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Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

Part II

There was a long silence following the exchange of information. Xander had a second root beer — Leah declined — and at the end of it he said, “I think I need to go into town for awhile.”

“Town?” Leah sat up. “Where?”

“There’s a sort of a road on the other side of that hill,” Xander said, pointing. “Just a dirt track, and a little town about four miles to the southwest. I’ve got a bicycle here, and it’s not too rough a trip, even uphill. There’ll be things I need to check out, and people I want to talk to … I’d say three, maybe four hours before I get back to you, it shouldn’t be much past noon, you’ll be fine —”

“I’m coming with you,” Leah said.

“Well … no.” Xander held up his hands. “Don’t get worked up, now, okay? But I can’t have you coming along. What I’m thinking I could maybe set up, no way I can manage it if you’re there. I can’t make you stay here, I know that, but unless you do, I won’t go.”

Leah wasn’t pleased, and didn’t try to hide it. “What is it you want to ‘set up’, and how will it help me?”

“I can’t say.” He shook his head. “Look, I’m not shining you on, it’s just I don’t know yet. There are a lot of different ways we could play it, and things depend on other things, and I’ll start finding all that out when I get to town. Situation like this, you have to deal with it as it is, not try to force it to be something else. So I need to make the trip, and eyeball the scene, and then maybe I can give you something solid.”

“Fine,” Leah told him, maintaining her temper by only a small effort. “Well, give me some idea what you’re aiming at. Broad outlines, general theory; even if you haven’t decided on the specifics yet, at least tell me what you’re basically hoping to accomplish.”

“They sent you here for a reason,” Xander said. “I’m supposed to do something or decide something where you’re concerned, like I’m the Magic 8-Ball of newly-located Slayers. You know better, I know better, but they’re expecting something so we’ll give them something. Some symbolic gesture, whatever will satisfy them so you can go back to the States and I can go back to watching the sunsets. Doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as we can sell it, and right now I need to go see what I have to work with.”

She didn’t like it, but her options were limited, and he genuinely did seem to want her gone as much as she did. Rather than simply give in, she changed the subject. “Sunnydale, you said.”

He favored her with a quizzical frown. “Yeah?”

“I’ve heard that name. When I first started doing Web searches, there was a site —”

Xander held up his hand again, and with the other he massaged his temples as if trying to ward off a migraine. “Don’t say it. Don’t say the name of the site.” He looked up at her with a pained grimace. “That thing … If you believe me on nothing else, believe this: 70% of what you see there is flat lies, and the rest is twisted around so bad you’d never be able to sift the facts from the crap. Yes, I’m from Sunnydale, now the location of California’s newest crater lake … well, saltwater inlet, actually. Yes, it was a crazy place. No, the Website That Shall Not Be Named is not the place you want to look if you ever hope to learn the truth. It’ll just gunk up your brain with really disturbing sludge.”

Leah regarded him with open, arch skepticism. “So the guy who stopped a Hallowe’en apocalypse by channeling a Delta Force commando, and then seduced three consecutive Slayers, you wouldn’t know anything about him?”

“Jesus, no!” Xander shuddered. “I’ve heard the stories. They’re right up there with the ones about SuperJonathan: good for a laugh, if your taste runs to tabloid trash, but not to be remotely confused with reality.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Leah waved it off. “Okay, go into town. I’ll stay. Don’t make me wait.”

Xander came to his feet. “I’ll get back quick as I can. There’s, um, I’ve got crackers and peanut butter in the backpack, and cans of tuna; you know, stuff that doesn’t have to be refrigerated. Feel free.” He paused at the door of the hut. “If you wanted to leave while I’m gone, that’d be another thing I couldn’t stop. But no telling how the others would react if you did, so I’m just saying, let me take a shot at coming up with something, okay?”

“I said I’d wait,” Leah replied impatiently. “I’ll wait. Just make it snappy.”

Xander nodded, and hurried outside. Seconds later Leah heard a faint clattering that had to be the bicycle he’d mentioned. She shook her head. “Delta Force,” she said to herself. “Like there was ever a chance I’d believe that one.”

*                *               *

He was as good as his word, returning before the sun had begun to tip toward the horizon. “I brought some treats,” he announced as he dismounted the bicycle. He extracted a cloth sack from the basket on the front, held it up. “Twinkies, Ho-Hos, some chips. This kind of stuff doesn’t travel well, I usually just nosh on it where I can find it and then move on, but I figured since I had a guest —”

“Chips are okay,” Leah said. “I’m not much for Yellow Dye #5. But do you always do your food shopping based on durability?”

It had actually been a minor outburst of random pique, but Xander grinned. “Hey, the cans of soup are luxuries. Do a twenty-day trek with nothing but beef jerky and iodine tablets, you get a whole different concept of ‘bare minimum’.”

“Iodine?” Leah said. “Why iodine?”

