Chapter One

Disclaimer: I do not hold the copy right to Buffy the Vampire Slayer™ or Anita Blake: Vampire Slayer™ , nor do I claim to. All characters belong to their original creators, their publishers, and subsidiaries. I make no profit from the making or sharing of this fanfiction.

This is a sequal to my story "Taking the Tri- Out of Triumvirate", which is in response to a challenge of the same name: Taking the Tri- Out of Triumvirate. Please read the previous story first.





The night after Halloween, Xander announced his intention of leaving Sunnydale to Giles. "I'm going east. There's another necromancer out that way. I'll call, let you know how I'm doing. I have things to do before I leave, arrangements to make. If you guys need me, I'll know." Before the older man could overcome his shock, Xander was gone.

The arrangements Xander mentioned were quite simple to complete, though it took some time to figure out how to concsiously call up the power of his vampiric eyes. Sunnydales only used car salesman was the lucky subject of his first experiement, happily selling him a “practically new”, hopefully reliable truck for only a couple hundred dollars. Xander didn't really know anything about trucks or automobiles in general, but even he could tell that the monster of a machine could run over just about anything and keep on going, which was just what he wanted. Who the hell knew how many creppy-crawlies or bugaboos he'd run into on the trip?

Emptying the rest of his bank account yeilded a few thousand dollars, which he pocketed before closing his account entirely.

He popped by the public library and set up a free email address at the public use computers. He didn't know how often he'd get the chance to check it, but some potential form of communication was better than nothing. After a few days . . . make that weeks, it would probably be safe to email Willow. A brief pang of guilt shot through him at leaving Giles to break the news of his departure to the girls, but when it came to possibly hysterical and/or desperate women, it was every man for himself.

From there it was home, driving his new car and parking at the curb. His father was still passed out on the couch, his mother upstairs bleerily watching the afternoon soap operas. Xander packed every stitch of clothing he had into the largest one of the three ancient suitcases he dug up from the basement. Various weapons, safely and appropriately packed, filled a second. The last was taken up by momentos, sentimental odds and ends, necromantic books, pictures, and bits and pieces of things required for his power: a silver plated anthame, goos, powders, and wet wipes.

He threw the suitcases into the passenger seat and laid rubber for the town limits, heading south-east towards the nearest highway.

By dusk, Xander had two flat tires and was missing a transmission. Cursing to himself in a half-dozen different languages, he paced beside the junk heap he had mistakenly thought would actually be able to go places. Just his hell-spawned luck that the thing would crap out ten miles from the nearest town. He scowled at the truck, kicked the bumper for good measure, and watched the engine burst into flame.

“My life is so fuckin' weird.” Xander hauled his suit cases out, and holding them securely, attempted to lift off into flight. Only to fall back on his ass. “Damn it! Just freakin' figures that I can't do that yet. Shit.” Sighing, he picked up his bags again, and started walking. The road sign beside his slowly immolating truck read: “Oxnard – 12 miles”.








I'm baaaaack! Though the going will be slow. I hope to maybe update once a week, if we're lucky. Comments and suggests are more than welcome.