Home Improvement: Undead Edition

Full-Scale Demolition SUZANNE MCLEOD

“The client’s got a pixie portal in her swimming pool?” I groaned and shot a frustrated look down at the four Warded cat carriers I’d tucked into the shade of Nelson’s Column. There were two sleeping pixies in each and it had taken me since dawn to catch the little monsters. It was now midday. The last thing I wanted was another pixie job. “Toni, please, ple-ease, tell me this is one of your windups?”

Toni, our office manager, laughed in my phone’s earpiece. “Sorry, not this time, Genny. And it’s an emergency job—” The trilling of the other line interrupted her. “Hang on, hon,” she said, and I heard her faint, “Spellcrackers.com, making magic safe, guaranteed. How may I help you?” before I tuned her out.

Catching pixies was so not my favorite job. It made me feel like the wicked faerie who didn’t get invited to the christening, but who turned up anyway. And catching pixies in Trafalgar Square on Easter Saturday, in an early heat wave, with a full complement of tourists, schoolkids, and al fresco sandwich-snackers happily pointing their digital cameras and video phones my way . . .

Well, you get the picture.

I raked fingers through the ends of my hair where it stuck to my nape and contemplated the last pixie. It was squatting on the flank of one of the four bronze lions that guarded the base of Nelson’s Column, swishing its barbed tail like an angry cat. Its blue-gray scales shimmered in the sunlight, and its lipless snout was stretched in a taunting grin. No way was it going to make this easy. Then, as if to hammer that thought home, the pixie flapped its vestigial batlike wings, cartwheeled along the lion’s broad back, and jumped up to perch on the statue’s huge head.

The impromptu audience gathered below laughed and clapped and whooped. The two heritage wardens, who were doing crowd control around the column’s base, exchanged a long-suffering look. And in the background the ever-present rumble of traffic rose and fell like the murmur of the sea. Which was where the pixie was going back to after I’d caught it in my hot sticky fingers.

Despite the fascinated audience, pixies in Trafalgar Square were nothing new. The first one appeared back in 1845 as soon as they’d begun pumping water into the newly built fountains—the fountains had opened a portal straight to the Cornish sea—and the pixies had been slipping through ever since. A cautionary lesson to anyone thinking about digging a new garden pond. Get a witch to do a magical survey first, or you never know where you might be connecting to—or what might live there.

“Genny Taylor!”

At my shouted name, I looked down to find a petite girl of about my own age—twenty-four—at the front of the crowd. She had spiky black hair, a silver dumbbell through her left eyebrow, and a tattoo of red and black triangles on the side of her throat, and she was overdressed for the heat wave in Goth-style camo gear. She grinned, lifted the huge professional camera hanging round her neck, and snapped off a couple of shots. Damn, my persistent paparazzo was back. She’d been stalking me for a good couple of months (one of the joys of being the only sidhe fae in London), though only the gods knew why, as I sincerely doubted the media needed any more photos of me chasing pixies. YouTube already had half a dozen videos, from what I’d heard.

I shifted, giving her my back.

“Hi, hon.” Toni’s voice returned in my earpiece.

“What’s the story with the swimming pool anyway?” I asked.

“The client’s doing renovations,” Toni said. “One of the builders put an iron spike through the Ground Ward and fritzed it, and then some idiot left a hose running.”

“Great.” Repairing a Ground Ward added another hour to the job.

“Oh, wait till you hear the rest,” Toni said. “The husband’s an antiquities dealer, so the house is full of statues. Very old and very expensive statues. Hubby’s on a buying trip just now, and the client’s having forty fits in case something ends up broken.”

Pixies love statues. It’s what makes them dangerous.

A few years ago, a pack of about thirty-odd pixies, high on candies filched from a coachload of schoolkids (sugar works wonders for amping up magic), managed to partially animate the exact same bronze lion I was looking at. The lion shook its head, roared, and snapped its jaws at the crowd for over an hour before the pixies’ magic finally wore off. So the Greater London Authority declared the pixies a health hazard, and Spellcrackers. com had won the contract to keep the pixie numbers down to acceptable levels.

“Thing is,” Toni said, breaking into my musings, “you’ll need to do the job on your own; everyone else is either down at Old Scotland Yard—” She paused, and we shared a moment’s silence about the tragedy, currently absorbing the media, of the two eleven-year-old boys who’d gone missing from an amusement arcade a week ago. Any witch with a touch of scrying ability was helping the police right now. So far no one had gotten lucky. “Or they’re off to the Spring Fertility Rite,” Toni finished. Easter is the witches’ big jamboree.

“No probs. Does the client know I’m doing the job?” Some humans didn’t want a fae in their home—either too scared or too bigoted—and while I can pass for human if I hide my catlike pupils, it’s never good business to fool the clients. Of course, I get other job requests that have nothing to do with cracking magic and everything to do with some jerk’s sexual fantasy, so I find it pays to check.

“She asked for our pixie specialist.” Which was my “star billing” on the company website. “Plus I told her, but she’s worried enough that the Wicked Witch of the West could turn up on her doorstep and it wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Love you, too, Toni,” I said drily, digging the Pixnap—my favorite pixie-sedating cream—from my backpack.

She laughed. “Oh, and stay out of my stationery cupboard until you’ve gotten rid of all that pixie dust.”

“Hey, that was an accident,” I said in mock affront, rubbing the honeyscented cream into my hands and forearms. “And I tidied all your pens after they’d finished doing the tango.”

“Pixing my face wasn’t an accident.” Toni didn’t mean her face, but the Green Man plaque hanging behind our reception desk. I’d been experimenting with pixie dust, and animated him. Trouble was, he’d been carved from a dryad’s tree, and the pixie magic was taking its time wearing off. “He still winks every time I walk by,” she said in disgust.

“Sorry.” I stifled a chuckle. “At least he’s stopped telling everyone to come back tomorrow.”

She huffed, told me that she’d e-mail me the client’s details, and we said our good-byes.

I turned my attention back to the pixie, who was doing a furious jig on the lion’s head, and hauled myself up onto the bronze lion. Its metal back was scorching from the sun, and gritty from all the pixie dust. It really was way too hot for this. My Lycra running shorts and bra top had seemed a good idea at dawn, but now the black material was absorbing heat like a vamp sucking up blood, while the yellow plastic of the Hi-Vis waistcoat had welded itself to my spine. I sighed and shimmied along the lion’s back until I crouched on its shoulders.

