Chapter 6
"Mister Zabuto!" Kendra shouted out as she walked into the darkened house. All her life she was surrounded by older men and women, but now a boy her own age wanted to be with her. Even if it was Xander.
The boy was strange and very odd, but Kendra could tell that he had a good heart. Especially for what he did for that girl tonight. But what he said to her confused her a bit. Of course the first rule to being a slayer is to protect the innocent.
'But am I supposed to walk the victims home as well?' she asked herself. "Maybe I should talk to Xander about that." she silently promised herself.
"Ahh Kendra, you've finally arrived." Mr. Zabuto said from behind her, making her snap out of her musings. He was a tall black man, in his late fourties, and he was balding slightly.
"What is your report for tonight's activities?"
"I dusted one vampire, sir." Kendra replied as she sat down on the couch.
"Only one?" Zabuto asked. He just couldn't keep the dissappointment out of his voice.
"Yes sir. I was just starting me patrol and I heard a scream. As I went to de source of the scream I saw Xander dust two of them and......"
"Xander, who is Xander?" Zabuto asked.
"He's from Sunnydale, sir. The boy who started de second line of Slayer's." after she said this Zabuto's face lit up with recognition.
'Ah Alexander Harris.' He'd heard of him from some of Rupert Giles' reports to the council. Alexander or just Xander was described as goofy and quite the trouble maker. But he made up for all of that for his bravery.
Zabuto himself was on the list of people, who wanted Xander banished from Giles' group. The boy was rash and could get himself or even Miss Summer's killed one day. But Zabuto couldn't go against results. With the help of that boy, Buffy had managed to survive her first year as a slayer, which most of the other slayers couldn't do. He also helped to defeat The Master, of whom had killed the last three slayers that tried to go against him.
Then Zabuto's mind kept going back to Kendra. Even though he didn't highly agree with outsiders helping a slayer, he just couldn't deny that with Miss Summer's friends help, she'd managed to defeat anything that came her way.
'Maybe he could even help Kendra to stay alive.' his heart ached at that thought. He snapped himself out of his own musings to take a good look at Kendra. Over the years he watched her grow into a beautiful woman and he thought of her as if she were his own daughter.
His decision made he sat down beside Kendra.
"Tell Mr. Harris that I would like to have a meeting with him." he said as he took out a notebook and a pen.
"Yes sir." Kendra replied with some confusion. 'Why would Mr. Zabuto want to meet with Xander?' she thought to herself. Little did she know, but Zabuto wanted to do everything in his power to help her live as long as possible. Even if it meant bending the rules of a Slayer not having allies.
After they finally got Dierdre to go to sleep in one of Sheila's guest rooms, Sheila took Xander down to her basement. Xander stood back as Sheila began to do an incantation on a far wall, until a door appeared.
As she opened the door Xander looked inside and saw that it was a workshop. Not just any workshop, this one had swords, guns, and various other weapons, lined up on the wall and on some work benches.
Before Xander could ask what was going on, Sheila began to tell him more about her secrets.
"I never told you the rest of de story about Akin Bembola did I ?" Sheila asked as she sat at the edge of one of the work benches. Xander shook his head no as he came fully into the room and sat down beside her. Letting out a sigh she began her story.
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A little boy and his sister were on the beach of an Island fishing and playing around. Their father had died two days ago, so they had to fend for themselves and their grandmother. Since thier father was a hunter some of his skills rubbed off on them. As the little boy catches yet another fish, he suddenly lets out a blood curdling scream.
Trying to see what's wrong, his sister runs up to him and screams herself. Because there lying in front of them was the body of a dead black man.
"After dey found his body dey took him to dare grandmother. She was basically a voodoo priestess, so when she saw de body, she immediately did a spell on it. She tried to revive de body so that she could put her son's soul into it."
"So what happened after that?" Xander asked after Sheila seemed to pause for a moment.
