*****

A single, black-cloaked figure stood stiffly over a pentacle carved deeply into the soft, cemetery dirt. The night was black and cold and heavy, carrying an eerie stillness as if both the natural and the supernatural had simply deserted this corner of Sunnydale and left the darkly shrouded figure to its lonely work. The silence was only broken by a low, throbbing chant that long minutes later was accompanied by a plaintive wailing from something unseen in the mist.

Fires burn ‘neath black twisted boughs
Sacrifice-to above
Smoke swirling toward misting clouds
Offering-of this blood

~*~*~
 

It was fall again. Xander inhaled chill air scented with wood smoke as he sat on a tombstone watching Buffy easily dispatch a pair of fledgling vamps among the newly fallen leaves.

It took him back. Back to when fall had meant re-entering the musty, danger filled halls of Sunnydale High. Back to a time spent worrying about girls (constantly) and homework (occasionally) before a tiny blonde whirlwind had entered and changed his life forever.

Buffy spun and leapt and kicked, sending showers of leaves through the air around them. Xander sighed. He may, every now and again, get tired of Buffy’s different complexes, and it may annoy him once in a while that she seemed to forget about him, but he never got tired of watching her fight. It was what she was meant to do and what she was most comfortable doing. He wished he had something like that. Something truly meaningful. Just for him. 

Jesus. He was practically brooding. That would never do. Xander wasn’t a brooder by nature. At least, not that he let on. Whoops. Xander was startled from his unwelcome bout of introspection by the appearance of another fledge behind him. It took some doing and it wasn’t graceful, but he took care of it.

Returning his stake to his pocket he turned back to Buffy. “Hey Buff, need any help?”

She didn’t even turn around. “No thanks, Xander, I think I can take it from here…”

Of course she could. Xander was, as always, simply superfluous. As he turned and walked through the rear of the cemetery on his way home he felt a strange chill, like someone had walked over his grave. As he shuddered and rubbed his goose-bumped arms he remembered that Halloween was only a week away. He’d always been a bit frightened of Halloween. Something inside of him got all shrinky and gibbery thinking about it and that was even before he’d met the Slayer and learned that those things that go bump in the night were real. He grinned and chuckled to himself, “Of course, nothing ever happens on Halloween.”

Into the flames-and without shame
consumed with howls and screams
Pumpkins grin-in all their despair
on All Hallows Eve*

*****

Part 2. 

The next day passed with Xander unable to shake the uneasy feeling that had crept over him in the cemetery the night before. It didn’t help his mood any that Spike was acting strange as well, slinking about, snapping at everyone and looking more pale (if that were at all possible) than usual. 

The Scoobies were all congregated at the Magic Box listening to Giles drone on about meaningless issues of responsibility and maturity. Willow and Tara were staring at each other with mushy expressions. Buffy merely looked glazed and generally as unresponsive as Xander felt.

He had to do something. “G-Man, Halloween is coming. Should we be looking out for anything special this year? Y’know, lively costumes, miniature fear demons in frat houses-that sort of thing?”

Giles stopped in mid drone and looked blankly at Xander for a moment. “Umm. Well. I really don’t think so, Xander. Why-?” He was cut off  by Spike suddenly appearing out from the shadows of the bookcases. “C’mon, Harris.” The vampire tried to sound derisive but his voice was hoarse and cracking. “This year, Halloween’s not going to be anything to worry your empty little head about. Nope. Trust me.” Spike attempted a mix of  genuine and nonchalant but the dark circles under his shifting blue eyes spoiled the effect.

“How can you be so sure?“ Buffy had taken notice of the conversation when the vamp joined in so unexpectedly and she was now looking at him and noting the signs of stress on his face, as Xander had earlier. “And what’s with you? Not getting enough sleep?”

Spike waved a hand at her. “Oh, just a feeling about Halloween. Before you know it, it will have come and gone. No crisis, no apocalypse, nobody dead.” He was looking right at Xander, whose chills had grown stronger the more Spike denied that there would be any trouble.

Buffy seemed to dismiss the issue then, choosing to go back to her inner thoughts, but Xander kept his eyes locked on Spike as the vampire gave him a weak sneer and walked out of the shop.

~*~*~

That night Xander had trouble sleeping. His heart was racing and he felt short of breath, as if he were deeply afraid of something but didn’t know what. When he got up to get a glass of water from the bathroom, he had that creeping sensation that you get when someone is watching you and,as he glanced in the mirror, there was a brief, terrifying second when a second face was reflected next to his own.

He gasped out a shaky scream and turned around. There was nothing and no one there but his skin was absolutely crawling. He had to get out. He didn’t feel safe in his own apartment. The streets were hardly any safer but he was willing to risk all manner of familiar threats to escape whatever was currently haunting his home.

It didn’t take long for Xander to realize where he wanted to go. The cemetery. Spike. He just couldn’t shake the suspicion that Spike was hiding something, and now was as good a time as any to figure out what.

Of course, Spike wasn’t in his crypt, which was not a welcoming place when the grumpy vampire was in residence. It was positively sinister empty. Xander was not deterred. He let himself in and set about trying to find some light. It appeared that all Spike had on hand on the upper level were some burnt down candles on the sarcophagus, which Xander promptly lit. Wait a minute. When did Spike start using black candles? Black candles with strange writing on them? And what in God's name was that noise?

There was a rhythmic, hypnotic chanting coming from all around the crypt, and in the distance Xander could hear what sounded like crying. 

Cruel be the wind as it quells my words
I shout out-to the rain
Incantations I’ve so hoped you hear-that you-live again*
 
Xander felt a sadness well up deep inside of him, warring with his fear. But before he could go outside to investigate, the sounds ceased and Spike entered the crypt.

