Apologies for the delay in getting this chapter out, but I've had an odd week plus I wanted to get this chapter right. It was hard to write, but I'm not sure why. Thanks again for all the reviews, your comments are my inspiration, lol! And on he went...


The car was not in the best of shape by day. It was a bit of a mess, frankly. The suspension was soft, the seats sagged, possibly depending on where Karvor had sat on various journeys, and there were a lot of dents and fist-shaped imprints in various areas. This was a car that had been used to go from A to B, often quite roughly, not something that had been taken care of and lovingly buffed up on a Sunday afternoon.

Much to Xander's surprise the keys were still in the ignition. This meant that either the demons were supremely confident that no-one would steal a car in the middle of the desert or they just didn't care. Probably a combination of the two, he thought, as he walked around the car to the front, where Doyle had the hood up and was checking the engine.

"This thing," said the half-Brachen demon in a wondering tone, "Should have blown up ages ago. I think the only reason why the engine hasn't fallen through the housing is that the rust has corroded it in place. Amazing." He looked up. "It looks like I had my life in my hands just getting here," he quipped. He had been able to have a shave, a shower and a change of clothes back at the house and now looked much more relaxed than he had been the previous night.

Slamming the hood down he dusted his hands off. "As long as I don't try and set any speed records I should be able to make it back ok. I know someone who'll take it off my hands for a junkyard." He looked up at Xander seriously and held his hand out. "I never thanked you properly for saving my life back there."

"Ah, hell, it was nothing," replied Xander, biting back the response that it was the duty of a Jedi to help the helpless. "You'd have done the same for me."

Something happened to Doyle's face at that comment – there was a flash of uneasiness and disquiet in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind at the last moment and then pointed to Aquila, which was in a scabbard on Xander's hip. "You never said how you'd gotten so good with that thing."

Xander looked down at his sword, thinking hard. He was getting odd signals off the other man: shame, guilt and fear that made him wonder what lay in Doyle's past. He could hardly press the man, after all he barely knew him. And he could hardly tell him the truth about his abilities. "Oh, you pick up all kinds of things on the Hellmouth," he said. "How to defend yourself, for a start," which was true but not the whole truth.

"Sunnydale or Cleveland?"

"What?"

"The Sunnydale Hellmouth or the Cleveland Hellmouth."

"Oh! Sunnydale. Good old Californian hellmouthiness." He looked at Doyle again but the half-demon wouldn't quite meet his meet his gaze. Okay, he thought, there's something in this guy's past that has wigged him out. I'm all out of meaningful platitudes though, which just leaves the corny old ones.

"The place taught me a lot about making choices. Good, evil, right, wrong, the whole thing. You can't stay out of the fight there once you know about the Hellmouth. Unless you're a member of the police force and you really believe that vampires are biker gangs on PCP, that is."

Doyle nodded jerkily and then gave a hollow laugh. "Life is more... shades of grey in a place like LA. You learn to straddle the line sometimes, if you have to. And sometimes you make the wrong choices." The sense of guilt strengthened around him and Xander suppressed a wince of reaction. "Some of us don't have the strength, really."

Xander shook his head in response. "You beat up snakehead back there."

"Yeah, but-"

"Trust me on this one. Everyone's got the ol' hidden depths phenomenon, or iceberg syndrome or whatever it is they call it. Someone I once knew said that you never know your strength until you're tested."

"Catchy. Did he find his strength?"

Xander paused. "Yes and no. Long story. Not sure exactly how it ended. That came out a lot less inspirational than I wanted it to."

Quirking his lips into a half-smile Doyle shook his head. "Nah, it was fine. Something to have a mull over, anyway." He looked back at the car and met Xander's gaze properly. "Thanks again. You're not going to go into that cave full of evil spirits, or whatever the hell was in there, are you?" He received a shake of the head in response.

"Nope, not until I know what it was. That's the best part of living on the Hellmouth, I have some interesting contacts."

This got him a quizzical look from the half-demon. "Like what?"

"I know the Slayer. Her watcher too. He's got a whole busload of books, the whole Demons/ghosts/things that go 'grr' in the night guides."

Doyle somehow combined awe and doubt in one expression. "Nice. Be careful though. And look me up if you're ever in LA." Getting into the battered car he drove off.


