"No, seriously," Xander said, "what's this about and what are you doing?"
"We are trying to ascertain if there are any remaining spells on you that need to be cleansed," Miss Calendar explained, while carefully drawing what looked like circuit diagrams in white power around the candles.
"And the handcuffs?" Xander asked.
"In case you didn't wish to cooperate," she replied, placing a roll of copper wire attached to a nine volt battery around everything.
"If I was going to be difficult, I could still make a mess. My legs are free, after all," he pointed out.
"Please don't," Miss Calendar said, lighting the candles, "the ingredients are rather expensive. I don't expect you to object, the handcuffs were her idea."
"How do we do this?" Cordelia asked, ignoring Xander.
"It's already done," Miss Calendar said. "The copper circle, with a small charge running through it, will limit the area of effect, while the candles will draw out magical energies and malevolent influences."
"So no chanting or anything?" Cordelia asked, just to make sure.
"You have to sing the little Bunny Foo-Foo song with accompanying movements while skyclad," Xander said solemnly, as the white powder began to glow brightly.
Miss Calendar shot him an amused smirk.
"What's skyclad?" Cordelia asked, wondering if she had any clothes in the appropriate blue scale to count as sky.
"Not important or needed," she assured the teen. "Look, it's starting to work."
Black smoke began to leak from Xander's pores and was drawn to the many candles surrounding him, causing them to burn brighter.
"What is that?" Xander demanded in revulsion.
"Demonic taint, necrotic energies, just bad mojo in general," Miss Calendar explained.
"Background radiation of badness," Xander said with a shudder.
"Hah! I knew he was evil!" Cordelia exclaimed.
"This isn't because he's evil, this is just what you pick up from living on the Hellmouth your entire life," Miss Calendar explained.
"Well… my spiritual pores are clean, now what?" Xander asked, as he saw that no more black smoke was leaking from him.
"Give it a moment," the Techno-Pagan said. "It'll start pulling more active energies like recently cast spells soon."
"Okay," Xander said and waited.
After a couple of minutes Cordelia turned to Miss Calendar. "Why isn't it working?"
"Because there's nothing for it to find," Miss Calendar explained.
"What about the love spell?" Cordelia demanded angrily.
"Not an active spell, that was days ago. He's clean," she replied with a shrug.
"I'm a bit surprised," Xander admitted. "A little relieved and upset at the same time too, I suppose. I know I was expecting something, like a bad luck curse or entropy thingy."
"Hellmouth radiation does that all on its own," Miss Calendar explained.
"Just living in this town is bad luck," Xander said with a snort. "Why am I not surprised?"
"Experience," Miss Calendar guessed with a grin.
"But girls have been coming up to him!" Cordelia complained. "Why would they be paying attention to him if not from a curse?"
Xander rolled his eyes. "Maybe, I'm their bad luck," he suggested sarcastically.
"Let me end the spell," Miss Calendar said, picking up the edge of the copper wire only to frown as it disintegrated into flakes of green rust. "Well, that was unfortunate."
"Eww, stop it!" Cordelia ordered, brushing at the thick black smoke that started to pour off her.
"This is going to ruin all my protective enchantments," Miss Calendar complained as grey smoke began to rise from her skin. "I did not expect the Hellmouth's influence to be this corrosive."
Xander undid the handcuffs and stood up. At Miss Calendars questioning glance, he showed her the thumb release switches on them, before setting them in the chair and carefully stepping over the candles.
"Of course they were toy handcuffs, why would she have real ones," Miss Calendar said with a sigh, as Xander left.
"I think it's stopped," Cordelia said, examining herself carefully. "You don't need real handcuffs as long as they're too busy to figure out they're fake," she said, as what the teacher had said registered.
"I suppose that's true," Miss Calendar conceded. "He noticed in the end, but it did the job."
"I've used them on him before," Cordelia said before frowning. "What are these… orange dandruff flakes?" Tangerine colored specks of light cascaded down her body.
The Techno-Pagan turned to examine the brunette cheerleader. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "If it's a spell, it was cast on you as a child, because it takes quite some time for it to subsume itself into your aura like that."
"What?!"
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Xander picked up the crossbow and examined it. "Wow, this is amazing."
"Adjusted the sights, added some padding and reinforcement while I was at it, nothing major," Mr. Hanson replied.
"Definitely worth the money," Xander said, before retrieving his two stakes. "Lead weights?" Xander asked as he hefted them and noticed the difference.
"Makes for a more effective weapon," the shop teacher explained. "Used a pair of old silver coins with the Knights Templar cross for the cap."
Xander examined the ends of his stakes and whistled, clearly impressed.
"Coins are some of the easiest sources for nearly any symbol you might find useful," Mr. Hanson said, "and they're easy to cut with the right tools. That's more of something I teach in jewelry making however."
"I should probably take that course," Xander said.
"Next semester, Mr. Harris, I'll keep a spot open for you," Mr. Hanson promised.
"Excellent," Xander said cheerfully. "Any other courses I should take or books I should read?"
"While they don't teach it here, check the college for a basic finance course. It's something you need to know before you graduate high school and certainly before you start college and end up deeply in debt. That's probably why they don't offer the class in high school, so they can sucker you in." Mr. Hanson shook his head. "As for reading… Algernon Maybach's Guide to Basic Thaumaturgy."
