(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

As always, if you like the story, the beta readers -- Rocky, Lyraine, D.J., and Elles -- share the credit. If you don't, it's not their fault.

All right, it was Cassie's demon who drove Jack to the hospital -- literally, in a red BMW with a Jesus fish on the back. Kurt had taken a taxi. And I may have had more than a little to do with the situation. But there were demons at the bottom of everything that year, especially that December. If it hadn't been for Monica and especially Vanessa...

Well, it's a long story. But I guess this part of it starts at the hospital.

"This is it."

"But it looks like an office park."

That it did. My guess was that it was supposed to. The development we were in was actually called a medical park, but the building ahead could have been anything. I'd probably driven by it a hundred times without a clue. Only the discreet little sign at the entrance gave it away -- not just the words on the sign, but also the logo. There is no deader giveaway of rehab than bird-and-sun graphics.

"No bars on the windows," Cassie mused as we got out of the car. "What kind of loony bin is this, anyway?"

"It's not a loony bin. It's a stress center."

She snorted. "It's a loony bin if Jack and Kurt are in it. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"No. But you don't have to go in, Cass. If you want to just wait in the car..."

The way she looked at my MG gave me pause. She seemed to have a personal grudge against it.

"We won't stay long," I promised, locking the door. "Then we'll do whatever you want for dinner. All right? Where do you want to go?"

She thought for a second. "Italian."

That helped. That narrowed it down to about a thousand restaurants. But she was a little edgy, and there was no reason to force the issue.

"Great," I said. "Let's go get this over with."

I didn't say them, partly because Cassie had clamped down on my arm as a warning. But I did smile a little.

The nurse pretended not to hear. The residents, she said, were just finishing dinner...

"The what?" Cassie asked. "The what are finishing dinner?"

I clamped down on her.

"We don't use the word 'patients,'" the nurse explained. "Now, if you'll step this way..."

Cassie leaned close to murmur in my ear. "I want this hospital's account. And then I want you to change their image."

"It's not a hospital," I said. "It's a residential therapy facility."

"It's a nuthouse. Will you do it if I get the account?"

"What's in it for me?"

She whispered what she had in mind...and I walked right into a pillar. The crash, or maybe the language that followed, stopped our little group in its tracks.

"That's why I said you should follow me single-file," the nurse said pitilessly. "One of those papers you signed at the front desk was an injury waiver. Just thought you'd like to know. Now, if you'll all come this way..."

Cassie pulled me under a light fixture to check for damage and frowned slightly. "Honey, your nose is bleeding. Maybe you should lie down for a minute."

"That would be a cliché. Lying down on a couch in a loony bin." I started to check my purse for Kleenex but then remembered they'd made me leave it at the front desk, just because they'd found a Swiss Army knife in it. Cassie had one in hers, too, but she'd batted her lashes at a male guard and gotten away with it. Sometimes, I feared her powers. "Do you have any Kleenex?"

"Not in this purse. Wait here. I'll go ask the nurse."

She took off, leaving me nothing to do but check out the room. Which reminded me of a furniture showroom, with all the brutally modern earth-tone couches and chairs. In fact, I thought I'd seen those very couches in a Bennison's Home Store ad. It wasn't our account, but I bet I could find out whether there'd been a trade-out involved. Maybe furniture-store owners went wacko, too.

Idly, I watched the double doors at the far end of the room, waiting for Jack and Kurt. A few patients had already showed up, and there were little reunions going on all around. There was also some activity in the courtyard outside. Through the window, I saw a small mob of patients smoking as though their very lives depended on it. Had I looked that desperate when I was still a smoker?

Not wanting an answer to that question, I walked to the other end of the room, toward the door we'd all come in through. At that moment, it opened again. Damn. Of all people, the person coming through it was Kurt's wife. The instant she saw me, she stopped cold.

Now what? I hardly knew the woman. We'd crossed paths at company parties and unavoidable social events over the years, but I doubted we'd had a minute of real conversation. Of course, Kurt always did all the talking for both of them. But never mind that. What did I say to her now?

"Hi, Peg," I said uncertainly.

She nodded. She didn't look hostile, though -- just bewildered. I tried again.

"How is he?"

"Better. Thank you."

"Good. Good news. Great to hear."

Awkward silence.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'm here to see him. Jack, too. But mostly him. I've been out of town, or I'd have..."

"Here," Cassie interrupted, holding up a wad of tissues. "Turn this way." Not waiting for me to oblige, she grabbed my jaw with her free hand and did the turning herself. "Hi, Peg. How are you?"

"How am I?" Peg still looked bewildered. "My husband's in an insane asylum. How should I be?"

Cassie let that pass, intent on blotting up the blood. I stood it for a second and then tried to shake her off, but she wasn't entertaining arguments about it.

"What happened to her?" Peg asked.

"She banged into one of those pillars in the hall," Cassie answered, rather absently. "I'm thinking about suing the architect for malfeasance. Dammit, Devvy, hold still."

"I'm fine," I protested. "Just a scratch. Listen, Peg, about Kurt...about what happened..."

Peg sighed. "It's not your fault. The doctor said he was already sick. I just wish I'd known it was that bad. Did you know it was that bad?"

Cassie tightened her grip on my jaw and leveled a meaningful look at me. I scowled back at her. How stupid did she think I was? "No, I didn't. But it's an ad agency. There's no way to tell when someone's going over the edge."

"I wish he'd gone to medical school," Peg said sadly. "I kept trying to tell him. He got good grades. He wanted to be a psychiatrist once. Did he ever tell you that?"

"Ironic," I agreed.

Peg didn't seem to catch the undertone; she even smiled a little. "I keep telling myself maybe this is a good thing. Maybe once he's better, he'll get inspired to do it after all. He'd make the most wonderful psy...Oh, good, here he comes now."

We all turned just as Kurt cleared the double doors. He hadn't seen us yet, which gave us some leisure to study him. Even from a distance, he looked bad. I felt a cold stab of guilt.

"He's looking better," Peg said hopefully.

Cassie and I exchanged glances.

"Why don't you give me a minute with him alone? Then I'll bring him over. OK?"

"Of course," Cassie said.

We watched her hurry off to greet her husband. For a couple of minutes, neither of us said anything.

Finally, Cassie cleared her throat. "What if one of them asks?"

"We lie," I said flatly.

She laughed. "Lead on, sweetie. I'll follow you anywhere."

Well, maybe not an identical twin. He still had the cheesy mustache, but there was less of him otherwise; he'd lost a lot of weight. He was also as pale as the underside of a trout. In my opinion, this hospital wasn't doing him any good. And maybe not even he deserved that.

On the other hand, maybe he did.

"You're looking good, Dev," Kurt remarked. "You too, Cass."

Thank you. Deviance agrees with us. "We went to Florida for a week," I said politely.

He nodded. "I heard. I hear that's where Lisa Hartwell went, too. Remember her, boss? The TV reporter you kissed?"

"She didn't kiss her," Cassie growled.

I motioned to her to drop it. "What about her?"

"She was here, you know. They just discharged her a few days ago. She said she was going to Florida as soon as she got out." A tiny smile twitched on his lips. "We all hope an alligator eats her. What a bitch. Nobody could get a word in edgewise in group -- not even Jack."

We tried hard to imagine.

"He's not coming down," Kurt added. "He said he doesn't want to see you ever again."

"Mutual," I said, "but impossible. We work together."

That awful I-know-something look settled on his face. It was good to see the Kurt I knew again. But not that good. "Not anymore, boss. He's got a new job. Want to know where?"

Cassie was starting to dismiss the subject on the grounds that nobody cared what happened to Jack when a horrible commotion started up across the room. A tall, disheveled man was clearing a path through the lounge, shoving some people out of his way and threatening all the others. It took a few seconds to recognize him.

"That can't be Jack," Cassie insisted. "He's got hair."

Kurt laughed. "Combover. When do you think we get haircuts around here?"

I didn't pay much attention to that, intent on watching Jack's every move. He was clearly not all there, and I wanted time to get between him and Cassie if he got too close. In his condition, she might hurt him.

"He's usually not like this," Peg explained, almost apologetic. "His medication doesn't really agree with him. They'll get the staff guys to take him back upstairs in a..."

