Africander - Libya
Title: All Who Wander
Author: Aeneas (aka Jerib_78)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: It's Joss's sandbox, I just play there.
Author's Note: This is for the Scatterlings and Orphanages Ficathon.
All Who Wander
It wasn’t hard to imagine what the Mediterranean would have looked like hundreds of years ago, dotted with triremes ferrying gold, spices, and anything a Roman heart could desire. Rows of oars dipping in and out of the water with sails catching the driving winds; it certainly wasn’t the fastest method of travel known to man. Given the turbulence Xander Harris had experienced since leaving London, he wasn’t convinced that flying was the better option.
Squirming in the uncomfortable airplane seat, he pulled his eye away from the glittering Mediterranean below him and looked for something else to occupy his mind. Giles had informed him that he was very lucky to be flying in rather than the methods of border crossing that had been utilized under the international air embargo. No hiding under canvas bags in dusty jeeps for him. He was waltzing through Libya’s front door with all the chutzpah of the glorified Labrador retriever he was. There might be a Slayer in disease-ridden jungle? Send Xander. There’s a revolution going on? Xander laughed in the face of military coups.
He barely managed to bring one girl home before they sent him globe trotting off to collect another and somehow he ended up with all the jobs that ended in Africa. It had been exciting at first, with the lions and the crocodiles and the people who made clicking noises with their tongues. But the real Africa never made it into the brochure and there were more days than not that he’d give anything to be back in the land of indoor plumbing.
A garbled voice speaking Arabic came over the intercom and either announced the beginning of their descent or that the snack cart would be making the rounds with peanuts and fruit cups. The flight attendant had passed by him earlier without a word or glance but Giles had warned him about that as well. Just because airlines were flying from London to Tripoli didn’t mean frosty relations between Libya and the western world had thawed. It had taken Giles the better part of six months to get Xander a passport and a visa that meant he wouldn’t be arrested upon setting foot in the county. Since being an American would get him exactly nowhere in this country, he’d been given a crash course on being stuffy and wearing tweed. Of course, defeat of the attempts to make Xander more British had been inevitable. It ended with Giles pinching his nose in that irritated fashion of his and proclaiming that Xander was butchering the language to such a degree that even Spike would have been appalled.
That left Xander with an American passport, a visa, and only his wits about him. There was also the eye patch, which not only worked as an impromptu costume at Halloween parties; it also gave him a certain air of danger. This was someone who had lost an eye and lived to tell the tale. People wondered, people whispered. Had he been captured by revolutionaries? A wild animal encounter perhaps. He smiled at his own musings. Maybe they just didn’t want to look at the poor man who’d lost an eye in a work related incident. Whatever it was, the world didn’t seem to pay him mind as he went about his merry way.
He fastened his seatbelt as the airplane began to bank, swooping over the city of Tripoli like a great albatross in search of a perch. Beneath him were towers in various shades of off-white, contrasted with the dark green speckles of date palms lining roads and the gray of the highways. Even the coastline was creamy beige and sparkling in the sunlight, as though a giant toddler had gone wild with the pastel crayons. It was a far cry from the dense green of the rainforest and the retina searing cinnamon of the desert. Towering skyscrapers spoke of the wealth and prosperity that came with the oil pumping out of what would otherwise be useless land.
The touchdown was uneventful and he bade a less than fond farewell to the dirty seatbelt that had refused to clasp properly. Little good it would have done him had it been an interesting landing. He kept his mouth shut and his eye toward the ground at a forty-five degree angle as the passengers disembarked. Low enough to be unthreatening to the armed guards watching over their progress through the airport but high enough to see anything short of an attack by seagull. Off to the side of the runway, he caught a glimpse of what could have been pieces of military aircraft but a stoic glare from one of the guards wearing Top Gun glasses kept him from looking too hard.
There was the familiar jostle of elbows at the luggage collection and he was glad for the single, army style duffle slung over his shoulder. He could tell from the latch that it had been opened and searched. If they wanted to rifle through his underwear, more power to them.
Passport and visa in hand, he began the slow crawl through the queues and hoops: security check, metal detectors, all the while under surveillance of the men with shiny sunglasses. Voices around him spoke Arabic in rapid-fire sentences that were both elegant and chaotic as the painted letters adorning the walls and posters. Several of the far walls had patches of mosaic or painted murals peeking out from beneath the propaganda. He was definitely not in Kansas anymore.
With his one eye open wide, he was still trying to soak up all the nuances of another foreign airport when he arrived at the older gentleman who would decide if he could stay in the country. Giles had assured him that all the paperwork was in order and hopefully the decision wouldn’t be based on what the man had eaten for lunch. He didn’t smile, merely slid his papers through the opening in the pocked glass and waited patiently.
“Maa ismuk?” The man asked as he peered at the passport and visa.
“Alexander Harris.” The next questions that rattled off of the man’s tongue were beyond Xander’s ability to infer their meaning or keep up with the vowel sounds. Hoping he wasn’t completely butchering the pronunciation, he tried Arabic, “hal tatahaddath al’ingiliiziyya?”
The passport officer eyed him with newfound intensity. “I speak English. What is your purpose to this country?”
“Tourist,” Xander answered matter-of-factly. Keep it simple. Giles had all but pounded the mantra into his skull, simple, straightforward, and no funny business.
That seemed to satisfy the man and he stamped his passport with vigor. “Welcome to Libya. Please enjoy our beautiful country.”
“Shukran.” Xander collected his papers and moved out of the queue.
One more country in a long list of countries where he didn’t have a clue what was going on. The major disadvantage of not speaking the native language fluently was that he could be listening to someone talk about removing his limbs and think they were discussing stew recipes. Fluency was a relative term as well. Dialects varied with shifting sands and twisted the already twisty sounds around in his mouth until his tongue was tied in knots at the back of his throat.
He dug the guidebook out of his duffle bag and started at the chapter about not offending the natives. Despite his very western cargo pants and lightweight cotton shirt, he was pleased to see that he blended well in the smattering of tourists and locals alike. Forget vampires, the Gap was eventually going to rule the world with their classic fit button up shirts and relaxed fit jeans. He wiggled his toes in his sandals, already feeling bits of sand slipping in between them. The lack of an ever-creeping Sahara was the best thing about England.
“Mr. Harris?” The voice startled him out of his guidebook reverie and he was relieved to see a young Arab man standing beside him. He was dressed casually in jeans and an open neck shirt of soft linen, just another teenager collecting tourists for sightseeing trips. In fact, Giles had informed Xander that registering with a vacation group was the only way into Libya but he had arranged for him to join the group that would travel to where his Libyan contact would be. Seeing Xander’s recognition, he motioned for him to follow the tour group assembling at the entrance doors.
“Salaam aleikum,” the young man said as he reached Xander’s side.
“Aleikum as-salaam.” The greeting seemed to either please or amuse the man and Xander wondered if he’d managed to emphasize the wrong syllables again. A folded newspaper appeared in the man’s hands and was handed casually to him with only the faintest of smiles.
“Shukran,” Xander took the newspaper. In the time it took to glance down at the paper the young man vanished into the crowd and he was left with printed Arabic soup. Wistfully, he thought back to simpler days that didn’t involve covert hand offs in airport terminals. He tucked the paper into the guidebook and joined the tour group. At least two of the other tourists were obviously British, middle-aged, and more than a bit overwhelmed by their surroundings.
“I don’t suppose they can stop us from speaking English, do you?” the woman nervously asked the man next to her.
“Of course not, dear.” The man gave Xander the wearied look of a bedraggled husband. “It’s not as if we can just start speaking Arabic, is it?”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Xander assured her. “They’ll probably just think we’re silly tourists and talk behind our backs. So…what are you excited to see?” He tapped his guidebook for emphasis. This model of Xander came complete with peppy attitude, bright smile, and a liberal dash of naivety that was always a big hit with the older female audience.
“Oh, the ruins at Leptis Magna are said to spectacular.” She beamed at him and held out her hand. “Where are my manners? I’m Livvy Marchant and this is my husband, Edward.”
“Xander Harris.” He shook their hands quickly.
“I say, you’re a Yank.” Edward seemed to light up as he recognized Xander’s poorly disguised accent.
