"What is it, old man? Deveels?" I asked. I twisted around, grabbed his wrist, wrenched upward, and Percy flipped into the air, landing on his back. The fall wouldn't hurt him. It didn't even knock the breath out of him. He scissored out his powerful, furry legs and caught me about the waist. I dropped back, and he sprang up and knelt on my chest, hands going for my throat. I roared aloud to cover his furtive whisper.
"No, worse!" I grabbed his throat with one hand, and he let out a loud squeak, which covered my next question.
"What could be worse than Deveels?" I asked. A further grunt covered another query as he shook his head. "Do you owe money to the Gnomes?" We rolled over and over together in the dust. An open path cleared ahead as our audience pursued behind. I bellowed.
"Worse!" Percy whispered, his face desperate. "I can't tell you! The old one will get me if I talk!"
I almost forgot to wait for his covering roar. "Who?"
"Don't ask any more, old man," Percy said, sitting on my back as he twisted my foot around. I shouted in pain. He was so nervous he was actually hurting me. "Please. I'm asking you as an old friend. I can't say any more; we might be overheard. Hmm, this is your turf. I know M.Y.T.H. Inc. well. I'd best let you win this round."
It was good of him to realize that. I assessed my position, face down in the dust. The only winning move I could make would render me utterly filthy, but that, as Aahz might observe, was show biz. I gathered my three free limbs underneath me, grabbed the earth and turned myself until I was aligned with my twisted limb. In doing so I mashed a great deal of the street into the front of my fur, but it was worth it for the denouement: I rose to all threes, Percy still riding my back, and, pushing myself upright on my one leg, deposited him to the ground. He fell, as though stunned. I jumped on him, grabbed him by shoulder and crotch, heaved him into the air, and threw him into the crowd.
"Thanks, old man," he said, just before I let go. Deveels, Imps, Ssslissi, Klahds, and others went down as a full-grown Troll landed on them.
Brushing myself off, I stumped up the street. Tananda was standing in between two tents cleaning her nails with a dagger, where she had a perfect view of the whole brawl. She grinned up at me. Guido hulked in the shadows behind her.
"Messy but effective, Big Brother." "What'd he tell you?" Guido asked. I glanced around. Night had fallen sufficiently to conceal our return to our tent. "Let's go inside."
"The old one?" Tananda asked, sitting at our conference table after I brought them up to date on my tete-a-tete with Percy. "Old what? A dragon? What's big enough to intimidate a Troll?"
"Well, we aint' gonna get no data out of the victims, or outta their collectors." Guido reasoned. "What's next?"
"Next," 1 said, tenting my fingers together on the table rather like logs at the corner of a rustic cabin, "we must lure our perpetrators out of hiding."
"How do we do that?" Guido asked, skeptically.
"They target small enterprises, do they not?" I asked. The other two nodded. "Then we establish our own."
"And wait to be approached," Little Sister said, approvingly. "Good idea, Big Brother. Now, all we need to do is figure out what would attract their interest."
"Somethin' that earns a lot of money," Guido said. "Alia the businesses have a much higher income than overhead."
"It's too much trouble to do market research on growing trends and get in merchandise from another dimension," Tananda said thoughtfully, "so, a service business of some kind. I think I know just what will do the job."
I didn't like the mischievious gleam in my sister's green eyes. "What do you have in mind?"
"Hairdressers?" Guido said, disbelievingly, surveying the contents of our hastily rented tent.
"Beauticians," Tananda corrected him, spreading out her hands in satisfaction. "It's perfect. We don't need any merchandise, apart from a few bottles of commercial tonic and cologne. And believe me, every being alive has a streak of vanity that could use a little buffing up. We will simply cater to that streak."
"But we know nothing about beauty culture," I protested. "We might disfigure someone, or hurt them."
"That's the beauty of it, if you will excuse the joke," Tananda said. "You don't have to know anything. You make it up as you go along. You can do whatever you want to the customers, and they will love it. They'll come back for more and they will bring their friends! Trust me."
And so it proved. The very next day dawned upon the opening of A Tough, A Troll and A Trollop, Beauty Specialists. The flaps of our tent were flipped coyly open to reveal the furnishings that we had obtained overnight from a few merchants who knew us well enough to open at midnight and ask no questions as to why we suddenly required three reclining pedestal chairs, diverse mirrors, basins, curlers, irons, combs and brushes, lacquers for hair, and nail files, unguents, lotions, shampoos, dyes, and spangles. Tananda appeared trim and professional in a green smock that matched her hair. Guido and I felt awkward in identical green coats. They fit, but that was all that a charitable mind might admit.
"We look like morons," Guido said, echoing my very thoughts.
"You look fine," Tananda assured us. "Smile! Here comes our first customer."
I seized the comb and scissors that I had chosen to be my tools. Guido picked a hot towel out of the salamander-powered steam box. Into the tent peered an Imp matron. We braced ourselves.
"Are you ... open?" she asked.
"Yes, we are!" Tananda beamed, putting her arm about the Imp's shoulders. "Come in!" She winked at me over the pink female's horned head. "What can we do for you?"
I held the scissors in my fist like a weapon, the points just sticking out beyond the percussion edge of my palm. Was she the "old one" Percy feared? To me she appeared to be only of middle age. Her reply, delivered shyly, easily assuaged my concern.
"Well, I need ... I'd like to look better."
"You look wonderful," Tananda assured her, maneuvering her deftly into the center chair. "All we do here is to enchance your natural beauty. Don't we, boys?"
"Yeah," Guido said, all but throttling the towel in his hands.
"Yeh," I grunted. As advertised, a Troll and a Tough. The Trollop already had the matter in hand.
"You see? We just want you to feel confident in your own charm."
"Oh!" The matron pinked up, looking pleased. "Then ... I'd like the works!" Tananda clapped her hands.
We did not emulate a well-oiled machine, but swing into action we did. The Imp found herself the vortex of a whirlwind of tasteful scarves and draperies that covered her dress's loud print (Imps have notoriously tacky clothes sense), leaving her head and face thrown into stark relief. For an Imp she was not unpleasant to behold once her garments ceased clashing with her cerise complexion.
"Scalp massage," Tananda ordered. Nervously, I moved in, oiled fingertips at the ready. A Troll's fingers are strong enough to punch holes in the skulls of most of my fellow dimensional beings. I hesitated to touch her until Tananda delivered a sharp slap to my upper back. I plunged ahead, grasping the Imp's scalp between my hands, and began to rub.
"Oooh!" the Imp cried. "Oh! Aaaggh!" I halted at once, concerned that I'd hurt her. "Oooh aaah!" the Imp moaned, tilting her face to look up into my eyes. "That feels so good! Don't stop, please!"
So I didn't. I massaged away, accompanied by an aria of moans and cries of pleasure. Guido, seeming as awkward as I'd felt, applied a hot towel to her face, eliciting a shrill scream, also of pleasure. Tananda moved in and attacked the Imp's long nails with file and a pointed stick.