EMERALD CITY

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

After two days without dinner, Roman knew better than to eat out, his appetite had the habit of getting the better of him. It’s a common misconception that vampires must live off the blood of humans. Really, the blood of any warm-blooded animal will do, humans are just the most entertaining prey. Tonight, however, Roman had to settle for take away. He swung by Richard’s, his workplace, and got an advance on his share of the beef-blood drippings.

His hunger was sated, and the night was still young, but Roman was ready to call it a day. There will be other nights. Indeed, after two hundred years of seeming immortality, he had fallen to thinking there will always be another night. The flight home wasn’t a long one; but after so many hours in a musty library, a falling out with that scatter-brained half-elf, and a flight over the polluted skies of downtown Seattle, Roman felt the need to stop a block from his home and walk the remaining distance for a moment of fresh air, calm and quiet, and a moment of inner reflection*. [FOOTNOTE: It’s the only kind of reflection a vampire gets.

The neighborhood rose up the side of a steep hill, rows of quaint little houses lining each block. They were just old enough to define this section of the city as one of Seattle’s vintage neighborhoods. The oldest house, a mansion, at the top of the hill was his.

As he’d shared with Larayne last night, his family was an ancient one. Some 300 calendar years ago, his grandparents had shipped the heart of the mansion over from Old Jeremany. Then, it had resembled a castle, but over the years, with addition upon addition, expansions that changed with the times of every decade, the castle had become a mansion with an old, gothic look.

Upon his approach, the long, sorrowful bay of a wolf—a sound most befitting for the haunting atmosphere of his mansion—announced his arrival. The doors opened before he could touch their ornate handles, and he was greeted by the stern expression of his five-year-old niece.

With a jutting lower lip and a furrowed unibrow, the unusually fuzzy child asked, “Whewe have you been, Unca Ro’?”

“Lu, what have I told you about coming to the door that way? What if it wasn’t me? What if it was one of the neighbors?!”

“Neighbo’s don’ come hewe, Unca Ro. ‘Sides, I could smew ya twoo doa.”

Roman wanted to smile, but held his firm expression. “Change,” he ordered.

Lu squinted her eyes in concentration. Another common misconception about shape shifters was that when they went from animal to human form, the fur grew in reverse. In fact, the process of such a transformation is more like a massive shedding, usually leaving a lot of hair on the sofas and leaving the shape-shifter itching for hours afterward. With a shake to free herself of the discarded coat, Lupinella beamed up to her uncle with a winning smile she knew would win his forgiveness. She was a lovely little girl with shoulder-length black hair, the slightest hint of freckles across her nose, and two cheeks marked with dimples. The trademark features of a unibrow, fangs, and a disconcerting amount of body hair for a girl—much less a five year old—did little to diminish her over-all cuteness.

“Now go on and get a broom, Lu. And don’t change back until after supper time.”

“Awweady had suppa, Unca Ro.”

The voice that interjected itself was patronizing, critical, angry… the voice of an irate mother. “Yes, Uncle Roman. Bathed, fed, and ready for bed. Of course, getting her down before you got home’s been something of a chore. She’s been worried sick!”

“I’m fine, thank you, Scilla.”

There was concern, but little love in the glare that shot from the eyes of Lupinella’s mother.

“It’s a fine example you’re setting, that’s all I’m saying.

“LU, OFF TO BED!”

“The nightlife’s in her blood, Scilla. When she gets to be my age, she’ll be out all night too.”

“Two nights… TWO nights! And we both know she’ll NEVER reach your age… not if she has any sort of head on her shoulders.

“LU, I SAID OFF TO BED!”

Smiling as he watched his grand-niece take the stairs two at a time, teetering from side to side like a penguin to make each stride in her ankle-length nightdress, Roman waited until the girl was out of sight before spurring the argument further. It didn’t matter, he knew. Lu, like himself, had excellent hearing.

He turned to Priscilla. Her temper was already hot. It was something she actually prided herself on, her temper, and though annoying at times, right now, Roman found it… entertaining. With a few words, he could stoke the flames to a red-hot that would match her hair.

“I was out with a friend. Perfectly safe…”

“A friend, eh? Another one of your little vampire groupies? Suppose one of these nights… er… days, one of these ‘friends’”—she spat, attacking him with quotation fingers—“of yours gets a real taste for blood? What if they decide to see just how many vampire legends are true? A little sunlight at midday, a nice stake through the heart… How do you think Lu would feel you coming home as a coat rack?”

“You know it wouldn’t kill me, and I’d pull the stake out before coming home.”

Priscilla leered at him. She was reaching that point beyond words, the end of their argument and the beginning of a month-long cold shoulder. At least it’ll be quiet around here, Roman thought… after she’s done breaking the china. She opened her mouth, words on the edge of utterance as she waggled a finger toward him, then screamed with frustration as both fists punched toward the floor, and stormed out of his sight.

Peace at last. It didn’t bother him to upset Priscilla so, as long as Lu never caught the butt end of her temper. The woman would make their lives a living hell for a while, but it would all be done in silence, and the frustration factor was entertaining to both Roman and his blood-kin niece. Rather, as he retired to his study, what he found bothered him was his parting with Larayne. She and TinMan had been his friends for all of one night… which was normal for most of Roman’s relationships. But somehow, a little squeaking in his mind told him, these friendships should have lasted longer… or at least ended on better terms. He never dwelt on regret. He never dwelt on memories—a practice learned through the experience of his years. So why was he obsessing so much over this pair?

“Roman? Is that you, I can’t see anything with this blanket over me. All I did was make a couple squeaks and squawks and they came in and locked me in my cage, and then threw this rag over my head. Roman? Oh, Ro-o-o-oman. Wherefore art thou, Roman?”

“Sunshine, I don’t think that means what you think it means.” Roman detoured on his way to his recliner, and, instead, crossed the room to uncover the tall birdcage. Inside, a large, black raven ruffled his sleek, black feathers in agitation. He was a magnificent bird, black from beak to tail. His large, round eyes whirled to take in the room with 360 degrees of peripheral vision. Then he cocked his head sideways, rolled one eye to focus on Roman, and bobbed his head in thanks.

“Sure it does. Means where the kaw you been?”

“No, you stupid crow. It means…”

“NOT a CROW! Kaw-it! When will you humans get it through your blunt skulls! I’m a… a…”

“A what? You’re a bird. You’re black. Ergo, you’re a…”

“I am NOT a CROW!” the bird squawked. “I’m… I’m…. Look, asking a bird raised in captivity a question like that’s just not fair! How the kaw am I supposed to know what I am?”

“How do you know you’re not a crow?”

Sunshine ruffled his feathers in agitation. “Kaws I don’t want to be, that’s why. Filthy animals, crows are. See em picking through the garbage out the window every morning, pokin’ at road kill… I’m a bird of dignity, refinement…”

“You poop on the floor.”

“And only a bird of noble stature could get away with that sort of behavior.”

“Noble?”

Sunshine’s eye squinted thoughtfully. “Yea… noble. Maybe I’m one of them… whatsits… peacocks?”

Reclining into his deep leather chair, Roman raised a brow.

“Yea! A peacock! That’s what I am!”

“How did you, a bird born in captivity, learn about peacocks?”

“Lupinella reads me her colorin’ books. Yea, now that you mention it, I don’t know why I didn’t see it before!” Sunshine ruffled his tail-feathers, littering the floor of his cage with molt. “See! Look at that plumage!”

“They’re tail feathers… and they’re black.”

“I’m a rare breed. That’s all. ‘Sides, how you know all peacocks aren’t black?”

“Remember Lu’s coloring book? What color did she make them?”

The raven paused for a moment’s reflection. “Sure, but the kid’s five, Roman. She colors the water red and the sky green!”

“…” Roman was, for a moment, at a loss. How do you prove to a crow it is not a peacock? “What about the eyes? Don’t peacocks have eyes on their tail-feathers.”

“Eyes?” The bird scrutinized his own tail-tip, recalling the details of Lupinella’s book. There were some differences, but then… then something primal kicked into his consciousness, overriding the urge to argue further. “Did you say eyes?”

Roman nodded.

The bird’s beak opened and its tongue curled in a hungry lap. “Got any?”

* * *

The trace chemicals were all but gone. The temporal readings had returned to the flat-line of normality. There was little evidence of a portal any more, much less of someone coming through it. Pikit had studiously sniffed every inch of the alleyway and come away with nothing but an appetite from the odors he’d encountered. Slab had grappled and interrogated several random pedestrians without result. Of course, it was hard for them to talk when they were unconscious.

“Yes, the boss ain’t gonna like it, Mander. Not at all… Yes?”

Mander’s eyes narrowed on the goblin. No. He wasn’t going to like this one bit. There simply has to be something we are missing! The alley was full of trash, both on the street and in a row of dumpsters and cans lined against its walls. Beyond the swarm of unseen cockroaches that danced from can to can, nothing alive could be seen to question. Then his thoughts were interrupted by the clink of discarded tin, followed immediately by the clamor of a trashcan toppled to its side. Garbage splayed across the alleyway, and with it rolled into view a fat, gray alley cat.

The mangy feline righted itself and reviewed its audience with a critical eye—it had only one, the left eye and ear apparently long lost, by the age of the scars left behind. With the calm only a cat can posses… or perhaps an elf… it sat and twitched its crooked tail. “Meow,” it said.

“Meow?” Mander returned. “My good feline, I’ve been alive for nearly a hundred and fifty years, and I have yet to encounter a cat that actually says, ‘Meow.’”

“Really?” the cat returned. “Well you’ve met one now. Now if you’ll excuse me… pickings seem rater slim in the alleyway tonight.” The cat turned to run, but found himself face to face with the grinning face of a goblin.

Panicked, he turned again, finding in that direction a brick wall that said, “Dur, bad kit… ty. Try to run.”
The third and last direction that was anywhere but in the direction of the elf was suddenly marked with a small throwing knife that chimed as it wobbled in its bed of concrete. Few creatures had the reflexes of a cat, and of them, only elves could throw knives with such force and precision.

The cat collected himself. “Oh, you must feel real special! Took three of you to corner one helpless alley cat!”

A massive hand descended and scooped the feline up in its grip. Dutifully, he was presented to Mander for closer inspection.

“Tell me, Cat. Is this alley a normal haunt for your scavenging?”

The cat, as best a cat can, shrugged. “Could be.”
“Would you have been here last night, say, around ten-o’clock?”

The cat eyed the elf suspiciously. “Is that what you’re looking for? That block-head wizard?”

“What else?”

“Oh, plenty! But them’s my secrets!”

“This… wizard. What can you tell us about him?”

The cat snarled as he looked up to the troll who had begun to pet him roughly with the hand that didn’t hold him tightly about the ribcage. “You tell this brute of yours to stop mussing up my fur and maybe I’ll tell you what I saw. It took me hours to lick this coat into place!”

“Slab?”

“Dur, want to pet the kitt… en, Man… der.”

“No, Slab,” Mander said; it would have been a command except for his voice didn’t indicate that it needed to be. “Now, Cat, tell me. And kindly remember that Slab does hold your vital organs within his fist.”

* * *

Little had been gained from the cat but the confirmation that someone… or something had indeed come through the portal from Hicklynn’s world. By the feline’s description, a perception of not only sight, but also scents, Mander doubted if the visitor was human. However, armed with a description, and knowing now that the creature had, indeed, come into their world via the alleyway, the next steps to their mission became clear.

The denizens of Seattle were far too self-absorbed and varied in abnormalities to have noticed a stranger, even as bizarre as this alien. The hotels, motels, and inns in the immediate area were checked for new occupants matching the alien’s description. Without success, employees of the local bus routes were questioned, and then the cabbies who’d serviced fares from Broadway Street and its neighborhood. They’d gone through three different cab companies before they found their first lead.

“Sure, Kemo Sabes. I remember him. And his friend too!”

“Friend?”

“Just your average dark and mysterious fellow, Kemo Sabe. It’s the blockhead that sticks in my mind. Yeller skin. Talked funny too.”

“An accent?”

“Ug. Not like any I ever heard, Kemo Sabe. More like… a lack of accent.”

Slab and Pikit looked confused. Mander looked quizzical. At their worst, drow never looked confused.

The Indian flustered, and in a voice as devoid of Native accent as he could muster, mimicked, “HE SPOKE LIKE THIS. IT WAS WITHOUT INFLECTION. IT WAS WITHOUT TONE. IT WAS WITH EVERY WORD AND LETTER SPOKEN WITH COMPLETE CLARITY.”

“I see. What else, Gnome?”

“He was smart… but stupid.”

“Do explain.”

The cabbie wasn’t sure if he could, then gave as example, “Didn’t have a clue about what ‘Kemo Sabe’ meant, but translated Qui No Sabe without a hitch.” The gnome laughed at the memory. “Crazy golem thought it meant Soggy Shrub, too.”

Mander’s expression hinted at the urgency of his next question. “Slab…”

With a sweep of the troll’s massive palm, the cabbie found himself bound within the confines of five thick digits. He struggled only a moment, and then froze as the troll lifted him eye to eye with the dark-elf’s glare.

“I want you to listen very carefully, Gnome. Your life just might depend on the answer you’re about to give me.

“You called him a golem. But there are only a handful of golems left and it’s been illegal to make new ones for centuries. You also claimed it could speak, but even the most powerful of mages proved incapable of making a golem capable of speech… much less intelligence. Why did you call him a golem, Gnome?”

A slight squeeze from Slab reinforced the dark-elf’s threat, and in a squeak, the gnome answered, “’cause, Kemo Sabe… he said he was! Told his friend, he did!”