“C’mon, little pixie,” I murmured, sliding my cream-covered hand up the lion’s metal mane. “Playtime’s over. Time to go home.”

The pixie’s snout peeled back to showcase a row of chitinous teeth, and warning clicks issued from its throat as it maniacally shook its head. I don’t speak pixie, but its meaning was pretty clear—

“Back off, my bite’s nastier than yours.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it,” I muttered.

And out the corner of my eye I saw Tavish’s broad shoulders shake with mirth. He was standing, well, posing really, on the fountain’s highest bowl, which put him about twenty feet up, so I could hardly miss him. And if that weren’t enough, he’d bespelled the water so it cascaded over him like a cloak of sun-trapped diamonds, making him look like some gorgeous, hedonistic river god. But then he was a kelpie, so the look was apt, even if his black cargo shorts sort of ruined it. Still, at least he was wearing shorts, and was in his human shape, so I counted that as a win.

I glared over at him. He gave me a happy thumbs-up, and the beads threading his long dreads flashed from silver to a gleaming turquoise. I glared harder. Bad enough having an audience without being critiqued by another fae, however hot he was. Though to be fair, Tavish didn’t work for Spellcrackers, but he’d still offered to help when he’d strolled into the square five minutes after I’d arrived. I almost hadn’t been surprised. He’d been turning up more and more on my outside jobs. If he’d been human I’d have expected the date question—hell, I was more than interested enough that if he’d been human I wouldn’t have waited for him to ask. But he was wylde fae, likely older than the last millennium, tricky, capricious, and dangerous. And while I might be sidhe fae, I’d spent the last ten years living with humans. It was always possible I’d got my attraction wires crossed, and I didn’t want to end up Charm-struck at the bottom of the River Thames.

The crowd whooped, drawing my attention back to the pixie, who was now striking muscleman poses. I inched my hand closer. The pixie tensed, webbed feet gripping the hot metal as it unfurled its useless wings. I froze. I hadn’t safely caught all its pals to have this last one do itself an injury because I’d spooked it. After a moment, its wings dropped, and, holding my breath, I made a grab for its nearest limb, relieved as my fingers closed around its scaly left leg. It let out an ear-piercing screech that almost drowned out the crowd’s disappointed boos, then mercifully went quiet as it sniffed the honey in the Pixnap and sank its teeth into my forearm. Gritting my own teeth against the dull pain, and carefully cradling the suddenly dozy pixie, I slid off the bronze lion and tucked the pixie in with its pals.

Now for the cleanup.

I opened the metaphysical part of me that can see the magic and looked. Almost everything in the square, including some of the audience, lit up as if it had been scattered with multicolored sugar sprinkles: pixie dust. Some of the dust was old and faint, some brighter and more recent. Cleaning this up was one of the reasons why I’d gotten the job at Spellcrackers despite my lack of spell-casting ability. (The other was my dubious celebrity quality.) It would take a coven of witches a good four or five hours to call all the pixie dust and neutralize it. And they’d have to enclose Trafalgar Square in a circle to do it. Way too expensive. The other, quicker way would be to crack the dust, but cracking magic doesn’t just destroy the spell, and pitted bronze lions, broken pavement, and exploding pixies weren’t included in the contract. Whereas I could do my party trick: suck the dust up like a magical vacuum cleaner, and neutralize it back at the office.

I sat and made myself comfortable next to the cat carriers, then dug out a spell-crystal and some licorice torpedoes from my backpack. Chewing on the candy for a quick magical boost, I activated the Look-Away veil in the crystal . . .

And called the pixie dust.

It flew to me like iron filings to a magnet, clumping in colorful patches on my skin. The patches rustled and tickled like dry grass in a wind. Weird, but not entirely unpleasant. But then the not-so-fun part kicked in: the pixie-dust sprinkles twisted into tiny fishhooks that pierced my flesh painlessly and jerked my limbs around as if I were a disjointed marionette. To anyone who couldn’t see, I probably looked like I was convulsing. The usual nausea roiled in my stomach, and I closed my eyes, concentrating on straightening the hooks and dropping them into the metaphysical bag inside me.

“Well now, doll, that’s as fine a sight as any I’ve seen for a long while.” Tavish’s soft burr snapped my head up.

He was crouched next to me, appreciation in the solid pewter color of his eyes. Apart from his Roman-straight nose, his long, angular features weren’t classically handsome, but he was striking, and captivating, and alluring. Though, caution warned me, a lot of his allure was probably down to his kelpie Charm.

I scowled and pushed my sweaty hair back from my face. “Tavish, I look like something the cat’s dragged in after a fight with birthday cake.”

He blinked, his eyes changing from pewter to a pale, translucent blue, and then he gave me a lingering head-to-toe assessment. “Aye, doll, so you do,” he agreed prosaically, the delicate black-lace gills on either side of his neck fanning wide. “But that’s nae but your shell; your soul is shining with magic like a sun-kissed rainbow brightening the cold depths of the sea.”

Kelpies are soul-tasters; they taste the souls of those who are dying. Of course sometimes the souls aren’t actually dying until after the kelpie has Charmed them into the water. But Tavish abides by River Lore—has done so for a couple of hundred years—so he no longer Charms humans into the Thames, and of those he finds in the river, he tastes only those who have killed or want to die.

“Great,” I said, unsure whether to be pleased my soul looked pretty (although maybe that should be tasty), or irrationally annoyed because he’d admitted I didn’t look so good. “Any chance of you helping this rainbow up? I’ve got the pixies to pack off back to Cornwall and another job to go to.”

“Nae problem, doll.” He grasped my hand and pulled me up hard enough that my nose ended up pressed against his neck. I sucked in a startled breath. Boy, did he smell good: like oranges and peat-mellowed whisky. And his pulse was thudding temptingly close under the hot smooth skin of his throat. I almost succumbed to an urge to lick it, but my sensible head took charge, and reluctantly I pushed him back. He gave me a satisfied look, as if he knew exactly what I’d been thinking, but as I narrowed my gaze, his forehead creased in concern and he said, “I heard a lassie shouting for you from the crowd, was there maybe some trouble or t’other I couldnae see?”

I shook my head. “Nah, just an annoying paparazzo.”

“A photographer?” His concern sharpened as he scrutinized the square. “Is she still here?”

“No,” I said, frowning. “Why?”

