

The Gobsmacked Goblin Caper

_(_ _The Girl From_ _G.O.T.C.H.A. #2)_

By Stanley Bruce Carter

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2020 By Stanley Bruce Carter
CHAPTER ONE

Tacita Pruval struggled to keep her legs together as the object clamped between them sent surges of energy into her pulsating pussy. Stifling a moan, she forced the muscles of her face to stiffen into an impassive mask as Aldest Begesaso approached, his soulless silvery eyes drilling into her.

"What are you doing here, Lady Tacita?" he said. "This level of the palace is off limits."

Somehow she maintained a calm and level voice as she replied: "I'm ever so sorry, sir. I seem to have lost my way. Would you be so kind as to direct me to the gardens?"

A slight smile intruded upon the grim set of his lips. "There is no access to the gardens from this level and you could not possibly have strayed down here by accident. Tell me, how did you incapacitate the guards and get through the locked doors?"

"Surely you jest, Captain. How could a mere slip of a girl like me incapacitate anyone? I found the doors ajar and the guards asleep. I didn't wish to disturb them, so I walked on by."

"They are not asleep. They are unconscious. You must have slipped a potion of some sort into their grog."

"How could I slip something into their grog without them noticing?"

His eyes flitted over her curvaceous body, clearly defined by her tight pale-blue gown of Lemurian lace. "I'm sure you're quite adept at diverting the eyes of unsuspecting males."

"And why, pray tell, would I wish to enter a restricted area?"

"Perhaps the answer lies in here." He grabbed the brown leather bag hanging off her left wrist.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"Do you object to me searching your bag?"

"I most certainly do! How dare you, sir!"

Ignoring her protest, he yanked the bag free of her arm and pulled the top open, peered inside, looked up. "Why are you carrying an empty bag?"

The sensations within her moist, dilating pussy were so intense now she wanted to scream, and her voice was tight and tense as she replied: "If you must know, I heard rumors that the paths in the royal gardens are paved with lovely stones of unusual coloration and if a visitor takes some of them and places them under her pillow they bring soothing dreams and good luck. But if you're going to treat me like a criminal, I'll abandon the idea. Now if you'll excuse me..."

He seized her arm. "So you're interested in stones, eh? Heh. I have no doubt. And one stone in particular, eh? The kind that cannot be found in the garden!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"No? Then let us go to my chambers, where I shall make my meaning clear."

The words sent a shiver up her spine, for Aldest Begesaso was head of the Vesyja, the secret police of King Gadeirus, signified by the little silver skulls on the epaulettes of his black tunic. And his chambers were said to contain an astonishing assortment of implements, gadgets and potions designed to loosen the tongues of even the most tight-lipped individuals.

As he dragged her toward the far end of the corridor she stumbled and fell, her knees painfully striking the flagstones, jarring the object between her legs. He hauled her to her feet and the object came free and hit the floor with a "thunk." The orgasm swelling within her pussy subsided and she drew a shuddery breath, relieved – and disappointed – at the abrupt end to the stimulation.

He stared at the hem of her long gown. "I think you dropped something, Lady Tacita."

"How could I? My hands are empty."

"I heard something fall. Beneath your gown."

"I heard nothing."

"Lift your hem."

"How dare you make such a suggestion, sir! You forget I am a highborn lady and a visitor to your fair land."

"I forget nothing." He grabbed her hem and yanked it up, revealing her shapely shins – and a blue suede bag on the floor between her slippered feet. He bent down and snatched it up, opened the drawstrings...

And smiled grimly as he beheld the object, a crystalline oval resembling a mini-football only thinner, made from fused chunks of amber, purple cat's-eye and green gnomestone, capped by brass at one end, orichalcum at the other. A scarab was encased within the crystal's hollowed-out interior, flanked by six half-inch-wide moonstone runes bearing carvings of strange glyphs.

"I thought so!" he cried. "The Stone of Rimeh!"

"Yep," she said, and delivered a karate chop to the side of his neck.

"Uh!"

Down he went. She picked up the Stone and returned it to the blue suede bag, dropped that bag into the larger one and slid the strap onto her arm. With the Stone now resting on her hip instead of nestled between her thighs, its energy was barely noticeable.

She trotted down the corridor, turned the corner, slipped through a half-open door and approached two guards lying unconscious in the middle of the hallway. They'd been easy marks, not even asking to see her pass when she came strolling into the restricted area a half-hour earlier. They didn't realize she'd gained entry using a retractable electro-magnetic lockpick embedded in her left pinky; surely she must have been given a key by one of the higher-ups. Her slinky walk and the promising pout of her lips and the alluring look in her eyes had removed any lingering traces of doubt from their lusty minds and when she "accidentally" dropped her hanky, naturally they bent down to pick it up, nearly bonking their heads together; two karate chops had finished the encounter.

She paused now to take one last look at the shorter of the two guards, who was a real cutie, then moved on, passing through another door, climbing a spiral staircase of polished crimstone, hurrying down another hallway – past two more sprawled guards – and mounting one final set of stairs before heading for an arched exit.

As she started across the drawbridge she glanced down into the murky water. Some people said it was filled with crocodiles. Others said the moat walls contained Mercurite crystals that brought the water to a boil within seconds if a person fell into it.

What if someone stumbles across those guards I knocked out? They'll raise the alarm – and the drawbridge. It folds in the middle; I'll end up in the moat.

She shuddered. And pondered: _Which would be worse, chewed or brewed?_

But no alarm sounded and she made it to the end of the drawbridge and headed up the wide flagstone walkway to an outer gate and onto the street. She hurried to the teeming market district a block away, where a dozen taxis sat at a cab stand – cigar-shaped craft, their hulls made from bark, with glass bubble canopies and wicker seats.

She approached the first cab in the line. The driver, a mustachioed man with a long, thin face, was leaning against the side of his conveyance reading a newspaper but looked up as she approached, his gray eyes twinkling, admiring her beauty.

"Where to, miss?" he said.

"Shyormo," she said. "The Palace of Purple Spires."

He tipped his black cloth cap to her. "Very good, miss."

He tossed his newspaper into the cockpit and opened the passenger door for her. She climbed in and sat down in the wicker seat. He got into the front and moved a lever to shut the bubble canopy, then twisted a knob on the control panel. A needle on a dial twitched as a small blue crystal in the nose compartment sought out the invisible grid of vril energy emanating from the central power station of Atlantis. The cabby worked the joystick and the craft lifted gracefully and soared skyward, banking gently as it swung onto the proper beam.

Tacita gazed down at the city of Seradenda as it drifted by – marble towers in various shades of green and blue, many topped by gleaming orichalcum domes with round landing pads protruding from the upper floors like mushrooms on logs, and a web of brass and glass walkways linking them all together. The wide streets were paved with cobalt-blue cobblestones and filled with pedestrians and unicorn-drawn chariots and steam-powered buggies and spring-motored bicycles.

Above her stretched the massive glass dome that shielded Atlantis from the crushing weight of millions of tons of ocean water, supported by huge iron girders with giant golden sun-globes hanging beneath them, providing the city with its light and warmth. The dome itself had been made by Poseidon, who had scooped up a dozen beach-loads of sand and transformed it into glass with his superheated breath just in the nick of time, moments before the deluge inundated the sinking city. Zeus had sent that deluge, for he was angry with the Atlanteans for their overweening pride and effrontery in seeking powers reserved for the gods. Later, when Zeus learned the island continent had survived, he was pissed off at Poseidon, but Hermes interceded on behalf of the sea god and a truce was declared. Zeus agreed to spare Atlantis from further attacks if the citizens showed some humility and remained faithful to the gods. But that was ages ago. How much longer could Atlanteans resist temptation? And what greater temptation could there be than the Stone of Rimeh?

Of course Zeus didn't really exist. Not in _her_ universe. But she was in an alternate universe now. A different reality. And the gods were not to be trifled with.

***

Tacita's musings ended abruptly as she glanced behind her and spotted five specks emerging from a cloud bank and veering sharply in her direction, diving steeply, closing rapidly. She faced forward and tapped the driver on his shoulder.

"Step on it!"

He glanced at his feet, then at her. "Step on what, miss?"

"I mean, make this contraption go faster! We're being followed."

He peered behind her. The pursuers were closer now and he could make out details – blue pursuit ships with the Royal Air Patrol crest emblazoned on their noses above ray guns shaped like tuning forks. Red lights atop the canopies began to flash.

"That's the RAP, miss," the cabby said.

"I know that. Speed up!"

He eyed her suspiciously. "You in some kind of trouble?"

"Never mind the questions. Get moving!"

"Can't do that, miss. I'll have to hover and let them pull alongside. It's the law."

She slipped a hand into the slit in her gown, pulled her Colt Lightning 400-megawatt ray pistol from her thigh holster and waved it under the cabby's nose.

"Do what I say or I'll vaporize you!"

He smirked. "With that? What is it, a curling iron?"

Zzz!

He slumped to the side, out cold. She grabbed his shoulders and wrestled him out of the pilot's chair, laid him down in the passenger area and took his seat, shoving the throttle to maximum as the blue crystal in the nose crackled and thrummed.

Zapuzz! Zapuzz!

Flashes of magenta light from the RAP's nose guns shot past the taxi on either side. Tacita jerked the joystick, zigzagging the taxi from one vril beam to another and back again as she popped the canopy and turned around, taking careful aim at the lead pursuer. Making sure the power dial on her pistol was set to Medium, she pulled the trigger and a thin, pale-blue beam struck the pursuit ship, crumpling the nose and knocking out its crystal. The ship drifted off the grid, slowing, and the pilot of the next ship didn't react fast enough. The two craft collided and burst apart, the pilots falling out of them and plunging toward the ground, their arms windmilling frantically.

"Damn!" Tacita muttered, regretting the loss of life.

More magenta beams darted her way and she returned fire again, disabling a third and fourth ship. The fifth one broke off pursuit and circled back, diving toward the spot where the doomed pilots had met the earth.

Tacita faced forward again, forcing the grim image out of her mind, and guided the taxi onto the proper beam that would take her to the city of Shyormo and the Palace of Purple Spires.

***

She dined on limpet cakes and sea-turtle kebabs garnished with bulrushes and nibbled on little pies filled with poha berries and pomegranates, washing it all down with jocote wine served to her by a most dutiful servant, a well-muscled, olive-skinned lad wearing nothing more than a dhoti and sandals.

She kept asking for refills of her golden goblet even after she'd quenched her thirst, eager for any excuse to bring the young man close to her again so she could admire his physique up-close and gaze into his dark, smoldering eyes, which darted often to the deep cleavage revealed by her low-cut gown.

_I wouldn't mind nibbling on HIM,_ she mused as he raised his silver pitcher, embossed with images of frolicking mermaids, and poured more wine into her goblet with trembling hands.

It would be so easy to bed him. She was the toast of the town and the guest of honor at the banquet and anything she wanted, including a boy toy, would no doubt be cheerfully provided. And judging by the ardor in the young man's eyes and the bulge in his dhoti, he would go most willingly to whatever bed chamber she selected. Too bad he was under-age.

But there were other males, a tad older, who would be fair game, such as Kannadis and his brother Perimos, sitting to either side of her at the table opposite their father, Periphetes, the king's high chancellor. Both lads were in their early twenties, with fleecy hair and sculpted physiques clad in tight white togas of fine linen trimmed in gold thread, and they smelled of lavender – not unusual in Atlantis, where gentlemen of the higher classes often adorned themselves with pleasant scents. (Their father, in contrast, eschewed such things in favor of a no-nonsense air.)

Such a feast for the eyes. But which dish should I devour first if the opportunity arises?

Her erotic musings ended when King Diaprepes cleared his throat and the chatter at the table abruptly ceased as all eyes turned to him. The king rose and began to speak, briefly relating how Thertanok, one of his top officers, had been ordered to recover the stolen Stone of Rimeh from the palace of Diaprepes' brother, King Gadeirus, in Seradenda. Sending an army was out of the question, since an overt attack would result in a disastrous war, so Thertanok went in alone, relying on stealth and cunning and shunning any unnecessary violence. He failed in his mission and in desperation he consulted Vexafarwayo, the soothsayer, who told him to risk a portal journey to the Other Realities to seek the aide of an adventuress whose astounding exploits had been glimpsed in the Orb of Heroics and were the stuff of legend.

"Perhaps at this point you should continue the narrative," the king said, and Tacita took up the tale, relating how she had accompanied Thertanok to Atlantis, where the portal ruptured as she emerged from it and Thertanok vanished before her eyes, leaving her to undertake the mission alone, defying the odds to emerge victorious after a hair-raising adventure.

"And now the Stone of Rimeh is returned to us," the king concluded, gesturing at the crystal, which sat on a silver platter with handles shaped like nymphs. "And it is all thanks to Lady Tacita's valiant efforts." He raised his goblet to her. The other diners did likewise. "All hail Lady Tacita!"

A chorus of acclamation swelled in her ears. When it faded she gave a deep nod of her head. "You are too kind, your majesty."

Perimos took a healthy swig of his wine and said, in slightly slurred tones, "Lady Tacita, this America must be a wondrous place indeed to spawn females such as yourself, a combination of bravery and beauty the equal of which could not be found in all of Atlantis – nor, I daresay, in Lemuria or even far-off Mu."

"You flatter me, sir," she said.

Karkhaf, who wore a prosthetic ivory thumb on his left hand and a black patch over his right eye with a single ruby in its center, grunted his assent. "I have voyaged to those lands – aye, and to unnamed isles at the farthest reaches of the world. Yet I have never encountered this America. Can it only be reached by portal?"

"Yes, sir," Tacita said. "For it lies in another plane of existence."

"Then I shall use this portal to make my own voyage to America. If the women there are half as lovely as yourself..."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question," the king said. "Portals are too difficult and costly to create – and too delicate and dangerous – for me to permit their use on whimsical journeys. They are a desperate measure employed only in matters of national emergency."

"But this _is_ an emergency, your majesty!" Karkhaf said. "There exists an entire continent full of undiscovered women who know nothing of my prowess. I must make haste to deliver them from this appalling deprivation."

"No," Diaprepes said, in a tone of voice suggesting it would be unwise for Karkhaf to continue.

Tacita changed the subject: "So tell me, your majesty, is there any news of Thertanok?"

The king shook his head solemnly. "No. We must presume him lost and I mourn his passing. He was a brave and dutiful soldier. But with all due respect to him, it is the disappearance of Rimeh that disturbs me the most – a baffling mystery indeed."

Nalaech, a man in his sixties who wore the tonsured hair and saffron robe of a cleric, said, "No mystery to it, your highness. Rimeh meddled with things man should leave alone. He angered the gods and the gods took him away."

Now Tetishen spoke up. He was in his thirties, with dark blue hair swept down over one eye in the custom of Mu, his homeland. "Forgive my ignorance, but as a visitor to Atlantis I am unfamiliar with this Rimeh. Who exactly was he?"

Now spake Iphiclus, whose four amulets – blood red, sky blue, sea green and earth brown – marked him as an alchemist. "There was nothing 'exact' about that gentleman. A dabbler, that's all he was. A man of approximations and imprecisions, a shallow and careless man with a smattering of knowledge in a profession where depth is vital, a man who drifted into the dangerous and tempestuous waters of mysticism when he should have kept to the placid mainstream of scientific inquiry."

The king cut him off with a chopping motion of his hand. "Do not speak ill of the dead."

Iphiclus bowed. "My apologies, your majesty."

The king looked at Tetishen. "Rimeh was my royal alchemist, a position Iphiclus now holds. Rimeh created the crystal that bears his name and claimed it had the power to make any wish come true – if he could only figure out how to harness that power. He said he was inspired by dreams sent by the gods – although others have suggested his nocturnal visions came from darker sources – but whatever the source, those dreams only revealed the formula for making the Stone, not the secrets to unleashing its power. But his early experiments showed great promise, so Rimeh took the stone to the alchemist's fair in Tadyrug to show his colleagues how much progress he had made. As you can imagine, the stone caused a considerable stir. Not all of the comments were favorable."

Diaprepes took a swallow of wine, then continued. "Alas, as Rimeh was returning to Shyormo he was accosted by bandits who stole the stone and slew him in the process. Later we learned these so-called bandits were actually agents working for my evil brother. Rimeh's body was taken to the temple of Thanatas so it could be prepared for entombment, but the next morning, as the corpse was being lathered with holy unguents, it vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving nothing behind, not even dust. The high priests fear that Rimeh may have ..."

He shook his head. "But enough unpleasant talk. We are here to celebrate the heroics of Lady Tacita and the safe return of the stone. So let us refill our goblets and our platters and..."

Perimos got up from his chair. "I must get a closer look at this glorious rock." He staggered over to the platter and picked up the stone, peered at it, smirked. "Ugly little thing, isn't it?"

"Put that down, Perimos," his father growled. "It's dangerous."

Perimos chuckled. "It didn't hurt _her,_ did it?" He nodded at Tacita.

"She's a sorceress," his father retorted. "You're not."

Perimos turned the stone over in his hand, examining it at various angles. "Can this thing make portals?"

"It can probably do just about anything," Periphetes said, "once its secrets are pried loose. But that is a task for wisemen, not a dissolute rapscallion."

Perimos ignored his father's comment and started shaking the stone. "Come on, magic rock, cook us up a portal so Karkhaf and I can go to far-off America and chase beauteous women."

"Put it down, you fool," Kannadis said, rising halfway from his chair.

Smirking at his brother, Perimos rubbed the stone vigorously with his middle finger. "Come on, Rimeh rock, do your stuff. Abracadabra, sis-boom-balla, presto-zesto, walla walla washa ..."

TUZZAPOOF!

A blinding flash of copper-colored light darted from the stone, striking the young man in the chest. He fell to the floor. His father and brother rushed to his aide, then backed away, crying out in alarm. Tacita pushed past them and bent down over Perimos as the other diners rose and gathered behind her, murmuring their fear and astonishment. For there was a deep hole in Perimos' chest, twelve inches in diameter, with wavy edges and not a drop of blood in sight, and no bone or tissue within the hole, just pinpricks of light against a sable background – like the night sky, only these stars were golden instead of white and rotating slowly counterclockwise.

And then things got even weirder as a small arm reached out of the hole, a lavender arm with a bulging bicep encircled by a wide band of gold, and a hand clutched at the front of Tacita's gown and yanked her down with astonishing strength.

For a moment Tacita lay on top of Perimos' body, and then the hole seemed to widen, or perhaps her body shrunk, and she slid inside, feeling warm and chilly and tingly at the same time as she swirled around and plummeted down, down, down into tumultuous nothingness.

CHAPTER TWO

She was sitting on solid ground – well, sort of solid. Kind of mucky, actually, and it was soaking her rump, but at least she wasn't hurtling through mini-space inside a dead man's chest, although this place didn't seem much more hospitable – a gently rolling and barren landscape with some brush and boulders here and there and one scraggly tree and big black puddles scattered about, glistening evilly beneath a full moon. And there in the distance, about three hundred yards away, a Victorian-style mansion brooded, with a single lit window at the top of the turret.

Tacita raised her head, gazing at the white, still stars. A chill breeze tousled her hair and she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, then looked down at her clothes. Her Instapparel WombLoom app had used heuristics to calculate appropriate attire, transforming the fibers of her Atlantean robe into a white dress of Victorian style.

"Add a shawl," she said, and some new fibers sprang from the loom, weaving themselves into a chocolate colored shawl that crept up her torso and settled over her shoulders.

Better.

She did a slow three-sixty, peering into the darkness, searching for the portal that had brought her here. Surely that's what the hole in Perimos' chest had been, an opening into time and space. She knew something about portals, but mainly from dealing with the TimeTutor, an experimental app she'd used on previous missions to access "time slots," closed loops from the history of her own world. But Atlantean portals were a different breed altogether, untamed tech that could plunge the user into endless pasts and presents and futures in infinite realities. Unpredictable and dangerous stuff.

The Perimos portal was nowhere to be seen, nor was the lavender creature who had dragged her into it. She stared at the lit window. In there?

She slid open the flesh-colored plate in her left hand and her palm-top smart device glowed to life.

"Scan for portals," she said.

"Why should I?" the palm-top replied, in a man-child voice she'd never heard before.

She blinked in surprise. "Uh, because I told you to."

"My, aren't we bossy? Maybe you should _ask_ me, not tell me."

WTF?

"OK, would you _please_ scan for portals?"

"Why do you want a portal? You just got here."

"So I can get out of here and go back to where I was."

"You want to go back to that boring dinner party when you've got this nifty old mansion to explore?"

"Is this Alexa? Because if it is, you're not supposed to be enabled on this device."

I never should have installed that last Windows 10 update!

"I'm not an app, sweetie. I'm a goblenie."

"A what?"

"A goblenie. Half goblin, half genie."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope. I'm a paid-up member of the Genies, Gremlins and Goblins Local 613. My first name's Dym. No jokes, please."

It can't be a virus. I've got Malwarebytes Premium installed.

"OK, Dym, would you mind telling me why you grabbed me and brought me here?"

"No, I don't mind."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Oh for God's sake! Quit playing games and tell me!"

"Hey, you didn't ask me to tell you, you asked me if I _minded_ telling you. I answered your question."

Sigh. "OK, since you don't mind telling me, would you please do so?"

"Sure. I just happened to be cruising the astral plane and I spotted your portal and thought I'd take it for a little spin. And no joyride is complete without a hot blonde babe to share it with, so I brought you along."

"But why did you bring me _here?"_

"I didn't bring you here, the portal did. It could have dumped you in the middle of a Wal-Mart parking lot in 1998 Omaha or a bean field in 1792 Flanders or a windmill in 1014 Holland, but instead it came here. I figure it must be the dangerous vibes this place is giving off. You give off the same vibes, so the portal found a match and made a link. I could break the link and send you back to that boring dinner party, but what fun would that be?"

"Hey, let me clue you in on something, buster. I don't have time for fun and games, or for mischievous spirits with too much time on their hands."

"You have all the time in the world, sweetie. Eons and eons of it."

Sigh. "If I explore the mansion, will you take me back to Atlantis?"

"Sure. I might even give you the Stone of Rimeh to take with you."

"The Stone is here?"

"It depends on how you define 'here.' But never mind that. Time to embark on your fun little quest in the mansion. But watch out for those puddles. They're about fifteen feet deep and full of muck and if you fall into one you'll die. And when you get to the mansion – _if_ you get to the mansion – make a covert entry and sneak up to the turret room and take them by surprise."

"I've got a better idea. Why don't I just walk up to the front door and knock on it and ask politely if ..."

"Now where's the fun in that?"

"I already told you..."

"Listen, sweetie, I've gotta go play with my other holes for awhile, so why don't you check out the mansion and I'll catch you later when you're in a better mood, OK?"

"No, it's not OK. And stop calling me sweetie. You've got no right to..."

Bloop!

Her palm-top went dark.

She tapped the power icon. Nothing. She shook her hand vigorously. (Her device was powered by a mini-turbine utilizing the blood flowing through her arteries, so shaking her hand sometimes helped it power up. But not this time.)

And then the screen was ... gone. And the lid too. And there was nothing in the palm of her hand but flesh, warm and pliant. And useless.

Her heart skipped a beat as fear clutched at her gut. A lot of people panic if they lose their smartphone, but this was much more than a handheld electronic gadget for Tweeting and playing games and watching videos of funny dogs and clever cats. It was a vital tool of her trade, like her bionic eyes or the BabelBuster in her ear or the lockpick in her pinky or her Instapparel WombLoom.

"Did you swipe my palm-top Dym? ... Dym? ... Goddamn it, answer me!"

Silence. She slid a hand into the hidden slit in the side of her dress and almost laughed with relief as her fingers touched the butt of her pistol. At least _that_ was still there! She pulled it out, saw that its outward appearance had morphed into a .36 caliber Colt Navy 1851 cap-and-ball revolver. She flipped down the cover on the butt and hit the test button and three green LED lights lit up, indicating she still had beam capability.

Two green lights ... Flickering ... One light ... Two ... One ... None.

"Fuck!"

She examined the rest of the pistol. At least the firearm functionality was still intact. She reholstered the weapon and touched her belly button through the fabric of her dress, reawakening the Instapparel app.

"Color change, black," she said, and the threads of her dress darkened. Now she would be less noticeable to anyone looking out the turret window.

She began trudging toward the mansion, musing: _It's like I've wandered onto the cover of some gothic romance novel. Except I'm heading_ _toward_ _the gloomy mansion with the one lit window, not away from it._

She peered intently at the twisting, treacherous trail in front of her, her bionic eyes dilating to maximum.

Good thing there's a full moon. One false step and I'm a goner.

A second later, a bank of clouds scudded in front of the moon and slid to a stop, plunging the countryside into shadows.

"Very funny," she muttered, addressing God or Dym or Mother Nature or whoever or whatever was toying with her.

She slowed her pace a bit, peering intently at the ground in front of her, but as she got closer to the mansion the path straightened out and the ground around it grew firm and dry and patches of grass appeared. She relaxed a little, but she was hardly home free. She still had to get into the mansion unobserved. She gazed up at the lit window looming over her, a little island of cheery yellow amidst a sea of grays and blacks.

Those clouds are a good thing after all. If someone looks out the window there's no way they'll spot me.

And right on cue a puff of breeze pushed the clouds off the moon, flooding the countryside with silvery light.

Cussing, Tacita ducked down and crept along the fence line bordering the mansion's grounds, noting the lawn's unkempt condition, the grass standing over a foot high and mixed with weeds rippling in the intermittent breeze, whispering a welcome. Or a warning.

She relaxed a little when the turret window was finally out of sight, but as she neared the back of the property...

"Owwooooooo!"

"Shit!" She spun around, startled, staring out at the moors.

"Owwoooo!"

Louder!

Tacita had planned to go all the way around the back of the property before picking the ideal spot to scale the fence, but to hell with that! She wanted to put those tall wrought-iron bars between herself and the source of that blood-curdling howl ASAP!

She raised her left arm and lifted her middle finger and a wire shot out of the underside of her wrist, Spider-Man style. A little steel ball at the end of the wire unfolded, deploying mini-grapples. The wire wrapped itself around the top rail of the fence, the grapples grabbing hold.

"OWWOOOOO!"

She glanced over her shoulder and saw a shadow rushing toward her, a very large shadow propelled by four powerful legs, hurtling across the moors. Within seconds it was near enough she could hear its paws slapping at the muck and its breath gusting from its lungs like a bellows; could see its red eyes glowering in its massive head – the head of a gigantic hound.

She drew her pistol, hoping the beam function had come back online so she could stun the dog, but no such luck. And she didn't want to use bullets unless she absolutely had to.

She holstered the gun and activated her mini-winch, feeling the thrum of the motor inside her wrist. Aided by the tug of the wire she clambered up the fence, carefully straddling the rusted spikes at the top. The hound closed in swiftly and lunged at the fence, ramming it so hard Tacita almost fell off. The beast leapt again, this time nearly straight up, shoving its jaws through the bars, snapping at the air only inches below her feet.

She jumped off the other side of the fence, landing in the tall grass. The hound threw its bulk at the bars again and again, rattling them with each frenzied impact until at last it gave up and unleashed an even louder howl filled with frustration and fury. It sent a shiver up Tacita's spine.

She trotted toward the house, heading for a door near the back corner. She squeezed her left pinky, deploying her lockpick, and inserted it into the keyhole.

_Snick._ Unlocked. She turned the knob, but the door wouldn't budge. Bolted.

She reinserted her pick, activated the electromagnet and twisted her artificial knuckle, manipulating the force and direction of the magnetic field. After a half-minute of fiddling the bolt twisted up and slid back. She eased the door open, stepped inside and shut it behind her, muffling the sound of the still-baying behemoth. She was in a short, unlit hallway, pitch black for anyone with normal vision. She wiped her muddy shoes on the mat at her feet and started down the hallway, noting the presence of two doors, one in the middle of the hall, the other at the far end. She tried the middle one.

A kitchen, dark except for some low flames on the back burner of a stove where a tea kettle sat simmering. She passed through the kitchen and into the dining room. Moonlight streamed through two curtained windows, revealing thirteen high-backed chairs lining a long table devoid of place settings. All the chairs were pushed in except the one at the head of the table, where a partially unfolded napkin lay next to an empty crystal goblet with red dregs at the bottom, still moist.

Tacita moved on, going through the living room, drawing room, parlor – all dark, their hearths cold. She noted the opulence – thick carpets of maroon and burgundy, Louis XVI furniture, Tiffany lamps, onyx tables with cut-crystal vases sitting on them, full of wilted orchids and roses. Ornately framed oil paintings depicted dignified men. Expensive clocks sat silently.

She went up a spiral staircase to the second story and poked her head into five bedrooms, all unoccupied. There were no mirrors anywhere, even on the medicine cabinets in the bathrooms.

How odd.

On the third floor she found the door to the turret. A spiral, wrought-iron staircase led up to a landing illuminated by light spilling from an open doorway. She sniffed, smelling pipe tobacco, and heard a rustle, like someone shuffling paper. Her pulse quickened. She tiptoed up the steps, pausing when she got to eye level with the landing. She peered into the room beyond but couldn't see much. She placed one hand on the slit in her dress – just in case she had to draw her gun quickly – and crept up the last few steps, crossed the short landing and entered the turret room.

A tall, slim man with an aquiline nose sat in a dark-green leather armchair behind a massive maple desk surrounded by a pool of light from an oil lamp with a Tiffany shade. He wore a dark, tailored suit coat and a bowtie with the ends tucked under the collar of his shirt. A newspaper lay on the blotter in front of him, held loosely in his hands, his head bowed as if he were reading, but as Tacita drew near she saw his eyes were closed.

Is this who I think it is?

She reached out, intending to gently touch his shoulder – but before she could his eyes suddenly flew open and he grabbed her wrist and cried in triumph: "Ha! I have you n..."

His voice trailed off, his triumphant expression replaced with puzzlement. He'd been expecting someone else – had been lying in wait for them, playing possum, ready to pounce.

He recovered quickly, studying her from head to toe, but not in a lustful manner; more like a doctor – or a tailor – dispassionately inspecting a patient or customer, taking in every detail of face, form, hands and clothing; cataloging, classifying.

"You are quite fortunate, young lady," he said in a British accent as he let go of her wrist. "You easily could have lost your life just now. I very nearly shot you."

She eyed his empty hands. "Oh? With what?"

He lifted the newspaper, revealing a crossbow, aimed at her.

"How charmingly medieval," she said. "Do you always take naps with a crossbow at the ready?"

"I wasn't napping, I was trapping – but you're not the quarry I was after." He smiled. "Although I must say you appear to be just as formidable. It isn't many people who would venture out onto the Great Grimpen Mire in the dead of night and risk its treacherous terrain, not to mention the wrath of the legendary Hound from Hell, and then scale a tall, spiked fence without skewering themselves and enter the domicile through one of those stubborn backside windows, making no ruckus whatsoever."

"What makes you think..."

"It's elementary, my dear woman."

Oh my God! It IS him!

He nodded at the bottom of her dress. "I observed the telltale flakes of rust on your hem, flakes that could only come from the fence, so you must have scaled it after you found the gate padlocked. And you could not have entered the house through a door because they're all bolted from the inside, therefore you used a window, probably employing a glass cutter to make a hole through which you could access the latch."

She smiled noncommittally.

He waved a hand at her attire. "I further observe that you wear tailored clothes, stylish and expensive, the type of fashion normally associated with ladies of high society. But women of that class do not break into houses, therefore you are a professional adventuress and a very good one who is paid well. Your goal in coming here thus becomes crystal clear – to abscond with the Star of Romania. I'm sure you located the safe easily, hidden behind the portrait of Sir Henry in the drawing room. Perhaps you obtained the combination through guile or theft, or stumbled across it. Many people foolishly write down combinations and leave them in unsecured locations. Or perhaps you possess the skills of a cracksman and needed no combination. In any event, when you opened the safe you found it empty and were compelled to seek out the inhabitant of this lighted turret. You probably assumed it was Sir Henry himself, and you hoped to persuade him to give you the gem, utilizing your feminine charms – or some other, equally dangerous method of inducement.

"But I'm afraid your extraordinary efforts are all for naught, because that legendary gem is no longer here. Sir Henry gave it to his wife as a wedding present when they were first married, but she could not abide these gloomy surroundings, especially the nocturnal howling of the canine creature who has plagued these godforsaken moors for over a hundred years. So she ran away, taking the stone with her and leaving Sir Henry in a state of despondency. He moved out of Baskerville Hall and rented it to another gentleman – someone who has no reason to fear the creatures of the night. But you were unaware of this. If you had known the identity of the current tenant you would not have come here alone."

"Fascinating deductions, Mr. Holmes. I assume you are Sherlock Holmes?"

"You assume correctly. And who might you be?"

"Pruval. Tacita Pruval. It's truly an honor to meet you, sir."

He stood up and bowed to her. "You flatter me, madam."

"Unfortunately, you won't find my next comment so flattering, for I feel compelled to tell you I've never even heard of the Star of Romania and I did not come here to steal it, and I entered through a door, not a window. But you were spot-on about the fence. I did climb over it, under rather challenging circumstances. And I am something of an adventuress. I'm certainly not the high society type."

He arched a slim eyebrow. "You entered through a door? How? Surely you didn't kick it in, not in those shoes."

"Trade secret, Mr. Holmes. Let's just say I have a magnetic personality and leave it at that."

"Hmm. I think I understand. But if you didn't come to steal the Star of Romania, why are you here?"