“Don’t tell anyone but yes, I’m guilty of being born on the wrong side of the ocean.” He winked at Livvy before motioning toward the tour guide, who had finally arrived and was shepherding the group out the doors.
“Smart lad. Being an American isn’t what it used to be with today’s political climate.”
Xander smiled noncommittally and redirected the conversation back to the many attractions Libya had to offer. “What about this Leptis Magna? Do you think they’ll let us roam about the ruins?”
“I do hope so.” Livvy dug her itinerary out of her oversized traveler’s bag. “Did you remember sunscreen, Mr. Harris? I dare say I brought enough for the entire tour if you happened to forget.”
“I’m covered but I’ll keep you in mind if I run out.” He offered to help Edward with loading their suitcases into the storage bins of the bus. Rule number one of being a tourist was to make friends with the other tourists, especially the middle-aged British women who usually carried tea, biscuits, and occasionally chocolatey goodness in their handbags.
***
None of the tiny pictures in his guidebook prepared Xander for the magnitude of Leptis Magna. At its height, the city had contained eighty thousand people and served as a major shipping port between Rome and the heart of Africa. Once the defensive walls fell to a massive earthquake and raiding Vandals, the desert had swept in to overtake the city. Sand preserved the mosaics and murals, keeping the Roman city mostly intact beneath the shifting surface.
Standing archways imbued a silent grace to what would otherwise be stacks of carved limestone and provided hints of what the ancient city must have looked like. The tour group wandered through the parts of the ruins that had been excavated and were open to tourists. A spacious amphitheatre, extensive public baths, even a racetrack whispered of a history filled with life. Winged griffins guarded one of the archways and the columns of the basilica were a playground for intricately carved cherubs waving palm fronds. He tried to keep track of who had built what arch and which God had the temple with rows of Corinthian columns.
The wide brimmed hat kept the burning sun off of his face and neck but nothing could keep the heat of the desert away for long. After a while, he got used to the taste of salt and sand on his lips when he took a sip from his water bottle. Their group was moving slowly around the ocean facing side of the ruins when he spotted the young man from the airport. A quick look at his watch and he saw that he was right on time for the clandestine meeting that had been scheduled via newspaper hand off. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to being handed innocuous objects and having bizarre notes fall out of them later. It was just his luck that one of these days someone would hand him a shoebox with a bomb inside.
He pretended to be fascinated by one of the wall sculptures and drifted away from the rest of the group toward what had once been the atrium of the marketplace. The corridors within allowed some shaded respite from the fierce sun. He whistled softly to himself as he explored and waited for the young man to appear.
A few minutes passed, giving Xander time to investigate more sculpture and consult his guidebook for trivia. He heard footsteps coming toward him and hushed voices speaking Arabic. Hopefully one of them spoke English with more skill than he spoke Arabic. Two men turned the corner and the familiar young man greeted Xander warmly. His companion was older, with graying hair, and bore a striking resemblance to the younger man.
“Mr. Harris, this is my father. He does not speak English, I will translate.”
“Great. What’s your name? Maa ismuk?” The stilted Arabic seemed to make the older man slightly less hostile toward him.
“I am Hassan, my father is Muhammed.”
“Good start, pleased to meet you. Since I’m here for a girl, I’m guessing that girl would be a member of your family.” Xander frowned when Muhammed seemed to get more agitated after Hassan translated what he’d said. “Everything okay?”
“My father believes that it does not honor our family to speak of my sister to a stranger and a Westerner,” Hassan explained apologetically. “It is most important that you understand. My sister was to be married into a good Muslim family, Mr. Harris, but she is gone. Disappeared. I do not believe she would leave to avoid the marriage.”
Xander tried not to let his confusion show but he was completely lost as to how this pertained to finding lost Slayers. “You think she was kidnapped?” The older man began speaking in Arabic fast enough that he only caught a few of the more familiar words. Hassan responded just as emphatically, leaving Xander to watch the argument with growing bewilderment.
“Mr. Harris.” Hassan finally said something to quiet his father and turned back to Xander. “My sister is, how do you say…different.”
“And that would be why I’m here. I’m assuming there’s some super strength and speed going on?” He breathed a sigh of relief. At least this hadn’t been just a wild goose chase.
“She has become strong as a man. Stronger. It has been a great burden on my family; it is unnatural. It is against Allah.”
Xander turned the scenario over in his head, trying to fit the pieces together and form a theory of the girl’s life. Very few of the Slayers’ families had been jumping for joy when their child began manifesting inhuman powers. Mostly he found it to be based in fear, but at least this girl’s family was still trying to find her whether or not she had frightened and shamed them. However, it also made it more likely that she had disappeared of her own free will rather than being kidnapped. Dishonoring her family and alienating her fiancée never went over well in the teenage girl bracket.
“She is my sister still, Mr. Harris,” Hassan continued with his voice lowered. “I do not believe, as my father does, that she has sought to bring shame on our family by refusing to marry. I believe that she has been taken. Before she disappeared, there were men who came to our village asking questions. I did not think on it until your Mr. Giles contacted me.”
The plot was thickening like milk left out to curdle and Xander was pretty sure it would soon be just as unpleasant. A few of the recruited Slayers had mentioned being approached with offers from an unknown organization. It was possible they were connected to the sophisticated robots executing strategic assaults on well-known elements of the demon world. And while they might have the same enemies, whoever was behind the androids had differing methods and, most likely, a very different endgame in mind. Mutual enemies did not mutual friends make.
“Tell me about these men. Were they foreigners?” It could also have been Wolfram and Hart trying to wedge another foothold in the world after Angel and crew took out their Los Angeles branch. What better way than recruiting their own Slayers? The groups in Rome and London had discussed the frightening idea in depth, almost as much as the topic of what exactly they were going to do with all those Slayers themselves.
“Can you find my sister?” Hassan was interrupted by his father once again and another argument sprung up between the two of them. After it passed, he had another question for Xander. “Can you stop what has happened to her?”
For every Slayer and every family, the same question was asked in a hundred different languages and a thousand different ways. Could he put her back the way she was, take away her power and make her the girl she used to be. He used to wish he could tell them what they wanted to hear. Seeing the disappointment and fear in their eyes, and knowing that their daughter could also see it, was something that he never became accustomed to. Instead of the truth, he learned to be very serious and tell them that he didn’t know if he could help. It was a lie that allowed them hope and gave him time to convince them it wasn’t the work of evil spirits or the devil.
“I’ll need to see your sister first,” he answered cautiously. There was always the chance that she wasn’t a Slayer, merely a very strong girl. Until he had proof, he would let them hope. “Can you tell me anything about the men who came to your village?”
“They were Americans.” Hassan’s eyes widened suddenly and his body jerked as though he’d been struck from behind. Blood sprayed hot and thick as a bullet tore through Muhammed’s throat. The man collapsed to the ground like a rag doll as Hassan sunk helplessly to his knees beside him.
Xander dove for cover behind a pile of toppled stone, the round meant for him popping like a champagne cork. The heels of his hands scraped across the limestone as he scrambled, bits of rock exploding into dust and shrapnel for each bullet striking the stone above him. He looked back to see Hassan’s lifeless eyes staring after him, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and spreading out from the bullet wound in his back. Nauseated and shaking, he scrabbled sideways like a crab down the inner corridor until he reached the far side of the ancient marketplace.
He took off at a dead run along the rows of columns, his sandals slapping as he ran. A bullet whistled past his head and sent him ducking behind a fractured sculpture. He whipped his head from side to side, compensating for the loss of peripheral vision on his left side. Visibility was a joke with the piles of chiseled rock and columns filling the landscape. He kept low, dashing from hiding spot to hiding spot as he made his way through the ruins toward the entrance where the tour bus would be waiting.
The presence of other people might not deter his attacker but he’d take that chance. Regardless of whether or not the assassin followed him, an American involved with two dead bodies in Libya could only end badly. The dusty, battered bus finally came into view through another ornate archway and he made the last dash with his lungs burning.
“Xander?” Livvy Marchant stopped folding her map and stared at him as he skidded to a halt beside the bus.
