Xander's smile widened evilly, half-morphing into gleaming fangs as he stepped into the foyer. "Hiya, Buff! How ya doin'?"
She sagged back against the wall on trembling legs, sliding down the cold stone, her mind dimly recognizing that she was in shock. Seeing Giles as a vampire had been bad - had been horrible, really -and entirely unexpected, but seeing Xander now was almost worse. His had been the one life among her friends she'd hoped to save, the one Scooby Ganger she'd hoped to spare this terrible ordeal.
Ripper would have known that, her mind reminded her. He's psyching you out. But knowing it and dealing with it were two very different things.
She scooted nervously sideways across the flagstones as Xander approached, regaining enough presence of mind to latch onto the sword as she eased away from him. Xander knelt down next to Oz's body, the unnerving half-smile still on his face, and reached out to grab the werewolf by the hair. He pulled Oz's head up and let it fall back to the stone floor with a muffled thump. "Werewolf." He sniffed, making a face as he glanced over at Buffy. "The one animal in the world that doesn't taste like chicken." He stood up again and gave the body a desultory kick.
Buffy pushed herself up the wall, darting a quick look toward the hallway where she'd left Spike, but there was no sign of the other vampire. Guess I can't count on any help from that quarter, she thought, wondering again why the alliance with Spike had ever seemed like a good idea. Clearly she would have to take care of Xander by herself.
Keep him talking, advised a memory of Giles's patient voice from somewhere inside her head. Buy some time to choose your attack carefully. She licked her lips nervously and cast about for something to say. "D-did Ripper do this to you?" she asked shakily, mentally cursing the audible weakness in her tone.
Xander crossed his arms over his chest and smirked at her, seeming totally at ease though he was entirely unarmed against her sword and stakes. "Ripper? Hmm...oh, you mean Giles, don't you?"
Her jaw clenched. "Yes."
He began to pace back and forth in front of her, long loping strides that bespoke a leonine grace. That, more than anything, marked him as different from the human Xander who had been her friend, whose body language had always revealed his crushing lack of self-confidence. Xander had been a strong, clever young man, but his inability to believe in himself had made him clumsy and self-mocking - now, all signs of that handicap had been eradicated. The demon in front of her resembled Ripper far more than its body's former occupant.
"Yes," the Xander-who-wasn't-Xander informed her airily. "Giles turned me. He's now my Sire in every way that matters." He pivoted smartly on his heel, pinning her with a narrow gaze. "He was the only father I ever really had, you know." He smiled slightly at her wince of guilt. "So when he offered me the chance to spend eternity with him, why in the world would I have refused? So I could stay here, in Sunnydale, with everyone else I loved lying dead around me?" He snorted. "Alone except for you, the one who caused it all? Please."
"Xand..." she whispered, her eyes bright.
He spread his arms wide and executed a courtly bow. "So, how do you like it, Buff? Am I man enough for you now? Let's see..." He pretended to tick off points on his pale fingers. "Undead? Check. Demon? Check. Leather? Check. Brooding? Well, I'll work on that." He grinned evilly. "Taunting you over the corpses of your friends? Big check." He stepped forward, stopping close enough to her that she would have felt his cold breath on her neck, had he any breath to offer. "Whaddya say, Buff? Are you in love yet?"
She let out a choked cry and brought her sword up, lunging for him. But he was quicker than she'd anticipated, and danced out of reach of her blade, landing near Oz's body to pull a heretofore-unseen sword of his own out from behind it. "Guess not," he laughed, brandishing the blade. "Too bad." He wielded the weapon with surprising skill, and they met in the center of the room, accompanied by the clash of metal-on-metal.
Buffy knew without a doubt that she was a better swordsman than the new-Turned vampire, but, unhampered as he was by the guilt and anguish that troubled her, Xander still managed to forestall her attacks with little difficulty.
"Angelus must have sucked at the swashbuckling," Xander commented a few minutes later as he ducked under a wild swing, "if you managed to beat him fighting like this. Or maybe you were a little more motivated with him - paying him back for the fuck and run, maybe?"
"Shut up!" she hissed, arcing a two-handed blow toward his shoulder.
