently fighting it out to see which of them would get to express their displeasure with him first.

"Well?"

Xander reluctantly turned the palm of his left hand over so he could talk to the little face that had just appeared in it. "Well what?"

"When are you going to tell them?"

Xander shrugged, and then stood up, shouldering the book bag that had been sitting next to him on the bench. "Don't know. I just know that it isn't today."

"I wouldn't leave it too long. I mean, I'd rather nothing get done and I rather doubt that anything can be done, but I could be wrong. If I am, then the sooner the better, if you know what I mean."

Xander walked out of the school and headed for home. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Still…" He breathed in the fall air, sensing and cataloguing a variety of scents that he usually never noticed. "Sometimes it doesn't seem all that bad."

Left Hand mulled over keeping his mouth shut. To be honest though, it was just not in his nature. "That's because it hasn't fully kicked in yet."

Xander stumbled slightly. "What?"

"You see, you're only what, sixteen?"

Xander nodded.

"So you're only just maturing."

"Hey!"

Left Hand gave a snort of laughter. "As a dhampir you won't come into your full powers and bloodlust until you are physically eighteen or nineteen. Depending on how slowly you age now that your body has changed, that could be anywhere from two years to fifteen years from now."

Xander winced at the thought of not making it to eighteen for another ten years. Still, it was better than not making it at all. He winced again as that brought up another thought.

"Wait, you mean that what I've already experienced was actually a light version of bloodlust?"

"Yep."

Xander cast his mind back to the couple of times he had felt that want and started to shake.

"Kid?"

"I…. I wouldn't be able to stop myself if it was worse."

"Don't sell yourself short kid. I think you've got more backbone than you realize. And if you are stuck with it, I'll be here to annoy you until you do the right thing."

Xander stopped and looked at his hand. "I seem to recall several times when you've tried to convince D to 'follow his nature.'

"Sure, because if there is one thing I know about that lug it's that if I suggest something, he'll do the opposite. So, hoping that you won't follow D's example I'll suggest it again, tell them. Even if they can't help they need to know what's up with you in case anything happens. At the very least it would be good if they knew what to do if you ever come down with heat syndrome."

"Oh, burying myself in the back yard, that will be fun."

"Hey, if you're lucky you'll only have to do it every few years like D, instead of every month like most other dhampir."

"If I'm lucky I won't have to do it at all."

"Yeah kid, but are you ever that lucky?"

Xander didn't say anything. He just shifted the bag on his shoulder into a more comfortable position and continued his walk home. He would put Left Hand's last question out of his mind, because he already knew the answer.

And it was no.