by Laura Bickle
“Well, obviously. But Sparky seems to think that you’re a strong enough hero to watch over his babies.”
“How long do they take to hatch? What do I do to take care of them?” Anya wailed.
Brian murmured, “Looks like Sparky’s doing a good job of that himself.” He was hunched over the blue-and-red glow of a thermal imaging camera. It didn’t appear to be a standard camera. Instead, it was something Brian had jerry-rigged with wires and a circuit board duct-taped to the housing. He aimed it at the wall separating the kitchen from the bathroom. Anya could make out a red salamander shape curled protectively over a clutch of orange eggs. Anya counted fifty-one dots. She tried to imagine what would happen with fifty-one Sparkies running underfoot.
Chaos.
“Is he keeping them warm?”
Ciro grinned. “They will need to be kept warm. They are fire elementals, after all. As far as how long it will take them to hatch, I don’t know. I’m just a theoretician, remember. I don’t actually practice magick.”
Katie giggled. “I so can’t wait to throw you a baby shower.”
Anya gave her a dirty look. “I’ve gotta go to work tomorrow. How can I leave Sparky alone with his eggs?”
Katie tucked into another slice of cake. “I think that we should also make up some magickal protections, wards and the like, for the nest. That might make Sparky feel more secure. But wait until he calms down a bit first.”
Anya put her head in her hands. “Shit. I’m gonna be a mother.”
Katie pointed at her with her fork. “You’re gonna need provisions. We’ll leave the guys here to watch the eggs. I’ll take you shopping.”
Anya eyed her dubiously. “Provisions?” she echoed. “From where?”
Katie grinned at her, an evil glint in her eye. “Hell,” she said. “I’m taking you to hell.”
The mega baby superstore loomed over the asphalt parking lot. It oozed pink and blue, and Anya shivered in its cold shadow. Pregnant women waddled in and out of the store, some in packs, some dragging dazed men by the hand. Baby contraptions were hung in the windows; Anya thought she recognized some of them to be strollers, but she wasn’t sure. Most looked like alien spaceships with wheels.
“No. I’m not going in there.” Anya dug in her heels. She wound her fingers in the salamander collar around her neck. If Sparky was in there, he was being very, very quiet.
Anya had decided to experiment with leaving the house later that afternoon. She didn’t know whether Sparky would follow her or stay with the nest. She didn’t know if he even had a choice in it. Either way, she needed to go provisioning. She left Brian with instructions to sneak into the bathroom and aim the hair dryer at the nest periodically. By Ciro’s guesstimation, the nest was at about human-body temperature with Sparky on it, and that temperature would need to be maintained.
Anya and Katie first went to the pet store to buy a crate of heat pads for lizards. They were filled with iron powder, and would heat for forty hours when activated, without electricity. Anya had rejected outright the idea of using an electric blanket from the discount store—if the little buggers were anything like Sparky, they’d short it out and burn the house down. The clerk at the pet store probably thought they were running an iguana-smuggling operation, shipping lizards all over the world.
Anya had accepted the idea of charging four hundred dollars for an arctic expedition–rated, Gore-Tex–insulated sleeping bag from the camping store.
But the baby store was where she drew the line.
“What the hell do we need in there?” Anya growled.
Katie consulted her list. “We need a night-light—don’t want the babies hatching in darkness. We need a thermometer to keep track of the temperature in the nest. We might find other useful equipment. I was considering a baby monitor, but Brian can probably cook up something higher tech in the mad scientist’s laboratory.” Katie waggled her eyebrows at her. “You know, so that you can hear what’s happening when you’re otherwise indisposed. With bedroom activities.”
Anya opened her mouth, shut it. She let the dig go past; there was no use lying to a witch. “Salamanders have been hatching for thousands of years without all this”—she waved her hand at the fearsome facade—“crap.”
“Quit arguing. Let’s get what we need and get out.” Like a sergeant dragging along a reluctant recruit, she hauled Anya into the store.
“You’re so… maternal.”
“Fuck you, Anya. Give me your credit card.”
