by Pam Uphoff
Squinted out the glassed front of the lodge at the ice. Must have frozen last night.
Through his fading headache he read the few other patrons . . . Oops! Police, and definitely focused on him. Drat, and she was such a scrumptious woman, bit of a glow about her. This must be one of the Worlds that had done some genetic engineering sometime in the past. Now, the whole idea seemed to give most of them the heebie jeebies, which was just as well, or the Gang's superiority over the Natives would have disappeared.
A foursome of blonde women entered, hair and nails perfect, dressed in some fashion designer's idea of the perfect outfits for after skiing, even though there wasn't any snow on the ground yet. And the hair wasn't even natural. Chemical dyes, as usual. He pondered the potential for getting rich semi-honestly, by opening another magical hair place. Really, there was serious money to be made in baldness cures, and a permanent hair dye was second only to skin tightening in money making potential. If they could ever get anyone to believe they could truly rejuvenate them . . . He himself had brought along bottles of the original Wine of the Gods, and also some of the long life elixir the Church of Love was distributing, and a couple of others he'd thought he might need in the future. Like the one to turn him back into a blonde. These women had money and business connections. He wondered if maybe he'd found some useful contacts. Or would have, once he'd contacted them. Except the Gang would probably be leaving real soon, since the police had found them.
He looked away, catching the police lady dropping her gaze. He winked. Dang she was hot.
The park ranger who'd dined with the sheriff's deputy last night came in. No sign of the deputy. Dang it, that probably meant the police were closing in, and they'd have to move real soon. He wolfed down a good sized breakfast, reading the news on a big TV screen. Freezing conditions and road closures all over. He finished off a second large orange juice then hunted down Rior.
The Oner seemed preoccupied, shrugging with frightening indifference when told about the police woman. But he roused enough to frown at the news that the local roads were closed. "That'll make it easy for them to close off the major routes out. Of course, we don't actually need to drive. Why don't you go all the way deerish, and go scout out how far the ice goes and whether there's any sign of a waiting force."
Eldon nodded happily. His deer form, while based on a goat transformation, was getting awfully good. And he didn't know much about deer and surefootedness, but in goat form he was good on rough ground. He undressed and morphed inside—it was cold out there—and Rior let him out the door to the outside stairs. He skidded down the icy steps, and spun on the ice at the bottom. Lucky he hadn't broken anything. Hmm, rough ground versus ice . . . He picked himself up and slid and scrambled until he was under the trees and could get some traction, or at least break the patchy ice on the deep cushion of pine needles and create some traction. Much better. He trotted confidently down hill, only slipping occasionally. The road was ice covered and empty. He paralleled it past some empty cabins and one with smoke coming from the chimney until he got to the secondary highway. Iced and empty, he heard something from up hill and galloped off to check it out. Ah. Sanding trucks. No doubt from the little town of Dice Creek. He reversed and headed back down hill. He followed the winding secondary highway until it crossed the interstate. Huh. Empty. He thought they kept these things open in practically any weather. Up or down? He decided on up first and climbed to the top of the next ridge. This World used large diesel powered trucks—called variously, semis, eighteen wheelers, and tractor trailers—to haul a lot of merchandise. At a rough count, five of them had gotten into a tangle half way down the opposite grade. No, more than that, there were more just over the crest. They'd have a fine time getting the road open if the ice didn't melt quickly.
Downhill, west of the secondary highway junction, he found a few more wrecks, and the interstate closed. Dang. It hadn't seemed like that much of a storm, but the wind was picking up again, and the clouds were piling up against the mountains. It could be a few days before anything got through to the lodge. That was handy, as Falchion frequently needed a couple of days to find a good destination.
He headed back for the lodge. Rior would be happy to hear there was no rush.
***
Jim awoke to a gleaming wonderland of ice, sunlight shining through breaks in the cloud cover to reflect off the inch thick coat of ice on every north and west facing surface, and dragging down the limbs of the pines, and even bowing the smaller trees with its weight.
