Tomes of the Apocalypse: Conquest

[v_o_x]

Chapter: I. Xander
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: the Series
Pairing: Xander/Spike, Angel/Doyle
Rating: Mature
AO3 Archive: Here
A/N: I've decided to start posting my fan-fiction here for another place to store it. I welcome comments on either AO3 or here. Once I find other places to post everything, in groups for example, there will be cross-posting there as well. Please keep in mind, I have no beta so things may be a bit muddled.
Series Summary: There is something odd happening on the Hellmouth. After Xander is captured by an apparent demon cult, a defanged Spike is sent in to save him. But, the only way to do that is something neither he nor Xander are happy about. Now, the two must navigate the strange bond that is forming between them as a new evil rises.

Meanwhile, Angel Investigations begin to investigate a string of ritualistic murders that could have possible ties to the demon cult that has found its way to the Hellmouth. While chaos beings to bleed into everyone’s lives, both the Scooby Gang and Angel’s team most work together to solve the mystery before it’s too late.

PART ONE
Bonds

In Sunnydale, it had started to get cold, and Xander Harris had remembered to bring a jacket. He had planned to relax after work, but when Willow Rosenburg called he had changed his mind. Misery loves company , he thought to himself. Giles had asked her to look into a mausoleum in one of the older cemeteries in Sunnydale and with Buffy out of town, he was the only option they had. Not that he had minded. Giles had to deal with an unwanted houseguest in his bathroom. And both of them could use the distraction. Willow from Oz, and Anya from himself. Before he had left he grabbed the essentials to impromptu into the graveyard. A flashlight, a stake, a foldable shovel and snacks. He doubted they would need the stake. Four years being the best friend to the Slayer had taught him that the older the cemetery, the less likely a vampire. Though, that didn’t mean other things could be lurking around, and they still had no idea who the mysterious soldier boys had been.

They had reached the deserted cemetery close to midnight. The plague on the old, rusted iron fence had told them that it was established sometime in the 1800’s. One of the oldest I’ve been in , he had thought. Willow had been oddly quiet but so was he – - their situation had been so similar that it was awkward. For the most part, Xander kept his hands in his pockets for warmth as he followed alongside her while she directed the flashlight. She had come prepared too. Dressed in a warm, fuzzy sweater and a large equally fuzzy hat, she reminded Xander of the character Blossom from television. He wished that the ground would split open and swallow him to get away from the quiet, before he remembered they were in Sunnydale and quickly retracted the desire. Xander stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose. Someone has to be the first and it’s time for you to be a man, Harris . “So, what did we come out here for?” Good one . It was a valid question, but it had not been the one he intended. Slow steps forward were still progress.

“O– - Oh, um,” she had been surprised but recovered quickly. He watched her take the backpack off and squat down to pull out a spiral ring notebook. He took the flashlight from her and held it to read over her shoulder. Each page she flipped through were written in her neat and organized handwriting with a rainbow of highlighter color coding. None of it made sense to him, but Willow’s notes never did unless he had her help him translate them. “So, uh, the Mayor founded Sunnydale in – - yeah, 1899. This was after like, uh, there was this big and massive earthquake in 1812.” She turned the page and Xander skimmed over it. A few words called out to him but it looked more like a word puzzle to him. “Anyway, so Mayor Wilkins had– - followers that helped him keep the town in line. Giles thinks they were demons. These demons sort of intermingled themselves with the township and there’s some references to some pretty powerful artifacts.”

“You can take the library from the man, but not the man from the library,” Xander remarked. Glancing over the notebook, he pointed at an odd spiral symbol with a horizontal line drawn through it. Xander felt like he had seen it somewhere before, but he could not place the design. “So, is that what we’re looking for? Some kid’s failed art project? Is this even safe to be doing without the Buffster?”

Willow closed the notebook and put it away. He helped her stand back up and returned the flashlight to her. “It’s a symbol that was connected to them– - there’s four from what Giles found. Pretty much, he just wanted us to check out the mausoleum of one of them. He found out they were buried here,” she said and gestured around them. She bit her bottom lip and pointed down a small path that branched off from the one they had been one. “I looked over the map before I left and it should be somewhere over there,” she added.

“Man, Giles needed a hobby but this is ridiculous,” Xander said. He saw the look she gave him and sheepishly smiled. Since Thanksgiving, Giles had started to dig into the history of the town more. His apartment had started to remind Xander of the school library when they would crash for a long research session. Piles of books and papers had nearly covered every service of the place, and it had become such a hoard that they had moved Spike to the bathroom. We all need a vacation , he thought to himself. Buffy had all the luck. He wished one of his cousins would invite him out of town, but then again, any gathering of the Harris family often ended with a domestic violence call to the police. “Okay, so we find one of these long dead, possible demonic guys and do what?”

“I– - I think we just look for something out of place or weird then we report to Giles,” Willow answered. Xander wanted to laugh. Weird and out of place, huh ? He wondered if she saw the irony in her statement. He didn’t press it, and simply followed her through the twists and turns of headstones that littered the area. At least it had started to feel somewhat normal between them. A mystery to solve, and the possibility that they were about to awaken some great evil that would threaten their very existence was something that was overdo. It was about time that some big bad evil thing made an appearance.

