Summary: Yet another Halloween fic. With demons.

Disclaimer: I own... hmm. I own nothing. The bank owns any money I make, at the moment. The concepts building 1001Keys do not belong to me, most probably.

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

Pre-fic Comments:

Okay. I've been listening to some foreign music, and I take back what I said in the prefic comments for part 17. 'Meshuggah' is way more 'out there' than anything that the hippies can come up with. I cite their song 'Elastic' as concrete proof of this.

Thoughts? (It could explain Hatten's flights of fancy -- he is from the same country as this band ^_^ (joke!))

* * *

Xander had a silly grin on his face as he went to Social Studies. Who'da thought that Cordelia was so insatiable?

He was beginning to see the good points of this demonhood thing. The part of his psyche that he liked to call his 'inner demon' was happily purring, looking out through Xander's eyes for the next conquest.

"Xander?," Willow asked, spotting him. "You weren't in class! Where do you think you've been?"

"Cloud Nine, and I'm not leaving," he grinned.

Willow looked him up and down, noting his dishevelled appearance. "You're still feeling urges from Halloween, aren't you? My God, Xander, why couldn't you restrain yourself? I'm not finding it that hard! I bet you just made out with... with Harmony or some other slut!"

"Cordelia, actually," Xander said before he could stop himself. "She was sooo tight..."

Willow's mouth worked for a moment, as she found herself speechless. Eventually she gathered herself.

"O-O-Okay, you'd better have a good excuse by tonight! I'm not talking to you right now, Xander LaVelle Harris!"

"Aw, I'm sorry Will," Xander apologised. "But you know what Giles said..."

Willow blushed madly, but didn't talk to Xander for the rest of that day, blushing as she flashed looks at him. Thoughts rose in her mind that she ruthlessly squashed.

* * *

Buffy looked around. Something was pulling at the edge of her mind, almost like her Slayer radar, but not. It was driving her nuts...

She realised where she'd felt this before. During Halloween.

Man, she had so not wanted to do anything like this... the blonde closed her eyes, reaching into her memories. Think, think... ah, yes. The discorporeal spirits in Willy's Alibi, that the Marilith had eaten. That feeling, but now weaker.

Definitely Giles worthy. Buffy was prepared to bet that he'd get that light in his eyes at the thought of some thingy to research.

She wandered to the Library, deciding to fill in Willow and Xander afterwards. Pushing through the swinging double doors, she called out a greeting to Giles.

"Ah, hello Buffy," the Englishman said absently. He looked extremely preoccupied, and worried about something. The Watcher had his jacket on, as if he was about to leave for somewhere or had just gotten back.

"Hey," Buffy began, "I've been getting this way creepy feeling, like there's some kind of demony spirity thingy floating around?"

"Really," Giles said. "Fascinating. Look, I'm quite busy right now, so I'll have to talk to you later."

"What's up?," Buffy asked curiously. "Maybe we can help? Hey, I know, you're worried about an upcoming date with Miss Calendar?"

"What?," Giles asked, pausing his his pacing a moment. "No, no... please, leave for class. This is personal."

"If you say so," Buffy shrugged. He was probably stressing over grey hair or something.

* * *

Xander stood in a peculiar half-crouch on the mat, the PE coach looking on in bemusement. His opponent lay in pain on the floor, four deepish scratches from Xander's fingernails marking his stomach. The ragged incisions, combined with the pure physical /force/ of the blow, had hurt immensely.

The boy had gotten off lucky. If Xander had been in his natural incubus form, his claws would have disemboweled the human. If Xander had gotten annoyed, it could have de-spined him.

Xander didn't have a lot of control over what happened when he fought, yet. He was struggling to gain that control.

"Harris, I don't know what style you're using, but there's no way in hell that you'd be allowed to do that in a competition," the coach sighed. "Orwell, take him over there and run him through what he /is/ allowed to get away with."

Larry, on the martial arts team more as a 'look at me the big bad fighter', felt fear of the once social outcast, and started hoping that Harris would forget all those times that he had beaten him up.

* * *

"Something's way wrong, guys," Buffy said conversationally as she, Xander, and Willow waited for Giles outside the hospital.

"Yeah, the G-man's late," Xander observed. "Jeez, the guy is normally of the other people watch setting type."

"He was major stressed over something this afternoon," Buffy added. "Hey, there's the bloodmobile!"

They watched as a couple of doctors took the blood packets from the van, Willow and Buffy making comments about cute ER doctors.

They stood there disbelieving as the 'doctors' turned out to be vamps, once the van had driven off.

"I don't believe this," Xander blinked. "What's next, them as kindy teachers?"

Buffy ran over to the car where the doctors and a driver vampire were loading the medical blood into a convertible, kicking the 'doctors' onto the ground and also giving the driver da boot to da head. Xander and Willow overcame their disbelief and pulled out stakes, running to help Buffy dispatch the vampires.

"Look out!," a familiar Irish voice called out as the last vampire attempted to attack Buffy from behind. Xander staked it while it's attention was focused on the Slayer. "Or not."

"Angel!," Buffy smiled.

Angel smiled back, somewhat woodenly.

"How did you know about this?," Buffy asked.

"It's delivery day," the vampire shrugged. "Everybody knows about this. They only ruined one bag."

"Do you think you could make sure the hospital gets the rest?," Willow asked.

"Thanks," Buffy smiled. "I'm worried about Giles. He was supposed to meet us here."

"Maybe he's late," Angel ventured.

"Giles? Who counts tardiness as, like, the eighth deadly sin?," Xander said disbelievingly. This evening was one shock after another.

* * *

Joyce groaned as her new neighbour turned up his music. God... that sounded like someone putting an opera singer through a meatgrinder.

The laughter and sound of gunshots didn't really do anything for her, either.

She picked up her keys. Time to welcome the new neighbour, and make a few polite suggestions.

* * *

Post-fic Comments:

It would make sense for someone with claws rather than fingernails to fight like Iori Yagami.

You know, I would normally only guess that old British people used the word 'tardy' or 'tardiness'.