Erik was lying on the bed, under a blanket, hugging a pillow, with his head in Milo’s lap and Milo’s hand rubbing his back.
Miss Mila was staring at them like she’d just seen a gorilla adopt a kitten and she was reevaluating every bad thing she ever thought about King Kong.
Milo looked up at Mordecai, his mouth drew into a snarl, and he signed, KILL J-O-H-N, one-handed. Fortunately, there was no way in hell Miss Mila spoke Milo’s bastardized version of Sign Language, and she didn’t even know John, so this could not lower her opinion of Kong in the slightest.
Maggie leaned on the bed, firmly behind Erik’s back, waved a hand for Milo’s attention, and signed at him with a similar expression, [J]RAINBOW. [J]RAINBOW. [E]YEBALL WHY [ASK CONDITIONAL] [E]UPSET [/CONDITIONAL] BAKA [YOU]. «sign john’s name like normal! if erik asks why you’re doing that he’ll get upset! you dumbass!»
ASSHOLE, Milo replied, and he didn’t exactly go out of his way to make it plain whether he meant Maggie or John, so he probably meant both.
Mordecai shook his head at both of them. “Please, just give me some space.”
Milo put a pillow under Erik’s head and scooted back on the bed, sitting cross-legged.
Mordecai frowned, he was hoping for slightly more space than that, but he sighed and allowed it. He knelt by the bed and took Erik’s hand. “Dear one, I know this hurts. You are not broken and it’s not forever. Someone…” He shook his head. He didn’t want to invite any more questions, whether Erik remembered the answers or not. “There are things in your head that were supposed to help you, but you don’t need them anymore. I need to help you get past them so you can finish getting better. That’s all it is.”
Erik nodded and drew him into a one-armed hug. “Sorry,” he said softly.
Mordecai nodded against him, without pulling back. “I know how you feel. This isn’t your fault, but I understand how you feel.” Now he drew back, a little, and showed a careful smile. “Is it okay if I try to help you?”
Erik gave him a gentle squeeze. “You’ll do okay.”
“Oh. Yes. I know.”
Erik laughed. A little. “Okay.”
Mordecai picked up the silver coin and showed him. “See…?”
Erik breathed a long, slow sigh. His grey eye rolled closed and the metal one stayed focused on the coin. “Gods, that’s better. Can I just have a minute?”
“Um. Are you sleeping?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Yeah… Yes, then. I mean…” Mordecai looked down and shuffled the papers, though there were only two.
“I’m sick, but it’s just for right now,” Erik said, smiling. “It’s no big deal because you’re here to help me.”
“No, wait, that…” Mordecai blinked at the list of suggestions. That was the first thing on there, right under John’s ragged plea for forgiveness. “No, dear one. You’re all done with that. We have all new things to do now.”
Erik frowned. “Didja lose the old ones again?”
“Lose?” cried Mordecai. He stared at the pages and almost lost hold of the coin.
“Again?” cried Maggie, though she muzzled herself with a hand.
Milo scowled and signed: KILL [EXTRA X3].
Mordecai yelped, “No!” and shook his head at both of them. He shut his eyes and breathed a long sigh of his own, steadying himself on the bed. “No. No, dear one. We’re just all done with the old things. You’re not sick…” He shook his head. “No” never worked as well as “yes.” He had to come up with the opposite of being sick, weak and helpless, and phrase it positively.
You’re well? he thought. You’re better? You’re fine?
That sounded dangerous to him. Erik certainly wasn’t fine, and he wasn’t going to snap out of this and be fine after over a year of repeated trauma.
But…
◆◇◆
In a distant meadow, unobserved and quite irrelevant, a white butterfly flapped its wings.
Elsewhere, perhaps in the same meadow or in another a million miles away, a heavy dew drop clinging to a blade of grass let go, and rolled off the right side.
And Barnaby Graham, if he had seen it, would have said, “Damn.”