“Am I late?” he panted and made a show of checking his watch. “This thing is always losing time. Boy…I’m glad I didn’t get left behind.”
“Are you all right? Dear boy, you could have been hurt running like that!” She clucked at him as she handed him a handkerchief to wipe his face. “Do you need a bottled water? Running about in this heat, you’ll get heatstroke.”
“I’m good.” Thankfully his brightly colored shirt camouflaged the spray of blood and the dust coating his cargo pants covered anything but the color of the sandstone. He winced at the jabbing pain in his side, only slightly paranoid that it was the sensation of a bullet piercing his skin. Waving her off, he readjusted his travel pack and fished out his own bottled water. Keep it simple. Simple, straightforward, and nothing resembling the truth. “What do you think of the place? Bet it was pretty cool when the Romans were here.”
She didn’t look quite ready to drop the subject of his strange behavior but finally gave him a tolerant smile. “Yes, it must have been wonderful. Did you see the archway built to honor Emperor Severus?”
“Is that the one with the big, winged things?” He drained his water bottle and tucked it back into his pack. His thoughts were a million miles away as she corrected his arch identification and began rattling off whole chapters of the history of the Roman Empire.
His heartbeat had nearly returned to normal when the tour guide began to call for the group to board the bus. A bus seat had never felt so comforting and despite straining, he couldn’t see anyone suspicious lurking in the ruined city. None of the guide’s words managed to find their way through his jumbled thoughts on the ride back to Tripoli and his stomach was still threatening to heave what was left of his lunch all over the seat in front of him.
It wasn’t the first time they’d had trouble collecting one of the girls, but it was the first time he’d seen two of her family members shot down in front of him and the first time he’d been unable to do anything but run away. Even the options of notifying the family or burying the bodies were lost to him. This wasn’t the time or the country for him to make an appearance on the local authorities’ radar. All he could do was return to the tour hotel, make contact with Giles, and hope for all he was worth that Buffy and the Brain would be able to think of a plan.
He functioned on autopilot, laughing and making idle small talk with the rest of his tour group until the bus arrived at the hotel and he managed to slip away. Shaking fingers sabotaged his hurry to get out of the blood stained clothing. A fresh pair of cargo pants and another loose cotton shirt only marginally decreased the sick feeling in his stomach.
There wasn’t time to use the hotel phone before he was supposed to meet the group for dinner. He forced himself to take several deep breaths. The dead weren’t going to be any less dead in an hour and he couldn’t risk appearing as anything other than a bumbling tourist.
“Walk in the park, Harris,” he told the image in the cracked bathroom mirror. “You’ve seen worse. Vampires, demons, Hell Gods. What’s a few bullets? Stick with the crowd and none of them will have your name on it.”
He managed to keep his smile and carefree stride out of the hotel and while the group meandered through the nearby souk. None of the merchants seemed interested in bartering, standing with their arms crossed and passing the time before they could close up their narrow booths. There were rugs and lengths of decorative cloth that he wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with even if he did buy a few yards. No trinkets or frivolous items adorned the booths, only the necessities of living. By the time he escaped the claustrophobia inducing corridors, he’d noticed the ubiquitous presence of the color green. All the shampoos and soaps in his small bathroom had been wrapped in green packaging, all the vendors' booths were painted the same, and along with the ever-present gaze from Qaddahfi’s portraits, it seemed to be a national decorating requirement.
The city of Tripoli itself was torn between ancient vibrancy and modern desolation. He saw no billboards telling him to eat right or drink Coca-Cola, only more pictures of the head of government and a few cartoonish men smiling as they worked on an assembly line. Buildings that had looked impressive from the air were rendered harsh and utilitarian once on the ground; rising up around him with all the personality of giant concrete iceboxes. He tried not to look at the ground, which was covered almost entirely with discarded candy wrappers and garbage bags of fly delight. Apparently beauty was even more subjective than usual in Libya.
Dinner was to be had at a small restaurant with mosaic walls barely visible in the dusky interior and rather than ordering from a menu, he was informed that he would get what every tourist got for a meal. Considering that the next booth over ended up with pan-fried fish complete with eyeballs and guts intact, he was relieved to get a slice of date bread, bottled water, and a small bowl of spicy vegetables and rice.
The small restaurant seemed unnaturally silent and his fellow travelers whispered their tales of adventure, trying to simultaneously achieve the Western tradition of conversation over a meal and respect the silence of the Libyans around them. He heard stories of parts of Tripoli that weren’t bogged down with concrete and trash. In the Italian quarter, one could find Belgian chocolate, clothes that hadn’t come from the seventies in shops playing Western music over their tinny speakers, and fewer eyes watching every move.
It struck Xander as surreal to be sitting in a darkened restaurant of a totalitarian state with people from all corners of continental Europe. People who knew nothing of vampires and Slayers or why he was really in Libya touring ancient ruins. They hadn’t stood beneath carved stone archways and watched two innocent people die. He wanted to say he was numb to violent death almost as much as he wanted to say he wasn’t. Was becoming insensitive to human tragedy a fate worse than a bullet? That, he thought as he looked around at the somber faces of the native Libyans around them, was an ironically relevant question.
The world he walked was different. He’d known from that first day in the library and watched it confirmed over and over. There were days when it was subtle. When he found himself sitting in a group of people pretending to be something else but never quite able to believe his own lie. Which was the real Xander? The mask he wore for the normal world or the mask he wore for the world where things went bump in the night.
Movement shook him out of his metaphysical stupor; the group gathering up their belongings and heading back to the hotel before nightfall settled. It had been a long day of traipsing about a foreign country that felt like an oven even in the shade. He stocked up on bottled water and made some excuse about calling his family. Two operators and ten minutes of waiting for a connection that wasn’t ninety percent static later and he heard Giles’ voice faintly through the receiver.
“G-man! How’s England? Cold and rainy?” He glanced around the lobby to make sure no one was within earshot before pulling into the corner as far as possible. The man who guarded the metal detector at the front door and the suit watching people get on and off of the elevator both seemed too bored to bother listening in.
“Xander, have you located the girl?”
“There’s been a little bit of a complication.” He hesitated and took a deep breath. “I met with her father and brother. They said she disappeared after some men in black started nosing around.”
“Do they believe she was kidnapped?”
“One did, one didn’t. Look, Giles. There’s something else.” Eye closed and counting to ten helped ease some of the nausea. “They’re dead. Shot right in front of me. Pretty sure I was supposed to be lying face down in the sand right now.” The silence on the other end of the line didn’t do much to make him feel at ease. “Giles? You there?”
“We’ll send back-up.” There was the briskly concerned tone that always meant the situation had just gone to hell. “It may take awhile but I might be able to pull some strings. Stay away from exposed areas and continue with the tour. Notify me if anything changes.”
“Sure thing, Giles.”
“And Xander. Do be careful.”
“Careful’s my middle name.” He felt slightly better after hanging up the phone. Sometimes the scariest part of collecting newly minted Slayers was being alone in a strange country where his white skin stood out like a neon sign. There were hundreds of languages he didn’t speak and hundreds of customs he couldn’t hope to learn.
He believed in the work. This was a chance to make sure none of the girls had to walk that road alone, never had to hide under the covers and not know what the monsters outside were. They could know why they were different, why their world had suddenly gone topsy-turvy without warning. It was the chance to make that difference, to make sure the girls knew they weren’t evil or possessed by demons, that kept him from finding some nice sand to stick his head under.
The adrenaline that had been keeping him upright vanished suddenly with barely enough time to open the door of his hotel room and start for the bed. Sweet bed with clean enough sheets and a minimum amount of lumps. He wanted sleep without nightmares. It wasn’t likely to happen but a man could dream.
His duffle bag was lying on its side at the foot of his bed when he could have sworn that he left it leaning against the wall and the afternoon’s events made him reach for his pocket where he would normally be carrying a stake. No such luck and a faint creak behind him was all the warning he had before the back of his skull exploded with painful stars. There was time enough to wonder why the floor was getting closer before the room was sucked down a giant drain.
