Bad Bargain

by Diana G. Gallagher

  Xander glanced at the utility room door. He didn’t want to leave Cordelia alone, but she hadn’t even sobbed since he had come back from a quick trip to the restroom. He had tried to comfort her and failed, and continuing his vigil wouldn’t accomplish anything either. They were both on a fast track to tombstone park unless Buffy, Giles, and Willow figured out how to save them.

  “And if I don’t want my supersecret Scooby license revoked, I should probably help.” Xander put his ear to the door, but there was only silence on the other side. He had to do something before Cordelia completely decomposed.

  The tight vest prevented Xander from bending at the waist. Getting to his knees, he used the doorknob to pulled himself upright. His breathing was only slightly restricted, but it wouldn’t be long before the python effect crushed his ribs and collapsed his lungs.

  Xander looked toward the basement access door, where Buffy had gone awhile ago. She could demolish most demons without breaking a sweat, but her butt-kicking prowess wouldn’t solve this problem. Slayer action against the vest would just get his bones broken more quickly. He needed brains, and both of them were in the library.

  Xander refrained from running, but he almost passed out when he pushed through the library doors. He hadn’t realized how greatly walking fast would affect his respiration rate. Unable to fully expand his chest, he leaned on the book counter and took rapid, shallow breaths.

  “Xander!” Willow pushed her chair back and stood up. She was still clutching the kur in the blue scarf. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  Xander held up a hand to convey that he was all right. Then he waved, hoping she’d understand he wanted her to stay back. The last thing he needed was to inadvertently upset the kur. If Willow attacked, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself.

  “Is something chasing you?” Willow tightened her grip on the blue bundle, but she didn’t move toward him. “Something bad? It better not try to hurt Cutie, because I’ll have to leave or—” Her gaze snapped to the cage where Giles stored staffs, crossbows, swords, and other medieval arms. “I just might have to take drastic action.”

  Xander used precious air to force out two words. “Nothing . . . coming.”

  “Good, because Giles would freak if I wrecked the library.” Willow smiled. Then, with her protective passion for Cutie diffused, her apprehension shifted back to him. “You really are out of shape, huh? Guess you were right about the doughnuts.”

  “It’s the vest.” Breathing more easily, Xander tugged on the lower edge of the vest. “It’s getting tighter, and it won’t come off. Got any scissors?”

  Willow’s face clouded with a bewildered frown. “What for?”

  “Maybe I can cut it off.”

  Willow sneered. “Don’t you dare try to cut Cutie!”

  “The vest,” Xander clarified. “I can’t unzip it, but maybe I can cut it. It’s worth a try, right?”

  “Oh!” Willow brightened as quickly as she had turned belligerent. “There’s a pair behind the counter.”

  “Thanks.” Moving to the other side of the counter, Xander found the scissors on the shelf. He carefully placed the blades over the bottom edge of the vest. “Where’s Giles?”

  “He went to find Buffy.” Willow fussed with the scarf, then nuzzled her furry white psycho pet.

  “Why?” Xander tried to cut, but the fabric hardened where the blades touched. It was like trying to slice through an armor plate. He put the scissors back on the shelf without showing them to Willow. One glint of steel might send her into a defensive frenzy.

  “To stop her from killing the only demon in the universe that can help us,” Willow said.

  “Seriously?” Xander frowned. “What demon is that? Because I didn’t see Giles go to the basement, and Buffy’s in the basement.”

  “It’s not a big deal. I mean, Cutie’s the only thing that’s worth saving, and he’s got me!”

  “I know that makes perfect sense to you right now, Willow, but—” Xander hesitated to explain. Anything he said could be misconstrued as a threat, especially if the kur was sensitive to emotional states. Thanks to being choked to near death by a piece of quilted clothing, his anxiety level was extraordinarily high.

  “Principal Snyder has worms,” Willow said. “What have you got? No, wait. That’s not right. It’s more like, what’s got you?”

  “To be honest, Willow, the fact that some creepy crawly from the Hellmouth set up shop in this vest and has me in a vise grip is all I need to know.” Xander wasn’t kidding. Details about the unidentified plant or animal wouldn’t change his circumstances except to give him a worse case of critter jitters. “I’ve got to find Buffy, before she kills something.”

