One of Seven: In Chaos Found

by Setcheti

 

 

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of them, how sad. L

 

Author’s Note:  This is a redo of the quintessential BtVS Halloween episode in which a chaos mage’s spell turned everyone into their costumes.  Throw in an AU version of the Magnificent Seven and everything old becomes new again, yay!

 

JD Dunne, twenty-two years old and the veteran of nearly three years of lawkeeping in a small territorial town, had honestly thought he couldn’t see anything anymore that would surprise him.  If you could think of it, he’d probably already chased it out of town, or locked it up, or at the very least read about someone else chasing it or locking it up in the pages of a dime-novel.

 

The little creature that had just run across his boots, however, was like nothing he’d ever seen before.  It was green, and if it hadn’t been running on two legs and wearing a headband he would have sworn it was a turtle; the thing was, no dime-novel JD had ever read mentioned turtles that stood three feet high on their hind legs and wore anything at all, much less headbands and, yes, he was pretty sure that had been a belt with some kind of knife stuck in it.  Nor had he ever seen mention of clothed running turtles being chased by something else about three feet high, blue, and hairy.  Or maybe the blue hairy thing had just been chasing what the running turtle had been chasing, which actually seemed to be a kid of about twelve wearing a belted monk’s robe and carrying some sort of wobbly-looking glowing blue stick.

 

Maybe he was dreaming, he thought, looking up at the evening sky…and seeing a frighteningly large winged person-shaped creature swoop down to land on the roof of a nearby house.  Or maybe he’d just gone insane.  Insane actually sounded pretty good, in fact, once he’d watched the winged creature roll off the roof and land on a startlingly bright yellow lizard-like thing, which immediately bounced back up and began trying to pull the creature’s sparkly white wings off.  Which was how it found out that the winged creature had claws and sharp teeth, and the two of them started rolling around in the grass like a pair of scuffling puppies.

 

Or like puppyish little monsters, that was.  JD watched the fight with detached interest, and probably would have stayed detached for a while longer if several things hadn’t happened pretty much at once that shocked him out of it.  First, a purple lizardish monster with green spots ran into him, almost bowling him over, and second…he heard someone scream in fear. 

 

Insane or not, he was still a lawman, and the sound of the scream recalled him to the responsibilities conferred by the tin star that adorned his vest.  JD got a handle on himself and took stock of his surroundings, setting aside for the moment the fact that he didn’t know how he’d gotten to be exactly where he was in the first place.  He was standing to one side of a wide, paved street, well-lit and lined with houses and trees; to eyes used to the dusty dilapidation of a Western frontier town or the dark and narrow cobbled streets of Boston, the place looked impossibly neat and clean.  And impossibly strange.  The streetlights were too tall.  The street was too smooth.  And there were monsters running all over the place, chasing people.

 

Catching a few, too.  JD got a handle on himself again, ran up to the four-foot high green-spotted purple monster that was terrorizing three little kids in weird clothes, and pulled it away by the scruff of its neck.  “Run!  Get home!” he ordered, and the kids ran off.  He tossed the monster in the opposite direction and got between it and the retreating children, drawing one of his six-guns as he did.  The monster ran off, but halfway across the street after it JD heard another scream and decided that chasing the monsters off was probably more useful than hunting them down – he could do that part later.  He ran through a cloud of mist and up onto the porch of a white-painted house, knocking two monsters off the porch to get to a young mother holding a screaming child dressed like a bumblebee.  JD pounded on the door of the house, then ignored the rifle that was aimed at him through the door when it was wrenched open. “I got a mother and her kid out here, and I need you to look after them until we get these streets cleared,” he said in his best ‘sheriff voice,’ pushing the barrel of the shocked homeowner’s rifle aside and drawing the woman to the door so he could move her in to safety.  “You all keep the doors locked, stay inside,” he told them, and then let go of the rifle and stepped back, letting the flimsy outer door close.  The homeowner slammed shut the inner door, and JD jumped down off the porch and started looking for his next rescue.

 

He was about to head back across the street when the mist reappeared in his path again, only this time it looked like a barely-dressed girl with long red hair and it was scowling at him.  “Xander!”

 

JD stopped.  He’d never seen a ghost before, but this looked like it might be one.  Deciding that it couldn’t hurt to be polite – especially since the ghost looked sort of mad – he tipped his hat to it.  “Ma’am.”

 

The ghost-girl stamped her foot.  “Xander, it’s me, Willow!  Why did you run through me before?  That was rude, mister!”

