Bad Bargain

by Diana G. Gallagher

  “Turning-black-and-falling-out rotting, or a-really-stinky-case-of-halitosis rotting?” Xander looked worried for a moment before he arched a dark eyebrow. “And why is this a problem?”

  “Because—” Buffy looked past him. The camouflage vest she had so carefully hidden in a pile of sheepskin was lying on the CDs. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Oz found it in his seat covers. I hid it last night, but someone moved—” Xander’s eyes narrowed when Buffy flinched. “You?”

  “Yeah, Mr. Girls Can’t Resist a Bargain.” Buffy winced sheepishly. “Are you mad?”

  “Not as mad as I would be if someone else had found it and bought it,” Xander said.

  “Good. Now, let’s go see Giles.”

  “I can’t leave until Devon shows up or Oz gets back,” Xander said. “Some of these LPs are classics, and you’d be surprised how many people will risk going to jail to steal stuff they can’t use.”

  “LPs?”

  “Long-playing records,” Xander explained. “Forty-fives were the CD singles of their day.”

  “Just don’t be too long,” Buffy cautioned. “We could be dealing with some kind of mutant flu bug or something.”

  * * *

  “I am so sorry I’m late!” Joyce hurried into the cafeteria carrying a box of donations from her gallery clients. “I had to wait for a delivery, and I think I caught every traffic light between the gallery and the school.”

  “Don’t apologize. The sale doesn’t start for an hour. I’m just so glad you took the time to collect all these fabulous treasures.” Ms. Calendar took the box. “Is this everything?”

  “No, I have two more boxes in the car,” Joyce said.

  “Great! I’ll get Deirdre started unpacking this one, and then I’ll help you bring them inside.”

  “Buffy said she’d”—Joyce’s sentence trailed off as the teacher stepped away—“be here to do it.”

  While Ms. Calendar conferred with a tall cheerleader at the next table, Joyce surveyed the cafeteria. Teenagers waiting for the sale to start stood around tables piled with an impressive array of goods. A song by Blood, Sweat & Tears, one of Joyce’s all-time favorite groups, was playing on an old stereo. Xander mimed playing the drums and tapping his foot to the beat. Willow sat in a chair. From a distance it looked like the girl was holding a white stuffed animal. There was something sad about the toys people threw away, a sign that wonder and hope had been lost in the trials of adulthood. She still had a funny stuffed dog with a bee on its nose tucked away in an old trunk, a cherished memento that held the last vestiges of her youth. It was a silly notion, the idea of hanging on to the child she once was. She wished Buffy wasn’t so eager to grow up too fast.

  More than that, Joyce wished her daughter would learn to keep her word. Buffy was not in the cafeteria, not where she was supposed to be or doing what she said she’d be doing—again. That was disappointing, but not the only thing that worried her. Buffy’s grades were barely passing, and her reputation as a troublemaker had followed her from Hemery. Being able to hold her own in a gang brawl was an excellent survival skill, but it wouldn’t get her into a decent college. It was becoming quite clear to Joyce that she might have to stop threatening to ground her headstrong offspring and actually do it.

  Don’t jump to conclusions, Joyce reminded herself. She brought it up with Ms. Calendar as they left for the parking lot. “I thought Buffy was working the sale this morning.”

  “She is. She just . . . left for a minute.”

  The teacher sounded suspiciously like a person trying to cover for someone.

  Joyce resented not being able to trust Buffy, but Buffy’s actions were to blame. As a good parent, she had no choice but to ask, “Was Buffy here last—”

  “We already have a buyer for the cloisonné urn,” the teacher said, steering the conversation elsewhere. “But I’m really anxious to see the Jurojin ivory. The artist carved him standing with a stag, correct?”

  “Yes, it’s a beautiful piece.” Joyce had been surprised and delighted that Mr. Haido had contributed something from his collection of Asian gods. Jurojin, the god of longevity, was one of seven lucky Chinese deities. The deer, another symbol of long life, was often included as his messenger.

  “And Mayor Wilkins called to ask if the black jade paperweight comes with any documentation.”

  “The Mayor wants it?” Joyce asked.

  “Only if it’s an orb called ‘Endless Night,’ ” Ms. Calendar said.

