To Save A Vampire

Chapter Seven

With a flick of his left wrist, the spell Giles had cast on Buffy downstairs was undone and she could speak again.

“Wait until I get my hands on that little traitor! How dare she curse me with his memories? It’s not like I was the one who was responsible for them.”

Angel and Giles grabbed Buffy, dragged her down the stairs and threw her on the new couch.

“Listen here, little girl, you were the one who CAUSED him to have those memories, the pain, and the scars,” Giles said angrily.

“He looks okay to me!!!” she yelled back at them, arms crossed.

“That’s because Willow came in here with the remainder of her super-charged powers and used them to heal Xander. Instead of removing the curse from you like Giles ordered her to do, Willow used her power to heal the physical damage done to Xander,” Angel commented.

“So, Willow chose Xander over me. Why that little bitch! Wait until I get my hands around her little throat,” snapped Buffy.

A weakened voice was heard from the stairway. “If you dare touch or arrange for anything to happen to my Willow, you will wish this ’curse’ was all the punishment you had,” Xander said, as he came down into the living room, supported by Vic.

“Xander, you shouldn’t be down here just yet,” scolded Angel, as he rushed over, picked him up and put him in one of the new matching chairs. After making sure that he was warm and comfortable, Angel asked Vic if he could make something warm like soup or hot chocolate for Xander, please. Vic just nodded and went to do it.

“And what is this with the vampire man servant?” demanded Buffy.

“You would have to ask Xander. That is where Vic’s loyalties lie, not with me,” Angel told her.

Giles and Buffy turned towards Xander, who just shrugged his shoulders and said, “He found me, didn’t eat me, brought me to Angel’s front door and has stayed with me ever since. I do know for a fact that he has been bagging it and hasn’t killed anyone since he has been with me.”

“Well, I don’t like it. I’m going to get rid of him when he gets back,” said Buffy.

“Buffy, NO, you will not,” Xander said. “Vic hasn’t done anything wrong since he found me. I think that alone gives him the right to have a second chance. When he needs violence, he and Angel will fight in the work out room and then everything will be copacetic. You will not dust Vic.”

“Like you can stop me. Right now you couldn’t stop a sneeze,” snarked Buffy.

“Maybe not, but I might be able to do this:

Slayer’s might, does not make right
For my first spell cast this night
Give me all her stakes
For harmony and peace sakes.

Xander clenched his teeth in pain, groaning as he slumped back in his chair, panting like he had run from the school to the mansion. In his lap a bright little multi-hued bubble appeared, condensing into four different stakes, including Mr. Pointy, Buffy’s favorite. Buffy quickly patted herself down and then jumped up screeching. She made to rush Xander when Angel threw her back on the couch.

“You were warned. Now grow up. You were told tonight that Xander could now do magic and, just as he has proved, he is going to be powerful.” Looking over at a very pale Xander, Angel continued, “And as for YOU, you know better than to try that in your condition. You could have killed yourself! What were you thinking? Or were you thinking at all? Vic and I could have handled Buffy. Next time, let us in on your plan and we can work out the bugs together,” Angel said, throwing his hands up and pacing around the living room.

Giles just sat back and snickered. Angel giving him a dark look. ”What the bloody hell are you snickering about, man?”

“Welcome to the adult side of being a Scoobie. Do you have anything strong to drink?”

“Na, I dinna. But hopefully the lass left us some in the den. Come on.” Angel picked up Xander as he walked by, grabbing the stakes too. Giles grabbed Buffy by the back of the neck, to guide her, and they all marched into the den. Just as they walked past, Vic came out of the kitchen and followed them.

The vamp gave Xander the soup and then sat down, joined the men in a drink. He felt he had missed something by the way the slayer was glowering at him.


While all of this was happening downstairs, Willow was waking up. She felt like she was majorly hung over, even though she knew she didn’t drink. When Xander performed his minor spell to get the stakes from Buffy, she grabbed her head and, with a pillow over her face, she shrieked into the pillow as a feeling like fire went racing through her head.

She heard a pop and she opened her eyes in slits. A glass was floating in front of her. She felt that it was “safe” and so she grabbed it, drank the contents down in one gulp, and then relaxed as the feeling of fire was gone. As she let the glass drop from her fingers it popped out of existence and a message appeared in mid air.