"Truth hurts, doesn't it?" he taunted, dodging with ease. "Well, deal with it, Buffy. You fucked a demon. You tried to murder Faith. You killed Cordy and Giles. All the badness, it's all 'cause of you, and that's the truth."
"You wouldn't know the truth if it bit you in the ass," she retorted, lunging toward him. "The Xander I knew would never choose to be a vampire."
"The Xander you knew is dead," he told her flatly, just missing her thigh with a vicious swipe. "He died with Cordy, and Giles, and Willow. He doesn't exist anymore, because" -clang- "of" -clang- "you!"
"That Xander would want you dead!" she snapped, slipping under his guard to slice deeply into his left shoulder. She smiled in grim satisfaction, but he shrugged off the injury with apparent ease, the unnerving smile reappearing on his lips.
"He'd never want this," she insisted, circling him. "And Giles would never want it either."
Xander dodged behind a wooden table and laughed aloud. "And you care what Giles wants! Since when?" He spun away from her as she yanked the blade away from where her last blow had embedded it in the wood. "You think he wanted to watch you suck face with the demon that killed his girlfriend? Who tortured him for hours right here in this fucking house? You never gave a damn what Giles wanted. You never cared about Giles at all."
"That's not true!" Her swings were wilder now as sheer emotion took the place of precision. "I love him!" His return blow forced her off balance and she barely managed to avoid evisceration.
He used his leverage to shove her back against the wall next to the hallway's alcove. She glared into his demonic yellow eyes, breathless gasps hitching her chest.
"Spare us your love, Buffy," Xander spat, pinning her with their crossed blades. "We're choking on it."
He pressed harder, and she could feel the rough stones of the wall digging into her back. For the first time she realized that she might not even get the chance to confront Ripper - Xander had her immobilized, and his vampire strength was a clear match for her Slayermuscle.
And then suddenly another sword appeared, the tip gleaming beneath Xander's chin. "That's enough, mate," came Spike's quiet voice as he stepped from the hallway into the room.
Xander's sneering attention never left Buffy's face. "Never could fight your own battles, could ya, Buff?"
"Back off!" Spike told him when Buffy didn't reply. "Back off now or you're dust, whelp."
Abruptly Xander shoved away from her, taking his sword along as he backed across the room. He looked far from defeated, however, and the smirk had returned to his face.
"Where were you?" Buffy coughed, rubbing her throat as she slumped against the wall in boneless relief.
"Secret weapon's not much of a secret if everyone in the world knows about it, Slayer," Spike replied, shrugging. "Thought you could 'andle one little demon by yourself. My mistake."
Buffy wanted to offer a stinging comeback, but found she had nothing to say in reply. He was right, after all. "The whole house probably knows we're here by now," she muttered instead.
"Probably," he said. "I'll take care of junior 'ere. You go on." He gestured with the tip of his sword. "Find your Watcher."
She stared at him silently for a moment, before nodding slowly. As she turned toward the entryway she assumed would lead her to Ripper, Xander spoke out one last time. "Be seeing you, Buff!" he called cheerfully.
She shivered a little as she left him behind.
The hallway between the foyer and the main living space was a short one, and Buffy took a few minutes to lean against the wall to pause and catch her breath. The encounter with Xander had unnerved her badly - as it was presumably supposed to have done. Ripper was proving himself to be a master of psychological warfare - unsurprising, given the vast amounts of brainpower and personal knowledge of Buffy he'd found within himself upon Rising. She knew she couldn't face him until she'd regained some semblance of control, or the fight would be over before it even started.
From somewhere behind her she could hear the clash of swords, and in her mind's eye she pictured Spike and Xander battling one another. She hadn't had a chance to quiz Spike about his skills with a blade, but she had to assume he wouldn't have volunteered to take over if he hadn't any confidence in his abilities. At any rate, he was almost certain to make a better show than she had - he definitely labored under none of her emotional handicaps.
But while Buffy was willing to let Spike take care of the Xander vampire for her, she would not - could not - allow him to do the same with Ripper. The demon who'd taken her Watcher's body was her responsibility, and she would allow no one to shoulder the burden but her.