He was silent for a moment before turning back to me with a frustrated look. “Those newsy folk are nae but pests,” he said, and then with a soft snort of dismissal he changed the subject. “So, this next job you’re going to, will you be fancying a wee bit o’ company?” He flashed me a grin. “I ken ’tis the witches’ special night, and I wouldnae want you being lonely, doll.”

Anticipation flared inside me, and I straightened my attraction wires: we weren’t talking about him tasting my soul here, but other much more earthly pleasures. But having him tagging along on a job wasn’t a good idea . . . he’d be way too distracting.

“Appreciate the offer, Tavish,” I said, promising myself: another time . . . maybe, “but I’m good.”

“Aye doll, I ken you are, but ’tis myself I’m worried about.”

I blinked. “Come again?”

“Well, after you were for saving my life”—he placed a hand over his heart—“there’s nary a day goes by that I dinna feel lost and rudderless if I’m nae by your side.”

I shot him a quelling look. “Tavish, removing that death curse from you does not mean I saved your life. The guy that sicced it on you didn’t die, so it hadn’t taken hold.”

The beads on his dreads clicked a denial. “Nae, doll, you’ve a responsibility for me after that.”

“Pull the other one,” I said drily. “You’re not Chinese, and neither am I.”

“Och, well.” He threw out his arms and heaved a sad-sounding sigh, and I couldn’t help notice how his muscles shifted nicely under his green-black skin, which of course, was what he intended. At least I wasn’t drooling. Yet. He smiled, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “If you’re nae agreeing with me over that, then maybe you’ll be wanting to be irresponsible with me?” He leaned down and dropped a hard, hot, glorious kiss on my lips, and a delicious spiral of lust coiled deep inside me. “Call me.”

THREE HOURS LATER, my taxi turned into Belgrave Square. I could still feel Tavish’s kiss like a promise on my lips, but his Call me was reverberating through my mind to an indecisive beat. Should I? A big, big part of me wanted to, but he was still wylde fae, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be long before I’d end up way out of my depth with him . . . I tucked his enticing voice away to deal with after the job, and scanned my surroundings.

Elegant, imposing, and über-expensive nineteenth-century town houses, many of them home to more foreign embassies and Important Places than I could count on two hands, lined all four sides of the square. The houses guarded a well-stocked, well-manicured, and private central garden. The place bristled with flags, diplomatic cars, and enough magical security that my skin felt as if it were trying to rip itself from my flesh and crawl away, which was maybe why the place was strangely devoid of people, even for a late Saturday afternoon.

Why was someone who lived here hiring Spellcrackers.com? Not that we’re not the best, but hey, anyone who could afford to buy a house here could keep a whole coven of witches on retainer. It didn’t make sense.

Toni had told me not to worry about why when I’d asked her, just to sort out the pixie problem the builders had caused. Which meant my destination was easy enough to spot, even without the address Toni had e-mailed to my phone. It was the only house with a yellow rubbish chute hanging from a fourth-floor window. A haze of dust clung to its smart front, and a large, new-looking skip was parked outside and hemmed in by temporary fencing. If that hadn’t given it away, then the fancy sign advertising the builders’ company would have. As I got out of the taxi I had an errant urge to write Spellcrackers wuz here across it. I resisted. Instead I stacked the half-dozen cat carriers I’d brought under the colonnaded portico with the cheerful help of the taxi driver, and, once she was gone, I straightened my black trouser suit and cased the joint . . . sorry, job.

The Ward, shimmering like a diaphanous lavender curtain over the front door, was a standard-issue “sucker” one, as it’s called in the trade. Once invited in, then you could pass back and forth over the threshold until the invitation was rescinded, much like the vamps it was colloquially named for. (Of course, once you’ve freely given your blood to a vamp, then there’s no rescinding that particular threshold invitation, which is why all the vamp clubs have to charge entrance fees by law.) The Ward seemed a bit low-key for such an expensive end of town, but with builders, and the rest of the square’s defenses, it was adequate.

I hitched my backpack higher, dug out my ID, and rang the bell. The person who answered wasn’t the butler/builder/security I expected, but she was familiar, from her spiky black hair, the red and black ink almost encircling her throat, right down to the huge professional camera still slung around her neck. The petite paparazzo, a.k.a. my stalker.

“Sorry, no offense,” I said, hiding my irritation behind a neutral tone, “but if this is an expensive way of getting an exclusive, I’m not interested.”

“Hey, I know all the gear looks suspicious,” she grinned, “but I’m not a pap. I have enough problems with them myself.” She stuck out her hand. “Theodora Christakis.”

My inner radar automatically pegged her as straight human. But the Witches’ Market in Covent Garden sells all sorts of spells, legal or otherwise, and skin-to-skin contact is an easy way to tag someone. I looked at her outstretched hand, but she was clean. I still didn’t take it, and she dropped her own.

“So, if you’re not a pap, Mrs. Christakis,” I said, “why have you been stalking me?” Okay, maybe I wasn’t hiding my irritation quite that much.

She laughed, and I caught a glimpse of the silver ball piercing her tongue. “I haven’t actually been stalking you, Ms. Taylor, or not much anyway.” She paused. “I design graphics for computer games; taking pictures helps”—she pointed her camera at me, but the frown on my face obviously deterred her from snapping—“and your bones are slightly longer, proportionally, than a human’s, so they make for interesting lines.”

It all sounded plausible enough, but my bullshit antenna was still twitching.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got any interesting ID, Mrs. Christakis?” I said flatly.

She disappeared into the hallway for a moment, then thrust a passport, a computer game, and a glossy magazine at me. “Is this interesting enough?”

The magazine showed a bride and groom laughing against a backdrop of rocky beach and sparkling, aquamarine sea. He was dark-haired, darksuited, and tall, or looked it since his bride was petite. She was draped in an off-the-shoulder Grecian-style dress of red and yellow silk, with red and yellow veils covering her short black hair. Both bride and groom wore delicate gold crowns joined by a twisted red and yellow ribbon, which echoed the faint red and black ink that snaked over the bride’s bare shoulder. A silver dumbbell pierced her eyebrow. The magazine was dated three months ago, and the headline read: WORLD EXCLUSIVE: CYPRIOT HEIRESS THEODORA BELUS WEDS ANTIQUITIES EXPERT SPYRIDON CHRISTAKIS ON THE SUN-DRENCHED ISLAND OF APHRODITE.

“Check out page fifteen,” Theodora said.

