Not really the best weather for them or Location, Location, Location

'Man,' Xander thought to himself, as he drove past another abandoned car, 'it's like driving through the middle of nowhere in one of those zombie movies me and Jesse used to love. I remember how Willow used to squeal and crawl into my lap...'

Xander shook off memories of happier times through an effort of will and concentrated on his driving. Glancing at the clock he couldn't help but think they should have reached some sign of civilization by now like an outlet mall or… His musings were interrupted as he crested a hill by the sight of a mall.

The sun was beating down on him like he owed it money and the A/C may have kept things cool, but he knew he had to pick up some sunscreen or he was going to end up sunburned on his arms, if nowhere else. So, he happily took the exit to the mall.

Hopping out of the car and gratefully stretching his legs, he enjoyed the quiet.

He popped open the back door and looked into the vast expanse of what used to be his back seat – waking the dog, who cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Hey Sirius, found a mall – thought you might like to come in and pick up some lighter clothes and food etc. They might even have some payphones, so you can check in with your family."

The dog perked up, quickly transforming back into a man. "Padfoot."

"What?" Xander asked curiously.

"When I'm a dog, I go by Padfoot."

"Ah, favorite form?" Xander guessed.

Sirius shook his head and climbed out of the car. "It's my animagus form. How should I put this… If I were born an animal, that's who I would be. Padfoot is my inner animal, the only 100% safe form I can change into."

"I thought you had a dozen choices or so and dog was the winner, still dog is one of the two I'd go with. The other one would be something with wings and of course my pornimagus form."

"It has the word porn in it, therefor I am both interest and intrigued." Sirius grinned, enjoying the banter as it distracted him from his lingering worries about Harry.

"Well my pornimagus form, would be me if I were born to be a pornstar and his name would be Rockhard Ballzilla."

Sirius grinned. "Ok, now I know what I'm going to spend the next six months mastering. How does one become a pornimagus?"

Xander shook his head. "Sadly, I have no idea, either the technique has been lost in the sands of time… Or I made it up."

The British mage sniffed. "Such a wonderful technique, lost to the sands of time, I swear by my magic – I shall reinvent it!"

Xander blinked at the blue aura that formed around Sirius for a moment. "What was that aura about?"

"It signifies a magical vow, if I fail in my vow my magic will punish me for it."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

Sirius shrugged. "I didn't say when I would do it. The only way for this vow to hurt me, would be for me to swear not to do it – so I'm safe and it was cool looking."

"Point. Speaking of cool looking, I'd suggest ditching the robes if you have something on underneath – I don't think robes are quite the fashion of choice around here."

Sirius tossed his robe into the car, revealing clothes that were probably in fashion in England, some eighty years before. "So, how do I look?"

Xander looked him over. "You look like a timetraveller or someone's grandfather who found the fountain of youth and decided to go out on the town the day after. On the plus side, you're less likely to be arrested, but watch out for old people, they'll torture the secret of the fountain from you in short order."

"I'll be on my guard," Sirius swore with a grin.

"Excellent, now let's see what the mall has by way of food and drink."

As they walked through the parking lot they both slowed down and searched the shadows.

"Somethings off," Sirius offered.

"Yeah," Xander nodded. "It's too quiet and all these cars look like they've been here a while. There are weeds growing in the cracks in the sidewalk. The lights are on, but I don't think we'll find anyone home."

Sirius scratched his head. "I've seen magical places like this, where the place was hidden with magic and cursebreakers brought the wards down, finding that the people who'd lived there had died long ago – but never in a muggle place."

"Muggle?"

"Non-magical."

"Just say non-magical or norms, muggle sounds like something is wrong with them."

"Really?"

"How about since they outnumber mages, we call all the magical people mage-holes?"

"Norms it is."

"Yeah, this place looks like it got the sleeping beauty treatment…"

"The draught of endless sleep could have someone powering the wards until they died, but someone should have wandered by in the meantime."

"Unless there were spells preventing others from entering and we fit the criteria for entering or the spell failed really recently."

"What do you figure the odds are for them to fail as we show up?" Sirius asked, scratching his head with his wand.

"With me along, pretty good… I'm the universe's buttmonkey, if something strange or unusual happens it'll happen to me more often than not."

"Lots of bad luck?"

"Lots of good and bad luck. Let's just say, I'll get in the best bad situation available. Like when my beautiful science teacher invited me to her place after school…"

"Way to go!" Sirius cheered.

"And then chained me up in the basement," Xander sighed.

"Still not seeing the bad here."

"And then turned into a giant preying mantis, who wanted to devour me alive after sex."

