“So,” I said, realizing that was preamble enough, “what’s up?” I asked, as I put on my seat belt.<\/p>\n
Nen climbed up next to me and frowned at the door. \u00a0He just gestured. \u00a0“Drive,” he said.<\/p>\n
I arched an eyebrow at him. \u00a0“Yes, sir, okay sir, whatever you say, sir,” I muttered. \u00a0“Jeeves does as sir says, sir,” I continued the ridiculous monologue for about twenty more seconds, or as long as it took me to take a safe left turn from the parking lot on to the busy street. \u00a0(I always drive safely, previous car issues aside.)<\/p>\n
The car was another rental, because I still hadn’t chosen a good replacement. I meant to get around to it, but I hated shopping for cars. Maybe it’s unmanly, but I just want something that gets me there. \u00a0I’d picked it up just before my trip to lunch with Eve, but it was due to be back at the end of the week. \u00a0I didn’t like the way my right knee kept hitting the console, so I wouldn’t be getting one of these, whatever it was.<\/p>\n
A flash in the mirror showed Rayya sitting in the back seat. \u00a0I don’t know how they do it, but I know their little disappearances have to be related to the other’s presence. \u00a0And not just as my bodyguards, or whatever, but I think it was something to do with them, specifically.<\/p>\n
“So?” I asked again into the silence.<\/p>\n
“You are not being followed,” Rayya said.<\/p>\n
“Good?” I mean, I was sure it was, but I gave the inflection the question that suggested maybe I was expecting something more than this particular answer.<\/p>\n
“Is it possible that your job was actually related closer to the one regarding the demon?” Nen asked, in one of those casual ways attorneys ready to put the smack down on a court case on television had.<\/p>\n
“If I say it sounds like outrageous coincidence, you’ll quote rule number 39, right?” It was an NCIS reference; we’d spent a little time binge-watching it because I had been making some point about magic being an accepted part of modern television. \u00a0Crime drama had a lot of it, and not just in getting DNA results.<\/p>\n
“Perhaps,” he said. \u00a0Because like all of his kind, he liked a little wiggle room. \u00a0It meant ‘Yes,’ and I knew it. \u00a0I probably shouldn’t just relegate it to their ‘kind’ like they were some homogeneous group, but I did mean the “word abusers” of myth or something. \u00a0Not that calling them “word abusers” was any less a violation of the language. \u00a0Of course, English was a notorious criminal at that, anyway.<\/p>\n
“What did I miss?” I asked. “This sounded like it was very recent, and our suspect, if you will, has been at large for a while.” I decided to treat it more like a role playing game.<\/p>\n
“What do vampires want?” Rayya asked from the back seat.<\/p>\n
“Food? No, that’s too easy. \u00a0Power. \u00a0That’s a classic.” \u00a0I tried to think it through. \u00a0Aurora has all these blinking left turn yellow arrows that I find a lot easier than their traffic circles. \u00a0I just don’t understand how you get out of them without going over some lines. \u00a0It doesn’t feel right. \u00a0“If I want to be basic, all life wants a chance to make more life, right? Which is a terrible biological constraint and we thinking beings should be above it. \u00a0Sometimes life just wants to have fun,” I muttered.<\/p>\n
“How do vampires make baby vampires?” Nen asked.<\/p>\n
“Ugh. Do they really? I thought vampires just make more of themselves by convincing others to take on the deal. \u00a0I mean, there’s the classic bite and suck, but that’s the disease metaphor. \u00a0Those are like vampire polyps, mystically connected to the original vampire, right? Unless they can prepare the host for another… you know this gets really gross the more I think of it, right?”<\/p>\n
“`Skeevy,’ I believe, was the term you used previously.” \u00a0Nen made it a statement.<\/p>\n
“So… Janet’s a demon?” I asked. “I don’t follow. \u00a0Wouldn’t I know? \u00a0Or was she becoming a host for the demon parasite or something?”<\/p>\n
“What if we suggested that the real difference between vampires and demons were that demons were less likely to take root, and instead spread their taint between multiple souls?” \u00a0Rayya asked.<\/p>\n
“I’d say that there were too many religious overtones in that sentence for it to make real sense to me,” I quipped. “But is that a real thing?”<\/p>\n
“Too many religious overtones or our suggestion?” Nen asked.<\/p>\n
“The latter, thanks.” I rolled my eyes. We pulled into the parking lot, and I could see Rayya slip out first, probably to give an ‘all clear’ to Nen. \u00a0Such was the life of a celebrity.<\/p>\n
Okay, I’m totally not a celebrity, but it was easier to think that than to think I was in any kind of trouble.<\/p>\n
“Janet is not a demon,” Nen said. \u00a0He walked with me to the door, and waited for me patiently to find my keys. (Why do I always tell myself right hand pocket and end up with them on the left? Human perversity, no doubt.)<\/p>\n
“Good to know. She was cute. Maybe a little young for me,” I considered. \u00a0“I mean, not terribly so, but she had a feeling of youth, which is supposed to be invigorating, but I don’t want to be on the skeevy side of things. \u00a0You don’t even understand what I’m talking about, do you?”<\/p>\n
“I know you talk a lot,” Rayya said, briskly, coming in through the door after us.<\/p>\n
“The concept of consent is a magical one, yes,” Nen said, “but not as definite as you’d like to believe. \u00a0You would likely find many of our interpretations skeevy.”<\/p>\n
“You like the word?” I grinned, turning on the lights from my chair. \u00a0Rayya locked the door behind us.<\/p>\n
“There’s a satisfaction to it, given that it seems a little less puissant than ‘squicky,’ and it seems to fill a part of that particular spectrum with better finesse.” Nen said.<\/p>\n
“The internet is a wonderful thing. \u00a0So what about Janet? If she’s not a demon, what is she?”<\/p>\n
“She is a … familiar,” Nen decided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The word of the day is ‘Skeevy.’ At least the origins of the word are easy to track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-10-opener"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}