Fool of the Devil II-6 (Patreon)

The hunting high hadn’t gone away even a full twenty-four hours later. It never really did. Not now. It just… slowed. Curled up under his ri

The hunting high hadn’t gone away even a full twenty-four hours later. It never really did. Not now. It just… slowed. Curled up under his ribs, twitchy and smug, like a cat licking its claws clean. Xander slouched deeper against the library table, skin buzzing low and lazy, like his nerves were still catching up to the body count. He wasn’t smiling. Not really. But the ghost of one kept twitching at the edge of his mouth like muscle memory.

Willow leaned into his side—soft, warm, breathing easy—and his brain went static. Vanilla lotion, strawberry shampoo, cinnamon gum. She always smelled like she was trying to soothe the air around her. It helped even as his stomach fingers twitched as they reached toward her waist.

Don’t.

Buffy’s voice snapped across his skull like a thrown ruler, Xander blinking as he rejoined the room.

“So there I was, minding my own business, when this guy shows up. Bleach-blonde hair, leather coat, big attitude.”

Willow tilted toward her, hair falling in her face again. Xander’s fingers itched to tuck it back. He didn’t.

“And?”

“And…And-and he was British,” Buffy said, half-stammering as she shot a look Giles way like she expected the man to know him, which… Xander couldn’t help but snort at deep down. “He threatened me. Called me the Slayer. Which…” the once-cheerleader turned demonic killing machine shrugged, tilting her head to the side, “fair, but it wasn’t casual. No, no, no, it was like he’d been waiting.”

Something tight coiled in Xander’s chest, fast and instinctive, and Xander tried to shove it down, ignore it for something else. He didn’t mean to open his mouth but he did anyway, relying on instincts older than the ones he’d been getting used to. “Oooooh, big scary bloodsucker giving our resident Slayers both the heebies and the jeebies,” he said with a smirk.

Buffy rolled her eyes, waving off Xander’s words with one hand. “No, seriously. He wasn’t like the usual ones. He had this… thing. Like he didn’t just want to fight me. He wanted me.”

The coil twisted again in his gut, all sorts of feelings fighting him. Xander’s jaw ticked tight and, as usual, he made it a joke. “Did you hear it guys? Who could believe it? A vampire with a personal Buffy agenda. Can you imagine such a crazy wild topsy-turvy concept?” He paused, eyes widening as sarcastically as he could manage. “Wait—how’s Captain Hair Gel these days?”

The glare she shot him could’ve burned the smirk off his face, sharp enough to dust a vampire if it were a hunk of wood His fingers drifted down Willow’s spine, lazy and deliberate.

The scent of old books shifted—leather, dust, and nervous British tea—right before Giles sighed. Xander didn’t look at him. He already knew that sound. It was the we’re-all-about-to-die-but-must-do-it-politely sigh.

“You didn’t recognize him?”

“Nope,” Buffy said, popping the “p” like it owed her lunch money. “New guy. Pretty sure.”

“Hm.”

The door creaked. He heard it first—no surprise—and the hairs on his arms stood up before his brain caught up. The steps were wrong. Too quiet. Measured. One heartbeat, not human-speed. Too slow. Too clean. Angel.

The scent hit next. Not blood. Not quite. Not fresh. Something older. Penance baked in leather. Guilt bottled in Catholic silence.

Angel stepped inside like he owned the dramatic entrance industry.

“Angel!” Buffy and Giles said in unison—one worried, one pissed.

Xander grinned. “Speak of the Devil.”

Angel’s eyes cut toward him, sharp and knowing. “Pardon?”

Dumb. That was dumb. Angel already knew enough of his secret, he didn’t need the guy figuring out the rest. “No—nothing. Just, uh… I’m psychic. And hilarious. Mostly hilarious.”

Angel stared through him like Xander was a slightly offensive stain on the carpet.

“Right,” Angel said, already over it as he turned back to face Buffy, the blond girl blinking as dark eyes turned her way. “The vampire you saw. His name is Spike.”

Spike. Was that it?

“…Wait… did you wait untile the most dramatic time to walk in?” Xander asked, too-late sarcasm barely masking the unease curling in his gut. “How long have you been waiting out in the hallway, Angie?”

