Fool of the Devil II-8 (Patreon)

There was something to be said for trusting the plan.

Granted, he and Angel didn’t have much of one, other than get back as soon as possible and treat Spike like a pinata, but it was still at least the outline of one.

Unfortunately, nobody else seemed to have any respect for their plan.It was almost funny, actually.By the time he and Angel had circled around back, both of them in mutual agreement to treat Spike like a bottle-blond punching bag, they’d shown up just in time to see everyone already stumbling out of the auditorium into the parking lot, the vampires already having run for the hills in the half-minute it took for them to double. Dozens of parents and students, bruised but alive, were all squinting under those parking lot lights.

At worst, they looked only half-dead, but half-dead was a best-case scenario in the ol’ ‘Dale.

Principal Snyder was there, the tiny fascist troll had his bald head absolutely gleaming with sweat as he went on and on about something stupid; his voice just scraping against Xander’s eardrums.

The man had almost even tried to grab Xander, hands reaching out probably to blame him for something or another. A step back and a hard look was enough to make the principal flinch, a low rumble slipping out of Xander’s throat as he kept walking. "Stay outta my way."

It didn’t take long before he found his mom slumped outside the classroom he’d left her in, still sloshed and clutching her purse with both hands like it held the last bottle of bottom-shelf wine in the town. Mrs. Summers was nice enough to drive her home, which meant one less problem for him to worry about. 

For tonight, anyway. 

Tomorrow’s problems were for tomorrow’s Xander.

Speaking of Summers…

Xander plopped his chin on his raised palm, staring at the only daughter of the Summers clan sitting across from him in the library. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed their staticky song, slowly begging to be replaced whenever the custodians got around to it. The front of his jeans were still damp from hitting the grass outside, knuckles scraped raw from punching brick to dust.

But none of that was important right now.

No, he only had one thing on his mind.

"So your mom scared off Spike with an axe?"

Buffy was picking at a splinter, the thing lodged deep in her arm. The girl didn’t even bother looking up as her voice came up flat as a balloon. "I mean... technically?"

Xander couldn’t help his laugh, the sound sharp and loud as it bounced off the walls and books to hit his ears. "Wow, go Mrs. S. Can't believe the slayage runs in the family."

"Yes, indeed.” The sound of a familiar throat being cleared had Xander turn around to lock onto Giles standing at the head of the table, glasses in one hand, and yet another leather-bound monster manual in the other. “But good news aside, I have plenty of bad."

"Of course you do." Xander tipped his head back, the Imp at the table pressing his hands together like a priest begging the Big G for a miracle. "Why wouldn't you, for once, be the bearer of good? Is there a rule somewhere? Little bit of fine print in the Watcher's handbook? 'Clause 4B: Thou shalt not bring tidings of joy'?"

Nobody laughed. Not even so much as a smile, which was just… hurtful.

Buffy kept picking at fabric, eyes still down. Willow was chewing on her thumbnail, eyes glazed as she was clearly somewhere else; probably cruising altitude. Queen C the Cantankerous was doing her part in contributing to the overall mood as well by examining a chip in her nail polish like it had personally called her middle-class.

Ms. Calendar was almost worse than everyone else, considering she just looked... tired. 

Not distracted, not bored, not sullen; just tired, the computer teacher slumped in her chair with her sweater still on.

Xander cleared his throught, lips pursed together. Is this thing on?

Giles didn't even crack, the man just rolling his eyes as he plopped the book in his hands down on the table. “As I mentioned earlier,” the Watcher flipped the book open, not even bothering to ease in as he got down to both the nitty and the gritty, “the news I received from a certain Council-aligned seer was cryptic but undoubtedly… concerning.” The fake-librarian slid his glasses back on as his eyes swept the table, as if waiting for questions. None came, and barely anyone even looked his way; Ms. Calendar being the only one aside from Xander who actually seemed to be paying all that much attention.

"The message,” Giles rapped the table beside the book, three hard taps as Buffy, Willow and Cordelia looked up with each one, “was as follows: 'Sammael. Lucifer. Ash-Shaytan. Six. Six. Six.'"

Xander’s eyes went just a little bit wider, a feeling like electricity going up and down his spine as he suddenly sat up straight. Sam? 

Buffy frowned, finally looking up from her sleeve. "Okay, so... what does it mean?"

Giles opened his mouth for a few seconds and then just closed it, a hand coming up to rub his chin. “...unclear.”

Oh, pull the other one, Mr. English. Xander could almost taste the deceit; it wasn’t much but he could tell the man definitely knew something. 

"Lucifer?” Xander’s attention split for a second as Willow finally spoke up, his eyes sliding over to his oldest friend. “Like... the devil?"