His comm was dead. Andy Nomen was propped up in a chair by the window. "Nothing showing. I thought maybe we'd be better off staking out the lobby and dining room?"
Jim nodded as he yawned. "Yeah, go ahead. I don't suppose you have any Mil grade super comms? No? Drat. There was a big guy in the dining room last night. Arnold Bellemiso. I think the Government wants him worse than the Animals."
Andy had straightened at the name, and nodded. "Oh yes, he's still at the head of the list. What have we invited ourselves to?"
"I don't know. But it occurs to me that there could be more than one reason for the comms to not be working."
"Oh, yeah. Arnold Bellemiso can arrange all sorts of things. Harwin, in case you are interested, is a cold weather survival expert."
Jim nodded. "If I can't get a message out any other way. Right." Outside the sun ducked behind a cloud and the daylight dimmed turning the sparkling wonderland into something dreary and ominous. "I think I'll take a shower while we still have power."
Showered and shaved, he walked down to breakfast and found Dirk flashing his white teeth at the Badger, who was scowling at him. Jim caught a wave from Martha and walked over to join her.
"Pushing the limits, isn't he?"
Martha smiled. "Oh yes, and his comeuppance cometh. I don't know why we didn't notice the resemblance between Black Cat and Badger before."
Jim looked over to where Dirk had risen to greet the other woman. The older woman's hair was dark, a mixture of browns, the younger's a shimmery mixture of golden blonde through medium brown. They both had the same chin and cheekbones, the younger girl's softened with a bit of lingering baby fat. The older woman was the more beautiful, but while still young, lacked that softness. And she had an aggressive attitude, where the girl's body language was defensive.
"Sisters, do you think? Black Cat isn't old enough to be her mother."
"Body language say she is."
Jim sighed. He never bet against Martha. Dirk came away, smiling a bit stiffly.
"Get handed your walking papers?" Jim asked, shoving out a chair for the man.
Dirk looked defensive. "I got their names. Betelgeuse and her mother Jade Black."
Martha sat up. "Excellent. Eat your breakfast and we'll have a bit of a comp search for them."
Norm wandered in. "I spotted someone up on the phone tower south of here. De-icing, probably. So we'll be able to call out soon."
Martha nodded. "As fun as it would be, being trapped in the remote hunting lodge with mysterious strangers, the Deer is a bit too strange for me. Definitely a transvestite. He wasn't wearing his falsies this morning, and in fact I think he must have also been padding his butt and wearing a corset. Now he looks normal, for a certain rugged, wouldn't-want-to-meet-him-in-a-dark-alley sort of normal."
Dirk snickered. "Don't tell me, let me guess. He caught you watching him and took it all wrong."
Martha colored up. "He winked at me."
"And him the ugliest fellow here, save, perhaps, our own mighty leader."
"Even Jim's not that ugly." Martha looked prim and Jim sighed.
"Get together any reports you want to send. I'll send Harwin out with them to hand deliver if the comms don't kick back in within a couple of hours."
The waitress approached and he hastily scanned the menu. "Pancakes. Sausage. Coffee."
Dirk ordered an omelet and coffee, and they got back to studying the other inhabitants of the lodge. The three teenagers and or y
oung adults from yesterday were here without their father. They seemed quite pleased to be iced in, and were speculating on their ability to get out in a week, or with luck, not for two weeks. All dark haired with tans that owed nothing to the sun. Jim tried placing them, racially and finally settled on Arabic or Oriental. Possibly a mix of both with anglo added in? Their facial features weren't sufficiently of a single ethnic. He could argue for any combination thereof. Hmm. Arabic. If their father was an Arab, could he also be here to meet with Bellamiso and the Animal Gang? He smoothed the hair on the back of his neck. The Arabs could be selling Russian or Chinese tech, but could also be buying. The idea of NoAm troops facing that paralysis field, or invisible foes should the Middle East suffer another resurgence of the fanatic side of their religion was scary.
Of course, the worst enemy was the one you weren't watching. The idea of SoAm with a tech lead was frightening as well. He picked unhappily at his pancakes, and ignored Martha snitching his sausages.