 

Run through her?  Oh, the mist.  Oops.  “If that was you before, then I’m truly sorry,” JD told her.  “I thought it was just mist I was running through.  And I had to get to that lady and her kid, there were monsters after them.”  He tipped his hat again, not figuring a ghost could shake hands.  “I’m JD Dunne – Sheriff Dunne, of Four Corners.  And I’m not so sure where I am right now or how I got here, but someone’s got to do something about all these folks out on the street and since I’m the only lawman I see right at the moment I guess that makes me the someone.  So if you’ll excuse me…”

 

He turned away to go back up the street, and found the ghost in front of him again.  She still looked mad.  “Your name is Xander,” she insisted.  “And I don’t have time to deal with you thinking you’re some sheriff right now!  We’ve got to find Buffy and get to Giles so he can fix this!”

 

JD’s jaw set.  “If this Giles person can fix things, then I guess you’d better be finding him,” he told the shocked ghost.  “And if you tell me what this ‘Buffy’ of yours looks like, I’ll keep an eye out for her.  But I won’t be going anywhere else until I’m not needed here any more.”

 

“Oh, you…fine!” the ghost-girl huffed at him.  “She’s wearing a fancy pink dress and she’s probably about as helpless as a baby.  I’m going to go get Giles, but I’ll be back!”

 

She disappeared, and JD took off again, chasing the nearest scream.  He decided that, when the ghost did come back, he was going to run through her again and pretend it was an accident.

 

 

Two streets and about fifteen minutes later, JD spotted a girl in a fancy pink ball gown being circled by a blond man wearing a black leather duster.  The girl seemed to be frightened and furious by turns, which her tormentor appeared to find amusing, but when she slapped the man he roared into the aspect of yet another monster and JD shot him without a second thought.  “If you’re Buffy, then a friend of yours sent me to find you,” he called out to the shocked girl when it looked like she might run away from him.  The man-monster started to sit back up, and JD shot it again.  “I think we’d better get away from here, miss.  I’ll get you to someplace safe, all right?”

 

“My name is Elizabeth, Lady Elizabeth.”  The girl wrung her dainty white hands in indecision.  “Oh, whatever shall I do?” she cried.  “Everything is so very strange…”

 

“I know, but we can worry about that once you’re taken care of,” JD assured her.  He moved in close and took her arm, putting a third bullet into the blond man-monster when it started to curse at him.  “We need to go now!”

 

She went along with him for a few steps, then started to pull against his hold, complaining about decorum and feeling faint; JD dragged her along anyway, reasoning that once he had her put up someplace she’d either get over it or she wouldn’t.  The appearance of another black-clad man who seemed to be moving to intercept them, though, made him stop in his tracks; this man was tall and dark where the other had been short and blond, but there was something about him that made the hair stand up on the back of JD’s neck.  He pushed the complaining girl behind him and held his gun at the ready.  “I’d stop right there, Mister, unless you want to catch one of my bullets.”

 

The man slowed his approach but didn’t stop, although he did hold up his hands.  “Xander, it’s me, Angel.”

 

JD snorted and shook his head.  “I must look an awful lot like this Xander guy –you’re the second one tonight who’s made that mistake.  Tell you what, why don’t you go look for him while I get this girl put up safe somewhere.  I already shot one monster, and if you keep comin’ I have no problem making it two.”

 

“You shot someone?!”  The ghost-girl’s sudden appearance startled him.  She was still, as near as he could tell, mad.  Then she saw the girl in the pink dress, who was cowering behind him, and some of the mad went away.  “Oh good, you found Buffy.  Now put down that gun…”

 

“She says her name is Lady Elizabeth, and I don’t think so.”  JD used said gun to motion toward the man in black, not losing his bead.  “This fella looks an awful lot like that monster I just plugged, so I think it would be better if he just kept his distance.”

 

The man who’d identified himself as ‘Angel’ froze, dark eyes widening.  “Wait a minute, you just shot…”

 

“A terrible fiend in black, with hair as white as snow,” the girl in pink informed him with an affected shudder and a demure lowering of lashes over her blue eyes; JD could tell she was flirting with the tall, dark man.  “When I rejected his lewd advances he assumed the aspect of a demon and would have had his way with me had not my savior appeared.”

 

The tall man sighed.  “That had to have been Spike,” he informed the ghost.  “We’d better get indoors someplace before he comes looking for us – although what he’s doing out tonight in the first place is anyone’s guess.”  He sighed again, then straightened and sketched a short, formal bow to the girl in pink.  “Lady Elizabeth, please do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to safety.”

 

The girl simpered prettily and would have gone straight to him if JD hadn’t held her back.  She pushed against his hold with a scowl.  “Unhand me this instant!”

