'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.
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 supped 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.
