“She’s waiting for you,” Maggie said.  I almost jumped at her voice, like I expected her to be silent.  She used her unentwined hand to point, and then, as if noticing she still had her ward up, she collapsed it, wrapping the thread around her fingers with a practiced lack of concentration.  “You still say it isn’t a portal?”

I nodded, and glanced at Matana.  The only portal was the one her parasite pushed open and then allowed to close.  Is it still a parasite if you agree to it, or does that move it to symbiote?  No, it was using her, even if she got something back from it.  I doubt that they were mutually reliant on each other, but then again, I tried to make it a rule to avoid things with fangs. 

“You have to be the hero, don’t you?” Mags said softly.  Soft enough that I didn’t actually know if she said it aloud, or if it was some kind of magic she was working, but I heard it nevertheless.  It wasn’t free of the kind of judgments that had made the last few months of our relationship so stressful, but it did seem to release some kind of tension in that it had just a tint of humour to it, a kind of wry, “I told myself,” into the fray.

“No time like the present,” I said, and Ed frowned.  “Well, in as much as now is always the present I’m experiencing.  Or, um, something pithy and chronomatic.”

“That’s not a word,” Ed said.

“It’s like automatic, but it is played through by time,” I suggested.

“Neat concept, but still not buying it.  Look, is there… is there anything I can do to help?  I’m kind of stuck with this not believing overwhelmed feeling and it’s not really going away, but if you need someone to jump in and spray insecticide I can find… I could be a hero.  I like the idea of being a hero, but my guts are kind of trying to do these flips towards the bottom of my spine and that makes it hard to move.”

I laughed.  “You don’t have to explain it to me, Ed.  You’re an exterminator, not a wizard.”

“Are there classes you can take?  Because really, it’s looking like I need to moonlight or something to stay up with you guys.”  He was grinning.

“You notice the girls didn’t offer to go with me.  They’re closer to wizards than I am,” I pointed out.  Maggie grinned, but Matana didn’t like it.

“I cannot go,” she said.

“This may be one of those things a man’s gotta do when a man’s gotta do it.”

“I was actually going to get busy calling for back-up,” Maggie suggested.  “Hey, Ed.  You want to take Matana and go get your truck?  If E brings anyone out, they might need medical attention or just want to get out of here.”

“You know, get kidnapped by some deviant beasts from another dimension and hey, let’s go grab a cup of coffee now that we’re out?” I teased her.

“Possible, possible,” she said. 

“You’re letting Matana drive my rental?”

“You’re stalling.”

I took a deep breath and nodded.  Actually, the truth was, I had a guilty conscience.  Somewhere in the depths of my brain I was convinced that this was my fault.  I had made this happen. 

Of course, a little voice in my head said some of it was Maggie’s fault too.  I had to listen to the voice (because you can’t just stick your fingers in your brain and tell it to shut up) but I didn’t have to agree with it or act on it.  That’s what being a grown-up was all about, right?

Rhetorical question, I hoped.

I checked my pockets.  My libido.  My pulse.  Well, actually, I didn’t need to check my pulse because it was beating the drums in my head pretty loudly already.  Ed and Matana were driving off, while Mags was busy getting into a meditative pose or something.  She was emitting a pale sort of light again, but I wasn’t about to nickname her “the Human Flashlight.”  I could just be seeing auras after all. 

I take head trauma very seriously, so no jokes there. 

I walked up to the door, reminding myself that at least this time I wasn’t worried about spraining an ankle.  Tripping over flesh locked in some kind of pre-orgasmic loop, yes, but that’s a hazard of the profession. I guess.  This wasn’t supposed to be a full-time job.

“I am going in,” I said to the creature. 

She rolled over onto her back and spread her legs. “About time,” she muttered.  “Strip.”

I couldn’t help but laugh aloud, a sharp bark of surprised laughter from the gut.  I stepped past her, carefully, towards the door.   If it was locked, this whole situation could turn ugly.  But it wouldn’t be.  I remember being with Doloise, entering the skin of the place.  I remember thinking of the interactions between the physical and the metaphysical.

The creature rolled onto her front and watched me, curiously. 

The door was unlocked.  Good, because I would have hated to have to break a window.  I mean, here I was, completely unarmed and walking right back into the spider’s parlour.  My brain told me to fly away.  Instead, I opened the door.

