Stacy looked out the window to see that the pulverized dragon head was murking up the water of what appeared to be a swimming pool. She wondered if it would be wiser to jump out the window, or try to exit through the house and risk running into Scott.

  Fuck it. She was huge. She jumped out the window, and was surprised to find that she wasn’t falling. She was just hanging there in the open air.

  She willed herself away from the house, and was pleased to find that it was as easy as that. She was flying. Scanning the horizon, she saw the walls of a large city in the distance, and figured that was as good a place as any to go. She flew Superman-style toward the city, twenty feet of nothing but air between herself and the windblown waves of grass below. The wind rushing past her face and whipping her hair around was exhilarating. She drew her sword and let out a barbaric victory roar.

  “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”

  She was surprised to find that her voice was as deep as Cooper’s, but she didn’t care.

  “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaah?” About halfway between her captors’ house and the city ahead, Stacy’s voice returned to its normal pitch. Her skin wasn’t brown or rough anymore. She appeared to be her normal size. She looked down. The ground was rapidly rushing toward her.

  “Oh sh—”

  Chapter 25

  Tim sat on the curb of the Target on the other side of the shopping center, idly watching his undead sister bite the heads off rats and suck down their blood. It was mildly horrifying at first, but he had other things on his mind.

  Target had closed for the night. They were far enough away from the police action still going on at Dick’s Sporting Goods that they wouldn’t bring any undue attention to themselves. At the same time, they had a nice, wide-open expanse of parking lot between themselves, Dick’s, and the Olive Garden. If there were any elven wizards or talking birds frolicking about in the area, they shouldn’t be too hard to spot.

  “Where the hell could he be?” asked Tim.

  “Did you pick a spot to meet in case things went wrong?” asked Cooper, his football helmeted head resting sullenly in his palms.

  “Of course not,” said Tim. “It was such a simple plan. Wait for them to leave. Follow them. There was literally nothing that could go wrong. I mean, not unless a giant wolf and bat were to go and charge through the scene, fucking everything up, that is.”

  Katherine spit out a rat head. “We were just doing what you told us to do.”

  “Really?” said Tim. “I don’t recall asking you to shoot up an Olive Garden or trash a Dick’s. All I remember me asking you to do was to catch one stupid little vampire. And guess who ended up doing that?” He shoved his thumb into his chest. “Me. With a fucking leaf blower.”

  “I checked around and behind every store in the shopping center,” said Katherine. “He’s gone.”

  “He and the bird have probably gone off chasing a butterfly or something,” said Cooper. “You know how easily distracted he gets. I wouldn’t worry about him.”

  “I’m not worried about him,” said Tim. “I’m worried about Stacy. She’s alone and helpless in another world, and those four assholes have her. She’s as good as dead if we don’t find – Oh shit.”

  “What?” said Katherine, hiding a half-sucked rat corpse behind her back.

  The last of the police cars were leaving Dick’s, the cops inside them no doubt shaking their heads at the crazy witness testimonies that they’d received. All but one of them were headed back out toward the highway. The exception was creeping slowly toward Tim, Cooper, and Katherine. The headlights were turned off, like it was in stealth mode, but the parking lot lights exposed it for what it was. Definitely a cop car, and definitely headed toward them.

  “Guys,” said Tim. “Get ready to bolt. Cooper, open the Bag of Holding.”

  Cooper opened the bag and held it low for Tim. “Here you go.”

  “Uh-uh,” said Tim. “You first.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because there’s a pissed-off vampire in there, and you’ve got more Hit Points.”

  Cooper nodded and stepped into the open bag. He sank as though there was a hole in the sidewalk, and disappeared inside the bag. Tim was just about to jump in after him when the cop car’s PA system kicked on.

  “Tim!” said the staticky, amplified electronic voice. “Your chicken gave me diarrhea, and you have three overdue library books.”

  “What the fuck?” Tim said to himself. Something wasn’t right. He hadn’t been inside a library for years.