It still bothered him. Willow had lost someone she loved and gone quiet. Xander had lost someone he– - not necessarily loved but cared for and had thrown himself into working more and ignoring everything else around him. Neither were healthy. Better to rip off the bandaid than to slowly peel it , Xander thought to himself and reached out to gently take Willow by the arm. She jumped, startled by the sudden touch and rounded on him with her eyes wide with fear. “Sorry,” he muttered and cringed at her reaction. “Wil, are you doing okay? I know things aren’t right. You’re not your usual perky self,” Xander said, and let his hand drop from her arm so he could raise both of his palms. “Not that you got to stay happy-go-lucky all the time, just I can tell something is off,” he added.

Willow looked confused at first, but he could see that she began to make sense of what he had asked. She frowned and looked down at his chest, “I miss him.” It was quiet, barely a whisper, but he could hear it. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m do– - doing okay, and I’m totally dealing in the best dealing way– - that I can. But, it hurts and I just– - want it to stop hurting,” she said, and glanced back up at him. Tears welled-up in her eyes, and Xander hugged her to him. He felt her arms around him and relaxed at the gentle squeeze around his middle. “I’m more worried about Buffy and– - and I’m worried about you after– - after Anya,” she added.

He felt a tight pain in his chest with the mention of the former vengeance demon, and Xander tried to ignore it. The relationship hadn’t ended as badly as Willow’s but it had left him with an open wound that had yet to heal itself. Xander felt at fault for its failure, yet it was not something he wanted to deal with standing in a graveyard in the middle of the night. He pulled away from her and smiled. He felt powerless but all he could do to help her after Oz left was put on a brave front. In time, he hoped that it would heal them both.

He pulled away from her and smiled. Putting on a brave face was all he could do to help her begin to heal after Oz, though all of them had tried in one way or another. “There’s no need to worry about the Xan-man, I’ll be good. I just need to get back out there and show the ladies my sweet moves,” he chuckled, though the sound felt odd coming from him. Willow looked at him in disbelief but seemed for the moment distracted from her own depressive state. That’s the way to take her mind off things. Just appear to be a loser and funny guy like in high school . Xander looked around and rested his hands on his hips. “So, we’re looking for some weird haunted house vibe,” he chuckled and gestured around them, “this should be totally easy to find here. Nothing says finding a spooky building like a spooky graveyard, am I right?”

“Well, now that you point it out like that and all,” Willow mumbled. She trailed off and crept closer to a hedge. “I think we’re looking for a symbol,” she looked back at him. Giles had been vague on the specifics which seemed out of character for the former Watcher. Xander realized, in some way, each of them were learning to live with being out of high school in some form or another. Willow opened her backpack again, and once more Xander took the flashlight to help hold it while she referred to her notebook. “Seemed easier than carrying a big ol’ book around,” she commented.”

In the time before the Sun, when the Old Ones ruled, there was a power of great destruction . Xander read the highlighted line and shook his head. “Sounds like something that should involve two hobbits and not card carrying Slayer squad members,” he commented. Willow leered at him and looked back at her notebook. He reached over her shoulder and used his fingers to trace along the page. “I didn’t do well in history but I don’t remember us covering a time where the sun didn’t exist– - pretty sure that would leave us an ice cube if that happened,” he continued.

“I– - I think it’s a metaphor? Like, you know, life is a highway or the early bird gets the worm but more demon-y,” Willow countered. He pretended to understand. Mostly, he would smile and nod when everyone started to go into explanation mode and zone back in on keywords that would spark some insight. Most of the writing in the notebook, while neatly organized, made little to no sense to him. Names like Illyria, Quor'toth and Maloker jumped out at him but they mostly sounded like some fantasy characters from a low-rent Lord of the Rings . “I think that the sun is supposed to be Christianity. It makes sense to be an allegory for it since it brought light to the ancient world,” she paused and looked up at him, “and, you know, a lot of suffering and witch burning stuff.”

“I think we’re safe,” Xander replied. He hoped they would be safe, but he didn’t want to bring up the almost burning at the stake that they had suffered the year before. While Willow poured over her notes, he focused the flashlight on the tombstones that surrounded them. Most were so worn by age that the names and dates were hard to read if at all, but he could see that a few dated back to the 1800’s. They had to be in the right area for the most part. He had the familiar sensation of being in danger, and every nerve in his body pulled at him to leave. The flashlight allowed him to check his watch. It was close to 2AM now. It would be perfectly reasonable for them to head back and try their search again at a more reasonable hour, in the daylight. Or with Buffy along for the field trip , he thought. Willow sighed loudly and drew his attention away. “What’s up Wilster?”

“It’s just so frustrating that we don’t have anything else to go off of,” she replied. Off to their side they heard a loud noise, and both of them exchanged a look of fear. Xander fumbled with the flashlight to turn it off before both of them lowered down behind a row of gravestones. “I think, uh, we should maybe head back for right now,” Willow suggested.

