Author's Note: Yeah, I know I said that I wouldn't post until Bree cleaned out my car, but then I realised that hell will freeze over sooner. So, here you go. Reviewers, I love you guys. Seriously. Cookies for everybody.
Chapter Seven
An unfamiliar touch to his shoulder jerked Xander out of a dreamless sleep. Instinctively, he lashed out at whomever had the gall to touch him without his permission.
"Master, it's only me!"
Xander's fist stopped millimetres away from Aiden's face. The young man let out a sigh of relief and lowered his arm, shooting a scornful look at the minion. "Shit, Aiden, you know not to touch me, and especially not while I'm sleeping!"
Aiden lowered his eyes in deference to Xander's superior rank. "My apologies, my lord, but it was the fastest way to wake you." Xander shot him a quizzical look. "There are two humans outside, and I heard them mention your name."
Confused, Xander sat up, letting the bedsheets pool around his bare waist. He didn't know many humans, and knew even fewer who would think to look for him in a cemetery. Playing a hunch, he asked, "what do they look like?"
"An older man with glasses and tweed, and a young redheaded girl about your age, milord," Aiden replied, politely turning around to give Xander privacy as he dressed.
"Willow and Giles," Xander muttered as he pulled on his cargos and a clean t-shirt. He grabbed a strand of hemp from the table and used it to tie his long hair back and out of his eyes. Slipping on his Birkenstocks, Xander brushed past Aiden and jogged out of the crypt.
The dark-haired man stepped out into the warm Californian night, the soft April breeze whispering across his skin and ruffling his t-shirt. He looked around, sensing three different people in his immediate surroundings. Confused, Xander turned to face the owner of the third mind he had picked up on.
"Aiden? What are you doing out here?"
As usual, Aiden's face revealed nothing. Xander had always secretly wondered if the vampire had played poker in life.
"Master Spike assigned me to be your personal guard, milord," Aiden replied, falling into step behind Xander.
"Fine, but don't kill Wills or G-Man; they're here to help."
"As you wish, Master."
As soon as Aiden finished speaking, Xander felt a chill go up his spine and an intense feeling of hatred hit him like a physical blow. Spinning around, he saw blazing golden eyes and a flash of razor-sharp fangs and managed to hurl himself to the ground before those fangs descended on his neck. Xander rolled onto his back and kicked up sharply with his powerful legs, catching Aiden hard in the stomach and sending the smaller male crashing to the ground.
"Aiden! What the fuck is wrong with you?" Xander shouted, wiping blood from a cut on his lip. He flipped himself up in a practised move that Cooper had taught him and quickly put some distance between him and his assailant.
The vampire didn't answer, but just let out an animalistic snarl and charged at the young man, fangs flashing in the moonlight. This time, Xander was ready for him and quickly sidestepped out of the way, laying a sledgehammer blow to the back of Aiden's skull.
Using his opponent's brief incapacitation, Xander scooped up a small stick from the ground and straightened up, sensing Aiden's presence behind him. He quickly spun around to meet the minion, but he was too slow.
Xander hit the gravestone with a sickening thud, the blow knocking the wind from his lungs. Coughing up blood, the young man struggled to get his breath back. A booted foot dug viciously under his ribs, rolling him over onto his back.
Aiden gave Xander a cruel smile as he pinned the larger man to the ground. Xander looked up at the vampire, frozen in fear. As if from a distance, he felt something hard under his hand and wrapped his fingers desperately around it. The stick!
"This is how it should be," Aiden hissed, leaning in close to Xander's face. "Vampires are the superior race! Humans belong at their feet, begging for mercy; not leading an entire Order as a Master!" His fingers dug sharply into Xander's shoulders, holding the struggling telepath down.
Xander ignored the pain in his chest and shoulders and fought past the interminable waves of hatred that threatened to obscure his mind. He reached out for Aiden's mind with his own, trying to learn exactly when the vampire would strike.
Aiden, seeing his prey go limp in what he assumed was terror, grinned an evil grin. "Now, boy, you will die!" He wrenched Xander's head to the side, exposing the tanned skin of his throat and lunged forward with a savage roar.
At the same moment, Xander stabbed violently upward with the stick and wrenched his mind free from Aiden's. The minion let out a gurgling cough and turned shocked eyes to Xander before crumbling into dust.
Xander let his head fall back onto the grass, struggling to regain his breath. His ribs hurt abominably where Aiden had slammed him against the gravestone and blood dripped steadily from a wound on his scalp. He glanced at the stick, which he still held in his hand, and threw it as hard as he could, Aiden's dusty remains billowing off of him in clouds of ash.
