Sweet Myth-tery of Life

by Robert Asprin

  The one variable in the whole situation I could control was me, and I was bound and determined that if anything went wrong with the evening, it wouldn’t be because I hadn’t put enough effort into my preparations. Money was easy. While I wasn’t sure where we would be going, I figured that two or three hundred in gold would cover our expenses . . . though I made a note to bring along my credit card from Perv just to be on the safe side.

  Wardrobe was another matter. After changing my outfit completely a dozen times, I finally settled on the same clothes I had worn when I had my match with the Sen-Sen Ante Kid . . . the dark maroon open-necked shirt with the charcoal gray slacks and vest. I figured that if it had impressed people on Deva, it should be impressive no matter where we went. Of course, on Deva, I had also been traveling with an entourage of bodyguards and assistants . . . not to mention a quarter of a million in gold.

  I was just considering changing my clothes one more time, when there was a knock at the door. This surprised me a little, as I had somehow expected that my date would simply appear in the room. As soon as that thought occurred to me, however, it also occurred to me that there had been an excellent chance that she would have appeared while I was changing outfits. Slightly relieved at having escaped a potentially embarrassing situation, I opened the door.

  “Hi, Skeeve,” Bunny said, sweeping past me into the room. “I thought I’d stop by and brief you on the latest budget developments and maybe do dinner and . . . Hey! You look nice.”

  Needless to say, this was an unexpected . . . and unpleasant . . . surprise.

  “Urn . . . Actually I was just getting ready to go out.” I managed politely.

  She took it well. In fact, she seemed to brighten at the news.

  “That’s a great idea!” she said. “Hang on a few and I’ll duck back to my room and change and we can go out together!”

  “Urn . . . Bunny . . .”

  “To tell you the truth, I’ve been starting to go up the walls a little myself. It’ll be wonderful to get out for a while, especially with you, and ...”

  “BUNNY!”

  She stopped and cocked her head at me.

  “What is it, Skeeve?”

  “I ... actually . . . well . . . I have a date.”

  The words hung in the air as she stared at me with eyes that had suddenly gotten very large.

  “Oh,” she said finally in a small voice. “I ... Then I guess I’d better be moving along.”

  “Wait a minute, Bunny,” I said, catching her as she started for the door. “Maybe tomorrow we can . . .”

  There was a soft bampf in the room behind us, and we turned to discover that my date had arrived ... at least, I assumed she was my date. I could think of no other reason for a creature appearing in my room that looked like that.

  She was pale, even paler than Queen Hemlock, which only served to accent the deep red lipstick she wore. She was short, though her hair nearly made up for it as it rose from the top of her head in a thick dark wave before cascading all the way down her back well past her rump. Her body was heart-stopping, abundant to the point of exaggeration on top, narrowing to an unbelievably tiny waist before flaring into her tidy hips. It would have been noticeable in any situation, but her dress made sure it wouldn’t be overlooked.

  It was sparkly black, and hugged her curves like it was tattooed on. The neckline plunged daringly nearly to her navel, actually lower than the slit up the side of her dress, which in turn displayed one of the shapeliest legs it’s ever been my privilege to view first hand. To say the least it was a revealing outfit, and most of what it revealed was delectable.

  About the only thing that wasn’t visible or easily imaginable were her eyes, which were hidden by a pair of cats-eye sunglasses. As if in response to my thoughts, she removed them with a careless, graceful motion, setting them carefully atop her hairdo. I would have watched the action more carefully if I hadn’t been staring at her eyes. It wasn’t the heavy purple eye shadow that held my attention, it was the fact that the whites of her eyes were, in fact, blood red.

  My date was a vampire.

  I guess I should have expected it. I mean, what with Vic being a vampire, it was only predictable that he would line me up with another vampire for a date. It just hadn’t been predicted by me!

  “Hi!” the vision of loveliness smiled, showing a pair of sharp canine teeth. “I’m Cassandra. You must be Vic’s friend.”

  “Good God!” Bunny said, the words escaping from her in a gasp as she stared at my visitor.

  “And who’s this?” Cassandra said, sweeping Bunny with a withering gaze. “The warm-up act? You must be quite a tiger to book two dates, one after the other ... or is she coming along with us?”

  “Cassandra, this is Bunny . . . my administrative assistant,” I intervened hastily. “We were just going over some office matters.”

  This seemed to mollify Cassandra somewhat. At least enough so that she stepped forward and coiled around my arm, pressing close against me. Very close.

  “Well, don’t wait up for him, Sugar,” she said with a wink. “I figure on keeping him up for a long time ... if you get what I mean.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  Chumley had once tried to describe something called “dry ice” to me. At the time, I had trouble imagining something cold enough to burn. Bunny’s tone and manner as she spun on her heel and marched out of the room went a long way toward clarifying the concept for me. I might not be the most perceptive person in all the dimensions when it comes to women, but it didn’t take a real genius to realize that she didn’t approve of my choice of dates . . . even though I hadn’t really made the choice.

  “Alone at last,” Cassandra purred, pressing even closer against me. “Tell me, Tiger, what are your thoughts for the evening?”