An intelligent golem? And why not? He was from another world, and what wonders his master had contributed to their world with the knowledge he possessed of that other Earth. Would it have a soul? Would it feel pain? Would it have…

“The golem and his friend, Gnome, did they have names?”
With a “gurk!” from Slab’s tightening grip, the cabbie nodded his head. “The friend… a normal enough name. Ro… Roland?”

“THE GOLEM, GNOME! WHAT WAS THE GOLEM’S NAME!” Mander shouted.

“Tee…” the gnome struggled for the memory, trying to draw it up, even as his mind flooded with other thoughts like, Ouch! I think that was another rib breaking. “Tee…emm. Yes! That was it! Tiem and… Roman! The dark friend… his was Roman. Now please….”

The elf’s posture relaxed. “One last question, Gnome. Where did you take them?”

“The University Library, Kemo Sabe. Please, let me down.”

“Sure. Slab…”

The troll’s “Dur, Heh Heh Heh…” was nearly drowned by the sound of cracking bones followed by the soggy thump of boneless flesh hitting the pavement.

“Thank you, Gnome,” Mander said to the corpse of oddly folded limbs at his feet. “Your help is most appreciated.”

Mander drew from his suit pocket a small half-sphere. It took only a directed thought for it to call, and within two rings, Pikit’s confused face illuminated the semi-sphere.

“Ooh! Yes, yes, Mander! Neat shiny mobile!”

“It’s not a toy, Pikit,” Mander said coolly. “Report. Did you find anything?”

“Yes, yes… er… no.”

Mander paused. After Broadway and the alley cat, Pikit had returned to the Needle, citing “Yes, yes… gotta check on something.” Mander hadn’t argued, but now questioned, “Pikit, exactly what were you looking for?”

“Yes, yes. Don’t know, Mander. But its definitely not here!”

The elf sighed. He had yet to meet a parapsychologist who could understand the workings of the goblin mind, and he wasn’t about to even try where the experts had failed. “Then I need you to hunt for someone, Pikit. I have a name. He’s likely a local boy.”

“Yes! Yes?”

* * *

Quickly arriving at the University library, Mander and Slab reviewed, with minimal persuasion of the librarian, the checkout records for the names “Roman” and “Tiem”. To Mander’s ire, their search yielded no results. Then, as they interviewed the librarian, the elf’s portable crystal chimed its happy little tune—a rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee—and leaving the librarian to the graces of Slab’s mercy, the elf stepped aside to take his call.

“Pikit?”

“Yes. Yes, Mander!” The goblin sounded far too excited, like a hyper child playing with a new toy. Mander gave it a week before the goblin broke his company-issued mobile. “Found nothing, yet!”

In the office, Pikit was little more than a yes man, a conduit for the orders of his superiors to the masses lower in the corporate chain. In the field, however, he was a top-notch tracker. If he couldn’t find a man with as much as a name, then the name must be false… or incomplete.

“Stand by, Pikit.” With an exterior calm masking his inner rage, Mander returned to the librarian. Desperately, the little satyr looked around, his eyes praying to find a sympathetic soul among his loyal patrons. But there was something about the presence of a troll and a dark-elf, both in the same room, that inspired even the bravest geek to abandon their loyalties long before they could be tested.

“Did you see anything… unusual last night, Librarian?”

“What? Here? In the magical library? Unusual? Urk!”

Slab’s fist had squeezed.

“It’s just… you’re going to have to be a bit more specific, Sir. This week alone, we’ve had three explosions—only found the boots from one poor chap—an isolated thunderstorm over the Geography section, five unexplained disappearances, and a parade of pachyderms in pink tutus prancing through the Dewey decimals!”

Without batting an eyelash, Mander suavely replied, “Then allow me to clarify. We are looking for a man—a golem—with a square head. He may have been in the company of another man, a… ‘dark and mysterious’ type.”

“And that druid girl?” the librarian volunteered, and immediately wished that he hadn’t.

Mander’s jaw clenched. The druidic religions of old—the practice of natural magic inspired by elfin ways—were all but extinct. It had taken millennia for the drow—the dark elves—to vanquish it from the memories of man and elf alike.

Mander almost spat the word, “Druid?”

The librarian, momentarily beyond words, nearly beyond the control of bodily function, managed a nod.

“Her name, Librarian?!”

Slab’s arm was vibrating from the convulsive trembling that had overtaken the little satyr’s body from cloven hoof to the miniscule horns atop his head.

The drow’s anger laced every word like venom. “This is as nice as I’m going to ask you, Librarian. You don’t want my companion to ask. He’s not very big on words.”

“D-Don’t know… S-Sir… Just a girl! Not a student, ‘sfar as I know! See her ‘bout once a month. Has an…” The satyr was educated enough to know the long-lived hatred between the good and evil bloodlines of Mander’s kind, but his voice was on auto-pilot, ignoring the pleas of his mind to shut up before too much was said yet again. “Has an elfish look about her.”

It was absurd, of course. Though “light” elves had not been eradicated completely from the face of the earth, to find one living in a city as large as Seattle, much less attending the University, was unheard of. But then, she wasn’t attending the university, which meant… it would be harder to find her. She probably wasn’t living in Seattle, either.

“I see,” said Mander, pushing that thought aside. “What of the other two?”

“Never seen them before. The odd one took off with the Druid. The vampire stayed the day in our basement.”

A vampire…. The grin returned to Mander’s face. He returned the mobile crystal to eye level. “Pikit, cross reference your search with the Vampire Registry… and report to me as soon as you find something.” He spoke the last as though finding nothing was not an option, and then with a short mental command, broke the link before Pikit could respond. “Slab…”

The troll’s lips began to curl, then frowned as the drow concluded, “Let the librarian go.”

* * *

It had been a busy night at Richard’s. On the wings of a bat, Roman was returning on the low-altitude flight home with a scent of fried beef-product and potatoes oozing from every pore. It wasn’t as though he really needed the work. Along with the house, his grandparents had left him with a sizable inheritance and enough stock to maintain his extravagant lifestyle. He even had enough to support Priscilla and Lupinella, which was where his supplemental income currently served him. The benefits were nice. He was one of three vampires who worked there, and the take-home beef blood kept them all off the streets and out of trouble. But even that wasn’t the reason why he worked. In the end, he found that working over a hot grill each night made his nights off just that much more enjoyable.

As he descended, a peculiar scent made the bristly hairs on his back stand on end. In a swirl of shadows, he seemed to unfold into a human shape at the front door. It was opened.

“Goblin,” he said to himself, bursting into the foyer and the chaos into which it had been strewn. There were other scents too, but in his human form, goblin was the only scent strong enough to discern. “LU!? SCILLA!?” His voice shrieked with the panic that was overtaking him. “ANYBODY!!?”

A black flurry of feathers flew into the living room and perched on the leg of an upturned davenport. “Yea, I’m fine. Thanks for askin’. Tweet-Tweet.”

“Sunshine. What the hell happened here?”

The raven pointed his beak toward a mirror over the hearth. Roman never personally used it, but Priscilla liked it… probably because it irritated him so. On its glass had been taped an envelope.

Roman,

I regret that we missed you upon our visit to your lovely abode, but rest assured that your charming family was most hospitable in your absence.

Unfortunately, as our business demands that we speak with you, personally, we have been forced to perpetuate the company of your family at the Arena. Do come and join us… before your presence is PAINFULLY missed.

SINCERELY,
M.

Roman clenched the note in his hand. His short, spike-strewn-styled hair began to stand on end, his hazel eyes yellowed, and a deep growl formed in his throat as he spoke, “Who were they?”

“Tweet-tweet. Big and ugly, those three. Well, only one was big, and jus’ two of ‘em were really ugly. Tweet-tweet. The big one and the little one. The third was an elf gone bad. He wrote the note.”

Having lived most of his life indoors, Roman knew that Sunshine had no idea what a troll or goblin were. But all animals, intelligent or not, instinctively knew what elves were. Now, with his temper flared, his senses alive, he could identify all three by scent.

“Tweet-tweet. You and me, buddy. Together we can take ‘em!”

“You’ll be staying right here, Sunshine.” A hint of growl still echoed in Roman’s voice, though he was struggling to keep a clear enough head to form a strategy. “I’ll handle these three… alone.”

It was almost difficult to change into the bat; so prone to a wolf form was his anger directing him. He was full. But now, it wasn’t mere hunger that was raising his thirst for blood. A blur of fur and leathery wings, he circled the living room once, then made a line for the foyer and the night sky beyond.

* * *

It was dangerous, flying so far from home so late in the evening* [FOOTNOTE: Which, when translated from the mind of a vampire to that of a “creature of the day”, really means “so early in the morning.”]. The flight had given him time to calm down enough to form a strategy. It would take every ability in his vampire bag of tricks… but then, what advantage did the enemy really have against such an arsenal?

The Arena, in its original form, had been among the enclosed dome stadiums, constructed back when common humans chose the sports of preference. Jousting, races, fighting lions… Pegasuses were for travel, not for sport. That is, until Boing’s mass production of the carpet. They were cheaper to produce and maintain than something that ate up your front lawn and befouled your garage every night. The flying horse became obsolete… until the advent of Pegasus Polo. With a new sport to capture the attention of the masses, it was the concept of an enclosed stadium that became obsolete. The pegasuses kept on bumping their heads. So the old arena was destroyed, and the new erected on a fresh, new site… complete with retractable roof.

The lowest levels of the Arena consisted of stables. No doubt, this “M” assumes the scent of so many animals will distract my sense of smell, Roman thought. He’s right. The roof was closed, but the gap between it and its supporting walls was large enough for a man to fit through, and offered no defense against something as small as a bat… or many bats. In the center of the grazing field, his sonar identified five figures. All looked up as Roman and his brethren entered the Arena and circled about its rooftop. One had to love being a vampire sometimes. As a master of all the “creatures of the night,” Roman had the perfect distraction to allow him to descend to the grazing fields unnoticed.

“He’s here,” said Mander, looking up at the swirling flock of bats.

“Dur, ic… ky birds!”

As Roman descended to ground level, it had been his intention to assume the form of a mist to approach the company of five. He could see three of their number had equipped themselves with hastily fashioned stakes. It was difficult for someone to drive a stake through the heart of a fog. But as he approached the turf, a shrill scream from behind turned every eye to focus on him.

Mander smiled as the pegasuses screamed frantically in their stables, sensing the predator that had descended beyond.

A sneak attack was pointless now. Roman, in his fold of shadows, assumed his human form, and with a wave of his arm, released the flock of bats to pursue their own interests in the night—namely, the hunt for small pieces of fruit or insects.

“Oooh! Yo’a gonna get it!”

Mander gave a fleeting leer at the little girl in their midst.

Roman was shrouded in shadow, a mere outline of darkness in the dark. But, with a light that illuminated nothing but his anger, his eyes glared at the trio with a yellow glow.

“Master Cyril Pyotrovich Igor Lycanthrope Romannya Vlasenko, I presume?”

“My friends call me Roman. Master’s good enough for you.”

“How amusing,” Mander drolled. “Slab, if you would…”

The troll paused a moment to process his instructions, then began to advance toward Roman without fear.

Even in his human form, Roman knew he could handle either the elf or the goblin. The troll he wasn’t quite sure about… in any form.

“I must express my regrets at having to resort to such tactics, Master Roman. But it really is imperative that we speak with you. Slab, there, is delivering a wreath of garlic cloves. I believe wearing such a garnish would keep you from changing shape?”

“It does render me powerless,” … as a vampire, Roman admitted, stepping forward into the dim light.

“Then I must ask you to wear it… for the sake of the young ladies present.”

“If I put it on… you’ll let them go?”

“Perhaps one of them,” Mander chimed. “We must hold onto some insurance. It is not beyond reason, after all, that after we let both go, you couldn’t simply remove the garlic from your person.”

“Both,” Roman demanded.

“Put it on. We’ll release the little one… your daughter? I do believe I see some family resemblance.”

Roman glanced at his niece. Her jaw was clenched in restraint. Of the two, she was the safest. Priscilla was wholly human, and therefore wholly mortal. But then, they may not have the means to kill little Lu, but they could hurt her. The thought pushed his sanity a step toward the animal side. Then the goblin raised one of his sharpened stakes. He didn’t direct it toward the girl, but the signal was clear. He was willing to direct it toward her.

“Fine. Let her go.”

“First, the garlic.”

“Let her go first. You still have the other one.”

Priscilla’s face turned red. “Why you rotten little…”

Mander grinned. “You are right, of course. Pikit, let the little one go.” Musing as the woman’s nostrils flared, he added to Roman, “I do hope you enjoy sleeping on the couch, Master Roman. It would seem your young bride isn’t very pleased with you at all.

“But rest assured, m’lady, if your husband cooperates, you will live to see another night.”

“Yes, yes. Little girl, you go now.”

Lu glared at the goblin hotly. Her eyes were as yellow as her uncle’s, but Roman was glad she was refraining from a change. Perhaps, he thought, he could use the elf’s confusion on their family structure to his advantage.

“Go home, Lu.” He hoped she wouldn’t respond. He wasn’t sure she could find the way, but hoped she had instinct enough to follow his orders. Once there, Sunshine could look after her until he and Scilla were ready to rejoin her. “Don’t argue, Lu. Just GO!”

Lupinella snarled at the goblin, revealing her tiny fangs, but grudgingly turned and left the field.

“Now the garlic, Master Roman, as per our arrangement.”

His entire body was trembling with the anger he felt inside. But it was Priscilla’s only chance. He closed the gap between himself and the troll. Instinct screamed that he retreat from the garlic it held. He felt his strength and power dwindle as the smell of it overpowered him. Then he took it in hand, and as it fell over his shoulders, dropped to his knees in surrender.

