THE XANDER YEARS, Vol. 1

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “Xander!” Cordelia cried.

  Angel pulled Xander close. “Where’s Buffy?”

  “Cordy, get out of here!” Xander yelled, hoping Cordelia had the brains to listen.

  Then Angel threw Xander off the roof. Xander managed to land feet first and bend his knees with the impact, and so didn’t actually break anything, though his ankles and knees were now killing him, and he stumbled and sprawled on his back.

  A second later, Angel landed gracefully next to him.

  “Perfect,” the vampire said with a grin as he grabbed Xander and pulled him up. “I wanted to do something special for Buffy—actually, to Buffy—but this is so much better.”

  Not willing to go down without a fight, Xander kneed Angel. When Xander tried to run, though, the vampire grabbed him and flipped him over onto the lawn. Angel then once again grabbed Xander by the lapels and pulled him close. Baring his fangs, he said, “If it’s any consolation, I feel very close to you right now.”

  Before he could actually take a bite, though, a hand grabbed Angel and threw him off to the side.

  “Buffy? How—”

  But it wasn’t Buffy. Buffy was probably still wandering around Sunnydale High in search of cheese.

  It was Drusilla.

  “Don’t fret, kitten. Mommy’s here.”

  And she smiled.

  It was just like all the other girls’ smiles. Except, of course, with fangs.

  Xander felt a chill that went all the way to his socks. It never occurred to him that the spell would also affect vampires. And Drusilla wasn’t just any old female vampire: she was also completely, totally nuts.

  Angel got up, furious. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Dru, but it doesn’t amuse!”

  Drusilla helped Xander up and stood protectively between him and Angel. “If you harm one hair on this boy’s head . . .”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Angel said with a sadistic laugh. “Him?”

  “Just because I finally found a real man . . .”

  Angel shook his head. “I guess I really did drive you crazy.” He then seemed to fade in the background and disappear, like he used to do in the old days when he’d show up to give Buffy a mysterious warning.

  Drusilla turned back to Xander who, for his part, was as scared as he’d ever been in his life. And that was some very stiff competition.

  “Your face is a poem,” Drusilla said in a dreamy voice. “Oooooh, I can read it.”

  “Really? It doesn’t say, ‘spare me’ by any chance?”

  She put her fingers on his lips. “Shhhh. How do you feel about eternal life?”

  “We couldn’t just start with coffee? A movie maybe?”

  Just as Drusilla leaned in to do out of love what Angel had been about to do out of hate, angry voices sounded out from behind.

  “There he is!”

  “Get him!”

  Xander had never been so happy to see a lustcrazed mob in his life.

  Drusilla and Xander were quickly separated by a gaggle of women who tore at Xander’s clothes, reached for his hair, and generally tried to rip him to pieces.

  Okay, maybe “happy” is the wrong word . . .

  “Mine! He’s mine!”

  “No, mine!”

  Then there was Willow with the axe. “All you had to do was love me!”

  Before she could bring the axe down, she was bodyslammed by Cordelia.

  Cordy managed to grab Xander and lead him to the house. Luckily, the members of the mob couldn’t agree on who was Xander’s true love, and so kept fighting one another rather than focusing on Xander himself. So Cordelia and Xander managed, barely, to get into the house safely.

  Angelus watched with amusement as the women fought over Xander Harris. Now it all made sense. Obviously, someone had cast a love spell on Harris that made every woman in Sunnydale fall for him.

  The vampire laughed. Oh, this is just too perfect. I couldn’t have devised a better torture for Harris if I tried.

  Angelus generally considered Harris and the other toadies Buffy had gathered to herself to be useless. The only ones that really concerned him were the Watcher and Buffy herself. True, Rosenberg showed great potential, and that Calendar woman was a danger, but they were minor threats at best. Harris, though, was less than nothing.

  Still, Buffy cared about the gangly little guy for some inexplicable reason, so anything that made him miserable was all right with Angelus.

  The only problem, of course, was Dru. However, now that the party had moved into the house, all would be well.

