Myth-Ing Persons m-5

by Robert Asprin

  I was starting to get real anxious to meet this guy Vic. It also occurred to me that of all the potential problems our growing reputation could bring down on us, this was one we had never expected.

  "And you believed him?"

  Luanna made a face, then shrugged.

  "Well… you're supposed to be able to do some pretty incredible things, and I don't want you to think I don't believe in your abilities, but I was worried enough that I sneaked back to let you know what was going on…just in case."

  It was almost funny that she was apologizing for giving us the warning. Almost, but not quite. My mind kept running over what might have happened if she had believed in me completely.

  "I guess my only other question is who is this citizen that Aahz is supposed to have killed?"

  "Didn't anybody tell you?" she blinked. "It's Vic. He's from this dimension… you know, a vampire. Anyway, he's hiding out until the whole thing's resolved one way or another. I don't think even Matt knows where he is. Vampires are normally suspicious, and after I sneaked out the first time, he's even gotten cagey around us. He just drops in from time to time to see how we're doing."

  Now I knew I wanted to meet friend Vic. If I was lucky, I'd meet him before Aahz did.

  "Well, I do appreciate you filling me in on the problem. Now, if you'll just come back to Blut with us and explain things to the authorities, my gratitude will be complete."

  Luanna started as if I had stuck her with a pin.

  "Hold on a minute! Who said anything about going to the authorities? I can't do that! That would be double crossing my partners. I don't want to see you or your friends get hurt, but I can't sacrifice my own to save them."

  An honest crook is both incongruous and infuriating. Aahz had often pointed this out to me when some point in my ethic kept me from going along with one of his schemes, and now I was starting to understand what he was talking about.

  "But then why are you here?"

  "I wanted to warn you. Vic has been thinking that you might come into Limbo after your partner, and he's setting up some kind of trap if you did. If he was right, I thought you should know that you're walking into trouble. I figured that if you came, you'd look up the Dispatcher, so I waited there and followed you when you showed up. I just wanted to warn you is all. That and…"

  She dropped her eyes again and lowered her voice until I could hardly hear her.

  "… I wanted to see you again. I know it's silly, but…"

  As flattering as it was, this time I was unimpressed.

  "Yeah, sure." I interrupted. "You're so interested in me you're willing to let my partner sit on a murder rap just so you can watch me go through my paces."

  "I already explained about that," she said fiercely, stepping forward to lay a hand on my arm.

  I stared at it pointedly until she removed it.

  "Well," she said in a small voice. "I can see that there's nothing more I can say. But, Skeeve? Promise me that you won't follow me when I leave? You or your friends? I took a big risk finding you. Please don't make me regret it."

  I stared at her for a long moment, then looked away and nodded.

  "I know you're disappointed in me, Skeeve," came her voice, "but I can't go against my partners. Haven't "you ever had to do something you didn't want to do to support your partner?"

  That hit home… painfully.

  "Yes, I have," I said, drawing a ragged breath. "I'm sorry, Luanna. I'm just Worried about Aahz, that's all. Tell you what. Just to show there're no hard feelings, can I have a token or something? Something to remember you by until I see you again?"

  She hesitated, then pulled a gossamer-thin scarf from somewhere inside her outfit. Stepping close, she tucked it into my tunic, then rose on her tiptoes and kissed me softly.

  "It's nice of you to ask," she said. "Even if I don't mean anything to you at all, it's nice of you to ask."

  With that, she turned and sprinted off down the road into the darkness.

  I stared after her.

  "You're letting her go!?"

  Suddenly Massha was at my side, flanked by Guido.

  "C'mon, Boss. We gotta catch her. She's your partner's ticket off death row. Where's she goin'?"

  "To meet up with her partners in crime," I said. "Including a surprisingly lively guy named Vic… surprising since he's the one that Aahz is supposed to have killed."

  "So we can catch 'em all together. Nice work, Hot Stuff. Okay, let's follow her and…"

  "No!"