I did. It stated that Theodora was the owner of Herophile Futures, a blue-chip company producing computer games featuring modern-day wars between ancient Greek gods. The game she’d given me was Quest for the Aegis of Athena.

I also checked her passport. Other than the fact that her legal first name was Herophile (and who would want to be called that?), Theodora was who she said she was.

And it was a job.

I packed my paranoia into my backpack and handed her the things back. “Very colorful dress, Mrs. Christakis. Thank you.”

She grimaced. “Not my choice, unfortunately, but you can’t argue with the old traditions.” She stood aside and motioned me in. “Or at least, I can’t. Oh, and call me Dora. ‘Mrs. Christakis’ reminds me too much of my mother-in-law.”

“Sure,” I said, and transferred my cat carriers inside.

The entrance hallway was high and wide, with double doors leading off either side and an ornate marble-and-iron staircase sweeping upward. The walls were bare of pictures, the black-and-white marble floor was partially covered by drop cloths, and the only lighting was a couple of dangling bulbs. Next to a door at the back of the hall was a crisscrossed stack of toolboxes, a pyramid of paint cans, and three huge sledgehammers lined up by height. The builders were either toddlers, or neat freaks. Unsurprisingly, the place smelled of paint and the nose-stinging reek of turpentine, and I had a brief, regretful thought that my best black suit was going to end up trashed.

The double doors to the left were open, and the room beyond snagged my attention. It was haphazardly peopled with life-size statues of muscled, naked men in various athletic poses, and half-dressed women cradling fruit or pouring water. Scattered among the statues were marble busts, plaques, stone animals, and half a dozen knee-high stacks of shining silver and copper platters. It was like looking into a museum’s messy storeroom, or the White Queen’s lair, if she’d been Greek. Not to mention that the room was obviously pixie heaven.

I looked. And everything lit up with the telltale colorful sprinkles of pixie dust, but most of it was faint and old, with only a few brighter, newer patches. My paranoia peeked out of my backpack.

“We’re renovating the whole house”—Dora smiled and pointed up the stairs—“so we’re camping out on the second floor just now, but if you’d like something to eat or drink before you start, then you’re very welcome.”

As if on cue, a gray-haired woman in a black head scarf, who looked as if she were a hundred and suffering from eczema going by her wrinkled, scaly face, leaned over the banisters above. She waved a ladle large enough it could be classified as a weapon and shouted something (which was all Greek to me) in a strident, demanding tone. Dora repeated her offer of hospitality in a dutiful-sounding voice. I told her no thanks, and she shouted back in the same language (obviously it was all Greek to her too, except she understood it). The woman threw her hands in the air in disgust or despair and disappeared.

“Malia, my aunt. She refuses to believe that women work outside the home”—Dora rolled her eyes—“and therefore you must be a guest, and I am shirking my responsibility by not letting her stuff you full of food.”

The aunt’s stereotypical Greek appearance had almost settled my paranoia, although I still had questions. “So,” I said, “how long have you had your pixie problem?”

“With all the building work going on, I’m not sure when they first appeared.” Dora’s reply was a bit too casual. “I’ve seen them in Trafalgar Square, and thought they were cute.” She stopped and gave me a rueful grimace. “Look, to be honest, I’m using them in a new game, so it was handy having them around. Only then one of my husband’s more expensive statues got broken, and he’s due back next week, so, well, it’s time for the pixies to go.”

Made sense, but—“What about the local witches? Have you consulted with them at all?”

“I did,” she said, and frowned, “but the local coven wanted to use Stun spells and nets.” (Which was another way of solving the problem—with a low survival rate for the pixies.) “But I want it done humanely”—she smoothed her hand over her camera—“which is the way Spellcrackers does it, isn’t it?”

“It is, yes.” Humane to the pixies anyway; my arms still itched from their bites. Not that I’d want to catch them any other way. And after all, like all fae, I’m fast-healing, a bonus of being virtually immortal. So Dora’s answers meant I was good to go, other than my last niggle of unease: “Where are the pixies?” I asked her.

“Mostly up on the third floor,” Dora said. “But your office mentioned you’d probably need to close the portal in the swimming pool first.” I nodded. It was standard operating procedure: pointless rounding them up before you’d stopped more coming through. Dora led me to the door at the end of the hallway, “It’s down here, in the basement,” and then she added in a rush, “I’m not sure, but there might be a bit of a problem.”

I bit back a sigh. I hated it when clients didn’t tell you everything going in; it always made my job harder. But at least that explained where my last doubt was coming from.

I gave her my best professional smile. “Why don’t you show me, then?”

She opened the door to reveal a modern glass-and-chrome stairway that clashed with the rest of the house and the half-finished mural of ancient ruins and olive trees that decorated the stairwell wall. As we descended, the sound of crashing waves assaulted my ears and the salty scent of open water cut with the rank smell of death slapped me in the face. Either Dora had a hell of a wave pool down here, or she was right, and there was definitely a problem.

We reached the bottom of the stairs, walked along a long opaque-glass corridor, and at the end she opened another door.

The sound of the sea intensified.

I walked through the door with a feeling of trepidation. I just knew this wasn’t going to be good.

The room and the swimming pool were both bigger than I’d expected. The pool was fifty feet long, thirty feet wide, and eighteen feet at the deep end, going by the markings stenciled onto the very obvious white squares on the walls, which ruined the whole illusion of the painted panoramic vistas. And judging by the way the pool’s edges wavered with magic, instead of the pixie portal being the usual, easily closed hole about the size of a dinner plate, this portal was the size of the pool. Which explained why the waves were rolling toward us like we were on a beach in the Mediterranean, why the expanse of sandy-colored terra-cotta tiles (which was almost as large at the pool) was littered with dead fish and seaweed, and why there were three shark fins cutting an ominous figure eight in the pool’s sea-dark water.

I stared, stunned, then walked to the water’s edge. “How long’s it been like this?” I asked, pleased my voice came out calm.

“Maybe a week?” Dora pulled a face. “Bruno, the mural painter, has been off sick, so no one’s been down here. I didn’t realize it was like this myself until not long ago, otherwise I’d have said when I phoned. You can sort it, can’t you?”

No way in hell. This was way out of my league, but—I forced my mouth back into my professional smile. “I’m going to need some help with this.” I dug out my phone. This needed a coven, but they were all at the Spring Rites, or scrying for the missing boys . . .

But there was someone who could help. Someone who was in his element in water, and who’d told me to call him. Tavish. Okay, so this probably wasn’t the sort of call he was expecting . . .