The place gave her the willies more than any haunted house. The estrogen was much, much too high. Everything was pastel and/or calico: high chairs, booster seats, things with springs and plastic parts. Stuffed animals with strange button eyes ogled her, perched beside tubes of concoctions called “Butt Paste” and hundred-dollar tote bags designed to hold diapers. Muzak played a calliope version of “Puff the Magic Dragon” overhead.
Anya picked up something that looked like a plastic tissue box. “What the hell is this?” She read the side of it: “‘Baby Wipe Warmer.’ Seriously, baby wipes have to be warm before they can touch a baby’s ass?”
A very pregnant woman pushing a pink stroller down the aisle gave her a dirty look. Anya noticed that she walked very much the way Sparky had been waddling the past few weeks. She felt a stab of guilt: not for swearing, but for her complete and utter failure to discern Sparky’s condition.
“Guess I’m not allowed to swear in here, either.” She trotted to keep up with Katie, who already had two boxes in her cart and was trying to act like she didn’t know Anya. She paused before a wall of thermometers.
Anya poked at something that looked like a hemorrhoid pillow that had been rebranded as an “infant positioner.” She drifted by a plastic apparatus with a snout and tubes that looked like a squid from a bad science fiction movie.
“Seriously, what’s all this stuff for?”
Katie glanced over her shoulder. “That’s a breast pump.”
“A what?” Anya snatched her hand away.
“Were you raised by wolves? They’re used to pump breast milk and store it for later.” Katie held up a package containing a yellow rubber duck. “This thermometer is supposed to float in a bathtub. It sounds an alarm if the temperature gets above a hundred or below eighty.” She scanned the shelves. “Looks like the rest are rectal thermometers.”
“Give me that.” Anya snatched the plastic duck. “Are we done here?”
“Almost. We need crib bumpers.”
“What the hell are crib bumpers, and why would we need them? The newts aren’t going to be driving cars.”
Katie rolled her eyes and led Anya down an aisle containing crib bedding.
Anya’s eyes glazed over at the variety of organic cotton sheets, blankets, dust ruffles, and canopies. “It’s basically padding for the sides of a crib. It’s so the newts don’t hurt themselves on the sharp edges of all that crystal. It will also act as insulation.”
Anya stared at Katie, who was pawing through plastic-wrapped calico. “Seriously. How do you know all this shit?”
Katie gave her a grim look. “I had to throw the baby shower from hell for my sister when she had twins. For over a hundred people.”
“I’m sorry.”
Anya felt a small wiggle at her neck. Sparky had come with her, after all. From the corner of her eye, she saw Sparky standing on her shoulder, staring upward. Anya followed his gaze. A crib mobile of moons and stars dangled overhead. He reached out to bat the plush yellow stars and squealed in delight when they made a musical chiming sound, beginning to play “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Anya screwed her eyes shut, imagining that keeping her awake at night. Sparky loved making his Gloworm light up in the dark by slapping it around. But the Gloworm was silent.
“May I help you ladies?”
A clerk advanced toward them with a broad smile. She had a ponytail and was wearing a yellow smock with a name tag that said “Hi, I’m Audrey.”
Katie stabbed her thumb over her shoulder
at Anya and gave her a wicked smirk. “Yeah. She’s having a baby. Multiples, actually.”
“Congratulations!” The clerk clasped her hands in front of her and glowed, having struck the retail mother lode. “When are you due?”
“Uh…” Anya crossed her arms over her stomach. “Not for a while.”
“We can get you started on a baby registry right away.” Audrey pulled what looked like a laser gun from the utility belt at her waist. It, like everything else in the store, was pastel. “We’ll set you up with some paperwork and turn you loose with the UPC scanner.”
“The what?” Anya blinked.
“We keep an electronic registry for your friends and family. You use the UPC scanner to scan the UPCs of the items you want them to buy you.” The clerk spoke very slowly, as if the multiples had sucked the juice out of Anya’s brain. She demonstrated by scanning the price code on a crib. A red light lanced out of the snout of the scanner, and it displayed the price on an LED window on the back: $458.
“Jesus,” Anya muttered.
But Sparky was in love. He stood on Anya’s shoulder, twisting his head to stare at the UPC gun and the shiny red laser beam extending from it like the sights on a ray gun.