  Jade was symbolic of power, prestige, and immortality. This particular piece had an intriguing history, but Joyce was surprised the Mayor had expressed interest.

  “His father lost a bidding war on the orb at an auction in LA back in the fifties,” Ms. Calendar explained.

  “It’s the same piece,” Joyce confirmed. “The donor supplied the original sales slip and related paperwork.”

  “Really?” Ms. Calendar looked impressed. “Why would anyone donate something that valuable to a student rummage sale?”

  “Apparently the jade is so black that the donor felt like he was being drawn into infinity when he stared at it,” Joyce said. “And the orb has such an intense hypnotic effect that he couldn’t stop staring at it. So it’s been buried in a desk drawer for five decades. He said he won’t miss it.”

  “Fascinating.” Ms. Calendar stood back while Joyce unlocked her car. “The Mayor will be so pleased. He’ll be here at noon.”

  “Mayor Wilkins is coming to the school?” Joyce asked as she hauled a box out of the back seat.

  “Just long enough for the Sunnydale Press to get a few pictures and quotes,” Ms. Calendar said. “I’m sure he’ll want to meet the woman who recovered his father’s lost treasure.”

  “That would be nice.” Joyce lifted the second box and kicked the door closed. “Don’t drop that. Everything is packed in shredded paper, but jade can shatter.”

  “No pressure there,” Ms. Calendar teased.

  Joyce relaxed once they were back in the cafeteria and the boxes had been transferred into the faculty adviser’s custody. She was no longer responsible for the condition of the precious contents, and she had kept her promise to Buffy.

  Who still isn’t back from wherever she went, Joyce noted. Perhaps taking her cues from Mr. Giles, Ms. Calendar was cutting Buffy a great deal of slack. Still, it seemed foolish to expect the worst if nobody else was troubled by Buffy’s absence.

  Joyce had intended to go directly back to the gallery, but Mayor Richard Wilkins III was highly respected in Sunnydale and a patron of the arts. He might appreciate a personal invitation to the opening of Joel Shavin’s show. The Mayor’s presence would be a boon to the gallery’s prestige. She could afford to wait.

  An avid bargain hunter, Joyce began a casual walk through of the rummage sale. Unusual, collectible, or valuable objects could often be found in thrift shops and garage sales because people didn’t know what they had.

  As she moved up and down the aisles, Joyce’s keen eye flicked over the ordinary and mundane, searching for a junk-pile original. Her gaze was drawn to a pair of black-lace evening gloves that stood out like a beacon on a stormy night. The gloves were in excellent condition and looked like a pair her grandmother used to wear to the theater. They also fit her hands perfectly.

  Sold, Joyce thought, removing the gloves and taking them with her. As she rummaged through the odds and ends on the trinket tables, she softly sang along to “And When I Die,” another old Blood, Sweat & Tears hit that blared from the music table. “ ‘One child born in this world to carry on, to carry on.’ ”

  “Hi, Ms. Summers!” Willow came up beside her. She carried the white stuffed animal wrapped in a blue, knit neck scarf. “Did you find anything you just absolutely have to have?”

  “Yes, actually.” Joyce held up the gloves and scratched an itchy spot on the back of her hand. “I see you’ve found yourself a must-have item too.”

  Willow blinked, confused. “I did? What?” />
  “The white bear or whatever it is.” Joyce reached toward the toy.

  Holding it closer, Willow lurched backward and bumped into the table. She snapped, eyes flashing. “He’s mine.”

  “Yes, of course he is,” Joyce said, taken aback. Willow was a gentle soul and completely without malice toward anyone. Her hostility was unexpected, but not necessarily unwarranted.

  “I don’t care what Principal Snyder says.” Willow spoke in a quiet, intense voice, her expression stony and determined. “Not letting us buy stuff we find before the sale starts is a stupid rule. Who cares where the money comes from, as long as we make enough so the marching band can compete? I’m not putting Cutie back, and that’s final.”

  “Well, I agree. It’s a stupid rule.” Joyce smiled. “And I’m not putting my gloves back, either.”

  “Good because . . . well, finders keepers and first come, first served.” Willow had a white-knuckled grip on the bundled plush toy, as though someone might try to snatch it away. “Buffy’s at the library.”

