The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Carlotta nodded to me, but she was more interested in my pants. She touched the two edges of the hole together, murmured under her breath. Yes, I know you'll say any tailor's shop has somebody who specializes in repairing rips. It's easy to apply the law of similarity because the torn material is in essence like the untom doth around it, and to use the law of contagion to spread that cloth over the area with which it was formerly in contact But on most repairs you'll be able to see, if you look closely, the seam between the real cloth and the whole dodi from which the fix was made. Not with Carlotta's work, though. As far as I could tell, the pants might never have been torn. I even got the crease back.

That left a fair-sized bloodstain. Carlotta turned to losef and said, "Shut the door, please." After he did, she reached into her sewing bag and pulled out a little nightbox, of the sort that are made so carefully no light can get in. When she opened it, a small pallid fuzzy creature crawled out "Vampire hamster," he explained. They are drawn to doth and - well, you will see."

The vampster didn't like even the tiny bit of day sliding under the bottom of the door; it made a snuffly noise of complaint Before Carlotta could tell him to, losef went over and shoved a dirow rug into the crack. The vampster relaxed. Carefully - any undead, even a rodent, needs to be handled with respect - Carlotta picked it up by the scruff of the neck and set it on my pants leg.

I sat very still; I didn't want the creature going after blood I hadn't already spilled. But itwas well trained. It sniffed around till it found the stain on my trousers, then stuck out a pale, pale tongue and began to lap the blood right out of the dodi. When it was finished, not a trace of the stain was left… and the vampire hamster's tongue had turned noticeably pinker as my blood began to enter its circulation.

When Carlotta plucked it off me, it wiggled and hissed; it was feeling frisky now. She plopped it back into the nightbox, closed the lid, and touched a crucifix to the latch so the vampster couldn't get out by itself.

My pants didn't even feel damp. I guess vampire hamsters don't have spit And the stain was all gone. "Thanks very much," I said to Carlotta. That's beautiful work" "Tor a friend of losefs, it's a pleasure. Of course"-she waved at the wall of succubi and giris-"losef has lots of friends."

I'd have shriveled up and died (or at least looked for a nightbox to hide in) after a crack like that, but losef must have been shriven against embarrassment. "Oh, if only they were," he said, rumbling laughter. "I would the young, but I would the happy." He turned to me. "You are all right?"

"I am all right," I answered. Thanks for taking care of me."

I went back outside, blinking against the daylight as if I were undead myself. The black-and-white constabulary carpet had just flown in. One of the constables the looked just like Pete and Luke, except he was blond) took my statement.

"You'll hear from us, Inspector Fisher," he promised.

"Good enough." I looked over to where his partner was transferring the vile potion from Jose and Carlos' rug to the squad carpet "Handle that stuff with extreme respect. You don't want it spilling."

"So we've been warned." He nodded back toward Luke and Pete, then touched the brim of his cap. "God give you good day."

He went back to the carpet to keep an eye on Carlos and Jose. Judy walked over to me. She inspected the bandage on my elbow, then the knee of my trousers. She felt the material. I winced, anticipating she'd poke the raw meat under there, but she didn't. "That's a wonderful patch job," she said.

"losef has connections," I said. "I just wish people were as easy to repair as clothes." The elbow and knee were throbbing again.

Luke ambled up and said, "Now that we've dropped on the guys you were looking for, shall we let the rest of the dealers in without running 'em past the spellchecker?" He pointed outside the gates. Nobody had gone through since the dustup with Jose and Carlos started. Now they were lined up like carpets on St. James' Freeway on Friday night, and not moving much slower.

"Sure, go ahead," I told him. "Like you said, we caught the people we wanted." Glad cries came from the dealers when Luke started waving them through. I stuck my head into losefs office and asked if I could store the spellchecker there so Judy and I could do some shopping. When he said yes, I cut across the incoming stream of dealers and lugged the gadget back across. I wondered for a moment if it would react to the pictures of succubi, but it didn't. losef sure seemed to, though.

Judy said, "I'm glad we caught them. Now we can enjoy our own Sunday knowing they won't be spreading their poisons to anyone else."

That pair won't, anyhow," I agreed, but I wondered how much other contraband would get sold right here at this swap meet, and at all the others around Angels City. A lot, unless I missed my guess. I tried not to think about that.