Last Call

by Lloyd Behm II

  “I thought so!”

  She looked around, making sure we were alone.

  Unless someone was standing behind me, I was sure we were.

  “Certain events have been set in motion by…let us call them the ‘forces of evil’ for now.”

  “Communists?”

  “Oh, child, these forces tempted Marx.”

  “Satan, then.”

  “His minions are part of the forces at work, yes. The ultimate goal of these forces is the subjugation of humankind.”

  “And I can prevent this?”

  “You can work toward that end, yes, my child. Ultimately, whatever happens will be a result of the choices made by…he who must make a choice.”

  * * *

  “You broke contact,” Billy said.

  “Hell yeah, I broke contact. What kind of half-assed bullshit is ‘he who must make a choice?’ Christ forgive me, but that’s nearly as bad as being the chosen one in some bad fantasy novel!” I replied.

  Billy started laughing. He laughed for about ten minutes—he would almost get it under control, then he’d start laughing again.

  Finally he stopped, taking a deep breath. “God, she was so serious about it, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes. I take it you took the job?”

  “I, and probably you, wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  “I also take it I’m the job?”

  “Yes, Father Salazar, you are the job. Understand, I wasn’t sure until I talked to Mel, and I looked at Iulius’ scroll while you were cooling your heels in the kitchen.”

  “Iulius’ scroll showed you I was ‘he who must make a choice?’”

  “Yes,” he said, chuckling. “Seriously, you should have seen your face when you said that after you moved away from me. Totally worth not being able to breathe there for a while.”

  “I’m glad you find ‘he who must make a choice’ amusing,” I said, sticking out my tongue and waggling it. “Crap.”

  “What?”

  “I’m betting there’ve been ‘signs and portents’ as well.” I stood up and paced across the rug in the small room. “Do you know how much I hate prophecies? Especially prophecies where I’m the starring attraction?”

  “Would you prefer the alternative?”

  “Nope. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and the emotional trauma.”

  “I’m going out on the porch and watch the clouds for a while. You want to join me?”

  “Why not. Although I’d seriously consider hurting someone for another glass of whisky and a cigar.”

  “I’ll bring the whisky. Dad keeps his cigars in his desk. Before you ask, I’ve never tried one, I saw them there when I was looking for something else.”

  “Right,” I said, walking to the room where I’d slept. Sure enough, there was a box of King Edward cigars in the desk.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” I said to the world at large, grabbing a couple from the box.

  Billy was waiting for me on the porch with a bottle of Old Grandad and a glass. He was drinking water and waited while I set my drink up and got the cigar going.

  “You want to know the truly awful part about the day I died?” he asked finally.

  “There’s something worse than actually dying?” I asked, sipping the whisky.

  “Yeah, there is. Saint Isidora showed me what was happening on Earth after I died. She wanted me to be sure I’d made the right decision, after all.”

  I nodded.

  “So she shows me the Sun Pool, after Tommy and WJ and the guys left—they tried to get help, but there was no way any number of men and boys were going to move all that concrete that fell on me and Stan.”

  “Yeah, it looked really painful.”

  He looked at me. “It wasn’t, really. One minute I was trying to get Stan up so we could follow the other guys, and the next I was in Limbo, waiting on Isidora.”

  “God works in…”

  “Mysterious ways, I know. Isidora showed me what was happening back on Earth the day I died. My dad was a Sergeant with Waco PD in 1953.”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly. Normally he worked a desk in the communications section, but this was, what did that guy call it? Oh yeah. This was an ‘all hands evolution.’ So they called dad in and put him to work keeping people out of the ruins of the Sun Pool.”

  “Dude, that’s harsh.”

  “I felt sorry for him. He was there when they dug us out from under the rubble, and he had to go home and break the news to my mom and sister. I think my sister took it harder than Mom and Dad, though. She was upset about it for a long time.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 10 – Diindiisi

  It took hours of standing around before we could finally clear the scene. The rookie cop, Lucy Oeste, stayed with us the entire time, asking where QMG took applications, “for a friend.” I gave her one of the cards Jesse’d had made for me before dropping into the front seat of a Tahoe next to Hiebert.