Mander approached. Elves didn’t like to yell when it wasn’t necessary. “Now, Master Roman… tell us about your friend, Tiem.”

* * *

“Breakfast! I made corn fritters! Who wants a latté!?” the sweet elfin voice broke the silence of the morning.

Larayne’s eyes cracked. She didn’t want to wake up. As mornings went, she was a procrastinator… if she didn’t get up now, then she knew she’d lie in bed for hours. As was typical, she found herself twisted among blankets and sheets that had, at bedtime, been smoothly stretched over her garbless frame. Rolling over, the closed bedroom door reminded her that she had to put something on before exiting into the hallway. She wasn’t sure if TinMan could technically be categorized as either male or female, but he WAS a he… regardless of whether his designers had included all the floppy bits.

Her light robe of choice was a blue homespun embellished with embroidered lavender flowers. On her feet, just for the morning, she wore a pair of fluffy lynx slippers. Cracking the door, she peered out into the hall that connected the kitchen and the social room of her basement apartment, expecting to see the TinMan stretched out on the social room’s sofa. Instead, her heart nearly jumped from her ribcage when she saw TinMan still standing at her door, exactly as she’d left him the night before.

“Have you been there all night long?”

TinMan stared vacantly.

Larayne waved a hand before his glassy eyes. “Are you all right? TinMan?” It took a moment for it to register that TinMan was, despite his recently acquired personality, a mechanical man… a machine. Perhaps, she realized, this is how a mechanical man sleeps! It was a bit disconcerting.

So, how do you turn a mechanical man on? The hint of a smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. “Oh poot!” she cursed. “I forgot to put my panties on.”

As TinMan’s eyes flashed to life, Larayne smiled at a job well done, then turned and shut the door in his face. A moment later, she reemerged. TinMan said nothing, but wore a profoundly confused expression that revealed the altogether new sensations that were clicking away through his SmartRAM.

“Come on, TinMan,” she said, taking him by the hand and guiding him into the social room and up the stairs that led to the upper level of the house occupied by her parents. “Mommy’s lattés are the best! Just the thing to get your blood flowing in the morning.”

“But… I do not have blood.”

“I mean… they’re stimulating.”

“But I am already…” TinMan stopped. The statement was certainly factual, but somehow, he thought, inappropriate.

The North Tacoma home of Frank and Louise Cryor made an excellent compromise between the city life preferred by humans and the rural life preferred by elves. Though Tacoma was not without its fair share of dirty streets, concrete landscapes, and wandering hobos, the natural elements in its Northern quarter had been carefully preserved with garden-lined roadways, lush green lawns in every yard, and a city park at five miles in any given direction.* [FOOTNOTE: Including up and down. As already stated, flying has become popular and easy, so air oases are common. Also, the dwarves are proud of their underground mining heritage and like to share it with other species.] It was commonly referred to as a “folk neighborhood”, largely populated by the wee folk, the fair folk, and of course, the old folk. To the street grade, it was a one-story home, but its yard had been sculpted to expose the southern exposure of its basement level. What little existed of a lawn in its richly gardened yard was plush and green, and in its garden, elfin magic meant that the fruit trees would be bearing their bounty of apples, plums, and pears all year round.

From a book entitled Sapient Species in the reference section of the library, TinMan was able to identify Louise, Larayne’s mother, as an elf and her father, Frank, as human. Louise was as lovely a woman as Larayne. One could see in her eyes a wisdom of years that Larayne lacked, but otherwise her elfin features made her appear younger than her twenty-two-year-old daughter who’s human blood defined her with the maturity of a human adult. Frank, by contrast, had grayed since the birth of a daughter* [FOOTNOTE: As will most men.], and though he appeared many years the senior of his bride, he was, in fact, many decades younger. A lifetime of hard work and varied experience marked him as a man content in his ways and achievements. He was educated... but not in the wizarding ways. His education had come from life.

A breakfast of corn fritters had, indeed, been laid out around the upstairs kitchen table. Louise hadn’t been sure whether TinMan could eat or not. She defined him, from Larayne’s desperate description, as a “science… thing,” understanding vaguely that he was made rather than born. But then, she reasoned, even if he couldn’t eat, that was no reason to be rude.

Fortunately, the TM-42 had been designed not only with the ability to eat for the sake of converting fuel into energy, but with an extensive range of taste and odor sensors paired with a diagnostics program that identified just what the human palate would or would not enjoy. His first words entering the kitchen were, “Smells… edible.” Under the parameters of his new-found self-awareness, he found that the smell, and later the tastes of that morning’s breakfast were more than mere sensory inputs defined as “edible” or “not-edible” by his programming. He actually enjoyed the meal, savored the smells… and yet, being his first meal, he had not the experience to define his perceptions as anything but what his programming dictated. Even the latté was a sensory adventure, bitter yet sweet, with a hint of hazelnut and vanilla in its aroma. The foam, he noted with delight, tickled his nose as it slowly dissolved before Larayne wiped it off.

“So what are you kids going to do today?” Louise chimed.

TinMan noticed how the woman’s every movement seemed to glide, and were it not for the laws of gravity firmly defined in his psyche, he would have wondered if the woman’s feet ever really touched the ground.

Larayne looked TinMan up and down and answered, “Well, I think the first thing we should do is go shopping. That wardrobe is so…” “Square” was an exceedingly appropriate word, but one she thought better unsaid given TinMan’s already shaky self-image.

“The WD-40 model jumpsuit was designed for functionality, not fashion,” TinMan reported. “Its lining provides excellent insulation against extremes in both cold and heat that could be harmful to this unit’s… to my circuits. It is wear resistant and completely weather-proof.”

“And ugly as poot,” Larayne added. “Sorry, TinMan, but if you’re going to fit in on this world, you’re going to have to dress the part.”

“Now Larayne,” interjected Frank, “it’s fine if you want to buy your friend a robe or two, but mind your credit limit.”

“I do not have an immediate need for alternative coverings, Larayne. I cannot condone your charity in purchasing me new clothes.”

“Look, if I have to walk with you down the street, then I’m buying your clothes as much for me as I am you. They might not give you a second glance down Broadway, but around here, an outfit like that is… noticeable. Not that everyone in town dresses in traditional druidic robes, so I guess I’m hardly one to talk, but…”

TinMan scrutinized his jumpsuit. “It is functional,” then he scrutinized Larayne’s face, “however, if you believe alternative clothing would be more appropriate…”

“I do!” Larayne grabbed TinMan’s wrist and rose from the table, then remembered, “Oh, Mommy, Daddy… can we be excused?”

“Of course, Dear. Just… be home before dark.” The request was an odd one, yet Larayne nodded, realizing her mother was still a bit unsettled over her having befriended a vampire and an alien golem overnight in Seattle. Knowing her mother’s psyche as she did, Larayne knew she must be thinking, The Sun God only knows what she’d bring home this time…

* * *

Larayne had never shopped for a man before. What robes she didn’t make herself were usually purchased from a one size-fits all rack. With their numbers jumping from the reasonable tens and twelves she was used to in women’s styles to the astonishingly high thirty-eights to forty-twos on the men’s rack, men’s pants were a new experience for her, and in the end she opted for a pair of knee-length shorts and a pair of reasonably fit corduroys… for the functionality. She had been too shy to give the android a proper measuring, so both showed off the knee-high tube socks she had purchased for him and the mules he wore on his feet. Above the waist, TinMan donned a simple tee shirt. Larayne had given up on figuring out today’s fashions and opted for a three-pack in the men’s underwear department where, while she was at it, she guestimated on the size for TinMan’s underwear. As it was, the pack of powder blue briefs she purchased for him was as tight as the tee shirts were large, but TinMan never once complained… except about the color.

“What, you’d rather have the ones with the humorous wizards on them?”

“On an article never worn on the surface, I do not see the purpose of illustrations.”

“Then you shouldn’t mind the blue, either. Besides… it’s such a pretty shade!”

TinMan wasn’t sure why the idea of having “pretty” underpants annoyed him, but then he reasoned aloud, “You… like them on me?”

Larayne nodded with a grin.

TinMan resigned. “All right, then. The blue ones it is.”

Safety had, of course, been an issue for Larayne. She reasoned, by TinMan’s own admonition, that this newcomer to her world was not only unfamiliar with the way things ran, such as carpets, but was very literally not much more than a few days old. For his night wear, she added to his wardrobe a pair of blaze-orange suspenders and a safety-yellow cloak.
The hideous outfit complete, she was ready to begin introducing TinMan to the sites of Tacoma… such as they were. The local libraries can wait, she decided. TinMan needs to experience life first hand.

“How does a trip to the zoo sound, TinMan?”

WHAT AN ODD QUESTION, TinMan thought, then opened his mouth and repeated in a replay of Larayne’s own voice, “…a trip to the zoo…” In his own voice, he added, “A trip to the zoo should be very informative, Larayne. I have learned through the University library that this world has many animal life forms that exist only in myth on my world. Seeing them first hand would provide invaluable data to their characteristics.”

Larayne giggled as she took TinMan by the hand and led him from the store to the bus stop. “And,” she added, “it should be fun!”

* * *

The Point Defiant Zoo and Aquarium was located in the heart of a massive public park on the northern waterfront of North Tacoma. TinMan felt an edge of guilt as Larayne utilized her plastic to pay their admittance and cash to purchase a ball of fluffy, blue… TinMan’s diagnostics tried to ignore the YUMMY! conclusion his taste receptors were feeding his SmartRAM to tell it this food contained little nutritional value. It’s contents consisted primarily of sugar and Red Dye #3, which made it that much more confusing when he asked, “It is delicious! What is it?”

And Larayne answered, “Cotton candy!”

His programming protested, ERROR! DIAGNOSTICS DETECT NO COTTON! To which the TinMan answered, WHO CARES. IT IS STILL YUMMY.

“Come on!” Larayne urged, seizing him by the hand again and pulling him along. “I want go see the monkey cages.”

The primate house yielded little to the android’s understanding of evolution on this world. He might have concluded that evolution had occurred very much as it had on his own world had it not been for the simple classification system used to separate the primate phylum. They were: “Monkey”; “Tailless Monkey”; and “Wingless Monkey”.

“Wingless?” he asked.

Larayne nodded, watching with fascination the cute little spider monkeys flying playfully in their aviary. “Yes. They’re not as much fun to watch… unless one tries to fly. Then they can be really funny!”

A door labeled “RESTRICTED” opened. Most didn’t even give it a second glance, but when an eight-foot tall primate emerged and looked at Larayne, something inside TinMan told him to act before his SmartRAM could decide otherwise. He pirouetted around Larayne to stand between her and the primate, uttering only, “Watch out!” before driving both his palms forward into the animal’s thick pectorals.

An audible grunt uttered from the monster as he flew backward against the TinMan’s blow. The android was glad his SmartRAM had been quick enough to gauge the blow’s force to a strike that would do no permanent harm to a creature that size, particularly when the giant reared up on his elbows, gasped for air, and shouted, “What the starch do you think you’re doing, Mister!”

Larayne rushed around TinMan to the sasquatch’s aid. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry! He’s not from around here. He didn’t know any better. You’re okay, aren’t you?”

The big foot stood and dusted himself off. “Yea, yea, lady… I’m fine. Thanks, though.” He leered at the bewildered TinMan as he approached, then pulled from the still open “RESTRICTED” door a mop and bucket. “You,” he finally said, pointing at TinMan before returning to his work, “have issues.”

“Come on, TinMan,” said Larayne, taking the android by the hand again. “Let’s go see the griffon aviary. Again, Sir… I’m really sorry about that.”

Aviaries of various sizes seemed to be in abundance throughout the zoo. The “Large Cats” section* [FOOTNOTE: Which also featured the Tazmanian tiger and the rare lynx. However, the latter happened to be missing from its cage at the time of their arrival, and wishing to see this specimen of Earthen lore, TinMan asked the zookeeper, “Where is the missing lynx?” A question to which the zookeeper relied, “I think he’s cleaning out the Primate House.”] sported one for their griffons just as the “Reptile House” had one for the leather-winged dragons, only the size of a small dog. TinMan wondered why it was such an act of valor for the knights in his mythology files to slay these relatively timid reptiles. Also, TinMan marveled at finding samples of dinosaur life in the Dilaposaurus and the Miniature Triceratops still thriving in a time long after their extinction on his own world.

“Ooh! I want to go to the petting zoo!” Larayne chimed, a new look of excitement flashing into her eyes as this new inspiration hit. She charged through the crowds with the TinMan in tow, but, easily distracted, paused from this new quest to watch the keepers parade a line of elephants out to do some tricks, which were immediately followed by the impressive wooly mammoths who were far too large, awkward, and stupid to learn tricks, although the one mastodon could whistle all six verses of “Americania the Beautiful” through its trunk.

Continuing Larayne’s mission, TinMan asked, “I am confused. We are at the zoo, and the sign at the entry as well as all the cages specify ‘Do not pet the animals’.” He pointed to an example of signage posted in front of the Caerbannog bunny cages.

“Don’t be silly, TinMan! Of course you can’t pet those bunnies. They’re likely to tear out your jugular! They say they’re almost as bad as werewolves.”

Indeed, the bunnies at the petting zoo were far more docile, and for the first time, TinMan got to experience the physical sensations of “fluffy…” as Larayne murmured in her own petting trance. Sitting in the middle of the bunny pen like a five-year-old, TinMan looked up from his lap full of fluff and long ears with a broad grin on his face. He and Larayne were the only adults in the cage, and it had been by Larayne’s lead that the TinMan shoved a child or two aside to sit in the warm straw to begin to collect bunnies. The animals seemed as unafraid of the half-elf as they were of the six-foot tall hunk of plastic in their pen, and while the children ran about trying to catch a sample of fluffiness, they seemed to almost flock to the shelter of the TinMan’s and Larayne’s protective laps.