  Harris and the Chase girl had locked the door behind them, but Dru led a procession to the back door, which she knocked off its hinges.

  The other women all barreled in, but Dru was stopped by what appeared to be an invisible barrier.

  “Ah, sorry Dru,” Angelus said with another laugh as he drifted closer. “Guess you’re not invited.” Vampires, after all, could only enter a home if they were invited in. While Buffy had done so for Angel a year earlier when they were being chased by the Three—back when the drunken Irish gentleman was in charge of this body—Dru had never had that privilege.

  So she couldn’t get in.

  “Come on, Dru, let’s go home, shall we? Sometimes, the Hellmouth just does our work for us.”

  “But Xander’s in there!” she cried plaintively.

  “Dru, dear—don’t make me use force.”

  Cordelia locked the door behind her and Xander, then turned to see Mom Summers holding a very large knife.

  “It’s never gonna work for us, Xander. We have to end it.”

  Both Cordelia and Xander then ran for the basement. Xander shut and locked the door behind him, then started looking around.

  Shaking her head, Cordelia said, “Déjà vu much?” This very basement was where the two of them had started out as a couple. Like I needed a reminder? she thought. “Here’s another reason not to date you. People are always trying to kill me when I’m with you. So, what do we do now, wait for Buffy to come?”

  Xander picked up a hammer, a nail, and a slat of wood. “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” he muttered, then started nailing the piece of wood over the door.

  Great, it’s Night of the Living Dead Psycho Women. Behind the door, Cordelia could hear the entire female population of Sunnydale pounding on it. I can’t believe this is happening to me. What did I do to deserve this?

  “Give me a nail,” Xander said as he finished hammering one board into place.

  She handed him one and said, “If we die in here . . .”

  “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t broken up with me. But no, you’re so desperate to be popular.”

  Cordelia was amazed. “Me? I’m not the one who embraced the black arts just to get girls to like me. Well, congratulations, it worked.”

  As Xander hammered in another nail, he said, “It would’ve worked fine, except your hide’s so thick not even magic can penetrate it.”

  Feeling her jaw drop, Cordelia grabbed Xander by the arm. She had just thought Xander was being his usual moron self. It never occurred to her . . . “You mean, the spell was for me?”

  Suddenly, a large knife cut through the door. Cordelia screamed. She turned and ran down the stairs, Xander right behind her. She could hear the door being splintered.

  Once they reached the basement, an arm went crashing through the window near the ceiling. Some of the girls were trying to get in that way.

  “Oh my God,” Cordelia cried.

  “Stay behind me!” Xander said. He was wielding a giant wrench.

  Oh, great, Cordelia thought, that’ll hold ’em off for at least two-and-a-half seconds.

  And the mob closed in . . .

  CHAPTER 7

  Oz had to admit that his life had certainly changed since he met Willow. Not that he objected to these changes. For one thing, he now had a girlfriend, and an exceedingly cool one at that. For another, Willow’s friends were pretty helpful when Oz’s cousin’s bi
te turned him into a werewolf. For a third, he finally got some explanation for why this town was so weird.

  And he got to do things like steal weapons from army bases and chase people who’d been transformed into rats.

  The latter was proving to be more difficult than Oz would have originally thought, once the rat in question left the library. Oz checked around, then heard somebody curse.

  Following the noise, he saw Chris, one of the guys in his history class. “Yo, Oz, you see that?”

  “See what?” Oz asked.

  “This big ol’ rat just ran down the basement, man.”

  “Wow,” Oz deadpanned.

  Chris shook his head. “Man, don’t nothin’ faze you?”

  Oz shrugged. “Not since I found out that vampires are real. After that, everything kinda pales in significance.”

  Chris shook his head, laughed, and walked off, obviously not believing a word of it. “Whatever, man. Watch out for the rat.”

  As soon as Chris was out of sight, Oz went straight for the stairs to the boiler room.