  As I said, I hadn’t really settled on anything. Still, I had an overwhelming urge to get this particular bombshell out of the castle, or, at least, out of my bedroom, and as far away from Bunny as possible.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I was thinking of maybe doing dinner or getting a couple of drinks and kind of letting the evening take care of itself.”

  “Sounds good to me,” my date declared, giving a little shiver that seemed to take her entire body. “Are there any good clubs on this dimension?”

  It only took me a second to realize she was talking about nightclubs, not the kind of club you beat people across the head with. I DO catch on eventually.

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “My work doesn’t leave me much time to check out the nightlife.”

  “Hey! When it comes to nightlife, I’m your girl. I know some GREAT places over on Limbo.”

  Limbo! The dimension of werewolves and vampires. I had only been there once, and the memory wasn’t all that pleasant.

  “Urn, I’d rather not if you don’t mind.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Well ... if you must know, my dimension traveling skills aren’t all they could be,” I said, blurting out the first thing that came into my mind. Actually, my ability to travel the dimensions without the mechanical aid of a D-Hopper was non-existent, but I saw no need to be too honest.

  “If that’s the only hitch, no problem,” Cassandra said. “Just leave the driving to me, Tiger.”

  So saying, she hooked one arm in mine, did something I couldn’t see with her other hand, and, before I had the chance to protest further, we were there!

  Now, for those of you who have never been there (which, I assume, includes most of my readers), Limbo isn’t much of a dimension to look at. That is, it’s hard to see much of anything because it’s DARK. Now, I don’t mean “dark,” I mean DARK!! Even when the sun is up, which it currently wasn’t, it doesn’t push much light through the perpetually overcast sky. Then, too, the predominant color of the architecture, roads, etc. is black, which does nothing toward brightening up the landscape. That in itself might make things look bleak, but when you added in the decorative flourishes
the place looked positively grim.

  Everywhere you looked there were gargoyles, dragons, and snakes . . . stone ones, fortunately . .. peering back at you from rooftops, balconies, and window ledges. Normally I don’t mind such creatures. Heck, as you know I have a dragon of my own, and Gus is one of my best friends even though he is a gargoyle. It should be noted, however, that those individuals manage to maintain their relationship with me without constantly displaying their teeth in bloodthirsty glee, a courtesy which their stone counterparts here in Limbo did NOT extend.

  Then, too, there were the bats.

  For every one of the aforementioned frightful creatures, there must have been ten or twenty bat decorations on display. They came in all sizes, shapes, and poses, and seemed to have only one characteristic in common . . . none of them looked friendly. It was an unnerving reminder that a goodly proportion of the dimension’s inhabitants were vampires.

  “Umm ... Is this Blut, by any chance?” I said, ostensively studying the buildings around us while, in actuality, sneaking sideways peeks at Cassandra, trying to get another peek at her teeth.

  “As a matter of fact, it is!” my date confirmed. “Don’t tell me you’ve heard of it?”

  “Actually, I’ve been here before.”

  “Really? That’s strange . . . but then again, Vic did say that you were better traveled and informed than most off-worlders.” Cassandra seemed genuinely impressed. “So, what did you think of the place?”

  “I didn’t really get to see much of it,” I admitted. “I was sort of here on business and didn’t have much time for socializing or sightseeing.”

  Again, this was a bit of an understatement. I had been here trying to bust Aahz out of jail before they executed him for murder. It occurred to me, however, that it might not be wise to go into too many details of my previous visit. Fortunately, I needn’t have worried.

  “Well we can fix that right now,” Cassandra declared, grabbing my hand and pulling me along behind her as she started off. “There’s a little club around the corner here that’s all the rage currently. It’s as good a place as any to start our expedition.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, digging in my heels a bit. “What about me? I mean, if I recall correctly, off-worlders in general and humans specifically aren’t all that welcome here. In fact, don’t most vampires consider us humans to be monsters?”

  “Oh, that’s just the superstitious old fuddyduddies,” my date insisted, continuing to tow me along. “The kind of folks that hang out at the clubs are pretty open-minded. You’ll see.”

  Somehow, the phrase “pretty open-minded” didn’t suffice to calm all my fears. I was all too aware that I was a long way from home with no independent means to get back there if anything went wrong and I got separated from my date. Just to be on the safe side, I started casting about for force lines . . . the energy source I was trained to tap into for my magik. Limbo was notoriously short on them, which had caused me no small amount of problems during my last visit, and if I was going to have to do anything on “reserve power,” I’d be wise to start mustering it well in advance of any trouble.

  “There it is now!” Cassandra chirped, interrupting my concentration.

  The place she had selected was easy to spot. It had a line of customers out front that stretched to the corner and around it. It also, however, had a strong force line running right over it, which made me much more willing to agree to it as a relaxing stop on our tour.

  “Darn it!” my date said, slowing slightly. “I was afraid this would happen, what with us showing up so late and all. How are you fixed for cash, Tiger? A little palm grease could cut our wait time a bit.”

  “Well, all I have is a couple hundred in gold,” I said hesitantly. “If that’s not enough, we can always ...”

  “Whoa!” Cassandra stopped in her tracks. “Did you say a couple hundred!”