***
Xander became aware of heat first. Then the painful bumping as he sloshed back and forth in the bed of the truck. He could taste motor oil on his tongue, spitting sand and dust as he blinked his eye. Reaching for the back of his head came with the discovery of duct tape around his wrists. There was more around his ankles and it took a series of awkward wiggles and twists to get him into a sitting position.
One look through the tinted windows of the cab made him grateful to be inside. Stretching out on all sides was an ocean of cinnamon colored sand dunes and islands of rock like the humps and spikes of gargantuan sea creatures. The road he was traveling had been paved at some point but the cracks and potholes were nearing critical mass and the desert sands would soon snap their jaws down over the worn pavement. His only gauge of time was the stiffness of his joints and muscles from lying on his side, and if they were any indication, he was miles away from Tripoli.
Inside the truck was slightly less desolate. He found a battered canteen half filled with brackish water, a handful of bruised oranges that had seen better days, and some dried out chunks of date bread. The oranges eased the growling in his stomach and the water soothed his cracked tongue even if it did nothing to help get the taste of sand out of his mouth. It was some mercy that his kidnappers had thought to bring along his duffle bag; its contents having been thoroughly searched but otherwise intact. There was hardly anything there anyone else would want. A can of spray on deodorant and the same scent in stick form, a guide book for Libya, sunscreen, sunglasses, a hat, an empty water bottle, his notebook for taking notes when he remembered, and a handful of clothes that would do if he wasn’t picky about cleanliness. Strange that his kidnapper hadn’t taken his money and watch, which didn’t bode well for why he’d been knocked over the head and dumped in a truck bed.
He pulled the duffle around behind him to ease some of the pain in his back and got to work chewing at the duct tape around his wrists. Maybe he was alive because they’d found what they were looking for and maybe he was alive because they hadn’t. One thing he did know was that the desert outside, not the duct tape, was the real prison.
He passed the day watching the shadows shift through the back of the truck, unsure if it was due to the sun’s arc or the truck changing directions. It stopped once and he saw a veiled figure in robes and a headdress climb out to add gas to the tank before continuing on. There was no window to the cab of the truck, no way to see or communicate with the phantom driver.
Sunset turned the desert ocean into a spray of purples and pinks that would have been beautiful on another day, in nicer surroundings, and possibly when he wasn’t being kidnapped in a foreign country. A man could disappear out in this land with no one the wiser and no idea where to look even if they were; just sand and dust were all anyone would ever find of him if he was dumped out in the middle of it. He peeled another orange and ate the pieces one by one, savoring the sticky juice with more relish than usual.
Even with the sun dipping below the horizon the heat was still oppressive, sweat and salt coating most of his skin and saturating his clothing. When the truck came to a halt again he was surprised to see the man come around to the back and drop open the tailgate, motioning for Xander to come out.
“Nice day for a drive through the Sahara, isn’t it?” Xander asked as he climbed out, taking note of the gun in the man’s hand and smiling as cheerfully as he could manage.
The gun flicked toward the desert and the man spoke. “Five minutes.”
“To do what exactly? Enjoy the non existent breeze?” Xander wandered to the edge of the road, grateful to be stretching his legs despite the heat and sand. Bending forward to ease the ache in his back, he recognized another reason to be glad to be out and about. He could hear the man doing something in the back of the truck and wasn’t surprised to see that he wasn’t being watched. There was no point in watching if there was nowhere to run. Muttering about the lack of bathrooms in African countries, he was as discreet as possible in heeding the call of nature.
Standing in the silence of evening, he saw the first subtle hints of life. The retreating sun gave way to the critters that came out at night. It took him a moment to realize that the funny rock that looked like it had legs was actually a scorpion and before he could react, it had scuttled out of a hole in the sand and hurried away. He wondered how many things lurked beneath the sand just waiting for nightfall.
When he zipped up and turned back to the truck, he was back to staring into the barrel of a gun. “Maybe we didn’t get off on the right foot. I’m really a nice guy once you get to know me.”
There was no response and he climbed back into the bed of the truck without needing further encouragement of the bullet variety; watching as the tailgate and window slammed shut once again. He found that the canteen had been refilled and his dwindling stock of oranges and date bread replenished. His captor must want him alive if he was feeding him, but alive for what? There wasn’t much to look forward to if he was only being kept alive to be tortured for information. Especially since he doubted there was any valuable information he could give anyone. He couldn’t tell them where all the Slayers were as he didn’t have the slightest idea where the one he was supposed to be collecting was, let alone the rest of them. If they wanted to know how to kill a vampire, well, he’d tell them that torture free.
He watched the shadows on the sand dunes darken, turning everything into an inked comic book world of contrasts. The air cooled without the sun beating down and soon he was curled up against his duffle bag with clothes draped over him for warmth. Despite the uncomfortable accommodations, the hum of the engine was a strange mechanical lullaby that eventually slowed the thoughts in his head enough that his eye closed and he slept.
Passage of time was marked by truck stops and by the growing collection of orange peels and date pits. The view outside the back of the truck changed from towering mountains of sand to rocky boulders littering unforgiving ground and back again to sand. He remembered seeing what had looked like lily pads on a pond, green circles swept out over the blinding sand that meant there was water beneath the desert. They stopped there and he rubbed futilely at the windows of the truck, trying to clear away enough of the dust to get a better look.
Heat made him lethargic and lack of humidity gave him nosebleeds at random intervals throughout the day. Despite the flask that was refilled every day, he was pretty sure that he wasn’t getting enough water to counteract the desert and wondered if anyone who lived there ever managed to get enough water.
Even the sunshine was different. In sunny California, it was a happy smiling sunshine that meant surfing and beach volleyball. It was playful and friendly, kissing skin and hair with the familiar touch of a lover. This sun was a bear roaring fearsomely down on the world with claws made for stripping skin. The ground beneath was trapped in the vengeful gaze that boiled the life away. There was no volleyball here although the mental image of polo played on the backs of camels amused him for a while.
He began to appreciate the silence. His own voice seemed to have gone into hibernation, sensing that it would be both useless and unheeded. The desert swallowed up words as quickly as water.
The truck lurched at the same moment that he heard the echo of a rifle shot. Jarred by the rough road beneath them, he pressed against the bed of the truck and clutched his bag. There were more gunshots and the old Toyota engine roared forward with increasing speed. Just as he thought his teeth were going to be rattled out of his skull, the vibrations suddenly stopped. He began sliding as the bed tipped to the left and twisted around just in time to hold his bag between him and the roof of the truck bed.
Fiberglass crunched and splintered around his ears. He buried his face against the heavy canvas and fervently wished he was back in soggy old England. The breath was knocked out of him as the truck started another roll and he slammed into the bed only to start sliding again. Somewhere in the chaos, he wondered if clothes in the dryer got seasick from the spinning. He couldn’t be sure if it was his stomach or his head spinning.
The truck cap didn’t survive the roll and light hit his eyes with the crack of a baseball bat. There was sand in his mouth and nose, he could taste blood and hear gunfire. Years of chasing vampires nearly blind in the darkness had him scrambling toward the nearest hazy cover. A misshapen boulder barely large enough to hide behind was enough for a moment. Long enough to spit sand and blood and cover his head as the truck was enveloped in a roaring ball of gasoline-fueled fire. The stench of burning skin reached him but all he could think was that the fire was the same temperature as the desert air.
Shouting voices carried over the crackling fire. He slunk down lower against the boulder knowing that they’d probably already seen him and he was a goner. What a way to go, shot to death in the Sahara. He’d always figured he end up with teeth in his neck or possibly crushed under some random Hell God’s fashionable footwear. There were fantasies of being an integral part of a grand battle although most of those had faded after losing his eye.
He braced himself for the bullets when they found him. Men in dark green uniforms with assault rifles that looked old but well cared for. They were shouting in a language he didn’t understand.
“I was kidnapped!” he protested, holding up his hands.
That spurred another round of shouting between them and one of them called out to someone else toward the wreckage of the Toyota. He kept his eye on the triggers of the guns; cautiously optimistic that being still alive was a good sign. They were joined by an older man with lighter skin under the military desert camouflage and blue eyes looking out from under a turban. It was a slightly disturbing blend of cultural implications.
“American, huh?” The man said with a distinctively Texan accent. “Welcome to Chad, son.”