  “What is it with you kids and the library?” Joyce asked, genuinely puzzled. “Does Mr. Giles do your homework?”

  “Only if it’s about demon stuff. Gotta go.” As Willow spun around to leave, the clasp of a gold chain necklace caught on her sweater. The large gold sunburst with red and green rhinestones dangled from her back as she scurried down the aisle.

  Joyce called out, but Willow didn’t stop. She collided with a dark-haired boy.

  “Watch where you’re going, Michael!” Willow berated the stunned teenager. “You almost squashed Cutie.”

  Michael didn’t apologize or defend himself. He moved by her and stopped to look through the kitchen wares on the next table.

  Willow walked up the aisle at a more leisurely pace and went back to shirts. It was unsettling to see the girl so out of sorts, but Joyce chalked it up to typical teenaged angst. Everyone had cranky days.

  Paying more attention to the merchandise than where she was walking, Joyce almost ran into another early browser. “Excuse me, I wasn’t—”

  Joyce whipped the black gloves behind her back when she recognized Principal Snyder. It was an instinctive reaction, even though his early shopping rule probably didn’t apply to contributors. However, she couldn’t contain a gasp of astonishment triggered by his startling appearance. He wore his suit jacket, but his blue shirt was draped over the table and his puny, hairless chest was bare.

  “Do you like this tie or this one.” Snyder dropped a tie with diagonal blue-gray stripes and held up a muted red tie with tiny golden fleurs-de-lis.

  “You took off your shirt.” Joyce didn’t like the short, scrawny man. He obviously loathed all teenagers and harbored a particularly belligerent dislike for Buffy. Even so, his bizarre behavior piqued her curiosity.

  “It clashes with my hat. The band is red.” The man tilted his head and a drop of blood trickled down his ear. He held up both ties.

  “Do you need a doctor?” Joyce asked, wondering if he had cracked under the stress of running Sunny-dale High. She didn’t like to think about it, but the school had an alarming rate of student and faculty tragedies.

  “No, I need a tie. The Mayor never mixes. He always matches.” He held up both choices. “Which one?”

  “The red one.” Joyce smiled tightly.

  If Principal Snyder had suddenly come unhinged, the best thing to do was humor him. The Mayor wouldn’t ignore his disturbed state and might even use it as grounds for dismissal. She could only hope, for Buffy’s sake.

  Joyce hurried back to the cashier’s table. During the thirty minutes remaining before the sale officially opened, she could answer any questions the cheerleader had about the pieces she had brought from the gallery.

  Besides, Ms. Calendar or one of the girls might have hand lotion she could use. Her skin was much drier than usual, and her hands itched. Large flakes of skin peeled off when she scratched them.

  Chapter Four

  On her way to the library, Buffy ducked into the restroom to check on Cordelia. Besides the unfortunate fact that Cordelia knew the Slayer secret and was therefore owed certain inner sanctum considerations, Giles would need as much information as Buffy could get.

  Since Harmony would rather die than share with a social outcast, Buffy quietly opened the door and hugged the wall as she slipped inside. Cordelia sat cross-legged on the floor in front of a closed stall. Harmony had locked herself inside.

  “This is getting ridiculous, Harmony.” Cordelia fidgeted with her silver necklace, a sign that she was antsy and bored. “You can stay locked in there feeling sorry for yourself, or you can come out and look in the mirror. It’s not as bad as you think.”

  “Yes, it is,” Harmony sobbed.

  Cordelia rolled her eyes, but her tone didn’t betray her impatience. “A few teeny-weeny little lines won’t kill your chances with Jake. Well, they might. He is the Razorbacks’ star tight behind or rear or—”

  “End.” Harmony sniffled. “He’s the tight end.”

  “Whatever. Anyway,” Cordelia continued, “they’ve developed all kinds of new therapies to make old people look young.”

  “I’m not old!” Harmony wailed. “My life is over.”

  Buffy couldn’t take her eyes off Cordelia, who obviously hadn’t looked in the mirror lately either. If she had, she wouldn’t be calmly chiding Harmony about overreacting to suntan creases.