◆◆◆
Mordecai shook his head, shaking it away. No buts. He could deal with a little helplessness and anxiety, the point was to lower the volume and make it easier for Erik to deal with it.
Slow down, he told himself. One step at a time.
“You’re getting better,” he told Erik. “Sometimes things are hard for you; sometimes you lose your words or even forget what you’re doing…”
Milo stood up and got one step closer to Mordecai before both Maggie and Hyacinth grabbed him and dragged him away from the bed. He began signing various death threats at them, as his limited mobility would allow, but he couldn’t protest loud enough to interfere with Mordecai.
“…but you know why that is. As soon as you slow down for a minute and catch your breath, you know exactly why that is, and you won’t forget. It’s just because you’re getting better. Getting better takes a lot of time and energy; if you push too hard you won’t have anything left. We’re here to help you. Maggie and Hyacinth and Milo and Ann and… and the General and I are here to help you. We’re good at lots of things. If it’s too scary or hard, or it might be too scary or hard, you need to tag in one of us and trust us to help you. You’re going to have to let some things go without understanding them, or getting them exactly how you want, but that’s fine. Nobody can roll with the punches like you do, Erik…”
“Shall I store him somewhere out of the way?” said the General. “The ceiling, perhaps?”
Maggie swatted her and hissed, “Erik said we never glue Ann and Milo to anything — I have no idea why, but the last thing we want to do is piss them off more! Let me…” She opened the connecting door, stuffed Milo in the adjoining room, and shut him in there, merging the door closed behind her. She kept a hand on it and felt for any magic-assisted attempts to break back in.
Someone rattled the doorknob, but only for a moment. Then, silence. There were silence spells all the hell over the place and she had no idea what he was doing in there.
Then again, as long as he didn’t do anything in here where it might hurt Erik, she guessed she didn’t care.
Hyacinth leaned nearer and muttered, “I thought we wanted to turn that shit off. Why’s he fiddling with the dials and trying to set it halfway?”
“A human mind isn’t a machine,” Maggie said softly. She sighed and shook her head. “Apparently. I don’t know. If he takes it off all the way, Erik might not let us take him home, so he’s trying to fix it just enough so Erik won’t be scared. And he’s not even sure he can do that.” She frowned at Hyacinth. “Our brain expert isn’t so hot in the mental health department, either, so how ‘bout we don’t pressure him and make him screw it up even worse?”
“I’m not the one you should be worried about.” Hyacinth narrowly regarded the door. “You better hope he’s not building a battering ram in there.”
“As long as he overcomplicates it and loads it up with magic like literally everything else he builds, that’s fine.”
“That would be convenient of him,” said the General. She frowned. “Pardon me.” She wandered towards the other door and out into the hall…
…and caught Ann just as she opened the door from the other room.
“Get out of our…”
“No,” said the General, placidly.
“He can’t do that! He can’t leave it like that! He can’t make Erik…”
“My daughter believes it to be a matter of caution and expedience. That is enough for me and it should be enough for you, Miss Rose.”
“That isn’t an enemy soldier or a puzzle or a game in there! That’s Erik! If he doesn’t want to come home, we’ll talk to him and explain it! There’s no reason to… to torture him into doing what we want! This isn’t… This isn’t making decisions for him because he can’t and he’d be hurt by it… This is hurting him so he doesn’t even know we’re doing it and he can’t tell us to stop!”
“Miss Rose, not a half hour ago, a man was pointing a gun at us and threatening to capture or kill all of us. There are more here like him, and they won’t all be as incompetent. Bruised feelings and whatever personal trauma you are reliving at the moment are not a priority. If we play fair, we are more likely to lose, and there will be no do-overs and no mercy. Do you want to make your best effort to get back to your family and children, whom you would kill or die for, or do you want to go scream at a fragile man who is doing his best to help someone he would also kill or die for?” She squared her shoulders. “If you choose the latter, I will fight you.”
