by Sam Cheever
Dialle kicked at the thing’s face just to make sure it was dead. “It isn’t a mask, Astra. At least not the type of mask you’re referring to. The superdemons have two forms. They use whichever one suits them.”
I looked up at him and grinned. “I learn such useful stuff when I’m around you, Dialle.”
He looked down at me. “Yes. That is true, Astra.”
A sound beyond the felled demon brought my gaze back to the huddled hostages. They had begun slowly moving out from the niche but they kept a careful watch on Girsch. Although he’d helped us save them, they weren’t at all sure he was playing for the right team. In fact, with all they’d endured, I wondered that they’d trust anybody, or anything, at that moment.
They were a sorry looking group, covered with wounds and bruises and, in one case, what looked very much like a broken arm. The women’s clothing was torn almost completely off their bodies and they had dark indentations on their arms and faces that looked suspiciously like claw marks. Every last one of them flinched violently when anyone moved too quickly.
I looked at Dialle and he gave me a nod. I can take care of their memories. The physical injuries will eventually heal.
Then he did something I thought I’d never witness. He turned to Emo and said, “I would appreciate having your help. There are a lot of them.”
Emo stared hard at him for a few beats and then gave a slight nod.
I turned back the way we’d come in and Girsch fell in behind me. I guessed he was my escort out of the caverns. We passed the huddled group of hostages and I tried not to look at them. The women stared at me as if they thought I was leaving them to a fate worse than the one they’d been enduring for the past several days.
Even though I knew Emo and Dialle would remove their frightening memories and start the physical healing process, it was all I could do to walk past them and leave them behind.
A small part of me wasn’t entirely sure Dialle had their best interests at heart. I was well aware that he had only helped save them because they kept popping up dead and it was causing problems for the royals. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be there with me otherwise. But I hoped like Hades I was wrong about that.
* * * * *
I was only back in my office for about half an hour before the outside door opened and I heard footsteps in the outer office. I stood up and went to the door of my office. I was surprised to see Margaret Coltran standing by the door, looking a little unsure of herself.
“Mx. Coltran. What a surprise. Are you all right?”
She nodded and gave me a small smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t call for an appointment, Mx. Phelps. I just wanted to come by and thank you for saving our lives.”
To my vast surprise she approached me and gave me a hug. When she pulled away I felt a slight tug on my hair and she laughed, showing me a pretty, metal bracelet on her slender arm. “Sorry, this thing gets caught on everything.”
My eyebrows arched slightly. “You said our lives, so the chattel lived?”
“Septra.”
I cocked my head in question.
“The girl. Her name is Septra.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I never knew her name.”
Margaret Coltran nodded. “I know you probably think my husband and I are stupid for what we did… And we endangered a lot of people with our actions. I… Well I just wanted to apologize to you for what it’s worth.”
I crossed my legs and arms, leaning against the doorframe to my private office. I stared at her for a beat, unsure whether I should try lecturing her on the dangers of taking the law into her own hands or leave well enough alone.
She certainly seemed to have learned her lesson.
I never got the chance to do either. A huge explosion in the street outside my office shook the walls of the building and threw debris high enough into the air that I saw large hunks of it flying by my window.
I ran to the window and looked down.
There was a huge hole in the street below and something large and mangled lay smoking in the center. Several air vehicles had been thrown off course by the explosion and were careening wildly down the street. Two of them hit head-on and plummeted toward the ground, adding to the mess and calamity in the street.
As I watched, a small air booger headed directly for the window where I was standing, a pale, young face visible behind the quickly approaching viewport.
I swore and dived under Emo’s desk, screaming, “Get down!” to Mx. Coltran. But the young flyer must have gotten the air vehicle under some kind of control because it missed a full-on crash with the building and instead hit the corner with a squeal and a wrenching noise and skittered away.
I jumped up and headed out of the office. I met my cute and helpful neighbors, Ralph and Bob, in the hallway and the three of us hit the flash elevator at a run. We took the flash down to the street to see what we could do to help.
When I returned to my office two hours later it was empty. Part of me regretted the unfinished conversation with Mx. Coltran and the other part decided it wasn’t that important.
Either the woman had learned a valuable lesson or she hadn’t. Either way I couldn’t do anything more about it.
Chapter Sixteen
Ugly Spies
Our lady and her friend do go, cavorting with their foes,
Soft and ugly in disguise, they sleuthed like a couple of pros.
There was a message from Raoul on my televisual when I got home. He informed me that he’d made an appointment for us with the Devil’s Glenn coven for midnight. Apparently we were invited to attend a new moon ritual to enhance healing and personal growth.
“Enhance this!” I murmured to the studious-looking face on the televisual. Raoul took his moon phases very seriously.
He also informed me that he’d pick me up at eleven o’clock that night and told me to look like somebody else.
I sighed and looked hopefully at the personal hygiene room. I would have killed for a few minutes in a hot cleansing tube and an evening in the prone position. But a glance at the clock told me I had less than an hour to prepare for my outing with Raoul.