“You add it to the water,” Xander explained. “Kills bacteria and parasites. And tastes horrible, and messes with your digestion, but not near as bad as you’d have if you didn’t use iodine.”

“In Scotland?” Leah wondered.

“Nah, here I just buy bottled. Like I said, this is supposed to be vacation for me.”

Questions, obviously, but Leah decided to save them for later. Or never. “So what did you learn?” she asked him.

“More possibilities than anything else.” Xander looked to her. “The way you told it, they routed you to me when you tried to quit. I’m thinking the simplest solution is for you to go back, act all penitent, and see their program through to the end. You don’t have to buy it, just play along.”

“I don’t think so,” Leah said.

“Seriously, I want you to think about it.” Up to now, Xander had evinced glumness, chagrin, irritation at his absent colleagues, and disarming humor; now he wore what Leah decided must be his ‘earnest face’. “These people aren’t kidding around; they see what they’re doing as a sacred mission, even if most of ’em wouldn’t use those words, and they’re not gonna let you walk away till you’ve heard the whole spiel. You’re probably wishing right now you’d gone ahead and taken the blue pill … but it doesn’t work that way, not for Slayers, and they’ll keep after you. Long run, it’ll take less time and hassle to just do it their way, hear ’em out and then make up your own mind.”

“Forget it,” Leah told him. “That won’t be happening.”

Xander nodded as if unsurprised, and his smile seemed shadowed by something else. “Okay, it was a thought. I figured I’d at least try to do it the easy way.”

“So what’s the hard way?” Leah asked. “Or did your imagination run dry at ‘go back to kindergarten’?”

“No, I’ve still got a few possibilities we could look at.” Xander shook his head. “Why they decided I was the Obi-wan of the Slayer scene … Well, let me get something to eat, and then I’ll start laying it out for you.”

He had another can of soup, along with the inevitable root beer; she munched absently on some of the chips before resealing the bag. When he was done, he looked to her and said, “All right, I guess it’s time to get to it. I’d say the first thing I need to know is, what makes you different from other Slayers?”

“I thought we’d already covered that,” Leah said.

“No, sorry, I didn’t say it right. What I mean is, why are they treating you different? You don’t fit their program, but they’ve run across that before. There are other things they could have done when you said you wanted to leave, but instead they sent you to me. That shouldn’t have been their first choice — heck, I shouldn’t have been their fifth choice — so I have to wonder what it was about you that made them decide to go this route.”

“Can’t help you there,” Leah answered firmly. “I’ve already told you what I know.”

Xander regarded her with some doubt. “There’s not anything that might offer any clues?”

“I’ve told you what I know,” she repeated. “If that’s not enough, then it’s not enough.”

“Mm.” He nodded. “Then maybe I should be asking another question. Why are you so against the idea of just finishing out their precious program, giving ’em what they want and then moving on? I can understand you not liking it, but why not just do it if it’s the fastest way to get ’em off your back?”

“Why should I?” Leah challenged him. “Why should I give them anything? Nobody asked if I wanted this. Their program, sure, they made that sound like I had a choice — only I wonder now what would have happened if I’d said no, thanks — but where did I get a choice about being a Slayer in the first place? I was the one who had to deal when the whole world went nuts around me. And I did, I made it work, and then they come in all know-it-all, laying on rules that don’t make any damn sense, preaching at me over things you can see they don’t have the first idea about —!”

She stopped. Xander waited. At last he said, “What kinds of things?”

Leah shook her head. “Things. Nothing in particular. It’s just the whole attitude. I’d had enough, and I said so.”

Xander watched her, considering. “You won’t go back.”

“Not a chance,” she confirmed. “No way.”

“And you won’t tell me why. Even though there is a reason.”

“I’ve told you what I know,” she said for the third time.

“Yeah.” Xander sighed. “Nineteen years old, and you’ve got all the answers. You think they don’t have anything to teach you? You think you can take on the world by yourself?”

“I did okay before they found me,” Leah said. “In fact, I’d have to say I did better when it was just me.”

“Oh, yeah,” Xander said. “You’re a Slayer, baddest of all bad-asses.” His expression was suddenly harder than she would have believed that face could hold. “Do you have any idea how many little girls like you I’ve buried?”

Leah laughed. “You?”

“I’m not saying I took ’em down myself,” Xander said. “But Slayers aren’t invincible. They die, like anybody else. From being outmatched. From being overconfident. Sometimes just from bad luck, or maybe the thing they’re fighting gets exactly the wrong moment of good luck —”

“I’ve heard the lectures,” Leah said. “And you know what? every one of them came from somebody who wasn’t a Slayer, or from a Slayer who hadn’t had to face half the things I did.”

Xander sat silently, studying her with a gaze that never quite focused on her and yet gave the eerie impression of missing nothing. “You’re right on one thing,” he said. “Lectures won’t do it. Come with me.”