  “Office?”

  “Yes,” I replied, turning to Tatsuo where she sat behind him. “Will you be able to cross the barriers at the QMG office?”

  “I should be able to, no problem,” she replied. “Anyone got any gum?”

  “Don’t give her gum,” Fred said. He’d spent the last two hours talking to the dragon. “She’ll only do the California Airhead chewing gum bit again.”

  “What’s the California Airhead bit?” I asked.

  “Well, like you know,” Tatsuo said, wrapping her hair around her finger.

  “You know, shit like this is why I hate dragons,” Fred said.

  “We’re not big on you runts, you know,” Tatsuo said.

  “I don’t know, the Piasa was pretty happy with the work we did for him back in seventy-three or so after he got his ass shot up trying to steal human kids,” Fred replied.

  “You’ve met the Piasa? What was he like?”

  “Yeah. Big, yellow, scaly bastard with tiny wings. He’d been asleep so long he’d forgotten how to hide among humans.”

  “I can’t believe a runt met the Piasa,” Tatsuo said.

  “Oh, please,” Fred said as we passed into the compound. “I’ve met the Lyminster Knucker and the Thunderbird. Neither one of them was as flat out stupid as the Piasa.”

  “I’ve heard he’s a bit on the slow side,” Tatsuo admitted as Hiebert parked the Tahoe.

  “That’s a nice, politic way of putting it,” Fred replied.

  Sola Stellus was waiting for us in Japanese court dress—a complete kamishimo. His formal kimono, worked with guitars and palm trees, ruined the effect he was going for in my opinion. At his waist hung a delicate pair of swords—the Japanese daishō, forged for an elf.

  His number one graduate student stood behind him. Cathe was wearing a pair of jeans and the “I saw the Damned Cow” T-shirt Jesse had brought her from Piccadilly a month or so ago.

  “Who’s the otaku elf, Foreman?” Tatsuo asked as Fred opened the door.

  “That’s the corporate negotiator, Sola Stellus,” I replied. “He’s…different.”

  “If he’s going to dress like Elvis the Samurai, he really needs a punch perm,” Tatsuo replied, exiting behind Fred.

  Sola stepped up to Tatsuo, bowed from the waist, and then said, “Go aisatsu kodai meiyo aru kata.”

  Tatsuo gave a nervous laugh, hiding her mouth with her hands.

  “He’s so cute! Foreman, may I keep him?”

  I shook my head. “Shouldn’t you answer him?”

  “Oh, sorry. Um…I don’t actually speak Japanese. That was Japanese, wasn’t it?”

  Stellus snapped upright from his bow. “You don’t speak Japanese?”

  “I’m a Valley Girl, born and bred,” Tatsuo answered. “Dad was American, and mom was a Nisei. The government interned her during the war, so she waited a long time to have kids. She also wasn’t big on teaching her half-American Sansei kids any of that traditional Japanese stuff, so…yeah. I grew up in the 1980s in the San Fernando
Valley. I mean, like the walls at the mall are totally, totally tall, and like, ya’ know?”

  Cathe looked away, suppressing laughter. Fred started guffawing.

  “Wait, so one human stereotype is negotiating with another? And neither one is actually human?” Ozzie asked before Alfie silenced him.

  Everybody lost control of his or her laughter except Singh. When I asked him about it later, he said he didn’t understand the references, not having grown up in or on American culture.

  Sola stood there with a pained look on his face, riding out the laughter. You could also see him mentally switching gears and reworking whatever speech of welcome he’d composed upon hearing he was dealing with a Japanese dragon.

  Finally the laughter died down, and Stellus tried again.

  “Most bitchin’ one, we’ve got some trippendicular snacks laid on…”

  “Whatever.”

  Watching the two of them try to communicate in an obscure form of English wasn’t getting us anywhere fast.

  “Tatsuo, on the way over here you spoke perfectly good English,” I said.

  “Yes, Foreman.”

