“I don't like this,” she whispered, when she stopped near my chair to toss a basin of water out the tent flap. “I sense depressing magik surrounding us like a cone. I've felt all over the place, but I can't find the source — no live magician within range, not even a handy line of force.”
“It may be purely technological,” I remarked. “A remote installation that makes use of a stored source of power. Perv is known to be comfortable with both technology and magik.”
“Well, so are we,” Tananda said. “We had better do something, or by the end of the week we won't have a single client”
That night we took the place apart, quite literally. I wrenched up the chairs one at a time so that Guido and Tanda could look underneath them. We unstitched the tent panels, tested every jar, vase, bottle, and container that might conceal a device. We checked the lamps and rugs for disgruntled Djinni or Efreets, both known to inhabit such items. Little Sister even employed Assassin techniques to find footprints or airprints of every being that had been anywhere near us since the Pervects' visit.
“Anyone who's been here has come in on foot except Birkli,” Tananda said, after our searches proved fruitless. “See the wing prints?” Guido and I looked at the feathery traces on the air that her magik had brought out.
“Wait a minute,” Guido said, pointing at two different lines of flutter marks. “Dese ain't the same as dose. I've tracked a lotta fly-by-nights, and I know my wing prints.”
“By heavens, you're right,” I declared, after a quick inspection. “What can that mean?”
“I don't know, but I know who can tell us,” Tananda said, tapping her foot impatiently. “Birkli!”
“Coming right this minute, lovely lady! Ready when you are!” The gaudy Shutterbug dropped out of the ceiling. “Here are today's ladies, one and all! Are they perfect? Are they beautiful?”
Tananda held out a hand and he lit upon it. She drew him close to her face, her voice purring. “But you're leaving one out, aren't you, Birkli?”
“Not one, not one, fair green girl!” Birkli protested, his antenna drawing down over his multiple-lensed eyes. But he seemed a bit put out.
“Who is she?” Tananda asked.
“Who?” I interrupted.
“The flitter who made those other wing prints,” she said, without breaking eye contact with the Bug. “You were supposed to take an exposure of every being who came into this tent except us. Why didn't you take one of her?”
“How'd'you know it's a she?” Guido asked.
“How do I know?” Tananda repeated. “Look at him!”
The Shutterbug did seem to be in the deepest throes of embarrassment. “Forgive one who loves too well but not wisely,” he wailed. “Such a beauty was this Lady Bug, to fall in beside me as I flew out among the fabulous sights of the Bazaar. Her spots, so black; her shell so red! She praised my wings, my legs, my scales! thought it would do no harm to bring her here, where it was private. I showed her my images, and she was impressed, most impressed!”
“If that isn't the oldest line there is, bringing a girl back to look at his etchings,” Tananda fumed. “And I suppose she left you a keepsake of some kind?”
Birkli flew back into the folded cloth that served as his temporary quarters and returned with a small glowing sphere the size of his head. “Only this, fair lady. Forgive an ardent male too easily blinded by the beauties of female-hood!”
Tananda held it up between her thumb and forefinger. “As we surmised, Big Brother. A bug, as only a Bug Lady can make it Compact, powerful and easily concealed.” She tossed it to me, and I crushed it in my fist. Birkli backed away uneasily as I let the powdered remains fall from my hand to the floor.
“We're not gonna dust you,” Guido said, going eye to eye with the Shutterbug. “Not if you cooperate. Now, let's see the pic of the moll.”
Hastily Birkli produced a strip of wing-cells and handed them over. The denizens of Trollia were ardent lovers themselves, but even I felt abashed as Tananda held them in front of the magik lantern. “Hot stuff, what?” I said, awkwardly.
“We're not trying to pry into your private life,” Tananda assured Birkli, “but we've got to be careful. I thought we told you that.”
We accepted Birkli's apologies. Tananda paid him off and sent him back to Nikkonia. “We don't really need him any longer,” she explained. “We know who our enemies are now, and we know they're quick-thinking and willing to exploit any weakness they perceive.”