You think? Xander thought, but only nodded. He looked over his shoulder and then gestured for Willow to be quiet. He could barely remember his training from when he had been turned into a soldier for Halloween, but there was enough to grasp the basics of not being seen. There was another loud sound that reminded him of a log being split in half, and Willow clung to his arm. They moved together, quickly to another row of headstones. Just what we needed. A little stroll through the graveyard, a little therapy and something that may or may not want to kill us in the dark. Thank you, Sunnydale, he bitterly thought.

“Xander,” Willow whispered. When he looked at her, Willow was on her knees and had peered over the edge of one of the grave markers. She glanced down at him and lowered herself, pointing frantically to their side. “There’s demons and some cloaked guys,” she hissed. Xander wanted to look at himself, and even started to raise up to peer over the carved stone but Willow grabbed his arm tighter. He felt her nails bite into his skin through the flannel of his shirt. “Xander,” she said, frightened. She was terrified, it wasn’t hard to see but Xander wanted to know what they had to deal with in order to escape. He gestured for her to remain calm, something that he found difficult to do himself in that moment, before he took a hesitant glance.

They stood only a few yards away in a small patch of clearing. There were five of them, two demons and three robed figures that he couldn’t tell if they had been human. The demons were abnormally tall with yellow skin and cartoonishly long arms. Twisted horns protruded from the side of their heads, and their fingers were long and bony with nails that grew out and resembled claws. They looked sharp and dangerous, and Xander had no desire to find out if they were as they looked. The figures in the hooded robes were shorter, almost average height for a human but in the darkness he couldn’t tell the color they wore. All that he could gleam from his brief look was an armband that was wrapped around all three forearms. The center strap was a bright red. He ducked back down next to Willow before he could draw any attention from the group.

“I don’t think they’re here to look for a good plot,” Xander joked in a hushed whisper. He leaned against the stone behind him and tried to calm his breathing, and with it his heartbeat. What would Buffy do? , he thought. But, he had known what Buffy would have done. A zippy one-liner about not being invited to the party and then she would send them back to Hell, at least the two demons. Maybe the other three were not human. He looked around and pointed Willow to move forward. She hesitated, but he nodded sharply in front of them and readjusted his position. He waited for her to move forward before he crept after her. It was a slow progress. One foot after the other, and it felt as if every other second that passed the gathering behind them made a noise that seemed to draw them closer.

“We need to get out ,” Willow whispered to him after he settled next to her. Behind them, the two demons started to speak. It wasn’t in any language that Xander recognized. A series of rapid clicks and deep, guttural grunts and growls that made him think of some animal at a zoo. The way they had come in was wide and opened. If they started to run, they would draw the attention of the group. Suddenly, their separate romantical issues seemed so small when compared to that moment. “Maybe– - Maybe we can distract them? I think I can conjure a small sound or cat or something behind them. Maybe? I can try that,” Willow offered.

Magic. It had to always come down to magic. Xander shook his head and ran his thumb across his bottom lip as he thought. Part of him, the remnant of the soldier, knew that they couldn’t keep using the headstones as cover. They could move ahead about twenty more feet before they were too far apart to be used for cover. Willow had a point. A distraction was going to be needed if they kept moving toward them but it needed to be quick. No offense Wil but you’re still Sabrina with training wheels on , he glanced at her. “Is there anything important in your backpack?”

“Just my notes and the good ol’ vamp survival kit. Why?” Willow pulled the backpack off slowly and looked at him. Her eyes widened, and he figured she had connected the dots. She opened it and pulled out her notebook before closing it again. “Do you think it will work? Maybe we can make it and they won't see us, you know?” She looked over her shoulder as another voice answered the primal one. It was a man, their tone more human in appearance to Xander by the way it attempted to mimic the language of the demons. It sounded closer to them now. For a split second, he wondered why they had been out so far but that had been quickly pushed to the back of his mind. Escape first, and wondering what the creepy group was doing in a graveyard in the early hours of the morning could come later.

He took the backpack from her. “When I toss it, run– - Giles’ is close by so that would be the safest bet,” he explained. She nodded, though it was halfheartedly. He couldn’t blame her. He closed his eyes and tightened his hold on the handle sewn at the top. Oh, this is beyond the stupidest thing we’ve done since last week , he said to himself. Xander opened his eyes and started to stand. “On three, run.” He began to countdown, and one three tossed the bag as hard as he could throw it in the opposite direction. Willow ran, and Xander hesitated only a second to let her get ahead of him before he started to run after her.

Behind them, one of the demons roared. “Keep running!” Xander cried out. Together they dodged and moved through the sea of tombstones and hedges all the while he could hear movement from behind them. He dared not to look, instead he focused on the back of Willow’s fuzzy hat that bopped with her movement. As long as we can clear the gates , he thought to himself. It may have made no difference but there was a small hope that they would give up the chase.

Willow was a few feet ahead of him when a robed figure stepped out between them and caused Xander to stumble and slide to a stop. He hit the ground hard enough that the air was knocked from his lungs, and then he felt the solid connection of the back of his head hit against something hard. He felt a sudden upset chur in his stomach as his vision blurred and pain worked its way though his body. Then his vision went dark.