  “That’s right,” I nodded, letting go of her hand to reach for my belt pouch. “I wasn’t sure how much ...”

  “Don’t show it around here!” my date gasped, quickly stopping my hand with her own. “Geez! Do you want to get mugged? What are you doing, carrying your whole bankroll around with you? Don’t you believe in banks?”

  “Sure I do,” I said, a little hurt. “This is just mad money. I wasn’t sure how much this evening was going to cost, so I brought a long a couple hundred . . . that and a credit card.”

  “Really?” she said, obviously impressed. “How much do you . . . never mind. None of my business. Vic never said you were rich, though. I’ve never even known someone with a credit card before.”

  I had only recently acquired my credit card while looking for Aahz on Perv, and hadn’t had a chance to use it yet. (Frankly, except for a few dimension travelers like my colleagues and me, I don’t think anyone on my home dimension of Klah has even heard of a credit card. I know I hadn’t until I hit Perv.) If anything, I had tended to down play it, since it seemed to upset Aahz. My partner wasn’t here, though, and my impressionable date was. If nothing else over the years, I’ve learned to go with the flow.

  “Oh, it comes in handy,” I said loftily, producing the item under discussion with a flourish. “Keeps me from having to carry too much cash, you know.”

  The card disappeared from my fingertips as Cassandra seized it and gaped at it in open awe.

  “A solid gold card!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Wow! You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Tiger. Are we going to party tonight!!”

  Before I could stop her, she had grabbed my hand again and plunged into the crowd, holding the card aloft like a banner.

  “Excuse us! Coming through!”

  The people in line who we were elbowing our way past didn’t like it. A few went so far as to bare their fangs in annoyance. The card seemed to have some magik effect, though, because, after one glance, they all stepped back and cleared a passage for us ... or, rather, for Cassandra. I just trailed along in her wake.

  There was a velvet rope barring the door, and a big guy beside it whose only function seemed to be to admit people a few at a time as others left . . . that, and be intimidating. I mean, he was BIG . . . and that’s coming from someone who has his own bodyguards. As soon as he spotted the card, however, he snatched the rope from the door, shoving a few of the line people back to open a path for us, and actually tried to twist his features into a smile as we swept past.

  It was occurring to me that there might be more to this credit card business than I imagined. This didn’t seem to be the time to ask, however, and a moment later we were in the club . . . and I lost all ability to think of anything else.

  Chapter Nine

  “I love the nightlife.”

  V. Dracula

  I DON’T KNOW what I had expected for the interior of a vampire nightclub, probably because it never occurred to me that I might visit one someday, but this definitely wasn’t it.

  First and foremost, it was bright. I don’t mean bright, I mean BRIGHT!!!

  The lighting level was so intense the glare was almost blinding, particularly coming in from the darkness outside. Even squinting, it was so bright I could barely make out the features of the room and even had to grope a bit to keep from tripping over things.

  “Whatdaya think?” Cassandra shouted over the music as she clung to my arm.

  “Hard to tell!” I called back. “It’s kinda bright!”

  “I know! Isn’t it great!” she said, flashing a smile that shone through the light. “Real spooky, isn’t it?”

  For some reason, that made sense. In fact, suddenly the whole club did. Humans were primarily daylight lovers. When they wanted to feel daring or be scared, they went to dark places. Vampires on the other hand, normally tended to shun the light. As such, I supposed it was only natural that a place lit up like a flare would be scary to them.

  “Oh, it’s not too bad . . . once your eyes adjust to it,” I said loftily.

  It was the truth. My eyes were slowly getting used to
the glare, allowing me to look around the place.

  What it lacked in size, it made up for in noise and customers.

  What seemed like hundreds of people were packed around an expanse of tiny tables, each table having a small umbrella to provide limited relief from the bright lights like . . . well, like candles on tables in a dark room back where I came from.

  The only portion that seemed even more crowded than the tables was a small space I took for a dance floor. I made this assumption based on the fact that the customers packed in there cheek to jowl were all moving rhythmically in unison to the music which was blaring through the place at a volume level to match the Big Game. I couldn’t see a source for the music, unless it was from the one weird-looking guy who was ensconced behind a table overlooking the dance floor. Every so often, there would be a break in the music and he would shout something, whereupon the crowd would shout back at him and a new tune would start. From this, I guessed that he had something to do with the entertainment, but exactly what I couldn’t be sure, as there was no sign of an instrument. Just stacks and stacks of shiny discs he kept feeding into a machine in front of him.

  The music itself was beyond description . . . unless that description is “loud.” Mostly, it sounded like jarring crashes of noise repeated endlessly to a driving beat. I mentioned that there would be pauses and new tunes, but in truth they seemed remarkably alike to me. I mean, whether one is repeatedly hitting a sackfull of tin cans or a sackful of pots and kettles, or alternating between the two, the overall sound effect is the same for all intents and purposes. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, though, or, at least, it was sufficient to keep them cheering and gyrating with apparently limitless energy.

  With all the noise and activity that was going on, I was almost surprised that I managed to notice the decorations hanging on the walls. Perhaps they caught my eye with their sheer incongruity.