 

“Do you know this man?” JD asked her pointedly.  He was getting the idea that the girl wasn’t too smart – his mother had often said that rich people tended to raise their daughters with feathers in their heads, and this ‘Lady Elizabeth’ seemed to fit that description.  “Miss, I can see that you like his manners,” he thought that was the most genteel way of putting it, “but if he’s not someone your parents know, then I’m not sure they’d want you going off alone with him.”

 

She tugged again, petulantly this time.  “Oh, but I am sure he is a gentleman…”

 

“What would your daddy say?”  The girl deflated, and JD nodded.  “That’s what I thought.  Now you just wait, we’ll settle this.”  He turned back to the man.  “I don’t know you, but that ghost over there said she knows this girl – told me how to find her, as a matter of fact, even if she did get her name wrong.  And since the ghost also seems like she knows you…well, if you know of a safe place then we’ll follow you there and check it out.  If it looks okay, then we’ll see about me leaving the girl there while I go back to work out here.  Deal?”

 

The man looked shocked for a moment, but then he nodded and took JD’s outstretched hand in a firm shake.  “Deal, Xan…um, what did you say your name was again?”  He glanced at the tin star, “Sheriff?”

 

“I didn’t, but it’s JD Dunne,” JD told him, frowning a little; the man’s grip was firm, but it was dry and corpse-cold. “Sheriff Dunne, of Four Corners.”

 

“Like I said before, my name is Angel,” the man responded.  He waved at the fuming ghost.  “That’s Willow.  I’m afraid we’re having a problem…um, identifying people right now, that’s why she was so concerned about you shooting someone.  Once we have B…Lady Elizabeth safe then I’ll do my best to explain the situation.”

 

“That’s gonna be some explanation, mister.”  JD gave him a nod.  “Let’s get going, every minute we stand here those monsters are attacking someone else – and I haven’t been shooting them, just running them off.  You don’t throw lead around when you don’t know what’s going on, that’s a good way to get innocent people killed.”

 

The man who called himself Angel nodded back, looking relieved.  “Right,” he said, and waved to the unhappy ghost.  “Willow, let’s all go back to Buffy’s house.  Once she’s safe, then we can explain things to Sheriff Dunne and figure out what we need to do next.”

 

JD was relieved himself to see the ghost grudgingly agree with that, although he had to interpose himself between her and the girl he was leading when she tried to float closer.  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Miss Willow.  You’d best keep your distance,” he said, ears still ringing from Lady Elizabeth’s shriek; he’d seen Angel wince from the sound of it too.  “I know you seem to know her, but I don’t think she remembers you – or maybe she remembers you alive, but either way, you’re scaring her.”  The ghost floated back, looking sad, and JD shook his head, feeling somewhat sorry for her.  From the looks of things, and in spite of the way she was dressed, it looked like she’d died pretty young.  “It’ll be all right, Miss Willow. We’ll figure it out.  Why don’t you come over here on the other side of me until we get to the house?”

 

The ghost sniffed but did as he asked, floating along somewhat disconsolately to the right and slightly ahead of him.  When they reached the house Angel was leading them to, she flowed through the front door and then flowed back out a moment later.  “There’s no one here.  The key is…”

 

“I know where the key is.”  Angel tipped over a small rock next to the porch steps and fished out the key, then held open the door for Lady Elizabeth and JD.  “Have you seen anyone else?” he asked the ghost.

 

“No, but I wasn’t really looking for anyone but Buffy and Giles.”  The ghost-girl didn’t seem to see anything wrong with that, but her words made JD scowl and she scowled back.  “You don’t remember so you don’t understand, or else you would have come with me instead of running off!”

 

“Like I was going to leave a bunch of innocent people to those monsters just because you only cared about finding the people you knew.”  JD’s temper flared and he clamped down hard on it, reminding himself again that she was young and dead besides.  “I know you want to take care of your own, Miss, but that just wouldn’t have been right.  And I did find Lady Elizabeth for you, now didn’t I?”

 

“He came to my rescue in my hour of need,” Elizabeth agreed from the couch she had gracefully arranged herself on; she was still trying to get Angel’s attention, JD noticed, although the tall man seemed to be uncomfortable with that and was staying away from her.  “As did you, Lord Angel.”

 

Angel winced.  “Willow, were you able to find Giles?  We have got to find a way to fix this.”

 

The ghost-girl pouted.  “I couldn’t get in his apartment.  And I can’t pick up the phone to call him.”