  “Let me try!” said a higher voice from inside the cop car. The speakers buzzed, clicked, and whined. “Helloooooooooo!”

  Goosewaddle.

  Tim dragged his forefinger across the front of his neck, signaling for them to shut up. “It’s Dave.”

  “Where the hell did he get a fuzzmobile?” asked Katherine.

  “Who the fuck knows?” said Tim. “Get Cooper out of the bag, would you?”

  Katherine reached inside the Bag of Holding. “Cooper.” Cooper’s hand locked grabbed Katherine’s wrist, and she yanked him out of the bag. His chest and arms were riddled with parallel sets of scratches.

  “What happened in there?” asked Tim.

  “You were right,” said Cooper. “The little guy is pissed.”

  “Are you okay?” asked Katherine.

  “I’ll be fine. I punched him in the head. He’s cartwheeling through the void right now.” He looked at the approaching police car. “Um… why the fuck haven’t we moved?”

  The police car stopped. The two front doors opened. Chaz stepped out of the passenger’s side, and Dennis stepped out of the driver’s side.

  “You let him drive?” asked Tim.

  Chaz shrugged. “It’s his car. Anyway, I think we can trust him now.”

  “You think we can trust him?”

  Dennis looked down at Tim. “I want my balls back.”

  What kind of promises had Chaz made? Someone would pay for this later, Tim had no doubt. But if it was keeping Dennis in line right now, so be it. Tim had more pressing concerns. “Of course.”

  Dave knocked on the rear passenger’s side window. Chaz opened the door to let him, Randy, and Professor Goosewaddle out.

  “Professor!” said Tim. “I need your help.”

  Professor Goosewaddle puffed out his gnomish chest. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Do you remember Mordred, the guy who ran out of my restaurant when we first arrived in this world?”

  “The heavyset fellow?”

  “That’s right!” said Tim. “He’s taken Stacy. We have to find him, but I’m all out of ideas. Please tell me you’ve got a spell or something that can help us.”

  “Like a Scrying spell?”

  Tim slapped both palms against his forehead. “Scrying! Why didn’t I think of that before?” His heart skipped a beat as he grabbed the professor by the shoulders. “Please tell me you’ve got one memorized.”

  “Of course,” said the professor. “I had two, but we had to use one in order to chase down these two.” He nodded at Dennis and Randy.

  Tim glared at Chaz.

  “What?” said Chaz. “They overpowered me. What the fuck was I supposed to do? I’m a fucking bard. Anyway, he said he’s got another one.”

  Tim turned his attention back to Goosewaddle. “We need to find Mordred, like right now.”

  “Do any of you have a mirror?”

  “Here,” said Katherine, pulling her compact mirror out of her purse. “It’s no use to me anymore.”

  Professor Goosewaddle closed his eyes and mumbled an incantation. When he opened them again, he appeared to be in a trance. He stared into the mirror. “I see him.”

  Tim looked into the mirror over Professor Goosewaddle’s shoulder. All he could see was himself and the professor. “Where is he?”

  “He is in a small, tiled room. He is naked. A constant spray of water is raining down on him.”

  “He’s taking a shower,” said Dave.

  Tim nodded. That sounded about right.

  “So wait,” said Katherine. “When you get that spell, you can just watch people shower anytime you want?”

  “Shut up, Katherine!” said Tim. “Professor, keep watching. Try to be more specific.”

  “He is lathering up his genitals with a tiny bar of soap.”

  “Okay, less specific,” said Tim. “Try to get a sense of his surroundings.”

  “I can only see what he sees,” said the professor. “And right now he appears to be quite fixated on his engorged penis.”

  “I can’t listen to any more of this,” said Katherine. “I’m going to have another look for Julian.” She turned into a normal-sized bat and flapped away.

  “Okay professor,” said Tim. “Let’s hold off on the commentary until after he gets out of the shower.”

  “He’s exiting the water room.”

  “That was fast,” said Cooper. “He’s already finished choking the bishop?”