  I turned to the thoroughly confused elf. “Sola, I appreciate your efforts to communicate in Tatsuo’s native tongue, whatever that was.”

  “Valspeak, Bird of the Morning. It’s called Valspeak,” the elf replied with a slight bow.

  “Be that as it may, I believe I’m supposed to sit in on the negotiations. Tatsuo has shown great fluency in modern English. I believe it would be best if we held negotiations in that language.”

  “I believe you are correct,” Sola replied. “If you all would follow me, we have refreshments laid on in the R&D facility.”

  “Arigato,” Tatsuo answered with a twinkle in her eye.

  Sola rolled his eyes heavenward before leading us to the R&D building. He’d worked magic, literally, on the exterior of the building, transforming it from rather dumpy-looking concrete to something that resembled a Japanese temple.

  “Very nice,” Tatsuo said as we walked through the garden that had replaced the parking lot in front of the building.

  Sola’s shoulders lifted with pride.

  Inside the main doors, views of Mount Fuji replaced the drab, almost industrial waiting area.

  “The hell?” Fred asked Cathe.

  “Magic,” she replied. “Well, the magic of technology. He covered the wall with a thin sheet of polymer with a spell cast on it that shows Fujisan from the view of a friend of his in Japan. It’s a pretty slick combination of tech and magic, if you ask me.”

  Sola slid a pair of doors to the side, revealing the room where we were to negotiate. I caught the motion that changed all the name cards from Japanese Kanji into English, although I doubt anyone else did.

  “Please, everyone, refresh yourselves and then find your seat,” Sola said. “I will return momentarily with Tatsuo’s legal counsel.”

  “Legal counsel?” Tatsuo said, eyeing the buffet.

  Stellus had outdone himself; the tables groaned under the weight of various Japanese delicacies.

  “You’re entitled to independent representation,” Singh replied, loading a plate with vegetables.

  The dwarfs had, as a dwarf, flocked to the section of the table covered in seafood and were loading plates with various sushi and less identifiable things. The dwarfs almost started fighting over one plate in particular—it had several warnings about how lethal it was to humans on it.

  “Is that fugu?” Dalma asked, pushing her way into the dwarfen scrum around the table.

  “Yes,” Ozzie replied, using chopsticks to add more meat from the hazardous plate to his. “Unfortunately, it’s hazardous to you Talls, especially the liver.”

  “Hazardous, how?” Dalma asked, eyeing the growing pile on his plate.

  “If it’s prepared properly for human consumption, it causes a mild tingling of the lips and tongue when consumed,” Ozzie replied, steering her toward a plate of salmon sushi. “This, on the other hand, has been prepared for non-human consumption.”

  “How so? Dipped in special sauce or something like that?”

  Ozzie looked at her. “No, it just hasn’t been cut to eliminate the tetrodotoxin. The toxin doesn’t affect dwarfs at all.”

  “It’s an aphrodisiac for elves,” Cathe said, taking her plate and going to her spot at the long table.

  Tatsuo walked over and, using a fork, popped a bit marked “Fugu Liver—extra hazardous to humans” in her mouth, rolling it around on her tongue before swallowing it.

  “Mom used to get that in shipments from the ancestral home in Japan. The humans there used to give grandfather entire fish to eat so he would intercede with the local gods or protect their fishing fleet from Korean pirates, or things like that before he uprooted the family for California. It doesn’t really do anything for dragons,” she said with a shrug.

  “I’d imagine toxins that affect dragons are few and far between,” Cathe said.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Tatsuo replied. “I had a distant cousin in Europe die because some smart local fed him a sheep that had been dipped in arsenic to make it ‘extra flavorful.’ Of course, the shepherd didn’t get the credit—everyone thinks the dragon was killed by a knight with a big sword.”

  Sola came back in the room, followed by one of the lawyers the company kept on retainer, Fields.

  “At least he changed out of that silly Japanese outfit,” Tatsuo said, sotto voce.

  Sola was now wearing a black leather jacket open to just above his navel, showing his pale chest, and black leather pants. If his skin had had any color to it at all, he would have looked better.