Xander was very thoughtful as he walked back into the house. He'd never really thought about the ramifications of what had been happening to him over the past months. He had worried about the possible effects that it might have on him, the dreadful possibilities of the dark side and so forth. But he had never thought about the fact that being on the Hellmouth had allowed him to differentiate between good and evil so clearly. It wasn't as simple as black and white, admittedly – there was the whole Angel- Angelus issue earlier – but there were probably fewer shades of grey than in LA. Doyle was obviously on the side of light, but he felt that he had something in his past, maybe something he bitterly regretted.

Shrugging he picked up the phone and dialed. As he did so, his eyes turned automatically to a point on the far wall. Even when he couldn't see the cave he could still sense its presence. It was very faint from a distance of two miles, but now that he knew where it was, it was like a signpost in his head, saying "skanky evil here."

The phone rang three times and then a voice answered: "Hello?"

"Hi Giles, it's Xander," he said, picking the phone up and walking over to a chair.

"Xander! How, how did your encounter with the demons go? Were you able to recover the Cross?"

"Fine to the first question, no to the second. You can put a big tick up on the demon-vanquishing box though. Vamps were duly dusted and the big red Sankreg demon is now face down in a hole in the ground. You'd better make a note that they have very thick armour and have a punch like a howitzer. However, they have an Antilles heel-"

"You mean Achilles Heel."

"Yup, that too – they're vulnerable around the eyes. Crossbows might be a good way to take them down from a distance."

There was a surprised silence from the other end of the phone. "Yes, well," said Giles eventually, "I see that you've been honing your tactics. And, and the other demon?"

"That's what I'm calling about. Doyle, the guy from the pit, gave the other one a good beating, but being a sneaky demon runt it twisted out and tried to run off. Thing is, he was standing in front of the cave when this dark tendril thing came slithering out and pulled him in. Snake boy, from the sound of it, didn't survive the encounter. And that cave reeked of the dark side, Giles, it was like being on top of a sewer. I almost hurled. Giles? You still there?"

The silence had returned and it was even more loaded than ever. Xander heard a faint clatter that sounded suspiciously like a set of glasses being removed and laid on a table. "Giles?"

"Xander, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I want you think back and tell me everything that happened next to that cave. Every detail, no, no matter how inconsequential," he said, using the tone of voice that told Xander that the Watcher was worried. Not end-of-the-world worried, but definitely concerned. He thought back to the fight that had taken place the previous night and used the force to bring the images and memories to the surface. Then he started to speak, describing the exact sequence of events from his point of view. There was yet another pause when he finished speaking and then Giles swore under his breath.

"I'm guessing that's not a good sign," guessed Xander.

"No... no, you could say that," came the reply. "I would hazard a guess that there's a wraith in that cave. Something very different from my initial estimate of a ghost."

Turning around Xander looked at the place in the force where the cave was. "Okay, I'll ask the question: what's a wraith?"

"Wraiths differ from ghosts in that they, they are created by very different forces. A ghost can be... born, as it were, from the circumstances involved in the death of a person. Fear, anger, revenge, and so forth.

"A wraith is born from a combination of those elements, including some that, well, accumulate over time. Fear is a good example. If someone is afraid of, of someone or something over a long period of time, and then dies as the result of violence, that's a very potent combination. It's, it's also a very dangerous combination as the wraith responds to the same emotions in death as in life."

Transferring the phone to his other ear Xander reached out and used the force to make the small book that Doyle had left rise up off the hall table and land on his hand, where he flicked through it. "So if, say, two brothers stole the Cross of the Trinity from this cathedral, rode for their lives across hundreds of miles of desert, arguing 24/7 all the time about what they were going to do with it, while their flunkies dropped dead all around them and then finally stabbed each other to death over it, that might qualify as all the ingredients to make a wraith?"

"Oh yes, undoubtedly. That mix of, violent emotion, fear, hate, greed, desperation, would create quite a powerful one I imagine, one capable of interacting with the world for a limited distance from the place where it resided."

Xander thought for a moment. "That would be the tentacle thingy, right?" "

Oh yes. Although it would only be powerful if it accessed the right emotions. From all accounts your, your demon adversary was terrified when it was facing you and, and Doyle. The wraith would have been able to sense that and act on it. It is fear made manifest, Xander. It, it feeds on fear, it exists on anger. And it can become your worst fear, it can project all kinds of horrors that exist in your mind."

"Aha. Okay, here's the biggie. How do you vanquish these things?"

"Well, there is a certain ceremony that can be performed, but that requires the presence of a sacred relic, a clergyman of some degree of rank and a three-day ritual of purification."

"Giles, I hate to rain on your parade, but we are short all of those things. Or rather there is a relic, but we can't get to it just now and there's no way that I can appear before the Bishop of wherever the hell the nearest cathedral is and ask him to stand in front of a cave for three days. Not without getting locked away in my own padded cell."