  “He is donning a white robe.”

  “What else do you see in the room?” said Tim. He began to fear that they were getting nowhere with this spell.

  “The room is illuminated by glass bulbs glowing with white light.”

  Great. So they know he has electricity. That should narrow down the search. “Keep talking.”

  “Mordred is applying some kind of blue ointment onto a bristled stick. Now he’s looking in the mirror and rubbing the ointment onto his teeth.”

  “He’s brushing his teeth,” said Dave. “This is riveting.”

  Tim shushed Dave. “This is all we have to go on. Keep watching, Professor. Tell us what you see.”

  “He has just entered a spacious bedroom. It would not look out of place at the king’s palace.”

  That wasn’t what Tim was expecting, but Goosewaddle’s perception of ‘palatial’ might be different than his own. “What do you see on the walls? Are there pictures of wizards and dragons?”

  “The walls are clean, and devoid of much in the way of decoration. There is an occasional tasteful painting hanging here and there.”

  Clean, spacious, and tasteful were not adjectives Tim would have imagined appropriate to describe whatever dank shithole a guy like Mordred crawled out of every day. Something was wrong. This place sounded more like a –

  “Goddammit,” said Tim. “He’s in a fucking hotel.”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” said Dave. “We know he’s got his dice with him. We can go back to the Chicken Hut, look up nearby hotels online, and let Professor Goosewaddle identify the interior.”

  Tim nodded slowly. “It could work.”

  “He has climbed onto the bed,” said Professor Goosewaddle. “He is pointing a rectangular device at the magic screen on the wall. A human male is copulating with two human females. Mordred is opening his robe. He sighed the word Stacy.”

  “I’ll fucking kill him,” said Tim. “Okay, Goosewaddle. That’s enough. You don’t want to see the rest of this.”

  Tim’s phone rang. The number wasn’t one he was familiar with. He answered it. “Hello?”

  “Tim! It’s me, Julian.”

  “Where the fuck have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you! Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “Battery’s dead.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the Beauregard casino.”

  “What the fuck, man?” said Tim. “The Olive Garden not exciting enough for you? You thought you’d spice things up a bit with a little blackjack?”

  “Would you just listen to what –”

  “No!” said Tim. “You listen! We’re in some serious shit. Mordred sent Stacy into the game world, and we’ve got no idea where he is.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” said Julian. “Ravenus and I followed Mordred here. He checked into the hotel.”

  Chapter 26

  Passing through the walls into the city proper felt like an accomplishment, but Stacy harbored no illusions about being safe. She’d taken one last look behind her before stepping through the gate, and hadn’t seen any angry, drunk wizards hot on her trail, but if Scott was after her, he wouldn’t have any more trouble than she did passing through the gate. There were no checkpoints, no questions, barely even a passing glance from the guards posted outside. And those passing glances she got felt less like I wonder if she’s a terrorist, and more like Check out that sweet ass.

  Another safety concern was the types of people who populated this city. Sure, back at the villa there were four guys who probably wanted to rape and murder her, but at least they had Mordred’s orders not to. The same couldn’t be said for the people around here.

  The word ‘people’ might have been generous. There were all sorts of creatures roaming around that Stacy wasn’t sure qualified as people. There were, of course, the elves and dwarves and whatever Cooper was, but she’d been expecting those. It was the other things that gave her pause. Furry things, scaly things, toothy things. Things with hooves, things with horns, things with tails. About a quarter of the population looked like the DNA of some random animal had been spliced with that of a human.

  Stacy hugged herself and kept to the center of a broad road, jumping every time some mutant freak grunted, hissed, snarled, clicked, buzzed, or even just looked at her. She plodded forward with no idea where she was going or what she even hoped to find. There was some kind of open space up ahead, a city center maybe. For now, that would be her goal.

  “Excuse me,” said a man’s voice from behind her. A finger touched her right shoulder.

