First Knight - 5

"So, how'd you hook up with Solstice?" Dawn asked, as she opened the door to Xander's room so he wouldn't get blood on the handle.

"I met her while investigating the deaths of the previous... god knows how many, caretakers," Xander replied. "You see, this hellgate doesn't open to a bunch of hells like a normal hellgate, it opens to worlds so alien that demons avoid them."

"What does that have to do with dead caretakers?" Dawn asked.

Xander took off his shirt and used it to wipe off the blood he was splattered with. "It means all the people she empowers go insane and kill themselves and everyone else in the area."

"That puts a damper on any plans of getting them to open the hellgate," Dawn said, shaking her head.

"I'm not even sure she wants to open it," Xander replied. "We're so different from one another that I can't begin to guess at her thought processes. So far, she seems pretty content to tempt me and have me kill giant rodents, making as big a mess as possible."

"Maybe she just loves watching you clean," Dawn suggested.

Xander kicked off his shoes and walked into the other room to start the shower. "The hotel absorbs the blood," he said, speaking over the water. "By the time I'm out of the shower, the rat will be so dried out I can use it as kindling."

"That's why you weren't worried about leaving blood everywhere," Dawn said, moving to the doorway of the bathroom and watching Xander strip to his boxers while waiting for the water to heat.

"Yep," Xander replied easily. "Let me shower real quick and then you can tempt me over lunch."

"I could scrub your back," Dawn offered.

"In a rush?" Xander asked.

"No, but I thought I'd have more time alone with you," she admitted.

"I'm sure we'll find plenty of time in the next couple of months," Xander promised. "And you may want to put on more clothes."

"But I like the fact that you can't stop yourself from looking at me and you can't pretend I'm still the young girl you met as a teen," she replied, slowly turning around knowing he really couldn't stop himself from looking.

"And how does that apply less when you're fully dressed?" Xander asked.

"And you still know just what to say," she said, blushing. "I'll wait for you in your room and then we can get my luggage. I left it behind the front desk."

"OK. Off with you so I can shower."

"Fair warning, one day soon I will install a waterproof camera in your shower and then I will watch you shower on the big screen in the lobby."

Xander laughed and shooed her out.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Buffy glared at the phone. There was an evil clone of her sister wanting to do god knows what to Xander and no one else seemed to care! Just a quick mental inventory showed several incidents involving evil dopplegangers, Xander having sex, and ... and other stuff all ending badly!

"Are you alright?" Willow asked the fuming slayer.

"I'll be fine," Buffy replied, coming to a decision. "I'm just going to kill an evil clone before anyone gets any ideas."

"Erm, have fun?" Willow offered as Buffy stormed off.

Buffy followed Xander's blood stained foot prints to the elevator, thankful he'd left such easy to follow signs as she pushed the bloody button for the third floor. She rechecked her weapons as the elevator doors closed. The cross was probably useless, as was the holy water, but a stake in the heart should kill the doppleganger just fine. She found a stake in the heart killed most things.

Getting off on the third floor she was relieved to see that, though a bit fainter, his blood stained footsteps were still easy enough to follow and he was kind enough to have left some blood on the door knob, which made finding the right room child's play, even if he hadn't forgotten to close the door all the way. She readjusted her grip on the stake and reminded herself it wasn't her sister, just a demon with her appearance. Mentally braced to kill the demon, she slowly pushed the door open just wide enough to slip inside.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

"We should help her," Kennedy suggested. "She may have been a kick ass as a slayer, but she's powerless at the moment."

"You're right," Willow agreed. "I'm a little distracted trying to figure out how to regain my power, or I'd have remembered that."

"Stake and cross," Kennedy said, handing extras to Willow.

"We better hurry," Willow said as they heard the elevator return to the lobby.

"Which floor?" Kennedy asked.

"Fifth," Willow said, pointing to the bloody fingerprint on the elevator panel.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Xander heard a thump from the room, but ignored it. Solstice found it amusing to interrupt Xander's showers using just auditory illusions, to see how little effort she could put into it. Plus, Dawn had pulled something similar while he was watching her for Joyce, which probably meant the monks thought it up and it never actually occurred.

He really wondered about those monks sometimes.

After a couple more thumps Xander decided to cut his shower short, just in case Dawn was in trouble; he'd gotten all the blood off anyway. Quickly drying off, he pulled on his boxers and opened the door to his room and stared in shock with his mouth open.

Dawn had Buffy pinned underneath her and was smacking her in the face with her own hands, saying, "Why're you hitting yourself? Why're you hitting yourself?"

"Dawn, stop torturing your sister," Xander said, trying not to laugh.

"The crazy bitch tried to stake me!" Dawn complained, getting off Buffy but keeping an eye on her.

"She's a demon!" Buffy exclaimed, quickly getting to her feet.

"No, she's your sister," Xander said, figuring the joke had gone on long enough.

"An evil clone of my sister!" Buffy snapped out, looking for where her stake went.

"No, she is half of your sister, having used the feral Gummy Bear, or whatever it was called, to split herself in two so she could sneak off without anyone noticing," Xander explained.

"How'd you know?!" Dawn asked wide eyed.

"It wasn't that hard to figure out," Xander told her. "Plus, I do have someone keeping an eye out for you guys and I got an email with your travel itinerary a month ago."

"What?!" Buffy grabbed her sister in a hug and started crying and apologizing, horrified at what she'd almost done.

"Help!" Dawn squeaked out as her sister squeezed her.

"Give her a minute, she'll recover," Xander promised.

Sure enough, almost a minute later Buffy released Dawn who fell to her knees gasping for breath. "What were you doing with my half-dressed sister?" Buffy demanded.

"Getting seduced," Xander said cheerfully, walking over to the door and grabbing a robe from the back of it.

Buffy fell silent, not sure how to reply to that.

"Let's go get our luggage," Xander told Dawn while retrieving his car keys. "I could use some clothes that aren't covered in blood."

"Show me around?" Dawn asked.

"Once we have pants," Xander agreed.

The pair walked to the elevator with Buffy following, still not sure what she should be feeling. Once they got to the lobby, they could all see the lobby looked spotless, if you ignored the desiccated remains of a three foot tall rodent.

Buffy gasped as she caught sight of Willow and Kennedy who were sitting on the couch looking traumatized and completely soaked in blood from head to toe.

"You went up to the fifth floor, didn't you?" Xander asked, amused.

Typing by: Ordieth!