“Um. I’d like one of those.” Anya pointed up to the mobile.
“For your registry, or to take with you today?”
“I’ll take it with me.” Anya couldn’t seriously imagine anyone wanting to buy anything from a baby registry for a nest of salamanders.
Audrey shuffled through the boxes on the floor. “Here’s one,” she chirped. Magically, she produced an electronic tablet from her utility belt, which was beginning to look as if it held more gizmos than Batman’s. She handed it to Anya with a stylus. “Just fill out the form here, and click ‘Send.’”
Anya looked over the form asking for her name, address, due date, and various and other sundry biographical info. “Then what?”
Audrey punched in some numbers on the keypad on the back of the UPC scanner. “Then I turn you loose with the scanner.”
On Anya’s shoulder, Sparky whined. She looked into his marble-like eyes and felt a deep pang of guilt for missing him give birth.
“Okay,” she said, scribbling through the check boxes and scrawling down her name and address. She scribbled down “Sparky Anderson” as the babies’ father. For number of children, she put a question mark. She handed the electronic pad back to Audrey, who gave her the scanner.
“Go nuts,” she said.
Behind her, Katie had torn the baby-bumper display apart and was sitting on the floor, surrounded by plastic-swathed calico. “Can you tell me how fire retardant your crib materials are?”
Audrey squatted beside Katie and began to prattle on about crib safety standards.
Anya pulled the trigger on the UPC gun. A red beam swept across the shelves, and the machine beeped when it grazed the price code for a crib mattress. Sparky chortled with glee.
Anya swept the beam across the floor. Sparky leapt down and raced after the laser, legs scrambling along the tile, tail kinked in excitement. She banked the laser against a low-hanging price tag when he pounced, resulting in a satisfying beep.
Sparky turned, wagged his tail: More.
Anya skimmed the price gun up to the display of mobiles overhead. Beep. Beep. Beep. Sparky scrambled up the displays and swatted at the mobiles. A cacophony of chimes tinkled overhead as he disrupted the electronic parts. A couple of the motorized ones spun lazily overhead. Sparky peered over the top shelf at her, tongue curling out of his mouth. Coyly, he ducked out of sight.
Anya grinned. It was on.
She sprinted down the aisle to the next, swung around the corner with the gun in a double-fisted grip. She saw the end of a salamander tail snaking out from a shelf, stealthily advanced upon it.
Turkey. He thought he was hiding, but hid about as well as an ostrich.
She reached up to tug it. A stuffed animal tumbled down to the floor: a plush dragon.
Behind her, Sparky squeaked. She spun, looking up. The salamander leapt from the crest of one aisle, overhead to the other. He landed in a swing perched on the top shelf. The mechanism whirred as it wound up, swinging him back and forth.
Anya aimed the laser at the swing beside it. Sparky scrambled out of the seat and lunged to the next. The next swing seat cranked to life, expelling the salamander to a high chair on the end cap display.
Sparky looked down on her, shaking his butt like a cat stalking a mouse.
Anya stuck her tongue out at him.
Sparky mirrored her. His amphibian tongue was much more impressive.
Anya aimed the gun at a nearby display of baby monitors. The machine beeped as she scanned it across a line of shelf stickers. Sparky pounced, flinging himself at the equipment. When he made contact, the demo models on the eye-level shelves squeaked and squawked in a terrible feedback loop. A woman towing a toddler and a cart in the main aisle covered the little boy’s ears. When she saw smoke curling out of one of the speakers, she carefully took a box containing the same product out of her cart and abandoned it on the floor.
When Anya turned back, Sparky was gone. She searched through the aisles for him, dodging around carts and strollers. A flock of calico-clad women rushed to the malfunctioning mobiles and baby monitors, trying to shut them off. Anya glided past them, sweeping the laser beam in her path down the broad main aisle, hoping to tempt Sparky out of wherever he was hiding.
