Or maybe he was thinking he should slap his talking handcuffs on the Sapphire Witch and take her in.
If it came up in conversation, Hilario would strongly recommend he not make the attempt.
The Sapphire Witch touched down on the debris strewn street. The wide eyed crowd kept a respectful distance.
And those hecking sirens kept getting louder.
The screaming skinny man thrashed and kicked and continued to howl out a cry of primal terror. Now that he was close, Hilario could see the man’s loose fitting pajama bottoms were decorated with pink bunnies holding bright yellow flowers in their cute little front paws.
“Detective Marco could have gone up and got him,” Hilario said.
The Sapphire Witch sent the man, who was whimpering now, flying through the (fortunately open) side door of the van.
Which instantly set him to howling in terror again.
Probably because he saw the ghost of Larry.
“Get into your vehicle, clown,” The Sapphire Witch said.
“There wasn’t any need to tear the front of the building off,” Hilario said, “There really wasn’t.”
The Sapphire Witch’s black boots crunched across the crumbled brick strewn over the street. The passenger side door flew open. She slipped inside.
“My patience wanes, clown,” she said.
The door slammed shut. The van’s engine started up.
“Oh, pooper doodles,” Hilario said.
He waddled around the front, his floppy clown shoes flapping against the pavement. Clambered into the driver’s seat. He half turned to the back. His eyes met Detective Marco’s, who had just jumped through the open side door. Still not giving up yet.
The poor man should have run while he had the chance.
“Is it always like this?” Marco asked.
Hilario sighed. “Unfortunately.”
“Drive, clown,” the Sapphire Witch said.
Red and blue lights flashed at the far end of the street. The wail of sirens echoed down the brick canyon.
Half under his breath, Hilario said: “I thought we weren’t supposed to use magic in front of the normals.”
The Sapphire Witch turned her brass rimmed goggles to him. The soft blue glow in them brightened for a moment. Then dimmed back to normal.
“There was a gas main explosion,” she said, “As far as they will remember.”
He looked out the windshield. People stood around. Blinking. Looking uncertain.
“Sure are a lot of gas main explosions around here,” he said.
He put the van in drive and got out of there fast. Though fast in the van was more like a stately acceleration accompanied by rattling, creaking and coughing.
He glanced at the rearview mirror. Weak light from passing streetlamp revealed his passengers. Detective Marco had resumed his glum station on the floor. Rachel was curled up in a ball at the far end of the van. Almost hidden by the compact makeup station. The newest passenger lay on the floor between the makeup station and the wall. He whimpered and twitched, seemingly half unconscious.
Larry sat near Marco, emitting a soft blue glow. Some ghosts reflected in mirrors. Some didn’t. Larry seemed to be the reflecting kind. Hilario recalled ghosts reflected in mirrors of places they were bonded to in some way.
Yippee.
“Hey-a, Miss Sapphire,” Larry said from the back, “Why-a Rod-a? He-a top-a notch-a driver-a. We need-a go somewhere-a fast-a?”
The Sapphire Witch didn’t look back at him. She kept her goggled face forward. Shadows from the streetlights played over her impassive face.
“He knows who murdered you, Larry,” she said.
17
In the unseen world it was often difficult to tell who was on whom’s side. The most logical answer, most of the time, was that each and every entity was on their on own side and to heck with everyone else.
But, of necessity, alliances were formed to do battle with certain entities who had teamed up with other entities for the express purpose of accumulating power.
Such alliances seldom lasted long. If a Lord or Duke or King didn’t have enough dragon scales to pay his soldiers–or at least a steady supply of demon piss to keep them distracted–then said royalty was soon deposed.
And often eaten by his successor.
That was just the way the bad places of the unseen world worked.
And had worked for as long as Hilario could remember.
Part of the problem was that death was seldom the final stop for an entity in the unseen world.
Death was often just a penalty. One that sent the entity back to another layer of the unseen world. Usually, by design, a much worse place than where they had just been cleaved from.
Such a system was ripe for nursing grudges of truly epic depth.
Given time and resources, an entity could accumulate enough power to crawl its way from the muck. Back into the murky half light that was the unseen world.
And wreak terrible revenge upon whomever sent them there.
Assuming that entity hadn’t already been overthrown and sent packing to the basement of the unseen world.
But the unseen world wasn’t complete anarchy.
Parts of it were civilized and stable. More or less.
The realms of the elven folk were pretty nice. At least that’s what Hilario had been told. No one he knew had ever been there. But everyone said it must be nice.
The layers of the unseen world closest to the normal world were generally stable and occupied by the elite of the unseen world. Wizards. Gem Witches. Normal witches. Warlocks. Paladins and Keer Knights.
And the less talented and much less beautiful beings that served them.
From what Hilario could gather, these elite beings either served as a bulwark to protect the normal world from the worst elements of the unseen world. Or they had the normal
