Summary: Yet another Halloween fic. With demons.

Disclaimer: I own... hmm. I own nothing. The bank owns any money I make, at the moment.

Feedback: Why not? It helps me write more and better...

Pre-fic Comments:

Theme song for this part: "Transmutation" by mdfmk.

* * *

Back at the Library, Giles sat Buffy down at the main table while Xander and Willow both had showers in the gym block. Ethan Rayne looked on curiously from the bookcage, as Giles made himself a cup of tea to calm himself down.

"Where, Buffy, did you learn about the creatures that you and Xander dressed as tonight?," he asked. He looked very unamused with the teenagers.

"Around," Buffy said. "I'm a Slayer, I see weird demons all the time."

"Don't be so coy," Ethan called out from the cage. "Show old Ripper that book you took from him."

"SHUT UP, ETHAN!," Slayer and Watcher yelled.

"What's this about a book?," Giles asked. His eyebrows narrowed. "Hold on a minute, you took it while Xander was asking me about costumes, weren't you? I /knew/ that Berich's _Demonologie_ was missing! How /dare/ you steal one of my books?!"

Buffy shrunk into her seat defensively. "We were gonna return it!"

"That has no bearing on the matter! You stole from me!"

"Chill, G-man," Xander called out as he entered the library, drying his hair. He was still only in his leather pants, as Giles had stopped for nothing on the way back. "We didn't mean any harm."

Giles eyed Xander's wings and horns. "I take it that your costume has not returned into a costume?"

Xander's tail waved at Giles over Xander's shoulder as an answer, before his wings closed around him like a trenchcoat.

"C'mon, Willow," Buffy called out. The hacker chick sidled into the Library nervously. "I suffer, we all suffer."

"Whose idea was it anyway?," Willow demanded, temper showing for once. "You told me to go as a vampire elf!"

"You told Xander to go as an incubus!"

"Hey!," Xander complained. "You two both told me to!"

"Quiet, Mister!," Willow said.

"All of you be quiet!," Giles demanded. "This is no time for recriminations. While I would dearly love to reprimand all of you, this is not the time for that. Xander can obviously not go out in public like that, Buffy must find a way of hiding her new scales, and Willow must find a way around her newly acquired allergy to sunlight!"

"I should come here more often," Ethan slyly observed. "This is better than Coronation Street!"

"SHUT UP, ETHAN!," all of them yelled.

Buffy looked at her arm. "They're scales? It isn't bodypaint?"

"It's the new fashion," Ethan smirked.

Xander snarled, then kicked the door to the bookcage. His wings unfolded, and his foot made a large dent in the stout, thick wire composing most of the bookcage, even bare as it was. Buffy leapt from her chair over to him, restraining him.

"Shut up, you little douchebag!," Xander growled. "If it wasn't for you, none of this would have happened! Why did you do it? What do you get out of this?"

"Oh," Ethan said, waving his hand in the air dismissively, "you do this job for love, not money."

This time, it took both Buffy and Willow to restrain the angry Xander.

Giles got up from his seat, taking the cup of tea and the saucer with him. "Ethan, I suggest you stop trying to send the incubus into a passionate rage and ripping you apart. As you may not have noticed, my three charges have not changed back. Xander still has his iron hard claws and demonic strength. You, on the other hand, are an aging man with bad breath."

"I don't /really/ wanna hold him back," Buffy said, anger flickering in her eyes too.

"I suggest you do," Giles said, "as the Watcher's Council won't be quite so lenient as us."

"Lenient?," Buffy asked.

"Merciful," Willow explained. Xander slumped back into their arms.

The new incubus held his hand up to his eyes, inspecting his new claws. "Man, I wish I looked human, at least."

To his great surprise, the claws retracted, and he felt the weight on his back disappear. Strange, the things one could get used to. The counterweight of the tail disappeared as well, and he found himself staggering forwards in surprise.

"YAAAAY!," he cheered. "Human once more!"

"How'd you do that?," Buffy asked. "Go 'I Wish'?"

She checked her hand, too.

Skin.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, after all.

* * *

The Mayor looked around. "Well, Spike, your sponsors seem to have disappeared."

"Seems like," Spike agreed affably. "Still up for that cuppa tea?"

"It's not time for the lamia," Drusilla scolded. "He has to wait, if he wants his tea!"

Wilkins smiled. "Quite. I'm afraid I have pressing business. I take my leave, Drusilla, Spike."

"Come back to see Miss Edith and I soon," Drusilla asked.

"Of course, my dear," the Mayor smiled. "As for the rest of you, shouldn't you be getting on home? It's getting rather early for parties."

The demons and vampires that had assembled disappeared quickly, relieved that the Marilith had gone.

* * *

Post-fic Comments:

Yes, the book they took is a reference to Esoteric. No, I haven't told you Willow's hair colour yet. I'm a tease.