Angie didn’t bother responding. The guy moved like he brought his own soundtrack, stepping forward to near the group. Giles stiffened, Buffy’s jaw tightened slightly, and Willow’s foot shifted half an inch closer to his. Xander clocked it all.

“Spike?” Buffy echoed. “What kind of name is that?”

Angel didn’t flinch. “The kind that comes with a reputation,” he responded, voice low, almost like if he said it any louder it might summon the guy.

“He’s dangerous, Buffy. Really dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” Xander asked, not blinking. “Like leather-jacket-and-an-ego dangerous or actual ‘you might die’ dangerous? The guy’s got the name of Tom the Cat’s biggest bully, other than Jerry.”

Angel finally looked at him. Real look, not a pass-through. “He’s killed Slayers before. Two. Drained them dry. And got stronger for it.”

The words shouldn’t have landed the way they did. But they did. They fell like bricks. Two Slayers. Not victims. Not civilians. Slayers.

Xander didn’t have a joke for that. Fighting one Slayer was iffy, honestly. They were natural demon slayers chosen by Mother Gaia by her daughters or whatever some of Giles books said. Two sounded like a death wish.

Not Buffy. No.

“So.. anything else we should know? Anything else important?” Buffy asked, tone even and voice clear.

Angel didn’t say much. The vampire simply paused for a few seconds, looking down, before his eyes flicked her way again. “Don’t underestimate him.”

Then the guy left. Literally, Angel just… turned and left the library, coat flaring out like he’d timed it. A second later, the door swung shut behind him like a cue.

Everyone else sat in silence.

Xander wasn’t listening to silence. He was mentally cataloging exits, reactions, angles.

His hands curled into fists, then relaxed. Twice. Automatically.

I’ve got to get better at dramatic exits.

If he was going to be a Devil, he might as well make it look good.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The stake came together clean under his fingertips. One of nearly three dozen he’d personally carved since meeting the ol’ Five Foot Fang Fighter the United States Government officially knew as Buffy Summers.

His hands worked smoother now—precise, practiced, like they’d skipped the part where he was supposed to think about it. Wood shaved off in spirals and curled like smoke, the scent of carved wood sharp and chemical-free, cleaner than it should be. He liked it more than he should have.

Willow and Cordelia weren’t talking, not really. The two of them were just existing nearby; Cordy a spiked perfume cloud of hairspray and old money anxiety, loud even when she wasn’t speaking, whule Willow was warmth and life, smelling like the sugar cookies they had shared together at lunch, vanilla lotion, cinammon lip gloss, and a hint of nervous sweat sunken into cotton.

No need to be nervous, Wills, he thought to himself, eyeing yet another stake mid-carve. Xan-Man’s on the case.

Buffy was off trying to make Snyder less murderable with store-brand cookies, which was… endearing, in a death-wish kind of way. The mental image of her wielding a plate of Chips Ahoy like holy relics almost made him smile. Almost.

“Ugh, why do I have to do this?” Cordelia’s voice cut through the air like a nail file through patience. “I don’t even like vampires.”

He didn’t look up, but the grin still found its way to his mouth—default setting. “That’s kind of the point, Cordy.”

Queen Cordelia Chase, First of Her Name, Royal Bitch of Sunnydale High rolled her eyes so hard they nearly left her orbital cavities and possibly even orbit itself, then threw her half-done stake on the table like it had insulted her father’s bank account. “I’m not doing it. I’ll just scream and let Buffy handle the rest.”

Willow’s eyes didn’t move from her stake, the girl not bothering to even look up. “Wouldn’t be the worst plan we’ve had,” she muttered, sharpening her stake with a slow, focused rhythm.

Xander let out a laugh, a low chuckle, but the sound came out dry and the feeling didn’t sit right in his chest. His brain wouldn’t stop pinging back to Angel’s voice—two Slayers, dead. Gone. Just… gone.

The thought of Buffy like that—silent, slumped—overlapped with Willow’s torn open neck and for one sharp second, he saw them both lying on the floor, still and cold.

Five fingers clenched around the sharpened hunk of wood in his fingers, a hand strong enough to tear through a ribcage and bend iron pipes threatening to splinter the wood between his fingers.