"I'm merely a traveler who lost her way. My horse was frightened by the howling of the hound and bolted. I tried to calm him, but he threw me off – one of the hazards of riding side-saddle. I started walking and eventually spotted this house and came here to seek shelter and perhaps transportation to the nearest village. But as I drew near, the gloomy atmosphere filled me with foreboding and I feared an inhospitable welcome, so perhaps I knocked too softly. In any event, I received no response and I was desperate, so I had to resort to breaking and entering. I used to be an investigatrix with the Pinkerton Agency, so scaling fences and jimmying doors are no great challenge for me. As I explored the house and found no signs of recent habitation I became overwhelmed with curiosity about the lone light up in this turret and I couldn't resist investigating."

"I see. So you did not expect to find Sir Henry in this room?"

"No."

"I'm glad to hear it. Because Sir Henry Baskerville is dead." He studied her face intently, waiting for some telltale reaction.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said blandly. "Just out of curiosity, how did he die? Did the hound get him?"

"Alas, no."

"Alas? That's an odd choice of words."

"Not when you understand the circumstances." He gestured at a chair near the desk. "Would you care to sit down? It's a rather lengthy tale."

"Don't mind if I do."

"Would you like some brandy? I have none up here, but I could fetch..."

"No thank you."

"Just as you say."

He resumed his seat, plucked a meerschaum pipe off a rack on a corner of the desk and filled it with tobacco from a pouch next to the rack. He slid open a box of kitchen matches, struck one and lit the pipe, the glow playing off his angular features. He shook the match and tossed it into a skull-shaped crystal ashtray, leaned back and took a long draw on the meerschaum before continuing.

"Sir Henry Baskerville called upon me some time ago to unravel the mystery of the ghostly hound that haunts the moors, and to discover the current whereabouts of his wife. He felt confident that if the hound were eliminated he could persuade his wife to return to him – if I was able to find her.

"I began my quest by studying the legend behind the hound from hell – a strange and disturbing tale indeed. Are you familiar with it?"

"Vaguely."

"I'll spare you the details, but the gist of it is this: Sir Henry's ancestor, Sir Hugo, a thoroughly nasty man, held a dinner party here one fateful evening and one of the serving girls rejected his advances and slapped his face before fleeing from the house. He chased after her, along with his dinner guests, and called upon the devil himself to aid in the pursuit. Sir Hugo got separated from his guests and when they finally found him and the serving girl they were both dead, along with Sir Hugo's horse, and a gigantic hound was standing over Sir Hugo's corpse, tearing out his throat with its massive, slavering jaws. The guests fled in terror, serenaded by the loudest and most spine-tingling howl they had ever heard in their lives, and they insisted the hound was no mortal animal but a creature sent by the devil to exact payment from Sir Hugo for services rendered."

He took another puff on his pipe. "Unfortunately, my attempts to capture or destroy the hound or track it back to its lair have proved fruitless and I must therefore conclude the answer lies in the realm of the supernatural, not the scientific. For as I have stated many times, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. As for Sir Henry's wife, I traced her as far as Smoth-Upon-Drear, but there the trail turned cold and I was forced to admit defeat.

"After I failed to find his wife, Sir Henry moved to London. He said the hall held too many bad memories for him. He rented out Baskerville Hall, but disturbing rumors soon reached him about his tenant, so he visited me in Baker Street and pleaded with me to accompany him here to investigate this new problem. Unfortunately I couldn't get away for several days, so he came on ahead. A tragic decision."

Holmes swiveled his chair toward the window and gazed out, the moonlight painting his face in austere planes of light and shadow.

"When I arrived here I found the front door of the mansion wide open and fresh tracks in the earth, leading out onto the moors. Only the toes of the shoes were visible, not the heels, and the imprints were shallow. Such marks might have been caused by tiptoeing, but to what purpose? No, it was far more likely the person who made those tracks was running flat out – a foolhardy thing to do with bogs and dogs lurking everywhere. I followed the tracks and found Sir Henry dead, lying in the exact spot where his ancestor, Sir Hugo, had been slain over a century ago. In Sir Henry's hand he clutched a walking stick, which he was holding near the bottom so he could wield it like a club and strike at his assailant with the handle. But who was that assailant? There were no obvious marks of violence on the body and no other footprints – human or animal – anywhere nearby. Yet his face was frozen in an expression of abject horror."

"So what killed him?"

Holmes placed his pipe in the rack and stood up. "Come. I shall show you."

He grabbed the oil lamp off the desk and ushered her out of the turret and they made their way down to the back hallway on the main floor, where he produced a key and opened the door at the far end. They descended plain wooden steps, the glow of the lamp preceding them, and as they neared the bottom the pool of light blended with another, spawned by a lantern sitting on a dirt floor.

And Tacita gasped as she beheld the object in the center of the room: an ornate black coffin with an elongated diamond shape and silver fittings – and a thick chain wrapped around the middle, complete with a large padlock. Sitting next to the coffin in a straight-back wooden chair was a portly, sixty-ish gentleman with gray hair and a mustache, and dressed in a dark gray tweed suit. A book lay open in his lap and his head rested on his chest as soft snores issued from his open mouth. A crossbow, similar to the one on the desk in the turret room, leaned against the side of the chair.

"Watson!" Holmes snapped.

The good doctor awoke with a start, straightened up, coughed, looked around, did a double take when he saw Tacita. He rose to his feet.

"Oh, I didn't know we had company," he said. "How do you do, young lady."

"Hello," Tacita said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Watson."

He beamed. "Likewise, Miss..."

"Pruval. Tacita Pruval. Mr. Holmes was just about to show me..."

Holmes interjected: "I was about to show her how my vigilant companion was keeping this coffin under constant guard, prepared to leap into action instantly at the slightest hint of danger."

His snide tone of voice caused Watson's cheeks to redden.

"I was just resting my eyes, Holmes," he muttered, and held up his book. "Been doing a lot of reading."

"Of course," Holmes said. He turned to Tacita. "No doubt you're wondering who reposes within that coffin and why such singular precautions have been taken against him."

"It does seem a bit out of the ordinary," she said drily.

Holmes walked up to the coffin and rested a hand lightly on top of it. "I do not know exactly what transpired when Sir Henry returned to this housie to confront his tenant, but I have deduced the probable course of events. Sir Henry entered the house and eventually came down here, where he discovered the coffin. He made two fatal mistakes – coming here at night and opening the lid of this coffin. The occupant awakened and Sir Henry fled this house in terror, running as fast as his legs could carry him, but he could not hope to escape a fiend who can transform himself into a winged creature – a bat, to be specific."

"Are you trying to tell me there's a vampire lying in that coffin?"

"Precisely. When Sir Henry's body was autopsied it was found to be completely drained of blood, yet there was no blood on the ground at the murder scene and no gaping wounds in the body, only two small punctures in the neck."

"And this vampire, his name wouldn't happen to be Dracula by any chance, would it?"

Holmes' eyes narrowed. "How did you know?"

"You mean it _is_ Count Dracula?"

"Yes. But few people outside of Transylvania have ever heard that name. His existence is a closely guarded secret known only to the Home Office and a handful of detectives at Scotland Yard and a professor at the University of Edinburgh who specializes in the paranormal. If the British public learned such a creature is not mere peasant folklore but truly exists and is right here in England, it would cause a panic unheard of since the days of Jack the Ripper. So I must repeat my question: How do you know of Dracula?"

She couldn't tell Holmes she'd read Bram Stoker's novel. In this alternate universe, Dracula and Holmes and Watson were real, not fictional characters, and the novel did not exist. And if she said she was from another dimension and had arrived via space-time portal he'd think she was insane. She had to dream up a plausible lie.

"I heard his name mentioned while I was with the Pinkerton agency," she said.  
"They work closely with Scotland Yard and are privy to many secrets. But I had no idea the Count was in this house."

"I see. A plausible explanation, which I'm inclined to accept – for now."

"Thank you. So tell me the rest of the story. What happened after you found Sir Henry's corpse?"

Holmes glowered at the coffin. "As soon as the autopsy results were revealed I knew what I was dealing with. I ordered the locals to burn Sir Henry's body to prevent him from joining the ranks of the undead. Then Watson and I armed ourselves with crosses and wooden stakes and mallets and came here in daylight to do what must be done. I don't mind telling you my hands were shaking as I positioned the stake above Dracula's cold and evil heart, and just as I raised the mallet the monster's eyelids flew open and I felt the full brunt of his insidious hypnotic stare." He shuddered. "I shall never forget those terrible eyes, dark as the grave, black as night, glistening like bog holes only ... only deeper ... deeper ... sucking me down ... and down ... and..."

His voice trailed off and he gazed at the coffin as if transfixed. Watson approached, alarmed.

"Holmes? ... Holmes!"

The detective blinked, snapping out of it. He smiled sheepishly at Watson and Tacita. "Forgive me. Even a mind as disciplined as mine has a hard time fathoming such a loathsome creature. Only twice in my life have I faced such evil – when I grappled with Professor Moriarty atop the Reichenbach Falls and when I descended into this cellar to destroy the accursed Count from Transylvania. But I am proud to say I did not falter at the falls, nor did I falter here. I drove the stake deeply into Dracula's chest and the malevolent sheen in his eyes went out like a snuffed candle as he slipped into the eternal sleep from which he shall never awaken."

"So if Dracula is dead," Tacita said, "why did you chain up his coffin?"

"Because a vampire cannot truly die unless his corpse is burned. And I cannot do that. Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Because we are using him as bait. The Count has many undead followers, victims of his noxious bite whose enslaved minds are linked to his. They are drawn to his foul presence like swallows to Capistrano. No doubt they have sensed his dire predicament and are rushing here even as we speak, determined to liberate him. And when they come, Watson and I shall dispatch them. Then and only then shall we consign this monster to the purifying flames that shall extinguish his vile spirit forever."

He paused, staring at her intently. "And frankly, the timing of your arrival at this house is most disturbing. It could be mere happenstance. Or it could be ... something else."

"What, you think I'm one of Dracula's undead devotees?"

He shook his head. "You are definitely not a vampire, but you could have been hired by one of them to remove any obstacles that might thwart their rescue attempt."

She laughed. "I assure you, Mr. Holmes, I'm on your side. If I'd wanted to kill you, I would have done it the moment I entered the turret room."

He nodded. "I shall give you the benefit of the doubt, Miss Pruval. Nevertheless, I must take certain precautions. Since the horses refuse to leave the stables after dark, I cannot offer you a lift into town until morning. In the meantime you are welcome to spend the night here. However, you shall be confined to one of the guest bedrooms upstairs and under no circumstances will you enter this cellar again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly. And believe me, I'll be more than happy to stay in my room. That coffin gives me the creeps."

Holmes gestured toward the stairs. "Then permit me to escort..."

"Hey there, sweetie!"

They all jumped, startled by this new voice, then spun around and gaped at a small head floating in mid-air, a lavender head with a cherubic face – but there was nothing angelic about the mischievous golden eyes or the wide, smirking mouth or the ears topped by bent points.

"Dym?" she said.

"The one and only."

He bowed low and as he rose his upper body became visible. He had a hairless chest with emeralds embedded in the nipples – or maybe they _were_ his nipples – and wore an open vest of maroon silk trimmed in gold filigree. His gold-banded arms were even more muscular than Tacita remembered. He had no belly button.

Then the rest of him appeared – sturdy legs clad in rose-colored pantaloons, with bare feet sporting green toenails. He sat cross-legged upon a square, royal-blue silk pillow with silver tassels, hovering in the center of a vertical ring of pulsating emerald light, about the size of a Hula Hoop.

"How's tricks, honey doll?" he said as the ring drifted toward her.

"Great Scot!" Watson cried, and even Holmes registered astonishment

Dym did a double-take as he passed the coffin. "Whoa! What have we here?" The pillow portal stopped abruptly, backed up, swiveled to face the coffin, floated toward it, hovered about three feet over the lid as Dym leaned down, his body halfway out of the ring. He sniffed loudly, the nostrils in his button nose flaring.

"Hey, there's a vampire in there! I can smell him!"

"Get away from that coffin!" Holmes cried. He wheeled to Tacita. "What in heaven's name..."

"I don't think heaven has anything to do with this," she said.

Holmes started to reply, then his head snapped back to Dym. "I said get away from there!"

Dym had hopped out of the ring and was standing on the coffin lid. He touched the padlock and it popped open and fell away, the chains rattling loudly as they slithered to the floor. Watson lunged forward and tried to grab the goblenie, but a huge spark arced between Dym's body and the doctor's fingertips and Watson jerked backyard, crying out in pain.

Dym rose into the air, hovering in front of the coffin, then grabbed the lid and raised it, peering inside. "Man, that is one big stickpin!"

"It's not a stickpin, it's a stake!" Holmes cried. "Don't touch it!"

Dym gave him a dirty look. "I know it's a stake. I'm not an idiot. It was a joke. And I wasn't going to touch it, but since you're being so bossy I've got a good mind to pull it out just to..."

"If you do that, Dracula shall awaken and destroy us all! His power is immense!"

"Ha! You happen to be talking to a five-thousand-year-old goblenie – that's a half goblin, half genie, in case you didn't know – and I've got more power in my little finger than a whole army of vampires! We're not in any danger, so chill!"

Holmes turned to Tacita. "I implore you, Miss Pruval, get that creature away from that coffin before he dooms us all!"

"Who are you calling a creature?" Dym said. "Just for that..."

He jumped into the coffin and bent down – _schlurp!_ – then straightened up, clutching the blood-stained stake as Holmes thrust a hand into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a silver cross.

"Watson!" he cried. "The crossbow!"

Watson grabbed the weapon resting against the chair and swung it toward the coffin. Snorting contemptuously, Dym wiggled the fingers of his left hand and the crossbow flew out of Watson's grasp as Holmes' silver cross snapped free of its chain and another cross shot out of the right back pocket of Watson's trousers. The three objects circled the room a couple of times, then flew into the emerald ring and vanished.

"You don't need no stinkin' crosses," Dym said. "Or cross- _bows._ I can handle this. ... Yikes!"

Dracula sat up abruptly and Dym lost his balance and fell out of the coffin, landing on his ass. But the humans barely noticed him for their eyes were glued to the Transylvanian. His face was deathly white, his bloodstained fangs protruding from crimson lips flanked by sunken cheeks, his long, bony fingers clasped to his bosom just beneath the gaping hole where the stake had been. He regarded the humans with a malignant gaze and his mouth widened into a nasty grin as he grasped the sides of the coffin and started to climb out.

"Hold it right there, Drakky!" Dym said, jumping to his feet and thrusting his arms out in front of him. "I'm in charge here, and you'll do exactly as I..."

"Silence!" Dracula commanded, the word cracking like a pistol shot, knocking the goblenie clear across the room. He slammed into the wall and landed on his ass again, a gobsmacked expression on his face.

Dracula eased himself to the floor and advanced toward the humans. Holmes dashed to a nearby packing crate, wrenched a couple of boards free and spun around, thrusting them out in front of him as he pressed them together into the shape of a cross.

"Get back!" the detective cried, a tinge of panic in his normally imperturbable voice.

Watson drew a revolver from his coat pocket and aimed at the Count's caped backside. "Stop or I'll shoot!"

Dracula turned and strode toward him and Watson emptied his revolver, the bullets punching through the Count's white shirt just beneath the stake hole. Dracula stared down at his perforated chest with some amusement, smirked at Watson and turned back to Holmes, his eyes cold and hypnotic as a cobra's as he thrust his right arm out in front of him and extended his index finger.

"You are my slave, Holmes!" he said in an oily voice with a thick Slavic accent. "I own you, heart and soul, mind and body. You cannot resist. You must obey!" He swung his other arm toward Watson. "You also, doctor. Obey your master!"

Holmes and Watson stared unblinkingly at the fiend, their mouths falling open, their arms dangling powerlessly at their sides. Tacita drew her pistol, aiming for the Count's eyes; maybe bullets couldn't kill him, but they could certainly blind him.

Only one problem: In order to aim for his eyes she had to look into them, and as his gaze locked with hers she felt a tremendous mental jolt, as if she'd touched a live power line. Somehow she managed to keep the gun steady and pull the trigger and Dracula's left eyeball exploded, dark blood gushing from the socket. But his other eye blazed with double the intensity, its malevolent gleam beaming into her head. Her gun hand wobbled and her trigger finger went numb and it took all her strength to fire the second shot. It missed the eye, striking the vampire's nose, punching through one nostril. The Count struck back, unleashing the full power of his will, his telepathic energy slithering into her head, filling it with icy tentacles of evil, wrapping themselves around her mind, throttling her thoughts, crushing her self-control, smothering her spirit. With one desperate burst of willpower she broke free, turned tail and made a mad dash for the stairs.

"Tacita!" Dym cried. "In here!"

She spun round and saw the emerald ring hovering near the floor on the far side of the room next to Dym, who had already thrust one leg inside it. She ran to the ring and dove through with Dym right behind her and the portal spiraled shut, _schwoop!_ And Tacita found herself inside a spherical chamber of throbbing lime-colored light, about twenty feet in diameter and filled with glistening multicolored bubbles the size of beach balls. She didn't see Dym anywhere, but how could she pick out any one object amidst that riotous rainbow background?

One bubble swelled bigger than the others and floated rapidly toward her and before she could get out of the way it engulfed her in its chilly, tingly embrace and she was falling and spinning and tumbling as the voice of Dym cried out from somewhere far away:

"Oh shit! I forgot to adjust the two-state vector formalism doohickey again! Hang on, Tacita! I'll have you out of there in no time ... or sometime ... or some other time ... or ... never."

CHAPTER THREE

Pink rectangular clouds drifted slowly through a pale green sky over a field of short, black grass full of red four-leaf clovers. In the middle of the field stood a massive creature straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. His body resembled an egg shell lying on its side, supported by two fetlock legs with branches growing out of them, impaling his chest. Sailboats took the place of feet. The butt end of the shell was broken open, the interior filled with Escher-ish staircases going every which way, with faceless mummy-people endlessly climbing and descending them. A huge flying comb with little wings on either side was going through the egg-man's tangled shoulder-length hair, struggling against the stubborn strands. His head, big as a house, had windows where his eyes should've been. A chubby-faced, wimple-wearing woman gazed out of one of them, her left arm resting on the sill, which bristled with lashes. The egg-man's mouth hung open, a waterfall pouring out of it, feeding a big pond beneath him. Two women in wide-brimmed periwinkle hats and white blouses with puffy sleeves were rowing a boat across the pond and when they got to the shore they kept going, their oars churning up the soil as they forged a furrow through the black grass. They passed a man in a dark blue suit and canary yellow derby riding a high-wheeler bicycle. He tipped his hat to them and rode into the pond, pedaling furiously as he crossed it before rolling up the waterfall and disappearing inside the egg-man's mouth.

To Tacita's left lay a freshly ploughed field containing a sagging Dali-esque pocket watch at least thirty yards in diameter, draped over a fallen column of fluted marble. A trio of six-foot-high red-robed creatures with bird heads and human bodies was hopping across the furrows near the watch, driving their long, needle-like beaks into the soil to pull up tiny, wriggling, naked men, which they gulped down whole.

Tacita turned in a full circle, searching for the bubble or the ring, but there was no sign of either. Or Dym. She called his name. Several times. No answer. She glanced at her attire, hoping it might give her a clue as to where the hell she was.

A chartreuse tutu and pink combat boots? You've got to be kidding! Oh well, at least I fit in.

Her cries alerted the bird men, who turned to peer at her, then hopped swiftly in her direction, eyeing her hungrily. She drew her pistol.

Shit!

It had morphed into a husked ear of corn full of tiny human heads wearing dark blue military caps complete with insignia. Colonels, of course.

The bird men froze as they saw the "weapon," then turned and took off, flapping their feathery arms as they flew low to the ground, headed for the horizon. The spot where they had been standing suddenly swelled up and a seven-foot-wide bubble emerged, filled with spinning chartreuse triangles. Tacita started toward it, heaving a sigh of relief – until it burst open and something leapt out and rushed toward her.

Oh God! That's all I need!

She went into a defensive crouch, aiming her weapon at the hound from hell. "Freeze, Fido, or I'll blow you away! This may look like a harmless ear of corn, but ..."

The dog skidded to a stop. "Take it easy. I just want to talk. And put that thing away. You look ridiculous."

Tacita blinked. "Did you just say something?"

"Yeah, I said 'Take it easy, I...'"

"I know what you said, but ... how come I can understand you?"

"Nobody understands me. Not really. They slap labels on me – hound of hell, evil monster, bad doggie. They don't see the real me, deep inside, the sensitive soul yearning for..."

"That's not what I meant. You're speaking English. My BabelBuster translation app didn't even activate. I didn't think dogs were capable of human speech."

"I'm not your average dog. But never mind my language skills. I want to ask you something."

"Hold on a sec. A little while ago you were trying to rip me to pieces and now you're coming on like Scooby Doo. What gives?"

"Never heard of Scooby Doo. My name's Molten. And I'm done with that Hound from Hell gig. I'm ready for a career change."

She slid the ear of corn back into her husk-like holster. "I didn't know hounds from hell made career changes."

The dog lay down, stretching out its front legs. "Things are tough down there these days. The boss has spread his resources so thin he's looking to cut back. When Dracula showed up at my gig the boss figured I was redundant. He said there wasn't any point having two evil entities haunting the same place and he had plenty of other hell hounds and they were younger than me, so he gave me the old heave-ho. When I terrorized you at the fence I was just killing time till my shift ended. Now I'm off the clock for good and ready for new challenges and fresh surroundings. I figure Caninopus would be the ideal spot. I was headed there when you ran me off the road, so I figure..."

"Whoa! Whoa! What are you talking about? I didn't run you off any road."

"Yes you did. I was in the CB headed for The Six when you came along and sideswiped us. Dully lost control and the coach ended up in a witch and I was thrown clear and got sucked into your wake and now I'm here, thanks to you."

"Uh ... can you run all that by me again? What's the CB?"

"The Coiste Bodhar, of course." He noted the puzzled look on her face. "You know, the Irish death coach?"

"Uh ..."

"They do jitney stuff in-between their regular runs. Anyway, we were headed down The Six..."

"What's The Six?"

"You don't know that either?"

"Afraid I don't."

"Route 666, the most famous highway on the astral. I'm surprised you never heard of it."

"And who's Dully?"

Molten sighed. "Dullahan. He's the driver. Of the death coach."

"Oh. And you ended up in a ditch? You mean there are ditches on the astral plane?"

"Not a ditch, a witch. She wasn't hurt bad, but Dully lost his head ... That's a joke."

"I don't get it."

"The driver of the Coiste Bodhar doesn't _have_ a head. Don't you know _anything?"_

"I guess not. But are you sure my bubble sideswiped you? I didn't notice it colliding with anything, least of all a coach with a headless driver. But then again, I was falling and spinning and tumbling at the time, so..."

"Actually, it wasn't your bubble that hit us, it was the wake you left behind, but the result was the same. I got sucked into it and now I'm here and it's your fault. But I'm not the kind to hold grudges. Give me a ride to Caninopus and I'll call it even. If I were back in Britain I could hail a Coiste Bodhar, but I don't think they'll make a run way out here in the loony boonies."

"I hate to burst your bubble – no pun intended – but my portal belongs to a goblenie named Dym and it's not here and neither is he. I'm marooned, just like you. If he shows up I'll ask him to give you a ride, but I can't promise anything."

"Fair enough."

"So where exactly is Caninopus? I never heard of it."

"You never heard of that either?"

"No."

"Sirius."

"Yes, I'm serious."

"No, I mean Sirius, like in the Dog Star. That's where Caninopus is. It occupies the same space on another plane of reality. If you get to one, you get to the other."

"I see. Well it looks like we'll be stuck here awhile, so maybe we should..."

Chug-a-snorffle-fuffle-luggle

Tacita looked up and saw a massive craft flying high in the sky about a half mile away but closing rapidly. It had the gas bag of an airship, hanging beneath four masts rigged for full sail. Three strutted and wired wings, fifty yards long, were attached to either side of the bag and four steam locomotives at the rear drove yellow-petaled propellers that looked like giant daisies. The cabin atop the gas bag's nose was a two-story cottage complete with picket fence and a garden in the back. The entire airship was tattered and torn and cracked and rusted and looked like it might fall apart at any moment – which it did as it collided with one of the rectangular pink clouds, the pieces raining down, miraculously missing everyone and everything below.

An object flew out of one of the windows of the cottage/cabin and zigzagged toward Tacita. As it got closer she saw it was Dym's emerald ring, bent on one side. It hit the earth a few yards away from her, flinging Dym out, and he tumbled several times before landing on his back at her feet. The ring rolled around in a fifteen-foot-wide circle, then fell onto its side with a loud ding.

The goblenie raised his smudged face and did a slow, circular wave like he was wiping off a pane of glass.

"Hiya sweetie." He got up, dusting off his butt, and looked her up and down. "I like your outfit." He nodded at the hound. "Who's this?"

"The name's Molten," the dog said. "Hound of hell, retired. You Dym?"

"The one and only."

"Can you give me a lift to Caninopus?"

"Sure. After I make a few minor repairs."

The goblenie walked over to the ring, picked it up, carried it back to Tacita and set it down in an upright position, then grabbed the bent section and began pulling on it, grunting, as he tried to straighten it out.

Tacita put her hands on her hips. "So that's all you have to say to me? 'Hiya sweetie, I like your outfit'?"

He avoided looking at her. "What do you _want_ me to say? Hey good lookin', whatcha got cookin'? How's the weather up there? Who does your hair? Where'd you get those shoes?"

"How about an apology?"

"For what?"

"For what? You freed one of the most evil fiends who ever lived and destroyed one of the greatest detectives of all time plus Doctor Watson and I just barely escaped with my life and you ask what you should apologize for?"

He shrugged. And kept his eyes on the ring. "So maybe I underestimated that old bloodsucker just a smidgen. So what? Next time I'll be ready for him and he'll get his comeuppance, I guarantee."

"And what about Holmes and Watson? What good will that do them?"

"Never fret, doll. I'll just go back in time a few minutes and shoo your pals out of the cellar before I unchain the coffin."

"You can go back in time?"

"Sometimes. When the time is right. Hey, it's worth a shot."

"Uh huh. Well if you really can do it why not go back a little farther, to that moment in Atlantis when I first gave the Stone of Rimeh to King Diaprepes. This time I'll insist he put it in the treasure vault immediately, before the banquet even begins, and Perimos will never get his hands on it in the first place."

Dym finally looked at her. "But if you do that the Stone won't create the portal and if the portal doesn't exist you and I will never meet."

"What's your point?"

"Ouch. Unkind, Tacita. Very unkind. And impossible, to boot. I can't go back that far. But I can save your friends at Baskerville Hall and knock off Drakky so he'll never bother anyone again."

"OK, then do it."

"Not so fast. I want something in return."

"Forget it. You owe me."

"I don't see it that way. And I'm not asking for much."

Sigh. "What do you want?"

"After I finish off Drakky, let's say you and me go on a little trip to the Bahamalayas, just the two of us."

Molten interjected: "Hey, what about my ride to Caninopus?"

"I'll drop you off on the way," Dym said. To Tacita: "Is it a deal?"

"Uh uh. No way."

"OK, if that's the way you want it. So long, toots. It's been nice knowing you." He turned to Molten and gestured at the ring. "Hop in, Fido."

"The name's Molten," the dog said. "And I'm not leaving without Tacita."

The goblenie shrugged. "Suit yourself." He gave the ring one last fierce tug and the bent section snapped back into place. He started to climb through it, but Molten lunged, knocking him down, and loomed over him, fangs bared and dripping drool that spattered the goblenie's face.

"It's not smart to piss off a creature spawned in hell," Molten growled.

The goblenie smiled weakly. "Nice doggie. Good doggie."

Molten lowered his head till his jaws were only an inch from Dym's face. "You're gonna do what Tacita wants – or wish to hell you had."

"Sure. You bet. Hey, I was just kidding around. I'm always happy to aid a lady in distress."

Tacita thrust out her left hand, tapping it with her right index finger. "I also want my palmtop back."

"Palmtop?" Dym said.

"You know, the electronic gadget you swiped from me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Molten growled again.

"OK, OK," Dym said. "I'll restore it – after I do the other stuff. It won't be easy, though."

"But you _will_ do it?" Tacita said.

"Sure, sure."

"Promise?"

"You have my word."

Tacita nodded and Molten backed off and Dym stood up, brushed off his backside again and faced the ring, raising both arms above his head. "I hereby call upon my consummate sorceristic skills of magical manipulation – which I have refined to perfection over the past five thousand years – to command chronology, tame time and master the past like no wizard has done before or since! Or to put it in spellcasting terminology, 'Enimsi emit, time is mine, emitemit, time time, cotcit, cotcit, tic toc, tic toc, polfpilf, polfpilf, flip flop, flip flop, enimsi emit, time is mine, emitemit, time time!"

The interior of the ring filled with little bubbles, like a glass of fizzy water. They swelled to the size of marbles ... golf balls ... tennis balls ... basketballs, then poured out of the ring, their curved surfaces swirling with blue hues as they washed over Tacita.

"Oh shit!" Dym said. "Some meddler's mucking with my matrix! Run, Tacita, run! ... Drat!"

CHAPTER FOUR

A steady stream of lumpy Forties-style cars rolled along the city street ten stories below. In the distance, the Golden Gate Bridge glowed orange in the setting sun. Tacita gripped the window sill tightly till her vertigo subsided, then turned around, eyes darting left and right. No bubbles. No Dym. No Molten. No surreal landscape. Just a small office with a black-leather chaise lounge next to a green-leather high-back chair, and a bust of Sigmund Freud perched on a pedestal near a set of bookshelves, and potted palms flanking six gray filing cabinets.

Tacita chuckled, finding it somehow fitting she was in a psychoanalyst's office, considering the crazy world she had just left.

She glanced at her attire, a tan suit with shoulder pads and a mid-calf skirt, a matching purse and brown shoes with high, thick heels. She checked her holster; the corn cob "weapon" had reverted to its default configuration, a Colt M1911 .45-caliber blue steel automatic with walnut-checkered grips.

She went to the door, opened it and stepped into the outer office. A candlestick telephone sat on the receptionist's desk. Four low-backed, armless red leather chairs lined a wall in front of a glass coffee table covered with magazines. She glanced at a few titles: _Psychiatry Today, National Geographic, Time, Fotoplay,_ all dated summer or fall 1948.

A blood-curdling scream startled her. She ran to the outer door, flung it open, stepped into a long, wide hallway with a brown linoleum floor and beige walls and ten doors with frosted glass windows. At least that's what she saw on her left. But to the right of her the hallway ended a couple of doors down; beyond that stretched a cobblestone street flanked by low stone buildings beneath a noonday sun.

A dozen young, bearded men with long hair and black robes were dragging a struggling woman out of a chariot. She was in her fifties, very attractive, and wore a cloak of rough brown flax wrapped around her body and draped over one shoulder – until the men ripped it free. They hurled her to the ground and grabbed roofing tiles and paving stones out of the wicker baskets some of them were carrying and began throwing them at the woman. Then Molten appeared and leapt at one of the attackers, his jaws clamping down on his throat. The man fell to the ground, his screams reduced to gurgles, his arms flailing as he dropped the object he'd been holding. Not a paver but ...

The Stone of Rimeh!

Tacita sprinted toward it, but just as her feet left the linoleum and touched the cobblestones the street vanished and the normal hallway returned and she collided with the side of a drinking fountain.

"Ow!"

Smashinkle!

Glass breaking, at the other end of the hallway. She turned and trotted in that direction, stopping at the second-to-last door on the right as she spied a jagged hole in its frosted window just below black lettering spelling out the name of the business: _Travel To Go_. She turned the knob and pushed on the door. Locked. The pick in her pinky finger quickly solved that problem.

Big posters hung on the walls in the reception area – a bullfighter, Big Ben, the Eifel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Matterhorn, windmills, palm trees. An open door led to an inner office with a wall map of the world and a big mahogany desk and a metal rack containing stacks of colorful travel brochures – and the Stone of Rimeh, perched atop the Italy stack, surrounded by a small egg-shaped shell of amber light.

Tacita dashed into the room and tried to seize the stone, her fingertips tingling with icy energy as they made contact with the shell.

Thoop!

The Stone shot away from her like a bar of wet soap and flew right through the wall, leaving no hole behind.

"Shit fuck!"

Tacita ran out of the office and hurried to the one next door, where flecks of black lettering were all that remained of the words once painted on the glass. She saw a blob of amber light within the office, blurred by the frosted pane, floating across the room. She picked the lock and entered, but not fast enough.

Gone.

"Double fuck!"

On to the next office. This one belonged to _Dade and Bowman, Private Investigators._ The door was unlocked. She entered, noting the sparse and Spartan furnishings. But no Stone.

Men's voices came from an adjoining room through a halfway-open door:

"So you struck out in Atlanta?"

"I wouldn't say that. I ran into a couple of Georgia peaches who showed me some good old-fashioned Southern hospitality. But nothing that ties in with The Large Man."

"Maybe you should forget the dames for awhile and focus on this case."

"Forget dames? Me? That would take a lobotomy. Besides, a dame is the key to this whole case."

"You're talking about that Russian dame, the one who wrote the letter?"

"That's the one."

"Well I know _she_ won't lead you astray since she's been dead for over half a century. Any luck with the translation?"

"Not yet. My friend the professor is out of town and I don't dare take the letter to anyone else."

Tacita tiptoed toward the inner office, eager to hear more of the intriguing conversation – until a movement out of the corner of her eye caused her to look to her right. The Stone, still encased in the amber light shell, was floating down from the ceiling, angling toward the receptionist's desk. It came to rest atop a Remington typewriter and Tacita rushed toward it, but as she reached for the Stone it sank into the machine and one of her fingers accidentally touched the Tab key and the carriage snapped to the right.

Fwup – ding!

