“No,” I said, and told him what had happened.
“It was Dora,” I finished, “or rather her game, Quest for the Aegis of Athena, that gave me the idea.”
He picked up a lump of stone: it had scales etched on one side. “How did Malia end up like this?”
“Ahh, that wasn’t me. Last I saw Auntie, she was all in one piece.” Even if she’d had a bit of a stony expression going on. I pointed at the sledgehammer standing defiant in the middle of the rubble and said deadpan, “Think Dora decided on a full-scale demolition.”
“Aye, well,” Tavish answered in an amused voice, “it tipped the scales in her favor.”
I groaned. “That was bad.”
He laughed. “Yours were nae any better, doll.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, then asked the question that had been bugging me. “How did you know what was going on?”
“Hmm,” Tavish snorted softly. “I’d seen the wee lassie’s soul when she was following you, but she was still human enough that if she wasnae using her camera, I couldnae see the lamia’s taint. And without seeing that, I couldnae tell what her shell looked like. Then after the children went missing, Malia phoned, wanting my help with something. Lamias mostly take their own blood when they shed to forestall any repercussions, but I caught on that Malia wasnae going to this time. So we were tiptoeing around a bargain, but I couldnae get close enough to find the children until she lured you here.”
“So you used me as bait?”
“Something like that,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, doll.”
The boys were saved, we were both alive, Dora had escaped and hopefully had a chance at a new life now she wasn’t going to be a lamia, and in the end the only one dead and gone was Auntie. Which really wasn’t such a loss. So there really wasn’t anything to be angry about.
I tugged a couple of his dreads. “Next time you decide to set me up,” I said, “tell me first.”
“Aye,” he murmured, “if you say so.”
I licked my lips and tasted the dark spiced blood again. “Dora must have given me the antidote,” I said, almost to myself.
Tavish didn’t answer, and, happy just to be alive, I listened to the steady beat of his heart for a while, then traced a finger over his lean chest. “So, how about we do something a bit more irresponsible for our next date . . .”
He gave a soft laugh. “What sort o’ thing have you in mind, doll?”
“When you think of it”—I smiled sleepily—“call me.”
SIX WEEKS LATER I received a parcel at the office. Inside was a glossy celebrity magazine. The cover showed a smiling Dora standing in front of a huge poster depicting a pixie in a muscleman pose. The headline read: THEODORA CHRISTAKIS, OWNER OF HEROPHILE FUTURES, ENDS 40 DAYS OF MOURNING WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HER NEW VENTURE. Also in the parcel was a computer game; its brightly colored sleeve read: PIXIE PLANET ~ PROTECTING OUR FUTURE: HEROPHILE’S NEW LINE OF EDUCATIONAL GAMES FOR THE YOUNGER GENERATION ~ ALL PROFITS TO BE DONATED TO CHILDREN’S CHARITIES.
Good to know Dora was planning on helping kids now, instead of eating them.
I wished her good fortune.
It’s All in the Rendering
SIMON R. GREEN
There is a House that stands on the border. Between here and there, between dreams and waking, between reality and fantasy. The House has been around for longer than anyone remembers, because it’s necessary. Walk in through the front door, from the sane and everyday world, and everything you see will seem perfectly normal. Walk in through the back door, from any of the worlds of if and maybe, and a very different House will appear before you. The House stands on the border, linking two worlds, and providing Sanctuary for those who need it. A refuge, from everyone and everything. A safe place, from all the evils of all the worlds.
Needless to say, there are those who aren’t too keen on this.
IT ALL STARTED in the kitchen, on a bright sunny day, just like any other day. Golden sunlight poured in through the open window, gleaming richly on the old-fashioned furniture and the modern fittings. Peter and Jubilee Caine, currently in charge of the House, were having breakfast together. At least, Peter was; Jubilee wasn’t really a morning person. Jubilee would cheerfully throttle every last member of the dawn chorus in return for just another half-hour’s lie-in.
Peter was busy making himself a full English breakfast: bacon and eggs, sausages and beans, and lots of fried bread. Of medium height and medium weight, Peter was a happy if vague sort, but a master of the frying pan—on the grounds that if you ever found something you couldn’t cook in the pan, you could still use it to beat the animal to death. Peter moved happily back and forth, doing half a dozen difficult culinary things with calm and easy competence, while singing along to the Settlers’ “Lightning Tree” on the radio.
Jubilee, tall and blond and almost impossibly graceful, usually, sat hunched at the kitchen table, clinging to a large mug of industrial-strength black coffee, like a shipwrecked mariner to a lifebelt. Her mug bore the legend Worship Me Like the Goddess I Am or There Will Be Some Serious Smiting. She glared darkly at Peter over the rim of her mug as though his every cheerful moment were a deliberate assault on her fragile early-morning nerves.
“It should be made illegal, to be that cheerful in the morning,” she announced, to no one in particular. “It’s not natural. And I can’t believe you’re still preparing that Death by Cholesterol fry-up every morning. Things like this should be spelled out in detail on the marriage license. I can hear your arteries curdling from here, just from proximity to that much unhealthiness in one place.”
“Start the day with a challenge, that’s what I always say,” said Peter. “If I can survive this, I can survive anything. Will any of our current Guests be joining us for breakfast?”
“I doubt it. Lee only comes out at night, and Johnny is a teenager, which means he doesn’t even know what this hour of the morning looks like. Look, can we please have something else from the radio? Something less . . . enthusiastic?”
The music broke off immediately. “I heard that!” said the radio. “Today is Sixties day! Because that’s what I like. They had real music in those days—songs that would put hair on your chest, with tunes that stuck in your head whether you wanted them to or not. And no, I don’t do Coldplay, so stop asking. Would you care to hear a Monkees medley?”
“Remember what happened to the toaster?” said Jubilee, dangerously.
There was a pause. “I do take requests,” the radio said finally.
“Play something soothing,” said Peter. “For those of us whose bodies might be up and about, but whose minds haven’t officially joined in yet.”
The radio played a selection from Grieg’s Peer Gynt, while Peter cheerfully loaded up his plate with all manner of things that were bad for him. He laid it down carefully on the table and smiled over at Jubilee.
“You sure I can’t tempt you to just a little of this yummy fried goodness, princess?”
Jubilee actually shuddered. “I’d rather inject hot fat directly into my veins. Get me some milk, sweetie.”
Peter went over to the fridge. “Is this a full-fat or a semiskim day?”
“Give me the real deal. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be one of those days.”
Peter opened the fridge door, and a long green warty arm came out, offering a bottle of milk. Peter accepted the bottle, while being very careful not to make contact with any of the lumpy bumpy fingers.
“Thank you, Walter,” he said.
“Welcome, I’m sure,” said a deep green warty voice from the back of the fridge. “You couldn’t turn the thermostat down just a little more, could you?”
“Any lower, and you’ll have icicles hanging off them,” said Peter.