“What? Too technical again?”
“I’m sure you have a great metaphorical explanation you could give me, but it’ll just be more mumbo jumbo that I really don’t understand.”
“You wished not to go to work. Magic took care of that for you.”
“I didn’t wish for a fire.”
“You didn’t
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Unguided reality manipulation will always take the path of least resistance. Since you didn’t specify the details, you can hardly be upset by the results.”
She hastily threw on some clothes, not bothering to shower.
“Where are you going?” asked Vom.
“To the store,” she said.
“I thought you didn’t want to go to the store.”
“I didn’t, but if I started a magic fire that killed somebody, I need to know.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you need to know?” asked Vom.
“Because it’s important.”
“It’s important to know if you killed someone?”
“Yes.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”
Vom nodded. “Then why would you want to know?”
Diana said, “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand. You may have killed someone by accident and now you think it’ll make things better to torture yourself about it. Just because I don’t agree with it doesn’t mean I can’t understand it.”
“We can’t all be amoral monsters with a complete indifference to human life.”
“I’m not indifferent to human life as a whole,” he said. “Just individual ones.”
“My mistake. I’m going. You stay here.”
Vom snarled. “I’m a cosmic entity. Not a puppy.”
“Just do me a favor,” she said. “Try not to chew on the furniture.”
He grinned. “I promise nothing.”
Diana rushed to the store, stopping only for a coffee and a bagel. When she was almost there she realized that seeing the fire wouldn’t answer any questions. By then she was less concerned with the possible body count and just determined to see what the results of her careless wish might be. She envisioned the entire department store burned to the ground. Then, worrying that perhaps imagining something like that would make it happen, she did her best to wipe the image from her mind. But it was like asking herself not to think about a pink dinosaur. Once the idea was introduced it uldn’t be removed.
She should’ve taken the time to listen to Vom’s explanation. If she did have magical powers now, it was probably smart to understand them.
The department store had not been destroyed. closed for repairs read a sign on the door. She peered through the windows and, while the coat section wasn’t visible from outside, she could see that most of the visible smoke damage was in that general area. The store was still standing, and it didn’t look as if the fire department had had to soak the place down to stop the fire from spreading.
“Pretty bad, huh?” asked Wendall from behind her.
She turned toward him. He worked in housewares. Wendall was short, a little chubby, with curly hair and a perpetual smile. Always cheerful. Sometimes too much so. They hadn’t talked much, but she liked him in a pleasant, casualacquaintance way.
“Had to come and see for yourself, huh?” He joined her at the window. “Me too.”
“Do they know how it happened?” she asked.
“They think it was an electrical short. You know how old the wiring is in this place. Thank God, nobody was hurt.”
She breathed an inner sigh of relief.
“They say it’ll probably take a week or two to fix the damage,” he said. “Say, you want to go get a cup of coffee or something?”
“Actually, I just had some coffee,” she replied.
“There’s a great little bagel place just around the corner,” he said.
“Uh, I just…”
“My treat.”
Wendall grinned at her. He had a crush on her. Possibly. It wasn’t easy to tell because he was always so friendly, but he was that special brand of nice guy who was so used to being overlooked that any woman who acknowledged his existence became attractive by default. Or maybe she was just flattering herself. Maybe he was just being friendly again.
“Yeah, sure.”
She figured it couldn’t hurt to spend some time with a regular, non-world-devouring person, and Wendall was as ordinary as reality could get.
The “great little bagel place just around the corner” was actually the “adequate little bagel place just around the corner where she ate lunch two or three times a week,” but she found the familiarity comforting. Something like a half-cat, halfrabbit hopped around, unobserved by everyone else, under one of the tables, but she resolutely ignored it.
Wendall carried the bulk of most conversations. He wasn’t a blabbermouth, but if you weren’t feeling up to talking he didn’t mind filling the silence himself. He talked about nothing important. She didn’t hold it against him since most talk was about nothing important. She didn’t have anything worthwhile to discuss either, aside from herent induction into the world of the supernatural, and this was the last thing she wanted to talk about. But there were only so many variations of “Crazy weather we’ve been having lately,” so much shop talk, before she found herself zoning out.
“Anyway,” said Wendall, “how about it?”
“Hmmm.”
“About the movie?” he asked.
It took her a moment to realize that he’d asked her out at some point in the conversation. She was having trouble focusing. The air crackled with a weird electricity.
She forced herself to look into his eyes. Bright, eager eyes above a hopeful smile.
“Uh, Wendall,” she started, “I’m kind of in a bad place.”
All the hope vanished from his face, though he was quick to recover.
“I’m not trying to blow you off,” she said. “I’m not. It’s… just… I’m going through something kind of… complicated right now.”
She wanted to explain it to him, but it was too unbelievable.
A round purple monster waddled into view in the window. It stopped, pressed its face against the glass, and with its three eyes scanned the interior of the bagel place. In a world full of monsters, there was something different about this one. This one put her on edge. More on edge, anyway. And when its gaze settled on her, she was not surprised.
The creature jumped through the window, sending glass shattering in all directions. The other customers screamed. Some froze. Others jumped up in panic. But the monster lumbered with single-minded determination toward Diana. Lunging, the giant hedgehog-like beast prepared to pounce.
Suddenly Vom was there. He hoisted the purple creature into the air and threw it across the room.
“Are you okay?” asked Vom.
“I thought you said you weren’t a puppy.”
“Aren’t you glad I lied?”
Roaring, the hedgehog threw itself into Vom.