He answered on the first ring. Keen. “Hello, doll,” he said in his soft burr.

“Hey,” I said, brightly, “I’ve got a bit of a fishy problem here. A big one. Sharks.”

“Dinna let them bite you, doll.”

“Ha, ha,” I said. “But seriously, Tavish, there are sharks here, and I’m not about to start reenacting Jaws.”

“ ’Tis nae the sharks I’m fussed about. Tell the lamia: ten minutes. And see if you can find out where the children are.” The phone went dead.

I stared at it, my mind whirling. Why did Tavish sound like he knew what was going on? What children? And who was the lamia? I transferred my stare to Dora, who, though she had her eyes squeezed shut, had her camera up and was snapping pictures like her life depended on it, and the paranoia in my backpack jumped out and sucker-punched me. “What’s going on, Dora?” I demanded.

“What did he say, girl?” the heavy accented voice came from behind me.

I jerked around to see Dora’s Aunt Malia. The old woman was blocking the doorway in the opaque glass wall. Now that she was under the brighter lights of the pool room, I could see that it wasn’t wrinkles and eczema causing her face to look disfigured and scaly, but actual scales. She had to be the lamia. Of course, the big tipoff came when I looked down. Flowing out from under her heavy black dress was the tree-trunkthick, red-and-black body of a gigantic snake. I froze, and while the scared part of my mind was screaming Run! the rest was rifling through my mental “lamia” file for any useful information.

“Are you both lamias?” I asked, surprised my voice still came out calm.

“Yes,” said Dora, hugging her camera like a security blanket. “Well, Auntie is, and I almost am.” Her hand went to the tattoo at her throat.

My mental “lamia” file search hit pay dirt. The original lamia had a fling with Zeus, and Hera, Zeus’s wife, was understandably none too happy. In revenge, Hera forced the lamia to devour their offspring. But, insane with grief, the lamia didn’t stop at killing her own children, and went on a feeding frenzy. Zeus finally pacified her with the gift of prophecy whenever she removed her eyes. Which wasn’t any sort of compensation to my mind, but hey, what do I know. But although Zeus had soothed the lamia’s madness, he was too late to stop her from turning into a daemon: one whose existence was sustained by eating children. And Tavish had told me to find the children. I put that together with the recent media splash and looked horrified from Dora to her snaky aunt. “Fuck, are you the ones who snatched the two missing boys?”

Aunt Snaky’s lips lifted in a long hiss. “How long will it be until the kelpie is arriving?” She had fangs. And going by her expression, she obviously expected me to dissolve into hysterics and tell her everything I knew. Which wasn’t much. Yet. My horror turned to icy determination. I wished, and not for the first frustrated time, that I could cast my own spells and solve the situation with some sort of magic, but I couldn’t. So instead I needed to find out where the kids were and, more important, work out how to save them.

“How long?” Aunt Snaky said impatiently.

“Ten minutes,” I said, and then not really expecting an answer, I asked, “Where are the boys?”

“They’re still alive. Just,” Dora said, surprising me, her eyes darting momentarily toward the shark-infested pool.

They were in the pool? How was that possible? And was my impression that Dora wasn’t happy about things right, or was that just my own wishful thinking? I narrowed my eyes at her. “What does ‘just alive’ mean?” When she shrugged, I hit her with the next question: “What do you want Tavish for?”

“The kelpie is to retrieve something,” Aunt Snaky said. “If he will agree, you will not be harmed.”

Yeah, and I’m the queen of the goblins. “Retrieve what?”

“Theodora, bring the girl.” A dry rustle whispered under the sound of the pool’s waves as she turned and slithered along the corridor toward the stairs.

So, I was Tavish’s incentive. Not that it mattered, since no way was I going to let him swap me for two little kids. And what did they want him to retrieve? Although another look at the swimming pool gave me a clue: Tavish was in his element in the water; if the boys were—what? imprisoned, trapped, or maybe hiding?—in the pool, then more than likely it was them.

Dora gave me a rictuslike smile—with no fangs; maybe her almost lamia comment meant she still had to eat her first kid before she fully metamorphosed?—and indicated I should follow. As the only other way out was the portal in the pool, and the sharks didn’t look any friendlier than Aunt Snaky, I followed.

“So, was the magazine story, the pixies and all this, just a scam to get me here?” I asked, belatedly wishing I’d listened to my paranoia.

“No, it’s all true,” Dora said, a flicker of misery crossing her face. “I really am an heiress, and I did just get married.”

Was the misery real? “You know,” I said in a low voice, “if your aunt’s coercing you in some way, I can help you, and we can save the boys.”

“You can’t. I thought you could . . .” She looked down at her camera screen, her fingers convulsed, then she said accusingly, “But you can’t even cast the simplest spell, can you?” She was right, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t try something. “No, I might not want this, but I’ve got no choice. I’m my aunt’s heiress, and I’m not talking about money. I’ve got plenty of that.”

“There are always choices,” I said quietly.

“Yeah, like what?” she muttered derisively. “Oh, and don’t be fooled by Auntie”—she gave the lamia’s swaying back a defeated look—“she might move slow, but her skin’s as tough as old boots and I’ve seen her kill a swamp dragon with one flick of her tail.”

Swamp dragons are huge, the size of a double-decker bus.

“At least tell me where the boys are?” I asked urgently, hoping she couldn’t see how rattled I was.

“I told you,” she almost growled, “they’re in the pool.” She shoved past me, ignoring my question as to how they were in the pool, and stomped after her aunt.

By the time we reached the entrance hallway—lamias are apparently akin to snails when it comes to stairs—Tavish was shouting and banging his fists on the front door.

Dora hurried to open it.

I hung back and made a grab for the hefty sledgehammer I’d seen earlier—it was big enough to do damage to a mountain troll, so hopefully it would make a dent in a lamia—but before my fingers touched it, Auntie’s scaly tail whipped out, clamped around my middle, and pinned my arms in place. Then I was suddenly lifted and plonked down on my butt about six feet back from the open front door. I struggled and kicked, but despite my efforts, I couldn’t escape my snaky straitjacket.

“Be still, girl.” Aunt Snaky squeezed me, and pain bloomed down my arms.

Worried she’d break bones, I stopped wriggling and cast a searching look around.