Ann’s unpainted mouth was drawn down in a snarl identical to Milo’s. “Don’t you ever,” she hissed. “Don’t you ever talk about my kids that way again. Don’t you ever use the people I love as a bludgeon trying to break me. I’m already broken and I will cut you!”
The General raised a brow. “Are we going to have a fight, Mr. Rose?”
“Yes,” Ann said softly, as she slipped past. “We will both fight you, and everything you stand for… Just not if it might hurt Erik even a little bit more. Not now.”
The General allowed her back into the room without protest — and with a subtle nod of acknowledgement, which Ann ignored.
The spy had a bloody nose and a glazed expression. Hyacinth had deliberately turned her back on it, shielding her eyes with a cupped hand.
Maggie spoke in a low, dangerous voice, “He had a comment, so I punched him. You don’t have a comment, do you, Ann?”
Ann put up a hand and walked past her. Maggie frowned, but allowed her mother to detain her with a touch. Ann sat on the empty bed, also frowning, but without comment.
Mordecai’s voice was still soft and even, but his expression was growing more and more pained. “We won’t lose you again, that’s the important thing. We… You’re safe. Whenever you feel scared, remember right away, we’re here to keep you safe. And…” He flipped over the page he was holding, just making sure that really was all. “You’ve done really well. You’re really smart and great at remembering things when you need them. And…” He sighed. “Erik, please help me with this. Do you want to remember what we talked about or is that too much?”
“I think,” Erik said fuzzily, “not a good idea to remember. Yeah. You said some scary stuff. If I remember, I might not trust you like you need.”
Ann punched the mattress with a stifled growl.
Mordecai shut his eyes. “You’re safe, dear one. Erik. You’re safe, and happy and calm and all good things. You can forget feeling scared about anything… if-if you want to. I want you to stay safe, I want you to stay scared of scary stuff, but… Not too scared. You can forget being scared if you really need it to be okay, okay?”
Erik made a small smile. He nodded. “Yeah. I get it. Okay.” He waited a brief moment, then spoke encouragingly, “And forget what we talked about but remember to do it anyway ’cos I’m smart and good at remembering?”
Mordecai began nodding before he could even get the words out. “Yes. All that. Thank you for helping me, dear one.”
“Yeah. No problem.”
“Okay. I’m going to touch you to wake you and you’ll be wide awake and fine.”
“Maggie think’s I’m always fine,” Erik said, smiling.
Mordecai drew back. “What?”
“It’s a pun,” she told him. “Calm the hell down, he can see you and he gets upset.”
Mordecai shut his eyes, drew a long breath, and let it out slowly. “I’m okay.” He smiled, “You’re very smart, dear one,” and squeezed Erik’s hand.
Erik blinked and smiled. “Yeah, I know.”
He sat up, shaking his head. “Oh, heck. That’s better. Heck. Hang on…” He pressed a hand over both eyes, as if trying to remember a speech without looking at the note cards. “Cat. Train. Yes!” He pointed an eager finger at his uncle. “I’m not sure why I know this and you don’t, but that part doesn’t matter. I gotta…” He sat forward and put both feet on the floor, then sat back, shaking his head. “I’m not sure. Maggie?” He looked up at her. “Can you check David’s coat for me? It’s in a pocket, but I don’t know if it’s the left or the right. Be careful, there’s a pin in it.”
Maggie approached the spy with a doubtful frown and crammed her hand in David’s coat pockets. “I don’t…” There was a folded piece of paper with a safety pin through the corner of it, preventing its removal. “Huh. Okay, yeah, I got it, just a sec…” She undid the pin, pulled it out and shook it open — a blank white piece of paper with a gridmark of creases. “What’s this?”
Erik dashed over and took it from her. “Insurance, but I think John forgot about it. That guy forgets things like nobody’s business, I think he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in about a year. Does anyone have a pen?” He snickered. “I don’t even have pants. Sorry, ma’am.” He offered Miss Mila a bow.