“Can we focus, please?” Giles didn’t look up, but his voice cracked down like chalk snapping on a board.

“Focusing,” Xander said quickly, spinning the stake in his fingers like he could pretend he nearly hadn’t broken his cover. “Totally focused.” The point caught the light and he nodded to himself at a job so very well done. “So. This vampire rave night—Saint Vigorous or whatever.”

He knew the real name, he wasn’t dumb enough to forget something like that, especially not something that might get him killed if he wasn’t careful. But poking holes in Giles’ patience was one of his few joys in this life that didn’t involve violence and spending money on designer clothes and he’d be damned if he was going to give that up. Xander felt himself reel internally as that thought crossed his mind. Satan on the shitter, I sound like Cordy.

Trying to wipe that traumatic realization from his mind, he turned back to Giles with a forced smile.

“You’re saying it’s like Christmas, but with more neck trauma?”

The sigh that left Giles’ lips was one that Xander had to assume came free with being an official Watcher, patent and all. British, heavy, worn-in like tweed and quiet disappointment, the type of sigh that could only be made with a tea-drinker’s accent. “Vigeous. And yes, their abilities will be greatly enhanced. Thwy will be stronger. Faster. Harder to kill.”

“Awesome,” Cordelia muttered, flipping her hair. “Because vampires weren’t already disgusting little nightmares.”

“So…” Xander resisted the urge to walk over and rub Willow’s back as she spoke up, his best friend biting her bottom lip, “we… we do what now? Just wait?”

“If we’re smart,” Giles said, voice tightening, “we’ll be ready before they are.”

“Yeah,” Xander snorted, “because ‘smart’ and ‘ready’ are the two words I always associate with… us.” He gestured vaguely at the pile of splinters, Cordelia’s scowl, his own twitchy hands.

Giles opened his mouth, probably to scold or explain, but it didn’t matter. A crash from the hallway snapped all their attention towards the library doors and the sound of shouting that followed — close, panicked, human — kept their eyes locked that way.

Nobody moved at first, shock enough to keep them still for a second or two, just long enough for the air to go still as Xander’s eyes narrowed.

Then everything lurched.

Buffy burst through the library doors, hair wild, eyes wide, breathing like she’d sprinted from a war zone. “They’re here.”

Two words. No drama. No context. Just they’re here.

Giles blinked. “Already?”

“Blondie’s not into foreplay,” she snapped.

Xander’s grin was half-bent as the words hit his brain, mouth already half-open so he could be excused for barely being ready when the joke fell out without his explicit say-so. “We still talking about Spike, or did someone play hide the sausage with Senor Broody?”

Buffy’s glare could have snapped a table leg, her eyes saying not the time so loudly he had to wonder if telepathy was a Devil power he missed in the handbook.

Then the window exploded. 

Shards of safety glass caught in the fluorescent lights like glitter on a crime scene. Vampires poured through the breach like someone had kicked open hell’s fire escape. Not one. Not five. Dozens.

The scent hit like a slap to the sinuses. Not just dust—rot. Something swampy and cooked and wrong. Snake spit and sun-baked rotten meat.

Culebra.

His brain supplied the word automatically. 

He’d read about them in the Rosen Queen archives after spending the last couple weeks dealing with their desert-dust butts. South American snake-vamps. Faster, twitchier, easier to kill but harder to avoid. Not Angel’s kind, not the over-populated European bat-faces. Not as strong. But easily just as mean.

His stomach turned, nose wrinkling and teeth baring in a grimace all at the same time. “Do these guys ever bathe?” It was out before he could leash it.

“What?” Mr British turned his way, confusion clear on his face at the words.

A blonde little dynamo was already rushing forward before anyone else even started moving. In no time at all, petite hands grabbed the nearest stake on the table, and Buffy Summers was already barking orders while half of Sunnydale High was stuck in limbo. “Giles, science room. I need you to get the adults out. Now.”

Giles nodded and moved, the librarian booking it quite fast for a man who read Latin for fun. Joyce and the other parents stumbled behind him, dragged by panic.