“Wonderful…” he said aloud, then as he stared at the glimmering entrancement in Larayne’s eyes, he forgot the “cute” factor of the animal he was stroking and added in a an entranced whisper, “Beautiful…”
Before leaving, Larayne stopped at the unipony rides. Sadly, there was a weight limit that restricted the five-hundred pound android from joining her on a ride. But to TinMan, it did not matter. Though he was making mental notes on the unicorn ponies to satisfy his programming’s demands, the focus of his attention was now on the simple delight of the girl who rode on their backs.

SO FULL OF ENERGY. SHE HAS SEEN ALL THIS BEFORE. IT IS A PART OF HER WORLD… AND YET IT STILL HOLDS AS MUCH WONDER FOR HER AS IT DOES FOR ME. SHE SAYS IT IS THE HEART THAT HER SPELL GAVE ME THAT LETS ME APPRECIATE THE PLEASURES IN LIFE. WILL I ALWAYS FEEL THIS WONDER, THIS PLEASURE IN GOING TO THE ZOO, IN PETTING FLUFFY ANIMALS… IN LARAYNE? WILL IT NOT BECOME COMMONPLACE TO ME IN TIME? MUNDANE?

IT HAS NOT FOR HER.

BUT SOMEHOW… I FEEL AS THOUGH SHE IS DIFFERENT FROM MOST.

PERHAPS ALL HUMAN HEARTS ARE DIFFERENT. PERHAPS THAT IS WHAT DEFINES THE PERSON AS AN INDIVIDUAL… UNIQUE.

The TinMan smiled. UNIQUE… IF NOTHING ELSE, LARAYNE IS THAT.

As graceful as her ride had been—almost classically picturesque, an elf upon the back of a unicorn—Larayne’s dismount was anything but. Her foot got stuck in the stirrup as she swung her weight off the pony’s back, and though the resulting fall would have been painful had TinMan not caught her mid-fall, she never stopped smiling… and actually giggled at her own gracelessness along with all the six-year-olds around them. Looking into the face of her rescuer, she was greeted by the android’s broad smile, and knew he was not bemused so much by her dismount as by all the wonders she had shown him that day. Larayne was glad to see him smile so. It meant she was doing her job well. TinMan was not only learning about their world… but he was learning about life… and living. He was experiencing wonder and joy, and she, proudly, was the first to offer him those experiences. She wondered if this is how a mother feels the first time she makes her baby laugh.

“We should go to see the aquarium next!”

Was that an edge of eagerness in his voice? she wondered, grinning as broadly as the TinMan. She shrugged and answered, “Sure. It should be a new experience for us both.”

“You have never been to the aquarium?”

“They redesigned it this last winter. I hear they added a whale tank and even acquired a hippocampus! It should be much more exciting than E.T.”

“The Extra Terrestrial?”

“NO! The walrus!”

TinMan thought of the aviaries in the various other displays. His files listed flying fish among the life forms of his own world, and wondered if, on this world, the sea life really could fly. “Does it fly?” he asked.

“Don’t be silly! Can you picture a pair of wings on a walrus!?”

TinMan pulled from his files a jpg file of a walrus and a gif image of a raven, wings spread. A simple morphing program spliced the two together, and he answered, “Yes. Would you care for a print out?”

Not quite knowing where the paper would come from, Larayne answered, “No… thank you.” Then, in the squeaky, girlish tone he was beginning to find endearing, she added, “Come on! Let’s go see the feeshies!”

Much of the aquarium was above ground, offering displays of otters, dolphins, penguins, and…

“More penguins?”

“No,” Larayne answered, “those are puffins! Anyone can tell the difference!”

Going underground, they passed the wide windows that displayed the larger marine life of the aquarium. As the passed an under water view of the dolphin tanks, TinMan reflected aloud at the grace of these animals in their element, “It is too bad…”

“I know. They shouldn’t be caged up like this.”

“No. On my world, the dolphins went home long ago. At least they escaped the extinction and the mutations that so many other species experienced as a result of wars and industry.”

The TinMan was no longer smiling. It confounded Larayne how the humans from his world could live at such odds with their own nature, and though she knew TinMan was experiencing for the first time an emotion of sadness, that he should be sad over such a crime made her proud of the person he was becoming.

“Come on, TinMan. The shark tanks should be up ahead.”

Past the reputed hippocampus display*[FOOTNOTE: HIPPOCAMPUS: 1) A FABULOUS MONSTER WITH HEAD AND FOREQUARTERS OF A HORSE AND TAIL LIKE A DOLPHIN OR FISH. 2) IN ZOOLOGY, THE GENUS OF FISHES CONSISTING OF THE TYPICAL SEA HORSES. 3) THE CURVED, ELONGATED RIDGE EXTENDING THROUGHOUT THE LENGTH OF THE FLOOR OF THE DESCENDING HORN OF EACH LATERAL VENTRICLE OF THE BRAIN. Of the definitions in the TinMan’s dictionary, only the first applied to the creature he saw on display. It was NOT a chunk of brain matter floating in the water.], Larayne and TinMan found the underground passage continue to descend into a long and dark spiral. Occasional small windows had been carved into the walls, the light behind their glass offering a view of various crustaceans and jellies and lending a dim, eerie glow to the tunnel. As the tunnel leveled, lights in the ceiling made it impossible to see through the large, glass walls at either side. The tanks were pitch black, and the light from the hall served only to display their own reflection back at them. TinMan saw on the stone wall a large, red button labeled “PUSH ME”, but as he reached out to press it, he felt Larayne reach out and hug his arm, holding him back.

“It is just another display,” he offered, then depressed the button… and was awe stricken as the walls flooded with the light of an illumination spell, revealing a forest of pylons that surrounded them, each lined with pearly white sea anemones with tendrils swaying in the filter’s current like the petals of a carnation in the wind. At the illumination of their habitat, a floor covered with enneapi* [FOOTNOTE: What do you get when you have nine-legged octopi?] scattered for the shadows of their shelters. The scene looked like a moving photograph, the bright white of the anemones contrasted with the dark blacks and browns of the pylons. The enneapi gave the illusion that the floor itself was alive as they buried themselves in the silt.

BEAUTIFUL! TinMan thought, then felt Larayne’s grip release, and heard the wheezing of a rapidly onset hyperventilation.

“Larayne?”

Panicked, her eyes scanned the scene that seemed to surround her. In every direction loomed these strange, alien, mushroom-things, reaching out with their wiggling tentacles to grab her. Tears began to stream down her cheeks as she backed herself into a corner and froze, petrified beyond reason. For Larayne, the world began to spin. She heard TinMan call out to her again, but it sounded now like he was twenty yards down the cavern, his voice echoing in her oxygen deprived brain. Finally, everything went black.
TinMan rushed as Larayne collapsed, unable to save her knees from striking the stone floor, but sparing her head from the same fate. Desperate, he rolled her body in his grasp and lifted her into his arms.

When Larayne came to, the aqua blue light of sunshine filtered through the shark tanks was shining on her face. The glass walls around her were no longer dark, and no longer contained creatures that could frighten her. Each displayed a select variety of sharks, some housing solitary lone sharks too dangerous to share a habitation even with its own kind, and none contained those scary little anemones.

The air stank of salt water and fish. Larayne’s head was being cradled in the TinMan’s arm while his free hand gently patted her on the cheek and several strange faces peered down in a mix of curiosity and concern.

Voices echoed in her head, solidifying as her senses fine-tuned themselves to the conscious world. “Who is she?” “Never mind that. What is he!?” “Did he attack her?” “Is she all right?”…

“I’m fine.”

TinMan continued to pat her cheek until her eyes narrowed on him, and in a more authoritative voice, she repeated, “TinMan, I’m fine!”

INDEED YOU ARE, his thoughts leered, although he wasn’t quite sure why, nor exactly what the response meant.

Larayne stood up. Consciousness was a good thing… for as long as it lasted. It seemed to elude her once again just as she was beginning to feel good about being able to stand and function without anyone else’s aid. The world spun, and she felt TinMan’s grip on her shoulders keep her aloft just long enough for her to back herself up against one of the tank windows where the cool glass seemed to compensate for her having stood too quickly.

“What happened?” TinMan asked.

She was breathless, but answered, “They just… nobody ever told me I’d be seeing sea flowers. I… got scared.”

“Oh for crying out loud!” “You gotta be kidding!” “Give me a break.”… The crowd around her began to disperse, leaving her and the TinMan alone.
“And the creature behind you does not frighten you?”
Larayne turned her head to stare eye to large, black eye with a grinning, toothy, tiger shark. She smiled back at it and waved. “No. He’s lonely, not scary.”
Larayne’s elfin empathy seemed particularly sharp as she sensed the desire of the sea creature for some company in its tank. As her hand reached out and touched the glass that divided her world from its, the TinMan watched the child of nature commune with her element*. [FOOTNOTE: Of course, she was only a half-elf who had been raised in the city, but then the tiger shark had been born and raised in the zoo.] He felt a link to her compassion, and for one desperate moment would have done anything to take away the sadness he saw in her eyes.

“Stay here,” he said in an impassive tone, and rapidly vanished from the exhibit hall.

Larayne shrugged and watched on. The shark hovered before the glass, staring at her with its one, large eye. It seemed, she thought, to be saying, “Come… play with me. The water’s fine!”

She smiled. “Oh, no, you don’t. I may be empathetic, but I’m not stupid.”

At that cue, the TinMan sank from the unseen surface of the tank like a rock to the bottom of the pool. Bubbles trailed him to the sandy floor, and for a moment, he seemed blinded by them.

“TinMan! What are you doing! Get out of there! You’ll be…” She paused. Could you kill a mechanical man?

As the shark’s attention turned to the newcomer in its habitat, it seemed she was about to find out. The shark rammed its prey, then whipping quickly about, opened its maw wide to reveal its complete set of jagged, pointy teeth. As it went for a bite, TinMan caught it by the nose, pushed it from horizontal to vertical, and wrapped his arms about its girth in a firm hug.

A crowd was gathering around Larayne again. “Who’s that guy?” “What is that guy?” “What’s he doing in there?” “HE’S ATTACKING THE SHARK!”

Indeed, it seemed so. The shark’s back half whipped his tail about furiously. His shark brain was belatedly telling him that this yellow madman was definitely not food.

Larayne watched as a long pole with a noose on the end descended to snare the android around the neck. They’ll choke him to death! her mind shouted in panic. Wait a minute. He’s under water… he’s not breathing… maybe they wont choke him to death, after all.

It took a team of five—one man, one woman, two trolls and a yeti—to hoist the TinMan and the tiger shark to the surface.

“Let go of the shark, Sir,” demanded the yeti.
“I am not doing it harm. It was lonely. I thought it might need a hug.”

There was a pause. “Uh… guests aren’t allowed to swim with the fishes, Sir.”

“I was not swimming. I was sinking.”

“STOP!” Larayne emerged from the underground walkway and raced to the TinMan’s aid. “TinMan! Put that tiger shark down!”

As easily as he’d captured the monster, the TinMan released it with a quick pat on the head. As the team of five craned him over to the edge of the pool, he looked down and waved at his newfound friend. “Good-bye! I hope you do not feel lonely any more!”

* * *

“Okay, before we go in here, let me remind you… don’t do anything to get us kicked out and banned from the Museum of Crystal.”

“I will not, Larayne. I am sorry about the zoo.”

Larayne patted TinMan on the back. “It’s okay, TinMan. You brought up a very good point that they don’t actually have any signs telling people not to swim with the sharks.” It’s just that most people over the age of three know instinctively not to do that… and those under three can’t read anyway!

TinMan wasn’t quite sure what the smile and spontaneous giggle was all about, but was glad to see his friend happy despite his blundering.

Larayne led the TinMan over a long bridge that spanned between the Museum of Crystal and the Warshington State History Museum—yet another site the fact-hungry android wanted to visit before his return. The Crystal Bridge glistened in the gray sunlight with a myriad of colors that faded to a cotton candy blue at a distance. Massive pillars of quartz were set at either side of the walkway like sentries guarding the tight network of smaller crystalline growths that consisted of the bridge’s construction. Beyond that, the TinMan was treated to a wall of crystalline sculptures, a garden of marble-walled pools with sparkling water that seemed to compliment the crystal artwork within the pools. Then, the museum itself… Overall, The Museum of Crystal paled by comparison, but the funnel-shaped resonance chamber where the crystals were grown and shaped with harmonics did manage to captivate his attention, and renew Larayne’s appreciation for her own world as TinMan voiced his comparison.

“On my world, we do not grow crystals. We manufacture glass. The shaping of it can be an art form, but its creation is nothing more than industry. From beginning to end, even the industry of this world is art.” He looked at Larayne, and his words edged with a double meaning as he added, “Everything of your world is a thing of beauty.”

* * *

She was lost. Nothing looked familiar. She knew she was still in the city, but to a five-year-old, almost all streets looked alike.

Around her, Seattle began to awaken with the rising of the sun. However, this was not the cheerful, friendly Seattle where she had been raised, but a dark, frightening, and, most importantly, unknown Seattle. Lupinella began to cry. It started as a soft, lost, little whimper and grew to a loud, frightened howl. Tears streamed down her cheeks, blurring her sight as she ran and ran, searching in vain for something, anything that looked familiar.