We looked up. Jack was standing about twenty feet away, pointing at us like some vengeful Old Testament lunatic. Everyone else in the room -- including the nurse, who was on the phone calling for backup -- was frozen like a still life.

Making it look as casual as possible, I stepped around Cassie. "Hello, Jack. How are you feeling?"

He bared his teeth, caps glittering in the fluorescent light. There was a wild, glassy gleam in his eyes. At which point the truth hit me: Jack was all the way out of his mind.

I turned my head slightly and tried to whisper without moving my lips. "Get to the car. Take Peg with you."

"No." For emphasis, she wrapped her arms around my waist.

"Now, Cass."

Stubbornly, she held on tighter.

"Idolators!" Jack roared. "Moneychangers! Fornicators!"

Not believing what she was hearing, Cassie leaned around my shoulder. "Moneychangers?"

Kurt, true to form, started laughing. Well, as long as he was feeling better. Warily, I pushed Cassie back. "What's this about, Jack?"

He waved a fist at me. "Abominators!"

"Been watching Sunday-morning cable, have you?" I asked coolly.

"You'll burn in hell, Kerry!"

He was going to have to come up with something worse than that. After a few months of wall-to-wall demons, I didn't scare. "I've got lots of sunscreen."

Cassie nudged me, amused. It wasn't really funny, but it stumped Jack long enough for the orderlies to sneak up behind him.

"Think as fast as you can, Jack," I advised.

Having held off smiting me as long as he could, he raised his fist again and started forward -- but the orderlies pounced. There was a short, vicious struggle. I hated myself for it, but all I could think of was a Monty Python line about the violence inherent in the system. Then a syringe flashed, and Jack went limp.

The orderlies heaved themselves up and stood guard around him, waiting for someone to bring a gurney. Satisfied that Jack was really out, I checked the rest of the room. No one had moved, or possibly even breathed, since the last time I looked.

"You said something about his new job," I prompted Kurt.

"I did, didn't I?" He sounded happy -- which I knew was going to mean something bad. "Yes, he does. He has a new job."

Cassie muttered something and let go. "Spit it out, Kurt. Where?"

"It's a very good job. You'll never guess where."

"Don't make her hurt you," Cassie warned, pointing at me. Obligingly, I tried to look fierce.

"Oh, all right," Kurt said cheerfully. "He's going to the Family Foundation. Working for Howard Abner. How do you like that?"

I didn't. The orderlies managed to grab me just before I got to Jack's throat.

"There are worse places to be kicked out of."

"It doesn't look good, honey."

"I'm out of the caring-what-other-people-think business. Besides, so what? I lost my temper. It happens."

"I know. I didn't let them give you a shot, did I?"

I shoved my hands in my coat pockets and started walking faster.

"I love you anyway," she said.

"Do you, now?"

"Yes, I do. I can't seem to help it."

Annoyed, I stopped walking. She just laughed, though, and slipped a hand through the crook of my arm. "You promised me Italian, remember?"

I considered sulking a while longer, but it was almost 7, and I was getting hungry. "Where?"

"Surprise me," she suggested.

Then I stopped walking again.

"What now?" Cassie asked.

"My car. Look."

To verify, I fumbled for my car keys. Sure enough, the MG keys were missing; there were only Miata keys on that part of the ring.

Cassie slammed her purse down on the hood, dug through it for something, and bent down at the front bumper.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Taking off this stupid license plate. What's on the back?"

I walked around to check. Also DEMONLVR. "You don't want to know."

It was probably best not to tell her about the Darwin fish, either.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

"You never had it," she said when I asked.

I studied her narrowly in the candlelight. "You don't see anything wrong with that?"

"No. How about pinot grigio for a change? Or a really good Chianti?"

"You're saying this isn't even 50-50?"

Cassie closed the wine list impatiently. "If it were 50-50, I'd still be waiting for you to trip over a clue. Let's call it 70-30, and you're lucky I'm giving you that much."

That was outrageous. With more force than was really necessary, I slammed my menu shut.

"You know you love me," she declared.

Even more outrageous. "I can stop any time. What's with you? You were all right half an hour ago."

"I'm still all right. I'm not fighting with you. I'm just explaining the rules."

"Rules?" I could feel steam starting to leak out my ears. "There are rules for this?"

"There are always rules," she said, as though everyone knew that. "We should've had this conversation a long time ago. But now that you bring it up..."

Our waiter chose that moment to come back for our order. One look from me made him jump.

"When we call you," I warned.

Cassie shook her head. "Don't pay any attention to her. She was just in an insane asylum. They had to kick her out -- can you believe it? We'll have a bottle..."

"Stop now, Cass."

She blithely developed convenient hearing. "...a bottle of your best pinot grigio. And two spinach salads. Then I'll have..."

"Don't order for me. I mean it."

"...the shrimp scampi, and she'll have the..."

We said it together: "...linguine with pesto."

She smiled at me in her most infuriating way. "Write it down," she told the waiter.

He just stood there, looking uncertain. I got the feeling that he wished he were waiting on anyone else, anywhere else. Not that a person could blame him, the way Cassie was acting.

"Write it down," I grumbled. "And tell the kitchen to put arsenic in my salad."

He wrote it down -- I couldn't see whether he got the part about the arsenic -- and then fled the scene.

"Problem?" Cassie asked sweetly.

Yes, and I finally knew what. "This is about Monica, isn't it? You were fine till that car showed up."

"What car? You mean the witchmobile?"

That was it, all right. "We've been through this, sweetheart. Over and over and over. I'm done with her. I'm with you now. Not her. You. Why are you so jealous, anyway? It's not like I'm some great prize."

"You can say that again."

There was a moment of hostile silence at our table.

"Well, you always say I have terrible taste," Cassie said.

I wasn't in the mood to be appeased. "Maybe you're with me because nobody else can put up with you."

"Back at you, sweetie."

Damn. We were probably both right. Cassie was high-maintenance, no question about that, but it wasn't like I'd minded so far. And I couldn't possibly be easy to live with, but she'd been talking about just that pretty much nonstop lately. It was a terrible idea, though. I'd told her a hundred times that moving in together wouldn't work, not in...

The coin finally dropped. We'd spent our nights apart since our return from Kansas City; after two weeks together full-time, I thought we both needed a break. I'd needed one, anyway. Just last night I'd put on my oldest, most disreputable clothes; run movies that got on Cassie's nerves; and had a whole tub of cake icing for dinner. It had been great.

"What did you do last night?" I asked.

She hadn't expected that question. "What?"

"What did you do last night? I'm not checking up on you. I'm just curious."

"Last night?" Frowning, she ran back over it. "I took a bubble bath. I think that was the highlight. Why?"

"With the fish or with your rubber duck?"

She looked at me as though I'd finally snapped. "With the duck. I hadn't seen him in a while. Would you mind telling me what this is about?"

"If I'd been there last night, would you have taken a bubble bath?"

"Probably not. You hate them."

"So you got a break too, didn't you?"

Even in the half-dark, I could clearly see the nasty glitter in her eyes as she caught my drift. Just as she was winding up to have at me, the waiter came back with the wine. She sat back and folded her arms tight across her chest as I smiled at him. "Thank you," I said. "Perfect timing."

He didn't follow. "Pardon?"

"Never mind. Go ahead."

But he didn't -- and it dawned on me that he wasn't sure which of us to pour for. I surveyed the room. It was all boy-girl couples and a few tables of business dinners, which was what it probably always was. Just Friends didn't go to dinner at places like this. At least, not in Greenville. Damn Cassie anyway.

"She ordered it," I reminded him. "Why don't we let her try it?"

Relieved to have the decision made, he sprang into action. Cassie was still waiting, ominously, so I refused to meet her eye. Instead, I scanned the room again. It was my evil luck to look up when my junior copywriter walked in with whatever she was dating these days. Smiling brightly, she made straight for our table, pulling her date along in her wake.

"What?" Cassie asked.

"Heather."

She scowled at me as though it were my fault.

"Public place," I pointed out.

She weighed the pleasure of making a scene against the possibility of clients in the restaurant. Business won -- but she kicked me under the table to let me know it wasn't over.

There are many ways to get even. The way I chose was inviting Heather and her date to join us for dinner.

We proceeded in lethal silence for a few blocks. By the next red light, I couldn't stand it anymore. "I'd rather you yell, Cass."