  Stacy spun around and planted a boot right between the man’s legs. He folded up like a lawn chair and fell on his side. He was human, bald, and dressed in a simple gray robe. She drew her sword and pointed it down at him.

  “Why the nuts?” gasped the man on the ground. “Why is it always the nuts?”

  “Who are you?” said Stacy, making an extra effort to keep her voice from shaking. “What do you want with me?”

  “You looked lost,” said the man. “I was going to ask if you needed directions.”

  “Ho there!” said one of two uniformly armored guards stomping briskly toward them. “What’s all this?”

  “Shit,” said the man on the ground. “Kingsguard.” He looked up at Stacy. “Listen, lady. There is no due process here. They will throw your ass in the slammer and forget about you. Put the sword away.”

  Due process? The slammer? Stacy slipped the sword into the sheath strapped to her back, surprised at the grace and effortlessness with which she did so. The bald man stood up.

  “Who would disturb the king’s peace?” demanded the slightly larger of the two guards.

  “It was a misunderstanding,” said the bald man.

  “Drawing a weapon unprovoked is a jailable offense,” said the guard. He looked at Stacy. “Did this man threaten you?”

  That was odd. Were they focused on him now? Did they just want to arrest anyone? Or maybe they wanted –

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” said the bald man. The two guards nodded as the bald man led Stacy by the arm a few feet away. “Do you have any money?”

  “What?” said Stacy.

  “They’re looking for a bribe. Don’t even try to argue. It’s just the way things are done here. If you screw up, but they don’t see you as a real threat, they’ll just let you off a couple of coins lighter in your purse. You don’t want to see the inside of a Cardinian prison. You can bet your buns there’s no cable TV.”

  “Who are you?”

  “We can talk once they’re gone. I’d really hate for you to have to give up that beautiful sword. Do you have any money or not?”

  “I don’t know. Let me look in my bag.” It only now occurred to Stacy how unusually light the bag slung around her shoulder was. It didn’t feel empty when she’d grabbed it at Scott’s villa, but even now it didn’t feel quite as heavy as that strange weapon she’d thrown inside it. She opened it up, but it was too dark inside to see anything. She put her hand inside and felt nothing, not even the weapon. She turned to the guards. “I’ve been robbed!”

  The smaller guard rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Pathetic.”

  “Come on, then,” said the larger guard. Both of them started walking casually toward Stacy and the bald man. “We’re placing both of you under arrest for disturbing the king’s peace.”

  “Aw come on, guys,” said the bald man. “I’ve got money back at home. If you just follow me there.”

  The younger guard snorted. “That’s exactly what we aim to do. Follow you home. Your new home, that is.”

  Stacy noticed something strange. Not only could she not feel anything inside the bag. She couldn’t even feel the inside of the bag itself. She put her arm deeper inside, all the way up to the elbow, and still couldn’t feel the bottom. Her hand should be poking right through it by now.

  “Holy crap!” she said. “Check this out.” Her entire right arm was submerged in the bag, all the way up to her shoulder. Raising her arm, she let the bag go with her other hand. She looked like an amputee, but she could feel her arm and hand just fine. “Where the hell is my arm?” she said, waving her bag-covered stump around.

  The guards stopped in their tracks, looked at one another, and started laughing.

  “What are you doing?” whispered the bald man.

  “I don’t know!” Stacy whispered back at him.

  “Say gold.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Just say it!”

  “Gold,” said Stacy. Suddenly, she felt something in her phantom hand. Several somethings. They were cold, hard, circular, and metallic. Coins, about the size of a silver dollar. She pulled her hand out of the bag to discover she was holding a fistful of solid gold coins. “Holy shit!”

  The guards were still laughing. Now they clapped as well, as if Stacy had been performing a comedy act.

  “Yes, very nice,” said the bald man. “Now if you’ll kindly pay these gentlemen, we can be on our way.”

  “Oh,” said Stacy. “Okay. Here you go.” She slapped the whole handful, maybe a dozen coins in all, into the larger guard’s open palm.

 

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