Dirk watched him in disgust. "No syrup? That's disgusting. How can you eat pancakes dry?"
"With lots of butter." Jim retorted.
"He eats them with peanut butter and bacon at home. I've witnessed the horror myself."
Dirk eyed her speculatively. Jim refrained from mentioning that they regularly carpooled, and she occasionally caught him at breakfast. They weren't, unfortunately, on sleeping together terms.
Back in his room there was nothing showing across the patio. No comm reception. He loaded all his reports and observations and a primal scream for massive assistance on a chip and handed it to Harwin. "Go as far as you need to, to send it, make your own decision about returning. It looks like we're in for some snow."
"Lots, from what I've heard. I'll leave immediately, get down to a lower elevation before it starts. Have fun, snowed in with at least two and possibly three criminal gangs."
***
Eldon changed back into human form and hustled through the sliding glass door at the bottom of the stairs. "Damn it's cold out there."
A maid was backing away, a horrified expression on her face. She turned and fled. Hopefully just because he was naked, not because she'd seem him change. Oh well. Betelgeuse poked her head out to see what the problem was. "Oh, it's you. You know, I think we need a corridor from here to upstairs, it's too cold and slippery to use the outside stairs. Be right back." She taped four spots on the wall and walked out to the lobby. Eldon wandered into the sports room, and turned on the TV. Betelgeuse walked in a few minutes later and tossed him some clothes. "Here. There were maids around, upstairs, so I figured you should stop at shocking only one, else the management might throw us out."
"Huh. You'd think after four months they'd be used to us."
He dressed, and turned off the pre-game show. As he'd hoped, there was a fire in the lobby fireplace, and he pulled a big comfy chair up close. Falchion and Epee had all the kids out, burning up a bit of energy. They all came and climbed on him for awhile, and finally gave up trying to talk him into playing horsie with them and went back to skidding on the polished wooden floor in their socks.
Across the fire one of the well dressed women gave an audible sniff. "Useless breeders. Ten children." The other three nodded.
"Hard to believe they can afford to come here."
"Probably on the taxpayers money."
"More likely their ex-husbands, judging by the range of hair color." The blonde in turquoise looked over at Eldon. "How about it, you living on your harem's alimony and child support checks?"
"Nah. We made a few million on specialized hair treatments and retired. You want me to show you how to really be blonde?" Eldon grinned as they frowned at him. Not very nice women. His favorite kind. It wasn't even a stretch to not feel sorry for what he was going to do to them. This kind of shallow woman was a sucker for a Bad Boy, and he was the Baddest.
"You made millions?"
"Sure. It's easy so long as the Feds don't catch you putting some stuff in your 'hair dyes' that they've banned. See, some of it is rejuvenating of the whole body, and they don't want anyone living any longer than they must, so they decided they were dangerous drugs." Eldon waved a faint gullibility spell toward them.
"Rejuvenating?"
"Yeah. Tightens the skin, thickens the hair, cures baldness in men. Great stuff." Hmm, maybe avarice? Yes, try that.
"I thought it was a hair dye."
"No, not a dye. See, hair is colored by pigments from the skin cells, in the follicles. It's all a matter of cellular level switches, to turn the pigment production off or on. Stem cells in the hair follicles mature gradually, you go grey as they all mature and then there are no new ones to renew follicle cells. Cure that problem, regress some cells back to adult stem cells, and you've revved up and rejuvenated a whole bunch of stuff. Blonde hair is a slightly different challenge. The light color is caused by the fineness of the hair. But those are just more epigenetic switches, no big deal." He could feel them believing him. One of them had nodded about some of his explanations.
They were looking him up and down, and he caught a faint thought from Falchion. :: Don't be too nice to them. ::
"Mind you, I'm out of business, now, but I did keep some of my products . . . hmm, I suppose I could go see what I've got." He pulled his warm toes away from the fire and started for the stairs. Tossing just a bit of attraction behind. They followed him all the way to his room.