“I agree,” Guido said. “We were buggin' ourselves, under the circumstances. How do we know he didn't sell 'em images of us?”
“Didn't need 'em,” Tananda said shortly. “They knew we were here. Two days' observation would tell them that if we weren't the beauticians we claimed to be, we were putting in enough work to prove we wanted to be taken for beauticians. To a blackmailer, that's enough to exploit.”
“So, what is our next attack?” I asked. “We pay them,” Tananda said simply. “What?” Don Brace's enforcer burst out. “Not a bent nickel.”
“Yes, a bent nickel,” Tananda corrected him, with a wide grin on her face. “And whatever else they ask for. This week. I have a plan.”
With a wave around our heads to create a silence spell to shut out any potential eavesdroppers, my little sister drew us close. In a moment, we were smiling as widely as she.
Tananda allowed us to look as sour as possible when Charilor came by the next afternoon to collect their fee. “There, I told you,” the Pervect said, watching Little Sister count coins grudgingly into a sack. “Five gold coins wasn't so hard to raise!”
“It would have been a lot easier if you hadn't put a gloom spell on the place for two days,” Guido said resentfully.
“That was Vergetta's idea,” the chunky Pervect said, with a twist of her lips, as she glanced back toward the elder female waiting by the entrance to the tent. Did I sense disapproval of her senior's methods? “But you still managed to raise the dough. We should've asked for more.”
“We couldn't have raised more,” Tananda said, eyes wide, managing to sound a little desperate. “This is all we made this week. I mean, everything! We've even had to put off some of our expenses, and our creditors are not happy. You're not going to raise your… fee … are you?”
Charilor swept the leather purse into her belt pouch and stood up. “No. You have our word: our demands will never go up.”
Vergetta shook a finger at us from the doorway. “You'd still better have the same waiting for us next week.”
“We will have your payment here waiting for you,” Tananda promised. The Pervects stalked out. Warily, shyly, our regular customers started slinking in.
Guido chafed visibly over the course of the next week. He objected to the delay during which Don Bruce would lose yet another round of “insurance” payments. I also knew he was worried lest anyone from the Mob would come in and see him performing beauty rituals instead of his usual, somewhat more insalubrious tasks. Yet, when he wasn't thinking about public humiliation, he handled his duties with aplomb. Now comfortable with the balms and unguents, he massaged, polished, and clipped with a flourish. He'd completely lost his fear of the body paints, and where he'd created cranial graffiti before, he was now performing abstract art, each piece unique for the lady who bore it, smiling, out of our salon. The customers adored him. He was gathering quite a little coterie. Some of his regulars had begun to bring him small gifts, treats, and gratuities. Those attentions embarrassed him as much as would the appearance at the door of one of his Mob fellows.
I myself found it difficult to keep from humming a little tune as I awaited the arrival of our extortionists. Action, that was what was called for. Tananda's plan had risks, to be sure, but in her estimation it had at least a forty percent chance of success. Those were not odds I would normally have celebrated, but since no one else had succeeded in resisting or exposing these blackmailing females, it was worth a try.
At the lunch hour on the appointed day, we suppe
d alone in the tent. We had deliberately made few bookings to coincide with the time we expected Vergetta and Charilor to appear. Our midday repast was simple, consisting of food that we had prepared ourselves from ingredients we had not allowed out of our sight since we had brought them from another dimension early that morning. The chances that the Perverts had observed and followed us to our sources of supply were nil: while on a provisioning run we never returned to a dimension twice, and we took all precautions upon our return. That suggestion had been made by Guido, who had, during his military career, accrued lengthy experience in existing in hostile territory. For all the years that we had lived in the Bazaar, I had never before had cause to feel it hostile, but for survival's sake, and the sake of our mission, I must think so now.
Darkness interrupted the blaze of sunshine from the doorway. I glanced up from my now empty trencher. It was the Pervects. Guido, beside me, clenched his fists on his knees underneath our humble tabletop.
“Good afternoon, darlings,” Vergetta said, sailing into the salon as though she owned it But she did not. Yet.