“Hullo the house!” I called.  It was light inside – every lamp in the place was on.  Shades and window coverings were pulled over so the outside couldn’t be seen, which was just as well if you ask me.  How did they get electricity in here?  I was tempted to check my signal, and actually made a move towards my jacket pocket when a roared, “Get him!” came from behind the stairs and I was swarmed.

Ask and you shall be answered.  Of course, now I had to act like I knew what I was doing.  Was this a “take me to your leader” moment, or was it a, “I need to know who I’m talking to?”   If it was a video game, they’d offer me the latter so that I could get into the cut-scene that elaborated the actual details of the plot.

I watched the creature undulate for a moment and realized my actual brain’s working was somewhat distracted.

“You know who I am,” I didn’t make it a question.  “Are you prepared to negotiate?”

“If that is what you wish to call it,” she said with that voice of hers.  Her hands rolled down her sides, ending in a brush against her groin, an obscene bridge of flesh brought down to a single entendre and making no doubts as to what she was offering.  I mean, this wasn’t even an, “If correctly viewed, anything is lewd,” scenario.  This was a version of the condemned man’s last sexual fantasy, the kind of opportunity that wasn’t likely to repeat.

Unable to summon a cold shower on command, I pinched myself. “Despite not being a duly designated representative of anything but my own superego, I order you and your people to release your hold on my date, and all other existing beings belonging to my home plane, and to cease any and all supernatural  activity whereupon you should return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension.”

“You borked up the quote,” Ed hissed.

I decided it was fair enough to guess that even as many times as I’d seen it, “Ghostbusters” was not used as a training video amongst the hoi polloi of those who travelled Beyond.

The creature laughed, a musical sound.  She had moved only slightly closer to us, and I saw that Maggie had constructed a primitive ward in front of herself.  She held red thread in her left hand, knotted thinly in some arcane tangle.  Golden light shimmered around her, and she changed ever so slightly, growing inches taller, and maybe a little less buxom as she focused on me.  I shifted my stance to try to prevent parts of me from doing the same.  Minus the light, thankfully.  If I ever unzipped to a spotlight, I’d… you know, I really don’t know what I’d do.  I didn’t think I’d really have to make a plan for that, especially if she got within reach.

“Stop that,” I said.  I backed up another step.

“You wished to negotiate,” she reminded me.

“We can do it from a distance,” I said.

“Oh, can we?” She giggled. “I believe you brag about your prowess.”

“I don’t,” Matana said, stepping forward.  Her eyes were shiny and black in the darkness, like reflecting pools with hints of gold.  It was a subtle change, but something in the way she moved had shifted.  I felt the stirring of something Opening, just the faintest trill of power.  Were there hints of fangs, a flash of teeth in the cool moonlight?

A wash of cold wind blew over me.  I thought it was idiosyncratic, but as it touched the skin of the creature, her golden light wavered.  She hissed something in a language I wanted to find beautiful, but was part an erotic gasp and moan, and a chattering of squirrel or rat.  Matana managed a response, or, rather, the thing inside Matana did.  It was like the language itself caused frost in the air between us.

I felt left out of the conversation.  I was about to complain when the creature took a step back and raised her right arm, and with a word that crashed like thunder, light blew out from the seam in the sky.  It was like a package of light unzipping itself, and a house just flopping out.

A house, covered by dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of copulating creatures, in all stages of writhing and denial of gravity.  The creatures were of all colours, shapes, sizes, the similarity all being in the gross exaggeration, almost hyperbole in some cases of their primary and secondary gender characteristics.  It was like any kind of mass of creature, it was uncomfortable, a roiling movement that your stomach wished to emulate.  There was nothing sexual about it, it was like bugs of some sort.  Lights were on inside the house, and the sounds of slapping and slipping were like an uncomfortable applause.

The negotiator took a few steps towards the porch, just drinking in the scene.

“She said you are welcome to fetch your date.” Matana said.  Her eyes were still dark, still glossy, but that change in her had receded.

“Just me?” I looked at Ed.  He had turned around, trying not to be sick.  Maggie was watching with her detached, professional look.  She shook her head.

“Just her,” Matana said.

“There are others within?” I asked.

“What, are you some kind of knight all of a sudden?  Save what you can, who you can.”

“It’s not right.  Where’s the Overseer?”

“We weren’t talking to it.”  Matana shrugged.