“Tweet, Tweet! I am a sweet, yellow canary… well, nearly yellow… not quite yellow… maybe more of a black… but definitely sweet! Tweet, Tweet!” The large raven was perched on a lamppost, and while not quite the sort of “familiar” for which Lupinella had been looking, it was even more welcome a sight.

* * *

It began with a single wooden spit. Before Roman could react, the troll had pinned him to the soft turf, and the goblin rushed in to drive the stake home* [FOOTNOTE: Which was nice of him, because stakes should never have to walk.]. No doubt under orders from the drow, the goblin hadn’t aimed to kill. But through the heart, or through the shoulder, a wooden stake was still a weakness… and it wasn’t the first they would use to break him into submission.

At first, he truly didn’t know who the drow was talking about. The name Tiem was spoken so fluidly that it took a stake through the right shoulder and a crossbow bolt through the left palm before he made the connection. Blearily, in the stupor of his pain, he muttered, “Tiem… T-M… the TinMan?”

Mander’s satisfied smile was sobering. “Tin Man? Tee-Emm?” He very nearly chuckled. “How marvelous! Tell me, Master Roman, is he truly made of tin?” Images of his own master, a man fused with machine, flashed across the dark-elf’s inner eye.

Roman regained his vigil, and Mander smiled in a thin line. “Pikit, bring the guns.”

Now Roman laughed. “Guns?” he said as the goblin drew from a satchel two black pistols. “And here I thought you’d done your homework.” Roman was praying that the Drow hadn’t done his homework. Guns could be very simple to deal with… or very serious… if he had the right kind of bullet.

With a snigger, the goblin aimed his pistol at Roman’s face and squeezed the trigger. It didn’t go click; it didn’t go bang; it went squish.

“Yes Yes Yes Yes!” the goblin shouted with excitement, pumping the trigger in and out until finally a thin stream of water spattered onto Roman’s cheek.

The vampire laughed… until the water started to burn.

“Holy Water, Master Roman. Now, if you will, tell me, why do they call him Tin Man?”

Roman gritted his teeth, waiting for the pain to subside. “You’re saying it wrong. It’s TinMan. Not Tin Man.”

Mander gave him a quizzical expression, then nodded, and another squirt of holy fluid streaked across Roman’s jaw line.

“It ‘ight ‘e easier for ‘e to talk i’ you don’t ‘elt ‘y li’s.”

The dark-elf seemed to consider this a moment. “Perhaps you’re right, Master Roman. Pikit, remove the vampire’s shoes. We have a whole body’s worth of pain to explore.”

In a way, Roman had himself to blame for the slow, methodical pattern his torture took beyond that point. His clothes were slowly stripped from the feet up in a continued effort to find unmarred flesh. Wooden spikes were not merely driven through, but slowly pushed into his tender flesh. Mander made sure not a single blow would bring the vampire death, but every one would deliver a whole new experience in pain. Pushed beyond the limits of endurance, by mid-morning Roman was fading out of consciousness. He’d told them everything: the TM-42, the Library, Larayne, the Book, the TinMan’s soul…. He had only one secret left, and he knew that if the dark-elf asked, he would reveal even that. He slipped in and out of consciousness, his vampire blood incapable of regenerating from the injuries inflicted to his soft tissues; hindered by the daylight hour, the garlic that still hung about his neck, and the methods by which the injuries had been delivered. Seeing a need to relieve the vampire from physical torment, Mander decided to explore yet another method of torture.

“Slab. Bring me the girl.”

Her torture was easy. Mander, with his assortment of throwing blades, handled it personally as Slab held her wrath at bay in his firm grip. He never asked a single question of her, but always made sure Roman was watching every slow insertion or swipe of his blade. She was released, a body blanketed in blood, and two wrists broken by Slab’s firm grip, only when Roman had recovered enough to scream, “STOP!”

“And now, my dear vampire, one last question…

“WHERE has the TinMan gone?”

Roman hesitated, trembling.

“I wish to remind you, Vampire. These are people you met just two days ago. You don’t know them, whereas I must assume you are very well acquainted with your young wife, and, despite your propensity toward mirrors, have had centuries to familiarize yourself with features I’m sure you would like to keep. So why, I ask, do you feel compelled to protect strangers?”

Why, indeed? He’d entered this fight thinking he had the upper hand. Was it merely pride and stubbornness that had held his tongue for so long?

Regarding his watch, Mander withdrew a long wooden stake fashioned from a broken table leg. “Pikit, it’s nearly noon. I think this interview has gone on long enough, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes!” the goblin hissed, rolling his knobby knuckles in the ball of his palm.

“Would you be so kind as to flip the switch? When you’ve finished, meet me in the East Lot. I’ll clean up here.” As the goblin trotted off, Mander returned his gaze to the vampire. “Last chance, Master Roman. WHERE has the TinMan gone?”

Tears rolled down his scarred cheeks as he surrendered without further coercion. “Tacoma,” he muttered with barely a whisper.

Mander smiled one last time. “There! Now was that so hard? Thank you, Master Roman.” And with his parting words, the dark-elf swung the table leg down into Roman’s chest.

Roman’s body convulsed. His hands clutched at the wooden pike protruding from his heart, driven so hard it had added to the spikes that secured him to the earth. Then, as he fell limp, his staring eyes suddenly vacant, Mander regarded him almost with disappointment. He’d half hoped the vampire’s body would dissolve into dust or burst into flames. But perhaps it was only sunlight that had that effect.

The hum of magically driven motors announced the slow opening of the stadium’s massive ceiling. Pikit had accomplished his task, and the Master would be quite interested in hearing all that the trio had discovered. Perhaps there would be another time to witness such a gruesome transformation, he thought, turning away.

“Y… You bast…”

As he walked past the scarcely revived body of Priscilla, he knelt briefly to speak in his softest, coolest tone. “Don’t worry, my dear. You have my promise, remember, that you would live to see another night… and indeed you shall. But I do suggest that, among your many injuries, you find yourself suffering from a case of amnesia when it comes to questions about your attackers. I did, after all, promise only one more night.”

Priscilla watched in silence as Mander slowly left the Arena. She was just loosing consciousness again, when sunlight beamed onto the field and began its slow advance toward Roman’s lifeless form. All was black when she heard the rustling of wings, and the croaking words, “Tweet, Tweet…”

* * *

An Irish accent about the knees of the paramedic said, “Looks like somebody stole ‘is lucky charms?”
The paramedic was, with some difficulty to avoid being bit, trying to remove a small, dark-haired child from the smoking corpse. Irately, he turned to the leprechaun, “He was a vampire, not a wizard. For being a detective, you’re a bit short of deductive reasoning.”

“’Ere now! You poking a bit o’ fun at me people, are ye?”

The EMT mumbled, “Not my fault your people got stuck with all those potatoes…”

“An’ now ye’r poking at me religion!”

The EMT flushed. They were both professionals, and duty demanded they respect each other as such. But he was a human, the officer one of the fair folk, and centuries of instinct pricked his nerves with a twinge of fear. “Sorry, Sir. Meant no disrespect. Can you help with the girl? OUCH!”

Lupinella’s jaw was clenched with sharp teeth bared. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she clung to her dead uncle’s body.

“’Ere now! Who’s the little nipper, then?”

The child glared at the leprechaun with yellow eyes. Her voice sobbed, “He’s NOT DEAD! He CAN’T be dead!”
Height was rarely a disadvantage for leprechauns, but as the officer stared eye to eye with this little girl, he realized he was dealing with an unknown magical element. A dead vampire on the ground, a severely wounded human being loaded into an ambulance for a trip to Harborview Hospital, and a little girl with the eyes and teeth of an animal refusing to leave the dead vampire’s side. She certainly wasn’t allergic to the sunlight, but the claws and fangs suggested some kinship to the vampire… and despite his lack of human blood, the officer had no desire to be bitten that afternoon.

“The woman yer mum, lil nipper? Don’chya wanna go wit’ her?”

From a few paces away, Sunshine hopped to his master and perched on the stake protruding from Roman’s shoulder. With a wistful, sidelong glance at the vampire’s vacant eyes, it rolled its other eye toward the officer and answered. “Tweet, Tweet! That’s right, Sir. Name’s Lupinella—the girl’s, not mine. Tweet, Tweet. That there’s Master Roman and the woman’s Lu’s mom.”

“An’ you are?”

“Name’s Sunshine, Sir. The master’s canary. Tweet, Tweet.”

“A familiar?” the leprechaun asked.

Sunshine nodded with the whole of his body. “And Lu’s guardian til Roman’s better.”

Under Lupinella’s glare, this seemed a fair enough excuse to bend the rules. “You can see the gel home once she’s let her pa go?”

Sunshine tilted his head curiously. Pa, uncle… who cares what the silly little dwarf thinks. “Sure. Tweet, Tweet,” he answered.

“All right, then. Let the li’l nipper an’ her bird go wit’ the corpse.”

“He’s NOT DEAD!” Lupinella screamed.

“O’ course not, Dearie. Jus’ restin’ I imagine.” The officer had reservations in remanding custody of such a young minor to such a clearly confused familiar. Did he say “canary”? But his reservations were stronger, still, in having to deal with a child who, he firmly believed, would necessitate a series of rabies shots should he try to extricate her from her pa.

* * *

Charles was impressed. It had been an informative night for his operatives. No doubt, their methods had been questionable, but Chuck found he slept better if he never asked. There were, of course, some discrepancies. Mander had referred to the visitor as a “golem,” but his identifying name of “TM-42” identified it as an android of the TM-series. He didn’t recognize the model designation of “42,” but surely there must have been advances in the past fifty-one years.

Without a doubt, the dark-elf had been as mistaken as the vampire in his report on the android’s newfound personality. It was likely just advanced programming, and he knew from experience just how lifelike some of the TM-s could be made. The –69 series had been among the first models released with a personality program pre-loaded* [FOOTNOTE: The software, as Charles remembered it, was limited in the extreme. Personalities tended to be single minded and while “emotion” could be simulated, it was rarely convincing. Needless to say, the male -69’s were always more “true to life” than the female.] . In fifty-odd years, he had no doubts that the TM-s could be programmed with an almost human personality.

He mused, examining his own robotic components, A man from a world that strives to make a man from a machine is, on this world, slowly being made into a machine, himself. In a twisted sort of way... it’s an irony.

Charles shook off his reflections and focused his mind on the business at hand. “A few minor corrections, Mander,” he said. “Your golem is technically referred to as an android—a robot designed to look like a human.”

“Not from what I heard, Mr. Hicklynn. Unless a lot of people from your world have a face like an anvil.”

“The correction is still valid, Mander. Golems do not exist on my world. He is a machine… nothing more.

“I should also forewarn you and your team. Androids can be exceptionally strong and quick. It sounds as though this TM-42 unit is equipped with an advanced A.I. programming.”

“Yes, yes. A-I?”

“Artificial Intelligence.”

“Yes, yes. But… A-I?”

Charles sighed. “Moving right along… where was I?”

“Artificial Intelligence, Sir. The an-droid?”

“Ah! Yes! I, of course, have no means of knowing just how advanced this unit’s A.I. is. However, it is completely within reason that he could outsmart even you, Mander.”

The dark-elf scoffed.

“Overall, you’ve done well… the three of you.”

“YES!” Pikit sniggered triumphantly.

“I don’t think I need to explain the next step in your… quest.”

Slab furrowed, his eyes searching as though he might find the answer on the overhang of his brow. He managed a timid, “Dur…” before Mander interjected.

“No, Sir. May I requisition a company carpet? We can leave for Tacoma at first light. It should be easy enough to locate this ‘Larayne’.” His voice dripped with disdain. “I believe the North End is a popular region for the fair folk to inhabit.”

“Yes, yes…” Charles murmured, waving them away, momentarily annoyed at having copied Pikit’s catch phrase. “Requisition whatever you and your team might need. But Mander,” Charles added, realizing his previous command to retrieve the visitor “alive” was no longer valid, “be sure you bring me this TM- unit intact.”

* * *

Babysitting… I don’t remember babysitting being in the job description.

“So… you ever come across extra parts in this profession? Tweet, Tweet.” It was an odd question to be asking a man who, himself, looked to be compiled of extra parts.

Igor turned a rueful eye—which means a lot from a man who’s left eye naturally bulges from its socket—at the bird. He didn’t remember bird-sitting to be in the job description either.

“All parts are extra,” he replied with a nasal hiss.

“You wouldn’t mind if I pecked around for a little snack, would you?” Sunshine was craning to look into the gray hued eyes of a newly arrived John Doe.

“All parts are extra… to their previous owners. Here, they’re the property of County Morgue.”

“Oh.” With a flutter of his wings, Sunshine spanned the distance of the morgue and landed on the hunchback’s hump. Curiously, he peered over to look down into the cadaver on which the man was currently working. “Enjoy your work much, Mr….”

“Igor,” the hunchback replied, stressing the long “I” sound of his name, no doubt due to a lifetime of people pronouncing it as an “E”.

“Tweet! Did you say eye?”

The hunchback turned his massive, bulging eye over to glare at the bird. “You say you’re the vampire’s pet… canary?”

Sunshine bobbed enthusiastically.

“Well, Pigeon, I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure canarys don’t eat eyes.”

“Tweet! You sure?”

“Quite.”

“But the troll said…” The mocking bird kicked in as Sunshine almost perfectly mimicked Slab’s slow, rumbling voice, “’Dur, look… it the pret… ty can… nar… y.’”

“And you took the word of a troll?”

“Seemed a bright enough fellow.”