Dora was almost hiding behind the open front door, white-knuckled hands gripping her camera. No help there. Tavish was outside under the colonnaded porch. He was a dark shape against the deep purple haze of the early evening sky, his eyes swirling bright silver, and his dreads dripping with glittering water—no, I looked, not water, but power. And it wasn’t the sky that was hazy, but the Ward; it wasn’t the sucker one from earlier, but something much heftier. Crap, that wasn’t going to be easy to crack.

“The missing boys are in the swimming pool,” I shouted at Tavish, “and it’s got a pixie portal in it.”

“Quiet, girl.” Aunt Snaky shook me.

“Oh, and there’s three sharks,” I gasped.

“Guid to know, doll.” Tavish smiled, teeth white and sharp and equally sharklike against his green-black skin. “Tell me what you are wanting, Malia?”

“I will return this one to you,” Aunt Snaky said, “if you agree to retrieve the children for me. One of the boys is a wizard; he has taken himself and his friend out of our reach.”

So they are hiding in the pool, not trapped. Clever little wizard.

Tavish obviously thought so too, as he laughed and visibly relaxed. “Then we dinna have anything to bargain with, Malia. You are already shedding. ’Twill nae be much longer before you slip your skin, and you’ll nae manage to hold this Ward, nor the one enclosing the square, once your madness comes upon you.” He crossed his arms. “So, I’ll be waiting until then to retrieve the children.”

Sounded like a plan . . .

“Do you not worry for your sidhe?” she asked.

Tavish gave me a considering look. “She’s nae a child, and her soul is too dark to serve as your food.”

I’ve got a dark soul? Whatever happened to being a rainbow? Still, good to know Tavish wasn’t going to fall for Auntie’s ransom demands, and that I wasn’t on Auntie’s menu.

“Especially when your own blood is handy.” Tavish waved at Dora, still huddling almost behind the door.

But Dora was? Pity whispered through me. No wonder she was miserable.

Oddly Dora lifted her camera, shut her eyes, and snapped a couple of shots of Tavish. “The boys will be dead before the ritual is completed,” she said in a distant voice. “You will be too late to save them.”

“Tell me, lass,” he said softly.

The camera flashed again. “If you pass the threshold before the ritual starts, their future changes.”

“What to?”

Her eyes snapped open as she lowered the camera and said with a touch of exasperation, “I can’t see it until it changes; you know that.”

I groaned in disbelief. “Tavish, she’s lying to make you agree.”

Tavish lifted his gaze to mine, and then his eyes flickered to Auntie behind me. “Now I ken why you’re here, Malia, and why this time you risk all to take other than your own kin. Your lassie here has inherited the gift of prophecy given to you by Zeus.”

“Yes.” Auntie sounded both proud and regretful. “It is over a century since a sibyl was last born to my blood, and none before has ever had such easy use of His gift. The digital camera is a glorious invention; seeing through it is less painful than removing one’s eyes.”

“Tavish.” I struggled against Auntie’s constricting tail. “C’mon, they’re trying to scam you.”

“Nae, doll.” He shook his head. “Sibyls have to speak of that which they see, nae matter even if the speaking will lead them to harm. If the lassie says the boys will die if I dinna come in, then that is their future.” He pointed at me. “But before I do, Malia, you will let the sidhe go.”

“Theodora,” Auntie said, “do you have it?”

Dora moved to a small table and picked up a halter of golden rope, knocking off the computer game she’d shown me earlier as she did. She carefully put the game back on the table next to the glossy mag, her fingers gently lingering on her wedding picture as if she were reluctant to let it go. Then she held up the golden halter to show Tavish.

He gave a derisive snort. “I offer you my word, Malia. There is nae need to bind me to your servitude.”

“You do not think I would trust your kelpie half to be compelled by your word alone?” She sounded like he must really think her stupid. “It is too wylde and easily lost to the lure of the water.” Which was news to me. I hadn’t realized Tavish’s other shape wasn’t just him in another form, but judging by the frustration in Tavish’s eyes, she was right, and he’d been hoping she wouldn’t know.

Tension thickened the air, and I thought we’d hit some sort of supernatural Mexican standoff—

The sudden sting of fangs in my throat startled me more than any actual pain. I yelped in surprise, and stupidly thought, Damn, she’s bitten me.

“With my venom in her body, kelpie,” Aunt Snaky said, “the girl will die before dawn, even with her sidhe blood. Agree, and I will give you the antidote.”

Sick fear curdled my belly. I swallowed and pushed it away. I frowned down at Auntie’s red-and-black scaly tail wrapped around me. She had the antidote, but to get it, Tavish had to let her bind him with the golden halter. But if he was bound, then Auntie would hold all the aces, and I’d bet all of Dora’s fortune that that would end up with Tavish, me, and more horrifically, the boys dead. Because no way was Aunt Snaky going to say Thank you and wish us good health after her dinner.

“Die before dawn’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?” I tilted my head back to look up at Auntie. Her hair had dropped out, and her features appeared to have melted, leaving her head doing a good impersonation of an egg, if eggs had red-and-black scales. Very attractive. “Don’t s’pose you could be more specific about how much time I’ve got left?”

She frowned at me, then looked back at Tavish. “Do you agree, kelpie?”

In answer, Tavish screamed with rage and smacked his palms against the Ward. His magic rolled over me like the pressure wave after an explosion. My ears popped painfully, but the Ward didn’t break, just flashed the vivid crimson of an anti-crack grid and absorbed all the juice he’d thrown at it.

“Kelpie, you cannot break the Ward by force.” Aunt Snaky echoed my thoughts. “The more power you use against it, the stronger it becomes. And I would that you were at your best for the task I require of you.”

He curled his hands into frustrated fists and dropped his arms. Then he smiled. It was his kelpie smile full of Charm, a predator’s smile, but one that cajoled and tempted and beguiled. A smile that pledged to take all my sorrow, all my loss, all my hurt and leave my soul light and pure and at peace, if I would only come to him, and join with him in the depths . . . I clawed at the scaly tail that imprisoned me, fighting to go to him, to be with him—

“Theodora! Stop!”

Auntie’s shout broke the Charm-net Tavish had caught me in, and I sagged in her hold, bereft and despairing as if I’d lost something precious. The sound of sobs made me look up, and I blinked at Dora. She was on her knees at the front door, grief-stricken tears streaming down her face, and the hand with the gold halter stretched out to Tavish, frozen with her fingers only millimeters away from the Ward. Damn, he’d almost gotten her to break it. But the Ward was still there—An idea burned bright as dragon’s fire in my mind.