  “Hey, Buffy?” Oz called out. He didn’t want to turn the lights on, as the rat would run from that much brightness. Luckily, he found a flashlight hanging from a wall on the staircase. Turning it on kept him from tripping on anything, but of the rat there was no sign.

  Oz heard a cat meow and hiss at one point, but he heard nothing ratlike.

  Idly, Oz wondered if the custodian was in the habit of putting rat traps down here.

  The theme from Ben going through his head, Oz continued his search. “Here, Buffy . . .”

  Giles had dragged Amy, first to her locker to retrieve her spellbook and other components, then to the chemistry lab where she had performed the original ritual. After asking her three times, she finally consented to redraw the female symbol on the floor while Giles prepared the herbs.

  “Right,” he said when all was in readiness. “Go on. You first.” They had agreed that she would reverse the animal transformation, while Giles would reverse the love spell. This was mainly because Amy herself refused to do the latter. Giles, in no mood to argue, decided to try his own hand at it.

  I’ve successfully spellcasted a few times lately, including once with Amy. Not bad for a chap who swore he’d never go near the occult again twenty years ago, eh?

  When the water started boiling, and a rather pungent odor permeated the air, Amy read from the book. As she spoke, Giles dropped a tuft of rodent hair into the mixture.

  “Goddess of creatures great and small, I conjure thee to withdraw. Hecate! I hereby license thee to depart!”

  The beaker roiled, and a puff of red smoke emerged from it.

  That’s one down, Giles thought, hoping that she didn’t bollix it up like she did the love spell, and transform Buffy into a newt.

  Holding the necklace Xander had given Cordelia in his hand, Giles took the spellbook from a now-sulking Amy and read.

  “Diana, goddess of love, be gone. Hear no more thy siren’s song.”

  He dropped the necklace into the beaker. The manifestation this time was on a much greater scale, filling the room briefly with a bright, red light.

  Then the room was dark once again.

  “What—what happened?” Amy asked, sounding confused.

  Giles took that as a good sign indeed.

  The first thing Buffy realized was that the cheese she had been about to consume was in a rat trap.

  The second thing she realized was that, for the first time in a few days, she could think straight.

  The third was that she was completely naked.

  She was standing next to some crates. On the other side of those crates stood Oz, holding a flashlight. To his credit, and Buffy’s relief, he flicked off the flashlight as soon as he saw the state of Buffy’s dress—or lack of dress, as the case may be.

  “Hi, Oz,” she said weakly.

  “Hi.”

  “I seem to be having a slight case of nudity here.”

  Oz pointed at her and smiled. “But you’re not a rat. So call it an up side.”

  Buffy found she couldn’t argue with that.

  “Do you think maybe you can get me some clothing?”

  “Yes, I can,” Oz said, turning to head upstairs. “Just don’t go anywhere.”

  “Really not an issue,” she said with feeling.

  So this is it, Xander thought. We’re going to die.

  Of all the ways I expected to go, being mauled by a group of lust-maddened women while curled in the fetal position in Buffy’s basement wasn’t exactly high on the list.

  And then, suddenly, it got quiet.

  Xander looked up to see that all the women—Willow, Harmony, Katie, Gwen, Laura, Ms. Calendar, Buffy’s mom, and all the others—were kind of standing around looking dazed.

  “What,” Joyce Summers stammered, “what did we—?”

  Cordelia put on her May Queen smile and said, “Boy, that was the best scavenger hunt ever!”

  “Scavenger hunt?”

  Buffy was shaking her head and laughing as she and Xander walked down the quad the following morning. Xander was recounting the story from his own perspective, including the rather nasty attack from Angel. He had just come to the end.

  “Your mom seemed to buy it,” Xander said defensively.

  “So she says. I think she’s just so wigged at hitting on one of my friends that she’s repressing. She’s getting pretty good at that.” Buffy thought about this for a second. “I should probably start worrying.”

  Xander smiled, then sighed. “Well, I’m back to being incredibly unpopular.”

  “It’s better than everybody trying to axe murder you, right?”