Author: Aeneas (aka Jerib_78)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: It's Joss's sandbox, I just play there.
Author's Note: This is for the Scatterlings and Orphanages Ficathon.
All Who Wander
It wasn’t hard to imagine what the Mediterranean would have looked like hundreds of years ago, dotted with triremes ferrying gold, spices, and anything a Roman heart could desire. Rows of oars dipping in and out of the water with sails catching the driving winds; it certainly wasn’t the fastest method of travel known to man. Given the turbulence Xander Harris had experienced since leaving London, he wasn’t convinced that flying was the better option.
Squirming in the uncomfortable airplane seat, he pulled his eye away from the glittering Mediterranean below him and looked for something else to occupy his mind. Giles had informed him that he was very lucky to be flying in rather than the methods of border crossing that had been utilized under the international air embargo. No hiding under canvas bags in dusty jeeps for him. He was waltzing through Libya’s front door with all the chutzpah of the glorified Labrador retriever he was. There might be a Slayer in disease-ridden jungle? Send Xander. There’s a revolution going on? Xander laughed in the face of military coups.
He barely managed to bring one girl home before they sent him globe trotting off to collect another and somehow he ended up with all the jobs that ended in Africa. It had been exciting at first, with the lions and the crocodiles and the people who made clicking noises with their tongues. But the real Africa never made it into the brochure and there were more days than not that he’d give anything to be back in the land of indoor plumbing.
A garbled voice speaking Arabic came over the intercom and either announced the beginning of their descent or that the snack cart would be making the rounds with peanuts and fruit cups. The flight attendant had passed by him earlier without a word or glance but Giles had warned him about that as well. Just because airlines were flying from London to Tripoli didn’t mean frosty relations between Libya and the western world had thawed. It had taken Giles the better part of six months to get Xander a passport and a visa that meant he wouldn’t be arrested upon setting foot in the county. Since being an American would get him exactly nowhere in this country, he’d been given a crash course on being stuffy and wearing tweed. Of course, defeat of the attempts to make Xander more British had been inevitable. It ended with Giles pinching his nose in that irritated fashion of his and proclaiming that Xander was butchering the language to such a degree that even Spike would have been appalled.
That left Xander with an American passport, a visa, and only his wits about him. There was also the eye patch, which not only worked as an impromptu costume at Halloween parties; it also gave him a certain air of danger. This was someone who had lost an eye and lived to tell the tale. People wondered, people whispered. Had he been captured by revolutionaries? A wild animal encounter perhaps. He smiled at his own musings. Maybe they just didn’t want to look at the poor man who’d lost an eye in a work related incident. Whatever it was, the world didn’t seem to pay him mind as he went about his merry way.
He fastened his seatbelt as the airplane began to bank, swooping over the city of Tripoli like a great albatross in search of a perch. Beneath him were towers in various shades of off-white, contrasted with the dark green speckles of date palms lining roads and the gray of the highways. Even the coastline was creamy beige and sparkling in the sunlight, as though a giant toddler had gone wild with the pastel crayons. It was a far cry from the dense green of the rainforest and the retina searing cinnamon of the desert. Towering skyscrapers spoke of the wealth and prosperity that came with the oil pumping out of what would otherwise be useless land.
The touchdown was uneventful and he bade a less than fond farewell to the dirty seatbelt that had refused to clasp properly. Little good it would have done him had it been an interesting landing. He kept his mouth shut and his eye toward the ground at a forty-five degree angle as the passengers disembarked. Low enough to be unthreatening to the armed guards watching over their progress through the airport but high enough to see anything short of an attack by seagull. Off to the side of the runway, he caught a glimpse of what could have been pieces of military aircraft but a stoic glare from one of the guards wearing Top Gun glasses kept him from looking too hard.
There was the familiar jostle of elbows at the luggage collection and he was glad for the single, army style duffle slung over his shoulder. He could tell from the latch that it had been opened and searched. If they wanted to rifle through his underwear, more power to them.
Passport and visa in hand, he began the slow crawl through the queues and hoops: security check, metal detectors, all the while under surveillance of the men with shiny sunglasses. Voices around him spoke Arabic in rapid-fire sentences that were both elegant and chaotic as the painted letters adorning the walls and posters. Several of the far walls had patches of mosaic or painted murals peeking out from beneath the propaganda. He was definitely not in Kansas anymore.
With his one eye open wide, he was still trying to soak up all the nuances of another foreign airport when he arrived at the older gentleman who would decide if he could stay in the country. Giles had assured him that all the paperwork was in order and hopefully the decision wouldn’t be based on what the man had eaten for lunch. He didn’t smile, merely slid his papers through the opening in the pocked glass and waited patiently.
“Maa ismuk?” The man asked as he peered at the passport and visa.
“Alexander Harris.” The next questions that rattled off of the man’s tongue were beyond Xander’s ability to infer their meaning or keep up with the vowel sounds. Hoping he wasn’t completely butchering the pronunciation, he tried Arabic, “hal tatahaddath al’ingiliiziyya?”
The passport officer eyed him with newfound intensity. “I speak English. What is your purpose to this country?”
“Tourist,” Xander answered matter-of-factly. Keep it simple. Giles had all but pounded the mantra into his skull, simple, straightforward, and no funny business.
That seemed to satisfy the man and he stamped his passport with vigor. “Welcome to Libya. Please enjoy our beautiful country.”
“Shukran.” Xander collected his papers and moved out of the queue.
One more country in a long list of countries where he didn’t have a clue what was going on. The major disadvantage of not speaking the native language fluently was that he could be listening to someone talk about removing his limbs and think they were discussing stew recipes. Fluency was a relative term as well. Dialects varied with shifting sands and twisted the already twisty sounds around in his mouth until his tongue was tied in knots at the back of his throat.
He dug the guidebook out of his duffle bag and started at the chapter about not offending the natives. Despite his very western cargo pants and lightweight cotton shirt, he was pleased to see that he blended well in the smattering of tourists and locals alike. Forget vampires, the Gap was eventually going to rule the world with their classic fit button up shirts and relaxed fit jeans. He wiggled his toes in his sandals, already feeling bits of sand slipping in between them. The lack of an ever-creeping Sahara was the best thing about England.
“Mr. Harris?” The voice startled him out of his guidebook reverie and he was relieved to see a young Arab man standing beside him. He was dressed casually in jeans and an open neck shirt of soft linen, just another teenager collecting tourists for sightseeing trips. In fact, Giles had informed Xander that registering with a vacation group was the only way into Libya but he had arranged for him to join the group that would travel to where his Libyan contact would be. Seeing Xander’s recognition, he motioned for him to follow the tour group assembling at the entrance doors.
“Salaam aleikum,” the young man said as he reached Xander’s side.
“Aleikum as-salaam.” The greeting seemed to either please or amuse the man and Xander wondered if he’d managed to emphasize the wrong syllables again. A folded newspaper appeared in the man’s hands and was handed casually to him with only the faintest of smiles.
“Shukran,” Xander took the newspaper. In the time it took to glance down at the paper the young man vanished into the crowd and he was left with printed Arabic soup. Wistfully, he thought back to simpler days that didn’t involve covert hand offs in airport terminals. He tucked the paper into the guidebook and joined the tour group. At least two of the other tourists were obviously British, middle-aged, and more than a bit overwhelmed by their surroundings.
“I don’t suppose they can stop us from speaking English, do you?” the woman nervously asked the man next to her.
“Of course not, dear.” The man gave Xander the wearied look of a bedraggled husband. “It’s not as if we can just start speaking Arabic, is it?”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Xander assured her. “They’ll probably just think we’re silly tourists and talk behind our backs. So…what are you excited to see?” He tapped his guidebook for emphasis. This model of Xander came complete with peppy attitude, bright smile, and a liberal dash of naivety that was always a big hit with the older female audience.
“Oh, the ruins at Leptis Magna are said to spectacular.” She beamed at him and held out her hand. “Where are my manners? I’m Livvy Marchant and this is my husband, Edward.”
“Xander Harris.” He shook their hands quickly.
“I say, you’re a Yank.” Edward seemed to light up as he recognized Xander’s poorly disguised accent.