 

“Oh.”  Angel went to a small white object on a table, picked part of it up that was dangling a coiling white cord and held it up to his ear.  “What’s the number?”  The ghost rattled off a series of numbers at him, he punched some buttons on the base of the object, and after a moment he said, “Giles?  It’s Angel.  I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but it looks like someone cast a spell to turn people into their Halloween costumes – not everyone, just some people.”  He glanced over his shoulder.  “Yes, they’re all alive and inside Buffy’s house…but Willow is the only one who remembers anything, and she’s a ghost so she couldn’t get past the wards on your apartment to contact you.  Do you have any idea…wait, let me ask.”  He turned again.  “Willow, where did you, Buffy and Xander get your costumes?”

 

“A new place, Ethan’s something, everyone was getting their costumes there,” she told him.  “Does Giles think…”  A burst of cursing from the thing Angel was holding had him wincing and widened her eyes.  “Oh, I guess he does.  What can we do?”

 

“Giles, calm down,” Angel ordered the white instrument, and the cursing trailed off.  “There are children out there, and not all of them were transformed.  How do we get this stopped?”  He listened, nodding, and then reunited the instrument with its base on the table.  “Willow, Giles wants you to go down to that costume shop and keep an eye on it – if the owner leaves, follow him, but don’t try to go in or get too close.  I think Giles knows him, and he’s heading over there to take care of it as soon as he can get some things together.”

 

“Okay, I’ll go…”  The ghost trailed off, frowning at JD, who was checking his gun.  “X…Sheriff, you have to stay here and look after my friend.”

 

JD gave her an irritated look, sliding the reloaded gun back into its holster.  “I think she’s plenty safe right here,” he countered.  “But there are still folks outside who aren’t – or don’t you care about what happens to them?”

 

He almost felt bad when she blanched, but she got mad again so quickly that the feeling didn’t last.  “You have to take care of Buffy!  She’s the Slayer, she’s important!”

 

“She’s perfectly safe here in the house – those monsters aren’t breaking into the houses that I saw,” he repeated firmly.  “And your friend Angel said it himself, there are kids out there, and whatever this is that’s going on, they need someone to protect them until that Giles person you were talking about can get it fixed.  So why don’t you go do your job and let me do mine?”

 

Now she was really mad, but before she could get going again Angel shut her down.  “He’s right, Willow,” the tall man said.  “I’ll stay nearby to keep an eye on the house, but I’m going back out too.  We don’t know how long it will take for Giles to reverse the spell, if he even can.  And those are children out there.”  He turned back to JD.  “Don’t shoot the little monsters unless you don’t have a choice – they’re being controlled, it’s not their fault.”

 

JD could accept that.  “What about that short guy who was dressed like you?”

 

Angel sighed.  “That was Spike, keep an eye out for him – he’s a vampire, shooting him just makes him mad.”

 

“But it will slow him down some,” JD observed.  He’d read about vampires in a book Ezra had loaned him once, but he didn’t remember a whole lot of it.  What he did remember, though…he frowned up at the tall man.  “You a vampire too?  Your hands are awful cold for a live man.”

 

The other man flinched, looking embarrassed.  “Yes,” he sighed.  “I’m a vampire.  But I’m not…I’m trying to do the right thing, all right?  I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I won’t if I can help it.  Willow can tell you…”

 

“Willow’s a ghost – dead people don’t have anything to fear from a vampire,” JD informed him, not quite rolling his eyes.  “And she’s young enough to fall for whatever line you feed her.  But I’m still gonna take you at your word, and I don’t think you’re out to hurt Lady Elizabeth over there – if anything, it looks to me like you’re keeping your distance from that man-trap she’s trying to bait you into.”  He ignored the offended screech from the couch.  “I’d say pull anyone who’s not a monster in here with her.  Once I’ve got everything as much under control as I can, I’ll come back here and we’ll figure out what to do next.”

 

“That works for me.”  Angel looked at him for a long moment, then shook his head and made for the front door.  “Let’s get going.  Lady Elizabeth, please stay indoors until I let you know it’s safe to come out,” he tossed over his shoulder, then asked the hovering, displeased ghost, “Willow, don’t you have someplace you’re supposed to be right now too?”

 

The ghost released a surprised sound, but she disappeared.  JD followed the tall man out into the yard, checked his guns one more time, and then took off in the direction he could hear the most disturbance coming from.  “It’s gonna be a long night,” he sighed.  “Damn but I wish the guys were here with me.”

 

Over the ringing cadence of his boots on the too-smooth pavement and the other noises he was concentrating on, he didn’t quite hear a giggling voice whisper, “Granted.”