"Yes, thank you Xander, I am aware of that. I was going to say that the only other way to destroy a wraith is to unbind it as it were, separate it from the emotions that brought it forth."

"Nope, didn't get that. Say again?"

"To put it crudely, deny it emotions and face up to it. And I'm afraid that this is something that I've never done. Although I imagine that you have access to certain... abilities that are denied to me. And to Buffy for that matter. Your use of the force being one. Sending a Slayer against a wraith, even if she was around," and Xander could feel the deep pain in his voice "Would not be wise, as Slayers are... rather emotional as a whole."

Xander nodded absently. Giles had a point. "Okay, so if I embrace the force – the positive side of it – and push away all those negative vibes, that should keep it at bay or even repel it?"

"Yes, certainly enough to force it back and perhaps even to kill it. This, this is pure speculation however. Xander, if you do enter that cave only do so after intensive preparation. This is no physical confrontation, but a battle of will as it were, your mind will have to be calm against an emotional maelstrom."

Oh great, thought Xander, it's the whole cave on Dagobah scenario. I walk in and fight something that's not really there. Sort of. As Giles would say, bugger. He cleared his throat and said: "Okay, any other advice here?"

"Only that you should be-"

"Extremely careful," Xander chorused with the Watcher. "I will. I'll let you know what happens. Say hi to Wills for me." Putting the phone down he went into the middle of the room and sat down, crossing his legs as he did. This would need a heap of meditation to prepare for. Nuts, he was still tired from the previous night, although he would be able to combine the meditation with the Jedi healing trance, which should take the edge off his weariness. He closed his eyes.


Hours later he stood on the side of the hill and looked at the cave dispassionately. It looked... odd. Then he realised that despite the fact that it was broad daylight, the sunlight wasn't penetrating the cave entrance.

Was he doing the right thing? He paused and then looked down at Aquila, where it rested on his left hip. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda had told Luke that he wouldn't need anything in the cave on Dagobah. Being a Skywalker, the kid had naturally ignored him and had gone in with his lightsabre, only to fail the test. That had been some kind of metaphor – face your fears. Sort of. Maybe. Frankly, thought Xander wryly, my brain isn't really up to analysing this kind of thing. Should he take Aquila in with him? This wasn't just a cave with the dark side in it, like on Dagobah, this was a cave with a wraith thing in it. Giles had said that he had to face it with his mind (although a year ago he probably would have groaned a great deal and told Xander not to go anywhere near it) and that it would not be a physical battle. Hum. Parallels like that between his life and movies gave him goosebumps sometimes.

He looked at the cave and made up his mind. Unclipping Aquila he laid the sword down on the ground and, taking a deep breath, closed his eyes. He pictured Yoda standing in front of him, looking up and pursing his mouth in that determined look. "Fear you feel not. The force you trust, hmmm? Trust in the force and the force will trust in you, yes. Be not afraid. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side. Face your fear and power over you it has not." Opening his eyes again he embraced the force. To his surprise he was perfectly calm and collected. He stepped up to the cave entrance and went in.

It was dark and cold in the cave, despite the heat outside. Some light was penetrating the entrance, but it seemed flat and empty somehow. The air smelt... wrong, somehow stale. He looked around. Snakehead was lying to one side, against one of the rock walls. He was quite dead but seemed unharmed. However, by the look of his eyes he had died in a state of extreme terror. A quiver of fear flashed across Xander's mind and he mercilessly quenched it.

As he did he saw a slow movement start out of the corner of his eye and he turned to face it. The air seemed to be darkening for a moment and for a second he thought that he could see a shape appear near the floor, like a tentacle. Aha, this was the thing that had grabbed snakehead, he thought dispassionately. The tendril vanished and he turned back to look into the cave. He stepped forward.

Something sent a pebble clattering against a rock at the back of the cave and Xander stopped warily. The effort of keeping his mind calm was difficult but wasn't wearing him down. Yet. He peered into the gloom and then looked down as another tendril weaved slowly out of the darkness. It seemed less determined than the one that had snared snakehead the previous night. In fact it seemed downright confused. It wobbled slightly and then groped over the rough stone floor, going one way and then another. When it approached Xander's foot he was easily able to step over it and advance deeper into the cave. He looked around. This had to be the emptiest cave in the middle of the desert ever. Doyle had said that the cave the nasties had stayed in the previous day had contained at least one dead coyote. So far he hadn't even seen a dead bug and he wondered if the local wildlife used those fabled animal senses to stay clear of the wraith.