“Mr. Spy took the one I had,” Maggie said acidly. “But…” She pulled out the desk drawer. There were at least a dozen more in there — novelty souvenir pens, with a flashing missive on the side that changed from I [HEART] MARSELLIA to I [HEART] PROKOVIA in an endless loop.
Erik leaned over the desk and wrote, HELLO CENTRAL! MARIGOLD 39. in all caps with occasional reversed letters. The black ink vanished.
“It’s smart paper!” Maggie declared, with a grin. “Someone turned the backlight off, it’s smart paper!”
Erik smiled up at her, still leaning over the desk. “John doesn’t like me to mess with it, but I already figured out how it works. Oh!”
A new ink message faded into view, in neat, dark blue script: Who is this?
Hyacinth, Mordecai and the General all wandered over to stare at it.
Erik glanced at the General, drew back briefly in surprise, then returned to the paper. “It’s Erik,” he said aloud, while writing it.
How did you get this paper?
“John left it for David,” Erik said, writing. “So now I have it. Is John there?”
After a long pause, in new handwriting with black ink: Yes. But I won’t let you talk to him.
“Then ask him. He knows my handwriting too.”
I know your handwriting, “Erik,” said the black ink. If that’s really you. Leave John alone.
“Who is this?” Erik said.
It’s Jen.
Erik beamed. “Hi, Jen! It’s me! Who else would I be?”
David.
Erik scowled. “That jerk,” he muttered, without writing. “No, I am NOT David,” he wrote firmly.
I don’t believe you.
Erik sighed. He held the pen, tapping the clicky end nervously on the desk. “How else can I…?” He shook his head and began to write again, “Jen, if you really do have John there, David’s been ordering him around trying to keep him safe and I’m not sure it’s gonna work. You need someone to stick with him and do actual mental healthcare instead of mind control, you get me?”
Another long pause.
Hang on.
Erik turned and sat on the edge of the desk, holding the paper in one casual hand. He smiled at the others. “She’s gonna check on him. We’ll get this straightened out. No… Wait, here we go!”
John is upstairs with Rob, the jagged black printing said, eating samosas and CRYING. And YOU CAN’T DO MIND CONTROL, DAVID!
Erik groaned and clapped a hand to his forehead. “For gods’ sakes…” He leaned down and wrote, “Yes he can! He told John he couldn’t at the movies yesterday. And he’d NEVER tell you that! All the gods can boss people around but David does it constantly. If you’ve been working with his lying ass you know that. He orders people to believe him and they do!” He added several extra exclamation points and slumped with a sigh. “Auntie Hyacinth, can you talk to this person, please? Maybe she’ll believe you.”
Hyacinth traded places with him, looking doubtful. “Okay, kid, but if she believes you about the mind control, she shouldn’t believe any of us.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got some kinda immunity and she knows you’re the most honest person ever, so give it your best shot, yeah? Tap it twice with the pen to send it, took me forever to figure that out.” Erik sat on the edge of the desk and offered a weak smile. “Hi, guys. Um. Sorry about…” He blinked at the bandage on his hand, winced, and hid it behind him. “Literally everything.”
Mordecai took him by the shoulders and shook his head. “None of this is your fault. I don’t like how it is, either, but it’s not your fault.”
Erik nodded and pulled him into a hug. “Yeah. I know.” He smiled at Maggie over his uncle’s shoulder. “So, uh, what’s the story?”
She put up her hands. “We’re taking you home and I don’t want to get into the specifics while we have an actual spy right there, fool.”
Andrej gave a low groan and Maggie gleefully shoved him and his desk chair away, making more room for herself.
“Ooh!” Erik turned back towards the desk. “Auntie Hyacinth! Tell them we’ve got a spy and we’ll trade them. Then they’ll come get us for sure!”
Hyacinth dropped the pen and straightened to stare at him. “‘Come get us’? How? Are they here?”
“No,” Erik replied. He shrugged. “Maybe. Sometimes. But it doesn’t matter. Greg will take them wherever they want as long as there’s a cat…”
Mordecai smacked a hand to his head with wide-eyed disbelief. “Oh, my gods.”