She heard hysterical quacking in the bath-toy aisle, sounding like a dog was mutilating a duck. She turned down the aisle to see the floor littered with plastic squids and rubber duckies. She stooped to pick up a duck. It was lavender, covered in glitter, with a charming sleepy expression on its face. She squeezed it, and the electronic squeaker inside quacked. Anya tucked it under her arm. It would make a fine addition to her bathroom rubber duck collection. Perhaps Sparky would wear the squeaker out of it.
Sparky’s tail slithered around the corner, and Anya pursued him down an impossibly large aisle of diapers. The scanner hit price tags for organic cotton diapers, disposable infant diapers, training pants, toddler diapers… and amphibian feet slipped out from behind the shelves to smack at the ray.
A beleagured-looking man with circles under his eyes watched her in fascination. “How many kids do you have, anyway?”
Anya cleared her throat. “Uh… Several.”
The man shook his head, hugged a jumbo-sized plastic package of diapers to his chest. “We have just one. Good luck.”
Anya managed a weak smile and sidled off down the aisle in search of Sparky.
She found him in the educational-video section. He was perched in front of a television screen depicting a shifting kaleidoscope of colors, entranced. A recording of child giggles was the sound track. The two televisions beside him had short-circuited, emitting a burned-rubber smell. A clerk was busily trying to pry a fire extinguisher off the wall. Anya took pity on her, removed the fire extinguisher, and laid a nice layer of foam down over the shorted televisions. It was nearly as satisfying as frosting a cake.
Sparky didn’t move. Anya set down the fire extinguisher, stood behind him with her arms crossed. A repetitive display of primary colors swirled, reflected in his eyes, and his gill-fronds twitched.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
Sparky trilled, not removing his eyes from the screen. His pupils had fully dilated, rendering his eyes black as obsidian. Anya wiped some chemical foam off the DVD display. Baby Brilliance promised to be educational, though Anya couldn’t see a damn thing educational about swirling colors and the annoying background track of giggles. But it was quieter than both the mobile and the rubber duck.
She read from the back of the package: “‘… nurtures and stimulates Baby’s growing intellect.’” She raised an eyebrow at Sparky. “If I buy this for you, will you promise to raise your children to be rocket scientists who will support me in my old age?”
Sparky twittered, cocked his head as i
f he’d been lobotomized. Anya took that as an affirmative. But there was still something creepy about the way he was glued to the set. And Anya wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
A half hour later, she and Katie pushed two shopping carts full of merchandise into the parking lot. The carts contained baby bumpers, a crib mattress, and sheets with a green pattern of geckos, temperature gadgets, a handful of rubber ducks, two DVDs, a crib mobile, and a large stuffed dragon—to keep the newts company when Sparky wasn’t there. Behind them, a peculiar burning smell emanated from the store, and a siren could be heard in the distance. Perched on top of Anya’s cart, Sparky rode on top of the packages like a pirate captain at the helm of his ship.
“That was fun,” Anya said with sincerity. But she felt a pang of guilt at the destruction she and Sparky had visited upon the calico empire. She attempted to console herself with thoughts of insurance money payouts and the hundreds of dollars she’d just dropped at the register. It would even out, she told herself. Maybe.
Katie rolled her eyes and kept shoving her cart. “Yeah. I saw the total on your registry.”
Anya waved at her a stack of washcloths embroidered with yellow fuzzy ducks and tied with a ribbon. “I got a free gift for signing up. And a shoe box full of registry cards to tell people to buy me shit. But I think Sparky was disappointed that they wouldn’t let us keep the scanner.”
“Yeah. For registering for five thousand dollars’ worth of baby gear. Good job.” Katie smirked. “Now you’ll be on their mailing list forever.”
“Shit,” Anya said. “Though… maybe we can come back if they send some coupons.”
“I still feel guilty leaving them unsupervised.”
Anya paced the hallway, peered into the bathroom. Sparky was on his nest, purring. The nest was much more fussed over than she’d anticipated: The Gore-Tex sleeping bag was tucked over the eggs, and the crystalline coating on the bathtub had been surrounded by the green gecko-patterned bumper-and-mattress set. The green plush dragon was perched with its butt on the soap dish as a surrogate parent. Sparky had allowed Anya to move the eggs around in the tub: fifty-one baby salamanders soon to come into the world. Anya screwed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples at the thought.