She smiled. It pleased her to shock a cosmic horror, even if only a little.
“Fenris is easier to say than Mana—Moona—Maga—”
“Managarmr,” she said.
“Yes, that.”
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“Fenris? Oh no. Can’t say we’ve ever met. He’s a greater eldritch while I’m only a lesser embodiment. We don’t travel in the same circles. And if we did ever meet, he’d probably just eat me because he is as far above me as I am above…”
Vom trailed off, not finishing the sentence, and she ignored the potential insult.
“You guys have cliques?”
“In a way. It’s like high school, except instead of jocks versus nerds, it’s things who eat civilizations versus things who eat galaxies. I could devour the universe if you gave me a few billion years, but Fenris could do it in a few years, a decade at most if he put his mind to it.” He crumpled another page into a ball, tossed it in the air, and caught it in his gut mouth. “I’m a big fan.”
“So why is he wasting his time chasing one insignificant moon? I thought he wanted to escape our reality?”
“Maybe the moon has something to do with it. I don’t know. You’d have to ask him that. It probably has to do with the same reason I like hanging around you. There’s something about it that draws him, something he needs. All anyone knows is that he’s been after the Earth’s moon for… oh, about five billion years or so… give or take.”
“Weird.”
“Takes all kinds,” said Vom.
She deposited her bowl into the sink. “Crap, I’m late for work.”
“I thought the fire ruined your job.”
“No, I fixed that.”
“How?”
“The same way I started the fire in the first place,” she said. “Magic.”
Vom sat up. “Well, aren’t you the fast learner?”
She smiled. “I don’t know if it really worked yet. I just know that I concentrated really hard last night on undoing my first spell.” She frowned. “That doesn’t sound right. Do you call it a spell?”
“You can call it whatever you like.”
“Spell just makes it seem too… ordinary,” she said. “New Agey. Like something hippies do.” She imagined herself dancing in darkened forests, wearing long, lacy sleeves, and honoring the mother goddess. She didn’t have anything against it. Seemed like it might be more fun than church.
It didn’t feel right because there was nothing mystical about her newfound powers. No rituals, no incantations or prayers, no sacred tomes. No commandments or law of threefold return to guide her. She was on her own here with what little help Vom could supply. And that wasn’t much, since, in many ways, he was just as lost as she was.
All she knew was that she could make things happen by editing reality, and if she could start a fire by accidentally revising it into existence, she didn’t see why she couldn’t re-revise it out of existence. She’d willed away her original fire last night for fifteen minutes until a tingle along her spine suggested that the edit had taken place. She’d considered calling this morning to double-check, but couldn’t think of a way to phrase that phone call.
“Hi. It’s Diana. I was just checking if the department store was still burned to a crisp or if that thing I just mentioned no longer happened.”
It’d be easier to just go and see for herself.
Vom swallowed his entire book and woke Smorgaz. “Get up. We’re going to work.”
“
“Is that a good idea?” asked Vom. “What if you run into another lost entity seeking a focus? You’ll want us around.”
“I thought you said that didn’t happen very often.”
“It doesn’t. Not usually. But it’s not as if there’s a cap on how many deranged other-dimensional monsters will be drawn to you in a week. You seem to have a knack for it.”
She didn’t want them to tag along. Two pet monsters, even well-meaning ones, could wreck the illusion of normality she was going for, but that was already a lost cause. Outside this apartment, on the streets, was a city filled with monsters and contradictions that a sane mind could only ignore.
“You can come,” she said, “but try not to be conspicuous.”
The fuzzy green beast and the giant rubber hedgehog saluted.
“You won’t even notice we’re around,” said Vom.
Her magic wish had worked. The department store was restored. Diana noticed the remnants of the undone reality. Some black smudges, leftover smoke damage she assumed, clung to spots on the ceiling, and the whole place had a subtle, seared-wood-and-insulation scent throughout. But otherwise everything appeared in order, and once the managers had lectured the cleaning staff (something Diana felt bad about but couldn’t prevent) everything went back to normal. She even succeeded in making everyone forget that she’d been absent for five days.
That was the thing that bothered her most about this experience. It was one thing to unmake her previous mistake. It was another to go around screwing with people’s minds. It was a violation of their innermost selves. People weren’t robots for her to reprogram at her whim, but she didn’t see a choice. Undoing the fire and allowing everyone the memory of her absence would only leave questions she couldn’t answer and very probably cost her job too.
Just this once, she decided. No more. The resolution would’ve held more weight if she’d even understood these new powers.
“Very nice work,” said Vom. “Not many human minds can pick up the subtleties of reality manipulation. Usually it’s all ‘I am like unto a living god. Quake before me, mere mortals! I wish for a million dollars, a gold-plated robot butler, and adoration from all around me.’ ”
Diana said, “Jesus, is everyone that petty and dumb?”
“Not everybody,” said Smorgaz. “But most.”
“Of course, those kinds of eager beavers don’t last long. They end up drawing too much attention to themselves, and the universe usually has to slap them down to keep things in order.”
Smorgaz pulled a coat off a rack, checked it in the mirror. “Does this color work for me?”
“Yes, it goes great with your eyes,” replied Diana reflexively. She snatched the garment away and put it back. “You guys promised you’d be unobtrusive.”
“Sorry,” said Vom. “We didn’t realize it would be so dull.”
“Didn’t you just spend one hundred years locked in a closet?”
Unending Smorgaz hiccupped, and two spawns rolled off his back. They scampered away to wreak whatever havoc they could in their brief life span.
Smorgaz cringed. “Whoops. Sorry.”
She handed them a few dollars. “Go to the food court and buy a soda or something. Just behave, please.”
“We’ll be nearby. Just whistle if you need us for anything.”
“And remember,” she called just before they turned the corner. “Don’t eat anything that doesn’t come on a menu!”
And then they were around the corner and gone.
She leaned against a display and gathered her wits. When the monsters were around they caused all manner of trouble, but she could keep an eye on them. When they were gone she didn’t have to think about it, but it didn’t mean they were behaving. Either situation was both a relief and frustrating.
She spotted Wendall walking by and waved to him. He lowered his head and picked up his pace away from her.
She wondered if she could alter his memory just enough that he wouldn’t freak out when he saw her, but immediately ruled it out. This magic stuff wasn’t a cure-all. It wasn’t perfect, and even if it had been, she’d only