Unfortunately, Giles had been a damn sight better with a sword than Xander. And her inability to kill her former friend hadn't done much to bolster her confidence in her own skills. In the past, she hadn't much liked to practice fencing with Giles - aside from the unpleasant associations it held with regard to Angelus's Acathla ritual, it was also something at which she couldn't automatically defeat her Watcher, and her ego was just fragile enough to make that a big un-fun. Whenever he gave her a choice for weapons practice, she'd made a point of choosing something other than swords, something that required stamina and strength more than strategy. Their previous sparring sessions had gifted her with the rather disconcerting knowledge that a human Giles could best her more often than not - and a vampire Giles, with strength and stamina to rival the Slayer's, would be that much more difficult an opponent.
And she hadn't even been able to defeat Xander.
No! Buffy told her doubting self. You can do this. You're going to do this for Giles. She took a deep breath and moved forward down the corridor.
Buffy paused again when she reached her destination. From the hallway she could not hear any sound coming from the room, but something inside her told her Ripper was there, nonetheless. He was there, he was waiting....
She stepped over the threshold.
***
He stood across the room in front of the fireplace, his back toward her as he warmed his hands over the open flame. The room was bare and dusty, the only furniture a single low couch, a black silk stand-up privacy screen over in the corner next to the fireplace and a low wooden table and chest resting against the far wall. It was also not a little warm inside, and Buffy found it odd that a vampire would have built such a huge fire - fire being a tremendously effective cause of death for vamps, for one thing. And it wasn't as though he had a body temperature he needed to maintain.
She swallowed uneasily as she tried to think of something to say, but he beat her to the punch.
"So you've come, then," Ripper said, without bothering to turn around, and Buffy spent a fleeting moment wishing she'd thought to bring her crossbow. It wasn't really an indoor weapon, and tended to be pretty much useless in close quarters fighting, but right at that moment one would have been a godsend.
He knew you wouldn't bring it along, the doubting part of her taunted mentally. He knows you that well, and you are so dead.
"Shut up," she hissed fiercely under her breath, and Ripper turned to face her, raising an enquiring brow as a small smile graced his lips. The flames danced in the cracked lenses of his glasses. The scarring that marred his body was even more hideous in the full light of the fire than it had been in the dim shadows of her hospital room, and Buffy felt her heart wrench as she was forced once again to face the pain Giles must have felt as he lay dying.
"Pardon?" Ripper murmured, clearly enjoying her discomposure.
"I wasn't talking to you," she told him, flushing slightly in embarrassment.
"Talking to oneself can be considered a sign of incipient madness," he returned mildly. "Of course, then, sometimes it's the only way to have a decent conversation when surrounded by drones and idiots."
"Minions not living up to your demon hype?"
"I was thinking of faculty meetings, actually," he replied. "Though it would seem you managed to deal with my minions after all. Not that I assumed Wesley, at least, would give you much trouble-"
"None at all," Buffy interrupted, ignoring the fact that if it weren't for Spike she would have died at Wesley's hands without, quite literally, knowing what had hit her. "Wes, Larry, Xander...pieces of cake." His gaze narrowed briefly as she concluded her list, but he didn't reply, so she continued to goad him. "Can't say I think much of your taste in stormtroopers, Darth. I mean, c'mon, Wesley?"
Giles shrugged. "It was a matter of chance, really - I happened across him and found him annoying...though, to be honest, he didn't really improve post-draining." He turned his back on her and reached for the poker to stir the fire.
Buffy swallowed nervously, but managed to stay the impulse to fly at him. His undefended back was a tempting target, to be sure, but logically she knew he could snatch up the sword canted against the fireplace and turn around in plenty of time to defend himself if she were to attack him. No, she had to be smart about this. She had to be smart, or she'd be dead and he'd be free to continue his reign of terror. "And Larry?" she asked him, just for something to say.
"Ah, well, now - Larry wasn't mine, you see. It seems he was injured during the battle with the Mayor, much as I was, and turned at about the same time. However, his Sire apparently died in the melee. I found him afterward, feeling quite at loose ends, and offered him a place at my side. A charming boy, really, if a bit simple." Ripper turned again to look at her, the same small, smug smile gracing his lips. "Much like Xander."
Buffy felt herself stiffen. "I know why you killed Xander," she informed him in arctic tones.
His smile widened. "Ah, yes - you think it's all about you, do you? What would you say if I told you I hadn't planned to do anything at all to young Mister Harris?"