He stood and walked away, toward one of the craggy rock ridges that looked down over the sheep meadows. After a moment she followed. He stopped a few feet back from the edge. “You see that spot down there?” he asked. “There at the base, where those wildflowers are, the little patch shaped like Angelina Jolie’s lips?”

“I see it,” she said.

Xander picked up a loose stone, held it out over the edge. “Keep watching that spot,” he said, and released the stone.

Leah kept her eyes on the spot indicated, Xander had taken a half-step back as he let go of the stone and she moved up into the space he had vacated, watching as the stone struck a few inches from the patch of flowers —

There was a harsh crackling sound, a tremendous impact squarely in the center of her spine, and the world went dark.

*                *               *

She was back in the hut when she woke, and she lay for several minutes on the rough cot, mind drifting dazedly. Then reality came back to her in an instant, and she heaved herself upright and out the door, looking around for her host, fists clenched and aching to dispense retribution. He wasn’t in sight, but just outside the door she saw a sheet of paper anchored by another of the loose stones. She picked it up and read:

Stun gun, charge calibrated for Slayer physiology.
That’s one.
Come and get me.

The bicycle was gone. On the ground between the hut and the low ridge where he had sandbagged her, an arrow (formed of the ubiquitous stones) pointed the way: east-northeast, if placement of the sun meant true west. Leah went back into the hut, found the bottled water Xander had mentioned, drank one bottle. Then, carrying another, she set out running in the direction indicated by the arrow.

She could have headed for the town instead. She had considered it: not due to fear — if he’d wanted to hurt her, he could have done it easily while she was out — but just from unwillingness to play whatever game he might have in mind. He had stung her pride, however, added to which was that he was probably right about the new Council organization continuing to dog her. Much simpler, and far more gratifying, to convince him of her capabilities. The fact that doing so would include showing him emphatically that blindsiding her didn’t mean he’d beaten her … well, that didn’t suck, either.

She didn’t push at full speed; he wouldn’t have gone far, he intended that she overtake him. She just didn’t want to wait any longer than she had to. While she ran, she made herself assess what had happened. Okay, he’d gotten her, taken her cold. “That’s one.” No point in denying it … but what had he accomplished by it? So far as she could see, he’d only managed to 1) get about an hour’s lead on her, and 2) tick her off thoroughly.

Unable to find a satisfying answer, she let it go. She would ask when she caught up with him … and he’d answer, count on it.

He was waiting at a relative low spot, under a stand of trees just on the other side of the road. The bicycle was leaning against one of the trees, and Leah realized that, though he had sent her overland, Xander had made better time by following a loop of the road. “So,” he called to her as she came down the slope of the hill. “What makes you different from other Slayers?”

She stopped, maybe fifteen yards distant. “I made my own way,” she told him. “I made it as a Slayer without them, and they just can’t stand that.”

Xander shook his head. “Nope. That’s not it.”

“Really?” Leah took a step toward him. “What makes you so sure?”

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Xander said. He reached out to take hold of a staff that rested against the tree next to him: six feet of polished hardwood, tapering slightly to either end, the classical bo of several different martial arts. “Whatever it is, it goes beyond solo Slayer ops. You’re hiding something, and that’s what I want. So, one more time: what makes you different? What’s your secret?”

She snorted scornfully. “Not asking much, are you?” She eyed the staff, and her mouth twisted into a sneer. “You expect me to open up on the first date, you’ll need more wood than that.”

“Well, ya works with what ya gots.” Xander slid into a slanting stance, rotating the staff to direct one end toward her. “Ready whenever you are, macho gal.”

Instinct, ancient foreknowledge rather than learning, told her that he held the staff with easy familiarity, but not any legacy of formal training. It didn’t matter. There was more to this guy than showed on the surface, but he could have been the greatest staff-fighter who ever lived and it still wouldn’t have been enough. He couldn’t match her for speed, no living human could, besides which she could go straight through his attack if she wanted, take any hit full-on and still have more than enough left to break his weapon and him. “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it does me,” she said, and charged.

He stood his ground (just meant she’d reach him a fraction of a second sooner than if he ran), and she gathered herself for a running leap and the mossy ground gave way beneath her feet. She stumbled, reached, but her hands, too, went through the earth before her and she went down, there was a deep reverberating Two-o-ong! and a shadow fell over her. She fought her way upright, too late, folds of net snared and tangled her, and somehow Xander reached through the close-set cords. The stun-gun crackled, her muscles locked, and she went down again.

Xander squatted beside her. “That’s two,” he said. He must have dialed down the charge this time, because she was still conscious, but no amount of will could give her control of her body. “Weird, isn’t it? You Slayer, me human, but I’ve taken you down twice now. Two times I could have killed you, if that’s what I wanted. But how can this be? You’re the one who has all the answers, and I’m one of the bunch that doesn’t have anything to teach you. Yep, it’s a mystery.”