He pulled out the small selection of potions he'd had at home, that had gotten packed and brought along. He thought he had . . . "Ah, yes. This one was very popular. Thick golden blonde hair. Let's see now . . . " he pulled out his bottle of the wine of the gods, five wine glasses and a bowl. A bit of the wine in the bowl, a bit more in each glass. . . "All right. We add just a bit of the concentrated formulae to the wine in the bowl and mix well." He took a sip from one wine glass and gestured to the others. "If you like wine. This is very nice stuff."
They drank and squirmed and blushed and the one on the left broke into a sweat.
"Oh, the rejuvenation, not that any of you need it now, but this'll put back the gray hair a good couple of decades." He pulled out the other wine and added it to the bowl, topped off some glasses . . . "Now we just massage this into your scalps." He made each scalp massage memorable with very light touches of the orgasm spell he'd gotten from that farmer, and then politely offered to escort them all back to the lobby.
They mobbed him. Climbed all over him, and each other. The dregs of the blonde goop got rubbed lots of places. Not a problem, he needed to get back to being blonde anyway. He threw out orgasm spells profligately. Added 'happy mommy'. Then they all climbed in the shower together, making a considerable mess, because the shower was definitely too small for five people. Then they dried each other off and used the blower on their hair, and they gradually got dressed and finally back out the door and down the hall, down the stairs, and into the middle of the Lobby, about the time the small bit of wine wore off. Eldon smirked and snapped the reinforcing spells he'd put on them. The sweating woman stopped dead. Deidre? Something like that. A look of sheer horror crossed her face. She backed away, turned and fled. Prissy was next. She turned green and put a hand to her definitely not immaculately dressed hair, looked around for witnesses and bolted.
Vivian looked after her, puzzled. She'd picked up a wine glass as they left the room, and stood, poised and well dressed, her hair a wild tangle, then blinked at Eldon and looked him up and down in disbelief. "I didn't . . . "
Eldon grinned. She turned and walked carefully away, as if unsure of her balance, placing the wine glass carefully on a side table as she tried to stay in control. He wondered what she'd do once she was in private.
Brooke continued dreamily to the couch beside the fireplace and settled down with a yawn. Eldon walked back around to his chair and watched as she fell asleep.
"Well, three of them had a good reaction, what about her?" Epee swept her pale blonde hair back and clipped it out of the way.
&n
bsp; "Cheap drunk, I think. It'll wear off quickly."
Just then the four husbands walked in from the front. " . . . snow on top of this ice and it'll be impossible to drive."
"Well, we might as well stay and get some skiing in, then, eh? I told you we should bring the skis. Can we get to someplace that rents?"
"And you were right. Hey, Brookie, wakey wakey. If you want to go to bed, I know just the place."
Brooke stared at him, uncomprehending, then shot a panicked glance around the Lobby. Eldon winked. She paled.
Her oblivious husband hauled her up and escorted her down the hallway.
"Oh my. Somehow I think Hubby is going to find himself failing by comparison." Falchion snickered and turned away. "Call me a useless breeder, indeed. I hope they all have triplets."
"Oh, damn. I just totally forgot to use the haploid spell." Eldon tried to look innocent as they giggled.
Eldon propped his feet again, and listened contentedly to the tick of hard grainy snow hitting the roof. He roused himself to go in for lunch with all the kids, where they pretended to be cowboys and cowgirls and the kids all tried to drawl like he did. Nothing cuter than a three-year old redheaded girl imitating John Wayne.
By dinner time the snow was coming down fast and he slouched back to catch whatever game was on. Miami versus Houston. A nice brutal football game, this time.
"Hey, did you see the cute Oner chicks? I just ordered room service, bunch of stuff on the way." Heso had a beer in hand already.
"Oners? You're kidding?"
"Nope. One of them recognized Rior, they apparently had a uh, long discussion last night."
"Really? Well, I'll have to scope them out."
Heso eyed him. "One for you, one for me. Deal?"
"Deal. Hey, there's a hot police woman here too."