"I bet you would."

Normally, I'd have followed up on that, but the stress of yet another in a string of long, weird days was catching up, and I didn't have the energy. The best thing was to drop her off, go home, and get some sleep; we'd have it out sooner or later, and there was no point in doing it tonight. That decided, I waited in silence for the light to change.

Out of habit, I checked the rearview mirror to see where the car behind me was. I'd learned the hard way that a driver who gets right on your back bumper might drive into your back seat if you're a second too slow on green. I half-expected to see glittering red eyes in the mirror and was almost disappointed when I didn't.

Beside me, Cassie cleared her throat. "Green light."

I almost told her that I didn't need a co-pilot, but her tone made me think twice. Not worth getting into at this hour anyway; whatever was wrong with her, maybe a good night's sleep would cure it.

No answer. She just sat there as though she'd sat there for all eternity and planned to keep it up.

"You can get out any time."

Nothing.

"Cassie, sweetheart, I love you, I do, but you're making me crazy. Can we just say goodnight now so I can go home?"

"We were going to discuss rules," she said abruptly.

Fantastic. Now she felt like talking. But it was progress. To be a good sport, I switched off the engine.

"Then you invited them to have dinner with us."

"What could I do?" I protested. "They were standing right there."

Cassie seemed not to hear, or care. "That made it even worse. We were already having a bad date, and then Heather comes along on her bad date, and we all have a bad date together. When you knew I wanted to talk to you."

"I didn't know any such thing. You were in a bad mood. I figured you were just taking it out on me."

"Rule No. 1," she snapped. "No 'figuring.'"

"Fine. But what..."

"Rule No. 2. No interrupting during the rules."

"Should I be writing this down?" I asked, getting impatient.

"Rule No. 3. I want you to move in with me."

She was a real piece of work. "We keep having this conversation. Why is that? I keep telling you..."

"There'll be other rules, but these should do for a start. Are you coming in?"

There were a million reasons not to, not the least of which was that she'd been hell on wheels most of the evening. But then she added one word: "Please?"

At long last, I got it. She was mad at me because she'd missed me.

Truth was, I'd missed her, too. No matter what my head said -- and it was talking VERY LOUDLY about payback -- my treacherous heart didn't want to be anywhere else.

Without comment, I opened the car door. Cassie got out her side. We met at the front bumper and had a little make-up hug...which got out of hand almost right away, right there in the driveway. It seemed that we really had missed each other.

"One more rule," she murmured.

"What?"

"The car goes."

It wasn't like I could take it back to the dealership, was it? "I'll change the license plate, dammit. Now drop it. Are we going to stand out here all night, or what?"

Cassie opted for what. I'd had worse sleepless nights.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Cassie, of course, thought that was a fabulous idea. She thought a Volvo would be even more fabulous, but I reminded her whose decision it was -- and whose bank account .

"For now," she'd said.

Wincing at the memory of the conversation that had followed, I took one hand off the wheel to rub my aching head. She'd claimed that she was only joking, but I hadn't believed her. Still didn't. Whatever was wrong with her was getting worse, and if she made one more crack like that, I was going to lose my mind. After six years, how could she drive me this crazy in only a month?

A month. I practically broadsided a pickup as the awful truth dawned. Damn, damn, damn. Half-watching traffic, I fumbled in my attaché for the cell phone and speed-dialed.

Cassie answered on the second ring. "Devvy?"

I almost hit the pickup again. "How did you know that?"

"Lucky guess. Wait -- I've got to change lanes." A terrible squealing of tires came through, and I had to hold the phone away from my ear. "OK, I'm back. What's up?"

"That's what I want to know," I growled. "You've been all over my case all week. Does this have anything to do with a one-month anniversary that you think I'm going to forget?"

"What makes you say that?" she asked, all innocence.

Silence on the line for a few seconds.

"Cass?"

"Yes?"

"You know I think this sort of thing is stupid."

Her voice softened perceptibly. "I know."

"Exactly how stupid do you want to get about it? Is just the day OK, or do you want to get down to the actual hour?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to do this right," I said grimly.

Cassie laughed. "Wait a minute."

"What for?"

No answer, except for more tire-screeching. A little annoyed, I held the phone away again and waited.

Then a black BMW pulled up on my left, honking frantically. As soon as I looked over, Cassie rolled down her passenger window.

"You! In the little red car!" she shouted.

Furtively, I checked traffic. People were looking. I decided to pretend I didn't know her.

"Hey! Cutie! Sugarplum!"

I was going to kill her. "We have cell phones," I reminded her, over mine. "If you have something to say to me..."

She held hers up with an evil smile, punching at it with one finger, and the connection went dead. Not amused, I switched off my own phone, threw it on the floorboard, and rolled down the window.

"What?" I shouted.

"I love you!"

People were slowing down to get a better look, and most of them were laughing. I lasered everyone I could, given the need to watch the road once in a while.

"Pooooookie! I loooooove yoooooou!"

That did it. Checking traffic first, I leaned out the window as far as I realistically could. "I love you too! And you're fantastic in bed!"

The look on her face was worth the howls of laughter in the surrounding cars. Without even bothering to roll her window up, she hit the gas and got out of there as fast as she could -- which was really fast, the way she drove.

I'd make it up to her at some point. Probably. But God, that had been fun.

"There's someone in your office," she reported.

What else was new? There was always someone in my office, usually when I didn't want to see them. "So?"

"But nobody's in there."

Frowning, I rubbed my temples again. This was already shaping up to be a beast of a day. "You can't have it both ways, Heather. Are you feeling all right?"

She tapped her foot impatiently, thinking. Then she grabbed my coat sleeve and yanked. "Come on -- I'll show you."

I shook her off but let her lead the way. When we reached my office, she threw open the door and jumped back, as though something might fly out and bite her.

"It's supposed to be locked," I told her. "How did you get in?"

"It was open."

I mentally penciled in a call to Rita Sanchez. The cleaning people were getting lazy about this sort of thing; she might want to look into changing contractors. In fact, I'd call her right away, before either of us got distracted by the first crisis of the day.

But Heather pulled me back before I got all the way over the threshold. "Are you crazy? There's something in there!"

Pointedly, I tugged my coat loose and went on in, tossing my attaché in one of the guest chairs and surveying the room. Nothing under the desk, nothing behind the chair, nothing curled up and hissing in a corner.

"It was sitting in your chair," Heather insisted from the safety of the doorway.

"'It'?"

"It was reading your mail, Dev. I saw it."

An unpleasant possibility crossed my mind. "What did you see?"

"Well, nothing. There was nothing there. Just the papers moving around. And then..."

"Then?"

"Then it started laughing." She shuddered. "It was awful. Like scratching on a blackboard or something."

What was it Cassie had said once? "Or cats in heat?"

Heather perked up considerably. "Yes! Like cats in heat scratching a blackboard. It was really..." Then it dawned on her. "Wait. You've heard it?"

No point explaining, now or ever. "A few times. Usually late at night, when I've been working too hard. Dr. Shapiro says it's stress." With a grave expression, I pretended to study her face. "You may be coming down with it, too. It's been a tough few weeks around here."

She didn't look convinced. "Well, yes, but..."

"And then there was last night. That Dave person. He can't have helped."

"No," she admitted. "He didn't."

"So I think you should take the day off. Hallucinations aren't good. And we've had too much of that going around. Look at Jack and Kurt."

Heather went pale. "You don't mean..."

I shrugged. "Hard to say. But I don't think you'd be happy in the bin. Did you know they have dinner at 5 there?"

"You're kidding."

"Nope. They do group hugs, too. Peg was trying to tell me they read Inspiring Thoughts for the Day out loud after breakfast, but that sounded too cruel, so..."

"I'm out of here," she said sharply. "I'm going to go home and lie down. I don't feel so good. Are you sure you don't need me for anything?"

"Not till tomorrow. Go home."

She bolted. The last I saw of her, she was shoving one of Walt's artists out of her way in the hall, and by the thud he made hitting the wall, she meant business.

Oh, well, she probably needed a day off anyway. I'd have to take up the slack for her if anything came up, but it beat telling the truth -- let alone losing one more copywriter to the shrinks.

Resigned, I hung up my coat and settled in at my desk to check e-mail. In the very next instant, a bad Presence loomed over my shoulder.