“…or whatever, but cats and immies get along and they’re small and portable, so I think it’s mostly cats. Hey…” Erik picked up the stuffed bear, which was also on the desk, beside the violin case. “Is this guy’s name Robert?”
Maggie’s eyes widened, Mordecai staggered back a pace and Hyacinth turned and stared again, “Holy shit. What?”
Erik grinned. “Tell ‘em we got that little girl’s stuffie too. I don’t know her name, but she’s been yelling about it for weeks.”
“Sofie Kijek!” Maggie cried. She grabbed him and hugged so hard she picked his feet off the floor. “The Rainbows got the Kijeks!”
“…and all their animals,” Mordecai said numbly. “Because of Greg. Because they’re using Greg to relocate, and he won’t hurt animals.” He turned Erik around as soon as Maggie put him down. “Did you tell them how to do that?”
Erik’s smile faded. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Should I not have done that?”
“Of course you should have!” Maggie cried.
Mordecai looked more doubtful. He shook his head, trying to shake it away. “They need it. They needed it to help people.” He nodded and clasped Erik’s hand. “It’s good, dear one. I… I just worry too much.”
“You’re right a lot, though,” Erik said, frowning.
Mordecai opened his mouth and closed it. But he had to say something, and he couldn’t come up with a total lie. “I-I told you a lot of stuff. Sometimes knowing that stuff gives people a reason to… to steal you and hurt you so you’ll do what they want.”
Ann stood up with a frown.
Erik sat down on the floor. “Someone could hurt the Rainbows and learn how to hurt a whole bunch more people, and… And I didn’t have to actually learn how to build a rollercoaster for real but that’s not it.” He looked up. “Do you guys know what I’m missing? It’s something important.”
Mordecai crouched beside him. “We know it and you don’t have to. Not right now. It’s too much.”
“Did I screw up?”
“No, dear one. Maybe I did, but it was a long time ago and it might still be okay. You did a good thing and I’m proud of you. I just worry too much, that’s all it is.”
“Em?” Ann was behind him, with her hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t do this. This wasn’t you. You’re… you’re doing your best.”
Her touch was so heavy, he couldn’t lift his head.
Hyacinth nudged Erik with the side of her shoe. “Kid, I don’t think I should’ve mentioned the bear. Now she’s sure I’m lying.”
Erik sighed. He stood and examined the paper. “Hell. What is it, you guys know? Copy? Attachment? No… A picture, you know?”
“Photocopy,” Maggie said.
Erik wrote, SEND PHOTOCOPY, mashed the bear’s face against the paper, and tapped the corner twice with the pen. He added, JOHN AND DAVID AND I NEVER SAW THE DAMN THING. I CAN’T FORGE A BEAR, and sent that too.
There was no immediate reply. Erik sighed and slumped over the desk. “I have no idea where they are, but I hope Sofie’s awake enough… Ooh, hey.” He dragged the case over, opened it on top of the paper, and had a look inside. “New violin!” He beamed at his uncle. “What’s her name?”
Mordecai looked aside, embarrassed, but admitted, “Prue.”
Hyacinth goggled at him. “We barely had that thing a week. You’re sick.”
He smiled at her. “Well, whose fault is that?”
“Dear Prudence!” Erik said. He lifted the instrument out of the case and spun it in his hands. He ran a finger around the curves of the body and peered through an f-hole. “Aww. No kick.” He frowned at his uncle. “You are sick.”
“She doesn’t need,” Mordecai began, hotly. He covered his mouth with a hand. He managed a weak smile. “Maybe.”
Erik set the case aside and held the violin out. “Milo, can you fix it?”
Ann took it. “Ann, sweetheart.” She smiled. “I just left off the makeup.”
“Ann!” He beamed at her, took her hand, and spun her around. “Ann-Ann-Ann! Don’t ever change, okay?”