Another pebble clattered to a halt next to his foot and he stopped. Something was emerging from the shadows in the back of the cave. And this was no tendril. It was big, and human-shaped and... He frowned. It was breathing loudly, almost mechanically... And then Darth Vader stepped out in front of him, his black cape merging with the darkness, the lights on his chest winking and gleaming as that death's head mask glared down at him. His harsh breathing filled the air with sound.

He looked at Vader. Vader looked at him. Then Vader reached for his belt and unclipped his lightsabre. The cave resonated with the hum of the weapon as the red blade sprang into life, lighting the immediate area with a crimson glow. Xander looked at the Dark Lord of the Sith. Or rather the thing pretending to be him. A year ago he would have been a distant dust cloud on the horizon by now, making for the nearest help and probably getting a pitying stare from Willow as she wondered what he was doing under the bed and why he was whimpering.

That was then. This was now and he stared at the figure in front of him. "Nice try," he said, "But the red light on the chestplate should go flick flick and not just flick flash. And you have no imagination at all." This seemed to nonplus Vader for a second. Then he stepped forward and raised the lightsabre.

Time seemed to slow for Xander at that moment, his thoughts flashing with a crystalline brilliance that he later marveled at. He's not Vader, he thought, there's nothing really there. This is a projection created by the wraith, a phantom Vader that looks the part but isn't there. Looking at the pseudo-Vader he found himself wondering for moment what had happened to drive Anakin into such a state of rage, of hate. Where was the young boy he had known under all that armour and black clothing, like a shroud of darkness covering a white light? This is what I'm afraid of, he thought. This figure. All my anger, my distrust of Deadboy, or rather of Angel, my fear that someday something will emerge from the Hellmouth that we can't fight, that we can't vanquish, that we can't kill and which will kill us instead. This is all the snide put-downs directed my way in my life, the sneers from Snyder, the contempt from the jocks because I'm not on the team, whichever team it was. This is my dark side. That is me under there, and that wraith knows it. This is something that only I can face because only I know what makes it tick.

The red blade slashed down, straight at Xander's neck, at an angle designed to shear straight through his shoulder and carve him in two. It stopped dead when Xander reached up and stopped the blade with his right hand.

The sort-of-Vader looked him as if he'd done the impossible and took half a step back in shock. That was not very Sith-like. The blade felt warm in Xander's hand and he could feel it buzz against his skin. He pushed back and freed the blade, forcing Vader back another step.

The dark figure just looked at him for a moment and then the blade flashed again, a horizontal slash at Xander's waist. Again, he stopped it with his bare hand. A flash of glee soared across his mind and again he ruthlessly shut the emotion down. He could do this. Something was happening to the Vader figure now. It seemed a lot less confident and sure of itself and was struggling to free the blade. Xander released it. "Your technique looks a little sloppy," he said dryly, something that seemed to enrage the pseudo-Vader, who lashed out again, with the same result as Xander caught the blade effortlessly.

The figure blurred for a second and then reformed into Vader. Again he attacked, again he was blocked and again he took a step back while Xander moved forward. At every step back the phantom menace seemed to get more and more desperate. Once again it blurred and reformed, but this time it looked a little less coherent than before.

Xander paused and then leant forwards slightly. "I'll let you into a little secret," he said. "I'm nor afraid of you." Vader twisted his head in a very un-Vader like manner. Then he lashed out again with his lightsabre, in spite his previous lack of success. Xander blocked it, grasped it firmly and then pulled it out of the figures grasp, where it disappeared into a twist of smoky darkness. The pseudo-Vader gave a howl of rage and then flickered violently.

When it reformed it was into the image of a man dressed in the archaic dress of the late seventeenth century, only with rents and holes in the cloth of what had once been a fine coat. His boots were covered in dust, his hat looked as it something had sat on it and he was swaying slightly, his thin, unshaven face looking at Xander with wide, unblinking eyes. There was another flicker and his face changed, becoming broader and bearded, with a scar running over his cheek and into one empty eye socket. It had the same unblinking look of incomprehension.

The wraith twisted its head and hissed at him. "Interesting change of clothes. And the face is not an improvement," said Xander, stepping closer. "Juan Cortes I take it? Or are you Miguel? I read the story of your last days." The wraith blinked and hissed again. It seemed less substantial than the Vader-figure it had been earlier and seemed to pulse slightly. Xander took another step forward and the wraith stepped back involuntarily. Then it let out a noise that was half hiss and half scream, its face jumping between the two brothers that it had once been, before leaping forwards, to punch Xander in the face.