“It probably won’t reveal itself until you’re deep within its lair,”  Ed had backed up a little to join our conversation. “It’s how they get you to fight the boss by yourself.  How can you watch that?”

“It’s so much my brain just doesn’t focus on the individual details.  It’s a mass, a morass of…”

Ed made a rude rhyme that made me grin.

“Yeah, that.” I glanced at Magda.  “You have to admit, sex is pretty ridiculous in the first place.'”

“Bro, I thought I was willing to dress up like a clown if it got me somewhere good, but that… that’s not fun.”

“That’s why it isn’t human,” I said.

Matana nodded.  “E is correct.  Is that why you do what you do?” she asked me.

“It’s why I’m not going to be satisfied with just Sylvie.  That’s not human.”

“Of course, neither will be the boss,” Ed reminded me.

I didn’t know what kind of lips-touching-lips would seal the deal.  Did there have to be moisture for the water element, and the feeling of heat between us for fire, and the sharing of breath for air, and who knows what, maybe one of us ends up on the gravel to finish out the play of those classic elements? 

If so, the spell was going to be gravely disappointed.

We kissed, just a quick peck, and then kind of both stood there uncomfortably for a moment.  Magda let go of my arm.  It was very awkward.

“I don’t think that worked,” I said.

“Yeah, that was kind of… weird.”

“Awkward.  Weird would have been if we’d been doing it hanging from a rope made of llama hair and duct tape over a pit of juggling tuba players,” I said solemnly.

“Did you have that answer rehearsed or was that improvised?” she asked, a smile kind of twitching at her lips. 

“Sheer improvisation, baby.  I’m the master of the weird metaphor, and this time, yes, I meant the word weird.”  I kicked a pebble with the top of my shoe.  “So, what’s Plan B?”

“I’m up to Plan J, I think,” she said, and this time she giggled a bit, looking at her fingers. 

Matana and Ed came back from their conversation, both looking satisfied, or, at least as if they’d come up with a new idea from talking.

“It’s precisely not a Portal,” Ed said.  It was as if he wasn’t asking, but repeating what I had said for clarification, so I nodded.

“Precisely?” Matana asked.

“I don’t know how to measure it, if you’re looking for something like it being 3 centimeters or one point six precision dohickeys away from being a Portal, but look at what it is.  It’s not quite a bubble, but it’s just one slit in the fabric of reality from being one.  It’s carefully wrapped around the boarding house.  They’d probably see that other reality through their windows.  They’re probably freaked the heck out, if anyone else is in there.”

“That’s another question I had,” Ed said.  “I mean, no one came by when I was here, and now we’re back and there’s been very little traffic.”

“She didn’t live alone.  She had a few housemates, can’t recall their names off the top of my head, and then there was the manager and a couple of other people rented out the end area.  Big common room in the back, big shared kitchen…” I tried to remember the layout.

“It’s not important except in trying to guess at the planning of the fiends who did it,” Ed explained.  “Because there’s also no cars but ours in the lot, too.”

“Could have been the man from Mars,” I pointed out.

“I thought he only eats guitars now,” Maggie said, quietly.

“Maybe he fell off his diet,” I said, risking a glance at Matana.  The vampire returned it coolly.

“Seriously, though, we think it’s someone you know,” Ed said.

“Like some sort of enemy from my past?” I asked.  “I really think I’m kind of small potatoes.  In a hashbrown world.”  I grinned.

“What?” Ed and Maggie kind of looked at me.

“Nevermind.  It was something a friend said to me once.  I liked it.”  Guess it didn’t make much sense to them outside of…context.  Yeah.  “I just don’t think this is the Dragon’s style.”

“Well, you are the expert,” Ed said, with just a little skepticism in his voice.

“It is not,” Matana said.  She sounded certain. 

“Good,” I muttered.  “I don’t remember making anyone else mad at me.  Oh, maybe some wizards, but they paid me off, so I don’t think they’re holding too much of a grudge.  And the guy who popped up in my car on my way here said this was witchy-stuff, so it’s not likely the King of Small Things or whoever he is.”

Ed held up a hand, while Maggie gave me a puzzled look.  Matana looked amused.

“What?” he repeated.

“Um, life has been a bit more surreal than usual,” I said.

“E, bro, if I didn’t know you’ve done some weird stuff,” (and he didn’t use the word, “stuff,”) “I’d say you had been sniffing glue or something.  Do you have underwear gnomes whispering things in your ear at night?”