“Well, I shall do my very best, dear!”
Erik pointed at the violin, “But have Milo fix it as soon as he gets back, yeah?”
“He’ll try!”
Mordecai stifled a groan and hid his eyes in his hand. “It’s fine. I don’t need a violin. You can play it however you want, with however-many pointless magic geegaws stuck on it, forever. I meant that. It’s fine…”
“Shoot.” Erik picked up the paper and turned away from the desk, reading. “What? Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait…”
He leaned over the desk with the pen, but he dropped it without writing, shaking his head.
“You guys? I don’t get this.” He held up the paper. There were several paragraphs in ragged printing, and another in progress at the bottom, but Erik didn’t hold still long enough for them to read it for themselves. “She says she’s sorry, she believes us, and they want to help the day clerk and pick up the spy, but she’s scared of us.”
He gave the pen and paper to his uncle, and summarized for the rest of them, “She was pissed when she thought it was David, but now she knows it’s us and she’s treating me like I’ve got hostages. She doesn’t want us to hurt John. She doesn’t want us to hurt her family, or grab them and threaten to hurt them so we can hurt John. She says they’ll do whatever we want if we just go away and leave them alone… And she’s talking to me like I should understand this and I don’t, but if I tell her that she might think I’m David again. What the heck is going on?”
From Erik’s end of the room, it was obvious everyone — barring the day clerk and the spy — knew exactly what was going on, as soon as he said “hurt John.” Their expressions were variously pained, embarrassed, and, in Ann’s case, furious.
And, from everyone else’s end of the room, it was obvious that Erik knew they knew what was going on, and he was gearing up to demand answers.
Maggie put up both hands and spoke quickly, “Spy, Erik! There’s a spy! If they don’t pick him up, we’re gonna hafta let him go, and somebody might believe him eventually!”
“Then you have to argue with her!” Erik snapped. He strode past Maggie, focused on Ann. “Why are you pissed at my friend? Our friend! He took care of me when you…”
His eye whirred and adjusted. He staggered backwards, blinking and shaking his head.
Mordecai straightened at the sound and abandoned his half-written negotiation attempt. “Dear one, it’s okay. You know why that happens. You know what that is. It’s going to get better.”
Erik sat down on the floor, still shaking his head. Mordecai sat next to him on one side, Maggie on the other. Maggie said, “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” Mordecai said. He wrapped an arm around Erik and squeezed. “We know it’s not okay. You don’t have to tell us. It’s been hard for a long time and I wish I could turn that off like a faucet for you, but I know I can’t,” he glanced at Maggie and Ann, “and it would hurt you if I tried. Thank you for helping us, but we can take it from here.”
Ann stamped into the closet and shut the mirrored door behind her. There was a muffled snarl. The wall shuddered and Erik’s duck painting, which had been resting against it, fell forward with a thump.
“Damn it,” said Hyacinth. “I’m gonna run out of bandettes.” She left the paper on the desk and had a look under the bed. “Where’s the cat? They need the cat to be in here, with nobody else looking and the doors closed.”
Mordecai looked up with a scowl. “Did you send that? I wasn’t finished!”
Hyacinth was on her hands and knees. She lifted one bedskirt, then the other. “She said they’d give us a free, instant trip home and enough money to rewire the goddamn house. I said, ‘Hell yes.’” She stood up, cradling Misha like an infant. All four of his legs were sticking up in the air like a toast rack, but he seemed tolerant.
The closet door popped back open. Ann had a grin like a rabid wolf. “Oh? Are we going to visit our dear friend John?”
Maggie responded with an instant frown. “Cin, wait…”
The General stood. “Hell no,” she said. “Drop the cat and rescind your permission immediately. That is an order.”
Hyacinth dumped Misha on the desktop and held up the pen, annoyed, “I don’t take orders. Tell me why, or I’m pulling the pin on joining the 14th century.”
Maggie groaned. “They think we’re a threat, you guys…”
“But that’s ridiculous!” Ann said, grinning.