She dove to the floor and thrust herself into the leg hole beneath the desk, but the Stone passed by, mere inches beyond her fingertips, and disappeared into the floor.

"Triple fuck!" she muttered.

"I beg your pardon?"

She started to straighten up, banged her head, cussed, backed out of the leg hole, turned and looked up. A man had come out of the other room and was regarding her with some bemusement. He was handsome in a seedy way, with wavy light-brown hair and a well-trimmed mustache. He wore a cheap gray suit and a bright red tie.

"Hi there," she said.

"Is something wrong, miss?"

She got to her feet, blushing. "No, nothing at all."

"Is there something I can do for you?"

"No there isn't. Goodbye."

She started toward the outer door. In three lanky strides he overtook her, blocking her way.

"Not so fast, sister," he said. "You've got some explaining to do."

She tried to step around him. He shifted sideways to cut her off.

"Would you please get out of my way?" she said.

"Not till you explain why you were hiding behind that desk and eavesdropping."

"I most certainly was _not_ eavesdropping? I ..."

"Who are you talking to, Inch?" the man in the other room called out.

"Some dame I caught snooping around out here," her captor replied, then turned back to Tacita. "Let's go into the other room and have a little chat."

"Nothing doing."

The man grabbed her arm. "Honey, you can talk to us or you can talk to the police. Your choice."

She could easily overpower him and run out – and if the man in the other office chased after her she could deal with him too. But she didn't want to stir up trouble, not when she might be stuck in the building a long time waiting for the stone/shell or the ring/bubble or Dym to show up. So she smiled and gestured toward the inner office. "After you."

He shook his head. "Let's go in together."

As they passed through the doorway she sucked in her breath as she got a load of the man behind the desk. He had a craggy, dangerous face and an insolent air about him and was leaning back in an unpadded office chair, rolling a hand-made cigarette, his hard-boiled eyes appraising her as she approached.

"Good afternoon," he said.

"Good afternoon."

"Mind telling me your name?"

"Pruval. Tacita Pruval. I was trying to explain to this other, uh, gentleman..."

"The name's Inch," her captor said. "Inch Bowman."

"Inch?" she said. "That's an odd name."

He flashed a grin. "They call me that because if you give me an inch, I'll take a mile."

He winked at her and she faked a chuckle. He obviously wasn't the brains of the outfit. She turned back to the man behind the desk. "And you are?"

"Dade. Dan Dade. Would you mind showing me some identification?"

"Sure."

She rummaged around in her bag, took out one of her many fake ID cards and placed it on the desk. He reached forward and took it, reading aloud: "Tacita Pruval, beauty consultant, Flamingo Cosmetics."

Inch grinned again. "Beauty consultant? I must say, Miss Pruval, you're eminently qualified for that line of work."

"Thanks," she said.

Dade tossed the card back to her side of the desk. "Now that we all know each other, suppose you have a seat and tell us all about it."

She retrieved her card, sat down in the straight-back chair in front of the desk and crossed her legs, her hem hiking up. Inch plunked his keister onto a front corner of the desk and folded his arms in front of him, openly ogling her gorgeous gams.

Dade reached for the Ronson Touch-Tip lighter sitting on the right side of his desk. He pulled out the wand and pressed it against the ignition button, then brought the flaming wick up to the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He inhaled and blew out the smoke slow, his eyes never leaving Tacita's face, not even for a quick glance at her legs.

She smiled uneasily. "Mr. Bowman found me kneeling on the floor by the desk and got the ridiculous notion I was hiding and eavesdropping, and nothing could be further from the truth. I was simply ... looking for something I lost, that's all."

Dade's eyes narrowed. "Was it a statuette of a black bird, by any chance?"

"Uh ... no, nothing like that."

"What was it, then?"

Her mind raced, trying to come up with a plausible scenario. "It was ... a toad."

Dade and Bowman exchanged a surprised glance.

"A toad?" Dade said.

She nodded. "You see, I was strolling past a duck pond at a park a few blocks from here and I saw a little toad sitting on the bank and my nephew loves frogs and snakes and toads and all things slimy, so I thought I'd give it to him as a present, so I picked it up and put it in my purse and then I forgot about it and I was walking down the hall and opened my purse to get a tissue and the toad jumped out and crawled under your door, so naturally I chased after it. I saw it underneath the desk in the outer office, but just as I was about to pounce it scurried away and that's when Mr. Bowman confronted me."

Dade looked at his partner. "What about it, Inch? Did you see this toad?"

"Nope," he said, and his grin changed to a leer. "But Miss Pruval had my undivided attention. The room could've been filled with alligators and crocodiles and I wouldn't have noticed as long as she was around."

"You're a big help," Dade said. His eyes re-locked on Tacita's. "So why are you here?"

"I just told you, I was chasing my toad and..."

"No, I mean why are you in this building? Do you work here?"

"No, I had business with the ... the Travel to Go agency. Unfortunately, I was running late and by the time I got here they were already closed."

"You're planning a trip, I take it?"

"Yes. A vacation."

"Where?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"You like to travel?"

"Yes, I do. When I can afford it."

His voice took on a flinty edge. "Ever been to Istanbul?"

"No," she lied. "Why do you ask?"

"I thought you might have met The Large Man there."

"Which large man?"

"Gaspard Jutland."

"Never heard of him."

"How about Jules Faro?"

"Never heard of him either. Hey, how much longer is this third degree going to take? I've got a toad to catch."

Inch hopped off the desk. "I've got an idea, Dan. Since you've got to write up that final report on the Kennicutt case and I haven't got any pressing business at the moment, why don't I help Miss Pruval look for her toad?"

Dan shrugged. "Sure. Go ahead." To Tacita: "I trust you have no objections?"

She ignored him and treated Inch to a dazzling smile. "I'd be delighted, Mr. Bowman."

He swept an arm toward the door. "Shall we go?"

"Gladly."

***

They went from office to office, searching each one thoroughly. Inch used a skeleton key to open the doors that were locked, winking at Tacita each time he did so. As they left the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company he leaned in close and said, "Can I ask you a question, Miss Pruval?"

"Sure."

"You got a fella?"

"Several. Why do you ask?"

"Several, eh? I'm not surprised. Would you like to add one more to your collection?"

"Meaning you?"

"How did you guess?"

"Just a hunch."

"So how about it?"

"Are you married?"

"Not exactly."

"I'll take that as a yes. Sorry, I'm no homewrecker."

"Honey, my wife wrecked our home a long time ago."

They were at the far end of the hallway now. Inch tried the knob on the door of the last office on the left. Unlocked. They entered. Empty. Not even a stick of furniture.

He pointed at a corner. "Hey, I think I saw something move back there." He crossed the room and stopped, staring down at the floor. As Tacita came up beside him he spun around, placed his hands on her waist and pulled her close.

"I must've imagined it," he murmured. His mouth closed in on hers.

She slapped his face and shoved him away. "How dare you!"

He laughed. "Can't blame a guy for trying."

She pretended to be pissed, but actually she was pleased. Now she had a great excuse for dumping him and going off on her own without arousing suspicion.

"This is where we part company, Mr. Bowman. I wish I could say it's been a pleasure meeting you." She stomped toward the door.

He trotted after her. "Aw, come on, doll. Lighten up."

And she did – in a bright green halo that came out of nowhere to engulf her. A muscular little lavender arm appeared, the hand reaching for her – only to be swatted aside by another hand, pudgy and white and attached to a much longer arm clad in a white flannel sleeve. And then both arms and hands vanished and Tacita plunged upward into a chilly, mint-scented mist.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Oof!"

Tacita landed hard, banging her knees on flagstones as her suit morphed into a nun's habit and wimple. She looked up and saw pews and an altar, with candles burning in golden holders at either side of the chancel. The pictures in the stained-glass windows were only dimly discernible in the fading sunlight, but another source of light beckoned, an amber glow pulsating behind the chalice.

She sprang to her feet, rushed to the altar and reached behind the chalice, knocking over the thurible in the process. She grasped the Stone, but it wriggled free like a fish and flew toward the back of the church, disappearing into the shadows. She gave chase, flinging open the double doors and stepping out into a long, gloomy hallway feebly illuminated by a couple of oil lamps in sconces. But she was grateful for the bad lighting; it would make it easier to spot the Stone.

Only one problem. It wasn't there. She started to raise her left hand so she could order her palmtop to run a scan, then remembered it was gone.

Shit!

She stomped to the far end of the hall, turned left into another one and started past a long row of pinewood doors with little glass-less windows, all of them dark save one at the far end. She peeked in every window as she passed and saw nothing but shadowy, slumbering forms inside.

As she neared the lit window she heard a muffled cry. Curious, she paused, listening intently, and heard another cry. She peeked in the window and saw a young nun with a round, plump face sitting on a bed, her legs folded, a book with a scarlet cover lying open in her lap. Her face was red, her left hand clamped over her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears.

What the hell?

Tacita drew back from the window and knocked ... waited ... knocked again. A timid voice said, "Come in?"

Tacita entered. The room was only twelve feet by ten, with half the space taken up by a low bed – nothing more than a wooden framework covered by planks, on top of which was a thin mattress of woven straw. A concave block of pinewood served as a pillow and a threadbare wool blanket lay folded neatly at the other end. The window above the bed was almost as small as the one in the door. The furnishings consisted of a little table with an oil lamp and porcelain wash basin sitting on it, a three-legged stool beneath, and a cracked water pitcher and chamber pot in one corner. A wash cloth hung from a peg above the table and a Bible lay in a small niche in the far wall next to a neatly folded handkerchief and a box of matches. The book with the scarlet cover was nowhere to be seen.

The nun stood by the side of the bed, staring at her with wide and fearful eyes, but as Tacita approached the young woman let out a sigh of relief and said, "I thought you were the abbess, or Sister Berthelle!"

The words were spoken in Italian, but Tacita's BabelBuster telepathonic language translation app instantly changed them into English and the tiny speaker implanted in her larynx morphed her reply into Italian: "I'm sorry to intrude, but I heard you cry out. What troubles you?"

"Oh nothing, sister. I'm fine."

"You've been crying."

"It's nothing. Truly."

"I see. Well in that case..." Tacita started to turn toward the door.

"Wait," the nun said. She peered intently at Tacita's face. "I don't remember seeing you before. Are you new here?"

"Yes. I only just arrived."

"What's your name?"

"Sister Tacita. And you are?"

"Sister Mertha."

"Nice to meet you."

"Same here."

"Well I'll let you get back to your book now."

Alarm registered on the nun's face. "Book? What book?"

"The one you were reading when I looked in the window."

The nun gestured at the book in the niche. "Oh, you mean my Bible."

"No, it had a red cover."

The nun scurried to the door, quickly closed it and spun around. "Please don't tell anyone about that book!" she implored in a low voice, her hands clasped pleadingly. "I could get in a lot of trouble!"

"Don't worry, I won't. ... Um, just out of curiosity, what book were you reading?"

"Do you promise not to tell?"

"Promise."

"Cross your heart?"

Tacita made the gesture.

Sister Mertha went to the bed, reached under the threadbare blanket and took out the book with the scarlet cover, turning it so Tacita could read the embossed gold title on the spine: _The Funny Friar_ by Friar Yuck.

"And why would you get in trouble for reading this book?" Tacita said.

"Because it's forbidden. No one is supposed to read it."

"And why's that? Is it naughty?"

"Oh no! I would never read anything like that!"

"Then what's the problem?"

"It's ... funny."

"And that's bad?"

The nun nodded gravely. "Abbess Somberti thinks so. She says those of us who devote our lives to God should take our duties seriously and comport ourselves in a solemn manner befitting the Almighty, and laughter is a weakness indulged in by those with frivolous natures who mock the majesty of God with every mindless giggle."

"That's utter nonsense."

"Oh, you mustn't say such things! It's not our place to question the wisdom of our superiors. But it does get a bit confusing at times, because the previous abbess, Jestiniana, held far more lenient views toward laughter and I sometimes find it difficult to adjust to these new strictures. I mean, if reading such books was not a sin when Abbess Jestiniana was here, and now it is, does that mean God changed his mind? How is that possible?"

"Good question. I suspect God has a fine sense of humor and loves to play jokes on us. What other reason would he have for creating men?"

Sister Mertha's hand flew to her mouth as she muffled a giggle.

"So that's what I heard as I was passing by," Tacita said. "You weren't sobbing, you were laughing."

Sister Mertha bowed her head. "Yes, I confess. I was laughing. The book is so hilarious I couldn't help myself!" She glanced at the window in the wall and the one in the door, then leaned in close and whispered: "Would you like to hear some of my favorite jokes from the book?"

"Uh ... sure."

"Alright, why did the priest cross the road?"

"I give up. Why?"

"Because it asked for a blessing. ... Get it? The priest didn't walk across the road, he made the sign of the cross _on_ the road because the road can talk and it asked..."

"Yeah, I get it. That's, um ... real funny."

"I knew you'd like it! Listen to this one: What do you get when you cross one of the devil's minions with a monkey?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"A ch-imp."

"Oh God."

"This one's even better: What do you get when you cross a river with a beaver?"

"I give up. What?"

"Damned if I know!"

"Heh ... heh."

"There's pictures, too!" The nun licked her finger, flipped a few pages, held up the book so Tacita could see a color illustration of two cats clad in priestly vestments cornering a cowering church mouse. The caption: "Let us prey."

The nun grinned. "Get it? Prey spelled with an 'e' instead of an 'a'.

"Yes, I get it. Very amusing. I'd love to hear more, but I really must be going. Nice meeting you."

"What's your hurry?"

"It's late and I'm tired. Good night."

"Hey wait a minute."

Tacita repressed the urge to grit her teeth. "What is it now?"

"Can I go with you? I have to visit the dispensary to get some fennel for my tummy and then I have to stop by the library to return the book, so we might as well..."

"Hold on a sec. You say you got this book from the library?"

"Yes."

"Here at the abbey?"

"Of course. Where else?"

"But if the book is banned, what's it doing in the library?"

"Oh, it isn't out on the main floor where everyone can see it. It's hidden away in a secret room along with all the other banned books."

"That makes no sense. What's the point in having books no one is allowed to read?"

"They weren't always banned. When Abbess Jestiniana was in charge the books were on the open shelves in the main library. But when Abbess Somberti took over the first thing she did was go through the library and weed out all the questionable books. She wanted to burn them, but Sister Quillota – she's the head librarian – she reminded the abbess that our library is renowned as one of the greatest repositories of knowledge in all of Christendom and it would hurt our reputation if word got out that we were burning books. And if we ever faced a shortage of funds, as we have in the past, we could sell some of the banned books for a tidy profit. Not in Italy, of course, but somewhere abroad, England or America, where everyone is a heathen and it wouldn't matter if their minds were tainted by ungodly tomes. So the abbess ordered the books placed into the secret room, the one where the sisters of our order hid themselves during the Saxon invasion a hundred and fifty years ago. Or was it the Normans? I always get those two confused."

"So if the books are kept in a secret room, how did you get hold of this one?"

"Sister Quillota divulged the secret to me. She knows how much I like funny things. And in return I ..."

Her voice trailed off, her cheeks reddening.

"Go on," Tacita said.

"Um ... never mind." The nun walked swiftly to the door. "Shall we go?"

"I'd really love to, Sister, but like I said, I'm very tired. I'd rather head straight for bed without any side trips."

"But you have to go past the dispensary and the library to get to the east wing, so I won't be taking you out of your way at all. It'll give us a chance to talk some more and you can tell me all about yourself."

"What makes you think I'm staying in the east wing?"

"Well you certainly can't be staying in _this_ wing. All the rooms are already assigned. So you must be in the east wing."

"Oh. You're right. Sorry, I got confused."

"All the more reason for me to go with you. It's easy to get lost in these hallways if you don't know your way around. The first day I was here I wandered around in circles for twenty minutes before I found my room."

Tacita had no desire for company, but if she refused the nun's request she'd arouse suspicion. And she sensed a plaintive tone in Sister Mertha's voice, a desperate eagerness. The girl must be lonely for a kindred spirit.

Or horny.

Tacita forced a smile. "Alright then. Lead the way."

Sister Mertha clapped her hands in glee, then grabbed her lamp, tucked her book under her arm and led Tacita out the door.

As they roamed the shadow-shrouded hallways, Tacita savored the gothic atmosphere of the ancient abbey. She could almost hear the soft footfalls and murmurs of all the women who had dwelled within those weathered stone walls over the span of centuries.

"This is the scriptorium," Sister Mertha said as they entered a large room where twenty writing desks sat in shadows striped by bands of moonlight streaming through unstained windows. Tacita got goose bumps as the glow from the nun's lantern revealed partially finished pages lying on some of the desks, and she stared at the fancy lettering and colorful pictures, so painstakingly made by dutiful scribes. Long before Xerox machines or printing presses or the internet, this was how the knowledge of the human race was preserved and spread throughout the world, in books that would someday be worth a small fortune and touched only by hands sheathed in latex gloves.

Sister Mertha led the way to the back of the room and behind a counter, then went through an arched doorway into the library proper, where scores of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stretched into the shadows. At the far end of the room sat a black cabinet, about seven feet high and five feet wide, with double doors framed by little carvings. Sister Mertha opened the doors, revealing shelves filled with blank sheets of parchment, pens, nibs and bottles of ink. She set her lamp on the floor, reached into the front of her scapular, took out a small piece of folded parchment and shook it open.

"Guess what this is," she said in a conspiratorial whisper.

"A piece of paper."

The nun muffled another giggle. "Oh you are too funny, Sister Tacita! You're right, of course. But do you know what's _on_ the piece of paper?"

"I haven't a clue."

The nun giggled again. "Ah, but you _do_ have a clue. A bunch of clues!" She held the paper higher. "These are the instructions for getting into the secret room. Sister Quillota wrote them down for me in the form of a riddle."

"Why did she do that? Why not just write them out plain?"

"Because she isn't supposed to reveal the secret, and by putting the clues into a riddle she's _concealing_ the secret, not revealing it, if you see what I mean. And if this paper fell into the wrong hands, whoever found it wouldn't know what it really was. And besides, Sister Quillota knows I like riddles almost as much as I like jokes. Don't you?"

"I hate riddles," Tacita said, recalling the irritating conundrum she'd encountered during Operation Cobalt Falcon Deltoid, her last mission.

"So you don't want to try and solve it?"

"No."

"Oh come on. It's not that hard. Listen: 'Start with a wine you do not drink, then poke an eye that does not blink. Find the one that can't pass through, and give a quick look to another clue. Then up you go, eyes open wide, to find the books nun dare to hide.'"

She looked up. "Isn't that a splendid riddle?"

"Terrific," Tacita said glumly.

"Are you sure you don't want to take a crack at it?"

"Positive."

Sister Mertha sighed. "Alright, I'll explain it to you. What kind of wine do you not drink? W-h-i-n-e." She shut the cabinet doors and gestured at the carvings surrounding them. "Do you see a picture of a dog?"

"Yes."

"Notice how sad he looks? That's because he's whining!"

"Oh."

Sister Mertha pressed the carving with her index finger and it sank a half-inch as a mechanism inside the cabinet clicked.

"Isn't that clever?" the nun said.

"Yeah."

"Now for the next clue. What kind of eye doesn't blink? The eye of a needle. And what's too big to pass through the eye of a needle? Surely you can figure out _that_ part!"

"A camel?"

"Very good!" Sister Mertha pushed a camel carving and was rewarded with another click. She looked at Tacita over her shoulder. "Alright, what's another word for a quick look?"

"A glance?"

"Oh come on. It has to be something you can make into a picture."

"I give up."

"The answer is 'peek,' of course, but you spell it with an 'a'. As in mountain peak." She turned back to the cabinet and pushed the carving of a Billy goat standing on the side of a mountain.

Click. Creak.

The entire cabinet swung to the side, exposing a secret entrance, and Sister Mertha picked up her lantern and thrust it into the opening, revealing a winding flight of narrow stone steps.

"When your eyes are open wide, they stare," the nun said. "And here are stairs, s-t-a-i-r. And 'none' is spelled 'n-u-n' because..."

"Yeah, I get it. Can you show me the secret room now? The suspense is killing me."

Sister Mertha shivered with delight. "It _is_ exciting, isn't it? Secret rooms, clever riddles, forbidden books – it's like something out of a novel! ... Not that I'd know personally, of course. We're not allowed to read novels."

They ascended the chilly stairwell and emerged in a room about forty feet by thirty with a low, curved ceiling braced by corbels. No shelves here, just stacks of books on nine tables, maybe a thousand books in all. Tacita smiled as she thought of a similar place, a certain second-hand bookstore in New York City that fronted for BANGLE headquarters.

Her eyes scanned the room, hoping to see a telltale amber glow floating amidst the stacks or hovering between the corbels. No such luck.

Sister Mertha set down her lantern and book on the nearest table and picked up another tome. "I'm going to read this one next. _Churchy Chuckles._ It's also by Friar Yuck. I just hope it's as good as _The Funny Friar,_ though it's hard to imagine anyone coming up with enough great jokes to fill two..."

Footsteps. On the stairs.

Sister Mertha froze. Tacita turned. A black headdress appeared at the top of the stairs, rising slowly to reveal the face beneath – skin resembling parchment, thin lips pursed in disapproval, eyes coated with a milky film.

"Oh God, it's Sister Corgi!" the young nun whispered to Tacita. "She's the assistant librarian and a real pain in the ass!"

"A blind librarian?"

"She was not always thus."

"Oh."

"Sister Mertha?" the librarian said in a stone-cold voice as her feet reached the top of the stairs. "Is that you?"

The girl gulped. "Yes, venerable Corgi."

"Who's with you?" the librarian demanded.

Sister Mertha started to reply, but Tacita placed a hand over the young nun's mouth and said, in a slightly haughty tone: "I am Sister Tacita, venerable Corgi. The College of Cardinals sent me to take an inventory of the various literary holdings of the abbeys and monasteries in this region."

Sister Corgi arched a severely plucked eyebrow. "An emissary from Rome?"

"Yes, Sister."

"Why was I not informed of your visit?"

"A letter was sent to Abbess Somberti and I presume she passed that information along to Sister Quillota. If the letter was not delivered, or if the information was not conveyed to you, that is not my concern. Now if you would be so kind, I would like to see a list of ..."

"Excuse me, Worthy and Honored Emissary, but might I ask if you have paid your respects to the Abbess?"

"Not as yet. I only just arrived and the hour is late and I did not wish to disturb her. Naturally I shall present myself to her first thing in the morning and ask her indulgence. But I saw no reason to delay the start of my inquiry to await the sunrise. I am a bit of a night owl."

The librarian approached, extending an arm. "Hold still." Her bony fingers probed Tacita's face. "You are young to hold such an exalted rank within the church." Her fingertips brushed Tacita's mouth, lingered. "Your lips have been kissed. Often."

"That is no concern of yours."

The librarian turned to Sister Mertha. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you in your room?"

"Um ..."

Tacita interjected: "I encountered Sister Mertha as she was headed for the dispensary to get some fennel to soothe her upset stomach. I told her I intended to explore the library – including this room – and she followed me, imploring me not to enter this forbidden place. Her conduct has been above reproach."

"I'll be the judge of that," Sister Corgi snapped. "Now would one of you kindly tell me how you got into this room?"

"Through the cabinet," Tacita said.

"Obviously. But how did you know which buttons to press to unlock it?"

"I have a talent for solving puzzles – and ferreting out secrets," Tacita said. "No one keeps secrets from Rome, Sister Corgi. Not for long. Sooner or later, Rome knows all."

"Humph. And might I inquire as to the whereabouts of the traveling companions who accompanied you from Rome?"

"One of them was taken ill during the journey, and the other chose to stay with her. In Castelrotto."

"And you came on alone? All the way from Castelrotto? With brigands hiding behind every tree, ready to waylay the unwary? You must be mad!"

"I'm quite capable of taking care of myself – with the help of God, of course, who surely watched over me to ensure my safe arrival."

"I see." The librarian turned to Sister Mertha. "So you entered this room with the sole intent of convincing our honored visitor to leave it without delay. Is that correct?"

Sister Mertha licked her lips nervously. "I ... my duty was clear."

"And yet as I came up the stairs I heard you praising _The Funny Friar._ Is that not correct? _"_

"Well I..."

"How did you get your hands on a forbidden book? Did Sister Quillota give it to you?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then how did you..."

"Sister Corgi," Tacita said, "the central issue here is not how Sister Mertha acquired the book but whether the book should be banned in the first place. Let me remind you that the final determination about the acceptance or condemnation of any and all books in this and every library in Christendom rests with Rome, and as an emissary of the College of Cardinals I am the sole arbiter. Even if I agreed that humor was sinful, which I do not, I would not condemn _The Funny Friar,_ for I have listened to a sampling of its contents and I've come to the conclusion there's nothing remotely funny about it. In fact, if every nun were to read that book they would probably abstain from humor for the rest of their lives."

"And yet I heard Sister Mertha praising it."

"She was being sarcastic."

"I see. I must confess I have never read the book myself." She gestured at her own eyes. "Even before God granted me my affliction, I avoided forbidden works. But if you would be so kind as to read a sample of its contents to me, just a couple of pages, then I could judge its merits – or lack thereof – for myself."

Tacita had no desire to sample any more of Friar Tuck's writing, but she saw no alternative, so she picked up the book and began to read aloud as Sister Mertha bit her lower lip in a valiant attempt to suppress her giggles.

As Tacita turned the pages the parchment made a delightful crackling sound – which was the only pleasing thing about the whole ordeal – and after a minute or so Sister Corgi mercifully held up her hand.

"You may stop now," the librarian said. "I must concur with your appraisal, Sister Tacita. The humor in this book is God awful. But that does not make the book benign. On the contrary. It is extremely dangerous."

"Oh come now..."

"Let me finish. I know for a fact the book is dangerous" – a nasty grin broke out on her face – "because I coated every page with a deadly poison, as I have treated every book housed within this accursed room. And when you licked your finger whilst turning the pages, you ingested that poison, as did you, Sister Mertha."

The young nun's face turned white as her wimple and she clamped a hand to her stomach and moaned, "Oh my God! I'm doomed!"

A malevolent gleam shone from the librarian's sightless eyes, like a lamp viewed through curtains. "Yes, Sister Mertha! At this very moment the poison is coursing through your bloodstream and it shall bring slow and agonizing death to you and your companion, a fitting end to all who presume to mock God's somber presence with foul giggles and blasphemous mirth!"

Tacita glowered. "You dare attack an emissary of Rome?"

The librarian smirked. "Of course not. But you are no more an emissary of Rome than the asses in our stables. No cardinal would send a mere nun on a mission of such importance, and no emissary would travel with only two companions, nor leave them behind and come on alone. I know not your true origins, but you are in league with the devil and in cahoots with Sister Mertha, of that I have no doubt. But I have outwitted you, just as I outwitted Sister Quillota. She forbade me to destroy these books, but she never said anything about destroying the readers!"

Sister Mertha sank down in a chair next to one of the tables and doubled over, clutching her stomach and moaning "Lord have mercy!"

"You plead for mercy?" the librarian said. "Ask and ye shall receive. Your death _shall_ be merciful – slow and agonizing, to be sure, but far more pleasant than what you deserve. If I had my druthers you'd be burned at the stake." She sighed wistfully. "But the Holy Inquisition forbids it. Only its officials are allowed to conduct burnings. They say women don't have the intestinal fortitude to carry out such extreme punishments without damaging our fragile sensibilities, so we must summon the men to do it for us and the waiting list is so long it might be six months before they get around to us. Six months! Far too long to harbor sinners in our midst."

Tacita shook her head. "Yeah, what's this world coming to when you can't get a stake-burning scheduled in a timely manner? But I've got some bad news for you, dearie. I never lick my fingers before turning the pages of a book. It's disgusting."

Sister Corgi stiffened. "Oh. ... I see." She turned away, bowing her head and clasping her hands. "Then I have failed in my sacred duty."

Suddenly she spun around, brandishing a dagger, and charged toward Tacita screaming like a banshee, her arm raised high, her face a mask of rage and madness. The move took Tacita by surprise and she had less than two seconds to react, but she was used to such situations. She blocked the downward thrust with her right forearm, simultaneously driving the heel of her left hand into the librarian's nose.

Crunch!

Shrieking in pain and fury, Sister Corgi fell to her knees, then twisted around and scuttled like a crab toward Sister Mertha's lantern, no doubt sensing its location by its warmth and scent. She swept her hand back and forth, found the lantern, grabbed it and hurled it to the floor with all her might. The glass shattered. Oil gushed, ignited.

Fwoof!

Tacita ran toward the fire, but Sister Corgi heard her and lunged at her legs, dragging her down. Hands sought out Tacita's eyes. Teeth sought her throat. By the time Tacita subdued the crazed librarian the fire was already out of control, with half the tables fully engulfed, the flames hungrily devouring the books.

Tacita ran to Sister Mertha, who had jumped to her feet and was gaping at the fire, her eyes round as saucers, her hands clasped in prayer. "Into Your hands I commend my spirit, oh Lord. May the purifying flames cleanse my wicked soul and..."

"You're a bit premature, sister," Tacita said as she reached into the hidden slit in the side of her habit. She unzipped her bag and fished around for a dark blue plastic tube that resembled ChapStick. She took it out, pulled off the cap, twisted a dial at the base, pressed the tip of the tube against the carotid artery in Sister Mertha's neck and pushed a button in the middle of the dial – _Pishhh –_ delivering a powerful anti-toxin into the young nun's bloodstream.

Sister Mertha clasped her neck and gasped, hiccupped, giggled, hiccupped again – common side-effects of the antidote, TNPO-130, a blend of ToxiNot and PoisOff developed by the GOTCHA labs.

"Don't worry, Sister Mertha," Tacita said. "I gave you a medicine to counteract the poison. You're going to be..."

A scream!

Tacita spun around and gasped. Sister Corgi had regained consciousness – and small wonder, for her habit had caught fire and flames were licking her body, swiftly transforming her into a writhing mass of bubbling, blackening flesh.

Tacita grabbed Sister Mertha, draping the nun's arm around her shoulder, but as she started toward the stairs she heard a cry behind her.

"Hey sweetie! You're going the wrong way!"

She turned and saw the ring of emerald light hovering ten yards away, with Dym inside, holding the Stone of Rimeh.

"A demon!" Sister Mertha cried.

"Relax," Tacita said. "He's a friend of mine. And he's ..."

"Oh God! Sister Corgi was right. You _are_ in league with the devil!"

She broke free of Tacita's grasp and fled in terror, dashing down the stairs.

Too bad. She'll never get to read the sequel.

Tacita ran to the ring and leapt into it, nearly colliding with Dym, and then a powder-blue bubble appeared, about five feet in diameter, and the arm in the white flannel sleeve reached out of it, the pudgy fingers grabbing her wrist and yanking hard. She passed through the tingling membrane of energy and fell out the other side, landing with a thud on a tiger-skin rug in front of a fireplace full of cheery little flames.

CHAPTER SIX

A heavyset man in a white flannel suit regarded Tacita from the depths of a high-backed maroon leather chair in a tastefully appointed apartment. An old-fashioned radio with a rounded top, cloth speaker and brown Bakelite body sat on a small table near a window where a flashing neon sign shone beyond white curtains, accompanied by the muted sounds of traffic several stories below. A brass gizmo the size of a shoebox sat in the man's lap, with six crystal control knobs on top, the size of billiard balls but shaped like skulls, pulsating with green, gold and red lights. Mounted above the front of the box was an oval looking-glass, the size of a shaving mirror, and on the left side were two twelve-inch-long copper rods forming a V, like a TV antenna. Rings of shimmering brassy light rose between the rods, widening as they went, breaking free as they reached the top, dozens of them, tightly packed, resembling some insane Slinky climbing invisible stairs. They slithered to the ceiling and coalesced into one big ring, six feet across and filled with spinning spokes like a giant bicycle wheel, as new rings formed at the antenna's base.

The heavyset man twisted one of the skull knobs far to the left and all the knobs darkened as the rings vanished with a soft crackling sound and the gizmo's faint hum faded to silence.

"Good evening, Miss Pruval," the man said. "So nice to make your acquaintance at last. I must say I had a devil of a time getting you here, what with all the turbulence and interference I had to contend with. I trust your little side trips did not distress you too greatly? I would have felt dreadful if you'd perished in a fourteenth century nunnery, although it would have been a deliciously ironic ending for someone of your nature. Would you care for some port?"

"Uh ... sure."

As she got to her feet she sensed someone coming up behind her. She spun around and saw a twenty-ish man with a baby face belied by hard eyes. He wore a fedora and an unbuttoned trench coat, his hands thrust deeply into the pockets. Standing behind him and a little to the left was a short, slim man of perhaps fifty with lidded eyes and short, slicked-back black hair. He wore a dark-blue suit with a carnation in the lapel and held a silver-handled walking stick. He smelled vaguely of lilacs.

"Walmar," the heavyset man said, "fetch Miss Pruval a drink."

"Shouldn't I frisk her first, boss?" the man in the trench coat replied.

The heavyset man chortled. "I don't think that will be necessary. I'm sure Miss Pruval will be reasonable about the situation, considering we outnumber her three to one. Miss Pruval, I assume you are – as the saying goes – packing heat?" His eyes flitted over her curves. "In more ways than one, I must say. But at the moment it's not your natural charms that pose the greatest danger, it's the pistol in the holster strapped to your thigh. I'm sure you'd rather remove it yourself, although my young friend would no doubt relish the chance to do it for you."

"Pistol?" Tacita said. "Thigh holster? What kind of gag is this? My name's Flossie Vatwick and I'm a Fuller Brush girl. Would you care to see my bristles?"