  Cordelia’s sleek brown hair was slowly turning to straw. Her pink manicure had sprouted black dots, and the dark decay had spread to all her front teeth. If Harmony’s tiny lines were getting worse at the same rate, she’d looked like a shar-pei before fifth period started.

  Buffy backed out of the restroom as silently as she had gone in and speed walked to the library. There was a measure of cosmic justice in Cordelia and Harmony’s cosmetic disintegration, but she didn’t have time to deal with two hysterical girls. If the cause was a magickal spell or curse, Giles was their only hope of reversing the effects.

  Even if it’s a scientific something—, Buffy thought, a gene mutation or a failed chem-lab experiment or pollution run amok—Giles is still the go-to guy.

  Her Watcher was shelving books on the upper tier. Very few students used the school library, but he could hardly discourage all non-Slayer access. Sometimes he had to do what librarians do.

  Buffy got straight to the point. “You know that weird feeling I had this morning?”

  “Something happened?” Giles pushed the book cart aside and hurried down the short flight of stairs.

  “In a nutshell.” Buffy counted off the odd maladies. “Principal Snyder’s gone totally bonkers and may have holes in his head. Harmony’s aging, and Cordelia’s decomposing.”

  “Literally, or are those colorful figures of speech?” Giles asked as he slipped back into his tweed jacket.

  “Literally,” Buffy said.

  “I see,” Giles sighed wearily. “I was rather hoping you’d get your wish for a slow weekend, and I’d have time to finish cataloging this shipment of books before someone steals another one.”

  “So I take it the lactose manuscript hasn’t shown up on the vampire black market?”

  “That’s du Lac manuscript,” Giles corrected. “And no, the trail’s gone completely cold.”

  Buffy was sorry for Giles’s loss, but she needed his immediate attention. “The only other weird thing was the shock I got from Jonathan’s bullwhip. Although, that might have been a static shock—like you get from a doorknob.”

  “That happens when friction causes a frantic exchange of electrons, especially between insulating materials,” Giles explained. “Leather soled shoes acquire extra electrons from the carpet and a negative charge builds up in your body. When you touch something with the opposite charge, such as a doorknob, the electrons rush out and you feel a shock. There can be an enormous buildup of voltage.”

  “One question, Mr. Wizard,” Buffy said, annoyed by the lecture. “Could static electrici
ty build up in the end of a bullwhip?”

  “Under normal use? Not likely, but not impossible, I suppose.” Giles frowned, thinking.

  “Okay, but what about the other things?” Buffy asked. “Can a disease go from the first symptom stage to the patient’s falling apart in less than hour?”

  “Poisoning could cause a rapid progression,” Giles said. “So could a toxic chemical compound or a parasite, perhaps a mutation.”

  “I thought of that,” Buffy said.

  “But from what you’ve told me, the victims don’t have the same symptoms.” Giles removed his glasses and nibbled on the frame as he paced. “Are you sure the effects were limited to Principal Snyder and the two girls? There wasn’t anything strange about anyone else?”

  “Not that I noticed, but”—Buffy hesitated—“I wouldn’t have seen the sores on Principal Snyder’s head if he hadn’t taken off his hat.”

  Giles looked surprised. “He was wearing a hat?”

  “An old-fashioned one he found in the sale stuff. He really wanted me to like it.” Buffy made a face. “I said it looked great. If Snyder’s sudden soft spot for students is permanent, I don’t want to lose the good-graces points I just got.”

  Giles resumed pacing. “Were Cordelia and Harmony wearing anything that was donated to the sale?”

  “I didn’t actually see Harmony,” Buffy explained. “Cordelia was wearing an outfit I’ve seen before—except for her necklace. She’s in charge of jewelry for the sale, but I don’t know if that’s where she got it. I think she’s allergic to anything used.”

  “We must find out,” Giles said. “Identifying a common denominator won’t tell us if the problem is scientific or magickal, but at least we’ll have a sound starting point—especially if all or most of the sale items could have been contaminated by the same agent.”

  “Almost everything was stored in the basement.” Buffy paused. “Mom.”

  “What about your mother?” Settling his glasses on his nose, Giles started toward the doors.

  “She’s bringing some donations from the gallery.” Buffy rushed out with him, jogging to match his lengthy stride as they hurried down the hall. “If she’s not here yet, I need to stop her.”