Walking in Shadows 10
"I need to stretch my legs and water the bushes a bit," Sirius announced as they were passing through one of the seedier sections of LA.
Xander pulled over. "Not a bad idea, I could use a break myself. Do a quick scan for zombies, if you don't mind, the last thing we need is to get caught with our pants down."
Sirius nodded and waved his wand while muttering something. After a few seconds he nodded to himself and spoke up, "Three over a mile away and they're trapped and unable to move. I think they're locked in a big freezer."
"Should be safe enough for an hour or so then," Xander said climbing out of the car.
Sirius picked a storefront at random and wandered in to look for a bathroom. "Woohoo!" came his cry of joy a second later.
Xander stopped in mid-stretch and entered the Raunch O'Mart to see what had Sirius so excited.
"Porn!" Sirius beamed at Xander. "Beautiful, beautiful porn!"
Xander looked around the sex shop. "The porn is nice, but not all that amazing."
"I spent about a decade locked up for a crime I didn't commit, locked into a place completely devoid of porn and the final year or so of my life locked in my childhood hell, err I mean home, with only my childhood porn collection for comfort," Sirius explained, "so the chance to see new porn, even if it's not the kind I'm used to, is cause for celebration."
"What kind of porn are you used to?" Xander asked, his curiosity at what magical porn would be like making his mind run in a hundred different directions.
"Mostly like the magazines I see here, but a bit more restrained and in black and white, but ours moved and responded to the viewer," Sirius explained, "and except for the occasional vela, none of the girls looked that hot," he finished while pointing at a Playboy Girls of Summer calendar.
"I could so revolutionize the magical world's porn industry," Xander said thoughtfully, "but that's neither here nor there. Let me show you how to run one of those … DVD players and I'll give you some privacy."
"DVD players?" Sirius asked.
"Yeah, never heard of one before, but it's probably easy to figure out, otherwise they wouldn't sell well."
"But what is it?" Sirius asked his confusion plain.
"Moving porn in color with sound, but it doesn't respond to the viewer," Xander explained.
"Wow!"
The DVD player turned out to be a lot like a laser disc player and was easy for Xander to figure out and show Sirius how to work it. "This is supposed to have over six hours of college cuties," Xander said as an FBI warning came on the screen that he couldn't fast forward through.
The big screen in the middle of the store along with all the smaller screens mounted around the store began showing bouncing breasts to a drooling Sirius who never even noticed when Xander left.
0oOo0
Xander chuckled and retrieved his bat from the car. Sure Sirius said there were no zombies near, but he'd be occupied for hours if Xander was any judge, and there was always a chance of running into something else.
Examining the vehicles around him he couldn't help but admire the obvious advances that had been made over the new cars at home.
He pulled up on the door handle of a sports car, but it was locked and the door didn't open, instead the side of the car lifted half a foot off the ground and the handle snapped off in his hand causing him to stumble back and fall on his ass.
"Advanced design and Styrofoam construction," Xander muttered, shaking his head as he got back up. He knew they'd switched from steel to fiberglass in the late eighties, which is one of the reasons he'd bought an older vehicle, and apparently they'd continued that trend.
Xander shoved his bat through the passenger side window and was unsurprised when it shattered without any real effort on his part. He really loved the enchantments on his bat.
Opening the door from the inside he dusted glass fragments off a laptop computer and grabbed it along with the bag and DC plug that went with it.
Returning to his car he plugged it into the cigarette lighter and opened it up. He couldn't believe the boot up speed; it was under two minutes!
As with the DVD player it was easy to operate for anyone who'd used anything remotely similar, so Xander had no problems. In fact it took less than ten minutes for Xander to become comfortable with the interface and find his way around the system. "Hopefully it'll have some info on what happened, I know I'd have downloaded everything I could to read later if it happened to me."
0oOo0
Sirius stepped out of the sex shop with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. Snatching four leaves off a nearby bush he swiftly transfigured them into animated six foot tall statues of the Hogwarts' house animals and sent them to the four corners of the lot around the store.
It had been a simple matter to add Xander's modifications to Lily's transport spell, exchanging power for skill. "Yoink!" Sirius intoned, making the store and surrounding property vanish leaving a thirty foot deep hole.