Willow and Cordelia bolted for the supply closet, the two of them moving as if their lives depended on it, which… fair enough, yeah. Ms. Calendar was already on Giles’ heels, eyes wild, hair falling loose.

Xander stood, and something inside him stood with him as the devil in him tretched, rolling it’s metaphorical shoulder. You wanted this, it whispered.

He told it to shut up, but it was already pulling blood to the surface, turning muscle tight and twitchy.

The door. The windows. The exits. The table. The stakes.

Everything mapped itself in under a second.

Let’s go, then.

“Alexander LaVelle Harris!”

The voice cut through the chaos like a rusty saw through meat—familiar, late, and absolutely the worst possible timing.

His head snapped up, eyes wide and flickering red on instinct, before he pulled himself back and registered exactly what the flying fuck was going on, almost unwilling to believe the voice. You’re joking.

“Alex!” Red hair stumbled over in high heels she never wore, a woman in a black dress that he knew was one of the nicest she had in her closet.

The second his brain caught up, it hit harder than the adrenaline: Jessica Harris, standing in the goddamn library, clutching her purse like it was a weapon or maybe a crutch. Lipstick smudged, eyes glassy, with that classic Harris combo of Too Much and Not Enough, this day was somehow becoming way worse than he ever expected it to.

Of course.

Of course the universe decided that it hated him, that raw Xander luck kicking in. Of course tonight of all nights. Of course the one time she bothered to give a damn about school, the world was actively ending in the next room over.

“I come to your school for once, and this happens?” she said, loud and slurred around the edges like a half-sober accusation. The smell hit Xander in the chest—cheap wine, cheaper perfume, and that old familiar reek of disappointment that had steeped into the carpet of their house like mold. It was basically her cologne at this point.

His mother swayed from side to side, blinking slow as she tried to focus. Xander felt his eye twitch, that flare threatening to go red again. I lost my friend, I’m not losing my mom too.

Buffy, already halfway across the room, barked without even turning around, “You—go get Angel!”

Xander froze, brain twitching as he was caught in that space between ten different instincts. Protect his friends. Protect his mom. Hunt. Run. Bite. Something about teeth. His jaw clenched, pulse tripping.

He looked from Jessica to the advancing vampires, then back again. She looked… wrong here. Like she’d walked into the wrong play and refused to leave the stage.

“Can’t,” he muttered. “Got a family situation.”

Buffy didn’t wait, too focused to even hear what he said back. “Now!”

She was gone before he finished not-moving, a blur of blonde rage and sharpened wood. Ms. Calendar cursed and shoved another chair in front of the door.

He moved fast, quicker than her blood alcohol content probably deserved as he grabbed Jessica’s wrist—gently, carefully, like he wasn’t holding back strength that could crush brick. “Mom, behind me. Now.”

She didn’t argue, just let herself get pulled along, still holding that purse like it might bite. A Culebra lunged, and he ducked low, the thing whiffing above them with a hiss like a busted radiator. Jessica stumbled and he yanked her back upright without thinking about it.

“Is thiiiiis some kind of school play?” she demanded, half-gasp, words leaving her mouth slurred and lazy. “Because it’s terrible.”

He didn’t answer. Just dragged her down the hall, scanning corners and doors like his brain was playing Doom on fast-forward. The devil in him was vibrating under his skin like a tuning fork.

Just get her out. Then go break something.

He shoved her through a classroom door, a little harder than he meant to. She staggered, caught herself on a desk. Her eyes went wide. Focused.

“What is going on?” she snapped, and for a second the alcohol thinned out of her voice. “And since when are you—what the hell was that out there?”

He closed the door.

That was the whole answer. He didn’t have time to build a lie she wouldn’t buy anyway.

“Stay here,” he said through his teeth. “Lock the door. Don’t come out until I say.”

“Alexander—”

He didn’t wait to hear it.

The guilt hit halfway back to the library, thick and cold in his chest like he’d swallowed ice chips. But under it—deeper—was relief. He didn’t want her to see what he was when the gloves came off.

The vampire hisses were sharper now, layered. Too many as the hallway was already filling with the snake-faces, all of them built like runners.

Runners with no subtlety. Fast, mean, dumb.

Which meant easy to kill.

