The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Was it just a couple of hooligans out to have some sport with whoever drew the short straw? That's the sort of random violence that gives Angels City flyways a bad name, but this time I wished I could believe it. I couldn't, though.

Those two guys on that rug had been waiting for me in particular. I'd noticed them sitting a few feet off the ground in the parking lot while the church slowly flew by on Anglewood Boulevard. If they'd wanted to head up The Second, they'd had all the time they needed to do it. They'd just waited.

But why? Again, I didn't have much trouble coming up with an answer: it had to have something to do with the case of the toxic spell dump. I did my best to remember what the two punks had looked like. All I could come up with was swarthy and dark-haired. They might have been Persians or Aztedans. They might have been hired muscle, too: Israelites, Druzes, Indians from the Confederation or from India, even Hanese or Japanese. I hadn't got a real good look at then, and an awful lot of people in Angels City match up to the description swarthy and dark-haired.

I came to that dispirited conclusion about the time I set my carpet down in its parking space back at my block of flats.

Somebody was going downstairs from his carpet as I was coming up from mine. He gave me an odd look as we passed on the stairs, but I didn't think anything of it past wondering what was haunting him that afternoon.

Then I turned the knob to my own flat. Judy sat curled up on the couch in the front room, reading a book on the Gamda Bird I'd picked up a few days before and hadn't got around to putting on a shelf yet What started out as her smile of welcome turned into something else when her mouth sagged open in surprise. "Good God, David, what happened to you?"

A lot had happened to me, but I asked foolishly, "What do you mean, what happened?"

She sprang to her feet, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me to the bathroom mirror as if I wasn't to be trusted to do anything that required rational thought on my own. "Look at yourself!" she commanded I mentally apologized to the fellow who'd stared at me while I was coming up to my flat I looked like someone who'd been French-kissed by a vampire: streaks of blood ran from the comers of my mouth and had dripped down onto my shirt. Before I wore it again, I'd have to go visit Carlotta or somebody else with a vampster. All my clothes were disheveled, as if I'd been through a carpet crash in them.

Funny how that works, I thought vaguely.

"What happened?" Judy said again.

So I told her, in as much detail as I remembered: pieces seemed blank, while others that happened only moments later were there in incredible perfection - I could have described exactly how every tiny dod of dirt wiggled and wavered as the earth elemental pushed its was through them after it rolled off my carpet. I started to, until Judy's face told me that wasn't something she needed to hear.

"You could have been killed," she said when I was through.

"That was the general idea," I said. "If I hadn't been wearing my safety belt, or even if I'd been going faster when they dropped the elemental on me-" I didn't care to think about that, much less talk about it I turned on the cold water, splashed it onto my face. That, and then burying my head in a towel to dry off, gave me an excuse not to talk for a couple of minutes.

Then I tried to unbutton my shirt That was when I discovered how bad my hands were shaking: I had a dreadful time making my fingers hold onto the smooth little buttons. After watching me struggle with the first two, Judy took over. As in everything she did, she was quick and deft and capable.

The feel of her fingers fluttering against my chest inflamed me as if she'd turned into a succubus. I've heard that living through a battle makes you homy. I didn't know about that, not firsthand; I hadn't been in a fight, let alone a battle, since I got out of primary school. But by the time Judy got to the last button, I couldn't wait any more. I grabbed her and kissed her - not quite as consumingly as I'd had in mind, because my tongue was still sore.

"Well," she said when she came up for air. Before she could say anything else, I kissed her again. "Well," she repeated a minute or so later, and (his time she managed to go on: "It's a good thing I drank the cup of roots when I got here instead of waiting till after dinner."

It turned out to be a very good thing: for the next half hour or so, I forgot all about what had happened on The Second. The only problem with making love to put aside your problems is that they're still there when it's over. Sitting up on the bed afterwards, I said, "You'd better be careful, too, honey. You've gotten yourself involved in this case. If they come after me - whoever they are - they're liable to come after you, too."