A pair of green eyes landed right on him as Xander shifted in his seat, the wood groaning under his weight. He could feel the Summers Stare aimed right at his skull and he wasn’t entirely sure why. Please tell me it’s not the Slayer Sense. 

"Xander?" Her voice was quiet, a bit too quiet for Buffy. "You doing okay?"

Xander looked her way, a grin forced wide on his face as he tried his best to look confused and amused. "Y-yeah, why wouldn’t I be, Buffster? Just… just the devil talk, y’know. Was raised Catholic, kinda. Sunday school flashbacks. All that fire and brimstone stuff just gives me the willies."

“Ohh…” Willow’s hand rested on his arm, his friend smiling up at him as she leaned in for a side hug. “Xander, I’m here for you.”“Same, Wills.”

Buffy stared his way for another second, mouth half-open like she wanted to say something, but whatever it is went unsaid as Giles went right back into his doom, and of course, gloom.

"Whatever this vision refers to, we can not dismiss that the events of tonight might bear some relation, and we were already caught off guard," the Watcher stared down at the book in front of him. "Vigilance is our utmost priority.."

Xander nodded slowly, face as blank and unsuspicious as he could make it. 

It was a bit of a challenge, though, doing his best to pull off casual yet concerned as Willow rubbed the top of his back with one hand. Thankfully, he didn’t need Nicolas Cage levels of talent to pull off concern considering his brain was all over the place right now. Sam. Sammael. Lucifer. Ash-Shaytan. 

He almost felt his eye twitch. The boss is… the devil… 

That wasn’t news, obviously.

No matter how much Sam said he wasn’t the Devil and simply called himself a Devil, he also had all three names of the Devil, so… so what?There was one question here, the only thing keeping him from opening his mouth and blabbing what he knew. Well, not the only thing, Buffy being a bit liberal with the lethality was definitely number one.

But the second thing keeping him from opening his mouth was one simple fact: the boss isn’t evil, right?Not as far as he could tell, as insane and stupid as that sounded. Maybe he’s the devil, but he has great benefits, though… Xander blinked.

He blinked a second time, mouth falling open just a little bit. Oh my god, I sound like I literally sold my soul to the devil.

Which he didn’t.

It was more of a trade, really.

Buffy let out a sigh, the sound deeply unfair as if all the weight of the world was only on her shoulders. "Vigilant. Right,” her voice scraped the word out a few syllables longer than it actually had as she slumped back in her chair. “Is one night off, like… I don’t know, too impossible? Is that too much to ask?"

One night off. Xander raised an eyebrow, half-wondering what Buffy had gotten up to the whole summer if she was complaining about the first week back in Sunnydale. 

“Seriously…” Cordelia’s groan hit that perfect pitch of rich girl suffering, all the ego and attitude that came packaged with lipstick that cost a minimum of fifty dollars. "Are we going to be here all night? I need my beauty sleep. I have a date next week."

"With who, Cordy?” The laugh burped out of him, Xander unable to stop it. “The mirror?"

The glare she sent his way would have stripped the skin off a lesser man. "With a college guy, for your information, Mr. Hopeless, someone mature. Not that you know what that’s like."

"Yeah, you're right," The words came out deadpan, mouth running on autopilot while the rest of him was busy not thinking about all those fun little names of the guy who literally owned Xander's soul. "I usually go for girls who can form a complete sentence without checking their reflection."

"Guys, can we not?" 

Willow's voice, small but still firm, managed to do him the favor of cutting into the noise in his skull. "People almost died. Again."

The room went quiet again, Willow looking at him with eyes wide and watery.

"Giles is right, kids,” Ms. Calendar’s voice was all smoke and rasp, sounding just as tired as she looked. “We need to focus, especially on this prophecy."

"Indeed.” Giles could only nod slowly.

Xander felt Buffy’s eyes on him again, but he didn’t even bother looking; the young Devil just tracing the wood grain running under his fingers as he pretended he didn’t know exactly who they were talking about. 

Pretended the devil himself wasn't his boss.

Goddamni-ow!

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Across town, while the high school licked its wounds, the Sunnydale Museum slept the sleep of a graveyard for things too important to throw away but too boring to look at.

He stood before the main attraction of the new exhibit. The Priestess of the Sun God. 

It was a nice piece, worth a solid B-minus for effort from whatever poor bastard they’d robbed it from.

Showtime.

He lifted a hand, a single index finger pointed at the sarcophagus’s main seal. A little pinprick of red light, hot and clean as a laser pointer, bloomed at the tip. He hummed a little half-melody, something that might have been a 90s alt-rock deep cut if you didn’t listen too close, and blew the light out like a candle flame.

A thin, crimson thread shot across the room and touched the seal.

It only took a second.

