“What are you doing here?” asked Harrison, and Di, simultaneously. Harrison cowered—no, had taken cover, there was a distinct difference—behind the sofa beside the coffee table, his own huge magnum aimed at the same doorway.
“My job,” they said—also simultaneously.
“What?” (Again in chorus).
“This is all a very amusing study in synchronicity,” said Andre, crouching just behind Harrison, bowler tipped and sword from his umbrella out and ready, “but I suggest you both pay attention to that most boorish party-crasher over there—”
Something very large occluded the light for a moment in the next room, then the lights went out, and Di distinctly heard the sound of the chandelier being torn from the ceiling and thrown against the wall. She winced.
There go my dues up again.
“I got a glimpse,” Andre continued. “It was very large, perhaps ten feet tall, and—cherie, looked like nothing so much as a rubber creature from a very bad movie. Except that I do not think it was rubber.”
At just that moment, there was a thrashing from the other room, and Valentine Vervain, long red hair liberally beslimed, minus nine-foot train and one of her sleeves, scrambled through the door and plastered herself against the wall, where she promptly passed out.
“Valentine?” Di murmured—and snapped her head towards Harrison when he moaned—“Oh no,” in a way that made her sure he knew something.
“Harrison!” she snapped. “Cough it up!”
There was a sound of things breaking in the other room, as if something was fumbling around in the dark, picking up whatever it encountered, and smashing it in frustration.
“Valentine—she said something about getting some of her ‘friends’ together tonight and ‘calling up her soul-mate’ so she could ‘show that ex of hers.’ I gather he appeared at the divorce hearing with a twenty-one-year-old blonde.” Harrison gulped. “I figured she was just blowing it off—I never thought she had any power—”
“You’d be amazed what anger will do,” Di replied grimly, keeping her eyes on the darkened doorway. “Sometimes it even transcends a total lack of talent. Put that together with the time of year—All Hallow’s E’en—Samhain—is tomorrow. The Wall Between the Worlds is especially thin, and power flows are heavy right now. That’s a recipe for disaster if I ever heard one.”
“And here comes M’sieur Soul-Mate,” said Andre, warningly.
What shambled in through the door was nothing that Di had ever heard of. It was, indeed, about ten feet tall. It was a very dark brown. It was covered with luxuriant brown hair—all over. Otherwise, it was nude. If there were any eyes, the hair hid them completely. It was built something along the lines of a powerful body-builder, taken to exaggerated lengths, and it drooled. It also stank, a combination of sulfur and musk so strong it would have brought tears to the eyes of a skunk.
“Wah-wen-ine!” it bawled, waving its arms around, as if it were blind. “Wah-wen-ine!”
“Oh goddess,” Di groaned, putting two and two together and coming up with—she called a soul-mate, and specified parameters. But she forgot to specify “human.” “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
The other writer nodded. “Tall, check. Dark, check. Long hair, check. Handsome—well, I suppose in some circles.” Harrison stared at the thing in fascination.
“Some—thing—that will accept her completely as she is, and love her completely. Young, sure, he can’t be more than five minutes old.” Di watched the thing fumble for the doorframe and cling to it. “Look at that, he can’t see. So love is blind. Strong and as masculine as you can get. And not too bright, which I bet she also specified. Oh, my ears and whiskers.”
Valentine came to, saw the thing, and screamed.
“Wah-wen-ine!” it howled, and lunged for her. Reflexively, Di and Harrison both shot. He emptied his cylinder, and one speed-loader; Di gave up after four shots, when it was obvious they were hitting the thing, to no effect.
Valentine scrambled on hands and knees over the carpet, still screaming—but crawling in the wrong direction, towards the balcony, not the door.
“Merde!” Andre flung himself between the creature’s clutching hands and its summoner, before Di could do anything.
And before Di could react to that, the thing backhanded Andre into a wall hard enough to put him through the plasterboard.
Valentine passed out again. Andre was already out for the count. There are some things even a vampire has a little trouble recovering from.
“Jesus!” Harrison was on his feet, fumbling for something in his pocket. Di joined him, holstering the Glock, and grabbed his arm.
“Harrison, distract it, make a noise, anything!” She pulled the atheme from her boot sheath and began cutting Sigils in the air with it, getting the Words of Dismissal out as fast as she could without slurring the syllables.
Harrison didn’t even hesitate; he grabbed a couple of tin serving trays from the coffee table, shook off their contents, and banged them together.
The thing turned its head toward him, its hands just inches away from its goal. “Wah-wen-ine?” it said.
Harrison banged the trays again. It lunged toward the sound. It was a lot faster than Di had thought it was.
Evidently Harrison made the same error in judgment. It missed him by inches, and he scrambled out of the way by the width of a hair, just as Di concluded the Ritual of Dismissal.
To no effect.
“Hurry up, will you?” Harrison yelped, as the thing threw the couch into the wall and lunged again.
“I’m trying!” she replied through clenched teeth—though not loud enough to distract the thing, which had concluded either (a) Harrison was Valentine or (b) Harrison was keeping it from Valentine. Whichever, it had gone from wailing Valentine’s name to simply wailing, and lunging after Harrison, who was dodging with commendable agility in a man of middle age.
Of course, he has a lot of incentive.
She tried three more dismissals, still with no effect, the room was trashed, and Harrison was getting winded, and running out of heavy, expensive things to throw. . . .
And the only thing she could think of was the “incantation” she used—as a joke—to make the stoplights change in her favor.
Oh hell—a cockamamie incantation pulled it up—
“By the Seven Rings of Zsa Zsa Gabor and the Rock of Elizabeth Taylor I command thee!” she shouted, stepping between the thing and Harrison (who was beginning to stumble). “By the Six Wives of Eddie Fisher and the Words of Karnak the Great I compel thee! Freeze, buddy!”