I let it simmer and brew. \u00a0Were there any other common aspects of the incidents besides myself, and, well, what I do? (You know, the Portal thing.) \u00a0The Shadow King didn’t count – he was my fetch for now. \u00a0I had to expect him to follow up on the things I had interest in, but I hoped that he would be more personally involved in the Witch War rather than spending his myriad energies interfering with me. \u00a0Of course, there was a small part of me that shouted, “But they’re my witches!” \u00a0I didn’t listen to it. \u00a0That’s a whole can of worms for introspection for which I didn’t have the energy to turn the can opener. \u00a0(I have a lot of friends and family with electric can openers. \u00a0My house even came with one. \u00a0This always surprised me, but I did finally come to the consideration that as one got older the things I took for granted were not as simple.)<\/p>\n
The Gillikins were still interested in me. \u00a0They were a Court, no doubt, but not interested in Small things.<\/p>\n
The Small Court got my number (so to speak) from my friend Thomas. Thomas had no interaction as far as I knew with any of the other groups.<\/p>\n
The Red Poet Society had paid me off, so I took them off the list of interests, except that there was a Schroedinger’s Dragon at the other side of any Door I might open.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0-cubi just existed. \u00a0As far as I knew, except that they carefully protected themselves from me… and who set that up, I wondered? \u00a0I still thought there was something involved with the Messenger. \u00a0I didn’t trust my instincts, so much, but… She didn’t vamp me. \u00a0I mean, she made an effort, \u00a0but despite the discussion Matana’s other being had with it, there was a bit of a half-hearted nature to the attempt.<\/p>\n
Matana and Ed. \u00a0I shook my head. \u00a0I had to do a little thinking about that.<\/p>\n
Why do a man and a woman go out to something if there wasn’t any attraction? \u00a0Except you can have intellectual attraction, I guess. \u00a0I mean, I sounded just like a neanderthal, but I think my brain was searching for an angle that made sense.<\/p>\n
I had to admit, the vampire thing distracted me. \u00a0I couldn’t accept her as a person because she had made a choice not to be one. \u00a0It wasn’t like a physical disease she contracted unwillingly, but more like an addiction she chose to feed. \u00a0Truly, I didn’t know if she could get help. \u00a0She could get dead, sure, but once a vampire, well, the “cures” I knew of got pretty ugly.<\/p>\n
Matana as herself was an attractive woman. \u00a0Don’t think I didn’t have the urge to tell Ed six times in the conversation that I’d seen her stark naked. \u00a0It’s not something I was likely to forget. \u00a0I just wasn’t going to forget that she was the evil, evil, undead O!<\/p>\n
(Which didn’t work to replace “undead” with “victim of a parasitical other-dimensional creature,” because then scansion was broken and left crying and alone in the dark. \u00a0And poets might like it that way, but scansion doesn’t. \u00a0Scansion likes to be all sunshine and flowers. \u00a0I think. \u00a0I stopped writing bad teenage poetry the second my sister got into it.)<\/p>\n
Ah yes, my sister. \u00a0No connection, I hoped. \u00a0As far as I knew I really was the family mutant when it came to the supernatural. \u00a0Which isn’t to say they were complete nulls on the scales of Wot Bumps In De Night, but that their focus wasn’t strong enough or their will in a shape to get results.<\/p>\n
Like most of us. \u00a0Peredur’s nonsense aside, I didn’t even understand wizards. \u00a0Vasilisa was pretty amazing. \u00a0I’d love to pick her brain for hours and hours just to talk technique and theory, really. \u00a0That much I got from Artur.<\/p>\n
On the dead list, I hoped. \u00a0I wouldn’t have wanted him to be alive in all that fiery anger. \u00a0On the other hand, he would have been very tough to kill.<\/p>\n
Life and Death were not Small things.<\/p>\n
What did the Small Court want me to wish for? \u00a0That was really what was getting to me about the messengers. \u00a0Clarity. \u00a0I could wish for clear answers and solutions to my problems.<\/p>\n
Alas, those weren’t Small at all.<\/p>\n
What other forces were at play? \u00a0Troll Knights of the Small, the messengers of Christmas Present and Future, or at least Solstice Present and Future, to give a dumb Dickens allusion.<\/p>\n
Man, I didn’t know Ed was gay. \u00a0I mean, I still didn’t, somewhere in my head. \u00a0Easy for me to presume that he was just like me, I guess. \u00a0I still didn’t know if it was supposed to change anything between us. \u00a0I mean, on one hand, he’s still a good, good friend. \u00a0On the other, if I don’t acknowledge the difference, am I being a bigot? \u00a0I can never tell which side of the line is good for acknowledging I’m an idiot and yet not perpetuating further idiocy.<\/p>\n
I guess if he wanted me to treat him differently, he’d say something. \u00a0Something about how he wanted to be treated, I guess. \u00a0I mean, besides not offering to introduce him to interesting women (which, with the kind of girls I was running into, was probably a blessing anyway.) In the meantime, I’d just consider him Ed.<\/p>\n
I still had a dinner invitation from the Questor. \u00a0I wanted to do that, but I think my quest was pretty self-evident. \u00a0I needed to walk the veils at the eight corners of Monaco and see what Small thing was needed to put things to right before it became a Big problem. \u00a0After that I did need to ask. \u00a0I needed to ask the Questor what to do about the Dragon.<\/p>\n
Because then I could sleep again, and not worry that I would wake up there in the dark with her, or see Doloise again, or smell Ivan burning.<\/p>\n
And Rohana. \u00a0I needed to know what was going on with her. \u00a0Two wonderful nights, or days, or whatever this was, wasn’t a relationship, I guessed. \u00a0I didn’t want to push, anyway.<\/p>\n
And my insurance company was going to raise my rates. \u00a0I’d have to call the agency again and get another job soon. \u00a0Not to mention rent another car, if they’d do business with me again.<\/p>\n
Cops acting strangely…why did that get stuck into my head?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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