"Cats in heat?" the Presence asked menacingly.

"I was quoting. What do you want now?"

"Want?" Monica's tone turned suspiciously sweet. "Really, Devlin." She settled on the arm of my chair, with a little smile that matched the tone. "What makes you think I want something?"

"If you're breathing, you want something."

"Then this should be familiar. How is the irritating blonde?"

It came out before I thought. "Irritating."

"Yes. That was my guess." A set of long, sharp talons started to play in my hair. "She's trying to close the sale. It would be more honest if she just put a ring through your nose."

"Cut that out," I demanded, pushing her hand away. "And don't try to make trouble. Everything's fine."

"Is it? I thought she loooooooved you."

"She does. It's mutual."

"You both have an interesting way of showing it."

"Why? Because we argue? Because she's a little possessive?"

Monica laughed -- and I did hear something a little feline in it this time.

"It's just how we work this relationship," I told her. "This is how it was before. It works for us. We don't want things to get all mushy."

"Horrors," Monica said mockingly, and reached down to rake her claws through my hair again.

This time, I threw her off so hard that she nearly went over the chair arm. "You were going to tell me what you want. Tell me, and then get out."

"You don't trust me."

I greeted that remark with the silence it deserved.

"All right, never mind," she said, a little sulkily. "I'm here to do you a favor. Do you remember my offer?"

"What offer?"

"You're headed for trouble, Devlin." She leaned forward a little too far, and I had to forcibly remind myself not to look down her cleavage. "But I can still make it all go away."

"Tell you what," I said coolly. "You just make yourself go away, and we'll have a deal."

Monica just laughed again. "That ring through the nose will be very attractive. I'm sure your family will admire it. You are taking her home for Christmas, aren't you? Planning to explain her?"

There was no explaining Cassie. And there was no point in having this discussion, either. Irritated, I got up and started to leave the office.

"The offer stands," Monica said. "I'll be around when you change your mind. In fact, I'll be right here. I am your admin now, you know."

That stopped me.

"Of course, I'm having a stress problem," she added. "I'll need to take the rest of the day off. With pay."

"Fine. Just go," I snapped.

She vanished from the chair arm and materialized in front of me -- much too close. "Let me leave you with one thought, Devlin. You haven't seen fantastic in bed yet."

This time, I bolted out of the office. The artist Heather had shoved into the wall was blocking the hallway again, rubbing his head; I shoved him into the opposite wall and kept going.

Just to be safe, I spent the rest of the morning down in Video. And I made an intern check my office before I went back up.

"Go away," I said, intent on a rewrite.

The intruder knocked again. Annoyed, I swiveled around toward the door. "Who is it?"

"Candygram," a muffled voice said.

Against my will, I smiled a little. Too bad "Saturday Night Live" was no good anymore. "It's open."

The door opened, and I couldn't see who or what came in, because it was carrying an enormous bouquet of snapdragons. Surprised, I got up to help.

"Thanks," the courier said. "Should've brought this up on a dolly. Where do you want it?"

Good question. There wasn't a square inch of clear space on my desk. "The credenza, I guess. Over here. Watch out for the coffeemaker."

We managed to set the thing down without damage. Then we just stood there, looking at it.

The courier shook his head. "That's a shitload of flowers. What did you do?"

"I have no idea. Is there a card?"

"I'm not looking through all that," he informed me. "Have a nice day."

I waited for him to leave and then started poking through the arrangement with a letter opener. Finally, a little white envelope fell out. I opened it and read the card.

Well, it was her version of an apology. I had a feeling that dinner could be arranged.

But we were going to have a little talk about nose jewelry, just in case she really had any ideas.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

• Kurt came back to work part-time.
• My mother called.
• Lucy called.
• My mother called again.

Kurt was the easy part. He was still on heavy meds, so he wasn't up to being much trouble yet. I gave him bunny shots to start with -- a new spot in an existing series, a couple of rewrites, a make-good for Walt's team -- and pretty much left him alone after that. If he continued to be a good boy, I'd let him run another audition soon. If not...well, there'd be another Kester Mortuaries spot to write. Or I could give him Cassie's father's bank's account. That would teach both of them not to cross me.

But my mother was another story. She always was.

"It's for you," she said, handing it across the table.

She was already dialing. "You know, Devvy, the whole point of having a cell phone is always having it with you, so people can reach you."

"Exactly."

She laughed and gave me the phone.

"Rita? It's Dev. What's up?"

Those were the last words I got in edgewise in that call. Sanchez's voice kept rising and getting louder as she explained the situation, and by the time she read back the last message, she was almost shrieking. Then she hung up. Just like that.

I listened to the dial tone in solemn contemplation for a few seconds before I hung up too.

"She was yelling, wasn't she?" Cassie asked. "I heard it all the way over here. What happened?"

"Mom called."

Sympathetically, she reached across the table to squeeze my hand.

"Five times," I added.

Cassie frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"Not with her. Sanchez is going to need rehab, though." Unhappily, I dug in my purse for the Advil. "Go ahead and start without me when the food comes. I'll go outside to call her back. No point in both of us suffering."

"It's snowing outside, sweetie."

"Then that's the perfect place to do this. It'll be just like a Russian novel."

"You're cute when you're paranoid, you know that?"

"I'm not cute." I took one Advil, considered, and took another. "Be right back."

But Cassie locked both her feet around mine under the table. "Stay put. We're in this together."

"You don't know her."

"After everything we've already been through," she said, half-annoyed, half-amused, "I think I can cope with one little mother. How bad can she be?"

Where would I start explaining? "All right. It's your funeral." I started punching in the number. "Give me your phone bill next month, and I'll pay for this."

"Forget it. My treat."

I would have argued that "trick" was more like it, but the phone picked up at the other end. "Mom?"

Then I listened. For a long time. She gave me about a minute and a half on the indignity of not being able to reach one's own daughter at will, followed by a couple of minutes on the perfidy of said daughter, followed by a long recap of our conversation when I'd told her I wasn't coming home for Thanksgiving, and it could have gone on for hours, except that I would need more Advil. "Mom? I'm kind of busy here. Can you get to what you wanted to talk to me about?"

Across the table, Cassie winced at the volume of the reply. In this together, are we? Smiling very faintly, I beckoned her closer and held the phone between us.

"...Christmas, at least. You could at least have taken the time to call your own mother and tell her when to expect you, not to mention that your Aunt Kitty keeps asking, but if you're too busy to make a phone call..."

This time, I said it loud. "Mom. Stop. Breathe. Now."

The silence on her end was brief but indignant. "You're just like your brothers," she grumbled. "Insolent as the day is long, all of you. Your father will be very interested in hearing about this conversation."

"Well, when you talk to Dad, be sure to tell him I said hi," I replied, trying to sound cheerful. "Now just let me say this, OK? I haven't called you about Christmas yet because I don't know my schedule yet. We've got people out sick, and I'm having to cover for them. But I think I can get away by the 23rd, so..."

"You're management," Mom said frostily. "That's what you have employees for."

Cassie almost started laughing; not finding that funny, I pulled back enough to scowl at her. "You brought me up to work hard, remember?"

The shot didn't even slow her down. "I also brought you up to be part of this family. Christmas is not optional, Devlin."

"Never said it was. I'll be there. Promise."

"Don't get sarcastic with me, young lady."

"I'm not being sarcastic. I mean it. When are Connor and Ryan coming home?"

"I don't know," she said peevishly. "Their wives haven't told them yet. At least you don't have that excuse."

I was about to agree when Cassie moved slightly and put a small kiss on my temple. Damn, and in front of a whole restaurant full of strangers, too.

"Devlin? Are you there?"

"I'm here." Cautiously, I looked around. No one seemed to have noticed. In fact, most of the other customers were busy on their own cell phones. Sometime, I'd have to worry what that said about us. "Listen, Mom, what if I bring someone home with me this year?"

Stunned silence. "Not a man," she warned.

Cassie snorted; I had to smile myself. "No. She's not a man." Most definitely not. "You remember my friend Cassie? You met her about a year ago."

"The blonde girl? She had too much lipstick on. And that blouse! It showed everything. Does her mother know how she dresses?"

Now Cassie was indignant, and it was all I could do to keep her from grabbing the phone away. "Since when are you the fashion police, Mother? I've seen that ratty old bathrobe of yours."