Another chortle. "My dear girl, let's not play games. You are Tacita Pruval, Agent 6960 with the Government Organization of Technological Commandos on High Alert, more commonly referred to as GOTCHA. And I am Gaspard Jutland, although many refer to me as The Large Man. I am loosely connected with an organization I believe you're quite familiar with, the Society for the Perpetuation of Evil Crap That Really Undermines Society Hellishly. In other words, SPECTRUSH. My two associates are Walmar Rook – he's the one in the trench coat – and Jules Faro. They are independent operatives in my employ. Now if you would be so kind as to dispense with your pistol, please?"

She took the pistol out of her holster as Faro leaned forward slightly to get a better view of her thigh, glimpsed through the slit in her skirt. She glared at him and handed the gun to Walmar, who slipped it into his pocket.

"Satisfied?" she said to The Large Man.

"Not quite. Mr. Faro, would you kindly bring in the footwear for Miss Pruval?"

Faro's eyes glistened. "Certainly," he purred. He set his walking stick on a table and hurried into another room, returning moments later with a set of high-heel shoes.

What the hell?

The shoes were made of tin and crudely fashioned, with leather straps riveted to the tops.

"Miss Pruval," Jutland said, "kindly remove your shoes and put these on."

"Why?" she said.

"Because we have no desire to be fired upon by the lasers in your toes, which you no doubt plan to unleash upon us if given the slightest opportunity. At the moment you couldn't get off three clean shots before we retaliated, but the slightest lack of vigilance on our part could prove our undoing. These shoes will block your beams and if you fire them you shall succeed only in giving yourself a hotfoot."

"My toe lasers don't work any more," she said. "They haven't in months."

"A likely story."

"It's true."

Actually it was true, but she didn't expect them to believe her.

"I don't wish to doubt your veracity, Miss Pruval," Jutland said, "but I think I should err on the side of caution."

She shrugged. "OK."

She removed her footwear and Faro knelt down, grabbed her right ankle, raised her leg and slipped one of the tin shoes into place, then buckled the leather strap and looked up at her, beaming.

"You have marvelous arches, Miss Pruval."

"Which you're going to ruin with these god-awful shoes."

Jutland guffawed. "Oh come now, Miss Pruval. A woman will subject her tootsies to the tortures of Torquemada himself to wear a pair of shoes she admires. It isn't the discomfort you mind, it's the appearance. I regret to say that cobblers who work in metal rather than leather are hard to find, so Mr. Faro had to construct the shoes himself, and crafting designer footwear is not his forte."

Faro put on her other shoe, then slowly slid his soft hand up Tacita's calf, grinning as she glowered. He stood up, retrieved his walking stick and retreated to a nearby couch, perching on the edge of the seat, his stick resting between his knees with his hands folded on top of it, like a gentleman awaiting a bus.

Tacita looked at Jutland. "Now that your minion has indulged his foot fetish, let's get down to brass tacks. What the hell do you want?"

Chuckle. "Very good. Very good indeed. I like a person who gets straight to the point. I dislike someone who beats around the bush."

"Uh huh. So what do you want?"

"Miss Pruval, I have gone to a great deal of trouble to acquire a certain object of great value. I haven't got it yet, but ... I'm going to get it. You, too, are interested in this object, but you have no money in the game, no passion for the prize, you merely play because you're good at it and you want to win because it is your nature. However, if you deliver the object to me I am prepared to offer you the sum of three hundred thousand dollars."

"What object is that?"

"Oh come now, Miss Pruval. We both know what I'm referring to. The Stone of Rimeh."

"Never heard of it."

"I find that hard to believe, considering you risked your life to rescue it from the clutches of wily King Gadeirus in Atlantis."

"Atlantis? Are you off your rocker? There's no such place. It's just a myth."

"You lie quite convincingly, Miss Pruval, but I know for a fact that it exists – in an alternate universe, of course – and that you visited there quite recently. I know this because I was a scry-witness to your exploits."

"A _scry_ witness?"

He swiveled the looking-glass on the front of the box so Tacita could see its surface, a fractal filled with fragmented, multicolored images of various locales.

"This looking-glass was discovered lying in a creek bed at the foot of a melting glacier near Kitzbuhel, Austria in 1890," Jutland said. "It is the only one of its kind on Earth. Madame Blavatsky, the famed Russian occultist, had an opportunity to examine it shortly after its discovery and she immediately recognized its Atlantean origins. It was a key component in a mechanism capable of creating and controlling portals for traveling through the dimensions of space and time. She acquired the looking-glass and took it to Edinburgh, where she showed it to the eccentric but brilliant inventor Esmond Oldpash Pendred, who constructed the device you see before you – based on diagrams drawn by Madame Blavatsky which she copied from Atlantean originals she traced during a trance.

"Alas, neither Madame Blavatsky nor Professor Pendred lived long enough to see the device in operation. Only hours before the first demonstration was scheduled to take place, she succumbed to influenza – at least that's what the doctor said – and Professor Pendred mysteriously disappeared that same evening. The device – which he had named The ChEOPs Machine – was subsequently stolen from his home during an estate sale. Over the years it passed through the hands of several owners who had no conception of its true purpose and regarded it as merely an intriguing artifact. Eventually it ended up in a curio shop in Tangiers where I happened to stumble across it some years ago. The proprietor was a pretentious and ignorant fool who thought he was flimflamming a gullible tourist, and I gladly paid his asking price – a mere pittance considering what the device is actually worth.

"It took me over six months to figure out how to use the ChEOPs Machine to build a working portal. Up till then I contented myself with merely scrying into the past, observing intriguing locales such as Egypt in the time of the pharaohs, Rome under the rule of the Caesars, and Atlantis. When I witnessed agents of King Gadeirus liberating the Stone of Rimeh from its inventor, that's when I built my first full-size portal and transported myself to Atlantis, intending to abscond with the stone – discreetly, of course – leaving Gadeirus to take the blame. But before I could do so you arrived on the scene.

"As you know, if two portals occupy the same time-slot simultaneously it creates clear-era turbulence which can prove quite troublesome, even disastrous. The intrusion of your portal and its subsequent implosion caused such turbulence and by the time I regained control of my own portal you had liberated the stone and returned it to that tiresomely incorruptible King Diaprepes. When that young fool Perimos tore the already weakened fabric of time-space with his antics I was all set to reach through the breach and grab the stone out from under your very nose, but that infuriating little lavender pest barged in and ruined everything. I refer of course to Dym the djin, one of those elemental irritants who roam the astral plane like flies, attracted to the slightest whiff of energy.

"I've been engaged in a running battle with Dym ever since, vying for astral supremacy, trying to dodge the rips in reality caused by our conflict. Only minutes ago I thought I had finally won when you landed at my feet, but the Stone of Rimeh remains in Dym's possession and that dirty little coward has fled the scene of battle and retreated to one of his lairs. But sooner or later he shall return, drawn irresistibly by your undeniable charms, and then you shall take the stone away from him, one way or another, and hand it over to me. And I shall dispatch that lavender pest to his well-deserved oblivion and assume my place among the ..."

He coughed. "Pardon me a moment." He reached for a half-full glass on a side table.

"Hey, don't I get a drink?" Tacita said. "I seem to recall you offering me one."

"Ah, so I did. Forgive my bad manners. ... Walmar, kindly fetch the lady a glass of port." To Tacita: "Or would you prefer cognac?"

"Port is fine."

Walmar strolled over to the bar, poured a drink and brought it back to Tacita.

"Thanks," she said, and started to bring the glass to her lips, then tossed the drink into Walmar's face and karate chopped the side of his neck. As he fell she spun around and somersaulted to Jutland, delivering a drop-kick to his chin, then leapt sideways toward Faro, who was rising from the couch brandishing his cane. She snapped it in two with another karate chop and he shoved a hand inside the lapel of his coat, struggling to pull something out. A derringer. She knocked it out of his grip and backhanded him across the face.

"Ow!" he said. "You struck me!"

She hit him again, this time with her palm. "When you're slapped you'll take it and like it!"

She was caught up in the heat of the moment and didn't realize someone new had entered the room, until it was too late.

Whup!

Uhh!

Thump!

***

Tacita's eyes fluttered open and she gazed up into the face of The Large Man, who was holding an ice pack to his chin. The chEOPs Machine lay on a small, round table to his right. Faro stood to the left of The Large Man's chair, rubbing his right wrist with one hand, his left cheek with the other, and Walmar was next to him, ignoring the bruise on the side of his neck, his hands thrust deeply into his pockets as he gave Tacita the evil eye. A fourth person, a thirtyish woman with close-cropped, curled brown hair and a crafty expression on her coldly pretty face, stood behind the chair. She wore a powder blue suit.

Tacita's head throbbed like crazy and she groaned as she touched an egg-sized lump on the nape of her neck. She struggled to her feet.

"Ah, Miss Pruval, you've decided to rejoin us," The Large Man said. "Excellent. I don't believe you've been properly introduced to Miss Hennessey." He glanced over his shoulder at the other woman, who regarded Tacita with a cool appraisal.

"Miss Hennessey came here to discuss another business venture," Jutland said, "but I was preparing for your arrival and asked her to wait in the kitchen until I was free." Chortle. "But she isn't the kind of woman who allows herself to be confined to the kitchen indefinitely, and for that I am most grateful. Her timely intervention saved the day."

He took the ice pack away from his chin, revealing a small bruise. "Would you care to borrow this?"

"No thanks," Tacita replied.

"Suit yourself." He set the ice pack on the table and folded his hands in his lap. "Now let's get down to brass tacks, so to speak. I am willing to up the ante – a half-million dollars in exchange for the Stone of Rimeh. That is my final offer."

Tacita shook her head. "Forget it."

"A half-million dollars doesn't appeal to you?"

"It does. But I'd rather earn it honestly."

"I see. Unfortunately, that is not an acceptable answer. And if a monetary inducement won't suffice, I shall have no choice but to ask Walmar to persuade you, using tactics of a most crude and thoroughly unpleasant nature."

Tacita smirked. "Walmar? Seriously? That's the best you can do? I've seen kids in nursery school who were tougher than this punk."

Walmar took a step toward her. "Better watch your mouth, lady."

"Ooh. I'm shaking like a leaf!"

"Calm yourself, Walmar," Jutland said.

"Yeah," Tacita said. "Calm yourself. What you need is a drink – if you can manage not to spill it all over yourself. Or would milk be more your speed?"

Walmar took another step. "You big-mouthed broad. I've had all I'm gonna take from you."

Jutland held up a hand. "Pay her no mind, Walmar. Miss Pruval is simply trying to get your goat."

"Well tell her to quit riding me!"

Tacita snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. I wouldn't ride you if you were the favorite in the Kentucky Derby."

"That does it!" Walmar drew the pistols halfway out of his pockets.

Jutland rose to his feet. "Walmar!" he roared. "Put those guns away and sit down!"

The red-faced hood hesitated, then slid the guns back into his pockets, stomped to the couch and plunked his keister down hard, glowering at Tacita.

Jutland turned to her. "Please don't provoke him. If he kills you in the heat of the moment I shall have to make other arrangements to acquire the Stone, and I cannot bear the thought of any further delays."

"And I can't bear the thought of SPECTRUSH getting their hands on the Stone of Rimeh," Tacita said.

"My dear, you are laboring under a misapprehension. I am not actually a member of SPECTRUSH, merely an independent contractor. Miss Hennessey, on the other hand, _is_ a full-fledged SPECTRUSH agent, but she has kindly agreed to toss in her lot with me and double-cross her current employers. And let me assure you, my goal in acquiring the stone is not power but wealth. There are many commercial uses for such a splendid crystal that do not involve subjugating the people of the world."

"SPECTRUSH doesn't like double-crossers," Tacita said. "You're playing a dangerous game."

"Heh. With the Stone of Rimeh in my possession, it's SPECTRUSH that will be in danger – and anyone else who opposes me. So you can choose to join me and reap the rewards or oppose me and suffer the consequences." His eyes took on the remorseless gaze of a shark. "I understand you have a very high tolerance for pain, Miss Pruval. But don't assume you can persevere in this situation. Walmar is quite adept in utilizing the methods of the underworld. And if those don't work, Mr. Faro can call upon his own unique talents."

"The answer is still no," Tacita said.

"Is that your final word on the matter?"

"It is."

"Absolutely, positively?"

"Absolutely, positively."

"What a pity."

He snapped his fingers and Walmar pulled a sap from his pocket and strode menacingly toward Tacita. She backed away a few paces and then sprang at him, but Jutland stuck out his foot and tripped her up. The sap descended.

***

A shrill whistle awakened her.

She was sitting in an office chair in the middle of a kitchen, her jacket removed, her body bound by clotheslines – her wrists tied to the arm rests, her ankles secured to the pneumatic post beneath the seat, with more clothesline wrapped around her waist and the backrest. The horrid whistling, which was slicing into her aching head like a knife, came from a teakettle sitting on a stove with a thin stream of steam spewing from its spout.

Walmar stood in front of her, coatless, his sleeves rolled up. Faro leaned against the far wall, one ankle crossed over the other, smoking a cigarette and watching her intently.

"We've got a bet going, him and me," Walmar said, gesturing at Faro. "He says you'll take it for ten minutes before you cave in. My money's on five, tops."

"You both lose," Tacita said. "I'll never cave."

"Oh yeah? We'll see about that. And it'll sure be fun finding out."

"Dym?" she muttered. "Dym, are you anywhere? Can you hear me? I need help. ... You got me into this mess, you little motherfucker, and it's up to you to get me out! ... Dym? ... Shit!"

"You say something?" Walmar said.

"Not a thing."

Walmar walked over to the stove, took the teakettle off the hot burner and set it on a cold one as the shrill whistle subsided.

"That's for later," he said. "If it comes to that."

As he came back toward her, Tacita summoned every ounce of energy she could – not for her muscles, for she knew she couldn't break free of the bonds – but her mind. Using techniques she'd learned from a Himalayan yogi many years before, she raised a psychic barrier between her conscious mind and the nerve endings of her body. As Walmar's fist slammed into her face she felt nothing but a slight jarring sensation. The second blow busted her nose and the third one split open her lower lip, but she still felt hardly anything except a vague awareness of the blood streaming from her nostrils and mouth and dribbling down her chin.

She yawned. "That the best you can do?"

He slapped her across the cheek, flinging flecks of blood sideways to splatter against the cabinet below the sink.

"Bored, huh?" he said. "Let me wake you up."

He rammed his fist into her gut so hard she feared an organ might burst, but even though her nerve endings clamored for attention her mental cocoon held fast.

Walmar took a step back, breathing hard. "Ready to give up?"

"Never," she said.

He grinned. "Good. A mouthy broad like you needs a good working over and I'm just getting started."

He grabbed the front of her blouse and yanked hard, ripping the silk as buttons popped off and hit the floor with little clicks. He took a switchblade from his pocket, flicked it open and inserted the blade beneath the front of her bra, the cold steel shivering along her breastbone. He jerked the knife upward, slicing through the bra, then tugged on each cup to free her breasts. He pocketed the knife and cupped her tits, his breath blowing hot and heavy into her face as a bulge rose in his trousers. Faro had a hard-on too, and let out a soft whimper of lust as he eyed her hungrily from across the room.

After a minute or so Walmar finally tired of playing with her breasts and got back to business. He walked over to the counter, pulled open a drawer, took out a pair of tongs, came back.

"I've heard you're pretty tough in a pinch," he said. "Let's find out."

He placed the tong tips on her right nipple, grabbed the handles and squeezed as hard as he could. Tacita felt a slight twinge of pain that got through her mental defenses, but she refused to cringe.

"Wanna give up now?" Walmar said, his voice thick with arousal.

"Fuck off, punk," she replied through gritted teeth.

He fastened the tongs to her other nipple, holding the pressure for a good forty-five seconds. When he finally let go his angry expression was gone, replaced by pure astonishment.

"Man, you are one tough dame." He tossed the tongs onto the counter and turned to Faro. "Your turn."

The little man sprang away from the wall and scurried over to the counter, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He pulled open one of the drawers, grabbed a box of toothpicks, opened it and took out a handful, then strolled over to the chair.

"I learned this interrogation technique in the Orient," he said in that demented-cat voice of his as his eyes flitted constantly between her exposed breasts and her face. "Have you ever been to the Orient?"

"Let's cut the chitchat, OK?" she said. "If you're going to torture me, get on with it."

He stroked her bruised cheek. "Patience, Miss Pruval. Patience."

He reached into a pocket of his coat, removed a silver quilter's thimble and slipped it over his thumb. He pressed it gently against Tacita's left nipple, then the right.

"This thimble belonged to my mother," he said. "It brings back such fond memories of my boyhood."

"What did she use it for, sewing your straitjackets?"

His face darkened. "That was uncalled for, Miss Pruval. Kindly keep a civil tongue in your head – while you still have one." He turned to Walmar. "Your assistance in restraining Miss Pruval would be most appreciated."

The hood took up position behind the chair, leaned over and placed his right hand on top of Tacita's, pinioning her palm. Faro grabbed her middle finger and raised it up, placed the point of the toothpick underneath her nail, then pushed on it with his thimble-sheathed thumb, driving the wooden shaft deeply into her digit as he peered at her expectantly. When she didn't respond, his face fell. He glanced at Walmar, who shrugged.

Faro tried again, this time impaling her index finger, and as the wooden mini-spear burrowed into her flesh her mental barrier began to crack. Her mind grabbed a bunch of comforting memories and flung them over her consciousness like a warm blanket, trying to shield herself from the lurking agony ready to pour into her mind.

Warm bread fresh from the oven, frolicking kittens tumbling across my tummy, a soft breeze tousling my hair and stirring the grass in a fragrant meadow, bubble baths in hot tubs, sipping chilled Chablis at a chalet in Cherbourg apres ski...

She took a deep breath, licked her lips. "You're ... ruining my manicure," she croaked.

Faro pushed a toothpick into her pinky and another into her ring finger, but was not rewarded with any screams or tears or grimaces, only a couple of soft hisses.

He took a step back, shaking his head. "You are a remarkable creature," he said. "Few men could withstand such pain, let alone a woman." He looked at Walmar. "I think it's time we had a spot of tea."

Walmar released her hand and went to the stove, picked up the teakettle, brought it over, handed it to Faro.

"Miss Pruval should lie down," Faro said. "She looks beat. Or should I say, beaten?"

Walmar grabbed the release lever on the side of the chair and lowered the backrest till Tacita lay at a thirty-degree angle.

"It would be a shame to disfigure such a pretty face," Faro said, running a finger along her cheek. "You'll be left with a mass of scalded flesh no man could look at without vomiting. Is that what you want, Miss Pruval?"

"Get on with it," she said.

"If you insist. Now kindly close your eyes. I wouldn't want the hot water to..." A wicked grin possessed his face. "On second thought, leave them open."

He brought the tea kettle closer. "Never fear, Miss Pruval. I wouldn't be cruel enough to blind you in both eyes. Only one. You'll have to wear a patch and endure endless pirate jokes from thoughtless people for the rest of your life, but at least it will draw attention away from your hideous scars." He leaned down and muttered in Tacita's ear. "Unless, of course, you wish to relent now? Hmm? ... Come on, Miss Pruval. Admit you're beaten."

She gave him a defiant stare. "Pour away, asshole. And do it to both my eyes. I'd rather be blind than look at the likes of you."

He straightened up slowly. "As you wish," he muttered.

He nodded at Walmar, who placed one hand on each side of her head and squeezed tight, his index fingers holding her eyelids open. She squirmed and bucked but could not escape his vice-like grip. Faro slowly tipped the teakettle down, the spout looming over her right eye.

"What the hell's going on!"

Miss Hennessey marched into the kitchen, coming to an abrupt halt as she neared the chair and saw the damages inflicted on Tacita's face and fingers. She gasped, wincing, and looked away quickly, then cast a withering glare at Walmar.

"I asked you a question," she snarled. "What the hell is going on?"

Walmar shrugged. "Whadaya think? The boss told us to work her over. So we're working her over."

Faro chuckled. "We're attempting to convince Miss Pruval to see things our way. But apparently she would prefer to see nothing at all."

"Stop it!" Hennessey snapped. "Cruelty can be useful, but this is barbaric! I forbid you to continue!"

Walmar smirked. "Since when are you calling the shots around here?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm calling this one. If you go through with this I'll never forgive you. And believe me, you do not want me for an enemy. If you doubt that, ask The Large Man what happens to people who cross me."

Faro held up a hand. "This arguing is quite unnecessary." He clasped the hand to his bosom and put a pained expression on his face. "Miss Hennessey, do you honestly believe me capable of such brutality? You cut me to the quick. I was merely bluffing – a last-ditch effort to break Miss Pruval's resolve."

"Then give me that," Miss Hennessey said, gesturing angrily at the teakettle. He handed it to her and she stormed over to the stove, slammed it down, returned to the chair, grabbed Tacita's ripped blouse and folded it over her chest to restore her modesty.

A rumbling sound in the doorway signaled the arrival of The Large Man.

"Well?" Jutland said. "Has Miss Pruval relented?"

"Not yet, boss," Walmar said. "And I don't think she's gonna. She's got moxie in buckets. If you ask me we're wasting our time."

Faro chimed in: "Not to mention some perfectly good toothpicks."

"Gaspard," Miss Hennessey said, "I told you such crude methods wouldn't work. You should have taken my suggestion."

Jutland bowed to her. "I concede the point, Miss Hennessey. We shall now implement your ingenious scheme." He turned to Tacita. "I think it's time you returned to the great toad hunt and reunited with the charming Mr. Bowman. Hopefully I can send you there without any navigational glitches or any further interference from the lavender pest. But before you go, I think it best if you take a little nap. You look tired."

He nodded at Walmar, who crossed the kitchen and opened a cabinet, took out a bottle of chloroform and a handkerchief and brought them back to the chair. He soaked the hanky and placed it over Tacita's nose and mouth. She held her breath as long as she could.

Gasped.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Inch Bowman lay on his side on the floor of the empty office, about six feet away from Tacita, staring right through her with lifeless eyes, a woeful expression fixed to his face. Two bloody blotches marred the front of his shirt and the smell of cordite hung in the air – probably from the Webley 44 revolver Tacita held in her hand.

As she struggled to her feet the door flew open, the knob banging against the wall as someone charged in. Startled, she spun around, raising the Webley.

Dan Dade stood there pointing a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 revolver at her chest. Tacita quickly lowered the Webley. Dade stared at his dead partner, then at her.

"Drop it," he said softly. She did. "Kick it over here." She obeyed. He picked it up, glowering at her.

"I didn't do it, Mr. Dade," she said.

"Oh yeah? Then who did?"

"I ... I don't know. I was knocked out. I didn't see anything."

"Uh huh."

"Hey, you think I gave _myself_ these bruises?"

"What bruises?"

She reached up and gingerly touched her face and the nape of her neck, then peered at her fingertips. All healed! How could that be? Injuries like that should take weeks to heal. Maybe she'd been kept in a drug-induced coma until she was good as new or perhaps portals could accelerate the healing process. Either way, she'd been patched up and brought back to this time and place – to be framed for murder.

"Never mind," she muttered.

Dade crossed the room and opened a closet door, keeping his eyes and gun trained on her. He glanced into the empty closet, then nodded at Tacita and gestured at another door.

"After you," he said, and followed her into the other room. "Stand over there in the corner." She obeyed, watching with her arms folded over her chest as he investigated a second closet. Empty. He fixed her with a baleful stare.

"Well I guess that narrows down the suspects to one," he said. "Why did you kill Inch Bowman?"

"I didn't."

He barked out a mirthless laugh. "Don't give me that. When I heard the first shot I ran out into the hallway just in time to hear the second shot. If anyone had left this office I would've seen them."

"I don't know how the killer got away."

"Well he didn't go out the window. We're ten stories up."

"Maybe he's out on the ledge."

Dade glanced at the windows. "Where? I don't see him."

"He could have scootched around the corner."

"And how did he close and lock the window from the outside – or did you do that for him?"

"Of course not."

"Let's go back into the other room."

They did. Dade glanced at those windows too. "All locked. You got any more bright ideas? Maybe The Shadow pulled this job. Or the Invisible Man."

"You left out Harry Houdini."

"Don't get smart."

"I wouldn't think of it."

They stared at each other for a few seconds.

"I'm still waiting," he said.

"For what?"

"An explanation."

She hesitated. "I suspect the killer did leave through a window, but not one of these."

"I don't follow you."

"What if I told you there are some windows with no walls around them and they open into other dimensions and a person can climb through such a window and travel in time and space?"

Dade smirked. "I'd say you were off your rocker and belonged in the loony bin. Is that what you're angling for, an insanity plea?"

She shrugged. "Maybe I am crazy. It's as good an explanation as any."

"Uh huh. Let's go back to my office. I need a drink." He gestured at the door. "After you."

***

As they entered Dade's office both of them paused to stare at Bowman's desk – and the empty chair behind it. A few minutes earlier Inch Bowman had been standing in this office, alive and well, never suspecting when he walked out the door that he would never, ever return.

"What's the matter?" Dade said. "Your conscience bothering you?"

"Certainly not."

He sat down in the chair behind his desk, pulled open a drawer, took out a bottle of Dewar's Scotch and a glass, poured himself a snort, took a gulp. He didn't offer her any.

"So tell me, Miss Pruval, how much did The Large Man pay you for this job?"

"There's that name again. I told you before I never heard of this Heavy Man person until you brought him up."

"Everybody in Frisco has heard of The Large Man."

"I'm from Miami."

"Oh yeah? So he decided to bring in outside talent for this job. That's interesting."

"You actually think I'm a hired killer? The idea is preposterous."

"I agree. A professional killer would've used a pistol with a silencer on it. And she would've been long gone before anyone even knew there'd been a hit. No, The Large Man sent you here to dig up information. My guess is you tried to use your feminine wiles to loosen Inch's tongue and when that didn't work you pulled your gun, hoping to scare him into telling you what you wanted to know, but he tried to take it away from you and there was a struggle and you shot him – maybe by accident or maybe in the heat of anger. Isn't that just about the way it happened?"

"No it isn't. I don't go around carrying guns and I don't work for The Large Man. I earn an honest living selling cosmetics and I saved up my money for a well-deserved vacation and I came here to see a travel agent and then I lost my toad. And now I'm accused of being a spy and a murderer! It's so unfair!"

Dade gave her a sardonic grin. "You're good, sister. You're real good. I especially like that little quaver you get in your voice when you say, 'It's so unfair.'"

He grabbed the candlestick telephone off the corner of his desk and lifted the earphone off the hook. "But you shouldn't waste such a fine performance on an audience of one."

He dialed a number. Waited. "Let me talk to Lieutenant Ladumbo. ... Hey, lieutenant. It's Dan Dade. ... Not so good. Inch is dead. Murdered. ... Yeah. ... In an empty office a few doors down from mine. ... Shot twice in the chest. ... Yeah, me too." His eyes drilled into Tacita. "That won't be necessary, lieutenant. The killer's sitting right here in my office. Come and get her."

***

The short man with the rumpled raincoat, rumpled hair, rumpled face, crooked tie and crooked eye took a puff on his stubby cigar as he gazed down at the corpse of Inch Bowman, which lay beneath a sheet surrounded by a chalk outline. The coroner had already left. The lab men were dusting the doorknobs for fingerprints and were nearly done.

Lieutenant Ladumbo straightened up and approached Tacita, who was standing by the windows gazing out at the darkening sky. He pulled a little dog-eared spiral notebook out of the breast pocket of his coat, then patted the other pockets.

"Do you happen to have a pencil on you, ma'am?"

She looked at him and smiled wanly. "I'm afraid I don't."

He patted his pants pockets, reached into one and took out a stubby pencil. "Feeling up to answering a few questions, Miss Pruval?"

"Ask away."

"I'm sorry I had to bring you back to this office, what with the body lying there and all, but it helps me visualize what took place if I'm at the actual scene of the crime. And Mr. Dade wasn't too keen about you hanging around _his_ office, which is understandable under the circum..."

"No problem, lieutenant. Ask your questions."

"Thank you, ma'am. According to Mr. Dade, he heard the first shot and immediately ran out of his office and into the hallway. He says it only took him..." He flipped to an earlier page in the notebook. "Six seconds. And then he heard the second shot and he ran down the hall and came through that door and found you standing over the body holding a revolver. He made a thorough search, but there was no one else here. Yet you claim you had nothing to do with the murder and the killer must have escaped. I don't see how that's possible. Would you mind explaining that?"

She didn't mind. Not at all. But nobody would ever believe the truth. Walmar must have entered the office through a portal, shot Bowman once, then dragged her in, planting the gun in her hand and lifting her up so the trajectory of the second bullet would indicate she was standing over the body, not lying down. He placed his trigger finger on top of hers and fired that second shot, leaving traces of cordite on her hand, and then he escaped in the portal, leaving her behind to take the blame. It was all quite neatly done. And she had to forget all that and come up with a plausible lie, fast.

"I've been thinking about that, lieutenant, and I have a theory. Maybe the gunman hid behind the door and when Mr. Dade rushed in the gunman snuck out behind his back. Mr. Dade's attention was focused on me and the gun in my hand and the dead body of his partner lying on the floor. He had no reason to look behind him."

Ladumbo jotted in his notebook: " 'Gunman ... Hid ... Behind ... Door ... Snuck ... Out.' " He looked up. "Oh, that's very good, ma'am. I hadn't thought of that. Yes, that would explain it. Would you care for some coffee? You look beat."

"That would be lovely."

"I noticed a half-full bottle of Scotch in Mr. Dade's office and I'd love to offer you some, but Mr. Dade seems determined to polish it off all by himself."

"Coffee will be fine."

"I'll go get it."

He scurried out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Then opened it again and stuck his head in. "Do you take cream or sugar?"

"Black is fine."

"OK."

He shut the door.

Opened it.

"Oh, I just thought of something, ma'am, and I want to ask you about it before I forget."

"Go ahead."

"You must have turned toward the door when Mr. Dade barged in. Why didn't _you_ see the gunman sneaking out behind him?"

"Mr. Dade is a strikingly handsome man. And he had a gun pointed at me. That commanded my full attention. And I was a bit woozy. It's quite possible someone could have crouched down and snuck out without me noticing."

He took the pencil from behind his ear and whipped out his notebook. 'Strikingly ... Handsome ... Killer ... Crouched ... Suspect ... Woozy.' How do you spell that, ma'am?"

"Spell what?"

"Woozy. Is that w-u-s-i-e like Susie?"

"I think it's w-o-o-z-y."

" 'W ... O ... O ... Z ... Y.' That doesn't look right. Well it doesn't matter. I know what it means. I'll go get that coffee now."

He started to close the door. Opened it. "You were woozy because the killer knocked you out. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't the killer knock out Mr. Dade when he came bursting into the office?"

"I was facing the door, lieutenant. If the killer had struck Mr. Dade I would have seen him do it. And I was armed. I could have stopped him."

"So why didn't the killer shoot you and Mr. Dade rather than running the risk of sneaking out of the office unobserved?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he figured he'd made enough racket and didn't want to attract any more attention. Maybe he only gets paid for killing his assigned victims and doesn't like to do freebies. Maybe he only had the one gun and didn't anticipate needing a second one, and once he'd planted the Webley on me he was unarmed and had to rely on cunning rather than lethal force."

"Oh, those are very good suppositions, ma'am. Very good. 'Too ... Much ... Racket ... No ... Freebies ... Only ... One ... Gun.' He looked up, smiled. "Thank you, ma'am. I'll go get that coffee now."

This time he meant it, returning a few minutes later with two steaming mugs. He took a sip from his, pronounced the coffee "not bad," and set the mug down on the window sill.

"Let's go over the first part of your story, Miss Pruval. You told Mr. Dade and Mr. Bowman you were looking for a pet toad that escaped from your purse."

"Yes. I know that sounds kind of weird, but..."

"Oh no, ma'am. When I was a kid there was a pond not far from my house and all us boys in the neighborhood used to go down there and try to catch frogs and they'd put them in their pockets and carry them around and whip them out to scare the girls. I was never able to catch one, though. They'd always slip through my hands. The frogs, I mean. I don't know if toads are as slippery as frogs, but I imagine they're about the same. And the funny thing is, ever since I became a homicide detective I've never had a murderer slip through my fingers. It kind of makes up for all those near misses with the frogs when I was a kid."

"I'm happy for you, lieutenant."

"Thanks. Now getting back to your toad – you say you entered Mr. Dade's office looking for it and then you and Mr. Bowman started searching all the offices and eventually you ended up in this one."

"Correct."

"Was the door closed when you first got here?"

"Yes."

"Yet you thought the toad might be inside? How would it get in?"

"It could have crawled under the door. It's a very small toad."

" 'Small ... Toad ... Crawled ... Under ... Door.' And as you came in someone knocked you out. Someone who was already inside the office."

"Yes."

"Why would the killer be hanging around inside an empty office? He certainly wasn't burglarizing the place. There's nothing to steal."

"My guess is he planned to break into Mr. Dade's office and search it after everyone was gone, looking for God knows what, and this was the perfect place to conceal himself while he waited. He didn't anticipate anyone coming in here and when Mr. Bowman and myself entered, the killer was trapped so he hid behind the door and ambushed us. Maybe he just wanted to knock us out and get away, but Mr. Bowman put up a struggle so the killer shot him. I'm just guessing, you understand. I really don't know."

" 'Staking ... Out ... Dade's ... Office ... Ambush ... Struggle.' Mr. Dade seems to think The Large Man is behind this killing and you're working for him."

"He's wrong."

"You've never met The Large Man?"

"Never."

"And you've never worked for him?"

"Of course not."

"You're employed as a beauty consultant with Flamingo Cosmetics, is that correct?"

"Yes."