At that moment, there was a stirring at the other side of the room. Igor was used to the occasional gastric release in his room full of corpses, but never before had he heard a wheeze that sounded so much like a set of holey bagpipes.

“He’s awake!” Lupinella shrieked, jumping down off the vacant autopsy table she’d been occupying.

Awake? Awake was not a usual condition of the Igor’s patients.

With a repeated wheeze, Roman coughed out a lung full of ash and smoke. Flakes of ash fell from his skin at the slightest movement, revealing fresh, living, though red and raw, flesh beneath. His deep inhalation was as raspy as his exhalation. His chest rose and fell rapidly, like a saved drowning victim searching for the proper rhythm of breath. Color flooded into his gray eyes. His limbs twitched and clawed fingers clutched as blood began to recirculate and nerves first began to check that all synapses were firing correctly, then delivered to his brain the deep red agony of a body wracked with pain. His first word was nothing but a scream.

Then Lupinella charged his table, peered over it with an excited smile, and pleaded, “Change Unca Ro! Change! Dat’o make it aww bettah!”

Incensed at the interruption to his work, the hunchback abandoned his current patient to attend the increasingly inaccurately termed “deceased” vampire. “Now what’s this! Here you! Lie still! You’re supposed to be DEAD!”

Hazel eyes flashed to yellow and the irises flooded to drown out the white. Roman’s pupils narrowed to pinpoints as they focused on the hunchback mortician. His bones crackled as they expanded and contracted, joints separated and rejoined. Tendons wheezed like stretching rubber and muscles bulged disconcertingly as his body reshaped to a canine form. Thick fur was beginning to grow from his reddened flesh as he turned on the table and fell opposite of Lupinella. There, rising on all fours, his ears and snout elongated and fangs extended from the puncturing tools of a vampire to the rending tools of a wolf.

Igor trembled, incapable of speech or movement. Lupinella jumped up and down, clapping her hands in glee. When she turned, she too was covered with a fine layer of fur, a slightly muzzled nose, and a pair of pointy ears.

“He did it! See Unca Ro! I tol’ you it would make the pain go away!”

Every puncture was sealed. All that remained was the constant pain of burned flesh, like that of a third-degree sunburn, pulsing from the tip of his snout to the tip of his tail. His flexing muscles had the sound of stretching leather as he settled into his new shape. His jaw clenched against the pain, and a deep, guttural growl resonated against the sterile, white walls of the morgue.

Igor caught his tongue at last, though just barely. “He’s a… he’s a…”

Lupinella said proudly, “It’o take more den a few spwinters of wood and some sun to kiww a wewewuf!”

“But… but… but the report said… vampire!”

“Yea, that too,” Sunshine supplied. As an afterthought, he added, “Coo!” but it went unnoticed.

Igor’s nerves settled further to the new developments in his usually quiet workplace. For the first time, Igor moved, wiping the beads of sweat from his brow, and froze the moment the massive wolf’s eyes narrowed on the waving appendage. Lupinella closed her eyes, more out of embarrassment than fear of bloodshed, as the wolf vaulted over table and child, bore its teeth into the hunchback’s arm, and ripped it from the shoulder socket. As he settled down to eat, the distant human part of his brain registered, Funny, sounded more like stitches tearing than flesh.

“Hey! I liked that one!” the hunchback whined. “It was manicured and everything!”

Roman hardly growled as he watched the strange man stagger off to a walk-in freezer, mumbling something about “ruining a perfectly good shirt, too,” and emerging with a fresh, albeit frozen-solid, appendage. “And I hate sewing with my left hand! Stupid werewolves!”

Sunshine ruffled his feathers in agitation. “Coo, Coo… Hey! I thought you said all the extra parts belonged to the County Morgue!”

Igor regarded the bird with his bulging eye. “I am the County Morgue. Now, if nobody here is dead… GET OUT!”

Bones and tendons wheezed again as the satiated wolf changed shape back to human form. A sudden shudder shed a blanket of fur onto the mortician’s spotless floor. He wasn’t quite human, but close when Roman spoke. “It’s daytime, isn’t it Sunshine?”

“Coo, Coo. Do I look like a Cuckoo?” Even the bird had to double-take himself at the response.

You certainly act the role, Roman thought. “I’d ask Lu, but she can’t tell time yet, and—burp—I think I got the hunchback’s watch arm.”

Igor snorted disdainfully, attracting Roman’s attention. The werewolf’s claws were just returning to fingernail shape when he reached out his hand, and Roman demanded, “Your lab jacket.”

The hunchback examined his attire, its one sleeve missing, its one side bloodied. “Oh no! You’ve already got the one sleeve!”

Roman glanced toward Lupinella. She was, of course, oblivious to his lack of attire, but a fair enough excuse to press the issue without resorting to threats of further bodily harm.

“Fine!” Igor grumbled. “You might like the clothes in drawer 17. I think he’s about your length.”

It struck Roman as odd to hear someone described in “length.” But then, most of the people the hunchback dealt with were lying down. He opened drawer 17. Igor had an eye (no pun intended) for lengths, however circumferences seemed to be lost on him. It will have to do since I still lack the vampire strength to change them.*[FOOTNOTE: People often question, “Where does a vampire’s clothes go to or come from when they change between human and animal form?” A vampire will answer that their clothes never truly leave them, but seem incapable of explaining exactly where they go. But since they are capable of a transformation to nothingness and back again, a simple transformation from one outfit to another is mere child’s play! The only limitation seems to be that they are incapable of adding more matter than what was included in the original outfit. Consequently, even the “modern” vampires of Roman’s class took a lesson from the “Continental” vampires with their long capes and three-piece funeral tuxes... learn to overdress.]

Sunshine spoke as Roman worked futilely to bind the folds of extra fabric that surrounded him. “Yes. Still daylight. Coo, Coo. Sorry, Roman, but you’re stuck here for a while.”

Shirt flapping, slacks fighting gravity to stay aloft, Roman turned determinedly on the hunchback. “A crystal and directory, hunchback. I need them… NOW.”

Igor only delayed a moment for the sake of his pride. His ancestors had never played servant to werewolves, but he knew for sure they’d cowed to vampires before, and though technically a free man, such servitude ran deep in the blood. It was a simple enough request.

Roman focused on Larayne’s face as he placed his hand on the cover of the thick directory. When he pulled his hand away, the book opened of its own accord, its white pages fanning past at a blinding rate to a page under “C”. One listing highlighted itself in bold lettering, “Cryor, Larayne E.—see Cryor, Frank & Louise” Under the alternate listing an address was given. He touched the crystal sphere, focusing on the address of the North Tacoma abode, and after several minutes heard, “I’m sorry, the party you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please try back again later.”

“Aw Star…” Roman looked into the innocent eyes of Lupinella and rephrased musingly, “Oh Poot.”

“Coo. You need to get a message to someone? Coo, Coo? You know, we pigeons are renowned message carriers.”

Pigeon, eh? Oh well, Roman thought, this is no time to talk him out of it. His delusions are about to come in handy… and the worst that could happen is he’d get himself lost.

“You have any idea where Tacoma even is, Sunshine?”

“Somewhere South, i’n’t it?”

Roman sighed and shook his head. “Somewhere South” was a lot of globe. His luck, the bird would get confused and go South for the winter.

“Look. I told you… Coo! We’re famous for this sort of thing! It’s an instinct!”

“Maybe for a real…” Roman paused. He didn’t want to ruin a good thing. “Maybe for a real… wild pigeon. But you were born and raised in a cage. You sure you’re up to this? It’s a long flight.”

Sunshine stretched out his wings, examining each, then fluffed his feathers with pride. “Found Lupinella and that stadium place, didn’t I? Coo! An’ these babies’ll make the flight.”

A quick scan located a pad of paper and quill among the belongings on the hunchback’s countertop. Roman wrote small, remembering the note had to fit on the raven’s leg. Then, slicing off a length of suture, he bound the letter to Sunshine’s leg and moved him to Lupinella’s shoulder.

“Lu can take you outside. Go South. From the sky you should be able to see a wide roadway. That’d be the Old Pacific Highway. It should lead you right to Tacoma.”

The bird tried to salute, but found his wings didn’t bend that way.

“Once there, you need to go to this address in the North End.” Roman transcribed the address from the Directory, tore the corner of the paper off, and slipped it in the raven’s beak. “If… no… when you get lost. ASK SOMEONE!”

With his mouth full, all the raven could do to reply was bob his body up and down.

“Larayne’s a young lady, elvish, brown hair, green eyes…”

“Is she PWETTY?” Lu teased, a broad grin on her fanged face.

For the blush he felt beneath the skin, Roman was glad he was thoroughly sunburned. He answered as plainly, and with as much impartial dignity as he could. “Yes. I suppose she is kind of pretty. But nothing compared to my little Lu.”

“Aw, Unca Ro…” Even a five year old knows when they’re being put on.

“You might miss her, Sunshine, but you can’t miss TinMan…” With a hasty description, barring any explanations, Roman painted a picture of the TinMan and rushed the confused girl and bird from the morgue and into the hospital elevator. “Once he’s gone, you come right back here, Lu. And Sunshine…” The bird cocked a curious eye towards him. “Good luck.”

* * *

In the whirlwind of thought that was the raven’s mind, knowledge gained by the books of Roman’s study were presumed the instincts of generations of pigeon breeding. He’d remembered which direction the sun came up in and in which direction it went down, giving him the rough presumptions of West and East… though he’d flown for ten minutes due North before he’d remembered that the sun SET in the West. His course correction made, he found Roman had been correct once an adequate altitude had been gained above the traffic elevation designated for carpets. The new Interstate-5 skyway held most of the inter-city traffic these days, but far below, the Old Pacific Highway still ran its course through the city streets of Seattle and beyond.

Could he handle it? The question was insulting. Of all people, Roman should have known how easy it was to glide at this altitude. Then again… he never really remembered seeing a bat glide. Their flight patterns more resembled the attention span of a two year old on a sugar high.

The dense city of Seattle thinned to its rural suburbs, rising back into moderate shadows of city growth through the cities of Burien, SeaTac, and Federal Way. The only problem he was encountering with his aerial approach was that, as he flew over each city, he had no means of knowing which city he was over. A brief landing was necessary at each to ask the locals just what city it was he’d found. When, at last, the answer was “Tacoma,” Sunshine found himself dismayed at the illogic that “North Tacoma” was not, as the name implied, in the northernmost tip of the city.

He’d found his way as far as the downtown bus station, reasoning that if anyone knew their way around Tacoma, it would be a bus driver. Besides, as he waited, the simple blocky maps for each route might give him some insight to the layout of this city’s streets.
On the bench to his left, a small woman rambled in a monologue that, as Sunshine listened, seemed to flare into arguments at nobody in particular. She wore beneath her haggard beard a purple overcoat that, buttoned up, hung beyond her dangling feet like a dress. It seemed to him the calms of this woman’s conversation flowed with mere mumbles, peaked sharply into shouts in Dwarfish punctuated with spittle that escaped from her toothless mouth, then gradually died down to a few words in English until the mumbling calm had been regained. It was, he decided, the type of conversation he felt invasive for listening in on. But being a familiar, he was used to people speaking freely around him, never realizing their every word… or in this woman’s case, only a third of her words, could be understood.

Seeing a small cluster of his brethren pecking at the concrete of the empty lot, Sunshine decided to entertain his delusion with a “Coo, Coo,” and with a flutter of the wings, descended to peck at the invisible fragments of food they all seemed so preoccupied with.

“Coo Coo? What’s that from a Crow?”

Sunshine ruffled his feathers, spat out his address, eyed the crazy dwarf indignantly, and answered, “Coo, coo… I am NOT a CROW, kaw-damnit!”

“Then what is ya?”

The raven billowed his chest proudly. “I am a pigeon!”

“Mumble mumble stupid… mumble mumble… then what are you doin’ down there with those common ground doves?”
Sunshine cocked an eye toward the flock of birds around him. “Ground doves?”

The woman yelled her unintelligible Dwarfish at nobody in particular, seeming to rage against some unheard interruption, then returned to Sunshine in her English tone, “Common enough mistake.”

Sunshine was curious. “Know much about birds, do you?”
The old woman smiled. She had, Sunshine observed, only one or two teeth to smile with, but it was, without a doubt, a smile she returned to him. She didn’t answer directly, but after a brief scratching at the wiry beard common to all dwarves, began to argue once more with the invisible interloper.

Sunshine watched the one-sided exchange for a moment, then asked, “Excuse me…”

The woman’s change in demeanor was instantaneous as her gaze returned to the raven. “Yes… pigeon?”

Sunshine preened. He looked at the note tied to his leg, then the address on the ground, and realized that, despite having managed to find the proper city, he was completely lost. “Perhaps I’m not a pigeon,” he contemplated out loud.

“Perhaps not, Dear.”

“Well, I KNOW I’m not a deer!” He added beneath his breath, “Crazy ol’ bird.”

“Do you need some help, Love?”

Dove… yes, that would explain why I was on the ground with the others. “Yes,” he answered, “I’m looking for this address. You know where it is?”

The old woman dropped down off her seat and lifted the note. She regarded it thoughtfully for a moment, scanned the horizon, and then pointed. “That way. About five minutes, as the… crow flies.”

Sunshine ruffled his feathers, but recognized the phrase as an unintended insult. “Well, we doves are a bit smaller of wing, so I hazard it might take me a bit longer. But thanks!”

As the woman watched Sunshine disappear into the city horizon, she shook her head. “Mumble mumble mumble… delusional Raven… mumble mumble mumble…”

* * *

It had been, without a doubt, an educational two days for them both.