“You are also time wasting, kelpie,” Aunt Snaky said sharply. “Do you agree?”

“Hey, Tavish,” I called, “speaking of time wasting, I thought you said my soul looked like rainbows this morning?”

Tavish shook himself like a horse shedding water and sent me a puzzled look. “What, doll?”

Gods, give the kelpie a clue. He needed to get in, and the Ward needed to disappear. So I’d do my party trick. Simple. “Rainbows, and pixie dust, remember?” I said, pointedly.

His dark-pewter eyes showed a shocked rim of white as he caught on. “Nae, doll, you canna, ’tis too strong.”

Two boys’ lives were at stake. “We can but try,” I muttered, and focused on the Ward . . .

I called it.

For a second, nothing happened, and my stomach clenched in desperation. Then the Ward glowed like hot embers. Auntie hissed and her tail tightened round me, compressing painfully. The Ward melted from the doorframe and flooded like molten lava across the tiled floor toward me. She hissed louder, but just as she started to jerk me away, the Ward streamed over my legs—

—heat blazed through my veins, seared the breath from my lungs, shriveled the flesh on my bones—

And I fell into a furnace of fiery flames.

I CLIMBED MY way back to consciousness and blinked as the blurred writing in front of my nose rearranged itself into something legible: Round Wire Bright Nails, Steel–Self Color, 6.00 × 6 inch, 1-kg pack. I blinked again, tried to ignore the spike of pain that felt like a dwarf was hammering one of the six-inch nails into my brain, and scanned around. Apart from the statues in the room off the hallway, I was alone.

Good news: I wasn’t dead. Yet. My head was the only thing that was hurting. And the Ward on the front door was now bubbling away inside me like a malevolent spell in a black witch’s cauldron.

Bad news: Sucking up the Ward had killed my phone, there were still two kids hiding out in Aunt Snaky’s swimming pool, and there was no sign of the gold halter, so Tavish could be fishing the boys up for her dinner.

Good news: Tavish had said Aunt Snaky was near shedding her skin, and I’d gotten the impression that if she did it when the boys weren’t around, they’d be safe. Tavish was tricky enough to play for time.

Bad news: If the boys weren’t around, Auntie would eat Dora. And I wasn’t sure if Dora wasn’t as much victim as baddie in all this. And whether her camera was a sort of weird “sibyl accessory” or not, she’d obviously thought getting me involved was going to somehow save her.

But whether Dora needed saving or not, Tavish and the boys still might. I started to scramble up but promptly fell flat on my butt, and discovered why nothing but my head hurt. Aunt Snaky’s venom evidently contained some sort of neurotoxin; my legs were paralyzed and the rest of me was about as coordinated as a goblin high on methane. I clamped down on the dread threatening to short-circuit my mind and forced myself to assess the situation.

I could lie here and wait to be rescued, or die (cheerful thought), whichever came first. Neither prospect filled me with anything like joy. Or I could do something. Oh, and if I needed any more motivation, I still owed Auntie for biting me, and for my trashed trouser suit. I needed something to fight with. Half a dozen Stun spells would come in extremely handy right now, but all I had in my backpack was another Look-Away crystal. I surveyed the hallway looking for anything else that could help. There was the army of statues, but even if I had enough pixie dust to animate them—which I didn’t—they’d only end up damaging themselves. My eyes lit on the box of nails. And the sledgehammers lined up along the wall. Auntie was magical, and while her snaky skin might be as tough as old boots, nothing reacted well to having six inches of metal hammered into it. Using my arms to pull myself around on the smooth marble floor—thanking the gods it wasn’t carpet—I gathered the hammer, the nails, the spell, and two of the platters, which I’d discovered were actually small arm shields, and bundled them all up inside a drop cloth.

By the time I was finished, sweat was stinging my eyes, my arms were shaking with strain, and my headache was holding a fireworks party inside my skull.

I started dragging my haul toward the door down to the swimming pool.

Luckily, the door was open, and thanks to the thunderous sound of the waves crashing in the pool, sneaking stealthily down the stairs was one thing I didn’t have to worry about. Getting down them was. After much maneuvering I balanced the bundled drop cloth on the backs of my thighs, tucking an end into my waistband, and started crawling down headfirst. The numbing paralysis had crept up around my waist, which was a good thing: it meant I couldn’t feel my hips bumping down the sharp-edged stairs. I was going to be bruised six ways to Sunday.

“Always hoping I get to see Sunday,” I gasped, reaching the bottom.

I dragged myself along the opaque glass corridor, pushing snake scales the size of my palms out of the way, until I reached the open door to the pool room. I rested my forehead on the cool tile and went over my plan again, then sent a quick prayer to whatever gods might be listening.

I unpacked my loot from the drop cloth, my nervous fingers feeling like rubber sausages.

I propped the two shields—one copper, one shining silver—against the glass wall, activated the Look-Away crystal, and slid forward so I could peer into the pool room.

Hope and relief flooded into me as I searched for, but didn’t find, any signs of the missing boys.

Or Tavish.

And the sharks were gone.

But unfortunately Aunt Snaky wasn’t. She was swaying gently at the edge of the pool, staring out at the waves breaking its surface. She was fully snaked out, with a huge hood of black-and-red scales framing her head and shoulders. The rest of her was nude, if you discounted the diamond pattern of scales sweeping down her back and tapering into her coiled serpent’s tail. And around her waist was a wide shawl of what looked like crinkled plastic. I frowned, mystified, until I realized it was her partly shed skin.

Next to her, Dora sat huddled on the tiles, staring down at her camera. She was also nude; the same pattern of red-and-black scales marked down her back and arms, but hers was fainter, and her hair was still black spikes instead of a cobralike hood.

Showtime.

I crunched down on a mouthful of licorice torpedoes, grabbed a handful of the six-inch nails, and threw them out over the beachlike expanse so they landed between Auntie and me.

They chinked loudly as they scattered and bounced over the terra-cotta tiles.

Dora and Aunt Snaky both searched the pool room, looking for the source of the noise. In the wrong direction. Yay for Look-Away spells.

I threw more nails.

This time the spell failed, and they both turned my way.

Dora’s eyes widened in surprise and possibly hope.

Auntie hissed, her snaky red eyes gleaming angrily in her much younger and much less wrinkled face. She started sidewinding slowly toward me, her tail making a sizzling sound like water on a hot plate.