He scratched his head. "Gee, that's funny. I asked around at several beauty parlors and none of them ever heard of Flamingo Cosmetics."

"It's a Miami company. Strictly regional."

"I called the Miami Chamber of Commerce, ma'am, and they have no record of Flamingo Cosmetics. And it isn't listed in the Miami phone book. Neither are you."

"The truth of the matter is, I _am_ Flamingo Cosmetics. Owner, chief financial officer and sole employee. My office is my apartment. I can't afford the fee to join the Chamber of Commerce and my number is unlisted because I've received some crank calls in the past. But if you examine my business card carefully you'll see a phone number on there. It connects with an answering machine. I'm seldom home."

" 'Only ... Employee ... Can't ... Afford ... Fee ... Phone ... Number ... On ... Business ... Card.' And how's business been lately?"

"I manage to make ends meet. I certainly don't need to supplement my income by working as a part-time underworld spy, if that's what you're thinking."

" 'Makes ... Ends ... Meet.' " He looked up and shut the notebook. "Thank you for being so cooperative, ma'am. But I'm afraid you're going to have to come downtown. The circumstantial evidence is just too strong."

"I understand. May I finish my coffee before we go?"

"Oh, by all means, ma'am. By all means."

***

"Would you like some coffee, ma'am?" Lieutenant Ladumbo said an hour and a half later as he entered the windowless interrogation room at police headquarters with two steaming paper cups in his hands.

"I'd love some. Thanks."

He handed her a cup and sat down on the other side of the table, facing her. He took a sip of coffee, set his cup on the table, fished out his notebook and – after rummaging around in his pockets – a pencil.

"I've got the results of the lab tests, Miss Pruval, and they're pretty damning."

"Go on."

"Ballistics examined your Webley and they confirm it was the murder weapon."

"Not my Webley. The Webley that was planted in my hand while I was out cold."

"How do you explain the traces of cordite found on your right hand?"

"The killer must have fired the gun after he planted it in my hand. He just slipped his trigger finger on top of mine and squeezed."

"And you were unconscious while this was happening?"

"Of course."

"Yet the doctor who examined you found no traces of head trauma."

"All I know is, Mr. Bowman and I entered the office and the next thing I knew I was lying ..." She gasped. "Oh wait! I do remember something else! A hanky. Someone pressed a hanky over my nose and mouth. It smelled dreadful. And then I passed out. It's funny I didn't remember that before, but I was so shocked when I came to and saw poor Mr. Bowman lying there dead and the door bursting open and Mr. Dade pointing a gun at me ... I guess my mind just couldn't contain it all."

" 'Hanky ... Smelled ... Dreadful.' "

"Yes. It must have been soaked in chlorophyll."

"Chlorophyll? That's the green stuff in plants. You mean chloroform?"

"Yes. That must've been it. Chloroform."

" 'Chloroform' ... How do you spell that? Never mind. I'll know what it means." He gazed at his notebook, deep in thought, then scratched his head and looked up. "You know, we searched every floor of that office building and we found no trace of any toad."

"Like I said before, lieutenant, it's a small toad."

"Yes, ma'am. But the killer, he's not small. Not as small as a toad. Yet no one saw him leave the building either and there was someone down in the lobby around that time." He riffled through his notes. "A Mr. Avery. He was buffing the floor and paused to take a smoking break. 'Buffin and puffin,' as he put it. He was there for a good ten minutes and didn't see a soul."

"Lieutenant, if the killer could sneak out of the office without being noticed, I'm sure he – or she – would have little trouble getting out of the building through a ground-floor window or a fire door or any number of ways."

"Good point." Ladumbo glanced at his watch. "Oh, look at the time. I'm afraid I'll have to cut this short. I'm supposed to take my wife to the movies tonight and the show starts in an hour. She likes to arrive at the theater early and get good seats."

"Which movie?"

"I forget the name. It's one of those screwball comedies. Me, I prefer Westerns. Those are my favorites. But we saw a Western last time, so tonight it's her turn to pick and she likes screwball comedies."

"I'm surprised, lieutenant. I'd think mysteries would be your favorite type of movie."

"Mysteries? Oh no. I can't stand those things. I never can figure out who did it until they reveal it at the end of the movie and then I feel stupid."

Tacita laughed. "Well I hope you and your wife enjoy the screwball comedy."

"Thank you. I'm sure we will." He pocketed his notebook and pencil. "I'll tell the guard to take you back to your cell now."

He picked up his cup, took another sip of coffee and walked out of the room. A uniformed officer came in. Tacita stood up. The officer took her arm. They started toward the door.

And Lieutenant Ladumbo barged in. "Just one more thing, ma'am..."

"Oh for God's sake! This is getting ridiculous! Is this your version of the rubber hose treatment? You annoy people into confessing?"

"Oh, am I annoying you, ma'am? I apologize. My wife keeps telling me I ..."

"Enough! You want to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I'm a secret agent from an alternate universe and The Large Man has a time-space portal invented in Atlantis and that's how his goon Walmar got out of the office after he killed Bowman, at least that's the way I figure it although I don't know for sure. I think The Large Man framed me for the murder so I'd agree to help him steal a magic stone from a goblin-slash-genie named Dym and in return he'll spring me out of jail through his portal, leaving you scratching your head and wondering what the hell happened. How do you like them apples, lieutenant?"

" 'Secret ... Agent ... Time ... Space ... Portal ... Goblin ... Genie ... Apples,' " he scribbled, as Tacita bit her lip to keep from screaming.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Straps bound her to the bed frame. Raised railings ringed it. The starchy pillow rustled as she turned her head to survey the plain gray room. Sunlight slanted through the window, sliced into strips by iron bars. Twin tubes taped to her right arm led to phials hanging from a stand next to a little table. She wore a hospital gown, open in the back.

A burly middle-aged nurse with a gravelly face came into the room carrying a tray with a bedpan on it. She set the tray on the table.

Tacita's memory snapped back into place. The psych ward. That's where she was. They'd given her a lie detector test at police headquarters and she'd passed – unfortunately, for that meant she actually believed her story about a space-time portal. So they'd brought her to the psycho ward of county hospital, shot her full of sedatives and strapped her down.

"Changing time," the nurse said. She lowered the right railing and lifted up one side of the covers as Tacita raised her hips. The nurse pulled out the used bedpan, grabbed the new one and slid it into place.

Tacita yowled as she lowered her bare butt onto it. "Where the hell do you store these things, a refrigerator?"

The nurse smirked. "The morgue, actually, right next to the stiffs. What's the matter, a little chilly for you, dearie?"

"You can say that again!"

The nurse waved the used bedpan under Tacita's nose. "Well don't give me any shit about it."

"Ugh!"

Chuckling, the nurse set the used bedpan on the tray, checked Tacita's wrist and ankle straps to make sure they were still too tight, then raised the bed railing, turned to the stand and twisted a knob on one of the phials as dark fluid flowed forth. Tacita watched the nurse leave the room, muttered a few choice epithets and drifted back to sleep.

***

A bright glow bathed Tacita's face, awakening her. She blinked, looked up, saw a four-foot-wide disc hovering above the foot of her bed. A face swelled into focus within its ice-blue depths.

Gaspard Jutland.

"Good evening, Miss Pruval," he said, his voice slightly muffled. "Forgive the intrusion, but I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by and see if you needed a lift. I assume you're going ... my way?"

"Fuck off," she said.

"Tsk tsk, Miss Pruval. Such crudity is beneath you. But I can't blame you for wishing to remain here. You have everything you could possibly want – that charming angel of mercy who tends to your every need, and those sumptuous meals delivered so conveniently through a tube, eliminating the tiresome tasks of chewing and swallowing. And I must say the decor of this room is a treat for the eye – if you like gray, that is." He chuckled. "Just think of it, Miss Pruval. If your upcoming trial ends in a verdict of 'not guilty by reason of insanity,' you could very well spend the rest of your life in such luxury – in a slightly different location, of course, where you shall share your glorious accommodations with fascinating people, brilliant conversationalists who shall regale you morning, noon and night with sobs and shrieks and imprecations to their personal demons. Something to look forward to, eh? I'll let you ponder that awhile." He touched a finger to his brow. "Until we meet again."

His face vanished. The disc dissolved, taking the blue glow with it, relinquishing the room to moonlight and shadows and the little green lights on the monitor next to her bed.

"Dym? ... Dym, can you hear me? I need help!"

That little bastard! If it weren't for him I'd be back in Miami right now, enjoying the sun and sand and surf with Raoul, sipping those tequila cocktails only he knows how to make and nibbling on his pliant lips...

"I hate you Dym! You call yourself a half-genie? More like half-assed. You're just a bungling little trickster and a childish simpleton and a coward to boot, and you're about as powerful as an electric toothbrush!"

A green dot of light materialized in front of her – not the traffic-light green of the medical monitor, but an emerald shade. The dot widened into a curved line, formed a circle, expanded as it got brighter, and a little square royal-blue pillow appeared inside it. A stream of lavender steam seeped out of the pillow's center, rising into the air, twisting, thickening into ropey goo, swelling, filling out. The contours of a face appeared, took on definition, and the blob transformed into Dym. He hopped out of the ring and hovered a few feet in front of her, his legs folded beneath him. He smelled like musty thistles.

"Hey, sweetie," he said. "How ya doin'?"

"How does it look like I'm doing?" she snapped. "I'm in a psych ward strapped to a bed. Get me out of here!"

He held his hands out to the side, palms up. "How can I? I'm just a bungling little trickster, a childish simpleton and a coward to boot and I'm about as powerful as an ... what was it, an electric toothbrush?"

"OK, so maybe I shouldn't have said those things. I apologize. Please get me out of here."

He rubbed his chin. "So you wanna kiss and make up, huh?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"I'm not much good at manners and we've already spoken. Let's try the kissing!"

He closed in fast and before she knew what was happening his mouth squooshed against hers. His lips felt like lukewarm Jell-O and his tongue tasted like a lemon-lime gummy bear. Mercifully, he pulled away after ten seconds.

"Woo boy!" he said, doing a backflip and side-spin all at once. "Yum yum!"

It was a MeToo moment, but there was no point lecturing an elemental supernatural being about sexual harassment. Dym didn't play by the rules. Anyone's rules. And if a kiss was the price of freedom, so be it. As a secret agent she often had to use her sex appeal to get the job done. It was a tool and a weapon, like a gun or a lockpick or a homing device.

"Never mind the yum yum," she said, "get these straps off."

"OK, OK." He pointed a finger at the left wrist strap, hesitated. "What a shame. You look so good in leather."

"Come on!"

He splayed his fingers, pointing at all four straps at once, and they changed into black lace, the buckles morphing into hooks, like the back side of four bras.

"Even better," he said, his voice thick with lust. "Allow me to undo you." He reached for the left wrist strap and tugged on the hook till it came loose. "Ah, this brings back memories."

Tacita pulled her wrist free, shoved him away and unhooked the right strap, then sat up and leaned forward, reaching for the ankle straps as Dym floated to the end of the bed and began sucking noisily on her toes.

She freed herself from the last two restraints and tucked her legs underneath her, resisting the urge to kick Dym in the face.

"Now can you take me to Baskerville Hall?" she said.

"Why there?"

"Unfinished business. But if you can't manage that, I'll settle for Atlantis."

He backflipped into his emerald ring. It shrank to the size of a porthole. He stuck his head out.

"Sorry, no can do."

"Why the hell not?"

"Too dangerous. The Large Man's gizmo keeps sending out feeler beams trying to grab hold of me and he's making crosscurrents on the astral that are mucking up my matrix. I took a big risk in coming here, I'll have you know, but you're worth it. But now I've got to give him the slip. But never fear, I won't leave you empty-handed."

He held up his left hand. A lime-green pentagram shone in the middle of his palm. "Here you go, sugar lips."

He put his hand up to his mouth and blew her a kiss and the pentagram flew off his palm and landed on the back of her left hand, its lime light bathing her face. The star sank into her flesh and the light faded and she hissed as icy cold seeped through her tendons. The light reappeared beneath her palm, the cold dissipating. She turned the hand over, the light spreading across the room. The pentagram was embedded within her flesh where her palmtop had been. The glow slowly faded away, but she felt a warm vibe and sensed great energy, dormant but ready to be unleashed.

"What the hell is this?" she said.

"A little token of my regard, honey tongue. I call it Wishes for Dishes. Bling for Babes. Pentagrams for Pretty Girls. Sorcery for Sexpots. Amulets for the Amorous."

"Enough with the alliteration. What the hell am I supposed to do with it?"

"Escape, natch. Just remember, when you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, anything your heart desires will come to you.'"

"Never mind the Disney quotes. Just tell me what I'm supposed to do with this star thing."

"Magic. That 'star thing,' as you call it, is extremely powerful if you know how to use it."

"Well I don't and I'm in no mood to learn."

"Just believe in yourself and believe in the power of wishes and believe in Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle and Santa Claus and Tiny Tim and Auntie Em and Toto too and meld all that belief into one big blossoming mass of power!"

"I'm asking for help and you've giving me a TED talk."

"I don't know anyone named Ted. Just remember not to use too much magic at once or it'll run wild. Oh, by the way, here's something else I've been meaning to give you."

He snapped his fingers and the Stone of Rimeh appeared in his right hand. He shucked off the oval of amber light and tossed the Stone onto the bed. It landed between her feet, warming her toes, giving off a vague silvery gleam.

"Use with caution," he said. "It's not quite synced-up properly. Well, I gotta blow for now. Catch you later if they don't catch me first. Bye bye."

"Wait!"

Poof!

The magical ring vanished.

"Asshole!"

She angrily yanked the tape off her right arm, eased the needles out of her vein and tossed the dripping tubes aside, then threw off the blankets, lowered the side railing and climbed from the bed.

Dizzy.

She grabbed the railing to keep from falling and stood there for a minute or so, taking deep breaths until the dizziness passed and she felt strength returning to her wobbly knees. She looked down at her hospital gown.

"Instapparel, change to Default Ensemble One, black." Moments later she was clad in panties, bra, jeans, T-shirt, socks and sneakers, plus a fanny pack and holster, all black.

She raised her left hand to her mouth. "OK, magical amulet, do your stuff. Make a portal for me. Not Dym's green ring or Jutland's blue plate. I want one of my own. A diamond shape. Magenta. Take me to Baskerville Hall, the one I visited before, wherever that was. Park yourself just outside the cellar door. Oh, and I need a ray pistol, preferably with heuristic morphing capabilities."

She waited. Nothing happened.

"Please?"

Nothing.

Maybe it needs a jumpstart.

She picked up the Stone and pressed her left palm against it.

Still nothing.

Sigh. _So I'm supposed to wish upon a star, huh? OK, here goes nothing._

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may and I wish I might, have the wish I wish ton-AIIIE!"

It felt like a full-sized bolt of lightning exploding between her hands and shooting up her arms to her shoulders. She must have passed out, for the next thing she knew she was lying sideways on the bed, her head swimming, her limbs tingling like crazy. She looked with trepidation at her hands, relieved to see they were still there and hadn't been reduced to smoldering stumps. The pentagram pulsed with searing light. The Stone of Rimeh lay on her stomach, softly shimmering.

She struggled to sit up, turned toward the door...

"Oh God!"

A six-foot-high diamond of magenta energy hovered on the far side of the room, its center filled with sparkling pink dots.

"I did it! I frickin' did it!"

She got off the bed, slipped the Stone into her bag, staggered to the diamond, noticed something on the floor. She bent down and picked it up. A Colt .45 blue steel automatic with ivory grips and a morphing module in the base of the handle.

"Well I'll be damned," she said, then added hastily, "that wasn't a wish, just an expression. Disregard."

She stepped through the diamond, gun drawn, expecting to see Baskerville Hall on the other side. Instead she found herself back in the abbey library, standing amidst a sea of flame filled with swirling bits of blackened, curled paper – the remnants of the forbidden books. The charred corpse of Sister Corgi was kneeling directly in front of her, but as Tacita cringed it toppled over and broke apart, throwing up a shower of sparks that swarmed around her like fireflies. Tacita turned around and a bunch of cold water splashed into her face. She gasped – and gasped again as she suddenly plunged downward, her fall broken by her butt ramming into something round and hard.

At first she thought the floor had collapsed and she'd landed on a rafter in the room below, but when she wiped a hand across her face and cleared her eyes she saw she wasn't in the abbey anymore but straddling the bowsprit of a sailing ship. As the prow dove into a trough between two waves Tacita nearly fell off her perch, clinging to the sprit for dear life, her pistol slipping from her hand and kerplunking into the sea.

"Get me out of here!" she shouted into her palm.

No response. And only one point on the pentagram was still lit up; the rest had gone dark.

So much for magic.

Squeezing her legs as hard as she could to maintain her grasp on the sprit, she raised her right arm, pointing her wrist at the ship's railing, intending to fire her mini-grappling hook – only to discover the gizmo wasn't there anymore. And her Instapparel app had changed her jeans and T-shirt into a long white cotton dress, sopping wet and clinging – not ideal attire for clambering over bowsprits. She reverted her clothes to Default Ensemble One and began scootching along the sprit, but when she got to the jibboom the topmast-stays blocked her way so she tried to climb past them. She slipped and fell, plunging toward the water.

"Shit!"

She braced for impact, wondering how long it would take her to drown, envying the pair of seagulls she glimpsed wheeling through the sky to the north.

Fwoof!

"Holy shit!"

Her arms were now wings, big white seagull type wings – although the rest of her hadn't changed a bit – and she was flapping them instinctively, hovering twenty feet above the waves. She banked toward the ship and swooped in for a landing, feeling giddy with joy as her feet touched down.

A sailor swabbing the deck caught sight of her and his mouth fell open, the corncob pipe dropping out. He tossed the mop aside and ran the other way, crying out for the captain, a lanky man with a square jaw and bushy beard who stood by the helmsman. The sailor skidded to a halt in front of them, gabbling something Tacita couldn't quite hear as he thrust an arm in her direction. The captain turned, his eyes widening with alarm.

"A sea sorceress!" he bellowed. "Abandon ship! Abandon ship! Flee for your lives!"

The crewmen took up the cry as they clambered down from the "tops," making a beeline for the lifeboats as other sailors spilled out of the hatches, all of them gaping at Tacita with ashen, fearful faces.

"Hey, relax you guys," Tacita shouted. "I'm not going to hurt..."

Someone fired a flintlock pistol, the lead ball whizzing past her left ear.

"Hey, watch it!" she said, holding up her hands. "I'm unarmed!"

"Look at her hand!" a sailor cried. "She bears the devil's mark!"

"She conjures up hellfire!" said another.

"She'll burn us to ashes!" said a third.

Tacita clasped her hands together to hide the pentagram, but too late; the entire crew was now in a complete state of panic. Sailors scrambled into the lifeboats and released the davit lines before the boats were even half full. The men left behind dove over the railing into the frothy sea.

I'd better get out of here.

She took off and flew away as fast as she could, hoping the men would calm down if they saw her go. But she had a hunch they weren't ever coming back – because she noticed the name painted on the side of the ship as she passed the bow.

Mary Celeste.

***

She found her flashing magenta diamond bobbing in the water several miles away, like a psychedelic lifebuoy. She landed inside it, her wings dissolving.

"OK, no more side trips. Take me to Baskerville Hall."

For a few moments she felt the diamond's energy surging through her and pouring out of her palm, controlled by her will, like a garden hose with a narrowed nozzle. She caught a brief glimpse of the ornate interior of Baskerville Hall and stepped toward it – then lost control, the magic gushing forth, spraying in all directions, a wild and turbulent torrent.

Fwub-fwub-fwub-fwub-fwub-splash!

A bunch of duplicate diamonds stretched in front of her, spaced about ten yards apart, connected by a transparent tunnel of energy, glistening like clear glass, sloping down into the water at a ten-degree angle.

She stepped into the first diamond and found herself in a cramped, greasy, smelly steel tube clogged with pipes and valves and gauges and a half-dozen shirtless, sweating men with unkempt beards. The next diamond lay straight ahead of her on the other side of the hull, but there was no color to it, just a faint outline no one would notice unless they were looking for it. She heard a soft snicking sound and glanced behind her just in time to see the first diamond shrink and vanish.

None of the crew had noticed her yet, for all eyes were on the captain, who stood behind the periscope, his hands on the handles, his white cap turned backward, his sweaty forehead pressed against the eyepiece.

"Torpedoes ... los!" he said, but just at that moment his second-in-command spotted Tacita and froze, his finger poised on the button of Number One tube on the firing control panel.

"Schnell!" the captain snapped. "Schnell!" He turned his head to glare at his second. "Scheisskopf! Why don't you..."

He caught sight of Tacita. His jaw dropped.

"Hi, fellas," she said, her BabelBuster translating her words into German. "I'm a sea witch and your torpedoes annoy me. If you fire any more I'll have Poseidon crush your little U-boat like an egg shell. Capiche?"

She marched past them and stepped through the second diamond, entering another vessel where more sweating men – swarthier and more muscular than the first batch and clad only in loincloths – sat on rough-hewn wooden benches tugging on massive oars sticking out of holes in the hull as a Roman soldier seated on a stool in front of them beat on a drum to keep time.

He stopped in mid-stroke when he saw Tacita. "Great Neptune!"

"I am Neptune's daughter," she said in Italian, "and he orders you to pay these men a decent wage. Slavery is an abomination to the gods!"

She knew it wouldn't do any good, but she felt she had to say something.

She exited the trireme and entered a crowded gaming salon on board a riverboat, complete with two chandeliers and ten felt-topped tables and a roulette wheel and a couple of servers in skimpy saloon-girl outfits carrying trays laden with beers and whiskeys. The moon-bathed river glided by swiftly as the boat's huge side-wheels churned up shimmering froth. Lights from a passing town twinkled on the starboard shore. Four poker players sat at a table in front of Tacita, clad in silk vests and fancy suits, with top hats resting on the table's corners. The men paid no attention to the scenery, or Tacita, whose attire mimicked those of the saloon girls.

Her eyes scanned the salon and finally spotted the next diamond in a corner, a faint gray shape most people would mistake for a shadow. As she started toward it, one of the card players pushed his chair back abruptly and leapt to his feet, inadvertently blocking her way. He leaned across the table and grabbed the hand of another player, twisting it palm-up and pushing back the sleeve of the man's coat to reveal an ace of spades.

"Why you dirty polecat!"

The cheater, a dashingly handsome mustachioed man with curly brown hair and a dove-gray suit, thrust his other hand into a pocket of his black vest and drew a derringer. His accuser straightened up, producing a pepperbox pistol from a coat pocket, but the cheater fired first, the bullet striking the accuser in the left shoulder. The saloon girls screamed. The other patrons cried out in alarm and everyone dove for the floor, all except Tacita and the two combatants. The cheater overturned the table, knocking his accuser to the floor, then turned around, rushed to the railing and dove over the side. The accuser got to his feet, trotted to the railing and aimed his pistol at his fleeing foe. But he did not fire, for the cheater had gotten caught up in the blades of the massive paddle wheel, which bashed and battered him and flung out his bloody corpse, just another piece of jetsam.

As the other patrons rushed to the railing to gawk, Tacita strolled unobserved to the shadowy diamond and jumped through...

Onto the deck of another sailing ship, pitching and rocking in an angry ocean beneath a full moon besieged by surly clouds. Icy water crashed down on Tacita, drenching her white cotton dress, and she gasped and lurched and shivered toward the next portal, which hovered near the main mast. For some reason this diamond was clearly visible, blazing with crimson fire, and the nearby sailors were cowering before it as one of them cried out, "The corpusants have mercy on us all!"

But this was not the Mary Celeste, and this captain did not cower. He stood firm before the apparition, his feet spread apart, hands on hips, a defiant expression on his craggy, bearded face, made all the fiercer by the diamond's lurid glare. His voice rang out, cutting through the howl of the wind and the roar of the sea: "Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar..."

Huh? I mean, that's really poetic, but ... huh?

He reached for the diamond, hissing as his fingers clutched a portion of it, the astral energy infusing his hand and wrist with a spectral glow, yet he relinquished not his grip, but held fast.

"I now know thee, thou clear spirit," he said through gritted teeth, "and I now know that thy right worship is defiance."

He certainly is in a lather about something. But I can't linger here to figure it out.

She rushed up the steps to the forecastle and approached the diamond. "Uh, sorry to intrude, captain, but I believe this is mine. Excuse me and I'll get it out of your way."

She hopped into the diamond and it started to shut behind her but stopped, prevented from closing by the captain's white-knuckled fingers, still clinging to the frame of solidified light. She grabbed his fingers and pried them loose and the captain howled in rage until the diamond shut and silence reigned.

The next destination along the time tunnel was much more placid, a smaller ship with huge red crosses on billowing sails bathed in bright sunlight and filled with temperate wind. Tacita glanced at her dress, pleased to see it was nice and dry, then turned toward the port side and spied the captain, a broad-faced, clean-shaven man wearing a weird hat resembling a matador's. He was peering at a distant shore through a spyglass, but as he lowered it and turned to a crewman she recognized him instantly.

"Didn't I tell you guys we wouldn't fall off the edge of the world?" he said in Italian. "Huh? Didn't I tell you? When will you get it through your thick heads that I know what I'm talking about?"

As Tacita approached he turned and stared at her. She gestured at the land on the far horizon.

"Just so you know, that isn't India. Not even close. Ta ta."

Her next stop was the deck of an aircraft carrier, where a dark-blue Dauntless dive bomber was coming in for a landing – but when the LSO saw Tacita standing in the way he frantically waved his paddles, signaling the pilot to abort and go around.

"Oops! Sorry!" she said, ducking as the plane's light-gray belly roared overhead, missing her by a couple of feet at most.

The seventh diamond transported her to a far different locale – a small, dimly lit cabin whose lone occupant was a girl, about seven, with long, blonde hair. Sullen sunlight seeped through the lone porthole and the deck tilted to and fro as the vessel struggled through quarrelsome waves, the hull groaning, masts creaking. Tacita could hear a shout on the deck above, but there was no panic in the voice, only a calm command to "Come up the capstan."

The girl lay in a bunk, curled up on her side, a blanket pulled up to her chin, her face drawn and ashen. On the floor beside the bed was a wooden bucket half-filled with vomit. Flecks of it lingered on the girl's chin and lower lip. A dirty towel lay on a little table near the bucket. A tin cup, half full of water, sat next to a ceramic pitcher inside an open drawer, sliding slightly back and forth as the ship pitched and yawed.

The girl opened her blue eyes and looked up. "Who are you?" she said in Norwegian.

"I'm sorry to intrude," Tacita said. "I must have wandered into the wrong cabin."

"I don't remember seeing you before."

"I've been seasick, just like you. Confined to my cabin. But I'm better now."

"What's your name?"

"Tacita. What's yours?"

"Margaret. Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise. ... I hope you feel better soon."

Margaret grimaced. "Me too. I haven't been able to keep anything in my stomach for days!"

"Poor dear."

Tacita picked up the tin cup and handed it to the girl. "Hold this, please. I've got some medicine for you."

"Are you a healer?"

"That's ... one of my duties."

Tacita turned away, reached into the slit in her plain black dress, took out her bag, rummaged around and found her Meds-Maker, about the size of a matchbox. She tapped the LED screen on the top of the box, scrolled down the menu, selected the med she wanted. A little door opened in the side of the box and she dumped a couple of Dramamines into her palm, put the Meds-Maker away, turned back to the bed and handed the pills to the girl.

"Take one of these now and another later, if you need it," Tacita said. "You should feel better soon."

Margaret tried to sit up but Tacita had to help her, cradling the back of her head as the girl put one of the pills in her mouth and drank some of the water.

"Thank you, Tacita," Margaret said, handing back the cup. Tacita eased the girl's head back onto the pillow, then returned the cup to the drawer.

"Go back to sleep now," Tacita said softly, stroking Margaret's wavy hair.

The girl sighed. "I shall try, but my stomach has been keeping me awake. It's churning more than the ocean."

"It should calm down soon."

"I hope so. Bishop Narve prayed for calmer waters, but so far the Almighty has not chosen to honor his request. I'll be so happy when we reach Scotland!"

_Bishop Narve? Scotland?_ The hair bristled on the nape of Tacita's neck. _Oh dear God!_

She lowered herself into a rather clumsy curtsy and bowed her head. "I wish you a happy end to your journey, your majesty. It has been a pleasure to meet you and an honor to serve you."

"Thank you. But I don't think I'm a majesty just yet."

"As you say." Tacita backed toward the door with head still bowed. "Pleasant dreams, Margaret."

"Thank you, Tacita."

As she left the cabin Tacita spotted her next diamond hovering several yards away, cloaked in shadows. Just before she stepped through it she paused to glance back at the cabin door and thought of the young girl inside, who would now assume her rightful place upon the throne of Scotland and change the course of history.

"God save our queen," she whispered, wiping a tear from her cheek.

CHAPTER NINE

A fractal erupted inside the diamond, swirling around Tacita with grotesquely shaped ice-blue facets filled with a patchwork of images – oddly shaped buildings and impossible creatures and strange forests and bizarre vehicles – and then everything lurched sideways and she was flung out of the portal, landing atop a pillow of burgundy damask hovering just below a curved stone ceiling. Rose-colored marble tiled the floor below. Tapestries hung from the white-marble walls, depicting three-eyed dragons, winged turtles and six-armed snake women. Sunlight streamed through pointy-topped windows, and beyond them stretched a cityscape of tall, fluted towers ending in multicolored bulbs glistening beneath a ruddy sky. Tacita's Instapparel app changed her outfit into a tight, high-collared slit dress of sapphire satin.

About twenty feet beneath her, a bald man sat on a thick-armed throne of red crystal encrusted with emeralds. His mint-green skin and pointy ears suggested Martian origins, although he was taller than the average Red Planet native and possessed six fingers on each hand, with long, yellow nails. He wore a robe of crimson brocade trimmed in black, with small gray symbols all over it resembling two swastikas joined together.

Intriguing, but she couldn't stay. Her eyes scanned the room, searching for the diamond. But it wasn't there.

"Summon portal," she muttered into her palm, but the pentagram remained dark and unresponsive. And cold to the touch.

Shit! Stranded again! And just when I thought the journey was almost over.

Bright-red double doors at the far end of the chamber opened and two young men scurried in. They resembled the seated man except for their full heads of olive-colored hair, and they wore black tunics and pants with ray pistols protruding from white cummerbunds. One of the men clutched a brass urn in his hands.

The men stopped a few feet from the dais and bowed. The bald man beckoned the urn-carrier to come forward and he did so, kneeling down and holding the urn out in front of him. The bald man took it, lifted off the top and beamed in pleasure. Tacita leaned forward and peered down into the urn, which was full of sparkly indigo granules. The bald man brought the urn up to his aquiline nose, inhaled deeply and let out a long, contented sigh.

"Ahh, there is nothing quite like the aroma of desiccated nightmare-worms, freshly ground," he said in a language similar to Martian. "When Ambassador Cardagrum unknowingly ingests this with his nightly helping of elf-dust in the fashionable Sixth Canal smoking den he habituates, he shall die a deliciously agonizing death. And with the ambassador out of the way, Secretary General Wrenn-zen shall lose his staunchest ally in the Inner Circlet of the United Worlds Assembly. The ambassador hoped to rip away my public facade as a just and benevolent ruler seeking prosperity and freedom for my beloved Marzdan subjects and peaceful coexistence with the other planets of our galaxy. He found out about my secret plan to annihilate my enemies and conquer the universe and vowed to unearth incontrovertible evidence so he could expose me. But once he's eliminated, the Secretary General's shrill accusations shall be dismissed as the baseless, racist rantings of a paranoid fool."

He put the lid back on the urn and handed it to the kneeling man. "You know what to do, Drung."

Drung rose and both young men bowed again and backed toward the door – until Tacita leapt off the pillow, landing on top of Drung and knocking the urn from his hands. It hit the floor with a clang and fell onto its side, the lid popping off and powder spilling out. Tacita karate-chopped Drung in the neck, kicked his partner in the chin, plucked the ray pistol from his cummerbund and spun toward the throne.

For the first time she got a good look at the seated man's face – a cadaverous countenance with a blade-thin nose and sunken cheeks and a long olive mustache draped around a cruel mouth. But her attention was drawn to his left arm, which was pointed at her, the fist clenched, his thumb pressing the side of a skull-shaped ring on his third finger. A bile-colored beam shot from the skull's cyclopean eye, striking Tacita in the forehead.

"Uhh!"

By the time she recovered her wits the two black-clad henchmen were back on their feet wearing hangdog expressions, the ray pistol reclaimed by its rightful owner and aimed at Tacita's midsection.

The bald man on the throne studied her with piercing peridot eyes that flitted lustfully over her curvaceous body.

"You are fortunate to be alive, young woman," he said, in English. "I could have killed you easily, but it isn't every day an Earth girl falls from my ceiling and I must know how you managed that trick – and how you got past my guards and the many security measures I have in place."

"Sorry. A good magician never reveals her secrets."

He arched a thin eyebrow. "You dare defy Emperor DingCing?"

"Emperor DingCing? That's you, I take it?"

"Don't be flippant!"

"I wasn't being flippant. I never heard of you."

"If you never heard of me, why are you here?"

"If you must know, I'm an angel sent by the Almighty to..."

"I _am_ the Almighty!" he snarled, pounding the armrest with his fist. He took a deep breath and regained his composure, and permitted himself a slight smile. "And you are certainly no angel. You are just another deluded Earther, like Dash Fordham. I assume he put you up to this?"

"Dash Fordham? Never heard of him either."

"Oh? I thought every Earth female was a fawning fan of that pretty-boy do-gooder. But since you never heard of him, you shall not be distressed to learn that he now dwells in my dungeon awaiting execution – after I've extracted certain information from him."