On the first, TinMan had observed in living flesh, feather and scale a menagerie of life forms known to his world only in legends, while Larayne had absorbed from him a vague understanding that the TinMan’s world functioned in an adversarial balance with its own nature. TinMan had witnessed the wonders of this world’s crystal craft, while Larayne learned that on TinMan’s world, men crafted through industry and labor rather than nurturing and growth. And of course, the TinMan had learned that, despite all logic or personal preference, being a human male meant letting the female have her way; while Larayne learned that, like any man, the TinMan had no idea how to dress himself… and with a man who had, very literally, never dressed himself, the simple mechanics of a pair of pants could be profoundly confusing. It took a couple of crashes before she had to yell, “One leg at a time!” and as his jumpsuit’s zipper had run up his back, it confounded the android why the same principle should not apply to button-fly on a pair of corduroys.

The second day proved no less educational. The android woke to Larayne’s request, “TinMan, can you button me?” As his optics came online he saw Larayne standing with her bare back to him. She was wearing a dress, and though she never complained he got the feeling she was anything but comfortable in it. The sight of her exposed back clear down to the panty line was more flesh than he had ever seen on her, and he felt a warm flush throughout his body that his thermal sensors were adamantly insisting was not happening. It took a moment to collect his thoughts beyond what his optics were witnessing, and once his SmartRAM registered the request his aural receptors had perceived, he reached out and buttoned the length of the girl’s gown.

“I have never seen you wear this fashion of clothing, Larayne.”

“It’s for Mass. Daddy says you’re more than welcome to come along!” She giggled. “I wonder if he’ll gets brownie points if he converts someone from another universe.”

MASS: 1) THE QUANTITY OF MATTER IN A BODY AS MEASURED BY ITS INERTIA.

NO, I DO NOT THINK THAT IS RIGHT.

2) A QUANTITY OF MATTER OF INDEFINITE SHAPE OR SIZE; A LUMP.

THAT DOES NOT SOUND MUCH BETTER.

3) A LARGE QUANTITY OR NUMBER.

CLOSER. BUT STILL NOT RIGHT.

4) A GATHERING OR CEREMONY FOR RELIGIOUS WORSHIP.

... RELIGION? TinMan’s software demanded input. Religion was among the sociological aspects of civilization his Directives demanded he research. “Yes,” he answered, “I would like very much to accompany you and your father to this Mass.”

* * *

Larayne mused as she watched TinMan stare in awe at the ornate sculptures of saints gone by and the vibrant images painted into the collage of stained glass on every window. She allowed some distance to breach between herself and her father before speaking in a hushed tone, “It’s beautiful, I know. But I must admit, I’m really more comfortable with my mother’s religion.”

“What religion does your mother practice?” The TinMan knew from the example of his own world that there could be many religions to just a single species and even in a single culture, and wondered how many were in practice on a world with such a variety of sapient life forms.

“Well she’s a Practical Druid. Mostly just the household protection spells and charms. But I’m more of a student of the old ways,” she answered. “The rites of our religion are almost forgotten, now... just like the light elves… brought to the edge of extinction by the drow. I guess they reasoned that wiping out our religion was an important part of wiping out our people.”

TinMan looked down. “I am sorry.”

Larayne smiled. “It’s okay. In a way, it’s fun not having everything laid out for you like a textbook. It’s like a puzzle! I’m always looking for new pieces, always finding something new about my people... and about me. At the same time, since it is a somewhat dead religion... I don’t necessarily have to believe in all the things my ancestors did.”

TinMan looked at her, confused.

As Larayne turned to explain to him, her ankle buckled atop the narrow dress shoe she wore as a part of her ensemble. She was not used to having a distraction from the continual concentration it took to balance in the uncomfortable and relatively unfamiliar footwear. But as accustomed as she was to falling, Larayne knew how to let her ankle turn without doing it much harm, and was pleasantly surprised when TinMan caught her fall, sparing her hands and knees the carpet burn that surely would have otherwise followed the fall.

She blushed as he reset her to her feet and was surprised at the strength he displayed with so little effort. “Thanks,” she offered, then went on to explain as they continued marching toward the pulpit, “There was a time when the druids not only communed themselves with nature, but worshiped the sun and the moon as the deities of nature! They even made sacrifices to them! Of course everyone knows now that the sun’s really a giant, flaming hamster chasing the moon around the world, so I choose to ignore the superstitions of our faith and practice the practical communion and magic.”

There was a moment of silence as the android envisioned a gigantic rodent hurtling through the void of space, its capillaries bursting, its blood boiling, and its lungs imploding from the immense vacuum that surrounded it. Then he set it aflame, and envisioned it making a mad dash around the circumference of the world in a desperate attempt to reach...

“Why is the hamster chasing the moon?” he asked.

“Because it’s made of cheese, silly!”

AND WHY NOT? he reflected, referencing the cosmology section of his mythology database for a comparable belief in his own world’s history. THE HUMANS ON MY WORLD USED TO BELIEVE THE WORLD WAS FLAT AND SAT UPON THE BACK OF A GIANT TURTLE.

“Deities... I guess that’s why I’m not much for Daddy’s religion.” Larayne stopped at the altar to where the congregation had been advancing to bow, one-by-one, to the symbol of their faith.

Tiem blinked in bewilderment. On the altar stood a brown, plastic, ovoid figure atop two bright-red shoes. It smiled back at them with large, plastic teeth under a bulbous green nose. Two wiry arms protruded from where, if the shape was intended to be the creature’s head, its ears should have been. “What is it?” the android whispered as Larayne gave the figurine a respectful acknowledgement, but failed to bow or kneel as most did.

“It’s the Great Potato,” she answered, and then led him on to a pew where her father was already seated.

“Your world worships... a potato?”

Larayne one-shoulder-shrugged, an expression that told the android the simple answer was “yes” but was still not quite right. “Here,” she said, handing him a thick, leather-bound volume with gold-edged pages. “Lycopersiconism is a bit hard to explain in its entirety, but the story of the Potato is all in here. If you still have questions after the service then I think Daddy would be a better person to explain.”

The android took the volume and opened it to the first page, leafed to the second, the third, the fourth, and the fifth... gradually increasing to a reading speed that was considerably slower than his maximum ability yet not so fast he risked damaging the delicate pages of the volume. When he had finished, he had no questions.

* * *

PRAISE THE POTATO. OF COURSE… IT ALL MAKES SENSE, NOW.

* * *

To TinMan, every simple taste of life was a new experience to savor or disdain. It began the morning the word “panties” woke him from his shut-down mode—a state Larayne preferred to call “sleep”—continued with a variety of sights, smells and flavors throughout each day, and ended… well, that was the best part. It hadn’t ended, and he suspected it never would.

After an afternoon of relaxation post a particularly long sermon, Larayne thought to introduce the TinMan to a wonder she imagined must be unique to her world—a curious sport (if it can be called such) in which players lobbed a heavy wheel of cheese* [FOOTNOTE: Because wedges didn’t roll as well.] down a long wooden lane with the objective of knocking down nine wooden pins in a diamond formation at the other end. “Skittles,” she called it, but TinMan analyzed that it was rather similar to bowling. Larayne stared at him in confusion over her wheel of Limburger when he told her of the similarly designed game and responded simply, “A marble ball? Where’s the point in that?”

“Actually, there is no point. The ball is spherical,” TinMan answered, and proceeded to lob his Gouda with mathematical precision for yet another strike.

Despite her propensity toward the mathemagical arts, Larayne’s technique was considerably less structured. With each turn she would approach with her cheese in both hands, and with a pirouette rather than a back-handed swing, she would launch her Limburger into a diagonal course down the lane. It did not escape the TinMan’s notice that only when she landed in a seemingly graceless thump on the floor did the cheese wheel manage to score her a strike.

Larayne was sore, trying to keep up with the android’s pace with her unique skittling style. Fortunately the precision and strength with which TinMan played made for a short night out and the Tower Skittles lanes were not far from her house. The walk home was a relief to the bruises on her posterior padding. The fresh air had prepared her mind for a good night’s sleep when a raspy voice croaked in greeting as she approached the house’s front gate.

“Well, you’re a lady. Coo, Coo. Can’t say I’m an expert in knowin’ pretty from not, though. Definitely elfin, though. Coo!”

“Is there a point to this, bird?”

“Only at the end of his beak,” TinMan responded, scientifically.

“Coo! Could be, if you’re Larayne.”

“And who wants to know?” she asked cautiously.

“I thought it was me! Wasn’t I the one who asked? I forget… Coo, Coo… We doves aren’t known for our memory skills.”

“Yes, Blackbird, you did ask. What I meant was, who sent you?”

Sunshine pondered for a moment, his left eye focusing in and out on Larayne. Blackbird! That would explain the color. Hmmm… “CHECK! CHECK! You know a pale guy by the name of Roman?”

“We met briefly. He parted even more briefly…” Larayne’s voice still held disdain.

“Well, let’s just say after getting a little sun yesterday, our pale friend’s picked up a little color.”

“Sun! Oh my Poot!”—and while it was a rather foolish question, she asked, “Is he okay!?”

“Ah, by the time the sun hit him he was already dead from the wooden stakes. Didn’t feel a thing.”

Larayne’s eyes were wide; her mouth was agape. It took a full minute of random blurbs of speech such as, “But… how… he…. Who…” before she finally settled on the question, “What happened?”

“CHECK! Kinda obvious, isn’t it? Someone stuck a piece of wood through him! Several, actually. He was thoroughly pierced! CHECK! CHECK! I think it was the one in his chest that did him in, though.”

“He… he’s dead?”

Sunshine eyed her questioningly. “Do you mean to ask if he is or if he was? CHECK!”

“You mean I have a choice!”

“Certainly! It’s a simple matter of tense in speech! Do you want the present tense or the past tense?”

“Present, you stupid bird!”

“Now that’s uncalled for! I’m actually rather intelligent, all things considered. How many blackbirds do you know who can tell the difference between past and present tense?

“If its present tense you want, then no, he’s not dead.”

“But you said…”

“He WAS dead! Sure, kind of goes without saying when it comes to vampires, doesn’t it? But notice the past tense. See, me and Lu got to him quick enough. Then the hunchback fed him, and… well, he should be in tip top by the time we see him again. Which reminds me…” Sunshine extended his leg. “He sent me to deliver this letter.”

Larayne took the note from the bird’s leg and unrolled it. The fragment of stationary read in embossed letters “King County Morgue” below which was scrawled a hasty note. Larayne noticed that, though the letters were small and tightly packed, each had been scripted with a flowing penmanship that must have taken years to perfect.

Larayne and TinMan,

RUN! Without a doubt, Sunshine has informed you of my recent encounter with the dark-elf, the goblin, and the troll. They’re dangerous, and they’re looking for you. More accurately, they’re looking for TinMan. But unfortunately you’re no longer safe, either, Larayne. They know who you are and that you live in Tacoma. It’s only a matter of time before they find you.

I repeat. RUN! If you can make it back to Seattle, I can help protect you. Meet me at my house. You should be safe here since they think I’m dead. If Sunshine manages to find you, he should be able to show you the way back.

My deepest apologies,

R.

* * *

“Oh…” Larayne muttered. From a goblin or troll, she’d probably be safe. But a dark-elf was something else. “... Poot.”

It took only minutes for Larayne to pack her bag, seconds to add TinMan’s alternate clothes to the pack. Explaining the situation to her mother was the challenge.

“I knew that vampyr would be trouble! What have I told you about the undead?”

“But it wasn’t Roman’s fault!”

TinMan looked down at his feet. He felt a peculiar sensation as the circumstances milled through his SmartRAM—like a lead ball sitting at the bottom of the carbon energy converter he called a stomach. His voice rang with a remorseful tone. “Actually… I think it is my fault.”

Every eye turned.

“I am the one the dark-elf wants. I am the reason Roman was… malfunctioned. If the dark-elf comes here, I will be the one they are looking for.”

“CHECK! True enough, Lead Head. Just figure that one out, didjya? But time’s a wastin’! I want to get back to my cage before midnight.”

“I don’t like this, Larayne.” Frank spoke in the protective tone that only a father can possess.

“And neither do I. Look at how much trouble that vampyr’s already gotten you into! And he wants you to hide at his house? I WON’T have it!”

“Mommy, I have to get Tiem out of here! And you and Daddy have to leave too… at least for a while.”

Though Frank’s expression was not as sure as his wife’s, Louise responded with a firm, “We’ll do no such thing! I know how to deal with dark elves.”

“With a troll and a whatsit… little thing… ah, goblin to back him up? Mommy, please…”

“Enough!” Frank’s face was flushed. “Go, Larayne. Take TinMan and go.”

Larayne wrapped her arms around her father’s neck. “Thank you, Daddy!”

“FRANK!”

Larayne’s father ignored her. “Just… lock your door at night. You might want to pick up some garlic on the way. And… well… if he tries to… you know… bite you, just yell ‘No.’”

Louise was fuming, but knew Frank’s verdict was the only option they had. He would likely take her to her mother’s for a few days until it was safe to finally come home. Larayne, however, had to be well out of town, and if this Roman character had the decency to fly her a message and offer his protection after nearly being killed once already by these thugs, then perhaps his house was the safest place she could be. That is… assuming there really was a dark-elf. It crossed her mind that the vampyr could just be trying to get beneath her daughter’s collar… but then, could they really take that chance?

* * *

From the UW Depot, Larayne and TinMan waited while Sunshine took to the skies to orientate himself with the familiar layout of his hometown. Larayne called a cab, but as Sunshine had not been educated with his own address, the driver was told simply to take them to the “Vlasenko Mansion on the top of the hill.” Though Seattle had its fair share of vampires, its mansion count was not much higher than one… so the cabbie knew exactly where to go.