Xander didn't flinch as the fist passed straight through him, although the chilly feeling that it left did put his teeth rather on edge. There was no threat here; the thing in front of him was insubstantial. It was enraged and fearful now, terrified of him. It edged back and tried to punch him again, its arm flailing uselessly through its opponent's chest. Again it edged back, teeth showing and stole a hurried look behind, to a place where Xander could see an odd shape against the back of the cave.

The wraith was looking increasingly desperate now and also increasingly hazy as it battled against something or rather someone that it couldn't fight. It moved into action again, swinging fists that passed through Xander and left little more than a chilly sensation against his chest. By now Xander had pressed it back almost to the rear of the cave, where he could see that the shape on the floor was the remains of two men.

Time had not been kind to these bodies and although no scavengers had dared to enter to feed off the bodies, they had been eroded down by decay and the weight of years to a pile of dirty brown bones and scraps of leather and cloth. Corroded metal protruded from the middle of what had once been ribs on the right hand side of the pile. On the other a skull with an ugly line across a cheekbone grinned at the two opponents. And beyond that... there was a worn satchel, obviously brittle with age, which bulged.

The wraith followed his gaze and then howled with fear again before going into a frenzied attack on him, its fists and feet flailing away like an angry octopus. And with each attack it seemed to lose yet more of its shape and coherence. It wasn't until it drew a its fist across its face in preparation for another vain attack that it noticed what was happening to it. It gaped at the growing haziness at the end of its arm and then looked back at Xander.

A dozen emotions flashed over it face, ranging from fear to terror to anger and then to weariness. It looked tired, tired to death and Xander felt a flicker of pity at the terrible unlife it had led for three hundred years. Obviously detecting this emotion the wraith looked up at this, waxing slightly in strength, but then recoiled from him when he imposed absolute control over his mind. It slumped against the wall and looked up at him.

"Muerte," it said, speaking for the first time. "Robar. Pieza. Tablero de ajedrez."

Shaking its head it sank to its knees and then clutched at its head. Then it looked back up at Xander and spoke in heavily accented English: "It... sang... to... me. They... told... me... to take... it... piece... on... the chess... board... red... player."

The wraith flickered violently and when it reappeared it was dim and insubstantial. Then its head went back and it screamed, the noise echoing down the cave, before it shrank in on itself, folding in again and again to a tiny spot of dark light which exploded a sharp 'crack' of noise.

Light flooded into the cave, the first light to enter it in three centuries and Xander winced in reaction as his eyes adjusted. Then he gasped. The dark side was draining out of the cave, like a sewer emptying, and for the first time he was able to relax his grip on the force. It felt... joyful. There was no evil here. He had faced it out.

He squatted down and looked at the old satchel and then, reaching out, he gently brushed the disintegrating fragments of finger bones from the top of it from where one of the brothers had tried to claim the Cross as they died. The leather the satchel was made from was more than just brittle; it too fell apart to reveal a large gold cross. It was plain but beautiful, unadorned by any jewels and it positively sang of the light side of the force. No wonder the brothers' minds had gone kablooie with that thing preying on their thoughts. He reverently picked it up and held it in the crook of his left arm. It was also bloody heavy.

In the process of turning away he looked back when a small noise caught his ear. Something else had emerged from the age-ravaged remains of the satchel. This turned out to be a small pouch, about the size of the palm of his hand. It had weathered the years rather better than the satchel, because it was intact, made of some form of tough hide, with drawstrings keeping it closed at the top. The drawstrings were also leather and these crumbed rapidly when he picked the pouch up. Frowning he shook the contents out onto his hand and then gasped. Gems. Small rubies (he'd gone right off the colour red, he thought), diamonds, emeralds and... a sapphire. Not a small sapphire either, but a large one.

Deeply shaken for the first time that day, he poured the gems carefully back into the pouch and then placed it in his pocket. Making a mental note to come back with two coffins and collect the bones for a decent burial he strode out of the cave.

More time had passed than he had thought, because the sun was going down, its light shining deep into the place where the wraith had lived its tormented existence. Picking up Aquila looked out across the valley at the sun.

He had faced down his dark side, destroyed a wraith by... well, not feeling any emotion, recovered a lost holy artifact and found something that could be used, once it had been properly faceted by an expert, to make a lightsabre. For the first time he felt that he had progressed well down the road to being a Jedi. Lifting the Cross up onto his shoulder he started to walk home.

Not a bad day's work.