"Well needless to say de spell didn't work. A little dissappointed, dey buried de body deep in de earth. Later dat night a ship docked near de island and some people started to get off of it. Not used to new people, de residents of de island came to greet de people from de boat. When dey got near to de people, dey quickly found out dey weren't people at all, dey were demons. Before de people could run away the demons attacked and killed most of dem." (She's talking about the slave ship that she talked about in chapter 2)
"Then let me guess." Xander said with a smile. "The reanimated corpse of Akin, rose from his grave and started to kill all of the demons?" Sheila went wide eyed at this.
"Dat's exactly what happened. How did you know dat?" Sheila asked.
"Hey if you've seen as many sci-fi movies as I have you would have seen that twist coming sooner or later." Xander said with a goofy grin.
"Well he killed off all of de demons." Sheila said continuing the story. "After dat de old woman and children took him in. He hunted down all of de demons on de island and den he would move on to other lands and do de samething, Earning him de name, de Hunter. He was destroyed however 100 years later in Jamaica, after an accident."
"You mean when that volcano erupted?" Xander asked interrupting her story. In one of Xander's History classes he had to learn about Jamaica. And one of the things he learned was of the great volcano erupting ,which nearly destroyed the whole island.
"Yes, except dat's not all of what happened. What really happened dat day was a great and powerful arch mage tried to ascend into a true demon. He was usin' so much power dat it caused an earthquake which later, resulted in de volcano explosion. Knowing only one way to stop him, De Hunter kept de snake demon occupied long enough for the lava from de volcano to consume dem both. To honor de fall of de Hunter, de old lady from de island made an all black mask with three red streaks running down de face of it. It was to symbolize de hunter's strength. But she also put a curse on de mask, so dat anyone who wore it would become de hunter."
"Wait a minute, go back some." Xander said stopping the story. "You mean to tell me that, the old lady from the island was still alive 100 years later?"
"Yes, she and others survived." Sheila said kind of strained. "Anyway de mask was handed down from generation to generation of different people until finally me husband bought it at an auction. We were poor at de time, but after he bought de mask, our luck changed. De original owner of de mask before us stated in his will dat whoever was in de possesion of de mask would own his entire estate(along with over 10 billion dollars). So dat's how me and me husband became rich." Sheila explained.
"Den one day, he put the mask on and started acting differently. He would talk about demons and others things. Den he would make or buy weapons and stay out late at night. One night after I came home a large demon tried to attack me. Dat's when me husband came home and destroyed de demon. Later he told me about what was really going on, in de world dat many tried to keep a secret. He was going after de demon dat originally killed Akin Bembola and he never returned home. Dat demon killed me husband." Sheila said sadly.
She was surprised when Xander stood and embraced her in a hug.
"I'm sorry." Xander whispered over and over again as Sheila began to cry. After a few moments Sheila got a hold of herself.
"Tank you Xander and since you want to pursue de nightlife like me husband, I want you to have dis." she said as she handed him a katana. It was about 34 inches in length, had a black hilt on it with the symbol of a dragon on it, and it looked very old.
As Xander looked up ready to refuse the gift that Sheila had given him, he saw the look on her face. He knew that look anywhere. It was the look of someone who wanted to make sure that he stayed safe.
"Thank you for the gift." Xander said with a yawn. "Oh sorry." he said sleepily.
"Oh you have nothin' to be sorry about." Sheila confirmed. It was rather late after all. "Go ahead and get some rest, school starts tomorrow." she said as Xander stood with the sword in hand(Sheila gave it to him with the scabbard for it) and walked to the door.
"Aren't you coming?" Xander asked as he saw that Sheila was still sitting in the same spot.
"Oh I'll get some rest in a little while." she told him with a smile. Looking at her one more time, Xander smiled back at her a dissappeared through the door. After he was gone Sheila put a grim look on her face.
"I'm sorry Xander." Sheila muttered as she reached into a dresser draw. As she did so she pulled out a black mask with three red lines running down the face of it, that looked like claw marks. "Please forgive me for what I have to do."
A/N Wait until you see the next chapter. Xander finally says bye,bye to the spirits of the hyena and the soldier boy.
TBC....
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