“Hello,” Tananda said cautiously.
“So, are you ready for us?” The elderly Pervect sat down on the bench and nudged Tananda until she moved over to make room.
“I suppose so” Tananda said. She produced the box that contained our receipts for the week. Vergetta rubbed her hands together vigorously, then dumped the load of coins out onto the table. Her fingers began to sort through the coins as though they were indeed greatly practiced at the skill. With a stern expression Charilor loomed over my shoulder, if such a term could be used to describe the actions of a being considerably shorter than the one being loomed over.
“Hold on here,” Vergetta said, piling the last coin in a neat stack. She peered at Tananda, her yellow eyes narrowed to horizontal slits. “There's only four and three-quarters gold coins' worth here.”
“That's all we've got,” Tananda said. “It's been a slow week.”
“I don't believe you.”
“Well, that's all there is. Take it or leave it.”
Charilor leaned across the table and took my little sister by the throat of her smock. “Just who do you think you're talking to, babycakes?”
Tananda looked up at her without fear. “Blackmailers, that's who. Scaly ones, at that”
“Why, you pipsqueak!” Charilor heaved her up over her head and flung her at the mirror, cracking it across. Two silver coins' replacement value! Tananda dropped to the floor.
“Oh, I say!” was surprised out of me. Charilor turned her attention on me, grabbing the fur of my upper arm in a perfectly manicured claw. With the amazing strength that was one of the Pervish people's advantages, she heaved me over the table, and began to pummel my back and head. I twisted, wrenching my arm loose. She merely swung a leg up and planted it on my back, continuing to pound. Her blows hurt!
“Chumley!” Guido stood up to come to my aid. Vergetta, feeble as she seemed, was still a Pervect. As he rose, she swept her cane out and around in front of him, snagging an ankle. He tripped. She hauled him up into her lap like a toddler and held him helpless around the shoulders and body, while shouting encouragement at Charilor.
“*&A% you!” Guido snarled. “Lemme go!”
“Such language!” Vergetta snapped, shocked. She opened up her befanged mouth and roared. “Nobody uses that kind of language around me!” Guido's hair blew over his ear from the blast.
In the meanwhile, at the cost of a hank of my fur I worked free and sprang up out of reach. Charilor charged after me. Tananda leaped to her feet and launched herself at the back of the Pervect.
“You leave my big brother alone!” she yelled. She landed on Charilor's back as the Pervect reached for my throat. I knocked her arms apart and made to put my hands around her neck and face, closing off her airways. Against the combined might of an Assassin-trained Trollop and a Troll trained in the martial arts, the contest should have been over at that moment.
It was not. Charilor used the last minim of space remaining between her mighty jaws to draw in a pinch of the palm covering her mouth, and chomped down.
“Ow!” I bellowed. I am ashamed to say that I lost my grip. Blood dripped from my hand. My wits regained, I threw my shoulder at her body. Tananda applied her arms in a nerve-blocking hold that ought to have disabled Charilor.
It only seemed to make her angiy. She went into a whirlwind frenzy, striking out with arms and legs. For a time I could see nothing but a green blur, then the maelstrom drew us in. The room revolved around and around us. I recall punching, kicking, even biting, but when the scene resolved itself, Tananda was draped over a chair, panting, and Charilor was literally wiping up the mess on the floor using yours very truly as a mop. Guido, sporting an eye in several colors that would have done credit to his palette, was lying face down yelping across Vergetta's lap. She spanked the mob enforcer's backside again and again, punctuating each blow with a syllable.
“You must never use that kind of language in front of a lady!”
If I had not been resolved already to discredit and drive these females from my purview, I was now. How dared she humiliate my friend! Charilor let go of my chest fur and let me stagger uneasily to my feet. I went to my little sister's aid, raising her from the chair across which she was draped.
“I'm okay,” she croaked, though her face was as colorful as Guido's. I imagine that if one were to part my fur I would be as battered as she. She clung to me for a while, then tottered away. “Look at this place!”