"I'm not sure me and magic are a good mix," Xander admitted.
"Then it's definitely the book for you," Mr. Hanson assured him. "The first chapter is about environmental attunement and how it effects magic. Living here causes you to build up… bad mojo. It's like static cling, only instead of getting a shock when it reached a critical amount, something bad happens. One of the first novice skills he outlines is how to use magical buildup like that to cause small changes in the environment. It's just small things, unstick a drawer, light a candle or extinguish one," he explained.
"Like… cantrips from Dungeons and Dragons?" Xander asked.
Mr. Hanson chuckled. "Yeah, just like that. Small things that cost more magic than they're worth but the point is to burn off the mojo so it doesn't get strong enough to give you a stroke of bad luck, which considering what you do, could be really bad."
"Death and taxes," Xander said with a chuckle. "You can't avoid them, so you do your best to deal with them."
"I'd tell you to start investing for retirement and to remember to pack it in when your reflexes start to slow down, but I didn't listen to that advice at your age, so I doubt you will either," Mr. Hanson said honestly. "Instead, I'll tell you this, take some teaching credits when you get a chance; shop teachers can be missing a few bits and no one questions it."
"Most shop teachers are missing a few bits," Xander said, surprised. "I always thought it was because of on the job accidents."
"Some are clumsy, most aren't," Mr. Hanson said amused. "Now get moving, I've got to close up."
Xander put the crossbow in his bag. "Thanks again."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Do you really think Willy will know anything?" Willow asked as they sat in the school library. She ran her fingers over her new stake absently as they talked.
"Maybe, maybe not," Buffy said with a shrug. "Either way, it's been a while since I've questioned him about what's going on with the local demon population. So it's really no trouble to ask about Xander as well."
"And what exactly is wrong with Xander?" Giles asked curiously.
"He used up all his stakes doing something last night and then convinced a vamp to give him all its money and its two hostages as payment for delaying me long enough to let it escape," Buffy explained.
"While I have a hard time seeing Xander of all people making a deal with a vampire, I can see him doing so to save two people," Giles said thoughtfully.
"That's what we were figuring, though that still leaves us wondering what he did with all his stakes," Buffy said.
"Stake vampires?" Giles suggested.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "He normally carries a couple of stakes, plus some extras for me, and some more just in case," she explained. "For him to use them all up means something happened, but he's not really talking to us right now and he seems really popular with girls suddenly, which makes no sense!"
"Do you think he's messing with magic?" Willow asked.
"Hey, Giles," Xander said as he entered the library. "Do you have a copy of Algernon Maybach's Guide to Basic Thaumaturgy?"
Three minutes later…
Xander wiggled his arms a little get Giles attention as he sat tied up in the chair in the middle of a circle. "What is going on this time?"
"We are checking you for magic," Giles said as he carefully places several quartz crystals around him.
"Ohhh nice!" Buffy exclaimed as she examined the crossbow she'd found in his bag.
"Hey!" Xander complained. "I get tying me up and checking for spells, but going through my stuff is just being nosy!"
"A bit," Buffy admitted, "but I was just making sure there wasn't anything that gave me the wiggins."
"And then 'Ohhh, shiny.' kicked in," Oz joked.
Xander snickered and relaxed. "Fair enough."
Willow and Giles started chanting, causing the crystals arrayed around Xander to light up with a pure white light. The pair stopped and the light slowly died down and went out.
"Well?" Buffy asked impatiently.
"He's clean, remarkably so," Giles said with a frown.
"Cordelia and Miss Calendar already tied me to a chair and did a mystic cleaning on me to make sure I was clean," Xander explained. "There was copper wire, some candles and glowing white powder."
"Really? Sounds like a very strong aura cleansing," Giles said thoughtfully. "The ingredients are usually quite expensive, that's why I use simple quartz and detection spells before going that far."
"I may have to reimburse her," Xander decided. "Can we untie me now?"
"Wait!" Buffy exclaimed. "What about the book?"
"I don't have any books with me," Xander said, confused.
"Yes, but you were asking for one," Buffy reminded him.
"Fine, untie me and let me check the book out," Xander said.
"I mean it's a magic book," Buffy said intently.
"And?" Xander asked confused.
"And?" Buffy repeated, loosing track of where she'd been going with her investigation.
"Why do you want it?" Willow asked, impatiently.
"Aha! Yes! Why do you want it?" Buffy demanded.
Giles rubbed his temples and muttered something under his breath.
"I'm hungry and thought I might eat it," Xander said sarcastically, clearly annoyed.
"I meant, what spells were you going to cast from it?" Buffy accused, rolling her eyes.
"It doesn't contain spells," Giles said, retrieving a small leather tome. "It's a scholarly work on the basis of magic."
"Oh," Buffy said deflating.
"Why would you want to read something like that?" Willow asked.
"Because –" Xander began.
"It's the latest Jeopardy category," Oz interrupted.
Xander chuckled and Buffy sighed. "Okay, stupid question," she admitted. "Why are you interested?"
"Mostly to learn to avoid it," Xander replied. "Now, either untie me or ask for my safe word."
"Your what?" Buffy asked, as Willow blushed bright red.
"Just untie him," Giles ordered.
Typed by – Sitheus Maximus