  "Why not?"

  "Because I promised her."

  There was a deathly silence as my assistants digested this information.

  "So she walks and Green and Scaly dies, is that it?"

  "You're sellin' out your partner for a skirt? That musta been some kiss."

  I slowly turned to face them, and, mad as they were, they fell silent.

  "Now listen close," I said quietly, "because I'm not going to go over it again. If we tried to follow her back to their hideout, and she spotted us, she'd lead us on a wild goose chase and we'd never catch up with them… and we need that so-called corpse. I don't think her testimony alone will swing the verdict."

  "But Boss, if we let her get away…"

  "We'll find them," I said. "Without us dogging her footsteps, she'll head right back to her partners."

  "But how will we…"

  In answer, I pulled Luanna's scarf from my tunic. "Fortunately, she was kind enough to provide us with a means to track her, once we recruit the necessary were wolf."

  Guido gave my back a slap that almost staggered me. "Way to go, Boss," he crowed. "You really had me goin' for a minute. I thought that chickie had really snowed you."

  I looked up to find Massha eyeing me suspiciously. "That was quite a kiss. Hot Stuff," she said. "If I didn't know better, I'd think that young lady is more than a little stuck on you… and you just took advantage of it."

  I averted my eyes, and found myself staring down the road again.

  "As a wise woman once told me," I said, "sometimes you have to do things you don't like to support your partner… Now, let's go find these Woof Writers."

  Chapter Nine

  "My colleagues and I feel that independents like Elf Quest are nothing but sheep in wolves' clothing!"

  -S.LEE

  THE Woof Writers turned out to be much more pleasant than I had dared hope, which was fortunate as my werewolf disguises were some of the shakiest I'd ever done. Guido was indeed allergic to werewolves as feared (he started sneezing a hundred yards from their house) and was waiting outside, but even trying to maintain two disguises was proving to be a strain on my powers in this magic-poor dimension. I attempted to lessen the drain by keeping the changes minimal, but only succeeded in making them incredibly unconvincing even though my assistants assured me they were fine. No matter what anyone tells you, believe, me, pointy ears alone do not a wolf make.

  You might wonder why I bothered with disguises at all? Well, frankly, we were getting a little nervous. Everyone we had talked to or been referred to in this dimension was so nice! We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. All of our talks and discussions of possible traps had made us so skittish that we were now convinced that there was going to be a double-cross somewhere along the way. The only question in our minds was when and by whom.

  With that in mind, we decided it would be best to try to pass ourselves off as werewolves until we knew for sure the Woof Writers were as well-disposed toward humans as Vilhelm said they were. The theory was that if they weren't, the disguises might give us a chance to get out again before our true nature was exposed. The only difficulty with that plan was that I had never seen a werewolf in my life, so not only was I working with a shortage-of energy, I was unsure as to what the final result should look like. As it turned out, despite their knowledgeable advice, my staff didn't know either.

  While we're answering questions from the audience, you might ask, if neither I nor my assistants knew what a werewolf looked lik
e, how I knew the disguises were inadequate? Simple. I deduced the fact after one look at real werewolves. That and the Woof Writers told me so. Didn't I tell you they were great folks? Of course, they let us sweat for a while before admitting that they knew we were poorly disguised humans all along, but I myself tend to credit that to their dubious sense of humor. It's Massha who insists it was blatant sadism. Of course, she was the one who had to eat a bone before they acknowledged the joke.

  Anyway, I was talking about the Woof Writers. It was interesting in that I had never had much opportunity to watch a husband-wife team in action before (my parents don't count). The closest thing to the phenomenon I had witnessed was the brother-sister team of Tananda and Chumley, but they spent most of their conversational time trying to "one-down" each other.

  The Woof Writers, in contrast, seemed to take turns playing "crazy partner-sane partner." They never asked my opinion, but I felt that she was much better at playing the crazy than he. He was so good at playing the straight that when he did slip into crazy mode. it always came as a surprise.