I surveyed the ruin of our erstwhile establishment, then looked back at her. “Place mess,” I said.
Vergetta looked up from the punishment she was dealing Guido. “Why, you're right Charilor, this will never do!” She sprang up, spryly for her appearance. “We must clean up this tent at once.”
“You bet,” the younger Pervect said. As readily as they had set about destroying it, they began to tidy it With a wave of her hand the elder Pervect reunited the shards of our shattered mirror, heaving it back into place on the hook on the wall. Charilor picked up all the scattered bottles and jars, and sorted them into various shelves and boxes.
“No, they don't go there,” Tananda said, running after her. “Put that over there. No, the cosmetics go on that shelf! Please! Don't mix the scale colorants with the nail varnishes! We won't be able to find anything when you're done!”
Charilor paid no attention, though Tananda pounded on her back with all her strength. I went to take her by the shoulders. They were shaking with fury. Her eyes blazed up at me.
“No wonder Vineezer didn't want them in his shop anymore!”
“Take it easy, Little Sister,” I whispered. “Calm. Keep control. We're nearly there.”
Stifling her anger, she watched as the two females transformed the ruin they had created into a perfectly neat and incomprehensible whole.
“There!” Vergetta said, dusting her hands together. “All better. Now, there's just the little matter of the last quarter gold coin that you owe us for this week.”
This was it. I held myself tense as Tananda went humbly forward, her hands working together.
“I told you, we just don't have it. You've got all the money we took in. We're even talking about food money.”
“Now, now, chicken, it's not so bad,” Vergetta said, picking up Tananda's chin with a cocked finger. “You'll eat tomorrow. What about bookings?”
Tananda showed her the appointment ledger. “We didn't make any more for today. We didn't know when you were coming, and frankly, you scare the other customers.”
“So?” Vergetta asked, raising a scaly eyebrow. “How do you plan to pay off the rest of your debt?”
“Service?” Tananda asked, hopefully. Only I saw the glint in her eye. “If youll let us give you the works … I mean, our best beauty treatment, everything, exfoliation, styling, manicure, makeup. I promise youll get your money's worth. It'll be more than a quarter gold coin's value.”
The
two Pervects conferred for a moment “It's not so standard, but why not?” the elder said. “Just this once, maybe.”
“Yeah,” Charilor agreed. “You do a pretty good job on the others. Okay.” She swung into the nearest, most recently repaired chair and settled back. “The works. Careful, though. I'm ticklish.”
I moved in on her, ringers outstretched, to begin the scalp massage. I hoped neither of them could see the tremble in my hands.
It took longer than we expected, since none of us could find a thing in the rearranged shelves. Tananda kept up a pleasant line of meaningless chatter as she filed the tips off the Perverts' claws and varnished each one a shimmering hue.
“The gold goes with your eyes,” she assured them. “All my Pervert customers like yellow, but this is a special shade I save for the best clients.”
Like every being who had sat, crouched, or hovered in those chairs during the last few weeks, Vergetta and Charilor preened and bridled when they beheld their gradual transformation in the glass.
“And now,” Tananda said, winding cotton batting in between their fingers so the top coat of the polish wouldn't smear, “our cosmetician, Mr. Guido, will put the crowning touches on your beauty treatment.”
We both held our breath. Guido didn't look at all tense. He knew the job he had to do.
“Okay, ladies,” he said, loading a brush with pigment “Tell me if it tickles.”
In all his days as a reluctant beauty consultant he never had a finer hour. His strokes were ones of genius, drawing subtle tones of red, ochre, and more gold up to the tips of the Perverts' large, pointed ears, down to the sides of their cheeks and over their brows. Curlicues of jewel hues decorated their eyelids and around their cheekbones. An orange-red that did not shock against the green of their scales was applied to their lips. As they admired their reflections, Guido took up his fluorescent palette and added very subtle enhancements here and there, decorating the backs of their heads in a Baroque and complicated design. When at last he put down his brushes, Vergetta rose and picked him up in an enveloping hug.
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