The horror of what had just occurred hit Xander like a ton of bricks and he curled up on the grass, violently trembling. Aiden had been one of his closest companions growing up and one of Spike's most trusted minions. He hadn't picked up even a passing thought concerning Aiden's treachery and that brought in a new fear.
His mind flashed back to the night when he learned that he would be attending school and the cold fear that he had experienced when Spike had showed him the psychic damper. A sick feeling washed over him at the memory.
As Xander remembered this, a new thought occurred to him: he had only been able to pick up Aiden's thoughts right before the vampire struck, but not at all before. That would mean that the vampire must've dropped the damper right before he attacked; and, if this were true, the damper must still be in the area.
Xander forced himself to his knees and searched frantically around in the grass for the damper. A glint of moonlight reflecting off of metal caught his eye and he picked up the object, a silver chain dangling from it which Aiden must've used to keep the damper on his person. An intense feeling of anger swept through him like wildfire and with a loud, frustrated scream of rage, Xander smashed the damper against the gravestone, not feeling the sharp bite of metal as the pieces bit into his flesh.
Choking back tears, Xander ran as hard as he could across the cemetery, not knowing or caring where he ended up. His lungs burned in his chest and his vision was clouded with a red mist that matched the blood pounding in his ears. He could sense Spike at the back of his mind demanding to know what had happened, and Xander blocked him out with a thought, quickly building up his mental shields.
It was the sound of Giles' voice that brought Xander back to reality. He collapsed onto the ground at the Englishman's feet, his lungs burning from his mad run.
"Good Lord, Xander!" Giles knelt beside the bleeding young man, gingerly holding him as he coughed and gasped for breath. "What happened?"
Willow appeared brandishing a shovel. "Was it Damien? 'Cause, Buffy told us about him and the Challenge and everything, and I kinda have the strange need to beat to a bloody mass of flesh," she said, somehow still managing to sound bright and cheerful.
Xander shook his head, the movement causing the wound on his skull to reopen and blood to slowly trickle down his face. "No," he said hoarsely. "Aiden. One of Spike's fucking personal guards. He was assigned to me, and I trusted that bastard." He let his head fall back against Giles' shoulder, oddly comforted by the presence of other humans.
"Does Spike know about this?" Giles asked, pressing a handkerchief to the young man's scalp to staunch the flow of blood.
"Not specifically, but he does know something serious happened. I found a psychic damper that Aiden dropped and I know Spike has had them before as well. I thought I could trust Aiden, then he tried to kill me; now I don't know if I can trust my own lifemate."
Willow dropped her shovel and pulled Xander into her arms, cradling the big man close. Giles, however, just looked at Xander in confusion. "What do you mean, 'psychic damper?'"
"I'm telepathic," Xander replied reluctantly, knowing that all his cards were now out on the table. "The dampers prevent telepaths from picking up other peoples' thoughts. That's how Aiden was able to attack me so easily." He closed his eyes and rested his head against Willow, her touch soothing to him.
Willow continued to clean the wounds on Xander's scalp and hand as best as she could with the handkerchief, finally wrapping it around his palm to protect the wounds caused by the shards of metal. Unlike Giles, she didn't seem shocked or even fazed by Xander's revelation, and she rubbed the other teen's back soothingly. "I'm sure Spike had nothing to do with it, Xan," she said. "Buffy told us how desperate he was to get the Challenge cancelled, so it wouldn't make sense for him to try to kill you now."
"Unless he's using his opposition to the Challenge to divert unwanted attention to his real plan," Xander muttered darkly.
Willow glared at him and lightly hit his shoulder. "Spike wouldn't do that! He may be evil, but he loves you, Xander. He took a huge risk in dancing with you at the Bronze, but he risked his life, er, unlife, to make you happy. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to risk his own neck to cover something up."
"He is recorded in the Watchers' Diaries as being rather impulsive and for not carrying out plans very well," Giles commented.
Xander reluctantly let a tiny smile appear on his face. "Spike does kinda suck at planning things," he allowed. His face darkened as a new thought occurred to him. "It has to be Damien," he said, a vampire-like growl rumbling in his chest. "He's trying to make me lose my trust in Spike! If Aiden had succeeded in killing me, Damien wouldn't have to fight the Challenge and he would get Spike by default."
"But how would Damien be able to explain Aiden's attack?" Giles asked.
"Aiden would be pretty easy to dispose of afterward, and Damien could always blame his disappearance on the Slayer." Xander climbed to his feet and looked at Willow and Giles with an intense gaze in his brown eyes. "We need to tell Deadboy about this; it could sway the Council's decision in my favour. If I know vampires as well as I think I do, they won't think too highly of Damien's lack of honour."