Maggie spared her a brief glance, and an irritated huff. “…And it doesn’t matter whether we are one or not. We could get them all killed, and the safest thing for them to do is not give us a lift home and let us go on our way. I’m pretty sure they don’t want to hurt us, and I don’t want to hurt them, but I can’t trust a group of people with that much incentive to kill us.” She shook her head. “If we go with them, there’s no way in hell they just let us go home, and there’s a chance someone ends up dead. We can’t do this.”
The General nodded. “In the interest of maintaining the peace, we must maintain our leverage, until our two causes have gathered enough material evidence to believe we mean each other no harm. We are definitely not there yet. Ideally, we will make our way home under our own power, without sharing the details of our itinerary, so we cannot be intercepted. Then, if we elect not to harm the Green-Taras, we may reopen negotiations.”
Erik spoke softly, gazing at the floor. “I don’t understand…”
Maggie hugged him. “We’ll get there. It’ll be stupid and frustrating, but we will get there.” She smiled. “Then you can tell us how bad we screwed up and how you could’ve fixed it better.”
Erik sniffled. His hand crept to the edge of his metal patch and began to rub.
Mordecai glared at her, then dropped his head to address Erik, “No, dear one. We won’t screw up. She’s just teasing you. We’ll be okay…” The day clerk nudged him with a box of tissues. He took them, and offered one to Erik. “It’s fine…”
“So, what?” said Hyacinth, above them. “I’m asking for a shit-ton of money, and then I want them to go away and let us make our own arrangements? Is that what we want? This girl is granting wishes.” She winced and touched a hand to her head. “Erik, if David just briefly materialized and told me to get Dave and Lucy a pony, you would’ve seen him, right?”
Erik shrugged, sniffed, and wiped his eye with the tissue. “I-I don’t always.”
“I’m probably just haunting myself,” she muttered, writing. “Anyway, I won’t give you the satisfaction…” A moment later, she announced, “They need a minute, because they’re trying to hunt someone up we probably won’t kidnap or kill.” She sighed. “Honestly. I never wanted to be a band of mercenaries. I don’t know how in the hell that happened…” She read from the paper, “‘And it’s going to be loud and bright, so please don’t panic and blow our heads off.’” She rolled her eyes and made her best effort to explain to the day clerk.
Mordecai looked up. “Hyacinth, how much money did you ask for? They need money…”
“No they don’t,” Erik said, “I told them how to call gods to win money on horses.”
Mordecai goggled at him. “That was…”
There was a bang, and a blinding flash of white light. The day clerk gave a yelp, and the spy groaned, but everyone else was more used to that sort of thing. Ann even drew a step nearer, before her eyes adjusted and she drew back with a gasp, her threatening grin evaporating in shock.
A milk-white individual whom Ann, Maggie, Hyacinth and Mordecai instantly recognized was already leaning down with a smile to say hi to the cat. A dark brown individual whom only Mordecai recognized was standing beside him, and Mordecai suddenly didn’t care about meeting what’s-his-name from the flyers. “Jungle Vampire,” he whispered, in awe.
Maggie looked the statuesque old lady in the leopard-print dressing gown up and down, scowled, and swatted him on the back of the head. “What the hell, Em?”
But the lady cackled and self-consciously patted her crinkly white hair. “She said you were a fan! You like that dreck?”
He nodded silently, staring.
She grinned at him. “I like it too. They let me make up all my own lines. I probably blew some lip-readers right out of the theatre!”
Maggie looked her up and down again. “What?”
The woman offered her gnarled and well-manicured hand to shake. There was a loose ring with a large white stone on one finger that couldn’t possibly fit over the knuckle. It must’ve been there since before arthritis set in. “I used to be Carolina Bow, but I don’t mind if you’ve heard of her. I got bored of being a movie star a long time ago. Now I’m funding a terrorist cell! Nell said you definitely wouldn’t hurt me. Was she right?”