“Don’t tell anyone but yes, I’m guilty of being born on the wrong side of the ocean.” He winked at Livvy before motioning toward the tour guide, who had finally arrived and was shepherding the group out the doors.
“Smart lad. Being an American isn’t what it used to be with today’s political climate.”
Xander smiled noncommittally and redirected the conversation back to the many attractions Libya had to offer. “What about this Leptis Magna? Do you think they’ll let us roam about the ruins?”
“I do hope so.” Livvy dug her itinerary out of her oversized traveler’s bag. “Did you remember sunscreen, Mr. Harris? I dare say I brought enough for the entire tour if you happened to forget.”
“I’m covered but I’ll keep you in mind if I run out.” He offered to help Edward with loading their suitcases into the storage bins of the bus. Rule number one of being a tourist was to make friends with the other tourists, especially the middle-aged British women who usually carried tea, biscuits, and occasionally chocolatey goodness in their handbags.
***
None of the tiny pictures in his guidebook prepared Xander for the magnitude of Leptis Magna. At its height, the city had contained eighty thousand people and served as a major shipping port between Rome and the heart of Africa. Once the defensive walls fell to a massive earthquake and raiding Vandals, the desert had swept in to overtake the city. Sand preserved the mosaics and murals, keeping the Roman city mostly intact beneath the shifting surface.
Standing archways imbued a silent grace to what would otherwise be stacks of carved limestone and provided hints of what the ancient city must have looked like. The tour group wandered through the parts of the ruins that had been excavated and were open to tourists. A spacious amphitheatre, extensive public baths, even a racetrack whispered of a history filled with life. Winged griffins guarded one of the archways and the columns of the basilica were a playground for intricately carved cherubs waving palm fronds. He tried to keep track of who had built what arch and which God had the temple with rows of Corinthian columns.
The wide brimmed hat kept the burning sun off of his face and neck but nothing could keep the heat of the desert away for long. After a while, he got used to the taste of salt and sand on his lips when he took a sip from his water bottle. Their group was moving slowly around the ocean facing side of the ruins when he spotted the young man from the airport. A quick look at his watch and he saw that he was right on time for the clandestine meeting that had been scheduled via newspaper hand off. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to being handed innocuous objects and having bizarre notes fall out of them later. It was just his luck that one of these days someone would hand him a shoebox with a bomb inside.
He pretended to be fascinated by one of the wall sculptures and drifted away from the rest of the group toward what had once been the atrium of the marketplace. The corridors within allowed some shaded respite from the fierce sun. He whistled softly to himself as he explored and waited for the young man to appear.
A few minutes passed, giving Xander time to investigate more sculpture and consult his guidebook for trivia. He heard footsteps coming toward him and hushed voices speaking Arabic. Hopefully one of them spoke English with more skill than he spoke Arabic. Two men turned the corner and the familiar young man greeted Xander warmly. His companion was older, with graying hair, and bore a striking resemblance to the younger man.
“Mr. Harris, this is my father. He does not speak English, I will translate.”
“Great. What’s your name? Maa ismuk?” The stilted Arabic seemed to make the older man slightly less hostile toward him.
“I am Hassan, my father is Muhammed.”
“Good start, pleased to meet you. Since I’m here for a girl, I’m guessing that girl would be a member of your family.” Xander frowned when Muhammed seemed to get more agitated after Hassan translated what he’d said. “Everything okay?”
“My father believes that it does not honor our family to speak of my sister to a stranger and a Westerner,” Hassan explained apologetically. “It is most important that you understand. My sister was to be married into a good Muslim family, Mr. Harris, but she is gone. Disappeared. I do not believe she would leave to avoid the marriage.”
Xander tried not to let his confusion show but he was completely lost as to how this pertained to finding lost Slayers. “You think she was kidnapped?” The older man began speaking in Arabic fast enough that he only caught a few of the more familiar words. Hassan responded just as emphatically, leaving Xander to watch the argument with growing bewilderment.
“Mr. Harris.” Hassan finally said something to quiet his father and turned back to Xander. “My sister is, how do you say…different.”
“And that would be why I’m here. I’m assuming there’s some super strength and speed going on?” He breathed a sigh of relief. At least this hadn’t been just a wild goose chase.
“She has become strong as a man. Stronger. It has been a great burden on my family; it is unnatural. It is against Allah.”
Xander turned the scenario over in his head, trying to fit the pieces together and form a theory of the girl’s life. Very few of the Slayers’ families had been jumping for joy when their child began manifesting inhuman powers. Mostly he found it to be based in fear, but at least this girl’s family was still trying to find her whether or not she had frightened and shamed them. However, it also made it more likely that she had disappeared of her own free will rather than being kidnapped. Dishonoring her family and alienating her fiancée never went over well in the teenage girl bracket.
“She is my sister still, Mr. Harris,” Hassan continued with his voice lowered. “I do not believe, as my father does, that she has sought to bring shame on our family by refusing to marry. I believe that she has been taken. Before she disappeared, there were men who came to our village asking questions. I did not think on it until your Mr. Giles contacted me.”
The plot was thickening like milk left out to curdle and Xander was pretty sure it would soon be just as unpleasant. A few of the recruited Slayers had mentioned being approached with offers from an unknown organization. It was possible they were connected to the sophisticated robots executing strategic assaults on well-known elements of the demon world. And while they might have the same enemies, whoever was behind the androids had differing methods and, most likely, a very different endgame in mind. Mutual enemies did not mutual friends make.
“Tell me about these men. Were they foreigners?” It could also have been Wolfram and Hart trying to wedge another foothold in the world after Angel and crew took out their Los Angeles branch. What better way than recruiting their own Slayers? The groups in Rome and London had discussed the frightening idea in depth, almost as much as the topic of what exactly they were going to do with all those Slayers themselves.
“Can you find my sister?” Hassan was interrupted by his father once again and another argument sprung up between the two of them. After it passed, he had another question for Xander. “Can you stop what has happened to her?”
For every Slayer and every family, the same question was asked in a hundred different languages and a thousand different ways. Could he put her back the way she was, take away her power and make her the girl she used to be. He used to wish he could tell them what they wanted to hear. Seeing the disappointment and fear in their eyes, and knowing that their daughter could also see it, was something that he never became accustomed to. Instead of the truth, he learned to be very serious and tell them that he didn’t know if he could help. It was a lie that allowed them hope and gave him time to convince them it wasn’t the work of evil spirits or the devil.
“I’ll need to see your sister first,” he answered cautiously. There was always the chance that she wasn’t a Slayer, merely a very strong girl. Until he had proof, he would let them hope. “Can you tell me anything about the men who came to your village?”
“They were Americans.” Hassan’s eyes widened suddenly and his body jerked as though he’d been struck from behind. Blood sprayed hot and thick as a bullet tore through Muhammed’s throat. The man collapsed to the ground like a rag doll as Hassan sunk helplessly to his knees beside him.
Xander dove for cover behind a pile of toppled stone, the round meant for him popping like a champagne cork. The heels of his hands scraped across the limestone as he scrambled, bits of rock exploding into dust and shrapnel for each bullet striking the stone above him. He looked back to see Hassan’s lifeless eyes staring after him, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and spreading out from the bullet wound in his back. Nauseated and shaking, he scrabbled sideways like a crab down the inner corridor until he reached the far side of the ancient marketplace.
He took off at a dead run along the rows of columns, his sandals slapping as he ran. A bullet whistled past his head and sent him ducking behind a fractured sculpture. He whipped his head from side to side, compensating for the loss of peripheral vision on his left side. Visibility was a joke with the piles of chiseled rock and columns filling the landscape. He kept low, dashing from hiding spot to hiding spot as he made his way through the ruins toward the entrance where the tour bus would be waiting.
The presence of other people might not deter his attacker but he’d take that chance. Regardless of whether or not the assassin followed him, an American involved with two dead bodies in Libya could only end badly. The dusty, battered bus finally came into view through another ornate archway and he made the last dash with his lungs burning.
“Xander?” Livvy Marchant stopped folding her map and stared at him as he skidded to a halt beside the bus.