I trudged toward my closet and started the process of disguising myself.
* * * * *
Raoul’s air vehicle was almost as cool as the Viper. His was shiny black and had shark tails on the wide, split backend and dual thrusters that made testosterone-inducing noises when he increased speed. I leaned back into a soft white leather seat and grinned at him.
“At least you don’t have a girly car.”
He grinned back. “It just doesn’t pay to have taste.”
My grin widened. “Taste? Is that what you call it?”
He chuckled and it made me feel like we were getting our comfort level back. “Just because my house isn’t decorated in early vehicle dwelling sale and traditional hate to shop.”
He had me there. “Hey, I don’t have time to shop. I’m a very important Tweener.”
“Right. I keep forgetting how important you are.” He turned to me and chuckled again. This time he was laughing at my face rather than my conversation.
I grinned and pressed my fingers into the slightly red hooked nose in the middle of my face. “You don’t like my disguise?”
He shook his newly blond head. “I have to pretend to be married to you. It’s not a comfortable position to be in.”
I shrugged, feeling mischievous. “So? You don’t want to be married to a short, corpulent woman with frizzy orange hair and a large hooked nose?”
He snorted and shook his head. “Don’t force me to comment on how you look. It wouldn’t be politically correct.”
I smiled, showing him crooked, yellow teeth. “You know you aren’t such a prize yourself.”
We had agreed to look like a middle-aged couple who were, shall we say, functioning on the outside edge of society. His disguise didn’t include any fat padding but the warts on his chin were particularly off-putting.
“I really like the cu
t of your pants. Very appealing.” The aforementioned fashion disaster were a brown shade that, most unfortunately, reminded me of a certain biological function. They hung dangerously low off his narrow butt, bagging unappealingly in the seat. The shirt he had carelessly tucked into them didn’t fit across the middle, leaving gaps between the buttons and had sleeves that stopped just short of his hairy wrists.
He waggled dark eyebrows at me that seemed at definite odds with his newly bleached hair and said, “Wanna have sex?”
I grimaced. “You should have bleached the brows to match you know.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
Just like a man.
Raoul stopped his air vehicle on the edge of a wide, grassy field beyond the Devil’s Glenn city limits and dropped it into hover.
We sat staring at the flickering lights of a huge fire and the robed figures that gathered around it in the distance.
The light seemed especially bright given the fact that the moon was new and the night was very dark.
We both took a large breath and then he turned to me. “Ready?”
I nodded and we stepped out onto the dense carpet of soft grass.
Raoul reached back inside the vehicle and pulled out a soft bundle.
He handed me a robe. “I hope it fits,” he said with a grin.
I smacked his inadequately clad arm.
We slipped the scratchy brown robes on over our clothes and lifted the hoods to obscure our faces.
Considering how we looked that was a kindness to the other celebrants.
Standing outside the air vehicle we could hear the rumble of light conversation from the coven members around the fire. In direct contrast to the last ritual I’d attended, courtesy of Raoul, these coven members seemed happy and carefree. I doubted there would be any demons from Hell at this party.
But there would be a couple of really ugly witches.
Raoul grabbed my elbow and then grimaced at me. “It feels like a cooked sausage.”
I laughed. “Deal with it bony boy. At least I don’t have warts.”
“Where’d you get this fat suit anyway?”
I shrugged. “I’ve had it for a while. Nobody pays attention to you when you look like this. It comes in handy.”
He nodded. “I can see why. I’m trying not to notice you right now myself.”
“Har, har.”
We made our way carefully toward the flickering fire. As we drew closer all activity stopped and dozens of faceless celebrants turned toward us.
We stopped at the edge of the flickering light from the fire and lifted our hoods off our faces. Raoul raised a hand in greeting.
“Blessed Be. We’ve come in search of peace and joy.”
I slanted a look at him, my eyes narrowing. Peace and joy? What the hell was he talking about. I suddenly wished I could invade his mental drawers like I could Emo’s or Dialle’s. But alas. I was shut out. All I could do was nod stupidly beside him. Hoping I was smart enough to follow the playbook since, from my perspective, it was written in invisible ink.
A tall figure stepped forward from the center of the crowd. The figure didn’t give us the courtesy of pushing back his hood but I could see a muscular forearm beneath the robe as he lifted a hand in greeting so I recognized it as a man, probably the coven’s Supreme High Witch.
“Blessed Be. Welcome. Come share our peace and joy.”
Okay. More peace and joy. I resisted the urge to stick my finger down my throat and gag.
Raoul moved closer to the fire and pulled me with him. Two servings of peace and joy coming up.
One by one the members of the coven stepped forward and clasped our hands, murmuring “Blessed Be” at us with a range of inflections, from bored to downright hostile-sounding. I just murmured back at them and tried to peer under their hoods.