Sirius grinned widely and went to find Xander, which turned out to be extremely easy as he was sitting in the front seat of the car playing solitaire on a laptop.
Xander looked up as Sirius climbed in the car. "I swear this game is more addictive than crack," he declared before closing the laptop and putting it away. "Ready to go?"
"Yep," Sirius replied cheerfully.
Xander looked over and saw the store was gone. "Is it closer to the back doors than the mall is?"
Sirius frowned. "I didn't think to check."
Getting out of the car they opened the back doors and poked their heads in.
"I got nothing," Xander said, "you?"
"Nothing here either, come around to my side."
Xander came around to the passenger side and they both stepped in.
"Point me, Porn!" Sirius commanded and his wand whirled around until it was pointed towards the ceiling.
Looking up they both searched but couldn't see anything.
"We need a telescope," Xander decided, "let's hit a pawn shop."
Stepping out of the back seat they blinked and let their eyes adjust to daylight again before Xander lead Sirius over to a small building that shared space with a bail bonds office and a cellular phone store.
Sirius hit it with cleaning and repair charms as they approached.
Entering the store, Sirius was surprised at how much it had in common with a magical pawn shop; swords and musical instruments were scattered about and even with everything fixed and cleaned it still felt disreputable.
Xander wandered around for a minute or two pausing to loot a jewelry case and pocket a couple of knives before grabbing a small telescope and heading back to the car. "Let's take the building too, if you don't mind."
"Not a problem," Sirius assured him, grabbing a handful of business cards on their way out. Tearing a card into four pieces he transfigured it into the same four statues as always to mark the property before casting, "Yoink!"
Xander snickered.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"At least you don't have the ego problems most magic users seem to get. I swear they go out of their way to try and make things seem as impressive as possible; I mean, it's magic it doesn't have to be more impressive!"
Sirius laughed. "That's what I always said and the usual response is to call me childish."
Xander shook his head. "It's tough being the voice of reason."
Sirius opened the back door of the car so Xander could climb in.
Xander took out an inscribing tool and engraved a quick series of runes across the lip of the telescope with the ease of long practice, before pricking his thumb and squeezing out a few drops of blood to coat them with.
Sirius looked a bit alarmed at the blood coated runes and even more so when Xander sprinkled a grayish powder on them from a pouch in his pocket.
Xander examined his work in detail before he took out a small notebook and paged through it, looking for something.
Sirius didn't know what to think, the nice young man next to him was using runes of blood and sacrifice; seriously dark magic, but he didn't seem dark at all.
Xander seemed to find what he was looking for as he carefully carved a series of three large runes down the body of the telescope. Examining the runes carefully one last time, Xander nodded to himself and began chanting.
Sirius felt all his hair stand on end as the air began to swirl around them carrying flecks of snow and a tang of iron.
The simple telescope on its tripod base seemed to swell and twist as snowflakes melted on it, making the blood on top run down to meet again at the bottom.
Xander finished his chant and examined the telescope, the tip of which was now a solid red, covered in tiny metallic runes, with some satisfaction.
Sirius watched with trepidation as Xander packed the larger rune cluster on the body of the telescope with ash and added a drop of blood to each rune; the ash seemed to soak up the blood darkening it until you couldn't see the runes against the black telescope unless you knew where to look.
"Okay," Xander said, "if I did this right it should be able to absorb and copy your point me spell so it'll point at whatever we want without having to have the spell recast."
"You used runes of blood and sacrifice to enchant a telescope?" Sirius asked, obviously disturbed.
Xander nodded. "Sure; remember my vamps are all demons that kill people for food and fun, so by killing them not only am I making the world a better place I'm also gaining a spell component that's steeped in blood and sacrifice, so a drop of fresh blood willingly shed a quick prayer and Odin is happy."
"I think you'd work better with the lighter runes considering your personality," Sirius said relaxing as he realized Xander wasn't hiding any Snape-like tendencies.
Xander nodded. "And if my life was anything normal I probably would be, but blood and sacrifice runes as well as shadow and silver, seem to work best for me."
"Never heard of anyone with conflicting gifts like that before; usually you only get one or the other."