I laughed.  I could have been affronted, but it did sound pretty ridiculous. 

Maggie shrugged.  “Fighting Dragons and consorting with wizards is pretty fairy tale.  I had independent confirmation, though, so I’m convinced on most of the main details.”

Ed turned to Matana.  “And you’re a vampire.  OK.  Forgive my Winston Zeddemore moment.”

“You’re way too white for the role,” I pointed out.

“See, now, that’s just like you’re the man keeping me down.”  He frowned.  “Anyone else in your weird set of acquaintances?  Something that was upset you closed the door on it?  Itinerant demonic salesman?  Teenage beyonder out past curfew?  Some Romeo who took it badly when you shut down the Capulet party?”

“I think it was Mercutio who got in trouble for that one,” I pointed out.  “But anyway, not that I know… of…”  I frowned.  “I thought my scar was supposed to tingle,” I said, suddenly, breaking off and walking towards where the house ought to be.

“Um, Mister Potter, could you explain for those of us who got mad in book six?”  Ed asked, catching up.  Maggie and Matana weren’t even a step behind.

“The Shadow King.  He could do this.  This is totally his style.”

Matana frowned.  “The one whose mark you bear?”

“Just like a big ol’ chip on my shoulder,” I growled. 

“What did you do to him?” Maggie asked.

“Asked him nicely to leave.   Just like I’m going to do now,” I said.  I shouted, cupping my hands like a megaphone towards the house.  “Hey there, the demon realm!”

I didn’t really expect an answer, but I got one.  It spooked me enough that I took a step back.  OK, a big jump, but so did my companions.

The world warped, and then a golden image appeared.  It was a beautiful woman wrapped in golden light, as if seen through cellophane.  She was completely starkers, and fairly transparent, as if she had been drawn in charcoals that emitted light instead of, well, charcoal.

“Hello, doctor,” she said in a voice that was, if not pure sex, definitely safe sex.  You know, because of all the wrapping around her.

“I thought the line was, `Helloooo, Nurse,'” Ed complained.

“Explain yourself, I mean, give me hope, man. What do you mean?” I asked Ed. Because, you know, someone had to, and all the girls did was point what were probably meaningful expressions his way.

You know, for all the stereotypes of girls talking a lot, they do a lot of communicating in body language that changes those words. A tilt of the hips, a tilt of the head, a tilt in a pinball game…no wait, one of those things aren’t like the others. I know which one!

“I’m not saying you’re not an open book with, heck, pages falling out of it and certain expressions of yours so big and obvious they might as well be painted in flaming letters forty meters high. In case you were wondering,” Ed joked. “Sylvia knows you. And agreed to go out on a date, anyway. She was surprised, you said. What if that was real? What if it’s more a matter of her allies taking her on, so to speak, and not if I understand her allies in the nudge-nudge-wink-wink, and all that way.”

Maggie nodded slowly. “They are not known for their planning capabilities. They’re known for their impulsive acts of hedonism. To delay the pleasure seems unrealistic in some way, I guess.”

Matana had a strange distracted look when I glanced at her to see if she had an opinion on the subject. I called it distracted, but it occurred to me that maybe that’s the blank, inhuman look vampires get in the books, when they’re communing with their inner Beast or somesuch. (I know, I told Doloise not to call her a Beast, but that was out loud. You can call people names on the inside, right?)

(On second thought, no, you can’t, because if I’m an open book then I can’t keep that kind of thing secret. So it’s better to change my way of thinking than to try to put on a mask. Or live up to it and just call her what my prejudices name her. I’m sure there are people who don’t filter their thoughts and just open their mouth. Glad I’m not one of them.)

(Ahem.)

Maggie continued. “On the other hand, I don’t know much about their… homeworld. Darn it, E! You’re contagious.”

“I didn’t sneeze,” I said, coming back to the conversation.

“No, I should have said something like, ‘home plane’ or ‘originating dimension’ or somesuch. ‘Homeworld’ is too much like something you’d say.”

“I’m a good influence on you.” I grinned.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. I saw her look at Matana as if for some support from the Weirdness Which Is Me. She frowned.