 

A moment later there was a shimmer in the air, and four ghosts appeared.  One of them, a tall, dark-haired man with a bushy mustache, peered after the running sheriff and his brown eyes lit up.  “JD!”

 

“No!” exclaimed the man next to him in a warning tone; he was thinner and blond with hard turquoise eyes, and dressed entirely in black much like the blond vampire from earlier that night had been.  “That’s not him, Buck.”

 

“But…”

 

“No, it isn’t him – but I can see Brother JD inside of that boy’s body,” came from a large, grizzled man with heavy features and pale blue eyes that were also squinting after the quickly-disappearing sheriff.  “At least we’ve finally found him.”

 

“What I want to know is where we’ve found him,” said an equally large black man who had a brace of knives strapped across his back.  He was looking around in bewilderment.  “This don’t look like any place I’ve ever seen.  Where are we?”

 

Another shimmer, and two more ghosts appeared, holding something that snarled and struggled between them.  “Knock it off,” ordered the taller of the two men, giving the thing a rough shake.  He pushed long golden-brown hair back out of his face and offered the tall man in black a grin.  “Got ‘er, Cowboy.”

 

“She was obviously under the impression that pursuit and capture were not possible,” observed the shorter man who was helping him.  This man, in sharp contrast to his partner’s worn denim and fringed buckskin, was wearing pinstriped pants, a ruffled shirt, a gold-buttoned waistcoat and a red jacket, and his chestnut-brown hair was cut stylishly short.  He pulled the thing he was holding a little more upright so the others could get a better look.  “So now that we have her, what shall we do with her?”  

 

“You can’t do anything with me, I’m a wish-demon and I…damn you, let go!”  The demon’s voice was high and its shape was feminine, but beyond that the resemblance to a human female stopped; its hair was blue and green, its face was green and ridged with cracks and veins, and its eyes were yellow.  Its hands had six fingers each, all of which sported curved black talon-like nails.  “You can’t do this!”

 

“Yeah, we can.”  The man in black stalked over to the demon and glared down at it; the demon quailed when the man’s eyes glowed.  “You should have paid more attention – although I’m not sorry you didn’t.  Now what else did you have planned?”  The demon squirmed, and with an impatient snort the man grabbed the front of its clothing and yanked it up to his eye level.  “No more.  Whatever else you had planned, it stops now.  JD doesn’t know where the hell he’s at, and he’s got no idea that saying those words would call up something like you – and since right now he’s in some other kid’s body, you’ll be leaving that kid alone too, got it?” 

 

The demon hesitated, but the man’s eyes glowed a little brighter and it nodded frantically.  “All right, all right!  I’ll leave the boy alone!  Both of them.  Now let me go!”

 

“If you say so.”  The man dropped the demon, and it fell into a flailing heap at his feet.  “Don’t come back.  We’re here now, and we don’t like you.”

 

The demon scuttled away, but it did manage to sneer at him before it popped away in a shower of black sparks.  “You won’t be here that long, Cowboy.”

 

The man in black didn’t quite roll his eyes when the buckskin-clad man choked on a laugh.  “Very funny, Vin,” he growled, his eyes fading back to turquoise.  “Now do we know what the ugly bitch meant by that?”

 

“We’d probably best be findin’ out quick,” came from Buck, the man with the mustache.  “Don’t want to lose JD again, Chris.”

 

“We aren’t going to.”  Chris Larabee, once one of the most feared gunslingers in the West, looked around one more time and made a decision.  “All right, first things first; we need to let JD know we’re here – he might already know what’s going on, which would save us some time.  Once that’s done, then we’ll get to work on the rest of it.”

 

The six ghosts strode off quickly in the direction their long-lost friend had taken, and soon found themselves standing on a better-lit street watching small, monstrous-looking things run all over the area.  “What in God’s name…”

 

“Not God’s name, Nate,” the grizzled older man said, his deep voice shocked.  “I can see…I think those are children, and their bodies are being used by something else.”

 

That startled Buck.  “But Josiah, you said you could see JD…”

 

“Not like that, Buck.”  That, surprisingly, came from the man in the red jacket.  He was squinting, and frowning.  “I believe this is magical in nature, gentlemen – I would theorize that all of these individuals, including that young man, are unwilling victims of the same mass working.”

 

“Crap, that’s just low, for someone to do a thing like that.”  Vin shook his head.  He was still scanning the street, and once he’d spotted the person he’d been looking for he yelled and pointed.  “Guys, over there!”

 

They all looked.  The young man currently being inhabited by their friend was several houses down the street, chasing a medium-sized monster away from a house where several frightened people were cowering on the porch.  He was not using his gun, and when both Chris and Buck started to draw theirs Josiah objected immediately.  “No, don’t!” he said.  “Remember, those bodies are still children, no matter what it is that’s riding them.”