Larayne had never been to this part of Seattle before. To her, Seattle was a city of stone and glass towers, markets and museums, and of course the University. She’d never thought about where people actually lived in the big city. The neighborhood was comfortably wooded, neighboring a public park of neatly cropped gardens and fountains. It was only the manicuring of its surrounding trees that somehow fit the garish castle turned mansion into its more humble surroundings. Beautiful and impressive as it was, Larayne noticed that in the dark, it exuded a chilling feel that suited the house of a vampire.

Stepping from the cab, Larayne and TinMan started up the front walk. Sunshine seemed to have already disappeared inside.

Larayne felt as if she were being watched. A quick glance around did not reveal any obvious source for her sudden paranoia, but it persisted, and as both an elf, and a druid, she was accustomed to heeding such warnings. A slow movement seen by the corner of her eye caused her to wheel suddenly. Nobody was there. It had moved like a shadow on the edge of her vision, but as she stared fixedly at the mansion’s precipice, the only mortal shape she could discern hung with petrified faces under twisted bodies of scale and wing carefully etched in granite. Compulsively, she shuddered under the grotesque expressions of the mansion’s gargoyles—one of the few vestiges remaining from its original castle form. Nah, she dismissed the idea. Just a trick of the shadows.

“The stonework is moving.” The TinMan made the statement seem to have a question mark at the end.

“You saw something too?”

“My optics detected… Yes, I saw something move, but… Is the stonework in your world capable of motion?”

“Not usually, except downward.” Both stared at the side of the mansion trying to find something in the shadows. However, finding nothing, Larayne continued up the walk to the front entry. Not moving, TinMan’s eyes never left the row of statues.

A light rap on the front door was answered by a curious child’s face. “Hewwo?”

“Uh… The bird said we could find Roman here?”
Lupinella curled her lips in something of a snarl as she regarded her visitor. “You mus’ be Lawayne,” she said with disdain.

Larayne looked with interest at the young girl partially hidden behind the door. She had fangs… like a vampire. Could a vampire, technically speaking, have a child? she wondered.

With the confirmation of Larayne’s nod, Lupinella opened the door the rest of the way and stormed out past her with a fixed jaw. “You wewe s’pposed to wawn us when we got visito’s!” she scolded toward the rooftop.

“Sorry, Miss Lupinella,” a gravely voice returned. Larayne and TinMan both watched as one of the hunkering gargoyles crackled into animation. “But he just kept on staring! How’s I supposed to leave my post with him staring like that?”

Lu gave TinMan a sharp glance, as if seeing him for the first time. She drew in a deep lung full of air through her nose, and her expression turned to mistrust and curiosity. “I guess yo’e the one he cawws TinMan.”

“I am.”

“Weww… come inside, both o’ ya. Yo’ scawing da domestics.”

Obediently, they followed the child back inside the house. Larayne was no less awed by the ornate interior, but her summation of the house’s architecture was interrupted as Roman, his pale flesh a mere pink that gave him the glow of the living, Sunshine perched proudly on his shoulder, emerged from the study with the words, “Thank the Potato! You made it!”

* * *

Sitting in one of the mansion’s numerous parlors, the group traded stories. Roman told Larayne and TinMan about his scrape with death, yet he left out a few vital facts. Briefly, Larayne relayed to Roman her unique adventures with TinMan, although she “forgot” to mention how she managed to wake him up. TinMan was strangely grateful that she also “forgot” to mention the powder blue underwear. Before TinMan could finish his own narrative for Roman, Larayne had fallen asleep in her chair. A day beginning with church and ending with a flight for her life had left the girl exhausted now that the security of Roman’s home surrounded her.

On the floor, curled into a ball in the middle of a deep, sheepskin throw, Lupinella stretched and yawned with a little squeal, then curled back up into her comfortable ball and faded into sleep. Sunshine, balanced on one foot at the corner of Roman’s hearth, was curled in on himself like a retracted telescope, both neck and legs retracted into the whole of his feathery hide.

“I should have offered her something to eat.” Roman said regretfully. “Do you…”

“I do not require food, however my power cells are charged from sustenance processed by my… stomach.”

“So… the answer is ‘yes.’”

“Yes, Roman. But at this time, I do not require sustenance.” As an afterthought, remembering an etiquette lesson gained through two days of living with Larayne’s family, TinMan added, “Thank you, though.”

Roman’s attention now turned to Larayne. “I suppose I should show you to your rooms. You do sleep, don’t you?”

TinMan answered, “My systems can reserve their power supply in a stand-by….” Tiem amended, “Yes, Roman. I can sleep.”

Roman smiled as he knelt to the sofa on which Larayne had fallen asleep. Almost defensively, TinMan rose and approached.

“Don’t worry, Tiem. I’ve already had dinner tonight.” The vampire’s tone was one of jest, Roman being quite used to this sort of prejudice.

“I… I did not intend offense, Roman. I just presumed…” TinMan was at a loss to explain his own reaction. He truly hadn’t believed that Roman was going to bite her. He just felt it his place, not Roman’s, to carry her to her room. The best explanation he could vocalize was, “I thought it better if I take her. You have Lupinella to carry.”

“Lu sleeps wherever she likes* [FOOTNOTE: Werewolves usually do.], Tiem. She’ll be fine right where she is.” Roman reached an arm beneath Larayne’s neck and TinMan stepped another pace closer.

“I really feel I should be the one to carry her.”

“I’m more than capable, Tiem. If I can lift you, then Larayne should be no problem.”

“I do not question your strength, Roman.”

“You don’t question my strength. You don’t question my motives… so… what’s the matter?”

TinMan’s SmartRAM was overheating in the effort to put logic to his actions. Finally, in abandon, he answered with a defensive tone, “Perhaps I should ask you why it is so important that you carry her!”

“Oh fo’ Potato’s sake! Would one o’ you take hew! I’m twyin’ to sweep hewe!”

TinMan and Roman looked at the agitated face of the child, and then looked at each other.

“You take one end, I’ll take the other?” Roman suggested.

TinMan shrugged. He bent over and grabbed Larayne’s left wrist and ankle and with a smooth motion dragged her off the sofa and into a loud THUMP onto the floor.

“ENOUGH!” Larayne yanked her wrist and ankle free from TinMan’s grip, stood, and brushed the wrinkles from her robes. “I’ll walk!” She stormed toward the ornate, curved stairway that led from the parlor, turned at its base and added, “If you two figure out who’s going to carry me by dawn, let me know!” She was half way up the stairway before she paused again. “Um… Roman… exactly where is my room?”

Roman had to restrain a laugh. “Top of the stairs, turn right down the hall, first door on the left,” he answered.

When only the sound of Larayne’s footsteps remained, TinMan turned toward Roman, somewhat perplexed. “I thought you were going to get the other end.”

* * *

Did he say first door on the left… or the right? Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. I can’t tell the difference anyway.

* * *

It was almost nightfall before the Inissant Quest mini-carpet bearing Mander, Pikit, and Slab hovered up to the driveway of Frank and Louise’s North Tacoma home. In Tacoma, the North end and University Place district was a cesspool for the few remaining elves in this region. The very presence of so many of his “nicer” kin made Mander’s skin crawl and dulled the usual edge of his predatory nature.

It had taken longer than Pikit thought it should to arrive at this point. Among his peers he was little more than a lowly servant, and among his enemies he ranked no higher than the scavenging coward. On the whole, he was not known for his wealth of knowledge, wisdom, or skill. But of all the things that Pikit didn’t know, the hunt was not among them. Goblins had a nose for the hunt, and a fundamental law of the universe dictated that a predator always knew another predator. In the confines of their carpet, Pikit watched as Mander stared almost vacantly at the front door of the North Tacoma home. The drow’s expressions were as controlled as ever, so this, the goblin concluded, must be an example of actions speaking louder than words…. Mander was afraid.
It was an uncomfortable five minutes before Mander finally opened the rear door and stepped down to the gravel drive.

“Yes, yes. You wants us to raid the place? Yes, yes… Slab an’ me, we’ll…”

“There will be little point, Pikit. I’m afraid nobody is home.”

“Dur… how you know dat, Man… der?”

The dark-elf looked up and down the street. Eyes were on them from behind the blinds of closed windows and over the shoulders of passersby who, for all their efforts, weren’t as invisible as they were trying to make themselves. Just as their presence weighed down on him like the weight of an ocean, they could sense his “evilness” like a droplet of ice cold water on hot, dry flesh.

“I can feel their absence, Slab.”

“Yes, yes… might be some clues inside, yes?”

“Quite likely,” Mander replied coolly. “But now is not the time.”

Mander felt the press of more eyes upon them as the knowledge of his presence spread. “You and Slab will have to return tonight, well past nightfall.”

“Yes, yes? And you?”

“My very presence jeopardizes our mission. They can sense me… the fair folk. Because of me, they know we are here.”

“Dur… who care? Bunch o’ dwarfs an’ lit… tle elfs… Slab can squash ‘em if dey try an… ting.” The troll gasped in the exhaustive effort of relaying so many words. For him, a sentence of more than four words constituted an entire page of small-print text.

“No, Slab. Though I am sure we have nothing to fear from the local authorities, a lack of discretion can cause undue… complications.” Mander reentered the mini-carpet and shut the door.

Slab and Pikit followed.

Four hours had passed. Despite his discomfort, Mander had not abandoned the North End territory. With a nonchalance that only a drow can accomplish, Mander approached a small pub. Entering, he could see the clientele consisted primarily of dwarves but there were a few leprechauns, including the bartender. He could tell by their racous laughter that they had not seen him enter.

One dwarf who was wobbling on his stool started another slurred joke. “And soo this… this Dwarf, a F… Fairy, an’ a Elf all waulk into a bar, an’ the bartenda’ sayth…”

He stopped his joke when Mander approached the bar. All other eyes were already on the drow, and several pairs of feet were shuffling back. Dwarves had never bothered in the politics of the elfin world, and few could tell by sight the difference between a light-elf and a drow. So it was not by the sight of Mander that the dwarven guests allowed him as much space as they could manage, but by instinct. An uncomfortable silence ensued.

Word would spread, Mander thought. A dark-elf spent the evening in a secluded corner of the Four Leaf Clover Tavern up on Sixth Avenue. He could not have possibly been responsible for a break-in on the other side of the North End. There had been witnesses, of course, who could claim that the elf had been in the company of a goblin and a troll earlier in the day. But Mander knew that as they stood in front of Frank and Louise Cryor’s home, it was not the goblin and troll everyone had been noticing. His very presence elsewhere at this hour would serve as alibi for them all. How perfect… he mused as a couple with decidedly elfin blood entered and whispered to the bartender. All three eyed him suspiciously. The alibi is complete.

Meanwhile, not across town, but across the town within town known as North End, Pikit and Slab approached the Cryor home on foot. Pikit was accustomed to stealth and from one shadow to the next moved as a mere blur. Slab, however, aided little in the goblin’s stealthy approach… except, of course, in being the one who provided the shadows. The front door was far too conspicuous and well within the lampposts’ light. The back door, a pair of French double doors wide enough for Slab’s broad shoulders, around the large home and down beneath the grade of the street, was a far superior entry point. Besides, glass was so much more entertaining to smash than wood.

Larayne’s downstairs apartment yielded little in the way of clues to her whereabouts. There were signs of hasty packing, though only for one, and a wide variety of books on almost everything from mathemagics and classic literature to the strange and mostly fictional concepts of science, and notepads scratched with odd unfiled notes and bits of vague wisdoms, none of which yielded any clue as to the girl’s or android’s whereabouts. Her drawers and closets were filled with the typical feminine wears, some of which were simply torn through, while others were closely inspected out of masculine curiosity.

“Hmmm! Yes, YES! Black panties… you know what that says about a woman!”

“Dur… Hard to find in dark? Look! BIG lace pan... tees.” Slab held aloft a sleek negligee… lavender.
Pikit sniggered. “Yes, yes… I DO hope we catch up with this woman.”

Upstairs offered little more for their objective. The bedroom of the adults also showed signs of a hasty packing, though they had taken the time to clean up after themselves. The adults, Pikit deducted, left after their little one. The fine wooden furniture in the upper levels provided a less depraved, though considerably more destructive means of entertainment. Breaking furniture was fun in any home save your own, but breaking expensive furniture was a sheer joy!

Still, an hour later, Pikit and Slab had to leave empty handed… with the exception of a souvenir or two. It was midnight when, almost a mile away in the Tower Skittles parking lot, Mander flew in to retrieve them for the long flight home.

“Your…” Mander paused briefly, looking at the goblin out of personal curiosity, then pressed ahead with business taking priority “… report, Pikit?”

“Yes, yes! Best I can tell the young one left before the older ones did.”

“And… the an-droid?”

Pikit shrugged. “No sign of him, yes? Not even a bed! No clothes, no nothing! Yes?”

“So the vampire lied?”

“Oh no! Yes, yes… I could smell ‘im! Least, I ‘sume it was him! Same smell’s was in the alleyway. Like Maggicware… but a bit different. Kinda like the boss’s metal parts, too.”

“I see.” And indeed he did see… and wished he hadn’t. From the evidence at hand, Mander knew the goblin’s search had been thorough. “Pikit, I know what you have on your head. The question is… why?”

Pikit grinned brightly. His long nose was bridged with a thin strip of black elastic that ran down beneath each of his long, pointy ears. An equally black string of fabric ran up his forehead, dividing his scalp down the center. “Yes, yes…” he sniggered. “Just a bit o’ fun, Mander. What good’s a job if you can’t have fun doin’ it?”