"Ouch." Sirius winced.

"Or the beautiful Incan hottie that turned into a life sucking mummy."

"Let's hope we don't have to deal with that here."

"Yeah, this is more like the setting for radioactive mutants… Or zombies."

"Think we're being a bit paranoid?"

"Nah, at the very least it'll turn out that some fear demon scared everyone here to death and its aura keeps everyone else from coming in."

"Then why are we here?"

"I could say being fearless manly men with balls of steel, but really – lack of common sense," Xander replied with a grin.

"We could turn around and leave," Sirius said half heartedly.

"Really?" Xander asked curiously.

Sirius sighed heavily. "Nah, if it turned out someone was still alive and trapped…"

"Yeah, I really wish I had my sword right about now, but my backseat is probably a couple of miles away."

"Think we can put off going in a bit longer?"

"It's not quite noon yet, so we can put it off till then or we can look around for some weapons while we wait."

"I have my wand, so I'll stick with spells. Frankly I was never that good with staves or swords."

"Will your magic work right around me? I mean, the last spell you did went kablooey."

Sirius shrugged. "I was kind of out of it and we weren't all that far from the Veil, I'm betting that had something to do with it."

"Start small and let's see."

Sirius held up his wand and said, "Lumos!" quickly followed by "Nox!"

Xander and Sirius sat blinking for a couple of minutes.

"I think you'll have to put a lot less into your spells, unless of course that was the desired effect."

"No, that was about five times stronger than what I was going for, but it did work fine."

"Well, I can see again, so let's try an offensive spell, but put practically nothing into it."

"Agreed," Sirius waved his wand at a discarded soda can, "Diffindo!" and watched in amazement as an almost solid silver edge cut through the can and into the pavement.

"Wow, suddenly I'm no longer worried as much. Just don't shoot at anything I'm behind, or any gas lines, or power lines… Ok, now I'm worried again."

Sirius rolled his eyes and cast Diffindo again, putting no strength behind it only to watch in shock as a normal strength Diffindo cut the can and barely scratched the concrete.

"That's much better!" Xander declared with a grin. "I no longer fear you saving me."

"I could've been evil like the rest of my family, but nooo – I had to be better than them, I hate people for who they are, rather than who their parents were. Oh well, at least the good guys get the chicks." Sirius grumbled.

"That's a lie."

"What's a lie?"

"That the good guys get the chicks, you have to be a reformed evil guy. You see if you were born knowing that beating babies to death with a baseball bat is wrong, then girls think of you as one of the girls. However if it used to be your hobby and families by the dozen have been destroyed before you realized it was wrong, then you're the man they all want."

"Wow, bitter much?"

"Just a tad."

"There's a story behind that, which you should probably get off your chest. I'm just fairly sure I don't want to hear it," Sirius said firmly.

"I'm pretty sure I don't want to talk about it either, but I'll probably bitch about it every now and again."

"Can I at least be drinking or preferably drunk, so I can pass out afterward with no memory of the conversation?" Sirius whined.

"Are you a violent drunk?"

"Nah, I tend to laugh a lot and screw up the punchlines of at least half my jokes."

"Then sure."

"Have we put off going in long enough?" Sirius asked.

Xander sighed. "Yeah, I think we've stalled about as long as we can without endangering our man cred."

"I'll go first, since my magic's working and you're unarmed."

"Fine, but first stop is a hardware store or someplace similar so I can acquire an axe."

"You good with an axe?" Sirius asked.

"Not as good as a sword, but I'm not bad. When it comes to removing limbs and splitting heads an axe works better. Plus, fire axes are standard emergency equipment most places and are sold in a lot more places than swords are."

"Wizards use magic for most things and I've never looked into how mug… norms do things," Sirius said, avoiding calling them muggles, as he didn't like the idea of being called a mage-hole, though he was looking forward to calling Snape one.

Sirius fell silent as they reached the front door of the mall, both of them listening intently but heard nothing. Looking through the crud caked glass doors didn't show anything aside from chains holding them closed and wood behind the glass.

"Ok, that removes the slightest sliver of doubt that we might just be paranoid," Xander muttered.

"As one of my old teacher's said 'paranoia is a mental illness so be sure to call what I'm training you lot in Constant Vigilance!'"

"Let's see how the other entrances held up, no use forcing our way in here if someone has already done it for us somewhere else."

"Good point that."

They got back in the car and circled the mall, finding the doors to the loading dock open, but opened outward not inward, showing someone had fled – shoving the barricade material down and wedging the doors open.