"We're not discussing me," she said, in offended dignity.

"Well, that's a nice change. Now listen -- Cassie's spending Christmas with me this year. That part's not open for discussion. We can come visit you and have a nice Christmas, or we can stay here and have a very nice Christmas. Your call. What do you say?"

She didn't say anything.

"Mom?"

Still nothing. Cassie leaned close again, the better to hear.

"She can stay in my old room. I'll sleep on the sleeper sofa. It won't be a big deal. All right?"

Finally, my mother sighed. "I hope she's not one of those people who have to have turkey at Christmas. We always have ham. I'm not changing the menu."

"No one's asking you to. Now, why don't..."

"I have to go," she lied. "Call me later."

Then she hung up. Cassie and I waited to make sure she was really gone before we sat back. By her expression, Cassie was starting to rethink the holiday thing.

"She's not always like this," I said reassuringly. "Sometimes, she's worse."

Cassie smiled, but with very little enthusiasm. Fortunately, the waitress showed up with our lunches then.

"Sorry it took a while," she said, "but I heard the word 'Mother' while you were on the phone, and I figured it was trouble of some kind."

She didn't know the half of it. But she made Cassie laugh, which was going to earn her a huge tip from me.

True, it set a dangerous precedent; if I was going to have to pay people to make Cassie laugh this Christmas, it was going to get expensive. But I loved her, and it was only money.

God, I hoped Mom couldn't hear that thought. The part about the money, anyway.

She peered into the bag, looking doubtful. "What is it?"

"A ping-pong gun," I said. "You load it up with ping-pong balls, and then you can shoot at things. I keep one in the living room so I can shoot the TV whenever Martha Stewart comes on."

Sanchez, who was no friend of the woman's, smiled just a little. "Or Kathie Lee Gifford?"

"You need a cruise missile for that. C'mon, Sanchez, open it. You know you want to."

"Well..." Gingerly, she peeled off the bubble packaging. "I suppose it can't hurt. Mr. Jenner should be back in a couple of weeks."

"And if you practice now, you can nail him in the forehead every time."

"No, I mean I'll give it to him to play with. It might keep him out of trouble for a whole morning."

"Optimist," I told her. "Have a nice day."

Halfway to the door, I got a ping-pong ball in the back. Sanchez was smiling serenely, still pointing the gun.

"Practice," she explained. "Thank you, Dev."

"You're welcome. But you'd better not let Cassie find out you did that. She'd turn you into kibble."

"No, she won't. She owes me now."

"Owes you for what?"

"I promised to have the switchboard hang up the next time your mother calls."

Whatever the agency paid Sanchez, it wasn't enough. We both owed her for that.

Finally, after I'd checked out the window for the hundredth time, I reached for the phone. Yes, she had her cell phone; yes, she was capable of calling someone if she needed help. But what if I'd run down the battery at lunch, dealing with my mother? Or what if she'd gotten stuck in a drift and bears had broken into her car and eaten her before she could dial AAA?

Well, all right, that last one was a long shot, but I'd feel worse if I didn't do something. Just as I touched the phone, it rang, and I answered without thinking. "Cass?"

"Close. It's Lucy."

"Lucy as in Lucy her sister?"

"Gee, she's right -- you are smart. How are you?"

"Fine." Impatient, I stood up to look out the window again. Still snowing. "You?"

"Well, I'm married to Michael, but other than that, I can't complain."

So much for small talk. "What can I do for you? I'm sort of busy, so..."

"Too busy to talk to me? Really? Are you sure?"

I counted to thirty. This was her sister, whom I was bound by honor to love, but no law said I had to like her all the time.

"Dev?"

"Still here."

"Oh, all right, if you don't want to chitchat, your loss. I called to ask you what you're getting her for Christmas."

"Why?"

"You don't want to make a mistake, do you?"

No, as a matter of fact, I didn't. Christmas paybacks could be fierce. There'd been the year when Kurt gave Peg nothing but small kitchen appliances, and I could still make him jump just by saying the words "Salad Shooter." Not that I was fool enough to try something like that on Cassie. "I'd rather not. What do you suggest?"

"Jewelry's always nice," Lucy said, much too casually.

"She has jewelry. I was thinking maybe an MP3 player, or one of those..."

"Dev?"

"What?"

"Are you a complete idiot?"

"I must be; I'm still talking to you. Are you getting at what I think you're getting at?"

"What do you think I'm getting at?"

Be nice. She'll be her sister all her life. "We're not doing that, Lucy. We're not even living together. So before you start spending three months of my salary, forget it."

"I think three months is just a guideline," she mused. "You don't have to spend that much. As long as it's nice, and she likes it..."

"No."

"What you might want to do is get a loaner to put in the box. After Christmas, she can go pick out the one she really wants."

"No. Are we done here?"

"You love her. I can tell," Lucy said, untroubled by my tone. "You were hoping it was her on the phone just now. So if you love her..."

"Don't you start with that."

"Gotta run. The kids say hi. Remember: Three months is a guideline." Click.

I slammed the phone down and put my head in my hands. When the phone rang again 30 seconds later, I hit the speakerphone button without looking up. "Kerry."

"Is that any way to answer the phone at work?" my mother scolded.

Defeated, I slumped all the way over on the desktop, hitting it with a thud.

"Hello? Hello? What was that noise? Devlin?"

"You weren't supposed to get through," I mumbled. "They were supposed to cut you off at the switchboard."

"They did. I disguised my voice this time."

There was nothing I could say to that to make myself feel better. Silently, I waited for her to get on with it. Before she did, though, the office door swung open, and Cassie walked in.

Ahhh. That was better. I gave her what must have been a very goofy smile.

"You're lying on your desk," she observed. "Is there anything I should know?"

The speakerphone squawked a little. "Devlin? Who is that?"

I closed my eyes. "It's Cassie. She just came in. What can I do for you this time, Mom?"

"Call me later," she said quickly.

The dial tone hummed for a while. Finally, I felt Cassie bend over me to hang up the phone.

"I was worried about you," I told her, eyes still closed. "It's snowing. Did you see any bears?"

"Bears?"

"Never mind."

"You know, we could go to the beach for Christmas," Cassie remarked, settling on my chair arm. "It's not like we have to spend every holiday with our families. We're grownups, after all." She reached over and started massaging the back of my neck. "What do you think?"

"You're not weaseling out of this. I had to do it. Now it's your turn."

"I'll give you one of these every night for a month," she bargained.

"Too late, Cass."

She said a bad word not quite under her breath but kept rubbing. That was much, much better. When the phone rang again, I knocked it all the way off the desk.

"It's almost 5," she said. "Let's cut out early. Want to pick up Greek? I've still got some ouzo."

"Perfect."

"You have to get up first," she added.

Reluctantly, I did. On the way to the coat rack, I heard tires squealing in the parking lot and idly looked out the window.

Cassie heard, too, and came over to see. "What in hell...?"

"Right," I said glumly, pointing.

Vanessa was doing doughnuts in the parking lot in her red BMW, with the top down, spraying snow everywhere. She looked like she was having the time of her life. I didn't know what she was up to, but then, I really didn't want to know.

"We'll sneak out the back," Cassie declared. "And we'll take my car."

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

"'S all right," I told her. "Got it."

She gave up her futile effort with the covers and flopped back down. Unable to open my eyes all the way, I felt for the radio, found the snooze button, and smacked it with genuine hatred. Then we went back to sleep.

For eight minutes.

"Give you a thousand dollars to turn it off," she mumbled.

No charge. If she felt anything like I felt, neither of us had any business waking up anyway. But we had meetings. So I shut off the alarm and scraped myself out of bed. Cassie probably would be all right by herself for a while, and if not...well, it had been her idea and her ouzo last night.

Pulling my robe off the footboard, I threw it on and staggered to the bath. Every step made my skull hurt. Why? We hadn't had that much ouzo. Maybe it had been the food. We might've gotten hold of bad grape leaves or toxic lamb or something.

Yeah, that was probably it.

I switched on the bathroom light and almost howled in pain as my eyeballs tried to explode. Not good. Between that and the red-hot knives in the brain, I might not live long enough to call an ambulance. Not that it mattered, because I couldn't even remember the number for 911.

