There was silence in the car for a while. It wasn’t a very long while, because, well, Maggie was driving. Matana smiled at Ed every couple of minutes, indicating clearly to me that I could check off “sadist” as a fairly descriptive attribute. It probably was part of the whole vampire package.

I didn’t know how they sold becoming a vampire to the host. Pamphlets? “Blood-sucking…yeah, let’s put that in the negative category. On the good side? No need for orthodontists. Or dentists. OK… well. Um. No more sunlight? OK. Sunlight causes skin cancer, anyway. I never ate at breakfast places anyway. Um… I do miss the cheap movies, but, really, immortality means I’ll have time to watch everything in my Tivo queue.” Or maybe it’s something like that, “Draw your interpretation of this sketch, and we’ll invite you to Vampire School.”

I meet more vampires at Walmart than I can stand, really. (No one gets a symbiote from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Unless that’s what those fuzzy bubble guys who do the scrubbing in the cartoons are. I always thought they were a type of alien. Mr. Clean, well, I’m not sure about him, but he does seem pretty suspicious, if you ask me. Ridiculously charismatic amongst a certain set, I’m sure.) You might get good teeth (they’re no longer exactly teeth if I understand it – the old ones rot out and you get these new crazy soul-sifting baleen things. On the other hand, I’m not a dentist.) but there’s no transformation of your fashion sense.

Maggie parked in a way that, surprisingly, didn’t have me biting my lip and worrying because I didn’t put the extra insurance on the vehicle. (I was already covered by my regular insurance and didn’t think to expect my ex-girlfriend to drive.) She got out and stretched for a moment, like she’d been caught in some sort of crouch all day. You know, like getting up out of your seat and straightening out.

No, wait, that was an invocation towards light. My bad. The light gathered around her in a sort of hazy aura that at first looked like dust motes, and then gained a little steam. If it hadn’t turned so dark outside you would have figured, oh, it’s the residual light from having the car door open, only then your brain would have to poke you a few times and say, “Wait, light doesn’t really work that way in this case.”

She moved out towards the Bad Thing and continued to gather glow. It might be a weird way to describe it, but it was at least accurate.

Matana melted out of the car (she really did move beautifully, and I don’t know if that was her or part of the package) and met up with Maggie on the right side. She didn’t illuminate, but she did kind of smoulder a little. The witches of smoke and glow. It had a poetic aspect to it. I got out to close Maggie’s door, while Ed got Matana’s. Hopefully they hadn’t left the doors open for a quick getaway.

“That’s… awful purty,” Ed ended up saying.

“It’s magic,” I agreed. I tried to sound more jaded than envious. I don’t want that kind of power – it’s like wearing spandex and a funny symbol – you’re always a target no matter who or what you serve.

Every once in a while, though, it’d be nice. Nice to make the world change the way I want it to, rather maybe than the way it just…does. I don’t believe the world’s out to get me. I’m the protagonist in my own life, not everyone else’s stories. If I was lucky I might make it to sidekick, or part of a group ensemble, or maybe even antagonist in someone else’s series. Not the focus of any story’s real intention, at least.

Of course, thinking like that gets you et by Dragons.

“What do they want us to do?”

“Standing there and gawking, while suited to your meager talents, is, alas, not conducive to our cause,” Magda said. “Stay quiet a moment while I look at what we have here.”

“It’s not a portal,” I said. I didn’t shout it at her, I just said it.

“Are you sure?” she asked, anyway. Her hearing was always better than mine.

“It’s what I do,” I snapped.

They focused the combination of light and mist into something kind of like a mirror, or maybe the term “looking glass” was far more appropriate. I had already seen the show, but I was vindicated somewhat from the harsh gasps the two of them gave at the sight.

Light and smoke both faded. “Explain,” Maggie said.

“The house is in a wrapper, kind of.”

“Like a present?” Ed asked.

“Yeah. It’s not an intrusion because it isn’t complete – the seam, so to speak, is there, it’s just so twisted in on itself that nothing can move through. Those in the house are probably seriously freaked out, but until they break the rules and let them in, they’re completely safe.” I looked towards where I judged the line to be. “It’s very clever, and it takes some serious power to develop, let alone maintain. Tell me about Sylvia, Mags. What is she?”

Matana drifted over, while Ed tried to make his brain follow the topology I suggested. He had his flashlight out again, and made some lines in the dirt while Maggie considered my question. “She’s human,” she finally said.

“As compared to what?” I asked. “I’m human, you’re human. Ask anyone off the street to do what you just did with the foxfire there and you’d be lucky to get more than a blank stare. Ed’s human. Heck, Matana was human.”

“Thank you for noticing,” the vampire said, her smile somewhere still in her expression, but mostly faded. Do faces experience screen burnout? Nevermind.

“Get to the point, E.”

“You just don’t like being wrong. I’m used to it. I am wrong most of the time, so it’s a comfortable place for me, the kind of place I can put my feet up on the table and belch if the situation warrants.”

“Um, E?” Ed asked.

“Yeah. The point. See, Sylvia didn’t just stumble upon the -cubi, Mags. She summoned them, didn’t she? Deliberately, which is why she maintained as much control as she did, drawing you out there.”

Maggie spat out a curse and looked away, but Matana nodded, slowly.

“She’s been into your head. And mine, too. Which means this is a trap.”

“And we’ve played into it?” Maggie asked, bitterly.

“Only kind of…” It came from Ed, and it was thoughtful, so I turned to listen.