Home Improvement: Undead Edition

The shield quivered against me, reminding me that I had one last thing to do. Clumsily, I rolled out the other shining silver shield in front of it. For a second I caught the reflection of the small, stylized Medusa head carved in the center of the copper shield, her lips drawn back in a fang-filled grin, tiny serpents writhing around her angry face, before she saw her own mirror image, and she too turned to stone.

The numbness crept into my fingers, both shields slipped from my hold, and unconsciousness rolled over me.

I CAME AROUND to the quiet slap of water and the strange taste of dark spiced blood in my mouth. Surprise and relief drifted through me that I was alive and could feel all my toes and fingers, and the rest of me, even if it felt like I’d been mugged by a horde of Beater goblins. How I was alive was another matter, but I was too exhausted to care, so I just lay there.

After a while a rhythmic sound pricked my ears, and I realized I’d fallen asleep. I opened my eyes. The water in the swimming pool was flat and peaceful; the waves had gone. But as I watched, a dark shape swam closer, spreading gentle ripples in its wake. It reached the edge and rose up out of the pool, water and blood dripping from its matted green-black coat, and I saw that it was the kelpie horse. The kelpie stood for a long moment, his broad chest heaving, and then he shuddered and flicked his tail over the bloody bite marks in his muscled flank, and picked his way through the rubble that littered the terra-cotta tiles like the aftermath of an explosion.

The kelpie whickered worriedly as it reached me. It lowered its head and blew a greeting of whisky-peat breath into my face. I lifted my hand and stroked the warm velvet of its muzzle, smiling as its chin whiskers tickled along my arm, and reached up to trail gentle fingers over the black-lace gills that fluttered under my touch.

“You’re beautiful,” I murmured.

The kelpie tossed its head, red beads clicking in the knotted dreads of its mane, and magic cascaded over the horse like multicolored jewels sparkling in the brightness of the lights . . .

And Tavish took his human shape.

He slid tiredly down next to me and pulled me into his lap, and I tucked my face into the smooth heat of his neck as he wrapped his arms around me.

“The boys are both safe and well, doll,” he said in a rough burr. “They were in a circle at the bottom of the pool, and the wee wizard was just about done in holding it.”

Good. “What about you? You’re hurt.”

“Och, the sharks were a mite bothersome”—he patted my shoulder—“but naught to worry about. So, did Malia take the lassie once she’d shed her skin?”

“No,” I said, and told him what had happened.

“It was Dora,” I finished, “or rather her game, Quest for the Aegis of Athena, that gave me the idea.”

He picked up a lump of stone: it had scales etched on one side. “How did Malia end up like this?”

“Ahh, that wasn’t me. Last I saw Auntie, she was all in one piece.” Even if she’d had a bit of a stony expression going on. I pointed at the sledgehammer standing defiant in the middle of the rubble and said deadpan, “Think Dora decided on a full-scale demolition.”

“Aye, well,” Tavish answered in an amused voice, “it tipped the scales in her favor.”

I groaned. “That was bad.”

He laughed. “Yours were nae any better, doll.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, then asked the question that had been bugging me. “How did you know what was going on?”

“Hmm,” Tavish snorted softly. “I’d seen the wee lassie’s soul when she was following you, but she was still human enough that if she wasnae using her camera, I couldnae see the lamia’s taint. And without seeing that, I couldnae tell what her shell looked like. Then after the children went missing, Malia phoned, wanting my help with something. Lamias mostly take their own blood when they shed to forestall any repercussions, but I caught on that Malia wasnae going to this time. So we were tiptoeing around a bargain, but I couldnae get close enough to find the children until she lured you here.”

“So you used me as bait?”

“Something like that,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, doll.”

The boys were saved, we were both alive, Dora had escaped and hopefully had a chance at a new life now she wasn’t going to be a lamia, and in the end the only one dead and gone was Auntie. Which really wasn’t such a loss. So there really wasn’t anything to be angry about.

I tugged a couple of his dreads. “Next time you decide to set me up,” I said, “tell me first.”

“Aye,” he murmured, “if you say so.”

I licked my lips and tasted the dark spiced blood again. “Dora must have given me the antidote,” I said, almost to myself.

Tavish didn’t answer, and, happy just to be alive, I listened to the steady beat of his heart for a while, then traced a finger over his lean chest. “So, how about we do something a bit more irresponsible for our next date . . .”

He gave a soft laugh. “What sort o’ thing have you in mind, doll?”

“When you think of it”—I smiled sleepily—“call me.”

SIX WEEKS LATER I received a parcel at the office. Inside was a glossy celebrity magazine. The cover showed a smiling Dora standing in front of a huge poster depicting a pixie in a muscleman pose. The headline read: THEODORA CHRISTAKIS, OWNER OF HEROPHILE FUTURES, ENDS 40 DAYS OF MOURNING WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HER NEW VENTURE. Also in the parcel was a computer game; its brightly colored sleeve read: PIXIE PLANET ~ PROTECTING OUR FUTURE: HEROPHILE’S NEW LINE OF EDUCATIONAL GAMES FOR THE YOUNGER GENERATION ~ ALL PROFITS TO BE DONATED TO CHILDREN’S CHARITIES.

Good to know Dora was planning on helping kids now, instead of eating them.

I wished her good fortune.

It’s All in the Rendering SIMON R. GREEN

There is a House that stands on the border. Between here and there, between dreams and waking, between reality and fantasy. The House has been around for longer than anyone remembers, because it’s necessary. Walk in through the front door, from the sane and everyday world, and everything you see will seem perfectly normal. Walk in through the back door, from any of the worlds of if and maybe, and a very different House will appear before you. The House stands on the border, linking two worlds, and providing Sanctuary for those who need it. A refuge, from everyone and everything. A safe place, from all the evils of all the worlds.

Needless to say, there are those who aren’t too keen on this.

IT ALL STARTED in the kitchen, on a bright sunny day, just like any other day. Golden sunlight poured in through the open window, gleaming richly on the old-fashioned furniture and the modern fittings. Peter and Jubilee Caine, currently in charge of the House, were having breakfast together. At least, Peter was; Jubilee wasn’t really a morning person. Jubilee would cheerfully throttle every last member of the dawn chorus in return for just another half-hour’s lie-in.

Peter was busy making himself a full English breakfast: bacon and eggs, sausages and beans, and lots of fried bread. Of medium height and medium weight, Peter was a happy if vague sort, but a master of the frying pan—on the grounds that if you ever found something you couldn’t cook in the pan, you could still use it to beat the animal to death. Peter moved happily back and forth, doing half a dozen difficult culinary things with calm and easy competence, while singing along to the Settlers’ “Lightning Tree” on the radio.

Jubilee, tall and blond and almost impossibly graceful, usually, sat hunched at the kitchen table, clinging to a