Xander parked well back from everything in the bright noonday sun. "I'm thinking whatever happened happened already and they rushed out the back."

"That means we don't have to go poking our noses into the whole thing right?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"Nope, still have to check, just in case, but I'm going to tentatively guess that it's been at least a few years since anyone has been here. Anything with a brain would have closed the back doors, and anything without would have wandered out them, looking for something to eat."

"Or it could be a huge trap that opens every couple of years to catch the unwise and foolish."

Xander nodded. "If so we shouldn't keep them waiting."

"I notice you still aren't moving."

"Yep, I feel naked without a weapon – and its making it more difficult for me to screw my courage to the sticking point," Xander replied as they both stood staring into the darkened interior.

"What exactly does 'screw your courage to the sticking point' mean, anyway?"

"Don't know, I've always thought it had something to do with sex. So I tell myself that, if I do this I'll get laid," Xander said.

Sirius grinned. "Suddenly I feel a whole lot braver."

"Yeah, but I usually have some sort of weapon. I'd accept a two by four, but a baseball bat would be nice – one of the metal ones."

Sirius decided to show off a bit, taking a sickle out of his pocket and flipping it into the air – transfiguring it into just such a bat, however he missed the catch and it fell, only to bounce back up and smack him in the shin.

Xander watched Sirius curse and rub his shin, giving the bat a few practice swings. "That was cool as hell, right up until you missed."

"Yeah, I know!"

"Well, time's a wastin' and now that I have a weapon, I'll go first," Xander said, not wanting to put it off any longer, went first with Sirius following close behind.

The first thing that they noticed was that the lights were still on, along with the A/C.

"I'm feeling a bit better about this now," Sirius declared cheerfully.

"Why?"

"Well, before it was going to be searching for certain death in a warm dark mall, now we're searching for certain death in a cool well lit mall. Comfort makes all the difference."

Xander rolled his eyes. "I've done things like this for the past four years and the only certainty about it, is that nothing is certain."

"That clouds things up nicely, thanks."

"Always happy to help."

Xander stopped and pointed at a desiccated corpse with its head split open. "It was zombies."

"How can you tell?"

"The head's split open, but there aren't any large pools of blood in the area and one arm was severed, but you can see where it kept coming – ignoring the arm."

"How do you know it wasn't a vampire?" Sirius asked.

Xander gave him a strange look. "The body for one, a vamp would have turned to ash if they'd decapitated it. An axe to the head and the removal of one arm just slows them down."

"That's just one of those strange mug – norm's tales. Vamps don't dust unless you leave the body out in the daylight to burn itself to ash. I should know, I had to deal with renegade vamps when I was an auror… that is, magical policeman."

"That's strange, because every vamp we've run across or even heard of, dusts when staked and what do you mean renegade?"

"Renegade vamps, you know, ones who've broken the law and fed on unwilling people or used their powers to enslave others."

"I think we're talking about two different things here, the vamps I'm talking about are soulless corpses inhabited by a bloodbound demon and they turn to ash the instant they're staked."

"My vampires are people who were bitten and turned, the same people – just with some darker impulses added."

"You haven't heard of Chaos Demons, Brachen, or Polgara demons have you?" Xander asked curiously.

"Doesn't ring a bell, why?"

"Because they're really common demons where I'm from and well known to the magical community."

Sirius sighed. "So one of us is nowhere near home, and considering it was me who fell through the Veil…"

"Yeah, I'm guessing the Veil sends people where they can't get back. I can ask Giles for a way to get you back, but the most we've dealt with is an alternate timeline so, I think you're stuck…Sorry."

"Not your fault… So, lots of demons?"

"Yep, and 99 out of a hundred consider humans food or something to play with."

"Sure we're not in Hell?"

Xander shrugged. "Considering we've been keeping the gateway to it closed for a couple of years… Maybe?"

"Well, that's something at least."

"Pretty girls and booze both still exist."

Sirius began to smile, appreciating Xander's attempt to cheer him up. "That proves it then, we're not in hell – let's get cracking and solve this mystery."

"That's the spirit Scooby! Let's head this way," Xander said leading them into the service halls behind the stores of the mall.

The two stepped around and over the occasional dead zombie, easily distinguishable from their undead counterpart by the missing or split skulls, until they came upon a door which was battered and half off its hinges.

"Beats a trail of breadcrumbs," Sirius muttered.

"Yeah, with this trail – even if birds tried to eat what was left behind we could follow the bones."

"You are a very morbid guy." Sirius chuckled.

