Disclaimer: I do not own anything, it all belongs to other people, but I can still dream, can I?

Authors Note: This is a Crossover Fic. I watched a movie and my over-reactive bunnies tossed me a 'what if' scenario and, of course, my brain wouldn't shut up until I started to put this down. I have no idea where it will lead to, we will see.

Child of Darkness, Son of Ice

Simone of the Zordiak
Chapter Six

It was no surprise that the Watchers had collected data about his last life, so it was actually quite easy for him to prove that he was speaking the truth. Actually he was quite impressed with the amount and correctness of the data. The Watchers had decided to leave him alone, basing their decision onto the fact that he'd had no known weaknesses and the amount of humans he killed in a year was less than a demonic vampire coven killed in a week. So convincing them of the truth was not the problem and Giles reaction had made him hope for a more or less civilised ending of their meeting. Of course Buffy had to thwart his hopes...

Hypocrite was the word, the straw that broke the camels back. She'd called him a hypocrite, after she'd finally allowed herself to believe that he was telling the truth.

Xander glared at Buffy, who was declaring him to be all sorts of bad because he had made a deal with the Devil in his last life... life and suddenly he understood. But just because he'd realised her mistake it did not mean that he wasn't angry any more. In fact, he was furious.

"Hypocrite, eh? I am a hypocrite? You have no idea what happened then and still you judge me. So who is the hypocrite here? But let me tell you, tell you what happened then. Let me tell you why and how I made that deal."

He stood and started pacing, eyes scanning the bookcases until he'd located the volume that he'd been searching. Gently he grabbed the book and placed it on the table.

"I was forty years old, a retired active hunter of the Holy Order, tactician, knight of the Dragon Order, Voivode of Wallachia, husband and father. I had a full life, a good life and then my best friend rammed a dagger into my back."

His fingers leafed through the pages until he found the image that had shown up in several of his nightmares. The blade of the dagger was bone-white and decorated with black runes. Until he had found the image, he had not known that the cross-guard was was formed out of two depilated wings, while grip and pommel were fashioned in the form of a weeping angel.

"That, my dear Buffy, is the Dagger of Woe. The one that uses it will gain a form of suspended ageing, immortality of a sort, but his or her friends, family and loved ones will die before their time and through direct or indirect actions of the one that wielded it and the one that is killed by it, goes straight into Hell. So there I was, freshly murdered, confused, angry and in Hell. Why? Because the king of Hungary was a coward and feared to loose face. It was a political assassination, but the Church needed his influence and so they send their best man for that job. This man had been my friend and shield-brother for almost twenty years. I trusted him. And he repaid my trust with a dagger to my heart. So when Lucifer offered me the chance for revenge I took it. Of course I took it. I was in Hell already, so what else did I have to loose?"

He slumped down into his seat and rubbed his stinging eyes.

"I woke up three days after being murdered. My body had been found and prepared for burial. I was laid out in the chapel when I was send back. A young vampire, disoriented and weakened by all those holy symbols around me, of course they could overwhelm me. They captured me, but they could not kill me. Nothing they tried worked. Oh, it hurt, it was so torturous that I wished I could die, but I didn't. Finally they decided to temporally neutralize me. The patriarch of the line of Valerious, he knew many magiks. Some of them were quite dark and had he not been a lapdog of the church they would have burned him for his knowledge. He used his knowledge to cast a curse. Not a curse of ensoulment, no, for he knew that souls could be corrupted, but a curse of banishment, a curse of eternal frost. He banished me to a castle on a step cliff, with no ways to leave. No roads, not even the smallest path to try to escape. I was alone, surrounded by ice, cursed to emit even more ice and the only company I had were the rats, until I ate them all.

They made me sick. I was not able to stomach animal blood at all and thus I started starving quite soon. How long I was alone there? I have no idea. Time became a blur. But finally Lucifer sought me out and when he realized what had happened he gave me wings. Could he have broken the curse? Yes. But to do so meant the utter obliteration of the souls tied into its casting. And that is something even the devil will not do."

He stood and reached for a stack of books he had assembled earlier.

"You can find most of my existence chronicled in here. The watchers stayed away from me but they were methodical in collecting data. I existed for more than 400 years until the man that killed me once returned to do the deed once more. So I died, again. And of course I went to hell. I had not expected anything else. What I did not expect was for Lucifer to offer me a way to regain my freedom. All I had to do was to allow myself to be reincarnated without my memories and stop a prophecy. Stop the world from ending. And I did. I only regained my memories yesterday. Do you understand what I'm saying? What it means? I am free. I might still carry the curse of Valerious with me, but otherwise my soul is completely mine again. My life is my own and I shall live it as I see fit."

He could feel the headache approaching and made his decision.

"Read the books. Really read them. Don't just leaf through them, don't ask for the cliff-notes. Take your time. And when you are ready, I am willing to talk. But right now I have other things to do."

And with that he turned and left the library. There were other people whose lives had dramatically changed last night. People who trusted him, needed a bit of routine right now. He frowned as he made a mental note to ask Jonathan if his Merlin had placed the spell upon every enspelled costume or just on those worn by their group. Neither Willow nor Buffy looked like they had retained traits of their costumes but he was no fool to make assumptions based on that. Looks could be deceiving. He knew that from personal experience.

tbc