  “I’ll go with,” Willow said.

  “That’s okay.” Xander tried to discourage her as he eased toward the doors. “Cutie’s probably a lot safer in the library.”

  “I’ll take care of him.” Oblivious to the danger she posed, Willow followed Xander out the doors. “I finished the research Giles gave me, but it was a big bust. There’s nothing on the Net about a jat-sliver or a flitcha-my.”

  “Imagine that.” Xander couldn’t outwalk her and breathe simultaneously, so the next safest course was to say as little as possible. Willow’s enthusiastic output filled the verbal gap.

  “Giles is acting really weird, like he thinks I’ll go disgruntled employee without warning him first. I mean, I know he’s way too cautious sometimes, but he’s not usually paranoid! Unless—what if he caught something when in the cafeteria this morning? A gonna-get-me bug or something. That could explain it, right?”

  “Could be,” Xander replied curtly, eyes straight ahead as they turned into the cafeteria corridor. Willow’s rambling was usually entertaining. Now he was relieved because it seemed to be calming the kur. As long as she kept talking, he had a good chance of making it to the basement alive.

  “. . . and I don’t care what my mom says, I’m keeping him. No discussion, no argument—that’s what she’s always telling me! Cutie stays or we both go. I’ve made up my mind.” Willow slowed to peer into the classroom Ms. Calendar had set up as an infirmary. “Wait a minute.”

  “I can’t wait, Willow. We have to find Buffy just in case Giles hasn’t.”

  “But everyone looks so sick.” Willow stared through the window in the closed door. “Even Buffy’s mom is lying down. Maybe we should see if they need—”

  “They need Giles, who apparently has some idea about what’s going on.” Xander wished he could ditch Willow, but Ms. Calendar was too busy to worry about a beast with a hair-trigger defense system. If provoked, Willow could do serious damage in the crowded classroom. “So let’s find him.”

  Willow murmured to the kur as she trailed Xander to the basement access door and down the stairs.

  “I hear something,” Giles’s voice said.

  “The fire thing only weighs half a pound. Its footsteps don’t clump.” Buffy looked over as Xander and Willow came down the last few steps. “Oh, no. Did Cordelia—”

  “Die? Unknown.” Xander put out an arm to hold Willow back when he saw that Buffy and Giles weren’t alone. “There’s a vampire and a demon down here—with you.”

  “A necessary truce, Xander.” Giles centered his belt buckle and shoved a hand in his trouser pocket. “Pragoh here is the equivalent of the Hellmouth dog-catcher.”

  “Cutie doesn’t like him,” Willow said.

  Xander glanced back. Willow glared at the short, gray demon. If it made the slightest move toward the kur, she would willingly gouge out its eyes. Normally he’d be 100 percent behind that plan, but a catcher caught things. He assumed the cease-fire had been declared because Pragoh caught Hellmouth things. That, however, didn’t explain Spike.

  “What’s Spike doing here?” Xander asked.

  “Just waiting for a juicy Xander steak to show up,” Spike quipped.

  “He’s keeping Drusilla, the big bad bat lady, in the storeroom,” Buffy said. “What are
you doing here?”

  “His vest is squeezing the life out of him,” Willow explained. “He thought you could save him, Buffy, but I guess you can’t.”

  Xander stiffened. “What does that mean?”

  “Cutie was a little nervous for a minute,” Willow explained, “but he’s not afraid anymore.”

  “Something is interfering with Pragoh’s ability to call the underworld pests back to the Hellmouth,” Giles said. “The only positive aspect of that situation is that the kur doesn’t feel endangered.”

  “There must be something we can—” Xander gasped as the vest tightened suddenly. It felt like a bear trap had snapped closed around his waist. His airways weren’t completely blocked, but his middle hurt like hell. “Too tight—” He could barely talk.

  “There’s another plus,” Spike said. “The obnoxious one’s juvenile prattle has been shut down.”

  “Did I forget to mention that verbal abuse violates our deal?” Buffy asked.