Once we’d been greeted by each and every celebrant, the coven turned toward the tall figure, who had situated himself beside what looked like a round table, which was covered by a cloth of a red so deep it looked almost black in the flickering firelight. On the table’s surface were four candles surrounding a pentagram made from what looked like twigs. I strained my brain to remember the lessons in basic Wicca I’d learned from my mother, who’d insisted I understand the practice because you never knew when you would need to deal with a witch.
No kidding. I thought now as it started to come back to me.
In the northernmost position was a green candle, to represent the Earth if I remembered correctly. The candle to the east was yellow and represented Air. To the south, red for Fire and the fourth candle, to the west, was blue for Water.
The representations of the god and goddess were formed from clay and looked like something a five-year-old or prehistoric human might have created.
Not a fancy altar but one that I assumed would do the job adequately.
The lead witch started chanting and the robed figures around me began to move out of the firelight. I turned in surprise as Raoul and I were left standing alone with the leader, who was looking at the altar and chanting in a deep, hypnotic voice. I looked at Raoul and jerked my head toward the edge of the circle but he gave his head one, quick jerk in the negative and reached into his pocket. He pulled out two crystals and handed one to me.
The other celebrants had started returning. Each of them was carrying something, which they proceeded to place on the altar. Pots of flowers and bunches of berries joined leaves and even a few vegetables on the altar’s surface.
When everyone else had placed their gifts Raoul nodded at me and we approached, placing our crystals in an open area at the center of the altar.
I placed my crystal next to a bunch of limp, brownish broccoli. The witch that contributed that was a real hitter. Probably just cleaned out the food prep area and brought stuff he was gonna throw out anyway. Frugal.
As soon as we stepped back the chanting stopped and the lead witch turned away from the now heavily laden altar. He swung his gaze around the coven, ending with Raoul and me. “Our altar brims with life. Our hearts overflow with joy. And our spirits have joined in peace.”
He raised his arms, again swinging his gaze around the entire circle.
He nodded to a witch who was holding what looked like a small caldron with a pouring lip on one side. The witch walked to the edge of the firelight and started pouring a crystalline white substance on the ground. She walked a complete circle around the altar and coven with the salt and then turned back to the lead witch, nodding to indicate that the circle was complete.
Then the lead witch turned back to the altar and placed one hand on each of the god figurines as if in blessing. With lowered head he spoke in a loud and singsong voice. “The moon is new and awaits our claim. All fault is cleared, no more lay blame. Let this our fondest hope it yield, that all our blights and wounds be healed. And all within this clearing see, our souls’ rebirth and blessed be.”
He turned to the coven and raised his arms like a holographic preacher on tour. “As I have said so mote it be.”
The crowd around us repeated, “So mote it be.”
Raoul’s voice rose above the rest as he repeated the incantation with unnatural fervor. I nudged him with a well padded elbow and he struck back with a bony one but the effect was lost in my padding.
The formal portion of the program seemed to be over at that point and everyone started talking and mingling. Some of the witches dropped their hoods and most of the gathered coven had smiles on their faces and a sparkle in their eyes.
I turned to Raoul and murmured softly, “Doesn’t look like a particularly aggressive or power-hungry crowd to me.”
He frowned down at me and picked at his chin warts. “You know as well as I do, Astra, that looks are almost always deceiving. I trust my information on this.”
I shrugged and stepped into the crowd. Time to do some poking and prodding to see what I could come up with.
An hour later all I had come up with was a couple of invitation
s for tea that I hadn’t wanted to accept and a couple of recipes for dishes that I didn’t want to try. I was having a particularly hard time figuring out how any of the giddy, harmless-looking people within that circle could have even constructed the devious plot Raoul had laid out to me let alone put it into action.
I forcefully extracted myself from a rosy-cheeked woman with perfect hair whose teeth and nails were flawless and polished to a bright sheen and whose very happiness seemed tied to my eventual acceptance of an invitation for luncheon at her house, which I had no intention of ever accepting, and looked around for Raoul.
I saw him in a group on the other side of the altar, conversing with several men who still wore their hoods. Raoul was frowning and he kept nodding his head and looking around guiltily. His eyes met mine and I started forward, only to stop dead at a quick negative shake of his head.
I looked around feeling a little desperate. I was so desperate in fact that I started wondering if anyone would notice if I just stepped right over the little circle of salt and slid away into the shadows. It occurred to me that I was infinitely more comfortable around devils and demons and such than I was around fairly normal, happy people.
What that said about me I didn’t want to examine very closely. But I had a sneaking suspicion that I could blame that particular gene on my mother’s side of the family.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and closed my eyes, wishing I could sprout wings and fly away. But instead I took a deep breath, fixed a smile I didn’t feel on my face and forced myself to turn.
I almost choked.
The Mx. Coltrans stood before me, beaming happily and reaching for my pudgy hand. As they grasped my hand and stepped closer to welcome me heartily to the coven, I closed my mouth and gulped, hoping my disguise was good enough to withstand scrutiny from only inches away.
They would have to be close talkers.
I have no idea what they said to me. I just kept nodding silently. I wasn’t sure I could disguise my voice enough to fool them. I just prayed they’d get bored and go away.