The vampire wearing Willow's face reached Xander and reaching out a hand, trailed a finger over his chest.
"New look." He observed.
"You like it? I figured the slutty look worked for Cordelia to catch your attention, maybe it would work for me too." She laid her hand flat on his chest and felt his heart beating. It was strong and steady under her hand. And then her wrist was caught in an iron and impossibly strong grip.
"You're not Willow. Who killed her?"
"What do you mean? I'm Willow, I've just decided to make my interest in you known, that's all. I love you, Xander."
"And I said, you're not Willow. Who killed Willow?" The voice was pure steel and the vampire was confused.
"Why don't you think I'm Willow?"
"Because you're nothing more than a vampire wearing her face as a mask." Now the vampire was beyond confused and into the beginnings of alarm. The iron grip, the steel voice and the fact that he knew she was a vampire was all adding up to Xander Harris wasn't a normal human and Willow Rosenberg hadn't known that.
"You're something else. You're too strong for one thing and how could you possibly know I'm a vampire?" She asked curiously.
"I see the demon. Who killed Willow?" The iron grip on her wrist tightened. If she'd been human, bones would have cracked.
"Luke made me." The vampire dropped the pretext and her game face appeared. Xander didn't even flinch.
"Who's Luke?"
"The Master's Vessel, he will free the Master and the Hellmouth will open! The Old Ones will return!"
"Tell me what this Luke looks like." Xander ordered, just as the lights went out and a spotlight appeared on the stage and a large vampire in game face stepped into it. He had a raised area of flesh on his forehead that reassembled a three pointed star.
"That's Luke." She answered, with a fangy grin.
"Goodbye, Willow." In a move much faster than a normal human could have moved Xander drew a stake and shoved it in the vampire's chest.
"Box them in." He ordered the others and tucking the stake back in his pocket, moved toward the spotlight and the vampire that had killed Willow.
Buffy landed lightly on the balcony after prying open the skylight. She dusted a vamp standing in front of her and moved to the rail just as the lights went out and a spotlight appeared on the stage. A large vampire with a fleshy three pointed star on his forehead stepped into the light. He made an announcement.
"This is a glorious night! It is also the last one any of you shall ever see. Bring me the first." Buffy was about to announce herself when someone else stepped into the spotlight, she frowned as she recognized Cordelia's boyfriend, Xander Harris. What was he doing?
"You know." Xander said, in a conversational tone of voice. "Until tonight, it wasn't personal."
"What wasn't personal, boy?" The Vessel vampire asked curiously.
"Hunting your kind." Buffy's eyes widened. Xander knew vampires existed and he was stupid enough to hunt them? Did he want to die?! "You made it personal." Xander continued, in that same tone.
"How did I make it personal, boy?"
"Her name was Willow Rosenberg." Xander answered, to Buffy's horror. "And you killed her."
"Willow? Ah yes, little redhead. Quite a screamer and after she woke up, she enjoyed making her first meal scream too." Xander's face tightened and his eyes lit with fury. Buffy, herself, was trying to hold it together, she'd not only failed to stop a vampire from taking Willow, she'd failed to keep her from being turned. She'd have to yet again, dust a vampire wearing the face of someone she knew, just like the classmates back at Hemery that Lothos had turned before she'd set his vampire ass on fire. She tightened her grip on the metal railing of the balcony and didn't even notice when it creaked. Someone else did though.
"Like I said, you made it personal." Xander told Luke. "And now it's your turn to be destroyed, like the thing that was wearing Willow's face."
"You destroyed a vampire?"
"I'm going to destroy you." And to both Luke and Buffy's astonishment, Xander jumped forward from a standing start and landed in a battle stance in front of the large vampire and punched him so hard he staggered back several steps. Before Luke could recover, Xander was on him in a flurry of punches, kicks, elbow and knee strikes almost too fast to catalog. Luke fought back of course, but for every one blow he landed, Xander landed two. 'How was he doing that?' Buffy wondered. Normal humans couldn't move that fast, let alone hit that hard. It didn't take long for Xander to drive the vampire to it's knees, it's face bloody and bruised.
"How?" Luke gasped.
Xander drew his sword and pressing the button answered. "Some call us the Decapitare." And sliced through the thick neck, decapitating the vampire and reducing it to dust. Deep below Sunnydale, the Master felt his connection to Luke, his Vessel, abruptly cut off without Luke having taken a single life. He flew into a rage as his effort to escape his prison was thwarted.
Xander turned around and faced the quiet club, sword raised. The vampires looked confused, how had a human destroyed Luke?
"Destroy them all!" Xander ordered. Panicking, some of the vampires headed for the nearest exit, only for a human to step in front of them.
"Oh, don't leave yet." The human said. "We went to all this trouble to set up a surprise party for you." The human's head jerked and to Buffy's shock, a catlike face appeared. "Didn't anyone tell you? Sunnydale is protected and we don't tolerate vampires." And the human turned catlike being tore off the vampire's head.