“I think she’s talking on the inside or somesuch,” I said, in a false-conspiratorial tone.  I made the gesture with my hand that indicates “woo”-iness.  Or some such phraseology.  Of course, I was talking to a witch about a vampire, so I may not have been in the right place for my gesture to be read.  I tended to think of myself as a skeptic, but I knew a lot of it was that kind of situation where it was okay to believe in what I felt was “right and good” and to mock those people who were so “obviously” deluded.

“That is not entirely false,” Matana said. “I do not separate myself that precisely from my… inner … demons, as you might describe them.” She gave me a wry, but still amused, smile. “I was searching Our memories,” she said, delicately emphasizing the Our with an acquiescing gesture towards me. “It seems to me that there are controlling interests who may be more subtle than the -cubi more commonly experienced.”

“Hey, like Overseers,” Ed said, enthusiastically. “Maybe there’s a kind of bootcamp where leather-coated Mistresses send the succubi who are going to go out into the world through special breathing training and…” he paused and looked at us. “And yeah… um, that’s not exactly a fantasy, more kind of thinking about Dungeon Keeper. It was an old computer game,” he explained.

“Overseers,” Maggie repeated. “Something like that, perhaps. Lilim?” she asked Matana, as if it were a name, but not, I guess, a True Name kind of thing.

“The answer is hazy,” Matana replied.

“Try again,” I suggested, keeping up with her Magic 8 Ball language.

“What we saw was not a pleasurable place, although it was meticulously designed to suggest it, minus the agony,” Matana nodded her chin towards Ed as if in thanks for the word.

“So what if the -cubi are actually reaching out to help, and Sylvie’s been kidnapped to make a point?” I asked.

Maggie nodded, a bit more vigorously.

Ed scratched his chin. “I like that a lot better than your earlier thought.”

“Can you open the seam, E?” Mags asked.

I thought about it. “It’s not a portal.”  I shook my head.  “It’s precisely not a portal.”

“Could we split it somehow and make it a portal?” Maggie asked.  “You’ve been doing this for a while,” she pointed out.  “Have you figured out  how your pasting the edges together works, anyway?

“I use the mint stuff.  Tastes even better than wall candy,” I sighed.  I took a step away, trying to feel the edge of the wrapper somehow, as if I tried hard enough I could sense it in the dark.

“Wall candy?” Matana asked.

“He’s referring to lead in paint,” Ed explained.

“It is not a Willy Wonka reference?” Magda asked.

“You know, come to think about it…” Ed shrugged.

Matana smiled.  “I love that movie.”

“Not the remake, I hope,” Ed sounded concerned.

I moved a little farther to try to get myself out of the conversation.  I tried calling Sylvia again, just, you know, in case it helped being closer or something.  It went straight to voicemail.   “Sylvie here.  Or not here, rather, because if I were here, I’d be answering the phone and not making you leave a message.  Do your thing!”

I turned back to Magda.  “What was your scry exactly?”  Ed and Matana were comparing originals to remakes.  I only like the remake of one thing over the original, maybe two, so I was good to be excluded.

“Male and female principles.  The tower in the lover’s shadow.  That sort of ambiguous thing.  You were the closest thing to male for the time being that I could easily find,” she said with a sarcastic tone in her voice.  Then a moment later, softer, ” I could always find you, E.”  She sighed.

“Even after all the times you told me to get lost,” I grinned.  “Hey.  You want me to give you a hard time, you’ll have to wait in line.  I’m picking up cute college coeds or something.”

“Rohana isn’t your normal type.”

“She’s quick.  I like that.”  I shrugged.  “I didn’t expect to jump into dating like this.  I was kind of ambushed, really.”

Maggie grinned.  “You are kind of clueless when it comes to people flirting with you.  Your Doloise, for example, at that terrible dinner.  Movie sucked, too.”

“She had her…own issues,” I decided.  I wasn’t going to talk about her.  “Anyway, what were you planning?”

“Ed looks pretty happy with Matana.”  She changed the subject.

“Yeah, they’re cute.  A lioness and her zebra dinner.  You’re changing the subject.”

“Kiss me.”

“What?” A month ago I would have jumped at the chance.  Now it was like if she asked me to jump off a bridge.

“For science.  Or magic, at least.”

I hesitated.

“Would you rather kiss the vampire?”

“Uh, no.  I just… this isn’t conducive to passion or anything.”

“I don’t need passion.  I just need the underlying connection of male and female, and we still have that.”  She grabbed my hand and pulled me to her.

I think I kind of hated myself in that I didn’t really resist.