Chapter Twenty

Like dusting vampires, the illuisonary soldiers burst into nothing the instant the vampires fled. Willow gasped, and jolted back against him, thumping him against the weapons cabinet. He clutched her closer, feeling her back heaving against his chest with her panicked breaths.

“Oh god. Who’s hurt? Who’s-” Buffy was staggering, bloody and wide-eyed and looking around frantically. “Xander? Where’s, where’s Xander?”

“I-I think he ran out the door... earlier, right when you came in,” Willow said, and then she gently pulled away from him, and walked up to hook her fingers through the bars. “Let us out?”

But then, Buffy’s attention snapped back towards the stacks, and she froze completely, and Oz caught the scent of fresh distress. He tensed, and laid a hand on Willow’s shoulder.

“Buffy?” Willow called, watching as her friend slowly walked up the stairs and around towards the bookcases, moving as though mesmerized. “Buffy, what is it?”

The slayer dropped to her knees behind the wooden railing, half-hidden from them, and her face was a mask of anguish.

“Oh god. Oh, god,” Willow was saying, and he could feel her beginning to shake, and for the first time, he really tried to use the wolf senses, breathing in the scents of the room. Who was it? But he couldn’t tell. All he could smell was blood, and undeath, and magic, and sweat.

And then, the new Watcher appeared, returned from the stacks, clutching a cross, pale and sweaty. He stopped, just beside Buffy and looked down.

“Dear god,” he said, “A Slayer. They... they’ve killed a Slayer.”

Oz felt Willow relax, and then, an instant later, tense again, and could all but feel the emotions going through her mind. First, relief, that it wasn’t Xander. Then, the realization that it was Kendra. Then, the guilt for being relieved, for being *grateful*. He stepped up behind her, wrapped his arms around her stomach and held her close, silently sending her forgiveness for her humanity. Love for her humanity.

Then, Buffy stumbled up to her feet, backed away from the body, and finally really looked at them. Oz met her eyes over Willow’s shoulder, but she quickly looked away. She unlocked the cage without any further trace of emotion, and said, “We need to find Xander.”

Oz brushed gently past Willow, taking a last bit of comfort from the touch of her shoulder against his arm as he passed, and then he headed towards the door.

Sure enough, he could easily find Xander’s scent here, once he was away from the more chaotic center of the library. He glanced back over his shoulder at Buffy and Willow, who were still standing by the cage.

“I can track him. I’ll go.”

They nodded, so he went, with Willow’s “Be careful” drifting after him.

It felt strange, to be walking down these darkened, familiar hallways, and letting his senses free. It felt a little too... wild. Too wolfish.

But it also felt kind of... right... in a way he didn’t really want to analyse.

In any case, it only took him a few moments to follow the scent to the maintainance closet. He stopped in front of the door, and considered for a few moments the least traumatic way to get Xander out of the closet, factoring in the startlement value of each, and the potential damage each may deal to whatever was left of Xander’s rather, well, fragile, masculine pride. He finally settled for knocking gently, and calling out, “Hey, Xander? You in there? They’re gone.”

There was a pause, then a clatter, and then the door opened and Xander strode out, bearing a broken mop.

“Oh, good. I. I was just. You know. Seeing if I could... find a weapon,” he said, gesturing with the mop.

“Yeah,” Oz said. “Uh. Good thinking, there.”

He nodded.

Xander nodded.

They both stood in awkward silence. Then Xander tossed the mop back in the closet, shut the door and said.

“So. Time to. You know. Head back, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

So, they did. By the time they got there, the gang was grouped around the library table: Buffy, Willow, the new Watcher... and... some guy Oz had never seen before. Xander, on the other hand, went instantly on red alert.

“Ethan Rayne? Ethan Rayne! What is Ethan Rayne doing-”

“He’s on our side, Xand,” Buffy said.

“Our side? He’s a chaos-worshipping... ex-friend of Giles’s. Who’s evil now. Giles is, I mean. What makes you think-”

Xander was again cut off, by Ethan himself this time.

“That... thing... is not the man I knew. And now that I’ve associated myself with you lot, I’ve no doubt placed myself near the top of his hit list. Believe me, I have no desire to harm the only people here who could even hope to protect me.”

Xander had stalked over to the table, and was glaring down at Ethan, masculinity apparently firmly back intact.

“Oh yeah? Well, how do we know that this isn’t all just some elaborate deception-”

For the third time, Xander was stopped in midsentence.

“I just know, Xander. Trust me, ok?” Buffy said softly.

Oz could see from the tension in his form that Xander wasn’t about ready to do that, but before he could retort, he looked up, towards the stacks, and he saw... her. Kendra. Someone had draped a long coat over her body.

“Oh god. Is that?”

“Kendra,” Buffy said.

“Oh, god,” Xander said again, and then he sat down.

Oz walked over to the table as well, took his usual seat beside Willow. As soon as he sat down, she spoke up.

“We need to find a spell. Something to keep them out of the library. We... we need to be safe here. I-I can look through Ms. Calendar’s stuff again. See if there’s... anything.”

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