"I'd say you were a liar."
"Well, of course I'm a liar," he replied matter-of-factly. "I am a demon, after all. But why should I have sought out that boy? He'd have done quite enough damage to you on his own, I should imagine - the one person amongst your little cadre who had the stones to hold you responsible for the havoc you wreak."
She recalled the furious expression on Xander's face when she'd awakened in her hospital room the previous afternoon. "He hated me," she breathed, finally taking Ripper's meaning. "He wanted me to pay."
Ripper grinned. "Exactly. There was always anger in that boy to rival a demon's, courtesy of a home life you never cared enough to investigate. I was quite looking forward to seeing what he would do to you, actually. But, alas, he came to me here instead, and I felt obliged to help him."
"Help?" she scoffed, her fingers curling about the sword hilt. "You call that help?"
Ripper arched his un-singed eyebrow. "Why, yes, actually. Helping him to channel his rage into something more...productive, I suppose you could say. He made quite a demon. It's a pity you destroyed him."
"The Xander I knew would have wanted it that way."
"The Xander you knew disappeared long before I killed him. About the time the lovely Miss Chase drew her last breath, I'd say." He smiled as she winced. "Come now, Buffy. As much as you'd like to blame me for the terrible ends your friends have met, we both know I'm not the one at fault here."
"I know my responsibility," she told him steadily.
He considered her silently for a moment. "I see - my apologies," he finally replied. "Though you have to admit it wasn't an unreasonable assumption on my part. To accept your role in creating all of this...is a somewhat unprecedented action on your part, isn't it?"
She felt her cheeks redden but kept her gaze resolutely on his. "It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing does. Nothing except the promise I made to Giles." She raised the sword. "The promise that I'd kill you."
The disquieting smile returned to his lips. "Ah, yes. Your promise." He absently stirred the fire with the poker. "Hearing you give your word relieved him to no end, you'll be glad to know. Well, that, along with other things." The smile dissolved into a smirk.
"Wh-what?"
"Did you think I wouldn't know? I told you that your Rupert and I were sharing this body. When he's here, naturally I feel his presence, and when he's not...."
Another 'what?' stuck in Buffy's throat as she considered the implications of his words. She wanted to ask him what he knew about her afternoon - wanted him to confirm her belief that Giles, her Giles, had been there with her in that bedroom. But somehow she knew hearing the words pass his lips would cheapen what had happened. Ripper would make what had evolved between them seem sordid and desperate instead of right and beautiful.
And the fact that he seemed to know about it proved enough, didn't it?
"I don't want to talk about that."
The smirk widened. "Of course. My apologies, once again."
"Stop it," she snapped. "Stop apologizing. You're not sorry. You're not sorry about any of it, so stop pretending you are."
"As you wish." He turned back to the fire.
Her body was almost humming with repressed rage and frustration. She'd had enough of his waiting game. "What do you want?" she bit out, rocking forward on her toes. "For God's sake, let's just finish this!"
He chuckled. "High Noon in the drawing room? No, no, my dear, it's not quite that simple. You see, I'm not entirely sure you've learned your lesson yet."
"Well, then, why don't you just spill it, Teach, or I'll be taking you down at recess. I'm running out of patience."
He turned to face her, the poker still in hand. "A quality you never possessed in abundance, true. Oh, very well." He whipped the poker out to the side, and she flinched back reflexively, though he was too far away from her for it to do any damage.
"What-" she replied, as the glowing hot tip of the poker came in contact with the silk privacy screen. The smooth material immediately ignited, the flames billowing upward in an impressive pyrotechnic display. The gritty ash floated down to settle on the stone floor, and as the smoke from the brief fire cleared, she could make out the outline of a figure seated in a chair behind it.
Or not just seated, rather, but restrained by and straining against several lengths of metal chain and rope wrapped securely around arms, legs and torso.
His face wasn't really visible, a one-quarter profile turned toward Ripper, with his dark hair obscuring his features, but she'd spent over two years of her life studying that form, and she knew his body as well as her own.
Her heart stopped, and his name was barely a whisper on her lips.
"Angel?"
Ripper grinned, brandishing the poker like a magic wand. "Surprise!"
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