"I'm distressed by the murder of any innocent person, whether I've heard of them or not."

"If I were you I'd worry about myself, angel. I could send you to that same dungeon – and the same grisly fate." He gave her a lecherous leer. "But I think I shall consign you to a far more pleasant destiny – as one of my concubines."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer the dungeon."

His face darkened. "Emperor DingCing is not to be mocked!" He angrily pressed a button on the front of his right armrest and four guards entered the chamber brandishing ray pistols. They wore blood-red armor with ceremonial scimitars in silver sheaths and helmets topped by black spikes.

"Search this woman thoroughly and take her to the harem chamber!" the emperor roared, then turned to his two henchmen. "Well, why are you standing around, you blundering mongrels? Fetch some dust pans and scoop up that powder!"

***

The guards took Tacita into an anteroom and searched her thoroughly, quickly finding the Stone of Rimeh. They poked her pentagram but concluded it was merely an elaborate tattoo. Then they groped the rest of her for the next ten minutes before carrying her off, each man firmly gripping one of her squirming limbs as they made their way through the palace. When they arrived at the harem chamber the two guards stationed there opened the cherrywood doors and Tacita's escorts tossed her inside. She flew fifteen feet and landed on a pile of round, pastel-colored pillows.

Sixteen young Marzdan women occupied the chamber, sitting in scattered clusters, all of them wearing silk robes in various bright colors – patterned with pink or red blossoms – and sashes in darker hues. A few wore elf-skin slippers, but most were barefoot. Two of the women were mending undergarments; others were combing each other's hair or playing games involving tiles and dice, or reading slim books. One woman was playing an odd, haunting melody on a stringed instrument with a stubby neck on either end of a turtle-shaped body made of highly polished dark-purple wood. The notes had a crystalline quality suggesting wind chimes.

Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at Tacita – except four girls lying on their backs around a hookah made of violet glass and burnished brass; they continued gazing up at a small, round skylight, their eyes glazed as they sucked on the four hoses attached to the hookah's water bowl.

One of the reading women set her book down, got up and approached Tacita, regarding her with kindly kelly-green eyes. She had lovely, delicate features, with teal powder on cheeks and eyelids and glittering chartreuse streaks in her upswept, forest-green hair, which was held in place with lapis pins. Glittery pistachio polish adorned her fingernails.

"Nice of you to, uh, drop in," she said, then turned to another girl sitting in front of a low, black-lacquered table.

"Imina, bring our new sister some refreshment."

Imina picked up a white porcelain teapot from the table and poured some of the simmering contents into a cup covered with cobalt-colored canal cranes. She brought the cup to Tacita, who sat up, accepted it and took a sip. It tasted very much like the Martian tea of her own universe, which was called Ceryim, made from slime scraped off the walls of the canals. She had never acquired a taste for that "delicacy," but at the moment she was thirsty enough to drink anything, so she drained her cup.

"Thank you," she said. Imina nodded.

"I am Kinshya," the first woman said. "What should we call you?"

"Tacita."

"Pleased to meet you."

Kinshya gestured at the other girls, naming them one by one. Each nodded as her name was spoken – except the four at the hookah.

"You join a privileged few, Tacita," Kinshya said. "There is no higher honor than selection by His Royal Highness, the Magnificent and All-Powerful DingCing, to join his stable of concubines. Satisfying his desires shall be your one and only duty, your reason for existence. Perform your duty well and you shall live long and prosper."

Tacita twirled a finger in the air. "Whoop-de-doo."

The harem girls looked at each other. "I'm sorry," said Ciassa, the musician. "What meaning has 'whoop-de-doo'?"

Tacita stood up. "It means I'm not impressed with that old goat and if he wants someone to fuck he can go fuck himself."

The girls gasped. One covered her ears. Two made a gesture over their hearts and foreheads, probably a religious sign to ward off bad luck.

Kinshya put a hand on Tacita's arm and lowered her voice to an urgent murmur. "A word of counsel, Earth girl. If you value your well being, do not utter such thoughts."

"I'm not afraid of that asshole."

"Others have voiced similar sentiments in the past – and soon regretted them. Their stories would chill your blood. But we have ways of coping with our situation. You see the four girls imbibing from the hookah? It contains elf-dust – just the thing to take away the bitter taste of life and replace it with sublime indifference."

"Thanks for the tip," Tacita said, "but I'm not sticking around. I'm getting out of here."

The harem girls laughed bitterly, and Erepdo set down the dice cup she'd been holding and strolled to Tacita's side. "My cousin Verdyn was like you," she said softly. "She spoke with a defiant tongue – until DingCing cut it out and fed it to his crab-dogs. Verdyn once sang for him with the voice of a nightingale and danced for him with the fluid grace of a swan, but she slapped his face when he tried to remove her veils and now she sits on a board with little squeaky wheels on Onunto Lane with a beggar's bowl in her lap. She shall not dance again, for she has no feet, nor shall she sing, for she has no tongue. And her silence speaks louder than mere words ever could, warning all who pass that the emperor must be obeyed."

"She was an artist," Tacita said. "I'm a fighter."

She turned and strode over to the double doors. They had no handles, not even a keyhole, and were bolted from the outside; she'd heard the bolt slide into place when the guards shut the doors after tossing her onto the pillow pile. But none of that mattered, because her lockpick...

She looked at her left hand – and felt a pang of panic, for the pick in her pinky was gone. And her pentagram had shrunk to the size of a quarter.

Shitfuck! ... I've got nothing left. ... Well, that's not quite true. I've still got my wits. Maybe they'll be enough.

She turned to the harem girls. "Put your fingers in your ears, ladies. I'm about to make a ruckus."

They glanced at each other, puzzled, but complied. Tacita placed her mouth an inch away from the crack between the doors and let out an ear-splitting screech, then waited. But the guards did not come rushing in.

"Is this chamber sound-proof?" she said.

Kinshya smiled sadly. "No. I'm sure the guards heard you, but I'm afraid screams are all too common within this dreadful palace and the guards pay little attention to them."

"I'll bet they'll respond to _this_ one," Tacita said, and turned back to the doors. "FIRE! FIRE!"

The bolt thunked and Tacita leapt to the side and the doors flew open and the two guards rushed in – and instantly fell victim to Tacita's martial-arts skills as the harem girls gasped.

Tacita stepped over the men and paused in the doorway. "Coming, ladies?"

Kinshya shook her head. "No. You have done nothing but sign your own death warrant. You cannot escape the palace. No one can."

"Just watch me."

Tacita darted into the hallway and turned to the right...

And ran smack dab into two more guards, with Emperor DingCing right behind them, trailed by another pair of guards.

"Where do you think you're going?" the emperor demanded.

Tacita shrugged. "I got bored so I thought I'd go for a little stroll."

"And what happened to the two guards that were posted here?"

"I invited them in for a little party the girls were throwing but the dudes can't hold their liquor. They passed out."

DingCing glanced at the two guards behind him and pointed at the doorway. The men hurried past him and entered the chamber, emerging a few seconds later.

"The guards are unconscious, Excellency," one man said. "But not from intoxication. There are bruises on the sides of their necks."

DingCing glowered at Tacita. "I won't even bother asking how you managed to overpower them. But I demand to know how you got your hands on _this!"_

He pulled his right hand out of the pocket of his robe and thrust his arm out in front of him, his long, bony fingers clutching the Stone of Rimeh.

"How did you get into the war chamber?" he snarled. "It's impossible!"

"I already explained all that," Tacita said. "I'm an angel. Miracles are my business."

DingCing shoved the stone back into his pocket, then elbowed his way past the two guards in front of him and backhanded Tacita across the face, his skull-shaped ring ripping open her cheek. She pretended to swoon and as she fell she lashed out with one leg, aiming a kick at the emperor's crotch, but his thick robe cushioned the blow and he didn't even flinch. She spun on her butt, sweeping both legs toward his ankles, but he jumped back and her feet met only air.

And then the four guards pounced with flailing fists.

CHAPTER TEN

Tacita scrunched her nose as a fetid smell assailed her nostrils, rousing her from unconsciousness. She moaned and opened her eyes, taking in her bleak surroundings – a low-ceilinged room about fifty feet square with olive-drab stone walls. Two small, barred windows on the far side of the room let in orange beams of late-afternoon sunlight.

Someone had removed her clothes; she wore nothing but a set of cold, rusted manacles that bit into her wrists. Her feet dangled several inches above the slimy floor. The clammy wall behind her chilled her bare backside.

Three skeletons hung on the adjacent wall to her left. But the prisoner to her immediate right was in much better condition. Much, much better. He was alive, and equally naked, a young Earth man with a muscular physique and a handsome, boyish face topped by a mop of blonde hair. A heart tattoo graced his left bicep with the word "Mother" in the center, written in script.

And his dong was huge.

Hung, in more ways than one!

The floor directly beneath him was covered with poop and piss, for the emperor's dungeoneers had not furnished him with a chamber pot. But Tacita was used to that sort of thing. This wasn't the movies, where captured heroes never felt the need to relieve themselves. Reality was far more messy. And smelly.

"Good afternoon," the man said in English, offering a wan smile.

"Good afternoon," she said. "I assume you're Dash Fordham?"

"Yeah. Who are you?"

"Tacita Pruval."

"Nice to meet you." He glanced at the floor. "I apologize for the mess."

"No problem." Her eyes moved higher, noting the terrible bruises on his toes and fingers before zeroing in on a far happier part of his anatomy.

His cheeks turned red. "I ... I apologize for that too."

"Oh don't apologize. It's nice to know I've made a good impression."

Under normal circumstances she would've commanded her Instapparel app to make her some clothes, but she was enjoying the attention. (Instapparel was programmed to alter her attire so she blended in with the populace, but it didn't clothe her when she was naked unless she told it to.)

Dash was in the midst of stammering a reply when the dungeon door flew open and the emperor and his quartet of guards barged in. DingCing had an odd smile on his face – and held the Stone of Rimeh in his hand.

"You disappoint me, Earth girl," he said. "You are not the miracle worker you claim to be. I thought you had breached my ultra-impregnable war chamber and stolen the Stone of Hemir from the power compartment inside the Devastatinator. But it seems you are a fraud. You never got anywhere near the Devastatinator. You..."

"Excuse me, what the hell is a Devastatinator?"

The smile dropped off his face. "Your feigned ignorance is becoming tiresome."

"I really have no idea what you're talking about." She turned to Dash. "What's a Devastatinator?"

The Earth man glowered at DingCing. "It's a fiendish weapon only a madman would ever use, a powerful beam machine designed to slowly heat up the Earth's atmosphere and spawn terrible storms that will ravage the planet – unless we agree to DingCing's ultimatum and acknowledge him as emperor of the entire universe."

DingCing held up a finger. "You forgot to mention you must change the name of Sunday to Cingday and update all your calendars." He looked at Tacita. "But Earth has chosen to resist, and when Dash Fordham did not report back they sent you to replace him, didn't they? They foolishly hope you will succeed where he failed and they gave you this worthless copy of the Stone of Hemir, which you planned to substitute for the real one. But whoever created this laughable fake blundered badly."

He pointed at the bug inside the Stone. "The feelers on the baraca beetle should be dark blue, not black." He moved his finger to the left side of the Stone, then the right side. "And there is no royal emblem imprinted on the end caps, an image only visible when the Stone is held at a certain angle. These are subtle details, to be sure, but nothing escapes my all-seeing eyes." His voice took on a harsher edge. "Did you really think you could defeat DingCing with cheap parlor tricks?"

He hurled the stone to the floor. Tacita held her breath but it did not shatter.

DingCing continued. "Fortunately for you, the authentic Stone of Hemir is still within the machine and the seals on the tamper-resistant sockets are intact. If you had succeeded in substituting this fake," he nodded contemptuously at the Stone on the floor, "you would have been guilty of sabotage, the penalty for which is a most grueling death. You shall be spared that fate and returned to the safety and comfort of the harem – as soon as you tell me how you gained access to my throne room. It was some ingenious device invented by Professor Barkov, wasn't it? Perhaps something that renders clothing invisible and weightless?"

"Maybe," she said.

"How unfortunate for you that the effects wore off. Now your bag of tricks is empty and you are at my mercy."

"You're way off base, baldy. Actually I entered your throne room using a magic spell made by an amulet I got from a goblin/genie named Dym, and if you don't leave me alone I'll put a curse on you and turn you into a toad."

The emperor's eyes burned into her. "I warn you, Earth girl, if these ridiculous lies continue I shall be forced to employ the tools of truth."

Dash snorted. "Implements of torture, you mean. But you're forgetting something, DingCing. You tried those methods on me and look what it got you. Nothing!"

"So far," DingCing said. "Oh, I admit you have proven surprisingly resilient for an Earth man. But then again, you are no ordinary Earth man. As a former athlete who played that strange game you call American football, you are quite accustomed to pain and brutality."

"Ooh," Tacita said. "You were a football player, Dash? Which team?"

"The Cleveland Browns," he said glumly.

"Oh. I am so sorry."

"Me too."

"Never mind all that," DingCing snapped, glaring at Tacita. "I'm sure your pain threshold is not nearly as high as Dash Fordham's, something that can easily be put to the test."

She defiantly thrust out her chin. "I can take anything you can dish out, baldy."

"Heh. We shall see."

Dash jerked his arms, desperately trying to break free of his manacles. "Leave her alone, you dirty coward! Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

"I would be delighted to leave her alone," DingCing retorted, "if you would be so kind as to tell me where Professor Barkov is hiding."

"Never!"

The emperor shrugged. "Then I'm afraid Miss Pruval must suffer for your stubbornness." He turned to her. "You have till morning to come to your senses. Use the time wisely. Contemplate the crippling agonies to come." He looked at Dash. "I have been most patient with both of you. That patience shall expire at dawn."

He spun around and marched out of the dungeon, his guards following. The door thudded shut.

"Persistent, isn't he?" Tacita said.

Dash grinned. "You sure are taking it well. Most girls would fall apart in a situation like this."

"I've had a lot of practice taking it – and dishing it out."

"So you _are_ a secret agent sent by Earth to stop DingCing?"

"I _am_ an agent, but I'm here by accident. Or maybe Fate brought me here to lend a hand. But never mind the bio. Right now we have to get out of here."

He sighed. "I admire your optimism, Tacita, but I think we're licked."

"No we're not." She nodded at the Stone of Rimeh. "That crystal is just as powerful as the Stone of Hemir, maybe more so. If DingCing had tested it he would've known that, but when he realized his stone was still in the machine he assumed this one was just a copy, a worthless fake." She twisted her left hand so the palm faced him. "You see this star? DingCing's guards dismissed it as a decoration, but it's also very powerful – when it's fully charged. And now that the emperor has generously given back my Stone, I can do that."

"But you can't reach it."

"It may be out of reach, but it's not out of range."

She stared at the crystal. "Stone of Rimeh, send energy to my amulet. Recharge it and wake up the magic. Do it now. Please."

Nothing.

Dash stared at her like she'd gone loony. "Are you ... talking to that rock?"

"No, I'm transmitting sound vibrations that will resonate within the oscillation unit inside the crystal and generate a sympathetic energy induction pattern."

"Oh. ... It doesn't seem to be working."

"Patience."

She shut her eyes and imagined the stone lighting up, shooting a beam of power into her palm, awakening the amulet.

She opened her eyes.

Zilch.

Shit!

She just wasn't very good at this magic stuff. She could muster up plenty of energy within herself when she needed to – call it willpower, grit, determination, whatever. But trying to impose her will on a piece of rock? Not so easy.

"Dym?" she muttered. "Are you anywhere around? ... Dym? ... Dammit!"

She heaved a long sigh and let her chin fall onto her chest as dejection settled in. And her thoughts drifted to a happier place, a memory of a little R&R jaunt she'd shared with Raoul not too long ago. The image blazed within her mind's eye – Raoul lying on a yellow beach towel, his fingers interlaced behind his head, his legs crossed, his swarthy flesh glowing beneath the Caribbean sunlight, his tight crimson bathing trunks showing off the bulge of his massive manhood.

As Tacita's pulse quickened, inspiration struck. She changed the image, picturing Raoul inside the Stone. Slowly he uncrossed his legs, got to his feet and walked – no, swaggered – toward her, doffing his trunks as his manhood arose in all its glorious hardness and an insolent smirk played across his ripe lips. He passed right through the Stone's crystalline shell as if it were vapor and strolled across the dungeon, expanding to his normal size as his bare, sand-flecked feet slapped on the floor, leaving gritty prints behind. He brought the sunlight with him, a glow surrounding his body like a halo and streaming behind him in thick, syrupy strands like honey. He closed in on Tacita, his arms reaching out; she could almost feel the hot touch of his hands kneading her bare breasts, his stiff cock slipping into her dilating pussy...

ZUZIZZLE-ZA-ZA-ZA-ZZZAP!

The phantom Raoul vanished, but the energy she'd summoned with her overheated brain remained, surging through her body, coursing into her left hand, a bunch of swarming pinpricks like icy ants. The pentagram widened and swelled, embossing, and the lime-green light intensified, searingly bright for a second, then softening to a strong, pulsating glow. Tacita's heart leapt with joy – until she saw the condition of the Stone of Rimeh, its interior blackened like a burnt-out light bulb, the outer shell cracked, the metal caps partially melted, the scarab beetle squashed like a fly on a windshield.

Dammit! I guess I won't be recharging any more. I just hope the amulet's power lasts long enough to get me out of here!

She eyed the pentagram. "I command you to release my manacles."

She clenched her fists and a jolt of energy arced between them, stinging her wrists, and she heard the rasp of the twisting clasps, felt the iron bands loosen. She yanked her arms free.

"Yes!" she cried as her feet hit the floor.

"Wow!" Dash said. "How did you do that?"

She paused to catch her breath before replying. "An energy conversion protocol channeled into telekinetic waveform promulgation."

"Oh."

She started to command her amulet to free Dash from his manacles, then had a better idea. Why not save power and have some fun at the same time? She stepped in front of him and leaned in close to undo his clasps by hand, her breasts brushing lightly against his damp chest. His penis stiffened again, as she hoped it would, accidentally poking her in the stomach.

"Sorry," he said, blushing as he pulled his arms free of the restraints.

She grinned. "No need to apologize, Dash. It's the highlight of my day – so far." She wrapped her arms around his neck and squashed her tits into his pecs.

"No use letting a perfectly good hard-on go to waste," she purred. "Go on, put it in."

He pulled her arms off his neck and pushed her away, gently, replying in a shaky voice, "Thanks for the offer, but I've already got a girl."

"Well I've already got a fella. Several, in fact. So what? The more the merrier, I always say."

She started to reach for him again but he stepped to the side, turning away from her. And she gasped as she saw his back for the first time, crisscrossed with ugly welts and bruises.

"I couldn't possibly cheat on Ardelle," he said. "She's a swell gal and she means the world to me. Besides, I believe people should save themselves for marriage."

Save themselves for marriage? Was this guy for real? What a throwback, an actual clean-cut all-American boy battling for God, mother, apple pie, truth, justice and purity. He'd be a tough nut to crack, but it would sure be fun to try. Hell, she hadn't seduced a virgin since junior high. But that would have to wait. She had a world to save.

"OK, Dash, suit yourself. And if we're not going to do the huckety buckety, I guess we'd better move on to phase two – getting the hell out of here." She spoke to her palm. "Bring back my diamond portal. And I need a ray pistol. And my lockpick. Oh, and my grappling hook gizmo."

The pentagram flared bright. A sharp pang in her left pinkie heralded the return of her lockpick. Next the pistol showed up – but it was only an inch long, a solid piece of plastic with no moving parts, gripped in the hand of an Army-man action figure standing between her feet. Then the magenta diamond appeared, right in front of the action figure – and only slightly taller. She felt a warm pulsation in her left wrist, but it soon subsided and no grappling hook gizmo appeared.

Sigh.

"Enlarge portal," she said, but before that could happen the Army man hopped into the diamond and it closed behind him, vanishing with a soft "bink."

"Shit!"

Even worse, three points on her pentagram had gone dark again and the other two were flickering uncertainly.

"Are you doing magic tricks?" Dash said in wonderment.

"No," she replied sourly. "They're doing me."

"Huh?"

"Skip it. I've got another idea."

She turned her back to him and muttered instructions to her Instapparel app and moments later foamy filaments began pouring out of her Womb Lomb, wrapping themselves around her body and drying into solid fabric, a gauzy mint-green sleeveless low-cut top and a flared skirt and some patterned forest-green tights and plain green panties. Then red liquid streamed onto her feet, coating them, oozing underneath her soles, solidifying into sim-leather high-heeled shoes. Next her accessories appeared – a cloth holster and fanny pack. And one more item, a pair of six-fingered green latex gloves. She slipped the gloves into the pack, strapped the pack and holster into place beneath her skirt, then turned around, doing a fashion-model pose.

"How do I look?"

"Fantastic," Dash said. "But ... but where did those clothes come from?"

She was tempted to show him, but the sight of her Womb Loom in action would freak him out. Or he'd think _she_ was a freak. And she wanted him to regard her as an all-American girl.

"I'll tell you later. Right now I have to focus on getting us out of here."

"How are you going to do that?"

"You'll see."

She picked up the dead Stone of Rimeh and placed it in her pack, then started toward the dungeon door.

"Hey, aren't you forgetting something?" Dash said.

She turned. "What?"

"I need clothes too."

"Why?" she said with a saucy grin. "You look just fine the way you are."

His face turned beet red. "Aw, come on, Miss Pruval. Quit kidding. I can't go out like this – assuming we even _can_ get out of here."

"Relax. Your clothes are right outside that door."

"I don't get it."

"We'll borrow them from one of the guards after we knock 'em out."

"Heh. I admire your spunk, but that's easier said than done.

"Watch and learn, Dash."

She crept up to the dungeon door, careful not to stand directly in front of the small, barred window, then stuck her lockpick into the crack between door and jamb, manipulating the electromagnetic field till she heard the bolt thunk on the other side. Instantly she grabbed one of the bars in the window and yanked the door open, startling the two guards in the corridor. She made short work of them and grinned triumphantly at Dash.

He let out a low whistle. "Lady, you are good!"

"Thanks." She gestured at the supine guards. "There are your clothes. I think the set on the right will fit best."

"But how are we going to get past the other guards? No one would ever mistake me for a Marzdan."

She took the gloves out of her pack and handed them to him. "Put those on. To the casual observer it'll look like you've got green hands. The fifth fingers are full of cotton, by the way – so they'll look full and not flat."

He put them on, shaking his head doubtfully. "What about my face? And my ears?"

"I could've made you a mask, but they tend to come out sort of wrinkly – and I doubt DingCing employs any elderly guards. But don't worry, I've got a way around that."

She explained her plan and he shook his head in admiration.

"That's ingenious," he said. "But do you really think it'll work?"

"Only one way to find out. Get dressed and we'll put my plan to the test."

He quickly removed the uniform from the larger of the two guards, but as he started to don the boxers he hesitated, looking a trifle uncomfortable at the idea of wearing another man's undies. Tacita enjoyed the short delay, for it gave her one last glimpse of his massive cock. Then it was gone from view and the rest of his superb body soon followed.

She bent down over the other guard, relieved him of his ray pistol, slid it into her thigh holster and straightened up.

"OK, where's the war chamber?" she said.

"In the north wing. But the corridors leading to it are filled with secret trap doors covering deadly pits. Some of them are full of acid and others contain canal snakes or terrorantulas. And the walls and ceiling have spring-loaded spikes that shoot out at random."

"So how do DingCing and his minions get into the chamber?"

"The defenses can be shut off by two things: the emperor's ring and a magnetic medallion that only the chamber guards wear."

"So all we have to do is jump a chamber guard during a shift change and grab his medallion."

"Impossible. If anyone tries to remove the medallion, even the guard himself, it explodes."

"So how do the guards remove them when their shift is over?"

"They never do. They wear them as long as they live."

"OK, so we force a guard to shut off the defenses for us."

Dash shook his head. "They're fanatically loyal to DingCing and take a blood oath to sacrifice their lives if necessary to protect the war chamber. If we try to force one of them, he'll just rip off his medallion and blow himself up – and us, if we're standing close enough."

"Can we crawl through the ventilator shafts?"

"Too small."

"What if we just blow up the entire chamber?"

"Heh. Good luck with that. The walls are made of Kratostone and they're seven feet thick and covered with two-foot-thick Titanium-Impervion plates. Nothing could blow up that chamber. Nothing but the Devastatinator itself."

"Then we're sunk. I could bypass all the defenses with my amulet if I had enough energy, but I don't. And I can't get a boost from the Stone because I burnt it out."

Dash's brow furrowed. "If only we could get our hands on some Ryptogite."

"What's that?"

"An energy source Dr. Barkov discovered. He says it's even more powerful than uranium. But the only place you can find Ryptogite is inside an active volcano on an island in the middle of Mare Tyrrhenum, and it's guarded by a fearsome three-eyed dragon."

She grinned. "Hell, if that's all that stands in our way, this mission should be a piece of cake!"

He grinned back at her. "Tacita, you're plucky as hell!"

"You too. So how do we get to this island? Are there any aircraft nearby we can commandeer?"

"Sure. The royal aerodrome is full of rocket ships and it's only a quarter-mile north of here."

"Lead on."

They made their way to a side corridor, snuck through the kitchen and exited a back door, crouching behind a cart full of cabbages, their eyes scanning the palace walls. The guards on the parapets were all facing outward, assuming any trouble would come from beyond the palace, not inside.

Tacita turned to Dash. "Ready?"

He nodded and lifted her up into a fireman's carry and she grabbed the bottom of her gauzy skirt and draped it over his head. He trudged toward the back gate and as he neared the staring sentries he kept blowing on the translucent fabric covering his face, as if he were trying to get it out of the way – but that was the last thing he really wanted, for it masked his white complexion and un-pointy ears. To prevent the sentries from looking too closely at him, Tacita flailed her arms and kicked her legs to distract them.

"Let me go, you big oaf!" she shrieked. "Let me go! I'm a lady! How dare you treat me this way?"

Dash stopped in front of the gate, raising his voice to be heard over her tirade. "The emperor has ordered me to take this wench to the Sultan of Astroidia, who has a taste for ill-tempered females. As you can see, my hands are full, so if you want to look at my flight pass you'll have to help yourself. It's inside my left pocket."

The guards chuckled, their mirthful eyes flitting over Tacita's writhing body as they waved Dash through. He carried her out the gate and turned north, going up a wide flagstone walkway flanked by fir trees. Some passersby gawked at them and several laughed.

When Dash arrived at the aerodrome gate he repeated his story for the two sentries on duty. One of the men chuckled, but the other one – a flinty-eyed hard-ass with a scar on his chin – placed a hand on his holster and sternly commanded: "Set the lady down and show me your pass."

"If you insist," Dash said – and bent down abruptly, throwing Tacita off his shoulders. She landed on top of the sentry and drove his head into the concrete, knocking him out, as Dash drew his ray gun and zapped the other man.

Then they ran like hell, making a beeline across the tarmac toward the nearest rocket ship – a silver teardrop-shaped craft with fins at the rear and fixed landing gear in streamlined fairings beneath its belly and a needle-like projection on the nose and six square windows atop the cockpit, like a B-29 bomber, with three curving exhaust pipes below them on each side and a ribbed ring separating cockpit from fuselage.

"Halt!" cried a sentry on the far side of the field, running toward them as he unslung a ray rifle from his shoulder.

Dash and Tacita reached the ship and Dash pushed a button on the hull and the hatch swung open and Tacita climbed in as an alarm klaxon began blaring nearby and the running sentry opened fire.

Zuzz! Zuzz!

The deadly red beams struck the hull inches from Dash's head, making scorch marks on the metal. He returned fire, knocking out the sentry, but three more came galloping toward him. He jumped inside the rocket ship, stabbed the Close button next to the hatch and rushed into the cockpit, where Tacita was already strapped into the copilot's chair. She was a fully qualified spaceship pilot, but she'd never flown a Marzdan craft so it made sense for Dash to drive.

He climbed in next to her and flipped the ignition switch and the engine fired up, shooting out a shower of sparks and smoke and making an odd droning-buzzing sound. Dash pushed the throttle to the firewall and the ship rolled a few yards and rose into the air as he pulled back on the joystick.

Soon the bulbed buildings of the great city of Trelodun dwindled into the distance as the rocket ship hurtled through the ruddy clouds high above the maroon dunes of the vast Marzdan desert.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"So far, so good," Tacita said as she looked up from the rear-view screen where she'd been "checking their six" for pursuing craft.

She noticed the compass needle on the control panel swinging to the right. "Hey, why are you changing course? Mare Tyrrhenum is that way." She pointed to the west.

"We have to make a slight detour," Dash said.

"A detour? Where to?"

"The Frolicsome Forest. I had to leave Ardelle there when I was attacked by a Royal Air Patrol. They'd been chasing me for miles and by the time I got over the forest my rocket ship was pretty shot up and I thought I was a goner, so I told her to bail out. But I vowed I'd come back for her – if I survived."

Tacita rolled her eyes. She'd been looking forward to this adventure – Dash and her working side by side, just the two of them, forming a strong bond in the face of shared danger. And cementing that bond in bed, if she was lucky.

"We can't afford any delays, Dash," she said. "Earth is in great peril. You can pick up Ardelle later, after we're done with our mission."

He shook his head. "That'll be too late. Ardelle's in danger right now and I've got to get her out of there, pronto. It shouldn't take too long."

"What's so dangerous about a place called the Frolicsome Forest? Sounds like fun to me."

"Oh it is. Very much so. It's inhabited by the Frolic Folk and they're famous for their great beauty and hospitality. They live off the land and spend most of their time partying."

"So what's the problem?"

A troubled expression clouded his boyish face. "It's customary for the Frolic Folk to greet visitors with a kiss, and their saliva contains a powerful aphrodisiac that's almost impossible to resist. Now don't get me wrong; I trust Ardelle and she's a straight arrow, as wholesome and moral and decent a young lady as a guy could ever hope to meet, the kind of gal a guy wants to bring home to meet his mother. But..." He lowered his eyes. "She's not super human and she's been stranded in the forest for nearly a week. She might ... you know ... give in to temptation."

Casual sex? Oh no, anything but that! Oh, the horror! The horror! ... Easy, Tacita. You have no right to mock the guy's values. And if his girl loses her 'virtue' because you refused to let him 'rescue' her, he'll never forgive you.

She let out a sigh. "I guess we're headed for the forest."

His face broke out in a Boy Scouty grin. "Gosh, Tacita, you're swell!"

"Nice of you to notice."

***

Plump purplish clumps of foliage filled the view screen as Dash and Tacita peered down at the treetops. Dodo-like birds with yellow and aqua plumage flapped off as they heard the rocket's roar, and one-eyed, two-tailed squirrel-sloths peered up at the passing craft with bemused expressions.

As the rocket ship neared the map coordinates that Dash had jotted down during Ardelle's bail-out, he suddenly gestured at a raggedy gap in the canopy. "There! That must be where she landed. I sure hope she wasn't hurt, busting through the branches like that."

Tacita twisted the magnification dial on the view screen, zeroing in on the gap. "No sign of a parachute down there. And we don't have enough room to land."

"I know. We'll gave to set down in that clearing we passed a couple of minutes ago and then hike over here."

He banked the rocket ship into a U-turn and eased the throttle back a bit and the droning-buzzing of the engine lessened in intensity. As they came over the clearing he put the ship into a tight spiral glide path and brought it gently to the ground.

After Tacita changed her frothy outfit into jeans, a plaid shirt and hiking boots, she followed Dash out the door and they began trudging across the rugged terrain, using their ray pistols when necessary to burn a path through some impassable thickets, then stepping on the smoldering fallen fronds to prevent any fires from spreading. When they arrived at the gap they'd spotted from the air they found recently broken branches lying on the ground and a narrow, freshly made trail leading southwest. They followed it. Twenty minutes later they came to a wide and well-worn path, which they followed for ten more minutes before reaching another clearing, about seventy-five yards in diameter and filled with dozens of revelers.

Tacita gasped in awe when she saw the Frolic Folk. Their faces were absolutely gorgeous, topped by tousled turquoise locks, and their naked, sky-blue bodies were just as striking – six-pack abs, well-muscled arms, taut rumps with glossy dark-blue horse-like tails, and shapely legs ending in gleaming white hooves. The men sported curled horns on the sides of their heads and massive penises surrounded by bushy pubic hair. Instead of horns, the women had a pair of inch-high nubs protruding from their foreheads, with gems inserted into the tips, and their pubic hair was dyed in various vibrant colors.

Some of the Frolic Folk were making love, their movements slow and gentle, accompanied by soft sighs of pleasure. Others were feeding their partners delicacies and nibbling on their lips between bites, or imbibing from clay goblets held up to their mouths by their companions, their arms interlocked at the elbows. Others danced to a lilting tune played on pan pipes by a big-busted female.

Tacita noticed some participants who were not Frolic Folk – three Marzdan men, a Venusian woman, two Jupiterian trisexuals ...

And one Earth girl, a blonde with spit curls, wearing jodhpurs and boots but no blouse – it lay neatly folded nearby, her D-cup bra on top of it. A male Frolicker was sucking hungrily on the blonde's left breast while his right hand kneaded the other one as she stroked his ten-inch-long penis.

Dash stopped dead in his tracks when he caught sight of her. "Ardelle!" he moaned in despair.

The blonde looked up, her eyes glazed with lust.

"Well if it isn't Dash Fordham," she said in a slurred purr. "Who's your friend?"

"Her name's Tacita. We escaped together from DingCing's dungeon and came here to rescue you."

"How nice. But I don't need rescuing."

"Yes you do. You've fallen under the spell of the Frolic Folk! Fight it, Ardelle! Shake it off!"