Gripping the towel bar on the shower door for support, I waited till the world stopped spinning and then felt blindly for the faucets. With my remaining strength, I turned on the cold water full blast and got in the shower, robe and all. It felt great. By comparison, anyway.

It took a few minutes to realize that someone was hammering on the shower door.

"If you're Norman Bates, forget it. I'm already dead."

Cassie wasn't in the mood for Hitchcock jokes; she slammed the door open and waited for me to turn the water off.

"Can I help you?" I asked politely.

"Phone."

"For me? Here?" Frowning, I pushed wet hair out of my eyes. "Who is it?"

"It sounds like your mother trying to disguise her voice. Either that, or a sick rhinoceros."

A better person would have objected to that crack, but Mom had sinus problems from decades of smoking, and she did sound a little rhinocerosy first thing in the morning. Rhinocerosy? Rhinocerish? Rhinoceresque? Oh, to hell with it. "What does she want?"

"I don't know." Cassie grabbed a towel off the rack and shoved it at me. "You still have your robe on."

"My eyeballs were going to explode," I explained. "There wasn't time to take it off."

She clearly wanted to have words about that, but then she remembered the open line in the bedroom. "Do let me watch it for you while you speak to your mother. Did I mention that she's on the phone? Right now?!?"

Grumbling under my breath, I stripped off the robe, wrapped up in the towel, and abandoned the field. The phone was in the middle of the bed, upside down; I stared at it for a while with misgivings before picking it up. "Mom?"

"You were supposed to call me back last night," she snapped.

"Good morning to you, too, Mother. Lovely to hear from you. How did you get this number?"

"A very nice girl at your office gave it to me yesterday. Vanna or Veronica or someone. She said if I called early this morning, I'd find you here."

Damn Vanessa. "Did she, now?"

"Would you care to explain that?"

"No. But thanks for asking. Now, what's so important that you had to call about?"

"You sound feverish," she said suspiciously. "Are you running a fever?"

"I wouldn't be surprised. Is that all you wanted? I have to get ready for work, and..."

"I want to talk to you about Christmas."

"All right. We'll do that. But we really can't do it right this minute. What if I call you back tonight?"

"You said you were going to call last night."

A warm hand tilted my head up. Cassie was holding a glass of water and a couple of Excedrin -- the kind for migraines. Wonderful timing. Covering the mouthpiece with one hand, I raised up off the bed just high enough to kiss her. "Sorry, Mom. What was that again?"

"You said you'd call last night, and you didn't. I raised you better than that, you know."

I took the first caplet before answering. "Reared. Not raised."

"It's informal conversation," she said frostily.

Good. This would derail her. Feeling a bit more hopeful, I took the second cap. "But that's what you always told us. 'Raised is for crops. Reared is for children. Kids are young goats, not...'"

"Watch your tone -- I'm your mother. And call me later. I mean it this time."

Then she hung up.

"All clear," I told Cassie.

She sighed and sat down next to me. "About Christmas, Devvy..."

"Don't even start that. You're going."

"I know, I know. You can't blame me for asking, though."

I couldn't. But it was a comfort to know that this year, I'd be going in with backup.

Exactly how I felt about that one. Still, I thought I'd stay out of her line of fire, just in case she forgot she loved me. We had to do a meeting together first thing, but it would be short. And after that, we could take out our mood on everybody else for the rest of the day.

Partly appeased by that prospect, I went to my office to go over some paperwork before the client got there. No sooner I had walked in than Monica materialized on the edge of the desk.

My reflexes were too impaired for me to react in any way. Without comment, I surveyed her idea of a business suit.

She shrugged. "You should see what Vanessa's wearing."

"Vanessa isn't my problem. Are you here to work? Or just to torment me?"

"I don't know yet." Thoughtfully, she examined me. "I hate to admit it, but it might not be much fun tormenting you today. You don't look well."

"I don't know how I could be expected to be. First my mother; then you. And now I have to go see a man about a dog-food account. Dog food. Do you know what's in that stuff?"

She crossed herself.

"Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"Really, Devlin. Just because I'm a demon doesn't mean I want to hear about cow parts."

"Cow lips," I said darkly. "And pig lips. And lungs and hearts and ears and..."

"There are cultures that eat dogs. Everything's relative."

I didn't want to talk about it anymore. "Go away, Monica."

Obligingly, she parked herself behind my desk and made herself at home.

"I'm serious," I growled. "You're starting to wear out your welcome. Weren't you supposed to go away after Cassie outed me?"

"I did. I got bored. I came back."

"Can you do that?"

It was a stupid question; her eyes started glittering in a particularly nasty way. "I can do anything I want. Besides, you're not as out as you think you are. All bets are still on. I can still make your life unbelievably interesting."

"Don't threaten me. Vanessa checkmates you, remember?"

"She's an idiot."

"Yes, but she's our idiot."

Monica didn't say anything to that. I took advantage of the temporary peace to start the coffeemaker. Maybe if I just stuck my tongue under the drip, the caffeine would get into my system faster.

The local line buzzed. And buzzed. And buzzed.

"If you're going to pretend to be my admin," I told her, "you can start by answering the phone."

Monica made a point of swiveling the chair around, turning her back on it. Muttering, I went over to pick it up. "Kerry."

"Wolfe."

Trouble of some kind, by her tone. "What's up?"

"I have demons. Do you have demons?"

I glowered at the chair back. "Yes."

"Mine wants to go to the meeting with us. Do you know what she's wearing?"

"Do I have to?"

Brief, aggravated silence. "We're coming up."

"Fine, but..."

Before I could finish the sentence, Vanessa popped in out of thin air. I dropped the receiver. She was dressed up in a Catholic-schoolgirl uniform, but wearing it in a way that it was never meant to be worn.

"I told you," Monica said sulkily, returning to her perch on the edge of the desk. "She looks like a secondhand virgin."

Vanessa tossed her head. "Oh, tut. You're just jealous because you can't wear plaid. What do you think, Devlin? Do you like the kneesocks? Should I button the shirt just a little?"

I wasn't fool enough to answer a question like that. Fortunately, Cassie stormed in just then. She didn't seem to be armed, but I had no trouble picturing her with a really big stick -- or, say, a couple of knives.

"There are no exorcists in the phone book," she said direly, glaring at the demons. "I just looked. But as soon as this meeting is over, I'm getting on the Internet. You two want to keep your broomsticks handy."

Vanessa hopped up on the edge of the desk next to Monica and leaned close to speak confidentially. "Hangover."

"I could cure that by taking her head off," Monica remarked.

That was a point. But Cassie was glaring at me now, so I had to do something about it. "Don't even think about touching her," I warned. "She's in a really, really bad mood."

Cassie yanked me close for private speech. "You're supposed to threaten her."

"I just did."

Uncertain whether that was a compliment, she loosened her grip on my lapel slightly.

"C'mon, Cass, let go. Let's leave this for later. How about tomorrow? It'll be more fun when we feel better."

"I feel fine," she lied.

I checked my watch. We were going to be late if we didn't go now. Time to distract her. "I love you."

She didn't look distracted, but she didn't look like she minded either. "Are you up to something?"

"Yes," I said, and leaned in to kiss her.

But she foiled the plan by kissing back, which had the effect of distracting me. So I didn't see the men in the doorway until long after they'd seen us -- and the demons perched on my desk.

Howard Abner looked as though he'd been hit on the head with one of those cartoon anvils. Jack was a professional, though; he didn't even blink.

"That's them, Howard," he said earnestly. "All of them. They're the Devil."

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

"No horns; no hooves. Knock it off," I demanded.

Caught, Cassie patted my shoulder in apology. Then she turned on the intruders in the doorway. "Why aren't you locked up, Jack?"

He started to answer, but Abner intervened. "Don't speak to them directly. Don't try to dialogue with Satan. Let me handle this."

I couldn't believe it. "Dialogue with?" Who taught him English? A cow? "Dialogue with?"

Abner ignored that. "Don't look at them directly, either."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Vanessa complained. "And I went to all this trouble to look so cute today."

I just managed to grab Cassie's sleeve in time. "If we're not talking and looking, Jethro, how are we going to communicate here?"

"Wait outside, Harper," Abner said importantly, reaching into his coat. Something metal flashed under the fluorescent lights. A gun? A knife?