  He and Fields filled plates and then sat at the table, signaling it was time to negotiate Tatsuo’s service to QMG.

  “Since we’re negotiating in good faith, you won’t mind if I speak to my client in private,” Fields said.

  When I nodded, she flipped open a broach, activating a silence spell on her and Tatsuo. The spell blurred their outlines, making it impossible to read their lips.

  While they spoke, the rest of us ate. After about ten minutes, Fields deactivated the spell.

  “First, allow me to say that my client is very happy with her new mistress. She’d also like to ask, what’s your preferred title?”

  “She is welcome to call me by name,” I replied, “or assistant team leader, as she prefers.”

  “At this point in your relationship,” Fields began, “calling you by name is far too informal, and we can both admit that ‘assistant team leader’ is far too much of a mouthful, especially as she may be assisting you in dangerous situations where seconds might be the difference between life and death.”

  “If I might make a suggestion,” Fred said, pausing in lifting another sushi roll to his lips, “in Dwarfish, you are the Khzda—Foreman. Tatsuo has been using that term since we accepted her parole.”

  “Shouldn’t that be forewoman or foreperson?” Padgett asked.

  “Dwarfish doesn’t make the gender distinctions English does. If you run a team in the mine, you’re the Khzda, end of statement,” Fred replied. “Unfortunately, the closest English word to that is foreman.”

  Sola looked at me—I thought it over for a few moments and nodded.

  “Foreman is acceptable,” Sola said. “With the usual magic protections, of course.”

  “Of course,” Fields said, producing a vellum scroll. “This is the standard contract of parole and service, amended to add the names of both parties. My client stipulates that while the contract reads ‘Tatsuo’ for her name, that is not her true name, and through magic, her true name is obscured with ‘Tatsuo.’ She will also sign her true name, which the magic inherent in the document will obscure as her public name of Tatsuo.”

  Fields handed the scroll to Sola, and then passed out several inch-thick stacks of paper.

  “The paper copies are so you have a simple copy of the contract that will allow you to reference it if needed,” Fields said, “since I
will be holding the original in a safe, undisclosed location.”

  Fred looked up from the stack of paper. “You’ve done this before.”

  “Yes. More than once, and with more than one type of parole,” Fields said, smiling. “When we’re done here, ask me about the parole I worked out for a tribe of sasquatch in Washington State.”

  “Standard terms?” Sola asked, thumbing through the stack.

  “Yes and no,” Fields replied, turning to me. “For example, you’re not allowed to use Tatsuo in gladiatorial games, or to commit crimes against human law. She is also allowed to ask for review of the parole document every ten years, until you and she agree she has performed her service and you release her from servitude.”

  “Before we discuss her release,” I said, “when we captured her and accepted her parole, she was breaking human law.”

  Fields touched Tatsuo to stop her from speaking before replying.

  “Yes, she was. The difference is, she was acting as a free agent at that point. She made the decision to accept employment by person or persons unnamed and accepted the risks inherent thereto. While she is a paroled retainer of your…there isn’t really a modern equivalent, the closest thing being the medieval concept of ‘household,’ you can risk her life if needed to protect your own, or to do your job. You cannot risk her immortal soul.”

  “Dragons have souls?” Padgett blurted.

  “Yes, contrary to popular human belief, dragons have souls.” Tatsuo answered. “If you think the rules that govern human entrance into Heaven, Valhalla, or Paradise are complicated, you should see the rules we operate under.”

  “I see,” I answered, looking Tatsuo in the eye. “I’m still learning my job here. There will be times when I have to put my life at risk to do my job. Having you behind me would put you, untrained, at risk. Can you accept that?”

  Tatsuo returned the look. “A dragon may not injure the holder of its parole, or, through inaction, allow that holder to come to harm.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Dalma said.

  “First Law of Robotics,” Johnson said, speaking up for the first time. “What? I read.”

  “You’re correct,” Tatsuo replied, twisting a finger in her hair. “Asimov was a plagiarist.”