“Am I late?” he panted and made a show of checking his watch. “This thing is always losing time. Boy…I’m glad I didn’t get left behind.”
“Are you all right? Dear boy, you could have been hurt running like that!” She clucked at him as she handed him a handkerchief to wipe his face. “Do you need a bottled water? Running about in this heat, you’ll get heatstroke.”
“I’m good.” Thankfully his brightly colored shirt camouflaged the spray of blood and the dust coating his cargo pants covered anything but the color of the sandstone. He winced at the jabbing pain in his side, only slightly paranoid that it was the sensation of a bullet piercing his skin. Waving her off, he readjusted his travel pack and fished out his own bottled water. Keep it simple. Simple, straightforward, and nothing resembling the truth. “What do you think of the place? Bet it was pretty cool when the Romans were here.”
She didn’t look quite ready to drop the subject of his strange behavior but finally gave him a tolerant smile. “Yes, it must have been wonderful. Did you see the archway built to honor Emperor Severus?”
“Is that the one with the big, winged things?” He drained his water bottle and tucked it back into his pack. His thoughts were a million miles away as she corrected his arch identification and began rattling off whole chapters of the history of the Roman Empire.
His heartbeat had nearly returned to normal when the tour guide began to call for the group to board the bus. A bus seat had never felt so comforting and despite straining, he couldn’t see anyone suspicious lurking in the ruined city. None of the guide’s words managed to find their way through his jumbled thoughts on the ride back to Tripoli and his stomach was still threatening to heave what was left of his lunch all over the seat in front of him.
It wasn’t the first time they’d had trouble collecting one of the girls, but it was the first time he’d seen two of her family members shot down in front of him and the first time he’d been unable to do anything but run away. Even the options of notifying the family or burying the bodies were lost to him. This wasn’t the time or the country for him to make an appearance on the local authorities’ radar. All he could do was return to the tour hotel, make contact with Giles, and hope for all he was worth that Buffy and the Brain would be able to think of a plan.
He functioned on autopilot, laughing and making idle small talk with the rest of his tour group until the bus arrived at the hotel and he managed to slip away. Shaking fingers sabotaged his hurry to get out of the blood stained clothing. A fresh pair of cargo pants and another loose cotton shirt only marginally decreased the sick feeling in his stomach.
There wasn’t time to use the hotel phone before he was supposed to meet the group for dinner. He forced himself to take several deep breaths. The dead weren’t going to be any less dead in an hour and he couldn’t risk appearing as anything other than a bumbling tourist.
“Walk in the park, Harris,” he told the image in the cracked bathroom mirror. “You’ve seen worse. Vampires, demons, Hell Gods. What’s a few bullets? Stick with the crowd and none of them will have your name on it.”
He managed to keep his smile and carefree stride out of the hotel and while the group meandered through the nearby souk. None of the merchants seemed interested in bartering, standing with their arms crossed and passing the time before they could close up their narrow booths. There were rugs and lengths of decorative cloth that he wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with even if he did buy a few yards. No trinkets or frivolous items adorned the booths, only the necessities of living. By the time he escaped the claustrophobia inducing corridors, he’d noticed the ubiquitous presence of the color green. All the shampoos and soaps in his small bathroom had been wrapped in green packaging, all the vendors' booths were painted the same, and along with the ever-present gaze from Qaddahfi’s portraits, it seemed to be a national decorating requirement.
The city of Tripoli itself was torn between ancient vibrancy and modern desolation. He saw no billboards telling him to eat right or drink Coca-Cola, only more pictures of the head of government and a few cartoonish men smiling as they worked on an assembly line. Buildings that had looked impressive from the air were rendered harsh and utilitarian once on the ground; rising up around him with all the personality of giant concrete iceboxes. He tried not to look at the ground, which was covered almost entirely with discarded candy wrappers and garbage bags of fly delight. Apparently beauty was even more subjective than usual in Libya.
Dinner was to be had at a small restaurant with mosaic walls barely visible in the dusky interior and rather than ordering from a menu, he was informed that he would get what every tourist got for a meal. Considering that the next booth over ended up with pan-fried fish complete with eyeballs and guts intact, he was relieved to get a slice of date bread, bottled water, and a small bowl of spicy vegetables and rice.
The small restaurant seemed unnaturally silent and his fellow travelers whispered their tales of adventure, trying to simultaneously achieve the Western tradition of conversation over a meal and respect the silence of the Libyans around them. He heard stories of parts of Tripoli that weren’t bogged down with concrete and trash. In the Italian quarter, one could find Belgian chocolate, clothes that hadn’t come from the seventies in shops playing Western music over their tinny speakers, and fewer eyes watching every move.
It struck Xander as surreal to be sitting in a darkened restaurant of a totalitarian state with people from all corners of continental Europe. People who knew nothing of vampires and Slayers or why he was really in Libya touring ancient ruins. They hadn’t stood beneath carved stone archways and watched two innocent people die. He wanted to say he was numb to violent death almost as much as he wanted to say he wasn’t. Was becoming insensitive to human tragedy a fate worse than a bullet? That, he thought as he looked around at the somber faces of the native Libyans around them, was an ironically relevant question.
The world he walked was different. He’d known from that first day in the library and watched it confirmed over and over. There were days when it was subtle. When he found himself sitting in a group of people pretending to be something else but never quite able to believe his own lie. Which was the real Xander? The mask he wore for the normal world or the mask he wore for the world where things went bump in the night.
Movement shook him out of his metaphysical stupor; the group gathering up their belongings and heading back to the hotel before nightfall settled. It had been a long day of traipsing about a foreign country that felt like an oven even in the shade. He stocked up on bottled water and made some excuse about calling his family. Two operators and ten minutes of waiting for a connection that wasn’t ninety percent static later and he heard Giles’ voice faintly through the receiver.
“G-man! How’s England? Cold and rainy?” He glanced around the lobby to make sure no one was within earshot before pulling into the corner as far as possible. The man who guarded the metal detector at the front door and the suit watching people get on and off of the elevator both seemed too bored to bother listening in.
“Xander, have you located the girl?”
“There’s been a little bit of a complication.” He hesitated and took a deep breath. “I met with her father and brother. They said she disappeared after some men in black started nosing around.”
“Do they believe she was kidnapped?”
“One did, one didn’t. Look, Giles. There’s something else.” Eye closed and counting to ten helped ease some of the nausea. “They’re dead. Shot right in front of me. Pretty sure I was supposed to be lying face down in the sand right now.” The silence on the other end of the line didn’t do much to make him feel at ease. “Giles? You there?”
“We’ll send back-up.” There was the briskly concerned tone that always meant the situation had just gone to hell. “It may take awhile but I might be able to pull some strings. Stay away from exposed areas and continue with the tour. Notify me if anything changes.”
“Sure thing, Giles.”
“And Xander. Do be careful.”
“Careful’s my middle name.” He felt slightly better after hanging up the phone. Sometimes the scariest part of collecting newly minted Slayers was being alone in a strange country where his white skin stood out like a neon sign. There were hundreds of languages he didn’t speak and hundreds of customs he couldn’t hope to learn.
He believed in the work. This was a chance to make sure none of the girls had to walk that road alone, never had to hide under the covers and not know what the monsters outside were. They could know why they were different, why their world had suddenly gone topsy-turvy without warning. It was the chance to make that difference, to make sure the girls knew they weren’t evil or possessed by demons, that kept him from finding some nice sand to stick his head under.
The adrenaline that had been keeping him upright vanished suddenly with barely enough time to open the door of his hotel room and start for the bed. Sweet bed with clean enough sheets and a minimum amount of lumps. He wanted sleep without nightmares. It wasn’t likely to happen but a man could dream.
His duffle bag was lying on its side at the foot of his bed when he could have sworn that he left it leaning against the wall and the afternoon’s events made him reach for his pocket where he would normally be carrying a stake. No such luck and a faint creak behind him was all the warning he had before the back of his skull exploded with painful stars. There was time enough to wonder why the floor was getting closer before the room was sucked down a giant drain.