"Well from Chaos comes Order and Order, Chaos so I look at it more as complementing sets rather than conflicting ones," Xander explained.
"Huh, that's a pretty unique point of view," Sirius said, scratching his chin, "well, just remember to deny knowing anything about runes if we hit a world with my kind of wizards. To them blood runes are just above sacrificing small children."
Xander nodded and watched Sirius cast the Point Me spell on the telescope, causing the runes on the body to glow blood red for a moment before fading into a reddish gold hue.
Placing a finger on the body Xander said, "Point Me, Porn!" causing the telescope to swivel up.
Putting his eye to it Xander grinned. "It's up there alright and it's surrounded by a bubble of light."
Xander stepped back and Sirius put his eye to the lens. "Huh, wonder why it didn't fall?" Xander mused.
Sirius shrugged. "No idea and it's way too far to Apparate to even if it was safe to Apparate in here … dammit."
"There are tons of adult stores in LA," Xander promised, "I'm sure if you teleport enough of them in here, one is bound to be close enough to reach when you want to."
"You wouldn't mind?" Sirius asked hopefully.
"We plan on stealing national landmarks and parks," Xander grinned, "we can easily fit a few dozen, or from the looks of things, a few hundred porn shops."
Sirius turned into Padfoot, bouncing up and down barking happily before racing out the door.
Xander chuckled and shook his head before following.
As they resumed their drive, Padfoot rode with his head out the window while Xander drove slowly so they could look for porn shops.
"Porn shop!" Xander announced, pointing at a shop on the side of the road.
Padfoot shifted back into Sirius and with a wave of his wand and a "Yoink!" the store vanished.
Twenty three porno shops; eight comic book stores, six hotels, five pawn shops, four computer stores, four army surplus stores, two churches, and a library later …
"Not even a little drained?" Xander asked in disbelief.
"Nope, still good," Sirius swore, absently casting cleaning and repair charms on the road in front of them.
"Okay, then lets test you on the larger things," Xander suggested.
Three parks, two museums, and an art gallery later…
"Still good!"
Twelve porno stores; fifteen gas stations, thirty five private mansions, eighteen banks, eight toy stores, nine comic book shops, six movie rental stores, eighteen churches, twenty five fast food stands with amusing shapes, eight pool halls, twelve theaters, fifteen car dealerships, four major hospitals, eleven malls, six firehouses, three water parks, two opera houses, and a YMCA later …
Sirius yawned loudly. "Okay, now I feel a bit drained; how about we climb in the back and find us some beds for the night?"
Xander looked at the darkening sky and nodded, pulling into a crowded parking garage and driving to the top floor.
The two climbed out and looked inside the backseat on their respective sides.
"I've got nothing remotely close," Xander reported from his side.
"I got one of those food places with a clown and a book shop, just a mile or so away."
"If we had some kind of transportation we could crash at Penny's Mall," Xander suggested, "it has working bathrooms and a nice furnishing store with new beds."
"Ever ridden a broomstick?" Sirius asked with a grin, as he recalled the summer the Marauders tried to make their own brooms.
"Is this the start of a gay joke?" Xander asked confused.
"No, I can enchant brooms to fly – it won't be as good as a professional model, but it'd work."
"Sounds uncomfortable," Xander replied, "how about flying carpets?"
"I've never tried to make a carpet fly before, but the charms are basically the same," Sirius admitted.
"Cool, so flying carpet to visit Penny?"
Sirius nodded and closed the door before joining Xander on his side.
"Where are we going to get a carpet?" Xander asked.
Sirius pulled out a business card and tapped it with his wand, causing it to grow into a large Persian carpet and dropped it to the ground.
Xander shook his head. "You've got more tricks than Merlin."
"Nah, but since the Veil I may be close to his strength. Now let's see what I can remember from making racing brooms."
Sirius spent a good five minutes casting spells in his horribly mangled Latin before nodding to himself. "Okay, hop on."
The two sat down and Sirius said, "Up!" causing the carpet to rise about five feet above the ground.
"Ready?" Sirius asked.
Xander suddenly had a bad feeling about riding the carpet and grabbed hold of the leading edge tightly, which apparently translated as yes to Sirius who did the same thing and shouted, "Go!"
