Bite Marks

relatively calm. Maybe Raoul didn’t know Astral wasn’t supposed to talk like Long John Silver’s parrot. And Bergman just kept shaking his head.

He said, “Astral, what’s going on? Your voice-recognition program hasn’t been initiated.” Astral said, “Hello!”

Raoul said, “How interesting. Her mouth’s making just the right movements.” Bergman said, “Astral, shut down voice program until further notice.” Astral’s ears started twitching. Two seconds later they began emitting the worst music I’d ever heard in my life. Again. “It’s the gnome band!” I said as Raoul slammed his hands over his ears.

Vayl’s eyebrows crooked. “Bergman, make it stop.”

Miles reached for the cat, nearly lost his belt again, and compromised by unsheathing the sword. While he lightened his load, the rest of us watched his invention.

She didn’t seem to be melting down. It was more like she’d piped the music in for her own enjoyment.

Her tail began to twitch with the downbeat. Then she began to circle the tabletop, pausing every few steps to have some sort of all-body seizure.

Cole chuckled. “She’s dancing!”

“It’s not funny!” said Miles. “Astral, shut down your voice program.” The music stopped and she sat down. After a moment Vayl began to speak. We all turned to him. But his lips weren’t moving.

“So is that how you want it, my pretera ?” I turned back to Astral, realizing she was playing back another moment she’d recorded. Vayl, his voice low and suggestive, getting ready to bare all for me.

Holy shit!

I reached for her, ready to pop her head again myself, but Bergman was too fast. He dumped the sword on the table and swiped her off of it.

“I’ll fix her, I promise!” he said, his voice high enough to qualify as a squeal.

“Don’t you dare!” Cole was laughing so hard he’d dropped the chair. Even Raoul was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

“Perhaps if you could encourage her to play a form of music we could all bear?” Vayl suggested.

Something in his voice caused me to spin around. Yup, no mistaking that glitter in his eyes.

“I am not amused,” I growled.

He leaned in so only I could hear. “That is only because you did not get to see the end of the show. I promise you, it will be worth the wait.”

Eeep! I forgot my embarrassment in the sudden rush of anticipation.

“Okay, Bergman,” I said. “Astral’s off the hook if you can get something reasonable to come out of her mouth within the next three minutes. If not, I’m stuffing her in an Express Pak and Fed-Exing her to Zimbabwe.”

Bergman nodded gratefully. Slinging the shield he carried over his shoulder, he pulled a set of miniature tools out of his shirt pocket and yanked his chair as close to the table as his scarecrow frame would allow. I sighed.

On the positive side, Cassandra was relatively safe, hiding deep beneath the Space Complex’s guest quarters. Only, knowing her, she wouldn’t be content just curling up in an abandoned storage cave.

Nope, she’d probably had half a dozen visions and acted on every one, making herself twice as many friends (and probably a few enemies) in the process.

On top of worrying about her, the whole job-satisfaction rating had plummeted as well. Because lately it seemed like all we did was clean up after, around, and before ourselves. In fact, my muscles had already begun to ache from the heavy lifting we’d done in anticipation of the next few minutes. Because preparing for a demon attack is like getting ready for a party without the happy thoughts. Or the sneaky snacking.

The most important part was preparing for the portal crossing. They’d know about the door, of course, all others did. Weird to think they’d always been there, that I must’ve walked past hundreds of them without even realizing. Because I’d only begun to see them after a powerful creature named Asha Vasta had boosted my Sensitivity by brushing my cheeks with his tears. I still didn’t know much about them though. It took Raoul to explain that the fence boards might buckle when the lima bean cans exploded.

An acceptable loss. But that didn’t mean the play sets on the other side had to be destroyed too. So we’d moved them out of blast range. The kids’ indoor toys had already survived flying bodies. We figured asking the outdoor stuff to withstand shrapnel was going too far.

Since we’d lucked into a seminatural setting with the line of trees that separated the property from the hills, we capitalized on it. After rubbing mud on the cans to take the shine off, we made piles of brush to disguise them on either side of the door. They looked natural, like a dumping site where the owners had thrown the sticks out of their yard so they could mow. Raoul took the majority of the cans into the plane where we meant to lure the demons and Bergman rigged an ingenious trigger system for both sets. The one on the outside went off at a code word. The one on the inside exploded when you stepped inside the door. So anyone who went in from our group would have to jump and roll.

Raoul picked Bergman and Cole for that job, since he said they had the juiciest souls.

(At this point Cole got Bergman to do a bump and grind with him while Cole sang, “We are juiceee!”) He stopped singing when Raoul threw them both a set of full-body armor. It was a lot like the kind I’d worn in my battle with the Magistrate. Clung like a leotard. Protected like Kevlar. It would keep everything but their faces and hands safe from flying debris. It also made them look like blueberries.

“Jaz needs some!” Cole had protested.

“I only have two,” Raoul said. “Besides, Vayl has them covered.” He turned and raised his eyebrows at my boss. Was that a twinkle in his eye when he said, “Right, Vayl?” It must’ve been, because Vayl stirred uncomfortably before he replied, “Our protection is in place.” I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but the don’t-go-there sign was flashing on his forehead, and I was still having too much fun razzing Cole and Bergman about their blueman suits.