Willow,
Blessed be, my darling child,

You used a tremendous amount of magical energy earlier today to curse the slayer and to heal your friend. I am not going to say anything good or bad about either one of those, it was your choice what to do with the energy around you as it is for all my followers.

But because of the amount of energy you used, you are overly sensitive to magic right now. The liquid I just gave you will help some, but not much, I’m afraid. The fire you just felt was Xander doing a simple spell. If you do a spell the feeling will be a hundred times worse, so don’t use any magic for at least a month.

Yes, I said Xander did a spell. When you sent all that magic through his body to heal him, you opened up his ability to do magic. He now has the ability to do magic, and will be as great, if not greater, than you. So teach him well, my child.

Hecate

By the time she had read the words twice, they had vanished into the air as if they never had been there. Never one not to try, even when told not to, she tried a small spell. She reached for the magic core that was inside her and found that just doing that was too much for her. The pain was too great and she didn’t even have a chance to scream. Willow blacked out, falling back onto the pillows, as the covers moved up to keep her warm, a shadow of a dog could be seen merging with the shadow of the bed.


Down stairs, Xander cringed as he sat in the den. Reaching up, he rubbed his forehead, trying to massage the slight headache that was forming because of whatever was going on upstairs. He knew it was Willow. He didn’t know how he knew this; he just knew she just tried something and it backfired and she was out again.

Angel noticed Xander was rubbing his head as he talked to Giles about stuff and he looked over at him in concern.

“It’s nothing,” Xander said. “Just a slight headache from Willow trying some magic. I don’t know why I have it. She was the one who did the spell.”

“That’s easy to explain. You have had your pathways forced open by Willow’s magic, so they are raw, and then the spell you did just irritated them. You’re also probably super sensitive to her magic because of what it has done to your pathways. So when Willow did her spell, it caused you to be sensitive to the magic, thus causing a headache. Normally you won’t get a headache, just a feeling of magic being done. But right now, you just get pain. It will heal, and you’ll be fine,” Giles explained with a smile. “If it gets to be too much, have Angel run down to the nearest underworld apothecary. They have wonderful stuff for magic backlash like this.

“But I would say, that from now on, you will always know when Willow is doing magic, and be able to trace her to where ever she is by it,” Giles continued.

Angel nodded, smiling, remembering how Dru used to get after some of her spells until Spike would go and get her some meds from the local shop.

“Speaking of healing, Xander needs to go back to bed to sleep and, as it is late, we all need to retire as well. So we’ll see you all at the library tomorrow and proceed from there with the plans, as we discussed,” Giles continued.

“Since you brought up meetings, this will be the last meeting we have here with Buffy. I refuse to have her here in my home, not after what she has done to me.” Xander looked pleadingly at Angel.

“Well you have some nerve laying down who can come and go at Angel’s home,” snarled Buffy. “I have more right here than you! After all, I’m his girlfriend. You’re just some loser wanna be that some piece of paper said he has to marry.”

With that statement, Angel backhanded her across the room as he switched into game face. “I told you before, bitch, that we were through, that I’m marrying Xander, and that there is NO MORE US !!! Now do you understand?

“And if Xander doesn’t want you in OUR home, he has every right to bar you from our home. Plus, if I have to, I’ll break my own rules and hire vampires and demons to guard the house 24/7 to make sure you never get near it,” Angel roared. “Now get out, both of you.”

Giles got up quickly, grabbed Buffy’s arm, and led her to the front door. He opened and closed the door loudly, making sure those in the den could hear them go. After they had gone down the path a ways and were outside the gate, he pulled his slayer to a stop and slammed her against the high wall that surrounded the estate.

“What the bloody hell is wrong with you? You are not the girl I first became Watcher to. You have become obsessed with Angel and you think you are soulmates, when time and time again it has been proven you’re not. You have risked your friends lives … you’ve had friends killed because of it … I was tortured because of it … Xander was almost killed by your betrayal over it!!!! This will stop now or I will put you on the next plane, non-stop to England myself in the morning. As it is, I’m escorting you home to meet with your mother tonight.”

Buffy jerked away from him and stormed her way up the street. Giles watched her go and then got into his car and drove to her house. Taking the notes
that he had gotten from Angel regarding Xander’s injuries out of his coat pocket, he stared at it for a moment, shaking as it sunk in exactly how close he came to losing the boy he called his son.