The carpet shot forward so quickly they almost lost their grip as it carried the two now screaming men off into the darkness.
"This is even faster than the brooms we made!" Sirius enthused, "we've only got one problem."
"What?" shouted Xander over the wind.
"I'm great at go, but not so much at stop."
"Joy," Xander deadpanned drolly.
"Abandon carpet!" Sirius shouted as the lights of the parking lot approached rapidly.
Letting go of the carpet the two were immediately airborne, still shooting forward as they belly flopped onto the smooth black material below, and continued sliding forward. They finally stopped just short of the pavement and rolled onto their backs to release some of the heat they'd built up from sliding on their stomachs.
"Well, that went well!" Sirius declared cheerfully.
"That was well?" Xander asked incredulously, disbelief coloring his voice.
"Oh yeah, that went much better than the brooms. The trick is in the cooling, cushioning and stability charms on the rider," Sirius explained, "makes it loads safer."
"This was planned?"
"Yep, I'm great at braking charms … on things the size of a motorcycle or larger, not so much the smaller stuff."
"Next time, let me know in advance what you're planning," Xander said as he waited for his heart rate to return to normal.
"Will do!" Sirius promised as they stared at the ceiling. "They kinda look like stars," he said after a minute.
"Yeah," Xander agreed, "I can see at least a couple of the larger places and I think some are on the walls too."
"The spell wouldn't place them anywhere they'd be unstable," Sirius said thoughtfully.
"No offense, but trying to reach things on one of your carpets would probably kill us."
"None taken, I could enchant some motorcycles to do it safely, but that is long and careful work. It'd take me the better part of a week to just lay down and test the primary enchantments."
"Well, we have the time and somewhere in here we have the motorcycles."
Sirius stood up and waved his wand toward the parking lot, making a bubble of red light appear around it.
Xander climbed to his feet and looked at it. "Red?"
Sirius shrugged and they stepped into the parking lot.
It was like entering a whole new world, as they looked back the way they'd come and saw the sun setting in the desert. If they didn't know better they would have sworn they were back where they'd gotten the mall from.
Xander stepped out of the parking lot and found himself outside the bubble of red light looking in once more, entering it again he noticed the air even smelled like the desert. "At the moment wow seems like an understatement."
Sirius nodded. "Yeah, I did it and even I'm impressed. I love magic!" Waving his wand once more, he cast the usual clean and repair charms, brightening up the place and removing the barricades.
Entering the mall they found Penny singing show tunes into a microphone that fed into the PA system.
Penny flicked off the mic. "The mall is generally closed at sundown, but I'm always open for family and customers … oh and supplies! Did you need more cologne?"
"We're good for the moment," Xander replied, "we found nobody in LA and wanted to see if you minded us washing up and sleeping here for the night."
"They have working tubs on display in the 'Hot Tubbics' store as well as soap and hair care products," Penny suggested. "It's against store policy to bathe in the store, but the manager and a couple of salesgirls often did it after hours, so I suppose it would be alright. There are at least five stores in the first level alone with beds on display and as long as no one catches you sleeping there you should be fine, those stores generally don't open until after eight am anyway."
"Sounds wonderful," Sirius said as Penny led them to the store.
"Oh yes, I've even used the tubs there a time or two and I have to say that the hot water and bubbles are quite pleasant to soak in."
Penny opened the door to 'Hot Tubbics' and showed them a couple of hot tubs and how to operate them, before ducking into the employees only area and returning with a basket of bathing supplies and a bunch of towels. Giving them to the two men Penny sat on the edge of a tub and cheerfully waited for them to disrobe.
Xander had half expected this, seeing as she hadn't been around people for eight years and she was Anya's daughter.
Sirius seeing Xander disrobing shrugged and did the same, he'd never been all that shy anyway.
Penny smiled cheerfully and clearly approved of the view as she passed them soap or shampoo as requested, while making small talk, which since she was Anya's daughter included a frank assessment of their bodies.
Stepping out of the tub Xander was handed a towel and was dried and dressed in just a couple of minutes, while Sirius was still relaxing and playing with a conjured rubber ducky.