“Where have you been and what was with the chanting?” Xander snapped, trying to cover for his troubled emotions.

Spike looked more than a little shocked to see him, but the blond vampire merely shrugged and said, “I don’t have to account for my whereabouts to you, boy, and I have no idea what you mean about chanting.” He sniffed a little, smelling Xander’s fear. “Why’re you here, anyway, and not home safe, all snuggled in your bed?”

“Something’s in my house,” he blurted out. Lord, I sound like a fucking pansy. He’d lived on the Hellmouth all his life and now he was scared of a little haunting. “Something’s in my house and I think that you know what it is.” 

Spike looked at him, slightly bemused. “No idea what you’re talking about, Harris, but if you want you can pull up a stone slab and stay the night here. I’m off to bed.” With that the vampire disappeared underground, and there was no way that Xander was going to follow him into his lair. He sank down onto the cold floor of the crypt and resigned himself to a sleepless night.

*****

Part 3.

In the harsh light of day, surrounded by his friends at the Summer’s house, Xander’s fears seemed groundless. Still, Willow took him seriously when he told her that he felt that something was in his home and that something, in general, wasn’t right.

“And you think that Spike might be involved in this . . .strangeness?” Willow asked, blinking uncertainly at him.

“It’s just a feeling really, y’know, and the noises outside of his crypt last night.” Xander knew that he wasn’t very convincing but he badly needed to have his friends’ support, even if it was half-hearted. Willow turned to confer with Buffy and Xander tuned them out, letting his eyes fall half closed. He hadn’t gotten much sleep and when he had dozed he had suffered nightmares of cold and snow and men with crosses and torches. Waking up entangled in Spike’s long, cold limbs had been almost as disturbing as the sense of dislocation that had lingered from his dreams. The vampire had seemed concerned but relatively unsurprised to find Xander trying to extricate himself from their nest of blankets. He’d also had the grace not to make any snide comments to the jumpy human about their situation.

Xander jerked back to the present, wiping images of snow and sleeping vampires out of his head, as Willow was picking up her sweater from the chair back where she had been sitting,“Right. Okay dokey. Buffy and I can go take a look at the cemetery and at Spike’s old crypt and see if we can’t find the candles that you were talking about and anything else fishy or magicky, or magickally fishy, or whatever, that Spike might be doing.” Willow bounced and looked eager to be off.

Buffy just rolled her eyes and followed the redhead out into the fall afternoon.

Anya, quiet throughout the whole exchange, looked up at Xander and gave one of her shiny and patently fake smiles, “Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

~*~*~

The girls returned looking worried. It definitely wasn’t nothing.

Xander felt his stomach drop. What could Spike be doing to him? Or be planning on doing to him? “Don’t keep me waiting. What’s the bleached menace got up his sleeve, kids?”

Willow glanced quickly between him and Dawn and Anya. She took a deep breath. “Itlookslikehe’stryingtosummonaspiritorsomething.”

Anya was uncomprehending for a moment before translating in her head what Xander had heard originally. “Willow, Spike is trying to raise the dead?”

At the same time Xander muttered, “What does that have to do with me? I’m still here. Still alive.” He patted his chest and sides reassuringly.

“Urm, not trying to raise the dead, I don‘t think. It just looks like a summoning. And I don’t know, exactly, Xander, what it has to do with you.” Willow frowned.

Buffy chimed in looking grim, “But you can be sure that we’re going to find out.”

It was unfortunate for the vampire that he chose that moment to walk in. Buffy was on him in an instant, pinning him against the wall. “What do you think you’re doing, messing with magic. And with Xander,” She added, as an afterthought.

The vampire looked tired, like there wasn’t any fight in him at the moment. It was a look that Xander still wasn’t used to seeing on the snarky, hyperactive vampire. “OK, Slayer. Lay off a minute, will you? It’s not as if I wanted to hurt the lad.”

“Oh?” Xander had a bit of trouble believing that.

“It’s the truth. There’s ah . . .this vision thing.” Spike looked pleadingly at Xander, who pulled Buffy off and nodded at the table where the vampire gratefully sat. “Y’see, I get them, every fifty years maybe. Not often enough to matter. Not like Dru or Cordy. Never been a big deal.”

“What’s different this time?” Xander asked 

Spike let out an unneeded breath. “You. Dead.”

Xander felt like he couldn’t breath; his vision was bleeding to black and his limbs felt numb. Spike’s words, spoken in his strangely hoarse voice had the unmistakable ring of truth to them.

For a brief moment Xander saw the shadow of a brilliant blond head and he caught the scent of heather and wool. As the fragrance enveloped him he experienced the odd sense of being elsewhere before he drifted completely into unconsciousness.

Sometime later he heard people speaking around him, murmuring, like he was under water or hiding under a pile of blankets. Slowly he began to distinguish words.

“Xander! Wake up. C’mon, whelp.” He felt a cold hand lightly slap his face and smelled leather and cigarettes. Not heather. Not wool. Why did I think that Spike should smell like heather? Was his first thought, followed closely by, how did I get on the floor? Coming back to consciousness was a slow process, with much sputtering on his part and much cursing on Spike’s, as the vampire propped him up into a sitting position. 

When Xander’s vision cleared, he saw the others across the room just looking at the two of them; Xander sitting wide-eyed and cross-legged on the floor, feeling green and achy, and Spike crouched solicitously beside him.

Xander turned to the vampire and spoke the first words that came to mind before he vomited all over himself and the black-clad Spike. “Why the hell do you care if I die?” The vampire looked slightly appalled at the mess and muttered, “Be damned if I know.”

From deep in the earth brings forth rebirth 
witness-but I shan’t believe
From below a chilling glow
On All Hallows Eve

*****
*Type O Negative's "All Hallows Eve"
 

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