 

“I think JD must know that, or he’d have his gun out,” Vin agreed, and pelted off down the street to help his young friend.  The others quickly followed, and by the time they all arrived the monsters were gone and JD – in his borrowed body – was staring at them in overjoyed astonishment.  “Guys, you’re here!”  Then his face paled as he realized something else.  “Oh sweet Jesus, you’re dead…”

 

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Buck was quick to tell him.  “We’ll explain everything later.  Right now, though, we need to know what’s goin’ on.”

 

“Or this reunion might get cut short in a hurry,” Chris added.  He smiled at the young man, seeing the resemblance to their long-lost friend in the dark hair, dark eyes, and boyish face.  “Tell us what you know.”

 

JD shook his head.  “Not much – I don’t even know how I got here, or where ‘here’ is.  It’s not like any place I’ve ever seen before.  But I ran into some folks who thought I was someone else, and I found one of their friends for them.  They kept talking about magic, something about a spell that turned some people into the costumes they were wearing. They got hold of someone called Giles – and don’t ask me how they did it –  and it sounded like he knew who did the magic and was real mad about it.  He was gonna go over to the costume shop to fix things.”  He frowned.  “I don’t know who or what Giles is, but the shop is called Ethan’s, the girl is a ghost named Willow, and her friend Angel is a vampire.  Their friend I rescued from another vampire is Lady Elizabeth, but they kept talking about her as ‘Buffy’ and once the Willow girl said she was the Slayer and that she was important.  And at first they thought I was some other friend of theirs named Xander.”

 

Josiah cleared his throat.  “Brother, I believe I know the reason for that – and now we know the name of your host.”  He saw that JD didn’t understand, and clarified gently, “All of these little monsters you’ve been chasing, they’re actually children being ridden by something else, some magic.  And you…that isn’t your body, my friend.  I think you’re in this Xander’s body, and if I’m not mistaken he’s still in there somewhere with you.” 

 

“Which is a good thing, because we need to talk to him immediately.”  Ezra had stepped forward, and JD realized that he was looking down at the gambler – something that shouldn’t have been possible, since he and Ezra had always been about the same height. Ezra didn’t give him time to process the shock that bit of proof gave him; the gambler had been studying the tendrils of power that were woven together to form the spell, and what he could see worried him.  Especially since one or two of them looked like they might be wobbling.  “JD, close your eyes and think about Xander.  He is probably quite frightened, possibly even angry, but if he is as much like you as he appears to be then I believe he will listen to us.”

 

JD closed his eyes.  He doubted Xander, whoever he was, could be any more frightened than he was right now –he hadn’t even realized he wasn’t in his own body, he’d been thrust into some strange place overrun by monsters and magic, and his friends had all turned up as ghosts who were acting very agitated about something.  But just as soon as he’d let that thought cross his mind, he felt a reaction to it that wasn’t his.  Was that Xander?  JD focused on the feeling, trailing it back to the source…and found someone else there, a very agitated someone else.  Xander?

 

A wordless acknowledgment, and relief.  Then a focusing, some effort that felt like someone pushing against a thick screen.  Not…possessed again?  Please?

 

JD’s shock at the question elicited another surge of relief.  It was some spell – brought me here, didn’t know where I was.  Sorry, didn’t realize.  Been chasing monsters since I got here, didn’t think, just ran around trying to save people.

 

He got the feeling Xander had just snorted. Another push.  Been there, done that.  No problem.  A pause.  Help me out?

 

JD tried to forge a connection that would let Xander out, but the screen was too thick to pierce.  He thought fast.  Let’s try something.  My friends might be able to help, they want to talk to you, think it’s kind of urgent.  If I listen, can you hear?

 

Push.  Try it.  Nothing to lose, right?

 

That means everything to gain – Ezra told me that.  Okay, here goes.  JD did his best to keep a mental finger on his connection with Xander, and then stretched as far as he could.  He managed to open one eye and saw Ezra.  “There’s something between us, I can’t get through it,” he told the waiting gambler.  “But I talked to Xander, and I think he can hear if you talk to him now.”

 

“I believe the thing separating you is the spell,” Ezra said.  “We’ll deal with that momentarily.  Xander, if you can hear me, we seem to have quite the dilemma on our hands.  Whoever created this spell has drawn JD’s spirit into your body. Neither he nor the rest of us had anything to do with this, although we do wish to help fix it.  Do you understand?”

 

JD listened, managed a nod.  “Yeah, he heard you.  He believed you, too.”