The first one came at him like a linebacker with fangs. Xander ducked, dodging its first blow and spun around. With a grunt, he lunged forward himself and slammed a flying knee into the bloodsucker’s back. The thing’s spine crunched and its ribcage gave way as Xander’s fist followed.

Five fingers flew straight through sternum and, with a loud wet hiss, the thing turned to dust.

“Let’s count to three,” he murmured.

Two more rushed him. One left, one right. They flanked like they’d practiced it, which they hadn’t. He let them.

He burst towards the left one first. It swung its arm toward him and Xander grabbed it and twisted hard. Bone snapped like a twig, the Culebra’s arm giving way easier than any local vampire, at least half as easy as it let out a scream, high, shrill and stupid-sounding.

“Oh, shut up!” He staked the thing through the heart and twisted a little just to be mean, dust spraying in his face.

For the right one, he spun and kicked its knees out before the thing could lunge towards him and take his back. Before it could even hit the floor, he swung the freshly sharpened stake down and impaled the bloodsucker.

Dust, again. Desert-like and rancid, puffed a cloud in his mouth, nose, lashes.

“One. Two. Three,” he grinned, voice scratchy with vampire dust, as he did his best to pull off something Transylvanian and ridiculous, old Sesame Street memories coming in useful. “Three dead vampires, ah-ah-ah.”

The smell was turning into a problem. Not the blood—he could tune that out. Not the Culebra either. No, it was the mix. Vampire dust and snake-stink and whatever the hell kind of rank dried-out meat stenc that hung to them like deodorant was the direct opposite of a treat.

Worst of all, it was clinging to his clothes like regret.

Laundry day’s gonna be fun. He’d need at least two showers. Maybe holy water, even if that might burn like lava, but he wouldn’t mind if it got this stink off him.

But he kept moving. Took out two more on his way back to the library, bodies falling apart into ash and cheap metaphors. Five down now, at least a dozen more to go. Whoever this Spike guy was, he rolled deep and didn’t believe in mano-a-mano anything.

Hell, the guy probably bought vampires in bulk.

The fight wasn’t wearing on him—physically, at least. His muscles still felt coiled, steady. But the rush… that was getting harder to ignore. That electric throb crawling under his skin every time something died. The devil in him humming like it was warming up for a solo.

He ducked into the classroom he’d just left behind, shut the door fast, back pressed against the cheap wood. The silence inside was instant with no one else to breathe, no hum of overhead lights, no Winslow classroom chaos. Just heartbeat and fluorescent buzz and the dull thud of blood trying to settle in his ears before he started flaring with Devil energy.

“Those… those people.”

The voice hit like a punch to the sternum. He almost forgot…

Jessica Harris sat behind the teacher’s desk, arms crossed, like she was waiting for someone to tell her this parent-teacher night was over. Even half-drunk and trying to look stern, she couldn’t hide her shock. She was pale, red-rimmed eyes wide as she shook.

Not hysterical, but terrified still.

He blinked once.

“They had—”

“Faces like snakes.” He finished it for her. “Yeah. You get used to it.”

Her eyes locked on his. No wine-glaze this time. She was actually there, and that was worse.

“You’ve seen them before.”

Not a question.

Xander didn’t answer, unsure what else to say when he already answered that. He couldn’t blame her for that, his mom was drunk of course. Still, she was looking at him like she saw him for the first time and he hated it. Like maybe she’d missed the memo that denial was the family brand.

He scratched the back of his neck. His fingers were shaking. Not from fear. Not from her.

“I gotta go, Mom,” he said, already halfway to the door.

“Alexander—”

Nope.

The door closed behind him, Xander wishing he could click the lock from outside.

He didn’t want to hear the rest. Didn’t want the words. Or whatever came after them. Whatever truth or lie she was about to dig up. He didn’t need her in this, didn’t need to be the kind of guy who made space for a mother during monster season.

The devil wasn’t interested in therapy.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Jessica Harris sat with her purse in her lap like it had answers she hadn’t liked. Her fingers twitched once, hovered over the zipper, then settled on the leather like it might disappear if she held tight enough.

She didn’t open the flask.

Just clenched her jaw and whispered to the dark:

“Just like his father.”