Acting on sheer instinct, I shoved Cassie out of the way and threw myself over her. The last thing I saw before we hit the floor was Monica raising her arm, an exquisitely bored expression on her face. Then there was a flash of very bright light, followed by a weird crackling sound.

"Stay down," I warned Cassie.

She muttered something vaguely threatening and tried to push me out of her way. Intent on staying between her and whatever was going on, whether she liked it or not, I didn't even bother to check what had happened to Abner until she froze, staring over my shoulder.

I blinked a few times, certain that I couldn't be seeing what I was seeing. But it was no good.

Monica still looked bored; Vanessa was rolling her eyes.

"Wh...? Wh...?" Frustrated, I waited a few seconds for my language skills to kick in again. "What is that?"

"Salt," Vanessa said.

"Salt. As in a pillar of. Trite, huh?"

"I was making a statement," Monica protested, with heat.

Vanessa snorted. "What statement? That you don't have any imagination? Turning people into pillars of salt is so 30 centuries ago."

"What else were we going to do with him? Turn him into a newt?"

Cassie's demon seriously considered the question. I was really interested in hearing the answer, but Cassie snapped out of it just then and grabbed my collar hard. "Tell me I'm dreaming, Devvy. Tell me it's the ouzo."

"Sorry, sweetheart. It probably is the ouzo, but you're awake." As gently as possible, I pried her loose. "He's a pillar of salt. What do we think? Do we like it?"

She thought about it. "We don't hate it. Where's Jack?"

"Hiding behind the door," Monica said. She flicked a talon in that direction, and the door swung shut, revealing Jack pressed flat against the wall. He tried to squirm the rest of the way through it. "What would amuse you, Devlin? I could turn him into a pillar of pepper, if you like."

The symmetry of that appealed to me. The cleaning people would have an awful mess to sweep up that night, and they'd surely ask questions. But if my demon could go around turning people I didn't like into condiments, there was no reason not to have some fun.

On the other hand...

"Let them go," I told Monica.

"I don't think so. They're annoying. And they bore me."

"That's not the point. You can't keep pulling these little stunts. I'm running out of explanations."

"You've managed so far."

That wasn't the point either. It had taken all my powers to explain away the troubles before Thanksgiving. Fortunately, nobody at the TV station had believed Lisa Hartwell's story. The film had come out blank, for one thing. Also, the cameraman had been high that day and couldn't be sure what he'd seen. J/J/G's bad rep had helped, too; everyone knew the place was a madhouse, so people were just shrugging off the rumors.

Still, it hadn't looked good for Jenner, Jack, and Kurt to go out on medical leave at the same time, and not everyone was really buying my stress-epidemic story. Walt, for example. He'd been giving me the fish-eye lately, and although he was dumb, it was only from the neck up; he had a certain animal instinct about things that I'd never liked.

"I'm tired of managing, Monica. Let them go. Nobody's going to believe Abner if he tells, and Jack..." I glanced at him for confirmation. "You won't say anything. You're under medical care. For all you know, this is your medication talking. Right?"

He swallowed a couple of times. "I hope so. I keep seeing things. I saw Elvis the other night, did I tell you?"

"I think we'd better get him back to the hospital," Cassie said worriedly. "Can we sneak him down the service elevator?"

Vanessa sighed and snapped her fingers. Jack vanished. "He's back. Just in time for group."

"Spoilsport," Monica accused.

"Naaaah, he'll like it today. That redhead's going to tell how she lost her virginity."

Monica raised an eyebrow in question; Vanessa leaned closer to whisper.

"No. Really?"

"Really," Vanessa assured her. "And humans call us names."

Impatient, I checked my watch again. "Look, we're really late for a meeting. Would you just change Abner back now so we can go?"

"You were more fun before Blondie there got hold of you," Monica grumbled.

Cassie smirked and made a point of getting closer.

"I'll remind you who started it," I told my demon. "This is all your own doing. And by the way, thank you. Now change him back."

She folded her arms, sulking. "No."

"If you don't, Vanessa will, just to spite you."

Monica glared at her.

Vanessa shrugged. "She's right. It's my nature."

My demon made a few poisonous comments in a language I didn't understand. But she took the curse off, and Howard Abner rematerialized, still clutching the crucifix. It was clear from his expression that he had no idea what had just happened.

"Go now," I advised him. "People are enjoying themselves somewhere. Somebody's got to stop them."

He stood there for a few seconds, blinking. Then he shook his head and walked away, salt pouring out of his coat pockets, leaving a trail. How would I explain that?

Easy. I would not. That decided, I got up off the floor and held out a hand to Cassie. "Let's go. We're late."

Vanessa hopped off the desk. "Right behind you. How do I look?"

"You can't go," Cassie told her.

"I don't see why not. You need all the help you can get with this account. Since you're not sleeping with clients anymore..." Delicately, she paused. "You aren't sleeping with clients anymore, are you?"

Cassie sputtered in outrage.

"How would it be if we had just one normal day around here?" I asked the demons. "What if Cassie and I go to work, and you two take the day off and do something fun?"

"This is fun," Vanessa said.

In all the excitement, I'd almost forgotten that my head was killing me. The reprieve was over now. "Fine. Just let us get this meeting over, and then you can burn the place down, for all I care. We're leaving right after this and going back to bed. Right, Cass?"

"To sleep," Cassie amended.

"Of course to sleep." Insulted, I threw the door open and started down the hall toward the conference room where we were meeting the dog-food people. About halfway there, I heard a bad omen: barking. Even worse, it sounded like a small dog in a large mood. A Pekingese, maybe, or a toy poodle.

Sometimes, you didn't even need demons to have a bad day.

The rumor worked, of course. It was like a T-shirt I'd seen once: JESUS IS COMING. LOOK BUSY. But Sanchez came down later to shoot ping-pong balls at me for it; half the agency had run straight to her office, trying to cover themselves. Her aim, I noticed, was improving.

At least Cassie was safe. She'd left not long after the dog-food crowd did, and I hoped she was tucked into bed. Only a crazy person would be at work with this kind of hangover. Besides, it was snowing again. The only sensible thing to do that night was go home and stay home.

I went Christmas shopping instead.

There was no good reason to go shopping in person; I had a perfectly good Internet connection. But Christmas was different. Maybe it was the thrill of battle, or the plastic holly and Muzak, but it just wasn't Christmas until I hit the malls.

Also, I had no idea what to get Cassie, and something might suggest itself if I looked around. All I knew for sure was that I wasn't going anywhere near a jewelry store.

To my surprise, Cassie's BMW was in the driveway. I found her curled up on the greatroom couch under the couch throw, sound asleep, with a fire burning down in the fireplace and an empty box of Godiva chocolates on the coffee table.

Bemused, I sat on the arm of the couch by her feet and just watched her. It was the strangest feeling, but it was just about the nicest thing I'd ever come home to. Living together was still a terrible, terrible idea, but...

Well, we could talk about it sometime. No time soon, but eventually. If this lasted, which it might not. It probably wouldn't, so there was no reason to think about any kind of future. Was there?

Cassie's eyes fluttered open just then, and I promptly forgot the question. "Hi," I said.

She smiled slightly. "Hi yourself. What time is it?"

"Almost 7."

"God. I was just going to take a nap." Annoyed with herself, she pulled off the couch throw and sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

"Don't worry about it. Feel better now?"

"Lots better. Thanks."

"Didn't do anything."

We let that conversation die of its own inanity and just looked at each other. That weird feeling started tugging at me again. This was crazy. I'd known her six years. How could a few weeks of knowing her in a different way make this much difference?

"I was going to offer to make dinner," Cassie said abruptly. "Kind of to make up for last night. Interested?"

"There's not much to work with. I haven't been to the grocery lately."

"That's why I said 'I was.' All you've got in your refrigerator is Tabasco sauce and coffee."

"I have Tabasco sauce?" I asked, genuinely surprised.

She laughed and scooted down the couch to whack me. "The plan from Column B is to order in."

Actually, the plan that was forming in my mind was from a very different column, so I bent down and kissed her.

"Not that I'm complaining," she murmured, "but shouldn't you call your mother before we get...sidetracked?"

"Called her from the mall on the cell phone. That way, I could honestly say I couldn't hear her."