  Gotta give her that one. “Mostly. But Willow won’t even talk to me.”

  Buffy shot him a look. “Any particular reason she should?”

  Xander asked plaintively, “How much groveling are we talking here?”

  “Oh, a month at least. Xander, c’mon, I mean, this was worse for her than anyone. She loved you before you invoked the great roofie spirit. The rest of us . . .”

  This time Xander shot her a look. He’d been so busy giving his side of the story that he hadn’t gotten Buffy’s. “You remember, huh?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said with a nasty smile. “I remember coming on to you. I remember begging you to undress me. And then a sudden need for cheese.” A pause, then: “I also remember that you didn’t.”

  “Need cheese?”

  “Undress me. It meant a lot to me, what you said.”

  Well, I salvaged something from this mess, at least. “C’mon, Buffy, I couldn’t take advantage of you like that. Okay, for a minute, it was touch and go there, but—”

  “You came through, Xander. There might be some hope for you yet.”

  With another sigh, Xander said, “Well, tell that to Cordelia.”

  “You’re on your own, there.”

  Cordelia had intended to face the next day as another new day. Another ordinary day at her ordinary school. She was going to pretend that the previous day just didn’t happen. No love spells, no geeky losers trying to win her back, none of that.

  She was walking with Harmony, Dori, Katie, Kimberley, and Laura, talking about guys. Everything was perfectly ordinary, as per the plan.

  So why does it all feel wrong?

  “Cody Weinberg called me at home last night,” Harmony squealed.

  Cordelia was impressed. “Cody Weinberg? The one with the Three-fifty SL?”

  “The very one. Said he’s thinking of asking me to the pledge dance on Thursday.”

  “That’s so huge,” Cordelia said. And it was. Cody was quite a catch. Not Cordelia’s type, really—she hadn’t been able to bear dating a blond since the Sven disaster during Cultural Exchange Week—but it was great for Harmony.

  “Yeah. There’s just two other girls he’s gonna ask first, and if they refuse, then I—”

  Before she could continue, Harmony literally bumped into Xander.


  Oh great, here we go.

  “Watch it!” Harmony said.

  Expecting him to wig out or something, Cordelia was surprised with how meekly he said, “Sorry.”

  Then he just moved on.

  Harmony called out to his back. “God, I’m glad your mom stopped working the drive-thru long enough to dress you.”

  Cordelia saw Xander hesitate, then keep walking.

  And then she figured it out.

  There had been something wrong about all of this, going back to when Harmony and the others blew her off just because she was dating Xander.

  Who are they, anyhow?

  Cordelia Chase was the trendsetter. People lined up to see what she was wearing so they’d know what the right thing to wear was. And what she did was, by definition, cool.

  So why am I busting my aerobicized butt to please these little twerps?

  And then she thought about a beautiful silver heart necklace, and a guy who was willing to dabble in black magic to get her back.

  “That reminds me,” Harmony babbled on, “did you see Jennifer’s backpack? It’s so trying—”

  “Harmony, shut up,” Cordelia said.

  Harmony stopped walking and stared at Cordelia in something like shock. The others behind her did the same.

  Down the quad, so did Xander.

  Good. He should hear this.

  “You know what you are, Harmony? You’re a sheep.”

  “I’m not a sheep,” Harmony said meekly.

  “You’re a sheep. All you ever do is what everyone else does, just so you can say you did it first. And here I am, scrambling for your approval, when I’m way cooler than you are because I’m not a sheep. I do what I want to do, and I wear what I want to wear, and you know what? I’ll date whoever the hell I want to date.”

  Xander brightened.

  “No matter how lame he is.” Xander’s face fell a bit.

  With that, she turned on her heel, and walked straight for Xander. She grabbed his hand, and pulled him along, not breaking stride.

  As soon as they turned a corner, she realized what, exactly, she had just done.

  “Oh God, oh God.”

  “You’re gonna be okay,” Xander said, talking like she was about to jump off a roof. “Just keep walking.”