I rolled the copper arm shield out in front of me, swallowing back panic as I realized the numbness was creeping up my chest and into my shoulders. I shouted a warning to Dora. She jerked in shock, then lifted her camera to her face instead of moving. Damn. Her choice, though.

I reached deep inside myself for the solid lump of pixie dust, and then, using my will, I blew half of it so it sprinkled over the nails, and prayed the pixie magic would do its stuff. The nails jumped to attention, sharp points spiking upward, and formed my own little defense of six-inch spears. Auntie slid right over them. Dora was right; her skin was as tough as old boots. They didn’t slow her down much. But hopefully they’d done enough to persuade Dora to believe in me.

“Last chance, Dora,” I shouted.

Relief swept over me as she leaped up and dived into the pool.

Auntie’s huge tail whipped up and back—

I ducked down behind the arm shield I held and slapped the last of the pixie dust on the small bas-relief face carved on the shield’s front.

—the tail hurtled down toward me, shedding sharp-edged red-and-black scales—

A tremor shivered through the shield and its carved face let out a furious screech.

—the scales flashed to gray, and Aunt Snaky’s tail and the rest of her turned to stone.

I dropped my head to the cool floor and gave thanks.

The shield quivered against me, reminding me that I had one last thing to do. Clumsily, I rolled out the other shining silver shield in front of it. For a second I caught the reflection of the small, stylized Medusa head carved in the center of the copper shield, her lips drawn back in a fang-filled grin, tiny serpents writhing around her angry face, before she saw her own mirror image, and she too turned to stone.

The numbness crept into my fingers, both shields slipped from my hold, and unconsciousness rolled over me.

I CAME AROUND to the quiet slap of water and the strange taste of dark spiced blood in my mouth. Surprise and relief drifted through me that I was alive and could feel all my toes and fingers, and the rest of me, even if it felt like I’d been mugged by a horde of Beater goblins. How I was alive was another matter, but I was too exhausted to care, so I just lay there.

After a while a rhythmic sound pricked my ears, and I realized I’d fallen asleep. I opened my eyes. The water in the swimming pool was flat and peaceful; the waves had gone. But as I watched, a dark shape swam closer, spreading gentle ripples in its wake. It reached the edge and rose up out of the pool, water and blood dripping from its matted green-black coat, and I saw that it was the kelpie horse. The kelpie stood for a long moment, his broad chest heaving, and then he shuddered and flicked his tail over the bloody bite marks in his muscled flank, and picked his way through the rubble that littered the terra-cotta tiles like the aftermath of an explosion.

The kelpie whickered worriedly as it reached me. It lowered its head and blew a greeting of whisky-peat breath into my face. I lifted my hand and stroked the warm velvet of its muzzle, smiling as its chin whiskers tickled along my arm, and reached up to trail gentle fingers over the black-lace gills that fluttered under my touch.

“You’re beautiful,” I murmured.

The kelpie tossed its head, red beads clicking in the knotted dreads of its mane, and magic cascaded over the horse like multicolored jewels sparkling in the brightness of the lights . . .

And Tavish took his human shape.

He slid tiredly down next to me and pulled me into his lap, and I tucked my face into the smooth heat of his neck as he wrapped his arms around me.

“The boys are both safe and well, doll,” he said in a rough burr. “They were in a circle at the bottom of the pool, and the wee wizard was just about done in holding it.”

Good. “What about you? You’re hurt.”

“Och, the sharks were a mite bothersome”—he patted my shoulder—“but naught to worry about. So, did Malia take the lassie once she’d shed her skin?”

“No,” I said, and told him what had happened.

“It was Dora,” I finished, “or rather her game, Quest for the Aegis of Athena, that gave me the idea.”

He picked up a lump of stone: it had scales etched on one side. “How did Malia end up like this?”

“Ahh, that wasn’t me. Last I saw Auntie, she was all in one piece.” Even if she’d had a bit of a stony expression going on. I pointed at the sledgehammer standing defiant in the middle of the rubble and said deadpan, “Think Dora decided on a full-scale demolition.”

“Aye, well,” Tavish answered in an amused voice, “it tipped the scales in her favor.”

I groaned. “That was bad.”

He laughed. “Yours were nae any better, doll.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, then asked the question that had been bugging me. “How did you know what was going on?”

“Hmm,” Tavish snorted softly. “I’d seen the wee lassie’s soul when she was following you, but she was still human enough that if she wasnae using her camera, I couldnae see the lamia’s taint. And without seeing that, I couldnae tell what her shell looked like. Then after the children went missing, Malia phoned, wanting my help with something. Lamias mostly take their own blood when they shed to forestall any repercussions, but I caught on that Malia wasnae going to this time. So we were tiptoeing around a bargain, but I couldnae get close enough to find the children until she lured you here.”

“So you used me as bait?”

“Something like that,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, doll.”

The boys were saved, we were both alive, Dora had escaped and hopefully had a chance at a new life now she wasn’t going to be a lamia, and in the end the only one dead and gone was Auntie. Which really wasn’t such a loss. So there really wasn’t anything to be angry about.

I tugged a couple of his dreads. “Next time you decide to set me up,” I said, “tell me first.”

“Aye,” he murmured, “if you say so.”

I licked my lips and tasted the dark spiced blood again. “Dora must have given me the antidote,” I said, almost to myself.

Tavish didn’t answer, and, happy just to be alive, I listened to the steady beat of his heart for a while, then traced a finger over his lean chest. “So, how about we do something a bit more irresponsible for our next date . . .”

He gave a soft laugh. “What sort o’ thing have you in mind, doll?”

“When you think of it”—I smiled sleepily—“call me.”

SIX WEEKS LATER I received a parcel at the office. Inside was a glossy celebrity magazine. The cover showed a smiling Dora standing in front of a huge poster depicting a pixie in a muscleman pose. The headline read: THEODORA CHRISTAKIS, OWNER OF HEROPHILE FUTURES, ENDS 40 DAYS OF MOURNING WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HER NEW VENTURE. Also in the parcel was a computer game; its brightly colored sleeve read: PIXIE PLANET ~ PROTECTING OUR FUTURE: HEROPHILE’S NEW LINE OF EDUCATIONAL GAMES FOR THE YOUNGER GENERATION ~ ALL PROFITS TO BE DONATED TO CHILDREN’S CHARITIES.

Good to know Dora was planning on helping kids now, instead of eating them.

I wished her good fortune.