Ardelle giggled. "Silly boy. No one fights in the Frolicsome Forest. We make love, not war. And Omeund is so very, very good at it."

The Frolicker stopped sucking her tit and regarded the newcomers with twinkling teal eyes, his smirking lips glistening with drool.

"So this is the boyfriend, eh?" he said, then beckoned to Dash. "Come on over and join the fun!"

Dash's hands bunched into fists. "Get away from her!" he growled.

"Oh stop it, Dash," Ardelle said. "Why do you always have to be such a wet blanket?"

Omeund snickered. "Wet? He's downright soggy if you ask me." He turned back to Ardelle. "Now where were we?" He bowed his head, his mouth closing in on her right boob as his left hand sought out her crotch.

"Why you!" Dash stomped over to the Frolicker and grabbed his left wrist, hauling him to his feet. "How dare you take advantage of an innocent girl! I oughta give you a good thrashing!"

Omeund responded with a lopsided grin and patted Dash's cheek. "No need to get testy, dear boy. We can share. There's plenty of her to go around."

Dash slapped the Frolicker's hand away and took a swing at him, but Omeund ducked, then got behind Dash and put him in a bear hug, pinioning his arms to his sides and squeezing tighter and tighter and tighter, his biceps bulging. Dash struggled to break free, his face turning red as he staggered and swayed and raspy wheezes gusted from his compressing lungs.

Tacita took a step toward them. "Stop it, Omeund! You're squeezing the life out of him!"

"Oh no," the Frolicker replied. "I'm just giving him the Hug of Peace. When he passes out I shall release him."

Tacita drew her pistol. "Release him now!"

Ardelle scrambled to her feet and stepped in front of Tacita, spreading her arms wide. "Leave Omeund alone! You have no right to barge in here and..."

Zuzz!

Ardelle dropped.

Tacita aimed carefully at Omeund's arms, the only part of him that wasn't shielded by Dash's squirming body.

Zuzz!

The Frolicker's grip loosened and Dash wrenched free and Tacita fired again, this time hitting Omeund in the chest. His eyes rolled to the top of his head and he keeled over with a silly smile on his face.

The confrontation caused a pause throughout the clearing as everyone turned their heads to glance languidly at the incident, but a moment later the onlookers lost interest and resumed their own pursuits.

"You OK?" Tacita asked Dash.

"Yeah, just a little sore is all."

"Good. Grab your girlfriend and let's get the hell out of here."

Dash ran to the still-unconscious Ardelle and picked her up, cradling her in his arms as his eyes darted to her bare breasts. Blushing, he averted his gaze and Tacita trotted over and buttoned up Ardelle's blouse to restore her modesty, then led the way out of the clearing.

A half-hour later they were back on board the rocket ship. Dash placed his slumbering girlfriend in one of the passenger seats in the main fuselage, fastened her safety harness and gently stroked her hair before joining Tacita in the cockpit.

"Don't worry, Dash," Tacita said. "I'm sure when she wakes up she'll be right as rain."

"Sure she will," he replied, yet his voice was filled with doubt.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A massive stream of fire poured from the mouth of the three-eyed dragon, washing over the boulder where Dash and Tacita cowered within the bowels of the volcano. A squirming Ardelle lay on the ground beneath Dash's butt, protesting loudly that the dragon was just lonely and needed nothing more than a kiss on its snout to calm it down.

Dash and Tacita had chosen a less friendly tactic – shooting at the dragon with ray guns set on Destroy – but so far they hadn't inflicted any damage. At first they'd focused their beams on its eyes, hoping to blind the beast if nothing else, but its leathery lids were too thick to penetrate with short bursts and they could only fire their weapons when the dragon paused to take a breath, a respite of only two or three seconds before it unleashed its next torrid torrent and they had to duck down again.

"I've got to get behind it," Tacita said, shouting to be heard over the roar of the flames – and Ardelle's squawking. "It can't turn around very fast in these cramped quarters and one of us should be able to blast it good while it's attacking the other."

"Good idea. But you stay here and _I'll_ try to get behind it."

"No, it's my idea, so I get to go."

"Uh uh. It's too risky for a girl."

"I'm no ordinary girl."

"I know that. But I have the best chance of making it. I'll have you know that back in my Yale days I won three gold medals at the Ivy League track and field championships. They don't call me Dash for nothing."

"Bully for you. When I ran track for Omaha Marian High School I set a national record in the hundred meter dash. Ten seconds flat."

He blinked. "Ten seconds?"

"Flat."

He sighed. "OK, you win."

"No, _I'll_ go!" Ardelle said. "The dragon needs love, not hate. You two think violence can solve any..."

Tacita switched her pistol to Stun and fired at Ardelle's head, returning her to dreamland.

"Sorry, Dash, but I had to do that. We don't need any distractions right now."

He nodded. "I understand." He eyed the top of the boulder, where the stream of flame was swiftly subsiding as the dragon prepared to take another breath.

"You ready?" he said.

"Yep."

"Go!"

Tacita sprinted away from the boulder as the dragon spewed a fresh stream of fire, barely missing her. Dash popped up and fired at the beast and it swung its head back toward him and he ducked down just in the nick of time, the fountain of flame singeing his hair. The dragon simultaneously swept its massive tail toward Tacita, but she leapt over it and tumbled head-over-heels till she got behind the beast, then fired her pistol at the back of its head. The monster bellowed in fury and turned completely around, bumping its shoulders in the cavern's narrow confines, then took another huge breath and unleashed a new blast of orange death. Tacita ran like hell, the flame chasing after her, nipping at her heels, as Dash trained his beam on the already smoldering scales Tacita had targeted. The scales blackened and bulged under the onslaught, then popped like a gigantic zit. Superheated brains and steaming blood gushed out and the dragon reared up, then collapsed, letting out an ear-numbing death rattle that soon echoed into silence.

Dash heaved a sigh and lowered his pistol. Tacita trotted to his side.

"Good shooting!" she said.

"Thanks. You too."

But just as Tacita was about to give him a hug, Ardelle groaned and he turned toward her and knelt down, taking her hand.

"I think she's coming out of it," he said.

"Oh goodie," Tacita muttered.

Ardelle's eyelids fluttered open. "Dash? What happened? Where are we?" She sat up, spotted the monster and cringed. "Oh ew! What's that horrible thing?"

"The dragon that guarded the volcano," he said. "Don't you remember?"

"Volcano?" She rubbed her temples. "The last thing I remember was bailing out over a purple forest and landing in some trees. I must have been knocked out." She looked at Tacita, who was giving her a tight-lipped smile. "Who's this?

The earth beneath them trembled as the volcano growled once more, warning of an impending eruption.

"She's a friend," he said. "But there's no time for explanations now. We've got to get out of here."

He helped Ardelle to her feet and they followed Tacita out of the cavern and headed down the side of the volcano as fast as they could, dodging widening fissures oozing molten lava as the ground shook ferociously and a thick column of black smoke billowed from the volcano's mouth high above them and hot cinders and ash rained down.

"That way!" Dash said, gesturing to the left, and the trio veered away from yet another stream of glowing orange goop threatening to cut off their escape.

When they got to the foot of the volcano they broke into a trot, making a mad dash for the rocket ship, and soon they were airborne, soaring high above the volcano's flaring fury.

As Dash steered a course toward far-off Trelodun, Tacita opened up her bag to take out the chunk of Ryptogite they had found inside the volcano. It was rhombic-shaped and raspberry colored with ice-blue striations and crinkly black encrustations at the tips. The Stone of Rimeh lay next to it, and Tacita let out a gasp of delight as she saw the bright amber light suffusing the Stone's unblemished interior and the scarab beetle scuttling back and forth, alive and well. She felt a warm throbbing in her left palm and turned her hand over and cried "Yes!", for the pentagram was full size again, blazing with light, bulging with power.

"What happened?" Dash said.

She raised her hand. "Our Mission Impossible just turned into a _fait accompli._ "

***

The Devastatinator was a mass of glossy black metal about the size of a garbage truck, with a huge barrel, three feet in diameter and sixty feet long, with ribbed sides and a bulbous, four-foot-long lens at the front. The barrel was elevated to a forty-five degree angle, the tip poised several feet beneath a four-foot-wide, twelve-foot-long slot in the domed ceiling of the war chamber. Three guards sat at a table playing cards, about fifteen feet to the right of the machine. They didn't notice the faint diamond shape that suddenly materialized in a shadowy corner on the other side of the chamber.

Tacita stepped out of it and one player spotted her. He jumped up, shouting "Look! Look!" and gesturing frantically. The other two stared at him, then each other, then glanced over their shoulders. Sputtering curses, they leapt to their feet, knocking over their chairs as they fumbled with their holsters.

Zuzz-a-zuzz-zuzz

Game over.

Tacita ran to the Devastatinator, with Dash and Ardelle right behind her. She eyed the control panel at the back of the machine, pondered a few moments, then flipped a switch. Green and blue lights and yellow gauges lit up, accompanied by a soft hum. She moved a lever a little bit, thought better of it, pulled it back and moved another. A relay clacked and gears meshed and the massive barrel lowered till it pointed downward at a twenty degree angle. She moved another lever and the barrel turret rotated to face the back wall.

"What are you doing?" Dash said.

"I'm going to fire the Devastatinator. The beam will be contained by the walls and the heat-energy will build up until the machine melts or blows up."

"But if it blows up," Ardelle said, "won't that destroy the palace? There are innocent people living here. Harem girls, servants, clerks..."

"No need to fret, darling," Dash said. "The walls in here are seven feet thick and made of Kratostone covered with two-foot-thick Titanium-Impervion plates."

"Oh. So you're absolutely sure..."

"We can't be absolutely sure of anything," Tacita said. "But we've got to risk it. The lives of millions of people are at stake."

She twisted the Intensity dial on the control panel to Max. The hum swelled. "You two better get out of here now. Once I fire the gun, things will get dicey in a hurry. I'll be cutting it pretty close."

"No, Tacita," Dash said. "I'll stay behind and fire the Devastatinator. You go with Ardelle."

Ardelle clutched at his arm. "I'm not leaving here without you, darling!"

Dash turned and clasped her hands between his own. "You must go, sweetheart. This is a man's job. And there are some things a man must do alone."

"Cut the bullshit," Tacita snapped. "This is no time for Boy Scout derring-do and stirring speeches. I'm a GOTCHA agent. This is what I do." She leveled her pistol at them. "Now get the hell out of here or I'll zap you both and kick your limp asses through the portal."

Dash hesitated, nodded. "Alright, Tacita. Good luck."

He squeezed Ardelle's hand and they leapt into the diamond and Tacita turned back to the control panel and pressed the red button between the aiming grips. The ribs along the side of the barrel lit up with crimson light. It swelled bright. The hum changed to a thrum and a foot-wide beam shot out of the lens, splashing against the wall, filling the room with a lurid, hellish glare as a wave of intense heat washed over Tacita. She turned away and squinted her eyes, trying to shield them from the now-blinding light, and her lungs rebelled against the superheated air. She grit her teeth and staggered to the diamond and stumbled through as darkness encroached on the edges of her consciousness.

The gagging heat and deafening hum and painful brightness abruptly vanished and she found herself standing in a freshly ploughed field containing a sagging Dali-esque pocket watch at least thirty yards in diameter, draped over a fallen column of fluted marble.

What the hell! What am I doing back here? Why didn't the portal take me to...

A mustachioed man wearing nothing but a Derby came riding by on a high-wheeler bicycle. He tipped his hat to her and then sank into the soil and the ground began to shake and a massive crack opened up beneath her feet and she plummeted downward, landing on something furry. She rolled over and found herself nose to nose with a tiger. For an instant she panicked – until she saw the eyes were glass and the head was dead. A rug, nothing more. One she had seen before.

She looked up and saw a tastefully appointed apartment with a cheery blaze in the fireplace and an equally cheery Gaspard Jutland regarding her from the depths of his maroon leather chair, flanked by a much-less cheery Walmar Rook and the inscrutable Jules Faro. The two henchmen quickly closed in on her, grabbing her arms and hauling her to her feet.

"Welcome back, Miss Pruval," The Large Man said. "I had almost given up hope of effecting your return, but I believe I've mastered these devilishly difficult controls at last." He gestured at the chEOPs machine sitting in his lap. "Or perhaps they've mastered me. In any event, your pell-mell tumble through the smorgasbord of wonderlands was most entertaining to behold, but now it's time to get down to cases."

"This case is closed," Tacita said. She tucked her legs, then kicked out sideways, striking Walmar and Faro in the knees. Faro yelped and fell down, letting go of her. Walmar stumbled but stayed upright, then tried to backhand her across the face. She blocked the move with her left forearm and delivered a right uppercut to his jaw, then karate-chopped his wrist to break his grip. She spun toward The Large Man, drawing her pistol and dialing the power to Full / Narrow / Shallow, then fired at the chEOPs Machine. The skull knobs exploded like bursting light bulbs, flinging shards of glass into The Large Man's hands and double chin, and moments later the brass box melted into a scalding-hot blob of goo, drenching his large lap.

As he bellowed in agony, Tacita commanded the pentagram in her palm to produce the portal. It did. She started to jump through, but Walmar lunged forward and seized her arm.

"Not so fast, sister. You ain't going ... ahh!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The diamond frame snapped shut behind her, slicing through Walmar's wrist, and as his shriek of pain echoed and faded Tacita let out a gasp of horror, staring at his lifeless fingers still clutching her forearm as blood streamed from his stump. She pried the hand loose and tossed it to the floor in disgust...

And the diamond imploded, breaking up into fractalized facets giving glimpses into myriad worlds. One facet floated free from the fractal and flew to the forefront, enlarging till it was three feet high, and Tacita saw a sitting room within its depths, with floral wallpaper and equally hideous floral carpeting and a black leather couch where a man with an austere face and white hair and beard lay napping. A plump and fairly pretty young woman with short, curly brown hair and a black dress – also with a floral pattern – stood to the side of the couch, her right arm raised, her white-knuckled hand clutching a hatchet. The man dozed on, oblivious to the pent-up rage welling in the woman's too-bright eyes, and then she consigned him to permanent slumber, bringing the hatchet down upon his head again and again and again, slicing off his nose, bisecting an eye, caving in his skull...

"Oh ew!"

Another facet bumped the first one out of the way and revealed a far more pleasant scene, at first glance: a massive ocean liner plowing through waves gleaming with moonlight. But the moon shone off something else as well – the looming mass of an iceberg. The ship altered course, going hard to port to give a wide berth to the behemoth, but it was all for naught as the tip of the iceberg swung up to reveal a hollow interior made of balsa wood, and a submarine sitting in the middle of it with an Iron Cross painted on the side of the conning tower. The U-boat's deck gun swung toward the liner and yellow flame belched from the muzzle...

A third facet replaced the second and another scene played out – a middle-aged man clad in motley, his wrists bound by manacles attached to chains bolted to a brick wall inside a niche flanked by massive wine casks. The nitre-streaked passageway in the foreground was illuminated by an oil lamp sitting on the floor, revealing another man – also clad in Mardi Gras attire – laying bricks along the front of the niche to seal it off and entomb the manacled man. He dipped his trowel into a bucket of mortar and spread it out onto the top of the chest-high wall, then picked up a brick from a wheelbarrow and set it into place, tamping it down with the trowel's handle. As he reached for another brick the captive let out a moan of despair and thrashed his limbs desperately as the bells on his fools cap jingled joylessly...

A fourth facet appeared, containing a wooden fence atop a grassy knoll and a bearded man wearing green fatigues and a flat-topped, billed cap, chomping on an unlit cigar as he aimed a bolt-action rifle, its barrel resting in the V between two of the fence boards. He squinted through the telescopic sight at five police motorcycles slowly rolling up a curving three-lane street followed by an open limousine with the presidential seal on one of the doors.

"Castro!" Tacita said. "I knew it! Not this time, you bastard!"

She lunged toward the facet but it shrank and slid away before she could get inside. A new one took its place and Tacita saw a woman in her thirties seated upon a throne. Her wavy blonde hair fell almost to her shoulders and she wore a purple robe and golden stole topped with a mantle of white. A man in his late fifties, clad in black finery with a big, ruffled white collar, stood to her right and slightly behind the throne, stroking his neatly trimmed gray goatee. A much younger man knelt on the marble floor facing her, wearing a cavalier's clothes, scarlet and black, his right hand clutching a wide-brimmed black hat with a drooping yellow feather.

The queen looked up from the scroll she'd been reading, her eyes bright with triumph. "So King Henry wishes to sue for peace. Very well. I shall write up a list of my demands and you may take it to him. Is he still holed up at Donegal with the pitiful remains of his army?"

"Yes, your highness," the cavalier said.

"He should have known better than to go up against my Highlanders."

Her right-hand man chimed in: "And to dare defy a sovereign who sits upon the throne of Scotland through the divine will of Almighty God."

The cavalier smiled thinly. "With all due respect, King Henry would dispute that claim. He does not believe in fairy tales."

As the ruffled man sputtered indignantly the image in the facet faded, replaced by another one, the interior of a huge cathedral where a man with thinning hair and a modern dark-blue serge suit with a crest on the breast pocket stood next to an ornate tomb as two dozen people wearing the casual clothes of tourists gathered around him, holding up smartphones to record his presentation.

"... and ruled until 1351, when she died at the age of 70. But her reign almost ended before it even began, back in the year 1286 when she sailed from Norway to Scotland at the tender age of six to claim the throne that was her birthright. During the voyage she fell gravely ill, weakened by seasickness almost to the point of death, until a beautiful young lady who called herself Tacita appeared in her cabin and gave her a medicine which cured her. When the ship arrived in Scotland and everyone disembarked, the Maid of Norway, now feeling much better, stood by the gangplank to thank the woman who had saved her, but Tacita never appeared and a thorough search of the vessel turned up nothing. To compound the mystery, Tacita's name was not listed on the ship's manifest and none of the other passengers or crew remembered seeing anyone matching her description. Some people theorized Tacita was a stowaway and had somehow fallen overboard, but they could not explain why or how she snuck aboard the ship in the first place, or where she acquired the miraculous medicine she gave to Margaret. Bishop Narve suggested Tacita was merely a figment of Margaret's fevered imagination and it was his constant prayers and the Maid's inner strength that had saved her. But Margaret insisted the woman was real and must have been an angel of mercy sent by God Himself to watch over her." The tour guide smiled. "And if that explanation was good enough for Her Royal Highness, it is certainly good enough for me." He turned and gestured toward another tomb. "And here we have the final resting place of..."

As Tacita wiped a tear from her cheek the fractal surrounding her swirled into a tight spiral, the multitude of facets coalescing into the solitary diamond once again, hovering inside a laboratory with walls of weathered bricks and a floor of wormy wood. Two workbenches sat on the right side of the room, one of them covered with steampunky gizmos with rotating disks spitting sparks and metal V-poles with blue-white arcs of electricity juddering up to their tips. The other bench held bubbling beakers, fluttering burners and slant-necked retorts connected by corkscrewed glass tubing. In the center of the room was a large gurney with thick chains attached to the corners, leading up to pulleys flanking an open skylight two hundred feet above. An immense humanoid form lay on the gurney, covered by a sheet, and standing next to him was a tall, gaunt man in a bloodstained lab coat, his face twisted in misery as he wrung his slim hands.

"One bolt of lightning. Is that too much to ask?" he moaned. "But the storms won't come. Nothing but drizzles for weeks now. God seems bound and determined to thwart my plans! Has He allowed me to come this far, to endure failure after failure and struggle ever onward, only to have victory snatched from my grasp at the last moment when success seemed assured? Am I being punished for my hubris, for daring to meddle in things man should leave alone?"

"There is no God."

That sullen reply came from someone standing near the second workbench, a wizened old woman with a cocked eye and a tattered gray shawl draped over stooped shoulders, and a scarf – black with little silver pentagrams – wrapped around her head.

Her blasphemous statement caught the attention of a husky young man sitting at the far end of the workbench. He lifted his shaggy head, revealing bushy eyebrows and a big, curly beard; thick hair covered his arms and the backs of his hands as well. He stared forlornly at the old woman for a few moments and then raised his head higher to gaze at the skylight, his woeful eyes observing the dark clouds scudding across a gibbous moon.

Suddenly the crone's head snapped to the left as she detected the dimly limned diamond hovering in the shadows on the far side of the lab. She peered at it, scowled, gestured.

"We've got company, doctor."

"Eh?" The man in the lab coat turned toward the diamond. His eyes squinted, widened. His jaw dropped. He took a few steps, stopped. "What in heaven's name ... Is someone there? ... Please show yourself!"

Tacita sighed and stepped out of the diamond. "Forgive the intrusion, sir. I didn't mean to interrupt."

He came closer. "Is it my imagination or did you and that remarkable window just materialize out of thin air?"

She nodded. "I was conducting a scientific experiment into the possibility of traveling between dimensions and I seem to have lost my way."

"How utterly fascinating. Might I know your name?"

"Tacita Pruval."

"I'm delighted to meet you, Miss Pruval. I am Dr. Franklin Vicarstone." He gestured at the others. "That is my colleague, Bexafaraya, and Barry, her ... patient."

What, no Igor?

Tacita smiled at them. "Pleased to meet you."

"Humph," the old woman said.

Barry smiled sadly and gave a slight nod of his head.

Dr. Vicarstone turned back to the portal. "I have long been intrigued by the prospect of interdimensional travel. Would you permit me to examine your conveyance more closely?"

"Uh ... sure," Tacita said. "Just don't try to climb into it, or even stick a hand in there. It could be very dangerous."

"As you wish."

He stepped up to the diamond, reached out and gingerly ran his fingers over the outer framework. "Remarkable. What is the principle behind this conveyance?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. I'm not the inventor, just a ... test pilot, you might say."

"Test pilot? I'm unfamiliar with the term."

"A driver of dangerous experimental conveyances."

"I see." He squinted at the portal. "It appears to be composed of frozen light particles fixed in a base of concentrated astralplasm."

"If you say so. I ... Oh gross!"

She recoiled in disgust as Walmar's severed hand drifted out of the portal and settled to the floor. But Dr. Vicarstone reacted much differently, gasping in delight as he bent down and grasped the gruesome object.

"I say! Is this yours?"

She held up her hands. "No, I've got both of mine."

He rose. "Obviously. This one clearly came from a man. What I meant was, is it your property?"

"No, the owner is – or rather, was – someone I encountered in one of the worlds I visited. He made the mistake of trying to grab me just as the portal was closing."

"Did he survive?"

"I have no idea."

"Do you mind if I keep this?"

"You _want_ that disgusting thing?"

"Oh yes indeed! It's so hard to get good replacement parts these days."

"Replacement parts?" She glanced at the gurney. "Oh. ... Right. ... Um, sure, go ahead and take it. I certainly don't want it."

"How much are you asking for it?"

"Asking? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. I'm glad you're taking it off my hands – so to speak."

"That's most generous of you, Miss Pruval. Most generous indeed. You know, the body snatchers in my employ would charge an arm and a leg for a hand of this quality ... uh, no pun intended."

"Is that a fact? ... Well it's been nice meeting you, but I really must be going ... Oh!"

As she started to turn toward the portal she bumped into Bexa, who had silently snuck up behind her and was sniffing her like an inquisitive dog.

"What are you doing?" Tacita said.

Bexa grabbed Tacita's left hand and turned the palm upward, uncurling the fingers to reveal the softly glowing pentagram Tacita had been trying to conceal.

"Goblenie magic!" the witch rasped. She sniffed some more. "But you are not a practitioner of the Craft. How came you by this?"

"A goblenie gave it to me."

"Oh? You are fortunate indeed, young woman. It is unusual for Elementals to favor mortals with such gifts. Even we of the Craft are rarely so blessed. If only I could meet this goblenie of yours."

"I'd love to introduce you, but I've had a hard time reaching him lately."

"Of course." She gestured at the skylight. "That's a witching moon. Your goblenie won't come within a thousand leagues of a moon like that. But never mind. You have other things to offer."

She bent lower and pressed her nose against the slit in Tacita's dress and took a good, long whiff.

"Bexa! Please!" Dr. Vicarstone said, scandalized. "There are some ... investigations best done in private!"

"Hush now," the witch said, straightening up. "And get your mind out of the gutter." She looked at Tacita. "I smell rejuving stones. Might I see them?"

"Uh ... I suppose so."

Tacita slipped a hand into the slit, unsnapped her bag and took out the Stone of Rimeh and the chunk of Ryptogite. Beaming with delight, the crone cupped her hands beneath Tacita's and raised them, bringing the stones up to her face. She sniffed the Stone of Rimeh.

"Hmm. I smell orichalcum. And brine. ... And lusty gods." She looked up. "This comes from Atlantis. But you are no Atlantean."

She sniffed the Ryptogite. "I smell lava and the breath of sulphurous beasts and ancient waterways carved from crimson stone. This comes from Marzda, another world which is not your own."

She straightened up, peering intently at Tacita. "A voyager. That's what you are. A traveler of times. A sailor plying the astral sea."

"That's a fair assessment."

Bexa's bony fingers tightened on Tacita's hands. "I must have some of your magic! You've plenty to spare. A dollop is all I want, nothing more!"

"I'm sorry, but I've already drained my amulet once – and one of the 'rejuving stones,' as you call them. I don't know how often I can recharge them before the magic is gone for good. I may need every ounce of it to get back home. I can't take the chance."

"Pah. You have all the magic you'll ever need. You just don't know how to tap it. But never fret. I'll only take a little bit. A pinch. A dash. Believe me, you shan't miss it."

"Well..."

"I'm willing to pay for it and pay handsomely, in tender far more valuable than money. Come."

She tugged Tacita to an open cupboard between the workbenches and waved a hand at the jars and bottles on the shelves. Tacita's jaw dropped as she read the hand-written labels:

Spell – Love

Cure – Cold

Cure – Gout

Cure – Influenza Strain X

Cure – Vampyrism

Tonic – Erectile Dysfunction

Tonic – Hair Growth

Repellent – Zombie

Repellent – Ghost

"Wow," Tacita said. "Very impressive. Do they actually work?"

"Of course they work!" Bexa said, bristling. Then she sagged in sadness. "But you're right to question my abilities, for none of these potions is the one I truly seek. All those you see before you are unintended byproducts from failed experiments in my quest to discover the most important potion of all – a cure for lycanthropy."

Tacita looked at Barry. "You mean he's ..."

Bexa nodded. "Yes. A man who is pure in heart, yet he changes into a wolf when the wolf bane blooms and the moon is shining bright."

Barry smiled sadly. "Don't blame yourself, Bexa. Nothing can break a gypsy's curse. Nothing."

"I can!" the witch rasped, shaking a fist. "And I shall!" She turned back to Tacita. "If I add some goblenie magic to my potion it's bound to work! Let me have some and I shall give you any potion from the shelf. Name it and it is yours."

Tacita pointed at the vampyrism cure. "That one."

Bexa scurried to the shelf, grabbed the bottle of dark brown liquid and brought it over. Tacita held out the Stone of Rimeh and the Ryptogite.

"Here."

"Put them away," Bexa said. "I don't need them. Just the touch of your amulet."

Tacita returned the stones to the bag. Bexa handed her the bottle and she placed it next to the stones, then held out her left hand. Bexa grabbed it and brought it up to her wrinkled face, pressing the palm against her cheek. Her flesh felt like chilled parchment and Tacita fought the urge to pull away. The witch muttered an incantation in a language the BabelBuster could not translate and her icy fingers stroked Tacita's knuckles, the cold penetrating into her palm with a seeping/sucking sensation. After a few moments Bexa let go and held up her own hand, displaying glowing green fingernails. Tacita anxiously examined her pentagram but was relieved to see no drastic change, just a slight dimming in the tip of one point.

Bexa brought her thumb and forefinger up to her glass eye and Tacita cried out in revulsion as the crone plucked the orb out of its socket. The glossy glow faded from her fingers and filled up the eyeball and Bexa scurried to the workbench, set the eye on a small tin plate and picked up a jar full of glittery magenta powder. She unscrewed the top and poured some of the powder into a beaker, adding some lime-green powder from another jar and burnt-orange from a third, along with an indigo liquid from a square bottle. She stuck a spoon into the beaker and stirred the contents till it turned colorless, then set the beaker on a metal bracket over a Bunsen burner and twisted the knob at the base. The flame flared, the yellow light playing off the witch's wizened features to ghastly effect as she stared at the beaker, watching the roiling surface. As steam rose past her face like a tattered veil she spoke a second incantation and when it was finished she picked up the eyeball and dropped it into the beaker, which instantly filled with fizzy bubbles and shimmering green light.

"Ha!" Bexa cried in triumph. She took the beaker from the stand and carried it over to Barry, who gazed blandly at the noxious-looking concoction and the crone's puckered eye socket. Nothing shocked him anymore.

"At last, Barry," Bexa rasped. "The missing ingredient! The unobtainable, impossible ingredient which Fate has deigned to deliver unto me. Goblenie magic! Now, at last, I have the proper catalyst to release the formula from the shackles of science!"

She handed the beaker to Barry. "Drink. Drink and be free!"

Glumly Barry brought the beaker to his lips and drank the contents, then set it down and slowly shook his head. Suddenly he stiffened and his eyes bugged out and his chest heaved and he stood up abruptly, swaying, then sat down heavily, limbs shaking, eyes rolling to the top of his head as he let out a spine-tingling howl that ended in a high-pitched whine. His hair rose – on his face, his arms, his hands – then floated off his flesh and flew into the air, twinkling with yellow pinpricks of light like a swarm of fireflies, swirling, darting, soaring up to the skylight and disappearing, lost amidst the backdrop of stars.

Barry sagged, gasping for air, but soon recovered. He held up his arms and stared in wonderment at his hairless flesh, then touched his face. The only hair remaining was a thin layer atop his pate – normal hair spawned by Nature, not the supernatural.

"The curse," he said, awestruck. "It's gone! I could feel it leaving my body, as if my very soul was being washed clean!"

His lower lip quivered and he broke down in tears and Bexa beamed and patted his shaking shoulder and he clasped her hand and gazed up at her with puppy dog eyes. "Thank you, Bexa. Thank you!" He turned to Tacita. "God bless you, Miss Pruval."

Tacita swallowed the lump in her throat. "Glad I could help." She turned to Bexa. "I was wondering, might I borrow one of the workbenches? I need to prepare an ... applicator for the potion you gave me."

"By all means."

When Tacita was done she headed toward the portal, where Dr. Vicarstone still stood, oblivious to the drama that had just transpired, peering intently at the diamond through a strange multi-lensed monocle and jotting into a little notebook.

"Excuse me, doctor."

He turned. "Eh? ... Oh, it's you." He gestured at the portal. "Remarkable technology you have here. Quite remarkable. The matrix is astonishingly simple – a single node where ley and astral lines intersect. If given enough time I could..."

"I'm sorry, but I have to leave."

"Surely you could spare me a few hours, a day at the most..."

"I'm afraid I can't. I'm needed elsewhere."

He sighed. "Very well then. It's been a pleasure to ..." His eyes darted to the left, looking over Tacita's shoulder. "Bexa, what are you doing?"

The witch was standing next to the gurney, her glowing glass eyeball held between two fingers – much to Tacita's surprise, for she thought it had dissolved in the beaker. And another surprise came moments later when Bexa pulled down the top of the sheet, revealing the creature's head.

Holy shit!

Tacita had expected green and gruesome, but this guy was gorgeous, with no staples or stitches or scars, just one small nick on his forehead, and instead of bolts in the sides of his neck he sported little diamond studs.

Bexa pressed the glowing orb against the manufactured man's eyelids, then rubbed it across his forehead three times while muttering a spell. The eyelids fluttered open and the chest slowly rose, fell ... paused ... rose and fell again, faster this time, and yet again, settling into a regular rhythm, and the creature slowly sat up, grabbed the sheet and flung it aside – and Tacita got a third surprise, for instead of a nondescript black pullover and an ill-fitting suit coat and clunky boots he wore a tailored cream-colored herringbone sports jacket with a gold-and-green crest on the breast pocket and a light-blue dress shirt and dark-blue tie with red stripes. And fawn colored Oxfords with argyle socks.

He swung his legs to the right as Bexa backed up to give him room, then planted his feet on the floor and rose to his full seven-foot-seven height and gazed at Dr. Vicarstone, who beheld his creation with absolute joy as he rushed to the gurney and wrapped his arms around his waist.

"You're alive!" the doctor sobbed, pressing his tear-stained cheek against the massive chest. "You're alive, you're alive, you're alive!"

The creature gently stroked the doctor's head as it looked at Tacita and smiled, displaying perfect teeth.

"Is he always like this?" he said in a deep and mellifluous voice.

"I wouldn't know," she replied. "I'm just passing through. Nice meeting you." She looked at the others. "All of you. It's been a blast, but I really must be going."

She stepped into the diamond and instantly sensed a change. The portal was stable now. Back on track. Ready to take her where she needed to go. Had it been doing that all along? Had the supposedly random stops been decreed by Fate for some reason? No time to ponder that now. She had a vampire to vanquish.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The cellar of Baskerville Hall was pitch black and silent as a tomb, yet Tacita's bionic eyes could still make out the old, ornate coffin lying in the middle of the floor – only now there were seven more beside it, new ones of gleaming black mahogany with shiny silver fittings.

Her ears perked up as her enhanced hearing detected strange stirrings within those coffins – something brushing lightly against the silken linings. Her pulse quickened and fear chilled her gut.

"I wish I had a lamp," she muttered, and the diamond responded, bathing the cellar in a muted yellowish glow, like sunset through thin curtains.