 

Ezra smiled, gold incisor flashing in the dim light.  “Thank you.  Now for the difficult part.  Xander, JD’s spirit has been lost to us for over a century, and once this spell is ended I believe we will lose him again…unless you are willing to allow him to remain here.  Not as things are now, and not as some sort of possessing spirit.  He would simply be sharing space with you, and the two of you could work that arrangement out as suits you best.”  He took a deep breath.  “Xander, I know this is a lot to ask of a stranger, especially one who has already been violated in the grotesque manner that you have been this night.  But an individual named Giles is currently on his way to end this spell, and we simply have no time to convince you of the purity of our motives.  My five compatriots and I can dissolve this barrier which is separating you from JD and from control of your body; but if we do so, then he will be sharing this space with you until we can find a way to release him.  And if we are to be successful, we must do this at once.”

 

JD felt the internal pause that was Xander thinking it over, and then two questions emerged; one for him, which he answered with an emphatic negative, and one for the six waiting men, which he relayed.  “He wants to know…if you care what happens to him, or just to me.”

 

“Of course we care what happens to him!”  That came from Chris, not Ezra, and an echo of agreement rippled through the other five men.  “I know he doesn’t know us from Adam, but we ain’t like that – ain’t never used someone that way in my life, and don’t intend to start now.”

 

The answer he got was a laugh – part JD, part someone else.  “He says do it,” JD told them, opening the other eye.  He grinned at Chris.  “Xander says he doesn’t think you would have been so pissed if you really didn’t give a shit.”

 

Chris had to smile back.  “Smart kid,” he said.  “Ezra, Josiah, what now?”

 

Ezra shrugged.  “I believe that if we all simply reach inside the boy, we will be able to dissolve the barrier and free him – which will also anchor JD to this body as well.  You should be able to feel the unnaturalness of the spell, and our combined efforts should enable us to destroy it.  Josiah?”

 

“I agree, that should do it,” the older man rumbled.  “Be sure you reach out to protect both of the boys in case of any backlash, though.  I think they’ve been through enough tonight.”

 

“We’ll all be careful – and you close your eyes, kid,” Buck told JD.  He didn’t quite sniff.  “Go wait with Xander until we’re done.” 

 

JD smiled at his best friend and then did as he asked.  Six sets of eyes glowed white, and the former defenders of Four Corners pushed their right hands forward as one.  First there was no resistance and then they all felt it, a barrier of wrongness shimmering strongly across a space which should have been open, and a presence behind it that was young and frightened while the equally young presence on the other side clung close, trying to convey reassurance.  The six powerful hands closed around the barrier, feeling the wavering in it that meant the spell was being brought to its end, and then those hands crushed the barrier into a small explosion of power before it could dissolve.  The two presences screamed, a horrible non-sound in that violated space, and immediately the hands were on them, soothing, comforting, protecting; the pain and shock receded, then vanished, and after waiting a moment to make sure things were stable the hands pulled back.

 

 

Xander came to laying in the grass in someone’s front yard.  He opened one eye, saw a man with dark hair and a mustache, and smiled past the pain in his head.  “You’re Buck, right?”

 

“Yeah, kid, that’s me.  And you’re Xander?”

 

Xander pushed himself into a sitting position, hands that weren’t entirely solid helping him along the way.  “Yeah.”  He ran a hand through his hair, looking around the circle of worried ghosts, and his smile widened.  “I kind of know who you all are, from JD – who’s still here, by the way.  Thanks.”

 

“Anytime.”  That came from a man in black whose rough voice Xander remembered from earlier, and who JD indicated was Chris.  The man’s odd-colored eyes were giving him an assessing look.  “Head hurt?”

 

“Yeah, but it’ll be okay; I’ve had worse.”  Xander carefully put those memories to one side and warned a curious JD off of them.  “Has the spell been lifted yet, or do I need to go back to chasing monsters?”

 

“As near as I can tell, it lifted mere seconds after we crushed the barrier it had created within you,” answered a small, well-dressed man with sharp green eyes.  “That was probably at least a portion of the discomfort you felt at the time – and the cause of what discomfort you are experiencing now.”  He smiled, revealing a gleaming gold incisor, and held out his hand.  “Ezra P. Standish.”

