“She’s waiting for you,” Maggie said.\u00a0 I almost jumped at her voice, like I expected her to be silent.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 “You still say it isn’t a portal?”<\/p>\n
I nodded, and glanced at Matana.\u00a0 The only portal was the one her parasite pushed open and then allowed to close.\u00a0 Is it still a parasite if you agree to it, or does that move it to symbiote?\u00a0 No, it was using her, even if she got something back from it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You have to be the hero, don’t you?” Mags said softly.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
“No time like the present,” I said, and Ed frowned.\u00a0 “Well, in as much as now is always the present I’m experiencing.\u00a0 Or, um, something pithy and chronomatic.”<\/p>\n
“That’s not a word,” Ed said.<\/p>\n
“It’s like automatic, but it is played through by time,” I suggested.<\/p>\n
“Neat concept, but still not buying it.\u00a0 Look, is there… is there anything I can do to help?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.”<\/p>\n
I laughed.\u00a0 “You don’t have to explain it to me, Ed.\u00a0 You’re an exterminator, not a wizard.”<\/p>\n
“Are there classes you can take?\u00a0 Because really, it’s looking like I need to moonlight or something to stay up with you guys.”\u00a0 He was grinning.<\/p>\n
“You notice the girls didn’t offer to go with me.\u00a0 They’re closer to wizards than I am,” I pointed out.\u00a0 Maggie grinned, but Matana didn’t like it.<\/p>\n
“I cannot go,” she said.<\/p>\n
“This may be one of those things a man’s gotta do when a man’s gotta do it.”<\/p>\n
“I was actually going to get busy calling for back-up,” Maggie suggested.\u00a0 “Hey, Ed.\u00a0 You want to take Matana and go get your truck?\u00a0 If E brings anyone out, they might need medical attention or just want to get out of here.”<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“Possible, possible,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You’re letting Matana drive my rental?”<\/p>\n
“You’re stalling.”<\/p>\n
I took a deep breath and nodded.\u00a0 Actually, the truth was, I had a guilty conscience.\u00a0 Somewhere in the depths of my brain I was convinced that this was my fault.\u00a0 I had made this happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of course, a little voice in my head said some of it was Maggie’s fault too.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That’s what being a grown-up was all about, right?<\/p>\n
Rhetorical question, I hoped.<\/p>\n
I checked my pockets.\u00a0 My libido.\u00a0 My pulse.\u00a0 Well, actually, I didn’t need to check my pulse because it was beating the drums in my head pretty loudly already.\u00a0 Ed and Matana were driving off, while Mags was busy getting into a meditative pose or something.\u00a0 She was emitting a pale sort of light again, but I wasn’t about to nickname her “the Human Flashlight.”\u00a0 I could just be seeing auras after all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I take head trauma very seriously, so no jokes there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I walked up to the door, reminding myself that at least this time I wasn’t worried about spraining an ankle.\u00a0 Tripping over flesh locked in some kind of pre-orgasmic loop, yes, but that’s a hazard of the profession. I guess.\u00a0 This wasn’t supposed to be a full-time job.<\/p>\n
“I am going in,” I said to the creature.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She rolled over onto her back and spread her legs. “About time,” she muttered.\u00a0 “Strip.”<\/p>\n
I couldn’t help but laugh aloud, a sharp bark of surprised laughter from the gut.\u00a0 I stepped past her, carefully, towards the door.\u00a0\u00a0 If it was locked, this whole situation could turn ugly.\u00a0 But it wouldn’t be.\u00a0 I remember being with Doloise, entering the skin of the place.\u00a0 I remember thinking of the interactions between the physical and the metaphysical.<\/p>\n
The creature rolled onto her front and watched me, curiously.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The door was unlocked.\u00a0 Good, because I would have hated to have to break a window.\u00a0 I mean, here I was, completely unarmed and walking right back into the spider’s parlour.\u00a0 My brain told me to fly away.\u00a0 Instead, I opened the door.<\/p>\n
“Hullo the house!” I called.\u00a0 It was light inside – every lamp in the place was on.\u00a0 Shades and window coverings were pulled over so the outside couldn’t be seen, which was just as well if you ask me.\u00a0 How did they get electricity in here?\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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