"Bedder than Good is two doors down," Penny said, pointing to the right direction, "if you choose one of the Princess Canopy beds and close the curtains, there's a good chance no one will notice you unless you snore. I would show you where it is myself but I'm planning to seduce Sirius so I want to catch him while he's naked."
Xander nodded, really not all that surprised. "Good plan, offer to help dry him off and use the old 'I didn't want to get my clothes wet' excuse for why you're naked while you do it."
"What about just stripping and hopping in the tub?"
"Water is the foe of lubrication," Xander pointed out. "See you two in the morning."
After Xander had left a speechless Sirius turned to find Penny already halfway undressed.
0oOo0
Xander paused and inscribed sanctuary and quietus runes on the door frame, figuring better safe than sorry.
Taking Penny's advice, Xander used one of the big Princess Canopy beds and briefly wished Sunday had come with him before quickly falling asleep.
0oOo0
"Wake up!" Sirius shouted, making Xander leap out of bed.
"I'm up! I'm up!" Blinking and looking around Xander frowned. "No fire?" he asked blearily.
"No fire," Sirius replied amused, "but it's been ten hours."
"I wasn't aware we had a schedule," Xander replied lazily as he got dressed.
"We don't, but we need to get out of here so I can get some rest!"
Xander snickered as Sirius complained, "I'm not kidding, I need a break!"
"She's Anya's daughter alright," Xander smirked.
"I'm out of shape," Sirius whined.
As they left the store Penny showed up. "Leaving so soon?"
"Yes, but we'll be back," Xander promised. "We're searching LA and the surrounding area for people, but no luck so far."
"Alright," she said agreeably before hugging Sirius and saying, "remember to bring me a shiny bauble when you return so my womanly skills are validated."
"One shiny bauble coming right up," Sirius promised, "I'm sure I can find something nice in LA."
"You're so sweet," Penny said giving Sirius a kiss, "have fun!"
"Will do," Sirius replied as they walked out the door.
Sirius blinked in the early morning light as Xander started looking in cars and feeling under bumpers.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for keys, someone always manages to leave their keys in their car or has a spare key in a magnetic key hider under their bumper."
"Point me Keys!" Sirius said and the wand spun to point at Xander.
"Point me other keys!" Sirius tried again and followed the wand to a small red two seater.
Xander looked in the car and saw the keys were in the ignition, but the doors were locked. Sighing he took off his jacket and wrapped it around his right elbow before shattering the window like it was made of sugar. "I swear these guys may have great tech, but their cars are plastic and tinfoil."
Sirius waved and the doors unlocked.
"Oops?" Xander said, shaking his head as Sirius Reparo'ed the window.
"Magic is very versatile," Sirius said, waggling his eyebrows comically.
"Yeah, yeah … I'm gonna have to make my keys, master keys. I just haven't had the time to figure out the right rune cluster," Xander said as they buckled up and he started the car, which purred like a tiger on steroids.
Following the direction they entered they drove out into the darkness. Having no frame of reference, Xander's foot slowly went down on the gas until they rocketed along at a high rate of speed, despite the fact that they felt like they were sitting still.
Suddenly Sirius saw a glimmer of light approaching quickly and called out, "Door!"
Xander put on the brakes, but at the speed they were going on the smooth black surface the tires refused to grip and they were suddenly spinning like a top.
"Aaaah!" screamed the two men as the car spun into the wall and the world turned white.
The car finally came to rest upside down, scratched and dented and absolutely filled with some white foam like material.
It was only a moment later that the driver's side door exploded outward and the material crumpled around Xander's left arm as he burst his way out of the car. Shaking his head and spitting out white crap he regained his bearings and walked over to the passenger's side and ripped the door away like it was made of cardboard. before digging Sirius out of the foam.
"I prefer diving off a carpet to that," Sirius muttered, waving a hand and vanishing the stuff that was covering them.
Xander flipped the car back over without much difficulty. "It wasn't that bad, we didn't break anything."
"I think we broke gravity," Sirius said stunned as he stared at the back door which was set into the ground from their perspective instead of the wall and Xander's sleeping bag which was sprawled out on the wall instead of the ground.
"Oops?" Xander offered lamely.
AN: Typing by Godogma!