 

Xander took the offered hand hesitantly, and was surprised to find he could actually grip it; in fact, it was slightly warmer than the hand of a vampire would have been.  “Alexander Harris, but everyone calls me Xander,” he returned.  He looked around at the rest of the…were they ghosts?  JD thought they were, but Xander wasn’t so sure.  He reassured his new roommate that they’d figure it out later, but right now they had other things to worry about.  “I was out here chaperoning a bunch of kids when the spell hit,” he told the men in front of him.  “I really need to go find them and make sure they’re okay, get them back to their folks.  And then I need to find my friends and make sure they’re okay too.  If you guys can keep anyone else from seeing you you’re welcome to tag along, or you can wait for me and JD and then we’ll all go home together.”

 

“We’ll follow you, we can do invisible,” Chris told him, and gave him a hand up.  Several other hands steadied Xander when it took him a moment to get his balance back, and then the tall black man JD said was Nathan stepped forward and looked hard into his eyes.  “Nope, no concussion,” the man observed.  “Guess it’ll just take a while for the headache from that spell to wear off.  But if you start feelin’ dizzy or sick, you tell me, all right?”

 

“Or simply make some verbal signal to alert him to the problem, if we are in the company of others,” Ezra added.  “Mr. Jackson, if JD has not already informed you of the fact, is a very talented healer.”

 

“Thanks, but I’m okay, really,” Xander told them.  He put back on the bowler hat that Buck handed to him and started off in the direction of a small group of children he could see at the end of the block.  “It’s you guys who need to be careful; Sunnydale probably isn’t any safer for spirits than it is for humans.”

 

“Sunnydale?” the big man – Josiah – rumbled.

 

“California,” Xander supplied.  “Happy home of the Hellmouth and about a million vampires.  Demons, too.”  He broke off and jogged ahead of them, waving at a boy wearing a formfitting red and blue suit.  “Hey, aren’t you a part of my group?  Where are the rest of your friends?”

 

 

Following more slowly, the six men watched him start to gather up children and separate them into groups, herding them further down the block.  “He’s a lot like JD, I think,” Buck said quietly.

 

“I certainly hope so; it could be disastrous if they aren’t able to cohabitate peaceably,” Ezra said.  He was looking around.  “Hmm.  After tonight, we may wish to adopt more modern appearances, the better to blend in on the off chance that someone – or something – manages to see us.”

 

“Yeah, camouflage would prob’ly be a good idea,” Vin agreed, pushing back his hat.  “If Xan knows someone powerful enough to go up against the guy that did this…”

 

“You mean the guy who didn’t notice it happening in the first place?”  Nathan shook his head.  “Yeah, we’d better watch out for him – powerful and careless is a bad combination.”

 

“Amen to that, brother,” Josiah rumbled.  He was squinting down the street.  “I don’t see any more spirits riding the children, not even a trace.”  The one-time preacher smiled when Xander swung one little girl who was tugging at the leg of his pants up into his arms to be carried.  “I believe the shield we put in place to conceal JD’s presence should hold until later tonight.  We’ll have to do a more thorough job after the boys bed down for the night, though.”

 

“Planned on it.”  Chris was scowling.  “But I’m not so sure this ‘Giles’ who ended the spell is all that powerful – or all that smart, either.  He didn’t end that spell, he broke it.  Damn careless thing to do, especially when there’s kids involved.”

 

“And most especially when the spell is created with power borrowed from Janus,” Ezra agreed.  “Alexander would have been harmed a great deal more by the backlash had we not been there to shield him.  And JD’s spirit might have been permanently damaged.”

 

“We’ll keep an eye on the guy, make sure he don’t do nothin’ like that again,” Buck asserted.  He was still watching Xander with the kids – and keeping an eye on the potential dangers of the streets around them at the same time.  He frowned when a car sped past, streamlined and shining in the light of the tall overhead streetlamps.  “Looks like a lot of things have changed since I was last in California.”

 

“Sure have, but that’s only to be expected,” Josiah said.  “Brother Ezra is right, we’re going to have to catch up, and quick.”  He frowned himself.  “JD said they called one of the girls ‘Slayer’ – and Xander referred to this as the home of the Hellmouth.  I’ve heard of la boca del inferno before, a long time ago.  It’s supposedly a place of great evil.”

 

“There’s no ‘supposedly’ about it,” Ezra bit out.  His emerald green eyes glowed for a moment with an unearthly light.  “I can see it all over everything here, like a pall of smoke drifting from a burning pyre.  And it’s coming from the very same direction Xander is leading his young charges in.”

 

“Should we stop him?” Buck wanted to know.

 

“No.”  Chris had been looking around as well.  “He lives here and he works with this ‘Slayer’, I think he knows what he’s doing.  But I want everyone to stick close, just in case.”  His eyes also glowed.  “We’re not letting anything happen to either of those boys if we can prevent it.  Xander helped us save JD; he’s one of ours now.”