She forced herself to step out of the portal, but nearly jumped back in as the lid on one of the new coffins opened slowly, gripped by long, slim fingers, and the occupant sat up, his face a ghastly white, his lips a lurid shade of red.

"So the treacherous wench returns," Sherlock Holmes said, his British accent mixed with Romanian undertones.

Another coffin lid lifted. Another occupant slowly rose.

Watson.

But who's in the other coffins?

A third lid went up and a mustachioed, broad-shouldered man with a dull face and brown tweed suit appeared.

"Inspector Lestrade," Holmes said, "allow me to introduce Miss Tacita Pruval, the perfidious woman who summoned dark forces to free the Count from his bondage, thus enabling him to conscript you and Watson and myself into the ranks of the undead."

"So this is her, eh?" the inspector said. "A tasty looking tart, I must say. I think I'll give her a nibble. I know it violates the laws of the land I'm sworn to uphold, but I'm feeling a bit _non compus mentis_ at the moment."

"Perfectly understandable, Inspector," Holmes said. "But it would be rude of us to partake without inviting the ladies to join us."

He clapped his hands four times and the other coffin lids opened and four young women sat up, clad in filmy white gowns that matched their deathly complexions. They regarded Tacita with ravenous eyes and drool-flecked fangs, and once more she resisted the urge to bolt.

"Miss Pruval," Holmes said, "allow me to introduce our other guests. Of course this is a task normally performed by the host, but the Count prefers to be fashionably late to his own soirees." He gestured at the women one by one. "Miss Cloiston, Miss Hinchcliffe, Mrs. Stutney and Lady Bronten. They came here to rescue the Count when they sensed he was in danger, but he had already saved himself, thanks to your treachery."

Tacita was about to retort when Dracula's coffin lid sprang open and he jerked upright like a Jack-in-the-box. She shrieked and jumped back, startled.

"I smell food!" he said, his head swiveling left and right. His gaze fell on Tacita and a nasty grin spread across his black lips. "Ah, Miss Pruval. You have returned. And just in time for dinner. Or to be more precise, just in time to _be_ dinner!"

He climbed out of his coffin and his companions followed suit and together the eight undead fiends walked toward Tacita, arms outstretched. She reached into the front of her gown with her left hand and pulled out a silver cross pendant and held it out in front of her. The vampires stopped – the women hissing and flinging their arms up in front of their faces – but none of them retreated.

"Foolish woman," Dracula said. "Do you truly believe a cross can stop us?"

"Maybe not," Tacita said. "But it can slow you down a bit."

"Pah. A cross has little power unless its wearer is devout. And you hardly seem the type."

"You'd be surprised."

"No matter. You can only hold a vampire at bay if the cross is facing them. And in case you hadn't noticed, you are outnumbered." He spread his arms wide. "Fan out, my brothers and sisters, and encircle her! She cannot thwart us all!"

"I'm afraid you've miscalculated," Tacita said. "Your ... Count is a bit off."

"And your jokes aren't nearly as laughable as your jewelry."

"Oh yeah? Well laugh at this, Drakky."

She shoved her right hand into the slit in her dress and whipped out her gun, the one she had conjured up with her pentagram in Dr. Vicarstone's laboratory – a spring-loaded, auto-pumping air pistol containing hypo-darts filled with Bexa's vampire antidote.

Dracula smirked. "A gun? Now _that_ is hilarious."

"I'm just one great big ray of sunshine, aren't I?"

She opened fire, sweeping the gun from left to right, aiming for the vampires' throats. The Count's undead devotees gasped and hastily plucked out the darts, but too late. The antidote was already coursing through their veins, destroying the malignant taint of Dracula as a healthy flush returned to their faces and the ravenous glint faded from their eyes. The four women let out low moans and swooned to the floor. Holmes, Watson and Lestrade bent over, hands on knees, shaking their heads to try and clear the fog.

Dracula alone seemed unaffected. He removed his dart slowly, casually, regarding it with great disdain as he crushed the tiny fins and let it drop to the floor.

"Who do you think you're dealing with?" he said. "Did you truly believe some witch's brew could deprive me of _my_ power? I am immune. Invulnerable. Invincible. Irresistible. I bow before no human, no god, no devil. For a thousand years I have quenched my thirst with the blood of mortals and I shall do so for a thousand more!"

Tacita gazed into the bottomless pits of his eyes; felt him sucking her soul into their depths.

He lowered his voice to a seductive murmur: "You do not wish to fight me, Miss Pruval. You wish to _join_ me. You know that, don't you? Deep inside, you know it. You long to belong to me. You are enslaved, enthralled. Your desire grows stronger every moment. You cannot resist. You don't _want_ to resist. Come into my arms. Feel my kiss. Relish its sharpness. Savor the forbidden pleasures only the damned can know! Surrender to the immortal love of Dracula!"

Her willpower wilted. Her defiance dissolved.

"Remove the cross, Tacita," he murmured. "Throw it away. It is an ugly thing. It defiles your beauty. You must rid yourself of that abomination – at once!"

A part of her mind cried "no!" but her brain ignored it and commanded her fingers to tighten around the cross, commanded her arm to jerk downward, snapping the chain. She hurled the necklace away from her and it sailed into the shadows as Dracula moved toward her in long, eager strides with triumph blazing in his eyes.

Tacita's lips parted and her pussy dilated and her head tilted up and to the side, exposing the soft flesh of her neck.

"Take me!" she moaned.

"No!" Holmes shouted, rising to his feet. "Don't give in, Miss Pruval! Snap out of it! Fight back!"

Lestrade charged toward the count. "Halt in the name of the law!"

Dracula backhanded him across the face and the inspector collided with Holmes and both of them fell on top of Watson as the Count resumed his relentless march toward Tacita ... until a marble-sized periwinkle ball of light came out of nowhere, circled his head a few times and began bumping repeatedly against his nose. He swatted at it, missed, swatted again, connected, and the little ball burst and vanished – but the distraction disrupted his mind-lock with Tacita and broke the spell and she spun to the right and backpedaled a dozen yards, frantically pulling a second ammo clip from her bag and slapping it into the magazine. The reloading mechanism rasped and gasped and Tacita jerked the trigger as fast as she could, till the Count's face and neck bristled with darts.

With utter contempt he pulled one out and dropped it on the floor, pulled out a second one, started on a third. "Foolish woman. Resistance is futile. Many others have ... have ... Mannny ... othersss ... havvvv ..."

He stopped, swayed, placed a hand to his brow. He shook his head, took a step, fell to one knee. His face registered alarm. Disbelief. Panic. His hands clutched at his throat.

"Imp ... oss ... i ... ble!" he croaked. "Imp ... oss ... i ... ble! ... I ... am ... un ... stop ... a ... ble ... I ... am ... Dra ... ach!"

He sagged, shrank, shriveled, keeled over, his body bursting apart, his clothes settling to the floor, empty now except for little piles of peppery dust spilling from his cuffs and sleeves.

For a moment Tacita wondered why the antidote had killed the Count instead of curing him. But the answer was obvious. He had no soul to salvage, no humanity to restore. He was evil through and through.

She took a deep breath and tried to return her pistol to its holster, but her hand trembled so badly it took three attempts before she succeeded.

"Well done, Miss Pruval," Holmes said as he and Lestrade rose to their feet. "Well done, indeed!" He turned to the good doctor and helped him up. "Watson, if I ever again speak of 'the woman,' please ask me to which I am referring." He smiled at Tacita. "For Miss Pruval is every bit the equal of the formidable Irene Adler, whom I hold in such high regard."

"Why thank you, Mr. Holmes," Tacita stammered, her face turning beet red.

***

Two facets materialized inside the diamond. One beckoned her to the gleaming marbled corridors of Atlantis, and the end of her journey. But she turned to face the other one – a cobblestone street where a dozen bearded men in black robes had surrounded a chariot and were dragging a fifty-ish woman out of it, ripping off her cloak and striking her with roofing tiles.

Tacita had glimpsed the scene before as she was dropping in on San Francisco, but only now did it strike a responsive chord in her memory – an article she'd read on Wikipedia about a notorious murder that occurred in Alexandria around 415 A.D. The victim was Hypatia, one of the most brilliant women of her time – a mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, one of the few women in the ancient world who earned the right to wear the Philosopher's Cloak. She held great influence over Orestes, the Roman prefect of the city, and the Christian sect blamed her for widening a rift between Orestes and the Bishop of Alexandria, so they attacked her as she returned home from a lecture at the university, stoning her to death – or to be more accurate, tiling her to death – before stripping the flesh from her body with sea shells.

But not this time. Not in this alternate world. Because Molten was there, putting the bite on a zealot, and Tacita now joined the fray, her dress morphing into a cotton robe as she charged out of the portal, her shoes changing to sandals, slapping on the cobblestones. When she was about ten yards away from the mob she stopped, crouched into a shooting stance and opened fire. The pistol wasn't loaded with darts this time, but lead shot she'd grabbed from an inkwell in the study at Baskerville Hall. She hit one zealot in the eye, another in the temple. Both died instantly. Seven others got it in the throat, gut or crotch and fell down wailing. Molten finished off his first foe and pounced on another. That left one man standing and as he cocked his arm to hurl a tile at the hound, Tacita slammed into him with a drop kick, then smashed his larynx with a karate chop.

She rose slowly and turned toward Hypatia, who was kneeling beside her chariot, her ripped cloak gathered up in her arms to shield her nakedness, one sleeve pressed against her bloodied head.

"How badly are you hurt?" Tacita said as she approached.

Hypatia managed a smile. "I'll be alright – thanks to you and that splendid hound. Good thing you happened along. What's your name?"

"Tacita." She gestured at the dog. "And this is Molten."

"I am Hypatia."

"Yes, I know. I've heard a lot..."

Noises behind her. She spun around. Three of the injured zealots were fleeing, deserting their comrades who still lay writhing on the ground. A few passersby approached, but when they saw Tacita's expression and the blood on Molten's mouth they did an about-face and ran off. Tacita glared at the remaining zealots and they struggled to their feet and hobbled away as fast as they could, leaving their baskets behind.

Tacita took hold of Hypatia's arm. "Let me help you up."

The philosopher rose and slipped her torn and bloody cloak over her head, then gestured at the air pistol as Tacita shoved it back into her thigh holster.

"What a remarkable weapon. Where did you get it?"

"I made it."

Hypatia raised an eyebrow. "Indeed! You are an amazing woman. Tell me more about yourself."

"Heh. There isn't much to tell. You're far more amazing than I am. Unfortunately, I can't stay and chat. I'm needed elsewhere."

"Oh. Perhaps we can talk some other time?"

"Perhaps."

"Can I offer you a lift?"

"No thanks. My, uh, conveyance is ... nearby. And I must travel far."

Her eyes darted to the diamond, which had turned gray, blending in with the wall of the building behind it.

Hypatia glanced in that direction. "I see. Well in that case, I'll bid you farewell."

"Might I make a suggestion?" Tacita gestured at Molten. "Maybe it would be best if my hound stayed with you for a time, to protect you. If he's agreeable, that is."

Molten nodded and Hypatia laughed and patted his head, then clasped Tacita's hand.

"You are most generous. A thousand thanks."

"A thousand welcomes. Take care, Hypatia."

The philosopher climbed into the chariot and Molten hopped in beside her and she waved goodbye and snapped the reins and the chariot rumbled down the street.

When it was out of sight Tacita returned to the portal and as she stepped into the diamond it split into four intersecting facets resembling a revolving door. It rotated once, then stopped and she found herself looking out on the soggy gray dreariness of the English moors.

"No, no, no, I'm done with this world. Take me to ... wait a sec."

The brooding mansion in the distance was not Baskerville Hall; this one had more gables.

Huh. I wonder what adventure awaits me within those gloomy walls. ... Forget it, Tacita. No more side trips.

She pushed on the revolving door and it swung to a new scene – a stone passageway illuminated by fluttering torches in sconces, with a curved ceiling and thirteen niches containing dust-coated caskets. A handsome gentleman in his fifties emerged from a shadowy archway at the far end of the passageway, his face crumpled in sorrow, his mind clearly gripped by some dark reverie. He wore a black frock coat with white ruffles at the sleeves and a dark gray shirt with black cravat. A ring adorned his left hand, bearing a large carnelian carved in the shape of a raven's head.

"Take me to Atlantis," she said to the diamond. It rotated and stopped and she was back on the moors again.

"I said Atlantis."

The diamond returned to the passageway.

"Atlantis, dammit!"

No response.

Sigh. _I guess this is where I get off._

As she stepped out of the portal the man in the passageway let out a gasp and hurried toward her, his face brightening. "Madalune! My beloved Madalune! Speak to me, my darling! I implore you!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"I'm sorry, sir," Tacita said. "But I'm afraid you've mistaken me for someone else."

"You spoke to me! Oh Madalune, you actually spoke to me!"

"My name's not Madalune."

"Of course it is. Every inch of your visage is etched into my memory and burned into my soul! And I would know the dulcet tones of your voice anywhere. Oh yes, you are Madalune, beyond any doubt. I have never been more positive of anything in my entire life!"

Tacita stepped into the pool of light cast by a nearby torch. The man stopped dead in his tracks and peered at her. His face fell. "You're not Madalune!"

"Told ya."

"Who are you then?"

"My name is Tacita."

"Tacita?" He tapped a finger against his lips. "Hmm. I don't recall any Tacita in our family tree."

"I'm not part of your family tree. My last name's Pruval."

"Then why are you here, spirit? Why do you trouble me when I am already plagued by a surfeit of woe?"

"I didn't mean to trouble you, sir. I was just out for a stroll and felt myself drawn to this spot. Perhaps I sensed your dark reverie. Whatever is the matter?"

"Madalune is the matter. She will not leave me alone, yet she refuses to speak to me. A hundred times I have begged her forgiveness for the grievous wrong I committed against her, but she will not reply. I have employed a dozen mediums, hoping they could convince her to converse, but to no avail. I even purchased a Necrophonium at great expense. Useless."

"What's a Necrophonium?"

"A device invented by a clever fellow named Nikolai Tesla. It employs special crystals attuned to the astral plane that resonate with the amplified vibrations generated by spiritual energy. It was one of several amazing gizmos I purchased from that extraordinary gentleman. Unfortunately, when I try to contact the Other Side all I hear is a strange pulsating tone. Kind of a 'boop ... boop ... boop."

"Wow. The world's first busy signal!"

"The first what?"

"Never mind. ... So Madalune was your wife, I take it?"

"Yes. She died ten years ago this very night. And every ..." He stopped abruptly and stared at Tacita, his gloomy face brightening. "Of course! Now I understand! Fate brought you here so you could contact Madalune and convince her to talk to me! Surely she will listen to a fellow spirit!"

"Uh ... I'm afraid it's not that easy, sir. Just because I'm a spirit that doesn't mean I can reach out to everyone on The Other Side and chat them up whenever I please or get them to do whatever I want."

"But you can try."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

He clasped his hands beseechingly. "I beg thee, kind spirit, do not refuse me! You're my last hope, my last desperate hope. If you cannot help me I shall lose my tenuous grip on the last shreds of my sanity and go stark raving mad!"

Sigh. "OK, OK, calm down. I'll try to contact Madalune for you, but I can't promise anything."

"You will? Oh bless you, bless you!"

Great. Now all I have to do is communicate with the dead. Hell, I can't even get hold of a LIVE person when I call my bank. But I've got to try. I can't let this poor man suffer.

The man gestured toward the archway. "Come, let us hasten up to the drawing room. That's where all the seances are held. It was Madalune's favorite room and the one she frequents most often."

"Lead the way."

She followed him past the caskets and through the archway and they started up a spiral stairwell, their voices echoing off the clammy stone walls as they conversed.

"Forgive my manners," he said. "I neglected to introduce myself. I am Sir Dorrick Husher."

"Pleased to meet you. So tell me, what grievous wrong did you do to Madalune?"

"I married her."

"And that was a grievous wrong?"

"Oh yes. I was foolish enough to think she could bring sunshine into my benighted life. She was athletic and outgoing and vivacious, just the tonic to revive my own stagnant soul – or so I thought. But I deluded myself. And destroyed her."

They went through a door at the top of the stairs and Sir Dorrick locked it behind him with a large, tarnished brass key, then pocketed it and led Tacita down a long hallway.

"Madalune was a city girl," he continued. "Born and raised in London. But she was willing to move out here to the middle of nowhere and give country life a try. Alas, things did not go well. The first time she went riding across the moors her horse fell into a bog hole and drowned and she barely made it out alive. That soured her on riding so she asked me to install a tennis court, but the soil wasn't suitable. And there are no woods to roam, no flower gardens to tend. Nothing grows here – nothing good, that is."

He smiled sadly. "It wasn't always thus. Once upon a time this area was lush and green, with a woods filled with warbling birds and streams teeming with trout and fields of wildflowers abuzz with bees. And then a plague seemed to settle upon the land. The grass turned brown. The flowers withered. The trees rotted. The streams dried up. Black muck oozed up from the bowels of the earth and seeped to the surface, turning the once verdant land into a treacherous morass. It's God's holy judgment – his punishment for the sins of my forebears."

They turned into another hallway, narrow and dimly lit, filled with portraits in dusty frames. Sir Dorrick gestured at the painting nearest him. "Todorrok Husher – slave trader, who once dumped his human cargo overboard while trying to outrun a Royal Navy frigate. Two hundred souls he sent to their doom, all chained together. They never had a chance." He approached another portrait. "Mathors Husher – heartless swindler and ruthless gigolo who preyed on older women and drove two of them to suicide." And a third: "Garrord Husher – banker and embezzler, who squandered his ill-gotten gains on slow horses and fast women before fleeing to South America, where he was killed by banditos." And a fourth: "Dravish Husher – drug addict, card cheat, blackmailer and dog thief." And a fifth: "Lovinia Husher-Rawlings – who poisoned two husbands and three lovers and narrowly escaped the gallows because of her gender. She died in an insane asylum, a raving lunatic confined to a straitjacket. Perhaps the rope would have been more merciful."

He moved on, walking swiftly now, as if trying to outrun his dark heritage. "All of them lived in this house and the evil energy they generated still lingers here, absorbed by the stones in the walls and the boards in the floors and the beams in the ceiling." He paused at the far end of the hallway, staring off into space. "I can sense it sometimes, especially late at night. A malignant presence lurking in the atmosphere like a subtle scent of decay. Can you sense it too?"

"Not really."

"Perhaps it only affects those accursed with the blood of Husher."

He turned the corner, entering another, wider hallway. "I brought in a priest to bless the house, but his ministrations accomplished nothing. That was before I met Madalune. After we married, I hoped her bright soul would dispel the dark shadows of brooding evil, but the house proved stronger than she was."

They entered the drawing room. A fire burned in the hearth and an oil lamp glowed on a side table, burnishing the amber-paneled walls and mahogany bookshelves and the forest-green leather of the chairs and sofa. A single long-stemmed rose rested on the seat of one of the chairs and an open book lay upside-down on the left armrest. A harpsichord stood near the window, the keyboard lid closed and coated with dust. In the middle of the room was an octagonal table made of onyx with a black candle in a brass holder sitting on one corner and an ebony box in the center, about five feet long, two feet wide and twenty inches tall, with gold Old English script embossed on the top:

Necrophonium

An Invention of Nikolai Tesla

Patent Pending

Sir Dorrick crossed the room to a well-stocked bar near the hearth. "Care for anything? Sherry? Cognac? Absinthe? ... Oh, I forgot. You don't drink, do you?"

"Sure I do."

"I didn't know spirits could quaff beverages."

"Of course. Why do you think they call us spirits? Some sherry would be nice."

"Very well."

He poured two glasses, returned to the table and handed one to Tacita. Their fingertips touched. He frowned.

"Your fingers are warm. And solid. How can that be?"

Tacita took a sip of sherry, stalling till she could think of a plausible answer.

"You have put your faith in me, Sir Dorrick. There is nothing more solid than faith. Or more heartwarming."

"Eloquently put. I only hope your warm heart can thaw dear Madalune's." He faced the rose chair and raised his glass. "To you, my dear departed wife."

Tacita joined him in the toast, then Sir Dorrick turned toward the hearth, gazing into the firelight reflected in his empty glass.

"I was a fool to bring her to this place," he murmured. "So remote. So barren. The roads are difficult to traverse – even when they're dry, which isn't often – and the nearest neighbor is five miles away. Madalune hated being cut off from the rest of the world. She became withdrawn and pensive. Eventually she took refuge in absinthe and laudanum. Like the land itself, she started wasting away.

"One blustery winter night I found her roaming outside, clad in nothing but a flimsy nightgown, walking along the edge of the cliff just beyond the moors. I cried out and ran toward her as fast as I could, following the serpentine path at a maddeningly slow pace, but I dared not cut across the moor in a straight line for there are bog holes everywhere, slick patches of glistening blackness just waiting to suck the unwary into their deadly depths.

"By the time I reached the summit, Madalune was standing on the very edge of the precipice with her toes jutting out into space. She was staring up at the night sky, oblivious to the dark ocean waves crashing against the jagged rocks far, far below. Her long hair writhed around her face like maddened snakes and her nightie billowed like the sails of a ghost ship upon a tempest-tossed sea and her..."

"I get the idea, Sir Dorrick. What happened next?"

"I ran toward her, shouting her name, and she wheeled around. Her eyes were wide and wild like some crazed jungle beast and when she spoke her voice was a hollow monotone, like a..."

"Yes, I'm sure it was. What happened then?"

"She said, 'I must go home, Dorrick. I must board the ship before it sails without me.' And I said, 'What ship, Madalune?' And she turned and gestured at the moon. I tried to pull her back and we struggled, but her madness imbued her with superhuman strength and she broke free of me and leapt off the cliff with her arms outstretched like some giant bird. I don't know if she actually believed she could fly to some phantom ship moored betwixt the stars, but needless to say she did not reach the heavens, only the rocks.

"I ran back to the house and grabbed a lantern and went down to the shoreline and searched it thoroughly, but there was no sign of her. I had no servants to assist me; they only work during the day and refuse to stay here after dark. In the morning I pressed them into service and conducted a second search, but we found nothing. The ocean waves had claimed her, leaving nothing behind, not even blood on the rocks. A week later her body was recovered by fishermen near a coastal village ten miles away. Her face was ... unrecognizable, but the distinctive wedding ring on her finger left no doubt as to her identity." He held up his hand, displaying his own ring. "A perfect match."

He gazed morosely at the rose chair. "On the day of her funeral, when I closed the lid of the casket, I thought I'd seen the last of her. But I was wrong. I've glimpsed her numerous times since then, in various locations. Whenever she visits the kitchen I find maggots in the bread afterward and odd dents in the pots and pans. In the dining room she bends spoons and strips the tines off forks and snaps knives in two and cracks plates. In the bedroom she ties the sheets into knots and tears the pillows to shreds."

He waved a hand at his surroundings. "Only in this room does she remain calm and engage in positive activities – playing the harpsichord and curling up in her favorite chair to read a book. Oddly enough, she never bothers to raise the keyboard cover when she plays, and she flips the pages backwards when she reads. And she always stops in the middle. Playing or reading, she never finishes.

"Whenever I try to speak to her she vanishes. And when the mediums are here and conduct their seances, Madalune doesn't even appear. Even the Necrophonium is no help. Let me show you."

He opened the top of the machine, revealing innards resembling a glass armonica, hurdy-gurdy and gramophone all rolled into one. He wound a crank on one side of the machine and a coiled spring tightened as a brass ratchet clicked. He flicked a switch, releasing the spring, and a half-dozen glass bowls began to rotate on a steel spindle mounted in the center of the box as levers wiggle-waggled and little ruby-tipped pendulums swung and gears hummed.

He leaned down and spoke into the gramophone horn: "Madalune? ... Speak to me, dearest Madalune!"

The horn responded: "Boop ... Boop ... Boop."

He switched off the machine. The bowls slowed to a stop. He looked at Tacita. "Do you think you can succeed where even the great Tesla failed?"

"That's a tall order," she said, "but I'll do my best."

She handed him her empty glass, shut her eyes and clasped her hands together, stroking her pentagram with her right thumb.

"I hereby send my thoughts and prayers to the Other Side, seeking a fellow spirit, the one known in life as Madalune Husher. I ask her, I beseech her, I implore her, I beg her to come hither to this mortal plane, as she has done so often in the past, and to end her silence and deign to converse with her beloved husband, Sir Dorrick, who seeks her forgiveness and longs for the dulcet tones of her voice to caress his lonely ears."

"Oh, that is excellent, Miss Pruval," Sir Dorrick said. "You are far more eloquent than the mediums."

"Thank you. Let's hope my words move Madalune as much as they've moved you."

She waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. A minute. Nothing happened – no tingling or pulsating in her palm, no sensation of magical energy welling up inside her.

I guess I'll have to fake it.

She was about to speak again – pretending to be Madalune and using a raspy whisper so Sir Dorrick couldn't identify the voice – but before she could do so the bowls inside the Necrophonium began to spin again, faster than before, although the power switch was still off, and a green glow swelled inside one of the bowls and then poured out, like some illuminated liquid, spreading into the other bowls one by one, filling them up, bathing the machine in an emerald aura. A head materialized within that aura, with lavender skin, pointy ears and a cherubic face.

"Good Lord!" Sir Dorrick said. "What in heaven's name is that?"

"Dym!" Tacita said. "Where in hell..."

"This is Operator Zero at Spirit Central," the goblenie said in a nasal voice. "How may I direct your call?"

It took Tacita a moment to regain her composure. "Uh ... We wish to speak with Madalune Husher, beloved wife of Sir Dorrick Husher."

"One moment," Dym said. Ten seconds passed. "That party is unavailable at this time. May I take a message?"

"Yes. Her husband seeks her forgiveness."

"Can you be more specific, please?"

"He seeks her forgiveness for taking her away from a happy life and bringing her to this blighted and dreary estate where she languished and withered like a rose planted in the desert, where every shred of pleasure was stripped away from her like a..."

"OK, I get the idea," Dym said. "One moment please." Seven seconds later: "I have your party on the line." His face vanished.

The bowls picked up speed, faster and faster, and the spindle squealed in protest and the whir of the clockwork mechanism changed to a clattering cacophony and the entire cabinet vibrated alarmingly and the aura flared bright before ending in a blinding flash.

BWISHHH!

The bowls shattered, flinging glass shards everywhere as Tacita and Sir Dorrick ducked, throwing up their arms to protect themselves from the hurtling debris. The now-denuded spindle rattled on for a few more seconds before screeching to a stop as the gears ground to a halt.

A discordant chord erupted from the harpsichord, as if someone had hit all the keys at once, and the book on the armrest fell to the floor, flipped over and snapped shut as a wispy ice-blue feminine figure materialized above the Necrophonium wearing a scowl upon her beautiful face and a carnelian on her left ring finger, gleaming like the eye of some cyclopean demon.

"Madalune!" Sir Dorrick cried. "Madalune my darling! Please speak to me! I implore you!"

"Alright, you asked for it," the wraith replied wrathfully in less-than-dulcet tones. "I vowed I'd never utter a single word to you ever again, but if you're going to persist in pestering me with these nuisance calls, I guess I have no choice."

She drifted toward the ceiling like rising steam and turned her irate eyes on Tacita. "And as long as I'm breaking my silence, I might as well set the record straight. I overheard that tripe my husband was feeding you and I can't believe you swallowed every word of it! What a gullible little wench you are! Do you really think I'd throw myself off a cliff just because I was bored with country life?"

"You mean that wasn't the reason?" Tacita said.

"Hell no! It was his Goddamn mistress, Tinnia. I dragged her up to the cliffs so I could throw _her_ off, but I lost my balance and we both went over. And Dorrick didn't get there till the last moment – and when he saw us slip off the edge he made a desperate grab for _Tinnia,_ not me!"

"Well I can't say I feel much sympathy for you, Mrs. Husher," Tacita replied. "Murder isn't the best way to solve a domestic dispute."

"Murder? Who said anything about murder?"

"Well, if you were trying to throw Tinnia off a cliff..."

"You can't murder someone who isn't alive to begin with."

"I don't understand."

"I never understood either. Maybe Dorrick can explain his sick desires and his aversion to living, breathing women."

Tacita regarded Sir Dorrick with revulsion and horror. "You were having sex with a corpse?"

"Of course not!" he bristled. "I would never do such a thing!"

"Oh no," Madalune said bitterly. "He would never do that. A corpse is made of flesh and blood. My dear husband prefers a gizmo girl with a gut full of gears and tits of tin and an ass of brass!"

Tacita raised an eyebrow. "You mean Tinnia was ... a robot?"

"An automaton," Madalune said. "Tesla made it for him."

Tacita glared at Sir Dorrick. "You sicko! And to think I felt sorry for you! Why didn't you tell me the real story?"

He shrugged. "I saw no reason to reveal those sordid details. And I feared you might not help me if I did."

"But why make up such an elaborate story? Billowing nightgowns, ghost ships, madness..."

"My husband can't resist embroidering the truth," Madalune said. "Some people would call it 'lying,' but he claims it's just his creative instinct asserting itself. He fancies himself a novelist – although he's never actually finished that stupid manuscript he's been working on for the past twenty years..."

"I'm a perfectionist!" Sir Dorrick snapped.

"Yes, and your manuscript is perfectly dreadful."

"You are hardly qualified to judge. But I didn't bring you here to debate the artistic merits of my literary work. I just want to apologize for driving you to the rash act that resulted in your death."

"Well I won't forgive you. Not yet. Maybe after I've haunted you for another twenty years or so, but not now."

"You're being unreasonable! So I strayed from the straight and narrow. What husband hasn't at one time or another?"

"What would you know about straight and narrow, you twisted wretch!" She turned to Tacita. "Can you imagine what it was like for me, knowing my husband preferred an overgrown wind-up toy to a real woman? To hear that disgusting 'squeak, squeak, squeak' coming from the den night after night – not from bedsprings, oh no! It was the squeak of the shock absorbers inside that blasted mechanical whore!"

Sir Dorrick's face darkened. "She performed her romantic duties far better than you ever did, Madalune! And her 'squeak-squeak-squeak' was such a refreshing change from your endless whining, whining, whining – 'Not so deep. Not so hard. Not so fast. Not tonight...'"

"Maybe if you'd made love like a gentleman instead of a steamroller..."

Tacita held up a hand. "Hey, guys, I didn't come here to listen to domestic quarrels. I've got better things to do."

"Then go do them," Madalune snapped as tiny lightning bolts flashed in her eyes. She trained them on her husband. "And as for you ... If you think my whining was bad before, listen to this!"

She flung her arms out to the side and opened her mouth far wider than any living mouth could possibly stretch and released a whine that swiftly rose to a deafening shriek, like the wail of a banshee only louder by a factor of ten. The windows rattled, then shattered, and the bottles at the bar burst and the oil lamp exploded, setting the carpet on fire, and the ceiling beams cracked and the floor shook and the walls trembled as Sir Dorrick clamped his hands to his bleeding ears and sank to his knees.

Tacita's BabelBuster implant automatically activated its muff feature to protect her eardrums from harm and she managed to stay on her feet. She grabbed Sir Dorrick's arm and tried to help him up, but he shook her off.

"No," he yelled into her ear, struggling to be heard over the din. "I have brought this upon myself and I must take my punishment like a man. There is no escape for me."

"I'm not going to leave you here!" Tacita said.

"You must! It is God's final judgment against the House of Husher and there is no escape from His almighty will!"

Tacita glared at the ghost. "For the love of God, Madalune, stop this!"

The specter stopped shrieking – just long enough to pucker her lips and puff out her cheeks and blow a blast of air so powerful it knocked Tacita backwards. She stumbled over something and got spun around and found herself inside the diamond once more, flanked by two facets – the one on the left a shimmering oval of reddish gold filled with dark shadows and swirling stars, and on her right, a rectangle of tarnished silver, ornately carved, framing a horrific scene – a massive fissure rising from the base of Sir Dorrick's mansion, swiftly traveling upward, widening and spawning cracks that webbed the walls, the stones breaking loose and tumbling down to splash into the muck as flames leapt from the roof.

And then the House of Husher collapsed in a pile of burning ruin that slowly sank into the boggy earth, the fire hissing as it died, and a gigantic oily black bubble emerged to mark the spot, swelling to the size of a hillock before bursting open with a loud, gluggy pop.

***

Tacita erupted from Perimos' chest and tumbled off the bier onto the black marble floor in the Temple of Thanatas as the assembled mourners cried out in astonishment.

She got to her feet, staring at the foot-wide hole as it swiftly shrank to the size of a belly button. Just before it closed completely, a twinkling marble-sized periwinkle ball popped out of it and hovered above Perimos' head. Color returned to the young man's face and his eyes fluttered open as the fire of life burned away the glaze of death. His mouth opened and a voice croaked out:

"Abracada ... ptuh!"

He spat out the coin his father, Periphetes, had placed on his tongue and slowly sat up as the gobsmacked onlookers gasped and gaped.

"What am I doing here?" he said.

His father leapt to his feet, his tear-streaked face brightening with joy, and ran to the bier, clasping Perimos' shoulders.

"My son!" he cried. "You're alive! You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive. Why wouldn't I be? Won't someone please tell me what's going on?"

Tacita leaned over and patted the youth's hand. "It's a long story."

She turned around and approached King Diaprepes, who was seated on a pillow in the front row of former mourners. She bowed, took the Stone of Rimeh from her bag and handed it to him.

"I believe this is yours, sire."

He gazed in awe at the Stone, then raised his eyes to her. "You astound me, Lady Tacita! Not since Athena sprang fully grown from the head of Zeus has anyone made such a spectacular entrance! You must tell me all that has transpired since your incredible disappearance from the banquet hall. Surely it is a tale beyond compare!"

And so she did. And so it was.

THE END