Well, more like three.

Then, the stone groaned; a deep grinding noise as the ancient lock, held by magic older than the United States, gave way and the heavy lid scraped back an inch.

The young Devil stepped back, arms clasped behind him, as he stood there in a red-and-black tracksuit. It was a deliberate choice, mostly because he didn’t feel like putting on a damn suit tonight, especially because he wasn’t in the office. 

The first sound was a dry, rasping crackle as a hand, skeletal and wrapped in decaying linen, clawed its way over the edge of the stone coffin. 

Then a head, more a skull with sunken eyes nothing but pits of shadow, rose; the body following behind, jerky and slow, held together by ancient bandages and sheer, primal instinct.

Good bone structure, the thought came with a smile, Samuel almost cracking his cool for a split second. A real beauty, once she’s rehydrated.

The mummy turned its head, the motion stiff, cracking as those empty sockets found him.

For a second, it just stared.

Then-

The lunge was surprisingly fast, the mummy crossing the ten feet between them in a heartbeat, claws aimed for his throat.

He didn’t move, just rolling his eyes as her hands closed around his neck, surprising strength to go with that papery skin. Her jaw unhinged, a dry, dusty hiss escaping as she bit down on his shoulder.

He felt… a tingle, a mild static shock to go with the faintest drain. Wow. If I stayed still all day, she might take a whole 1% out of me. He let her feed, deliberately throttling the flow of his Infernal Energy, feeding her just enough to prime the pump, not enough to blow the engine. A trickle, not a flood. No good in letting her pop like a blood-filled balloon. 

That would be messy. 

And a waste.

Blue eyes took in the scene in front of him silently as papery skin softened, plumped, and regained the rich, sun-kissed color of a living body. Sunken pits filled out, actual eyes returning where nothing once was. Hair, once dry and brittle, cascaded down her back in a thick, black wave.

The former mummy pulled back, a strangled gasp tearing from a throat that hadn't been used in half a millennium. She looked at her own hands—smooth, soft, alive—and then at him as he smiled back at her.

"What…" The sharp, rhythmic clicks of ancient Quechua left a voice that fit the mummy she had been far more than the girl that stood in front of him now. “What are you?”

Sammael answered in the same tongue, his devilish gift making it even easier than breathing. "Something of a…" He hummed for a full second. Gift of languages, sure, but there’s literally not a word for this. “... a big boss.”

She stumbled back, nearly tripping over her bandages. "You are no lord of my people."

Well, I didn’t call myself a lord either. "Your people are dust, sweetheart. Their gods are sleeping." He took a step forward, hands still clasped behind his back. "I'm just here to make you an offer."

"What… what did you do to me?" 

"You were running on empty, so I gave you a little top-up." He tilted his head, red dreadlocks falling over the already healing mark on his neck. "The real question is what you're going to do now.”

“I… I…”

“Well, I tell you,” his head tilted the other way, smile pursing his lips. “You’d kill a few security guards, drain them dry, then roam around trying to enjoy your returned life until a certain demonic hunter puts you down. It’s not a great long-term career strategy.” His smile widened into a grin. “No room to really scale that."

She stared at him, breathing still ragged even with her hunger sated for the next two weeks to come. "I don't… I don't want to kill." 

I know."

"But the hunger… "

"What if I told you I could fix that?" He didn’t bother to let her finish, voice playfully and subtly sing-song in the very same way he had long learned from so many conversations with Grampa Lucy. "What if I told you there was a way to have all the strength you need, without ever taking another human life?"

"You lie.” She shook her head. “That is not how it works."

"For you, it wasn't," he corrected gently. "For things like you. But working for me, you’ll find my company has… alternative food sources."

Hope, fragile but clear, bloomed in her eyes; the girl no different from a cornered animal being offered food. 

I mean, literally. All he had to do was keep his hand out.

"What is this… job?"

"Protection. Information. Occasionally making sure people who deserve it have a very, very bad day." He shrugged, a casual, teenage gesture. "The usual. You get a new life. A second chance. All you have to do is sign on the dotted line."

The mummy girl almost flinched back, eyes flickering away from him and back to the opened sarcaphogus behind her. "I…"

Silence did the work for him, the devil simply waiting for the inevitable.

As he expected, she took the only lifeline in front of her and gave a slow, shaky nod.

"Glad we could come to an arrangement.” If he could grin any wider without it being a threat, he would have. “Now, let’s get you out of those bandages and into something from this century. We have a brand to maintain." Sam paused, tapping his lips for a second as a question came to mind. "Ah, where are my manners? Mother wouldn’t be happy with me. Your name?"

Those eyes stared back at him; big, brown and far too innocent for the man-eating monster she really was.

"...Alma."