"Comes with the territory, you can either laugh or cry and crying makes it harder to hit what you're aiming at," Xander said cheerfully, as he pulled the door open, only to have it come loose from the other hinge and almost hit him in the face.

Sirius held back his laughter, knowing it was partly nerves, but feeling a bit better.

The music playing low in the background was rather bland and reminded Sirius more of the Wizarding Wireless than of any muggle music he'd ever heard before.

"Elevator music," Xander muttered while taking in the trail of knocked over displays and racks of clothes from the center of the mall toward the back door.

"I'd have to say being a zombie tracker is easier than anyone ever let on, I know hit wizards who talked about how hard it was to track the living dead, while it tirelessly trekked across the plains, ignoring any obstacle in its path… I've had them walk away with girls I'd spent all night trying to score with. If I ever get back I'm so going to blow them out of the water," Sirius growled as they exited the store and entered the mall proper.

"Thou shalt not be a cock blocker!" Xander intoned gravely, his voice echoing throughout the mezzanine.

"I don't mean I'm going to expose them as frauds, I mean I'm going to top them – one moving zombie and the man's rule of being able to exaggerate anything by 300% when in the pursuit of sex…"

"You mean like that one!" Xander said, drawing Sirius' attention to the lurching corpse, arms outstretched to rend and tear charging at him.

Sirius froze, he'd forgotten what it was like to see inferi – twisted mockeries of humanity that desired nothing more than human flesh to feast upon. The zombie was so close that freezing up like he did was a fatal error and he knew it.

"That is the fastest zombie I've ever seen!" Xander said admiringly. "I mean of the non-intelligent brain eating type."

Sirius blinked and looked down at the attacking zombie, who was no closer to him that it was a moment. "It's running down the up escalator?"

"Yeah, wonder how long its been doing that?"

"I don't know, but it almost scared the piss out of me. I thought I was a goner."

"One zombie?" Xander scratched his head.

"One zombie about ten feet away!" Sirius defended himself.

"Maybe I'm jaded." Xander sighed. "I'm used to fighting vamps with just wooden stakes as weapons and I'm not talking one on one either – about half the time we outnumber them, the other half they outnumber us."

Xander stepped on the up escalator, much to Sirius' shock and brought the bat up. "Personally, zombies, especially brainless ones, are about the least scary things I've run into."

Xander's swing hit the zombie at chest level, flinging the zombie up the escalator as if it were shot from a cannon and splattering it against the ceiling.

"Wow!" Xander and Sirius said as one.

"I think I love this bat," Xander said happily, figuring Sirius had enchanted it to magnify the force of impact.

"It's pretty solid," Sirius agreed, thinking Xander was so strong that most weapons probably came apart on him.

Xander quickly skipped back down the escalator and took a look around. "Man! I don't even recognize any of the names of these stores."

"Well at least shopping will be a lot cheaper." Sirius grinned. "Or is there something in the good guy code against that?"

"The good guy code isn't so much law as suggestion," Xander said, causing Sirius to smirk.

"So… Loot away?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"Depends. If this place is as abandoned as it looks, feel free to loot it to the bedrock, but if this is just some weird magical thing, causing it to look abandoned…" Xander scratched his chin.

"Just what we need." Sirius sighed, face falling as he saw his chance to loot the place go up in smoke, thinking, 'They never let me loot any of the places we busted as Aurors either.'

"Plus two carts." Xander grinned. "Its more than fair for clearing a place of zombies, but of course we have to make sure the place is cleared of them first."

"Aye aye sir!" Sirius saluted, whipping out his wand and saying, "Point me, zombies on this property!"

The both watched as the wand lazily spun in circles.

"Does this mean we're surrounded? Or there are no zombies in the mall?" Xander enquired.

"The latter, it's clean of zombies…So, loot?" Sirius asked excitedly.

Xander nodded. "We close and replace the barricade for the back doors, so we don't get snuck up on first, then we can relax and do some looting."

"I like this plan; it's simple, it's direct and it ends with looting!"

"You just love that word don't you?" Xander asked amused.

"Hell yeah! I was told I couldn't be a pirate growing up, that I was born far too late, but I've managed to do a fair amount of wenching in my time and even made a greasy git walk the plank. Shame they turned my sharks back to seabass before he hit the water, but I've never gotten a chance to loot and plunder before."

Xander shrugged. "Loot away, but I'm fairly sure plundering requires women."

Sirius nodded. "Always hope for the best. I'm hoping there are sales girls in here somewhere." Turning back into a black dog, and sniffing the air Sirius went off nose in the air in search of plunder to go with the booty.

AN: Thank godogma for typing this up!