“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.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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?)<\/p>\n
(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.)<\/p>\n
(Ahem.)<\/p>\n
Maggie continued. “On the other hand, I don’t know much about their… homeworld. Darn it, E! You’re contagious.”<\/p>\n
“I didn’t sneeze,” I said, coming back to the conversation.<\/p>\n
“No, I should have said something like, ‘home plane’ or ‘originating dimension’ or somesuch. ‘Homeworld’ is too much like something you’d say.”<\/p>\n
“I’m a good influence on you.” I grinned.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“I think she’s talking on the inside or somesuch,” I said, in a false-conspiratorial tone. \u00a0I made the gesture with my hand that indicates “woo”-iness. \u00a0Or some such phraseology. \u00a0Of 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. \u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“The answer is hazy,” Matana replied.<\/p>\n
“Try again,” I suggested, keeping up with her Magic 8 Ball language.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“So what if the -cubi are actually reaching out to help, and Sylvie’s been kidnapped to make a point?” I asked.<\/p>\n
Maggie nodded, a bit more vigorously.<\/p>\n
Ed scratched his chin. “I like that a lot better than your earlier thought.”<\/p>\n
“Can you open the seam, E?” Mags asked.<\/p>\n
I thought about it. “It’s not a portal.” \u00a0I shook my head. \u00a0“It’s precisely not a portal.”<\/p>\n
“Could we split it somehow and make it a portal?” Maggie asked. \u00a0“You’ve been doing this for a while,” she pointed out. \u00a0“Have you figured out \u00a0how your pasting the edges together works, anyway?<\/p>\n
“I use the mint stuff. \u00a0Tastes even better than wall candy,” I sighed. \u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n
“Wall candy?” Matana asked.<\/p>\n
“He’s referring to lead in paint,” Ed explained.<\/p>\n
“It is not a Willy Wonka reference?” Magda asked.<\/p>\n
“You know, come to think about it…” Ed shrugged.<\/p>\n
Matana smiled. \u00a0“I love that movie.”<\/p>\n
“Not the remake, I hope,” Ed sounded concerned.<\/p>\n
I moved a little farther to try to get myself out of the conversation. \u00a0I tried calling Sylvia again, just, you know, in case it helped being closer or something. \u00a0It went straight to voicemail. \u00a0 “Sylvie here. \u00a0Or not here, rather, because if I were here, I’d be answering the phone and not making you leave a message. \u00a0Do your thing!”<\/p>\n
I turned back to Magda. \u00a0“What was your scry exactly?” \u00a0Ed and Matana were comparing originals to remakes. \u00a0I only like the remake of one thing over the original, maybe two, so I was good to be excluded.<\/p>\n
“Male and female principles. \u00a0The tower in the lover’s shadow. \u00a0That sort of ambiguous thing. \u00a0You were the closest thing to male for the time being that I could easily find,” she said with a sarcastic tone in her voice. \u00a0Then a moment later, softer, ” I could always find you, E.” \u00a0She sighed.<\/p>\n
“Even after all the times you told me to get lost,” I grinned. \u00a0“Hey. \u00a0You want me to give you a hard time, you’ll have to wait in line. \u00a0I’m picking up cute college coeds or something.”<\/p>\n
“Rohana isn’t your normal type.”<\/p>\n
“She’s quick. \u00a0I like that.” \u00a0I shrugged. \u00a0“I didn’t expect to jump into dating like this. \u00a0I was kind of ambushed, really.”<\/p>\n
Maggie grinned. \u00a0“You are kind of clueless when it comes to people flirting with you. \u00a0Your Doloise, for example, at that terrible dinner. \u00a0Movie sucked, too.”<\/p>\n
“She had her…own issues,” I decided. \u00a0I wasn’t going to talk about her. \u00a0“Anyway, what were you planning?”<\/p>\n
“Ed looks pretty happy with Matana.” \u00a0She changed the subject.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, they’re cute. \u00a0A lioness and her zebra dinner. \u00a0You’re changing the subject.”<\/p>\n
“Kiss me.”<\/p>\n
“What?” A month ago I would have jumped at the chance. \u00a0Now it was like if she asked me to jump off a bridge.<\/p>\n
“For science. \u00a0Or magic, at least.”<\/p>\n
I hesitated.<\/p>\n
“Would you rather kiss the vampire?”<\/p>\n
“Uh, no. \u00a0I just… this isn’t conducive to passion or anything.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t need passion. \u00a0I just need the underlying connection of male and female, and we still have that.” \u00a0She grabbed my hand and pulled me to her.<\/p>\n
I think I kind of hated myself in that I didn’t really resist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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