  "Really, dear," Idnew was saying to Massha, "wouldn't you like to slip out of that ridiculous disguise into something more comfortable? A werewolf with only two breasts looks so silly."

  "Idnew," her husband said sternly, "you're making our guests uncomfortable. Not everyone feels as easy about discussing their bodies as you do."

  "It's the artist in me," she returned, "And besides, Drahcir, who was it that set her up to eat a bone?-and an old one at that. If you were a little more conscientious when you did the shopping instead of stocking up on junk food…"

  "Oh, don't worry about me. Hairy and Handsome," Massha interceded smoothly, dropping into her vamp role. "I've got no problems discussing my body, as long as we get equal time to talk about yours. I've always liked my men with a lot of facial hair, if you get my drift."

  I noticed Idnew's ears flatten for a moment before returning to their normal upright position. While it may have been nothing more than a nervous twitch, it occurred to me that if we were going to solicit help from these two, it might not be wise to fan any embers of jealousy that might be lying about.

  "Tell me," I said hastily, eager to get the subject away from Massha's obvious admiration of Drahcir, "What got you started campaigning for better relationships between humans and werewolves?"

  "Well, there were many factors involved," Drahcir explained, dropping into the lecturer mode I had grown to know so well in such a short time. "I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that the bad reputation humans have is vastly overrated. There is actually very little documented evidence to support the legends of human misconduct. For the most part, werewolves tend to forget that, under the proper conditions, we turn into humans. Most of them are afraid or embarrassed and hide themselves away until it passes, but Idnew and I don't. If anything we generally seize the opportunity to go out and about and get the public used to seeing harmless humans in their midst. Just between us, though, I think Idnew here likes to do it because it scares the hell out of folks to be suddenly confronted by a human when they aren't expecting it. In case you haven't noticed, there's a strong exhibitionist streak in my wife. For myself, it's simply a worthy cause that's been neglected for far too long."

  "The other factor, which my husband has neglected to mention," Idnew put in impishly, "is that there's a lot of money in it."

  "There is? "I asked.

  My work with Aahz had trained me to spot profit opportunities where others saw none, but this time the specific angle had eluded me.

  "There… umm… are certain revenues to be gleaned from our campaign," Drahcir said uneasily, shooting a dark glance at his wife. "T-shirts, bumper stickers, lead miniatures, fan club dues, greeting cards, and calendars, just to name a few. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Lest my wife leave you with the wrong impression of me, however, let me point out that I'm supporting this particular cause because I really believe in it. There are lots of ways to make money."

  "… and he knows them all, don't you dear?" Idnew said with a smile.

  "Really?" I interrupted eagerly. "Would you mind running over a few? Could I take notes?"

  "Before you get carried away, High Roller," Massha warned, "remember why we came here originally."

  "Oh! Right! Thanks, Massha. For a minute there I… Right!"

  It took me a few seconds to rechannel my thoughts. While Aahz's training has gotten me out of a lot of tight spots and generally improved my standard of living, there are some unfortunate side effects.

  Once I got my mind back on the right track, I quickly filled the werewolves in on our current problem. I kept the details sketchy, both because I was getting tired of going back and forth over the same beginning, and to keep from having to elaborate on Luanna's part in causing our dilemma. Still, the Woof Writers seemed quite enthralled by the tale, and listened attentively until I was done.

  "Gee, you're really in a spot," Idnew said when I finally ground to a halt. "If there's anything we can do to help…"

  "We can't," Drahcir told us firmly. "You're behind on your deadlines, Idnew, and I've got three more appearances this month… not to mention answering the mail that's piled up the last two weekends I've been gone."

  "Drahcir…" Idnew said, drawing out his name.

  "Don't look at me like that, dear," her husband argued before she had even started her case, "and don't cock your head, either. Someone's liable to shove a gramophone under it. Remember, you're the one who keeps pointing out that we have to put more time into our work."

  "I was talking about cutting back on your personal appearances," Idnew argued. "Besides, this is important."