***
Xander became aware of heat first. Then the painful bumping as he sloshed back and forth in the bed of the truck. He could taste motor oil on his tongue, spitting sand and dust as he blinked his eye. Reaching for the back of his head came with the discovery of duct tape around his wrists. There was more around his ankles and it took a series of awkward wiggles and twists to get him into a sitting position.
One look through the tinted windows of the cab made him grateful to be inside. Stretching out on all sides was an ocean of cinnamon colored sand dunes and islands of rock like the humps and spikes of gargantuan sea creatures. The road he was traveling had been paved at some point but the cracks and potholes were nearing critical mass and the desert sands would soon snap their jaws down over the worn pavement. His only gauge of time was the stiffness of his joints and muscles from lying on his side, and if they were any indication, he was miles away from Tripoli.
Inside the truck was slightly less desolate. He found a battered canteen half filled with brackish water, a handful of bruised oranges that had seen better days, and some dried out chunks of date bread. The oranges eased the growling in his stomach and the water soothed his cracked tongue even if it did nothing to help get the taste of sand out of his mouth. It was some mercy that his kidnappers had thought to bring along his duffle bag; its contents having been thoroughly searched but otherwise intact. There was hardly anything there anyone else would want. A can of spray on deodorant and the same scent in stick form, a guide book for Libya, sunscreen, sunglasses, a hat, an empty water bottle, his notebook for taking notes when he remembered, and a handful of clothes that would do if he wasn’t picky about cleanliness. Strange that his kidnapper hadn’t taken his money and watch, which didn’t bode well for why he’d been knocked over the head and dumped in a truck bed.
He pulled the duffle around behind him to ease some of the pain in his back and got to work chewing at the duct tape around his wrists. Maybe he was alive because they’d found what they were looking for and maybe he was alive because they hadn’t. One thing he did know was that the desert outside, not the duct tape, was the real prison.
He passed the day watching the shadows shift through the back of the truck, unsure if it was due to the sun’s arc or the truck changing directions. It stopped once and he saw a veiled figure in robes and a headdress climb out to add gas to the tank before continuing on. There was no window to the cab of the truck, no way to see or communicate with the phantom driver.
Sunset turned the desert ocean into a spray of purples and pinks that would have been beautiful on another day, in nicer surroundings, and possibly when he wasn’t being kidnapped in a foreign country. A man could disappear out in this land with no one the wiser and no idea where to look even if they were; just sand and dust were all anyone would ever find of him if he was dumped out in the middle of it. He peeled another orange and ate the pieces one by one, savoring the sticky juice with more relish than usual.
Even with the sun dipping below the horizon the heat was still oppressive, sweat and salt coating most of his skin and saturating his clothing. When the truck came to a halt again he was surprised to see the man come around to the back and drop open the tailgate, motioning for Xander to come out.
“Nice day for a drive through the Sahara, isn’t it?” Xander asked as he climbed out, taking note of the gun in the man’s hand and smiling as cheerfully as he could manage.
The gun flicked toward the desert and the man spoke. “Five minutes.”
“To do what exactly? Enjoy the non existent breeze?” Xander wandered to the edge of the road, grateful to be stretching his legs despite the heat and sand. Bending forward to ease the ache in his back, he recognized another reason to be glad to be out and about. He could hear the man doing something in the back of the truck and wasn’t surprised to see that he wasn’t being watched. There was no point in watching if there was nowhere to run. Muttering about the lack of bathrooms in African countries, he was as discreet as possible in heeding the call of nature.
Standing in the silence of evening, he saw the first subtle hints of life. The retreating sun gave way to the critters that came out at night. It took him a moment to realize that the funny rock that looked like it had legs was actually a scorpion and before he could react, it had scuttled out of a hole in the sand and hurried away. He wondered how many things lurked beneath the sand just waiting for nightfall.
When he zipped up and turned back to the truck, he was back to staring into the barrel of a gun. “Maybe we didn’t get off on the right foot. I’m really a nice guy once you get to know me.”
There was no response and he climbed back into the bed of the truck without needing further encouragement of the bullet variety; watching as the tailgate and window slammed shut once again. He found that the canteen had been refilled and his dwindling stock of oranges and date bread replenished. His captor must want him alive if he was feeding him, but alive for what? There wasn’t much to look forward to if he was only being kept alive to be tortured for information. Especially since he doubted there was any valuable information he could give anyone. He couldn’t tell them where all the Slayers were as he didn’t have the slightest idea where the one he was supposed to be collecting was, let alone the rest of them. If they wanted to know how to kill a vampire, well, he’d tell them that torture free.
He watched the shadows on the sand dunes darken, turning everything into an inked comic book world of contrasts. The air cooled without the sun beating down and soon he was curled up against his duffle bag with clothes draped over him for warmth. Despite the uncomfortable accommodations, the hum of the engine was a strange mechanical lullaby that eventually slowed the thoughts in his head enough that his eye closed and he slept.
Passage of time was marked by truck stops and by the growing collection of orange peels and date pits. The view outside the back of the truck changed from towering mountains of sand to rocky boulders littering unforgiving ground and back again to sand. He remembered seeing what had looked like lily pads on a pond, green circles swept out over the blinding sand that meant there was water beneath the desert. They stopped there and he rubbed futilely at the windows of the truck, trying to clear away enough of the dust to get a better look.
Heat made him lethargic and lack of humidity gave him nosebleeds at random intervals throughout the day. Despite the flask that was refilled every day, he was pretty sure that he wasn’t getting enough water to counteract the desert and wondered if anyone who lived there ever managed to get enough water.
Even the sunshine was different. In sunny California, it was a happy smiling sunshine that meant surfing and beach volleyball. It was playful and friendly, kissing skin and hair with the familiar touch of a lover. This sun was a bear roaring fearsomely down on the world with claws made for stripping skin. The ground beneath was trapped in the vengeful gaze that boiled the life away. There was no volleyball here although the mental image of polo played on the backs of camels amused him for a while.
He began to appreciate the silence. His own voice seemed to have gone into hibernation, sensing that it would be both useless and unheeded. The desert swallowed up words as quickly as water.
The truck lurched at the same moment that he heard the echo of a rifle shot. Jarred by the rough road beneath them, he pressed against the bed of the truck and clutched his bag. There were more gunshots and the old Toyota engine roared forward with increasing speed. Just as he thought his teeth were going to be rattled out of his skull, the vibrations suddenly stopped. He began sliding as the bed tipped to the left and twisted around just in time to hold his bag between him and the roof of the truck bed.
Fiberglass crunched and splintered around his ears. He buried his face against the heavy canvas and fervently wished he was back in soggy old England. The breath was knocked out of him as the truck started another roll and he slammed into the bed only to start sliding again. Somewhere in the chaos, he wondered if clothes in the dryer got seasick from the spinning. He couldn’t be sure if it was his stomach or his head spinning.
The truck cap didn’t survive the roll and light hit his eyes with the crack of a baseball bat. There was sand in his mouth and nose, he could taste blood and hear gunfire. Years of chasing vampires nearly blind in the darkness had him scrambling toward the nearest hazy cover. A misshapen boulder barely large enough to hide behind was enough for a moment. Long enough to spit sand and blood and cover his head as the truck was enveloped in a roaring ball of gasoline-fueled fire. The stench of burning skin reached him but all he could think was that the fire was the same temperature as the desert air.
Shouting voices carried over the crackling fire. He slunk down lower against the boulder knowing that they’d probably already seen him and he was a goner. What a way to go, shot to death in the Sahara. He’d always figured he end up with teeth in his neck or possibly crushed under some random Hell God’s fashionable footwear. There were fantasies of being an integral part of a grand battle although most of those had faded after losing his eye.
He braced himself for the bullets when they found him. Men in dark green uniforms with assault rifles that looked old but well cared for. They were shouting in a language he didn’t understand.
“I was kidnapped!” he protested, holding up his hands.
That spurred another round of shouting between them and one of them called out to someone else toward the wreckage of the Toyota. He kept his eye on the triggers of the guns; cautiously optimistic that being still alive was a good sign. They were joined by an older man with lighter skin under the military desert camouflage and blue eyes looking out from under a turban. It was a slightly disturbing blend of cultural implications.
“American, huh?” The man said with a distinctively Texan accent. “Welcome to Chad, son.”