  Spike raised Buffy’s seething look of contempt with a derisive laugh. “Just try to enforce that.”

  Xander desperately wanted to add a disparaging word or two, but he didn’t know what had prompted the vest to clamp down. His bones could only withstand so much pressure before they cracked. A couple more Hellmouth hugs like the last one and he’d be a candidate for technology that could rebuild him.

  “So what’s blocking the mojo, Pragoh?” Buffy asked.

  “You’re wasting your breath, Slayer,” Spike said. “He’s empowered to use the power, not to think about why it does or doesn’t work.”

  Xander gripped the end of the banister on the stairs to keep from falling over. His knees threatened to buckle, and he knew if he went down, he might not be able to get back up—even with help.

  Pragoh snorted with indignation. “One power work.”

  “And which power might that be?” Giles looked profoundly disturbed.

  “Put spell all around whole place.” Pragoh seemed to smile as he opened his short arms.

  “Around the school?” Giles scoffed. “At the risk of wounding your demonic pride, that did not help. I already have a binding spell in place and functioning.”

  “A spell you could break.” Pragoh met Giles’s gaze with a jutting jaw set in stubborn defiance. “No break Pragoh’s spell.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Xander asked.

  “Two things good.” The demon counted on his fingers. “All runaways and bad magick still here.”

  “Bad magick?” Buffy asked, puzzled.

  “I believe he means that, in addition to all the Hellmouth escapees, whatever’s hindering his magick is still in the building,” Giles said, “where we might be able to find it. Then the effects on Pragoh can be neutralized.”

  Pragoh nodded.

  “What’s the bad?” Since his initial introduction into Buffy’s bizarre world, Xander had learned that there was almost always a downside to offset the good.

  “We can’t break Pragoh’s spell,” Giles said. “His masters want this world preserved. If he can’t collect the Hellmouth pests and send them back, he’s made sure they’ll be confined. They’ll die here—along with everyone else in the school.”

  * * *

  Jonathan hid behind the science lab station, listening to Andrew’s footsteps recede down the hall. Revenge wasn’t the only reason his friend had attacked him. The electric eel on the bullwhip had filled him with an incredible sense of power. He hadn’t been able to resist the overwhelming urge to crack the whip—over and over, preferably at something alive. Buffy had killed the eel, breaking the psychic bond, but another one must have taken its place. Now Andrew was in the whip’s thrall.

  That wasn’t all, Jonathan realized. If Andrew hadn’t been exaggerating to impress Buffy Summers, the creature built up a stronger and stronger electrical charge with each strike.

  I almost killed my best friend! Jonathan was appalled, but not just because he had almost electrocuted Andrew. They were both misfits, had been their whole lives, but they had each other. If Andrew moved away or got mad and stopped hanging out with him or died, he wouldn’t have anybody. That was the fate he dreaded most. He’d rather die than be alone.

  But he didn’t want to die today.

  Jonathan crept to the classroom door and paused to plot his next move. It was a no-brainer. Since Andrew had run back toward the cafeteria, he ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

  Something weird was always happening in Sunnydale. Jonathan didn’t know exactly what was going on today, but the cops had arrived with sirens blaring to surround the school. Escape from the building wasn’t possible, but he just needed a secure hiding place to wait out the crisis—somewhere he had never been, where Andrew would never think to look. A sign on the corridor wall directed him to the perfect spot.

  Jonathan raced around the corner toward the auto shop. Andrew probably didn’t even know Sunnydale High had a garage! Even if he did, nothing less than an emergency droid repair could lure him inside the student mechanics’ grimy habitat.

  Jonathan’s elation evaporated twenty feet from the auto shop double doors. He skidded to a halt.

  “Hey!” a redheaded boy called out. He was almost entirely engulfed in a mass of pulsating gunk that filled the doorway and looked like bread dough.

  Jonathan recognized Oz, the lead guitar player for Dingoes Ate My Baby. Ordinarily he wouldn’t dream of talking to a popular musician from the Bronze, but Oz’s plight evened out the social differential.

  “What?” Jonathan took a tentative step closer.

