The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

That left me with Carlos. "Be careful, Dave!" Judy yelled at my back. It was good advice. It would have been even better had I been in a position to take it.

Carlos was a little wiry guy, and shifty as a jackrabbit. But every one of my strides ate up twice as much ground as his.

He looked over his shoulder, saw I was gaining, and didn't watch where his feet were going. He fell splat on his face. I jumped on him.

His hand darted for one of the pockets in his jeans. I didn't know what he had in there: maybe something as simple as a knife, maybe a talisman like the ones at Loki, except with a demon ordered to attack whoever was bothering him.

Whatever he had, I didn't care to find out the hard way, either. I grabbed his wrist and hung on for dear life.

"Don't be stupid," I panted. "You won't get away, and you will get yourself in more trouble."

"Chinga tu niadre," he said: no doubt sincere, but less than germane. Then he tried to knee me in a place which would have interfered with my carrying out his instructions.

I managed to twist away so I took it in the side of the hip.

It still hurt, but not the way it would have. As if from very far away, I heard people shouting back and forth, the way they do when they have no idea what's going on and just get more confused trying to find out Carlos took another shot at refaceting my family jewels.

Then, from right above us, somebody yelled, "Freeze, asshole!" Somewhere in his past, Carlos must have painfully found out what happened when you disobeyed that particular command. He went limp.

Very cautiously, I looked back over my shoulder. There was (I think) Luke with his club upraised to do some serious facial rearrangement on anybody who felt like arguing with him. "He's all yours," I croaked, and got to my feet.

I hadn't noticed till then that I'd torn my pants, ripped a chunk of hide off one knee, and scraped an elbow, too - not quite as bad. Things started to hurt, all at the same time. I felt shaky, the way you do in the first few seconds after a traffic accident Pete had hold of Jose. Luke was frisking Carlos: turned out he'd had a blade in his pocket, maybe two inches long.

Not exactly a terror weapon, but not something I'd have wanted sliding along - or maybe between - my ribs.

Judy ran up. "Are you all right Dave?"

"Yeah, I think so," I said, taking stock one piece at a time. I hadn't been in a fight since I was in high school; I'd forgotten the way you could taste fear and fury in your mouth, the way even your sweat suddenly smelled different.

I'd sort of hoped she'd throw her arms around me and exclaim, "Oh, you wonderful man!" Something like that, anyhow. As I've remarked, however, Judy is a very practical person. She said, "You're lucky you weren't badly hurt, you know that?" So much for large dumb masculine hopes.

A little man with a big mustache burst out of the office Luke had been heading for when the fun and games started.

By then Luke had Carlos handcuffed. He pointed to me and said, "Here, losef, fix this guy up, would you? Unless I miss my guess, he's been working harder than he's used to at the EPA." 

losef looked at my elbow, my knee, and my pants. "You're right," he told Luke. His accent - seems everybody has an accent in Angels City these days - was one I couldn't place.

He reached up, patted me on the shoulder. "You come with me, my friend. We fix you up."

I came with him. He fixed me up, all right. He sat me down in the office (an amazing collection of pictures of girls and succubi filled one wall; I was glad Judy hadn't come along, even if she wouldn't have done anything more than sniff), bustled out, and returned a couple of minutes later with a fellow who toted a black bag.

The doctor - his name was Mkhinvari - had the same odd accent as losef. He looked at my elbow, said, "Roll up your pants," looked at my knee. "Is not too bad," he said, which was about what I thought.

He cleaned the scrapes (though, being a doctor, he called them abrasions) with spirits, which hurt worse than getting them had. Then he touched each one with a bloodstone to make it stop oozing, slapped on a couple of bandages, and went his way. losef said, "Now we fix trousers. You wait here." I dutifully waited there. This time he came back with a gray-haired woman. "This is Carlotta. She's best in the business."