  "So's meeting our deadlines. I'm as sympathetic to their problem as you are, but we can't let the plight of one small group of humans interfere with our work on the big picture."

  "But you're the one who insists that deadlines aren't as important as…"

  She broke off suddenly and semaphored her ears toward her husband.

  "Wait a minute. Any time you start talking about 'big pictures' and 'grand crusades'… is our bank account low again?"

  Drahcir averted his eyes and shifted his feet uncomfortably.

  "Well, I was going to tell you, but I was afraid it might distract you while you were trying to work…"

  "All right. Let's have it," his wife growled, her hackles rising slightly. "What is it you've invested our money in this time?"

  I was suddenly very uncomfortable. Our little discussion seemed to be dissolving into a family fight I felt I had no business being present for. Apparently Massha felt the same thing.

  "Well, if you can't help us, that's that," she said, getting to her feet. "No problem. A favor's not a favor if you have to be argued into it. C'mon, Hot Stuff. We're wasting our time and theirs."

  Though in part I agreed with her, desperation prompted me to make one last try.

  "Not so fast, Massha. Drahcir is right. Time's money. Maybe we could work out some kind of a fee to compensate them for their time in helping us. Then it's not a favor, it's a business deal. Face it, we really need their help in this. The odds of us finding this Vic character on our own are pretty slim."

  Aahz would have fainted dead away if he had heard me admitting how much we needed help before the fee was set, but that reaction was nothing compared to how the Woof Writers took my offer.

  "What did you say?" Drahcir demanded, rising to all fours with his ears back.

  "I said that maybe you'd help us if we offered to pay you," I repeated, backing away slightly. "I didn't mean to insult you…"

  "You can't insult Drahcir with money," his wife snapped. "He meant what did you say about Vic?"

  "Didn't I mention him before?" I frowned. "He's the vampire that Aahz is supposed to have…"

  There was a sudden loud flapping sound in the rafters above our heads, like someone noisily shaking a newspaper to scare a cat off a table. It worked… not on the cat (I don't think the werewo
lves owned one) but on Massha and me. My apprentice hit the floor, covering her head with her hands, while I, more used to sudden danger and being more svelte and agile, dove beneath the coffee table.

  By the time we recovered from our panicky… excuse me, our shrewd defensive maneuvers, there was nothing to see except the vague shape of someone with huge wings disappearing out the front door.

  "This one's all yours, dear," Drahcir said firmly, his posture erect and unmoved despite the sudden activity.

  "Come on, honey," his wife pleaded. "You're so much better at explaining things. You're supposed to help me out when it comes to talking to people."

  "It's a skill I polished at those personal appearances you're so critical of," he retorted stiffly.

  "Would somebody tell me what's going on?" I said in tones much louder than I usually use when I'm a guest in someone's home.

  Before I could get an answer, the door burst open again utterly destroying what little was left of my nervous system.

  "Hey, Boss! Did you s-se-Wha-wa…"

  "Outside, Guido!" I ordered, glad to have someone I could shout at without feeling guilty. "Blow your nose… and I'm fine, thanks! Nice of you to ask!"

  By the time my bodyguard had staggered back outside, his face half buried in a handkerchief, I had managed to regain most of my composure.

  "Sorry for the interruption," I said as nonchalantly as I could, "but my colleague does raise an interesting question! What was that?"

  "Scary?" Massha suggested.

  Apparently she had recovered her composure a little better than I had. I closed my eyes and reflected again on the relative value of cheeky apprentices.

  "That," Drahcir said loftily, barely in time to keep me from my assistant's throat, "was Vic… one of my wife's weird artist friends who dropped in unannounced for a prolonged stay and, unless I miss my guess, the criminal you're looking for who framed your partner."

  "He wasn't really a friend of mine," Idnew put in a small voice. "Just a friend of a friend, really. Weird artist types tend to stick together and pass around the locations of crash spaces. He was just another charity case down on his luck who…"