  “Pull me out.” Oz extended his arm. He seemed remarkably calm for a kid who was being consumed by a real-life blob.

  In his daydreams, Jonathan envisioned himself as the ultimate leading man who knew everything, had everything, and could do everything. That Jonathan would rush to the rescue without a second thought, deflate the victim’s doughy prison with a pencil, and yank Oz free.

  The real Jonathan inched closer, but didn’t commit. “What is this?”

  “My van seat covers,” Oz said. “They just started growing and won’t stop. I tried to run, but my foot got stuck.”

  “Does it hurt?” Jonathan winced.

  “Not so far, but I have a really bad feeling that this is some kind of giant fungus that’s slowly digesting me, like a Venus flytrap without leaves.” Oz pushed against the dough. “Grab my hand.”

  “Okay.” Taking a deep breath, Jonathan reached out. Just as he touched Oz’s callused fingertips, the mass bulged outward. He jumped back as the dough enveloped Oz’s arms and oozed farther into the hallway. “I’ll go get help!”

  “Wait!” Oz yelled.

  Jonathan didn’t look back or pause until he reached the corridor outside the cafeteria. Ms. Calendar was in the classroom across the hall. He threw open the door and yelled, “The blob is coming! Run for your lives!”

  “Andrew is here,” a familiar voice said behind him. “Gotcha!”

  * * *

  “Everybody dies is not an acceptable ever after.” Buffy fumed. Part of her success as a Slayer was the unshakable belief that every problem had a positive solution. The projected outcome of the present situation—that the trapped Hellmouth minimonsters would die out after they had infected and killed all the available hosts in the school—wasn’t good enough. “There’s got to be another way to save the world.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Xander said.

  “Rupert? Are you down there?” Ms. Calendar hurried down the stairs. Rather than barge past Willow, she stopped before she reached the bottom. She looked frazzled and sounded frantic.

  Giles blanched, assuming the worst. “Are you infected?”

  “I don’t think so, but three people have died. And Jonathan Levinson just told me that a blob creature ate a guitar player.”

  “Fascinating. Which one? That band Wretched Refuse has a raw, savage sound that hits right here.” Spike placed his fist against his stomach. “I’d miss them.�
��

  “Is this blob entity in the vicinity of the infirmary?” Giles asked.

  “I haven’t seen it,” Ms. Calendar said, “and Andrew chased Jonathan away before he finished his report. Are you any closer to fixing this? Dozens more are critically ill.”

  “How’s my mom?” Buffy was afraid to ask, but she had to know. “The hard facts.”

  “The dry peeling skin only affected her hands,” Ms. Calendar said. “But she’s broken out in green blotches on her arms and face. The, uh, green skin cracks and bleeds if it’s touched. She’s lying down and trying not to move.”

  “I have to go to her.” Buffy took a step toward the stairs.

  “Your impulse is commendable, Buffy, but it won’t cure her.” Giles spoke in an even, unemotional tone. “In fact, as much as I’m sure your mother would appreciate your presence, it would be a deathbed watch.”

  Buffy whirled on the librarian, eyes flashing. “Then let’s stop talking and do what we have to do to save her!”

  “And everyone else, too,” Xander said hoarsely.

  “Agreed,” Giles said. “First we must identify and remove the magick that’s preventing Pragoh from using his powers.”

  The kur’s head suddenly emerged from the blue scarf. It hissed and spit with the ferocity of a cornered wildcat until Willow hushed it.

  “Rebooting Pragoh’s power isn’t a good idea.” Holding the kur close, Willow glowered at Buffy. “He wants to hurt Cutie. You can’t let him. I won’t let him!”

  Willow was on the verge of a violent outburst, and Buffy hastened to calm her. “Nobody’s going to hurt Cutie, Will.”

  “Promise.” Willow’s eyes narrowed.

  Giles shielded his mouth with his hand and whispered, “The psychic link won’t be severed until the kur is back in the Hellmouth.”

  Buffy nodded slightly to let him know she understood. Until the kur was gone, Willow wasn’t in control of her own emotions. Buffy would promise to marry Spike if it would keep Willow from going off the deep end and hurting herself or someone else. “I promise.”