“Bite me,” she gasped. Meaningless, humiliating, but she wouldn’t surrender.

“Not me,” he told her. “Totally not my deal. But you’d be a tasty treat for a lot of things out there. So I guess that means you’re alive by luck: luck that I don’t have a sweet tooth for Slayer yumminess.”

He leaned in toward her. “I’m trying to build up to a point here, but you’re not exactly an eager student, so I don’t know if I’m reaching you. I’ve asked it before, but you need to seriously think about answering. What makes you different?”

Then the charge hit again, and again she was gone.

*                *               *

This time he had pulled her in beneath the trees, with the netting folded under her for padding. As before, her awakening was accompanied by some minutes of mental blurriness, and she had to study the scene for some time before her mind would function well enough to make any sense of it. Finally the fragmented parts of her clicked together, and she looked around her with perplexity and slow understanding.

Trenches. Trenches had been dug in the ground leading to his position: three of them, two and a half feet across, a foot and a half deep, and then thin sheets of moss laid over a framework of light branches to conceal them. Not a trap, not even much of an obstacle, but enough to trip her during a rash charge; and, in the seconds before she recovered, sapling catapults had launched the weighted edges of the net that had tangled her.

This time there was no note. Only the arrow.

Leah had been angry before. Now, no question about it, she was shaken. When had he had time to set this up? Certainly not while she was unconscious at the hut, not counting his own travel time. So he must have arranged it in advance. He’d been ahead of her the whole time. He’d already beaten her, twice. Her mind shied away from the thought of what the fast-maturing cruitl larvae would have done to her if she’d lost focus even for a second, or how quickly she would have died if she’d let Gutrick slip so disastrously inside her guard …

This guy was better than good. He was terrifying. And he didn’t even seem to be trying hard.

Disturbed, chastened, and — much as she hated to admit it — frightened, Leah followed the arrow.

It had been set beside the road, so she stayed on the road. It helped to not have to keep a bearing, to let her thoughts run loose. He had kept coming back to it. The secret. The thing that made her different. He wouldn’t quit, she could see that. He’d stay after her until he had it from her.

And she wouldn’t, couldn’t tell him.

*                *               *

This time, when she saw him, she stopped. He had stayed with the road, and he sat now with his knees up, leaning back against a grassy swell of earth by the roadside. He was in the open, almost half a mile away, and even with eyesight somewhat better than would have been rated perfect in a human, Leah couldn’t positively confirm that it was him. All the same, she had no doubt. As she watched, he raised one hand to his face in a familiar motion, and a glint of sun off a smooth surface told her he was taking a drink from a water bottle or canteen or soda can.

There was nothing within several hundred feet of him that could conceal a snare. Probably he had picked the spot precisely to allow her to see this. It was a challenge: nope, no reprise, I’ll hit you with something brand-new … and, even knowing, you still won’t be able to stop it.

Maybe so. But she’d be a fool to ignore past experience. She started toward him, determined that, even if she couldn’t protect against the unforeseen, she would at least be on guard for what she did know.

He was human. He was unarmed except for the staff. She had killed things with ten times his strength, a hundred times his ferocity. So why did she feel like someone walking naked toward a hungry lion?

No, worse. A lion, she could handle.

As she came within a quarter-mile of his position, he stood unhurriedly. Leah slowed but kept on, watching him closely. He picked up the staff, leaning on it rather than taking any kind of martial stance. Maybe he was just being as cautious as she was trying to be; even at a full-out sprint, it would take her at least thirty seconds to reach him, but being already on his feet would give him that much more lead time … She didn’t believe it. He had a reason, there was always a reason for whatever he did, and she kept her eyes fixed on him as she continued her approach, alert for any motion that might warn of another harsh surprise.

The impact drove her breath from her lungs, slamming her to the side with the brutal force of a giant fist, and she was struck again before her brain fully registered the booming report that had accompanied the first blow. Then a third, and she was down and she’d been shot! She pushed herself to hands and knees, desperate, bewildered, and again was smashed flat, and finally she understood that she was being fired on from three sides, but her body was too wrecked to act on the knowledge. She tried anyhow, being beaten was one thing but quitting was something else entirely, and was rewarded with yet another round, this one directly into the pit of her stomach, and she vomited explosively and went face-down in the road.

He was beside her, Xander, he turned her to her side and watched with what she could recognize as anxiety until, after forever, her ravaged diaphragm relaxed and she could breathe again. Then, letting out a breath of his own, Xander said, “So what is it? How are you different from other Slayers? What’s the thing you don’t want anybody to know?”

And Leah, vanquished at last — not just beaten, but defeated — lying in the dust of the road and in her own vomit, began helplessly to cry.
 

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