Cassie had leaned in again but pulled back at that. "What were you doing at the mall?"

"Christmas shopping." I pulled her back.

This time, she waited longer to follow up. "For who?"

"Whom," I corrected.

Torn between starting an argument and continuing what we were doing, she debated which way to go. Then, without warning, she pulled me down on the couch with her. "Gotcha. Now what are you going to do?"

I had a reasonably good idea. But it could wait a couple of minutes. "What do you want for Christmas, Cass?"

She hadn't expected the question -- certainly, not just then. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm really not sure what to get you this year. Can't get away with a Chia Pet anymore."

"Or a Clapper," she agreed, eyes twinkling.

No, not a Clapper. We'd given each other deliberately silly gifts the first couple of years, but the Clapper had been the worst. Neither of us remembered now who'd given it to whom, but we'd spent the better part of an evening clapping at it, trying to get it to work. Finally, Cassie put the thing in the driveway and ceremoniously drove over it a few times.

Brushing a long strand of blonde hair back off her face, I smiled back at her. "Your sister thinks I should get you jewelry. How about a great big mood ring?"

She kissed me before she answered. "What color would it be for this?"

Scarlet, probably, but that would be the wrong answer. "My favorite."

"Mine too," she said, going back for more.

Jewelry, then. I was in so much trouble.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Everyone else was more worried about the Christmas party.

Patience having failed, I gave rank-pulling a try. "You are going. It's not an option."

"I don't care. He fired how many people last year? Ten? Twenty?"

Heather nodded sagely. "And he was in a good mood last year."

I glanced at Cassie, who looked every bit as annoyed as I felt. At least when Jack was here, he ran the weekly meetings, and the rest of us were all on the same side. "He's probably not going to fire anybody. I doubt he's even feeling up to it."

"Well, what if he gets better all of a sudden?" Troy countered. "Then I'm screwed. I'll wind up in a paper hat, saying, 'Do you want fries with that?'"

Kurt smiled unpleasantly. "At least you'd be working for a living, pal. We can't all be pretty and coast on our looks."

Hell's bells, couldn't we have 10 minutes of peace in this place? I was only just quick enough to intercept the notebook that Heather had sailed at Kurt's head. Across the table, Cassie had a determined grip on Troy, while Chip was busy looking out the window, pretending very hard that he was somewhere else.

"You saw that. She assaulted me," Kurt told me helpfully. "Think Jenner'll fire her too?"

Bristling, Troy pushed Cassie off and shoved his chair back. "Don't you start with her...boy."

The evil grin on Kurt's face was all too familiar. "Why not? You think you might like girls this week or something?"

The silence bomb exploded, destroying the room. For a couple of seconds, no one so much as blinked. Then bodies started flying, and without really knowing how I got there, I was up on the conference table, blocking Troy, who had dived headfirst about halfway across it. Meanwhile, Heather was trying to stab Kurt with her ballpoint.

"Hey! Isn't this illegal?" he complained. "Shouldn't somebody call OSHA?"

Troy made another lunge. "I'll give you OSHA, you redneck jackass."

I didn't have two younger brothers for nothing; drawing on a lifetime of experience with physical violence, I feinted and blocked him again.

"I don't want to have to kill you, Dev," he warned. Then he tried to pull my feet out from under me. Fortunately, Cassie got to him first. She probably didn't mean to launch him as far across the room as she did, but she didn't look especially sorry about it either.

There wasn't time to thank her, because Heather was crawling onto the arm of Kurt's chair, pummeling him with both fists. Exasperated, Cassie went around the table to help break it up. But just as I turned, Kurt called Cassie the one thing I never, ever allowed -- and everything went bright red for a minute.

The blonde woman frowned slightly. "There it is again."

"There what is?"

"I keep getting the strangest feeling. Like we're two different people."

"We are two different people," her taller, darker companion pointed out.

"No, I mean it's you and me, but we're both somebody else. Sometime else." The blonde regarded her companion narrowly. "I thought you promised to work on your temper."

"What are you talking about? I haven't killed anyone today. Yet."

"That's not what I meant." She frowned harder, concentrating. "What does it mean when you call someone a two-headed, half-assed, dicksmack son of a bitch?"

"You can't get it up without a building crane," I continued. "You can't keep it up without duct tape. Peg would be better off with an electric toothbrush. Remind me to get her one for Christmas. And another thing..."

Cassie practically broke a heel in her hurry to get up on the table. "That's enough, Devvy."

"That's not even a start. After what he called you..."

"Never mind. Sticks and stones."

That was a good idea, actually. "Got any?"

She bit her lip, possibly trying not to laugh. Taking advantage of her distraction, I turned to have at Kurt again. He was trying not to look like he was trying to look up her skirt, but when he saw that I'd noticed, he jumped.

"That's enough," Cassie repeated, taking a preemptive hold on me.

No, it wasn't. But there were times and there were places for certain things, and it was starting to sink in that I was standing on a conference table, losing control of a meeting.

"All right. We're done here," I grumbled. "Let me recap for you: Everyone goes to the Christmas party. No excuses. I know where you all live, and I'll hunt you down with wolverines if I have to. Got that?"

I took the silence for assent.

"Now let's all get back to work. And I don't want any of you talking to anyone else in this room for the rest of the day. That goes triple for me. Understood?"

No one said anything.

"Now go."

They shot out of the room like pinballs. I hadn't seen people move that fast around J/J/G for ages, not even that day last year when the microwave caught fire.

Cassie and I just stood there for a minute. Finally, she laughed. "Well, that was fun. You're getting better at this, you know?"

"I know." Wearily, I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'm going to have to scare him again, Cass."

"Not today."

"No. I'll save it for the Christmas party."

Her eyes lighted up. "You are getting better at this."

"It'll give me something to look forward to. I don't want to go either."

"No one does." She leaned closer. "Now, does that not-talking-to-you-all-day rule apply to me?"

"Depends what you want."

"I want you to move in with me. But I could settle for lunch."

"Settle for lunch," I advised.

She just smiled. I was starting to know that look a little too well.

"Just because it rings doesn't mean you have to answer," I reminded her.

"I know. That's what peepholes are for." She handed me the earring that she hadn't finished putting in. "Hold on to this for me. I'll be right back."

Muttering, I set it down on the counter and shook the eyeliner tube again, trying to get more on the brush. Cassie thought touch liner was for amateurs, but I thought pencil was too much work, so we generally avoided putting on makeup at the same time to avoid arguments. Tonight, though, we were short on time.

"Honey?" she called from downstairs.

I finished up quickly and recapped the liner tube. "Sweetheart?"

"Could you come here for a minute? Please?"

Please? Startled, I went down to see what was wrong. She was holding a long white florist's box, looking perplexed.

"It was on the doorstep," she reported. "Nobody was there. What do you think?"

"Is it ticking?"

"No. Should I open it?"

"Only if you want to know what's inside."

She backhanded me, but she was laughing, so I didn't take it personally. With mild interest, I watched her open the box. It looked like...

"Lilies," Cassie said flatly. "Dead ones."

I didn't like the sound of that. Just to be safe, I took the box away from her. "Don't touch them. Did you see a card?"

She held up a small white envelope. "It was on the lid. Wait a second." Cautiously, she tore it open and pulled out the card. She looked at one side and then, puzzled, at the other. "Blank. Who do you suppose...?"

"I don't know. But let's stick together tonight. No sense taking any chances."

"Oh, come on, Devvy. It was probably supposed to be a joke."

"Did you laugh?"

Cassie sighed, conceding the point. "I just hate to go in suspicious tonight. Things are going to be tense enough already. You don't suppose Jenner's really going to fire people this year, do you?"

"Wouldn't be Christmas without a Scrooge." I started to put the florist's box down, but something inside caught my eye. Trying not to be obvious about it, I looked closer. It was a cigar butt. Jack's brand.

"What is it? Is something wrong?"

"No," I lied. "Speaking of Scrooge, you know what the best line in A Christmas Carol is? 'Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it.'"

"You're trying to distract me."

"Nonsense. I'm just trying to have a nice literary conversation. What's your favorite line?"

Cassie scowled. "What's in the box that you don't want me to see?"

It was no use. Silently, I handed it back over to her.

"A cigar butt," she said. "So what?"

"It's the kind Jack smokes. I think it's supposed to be a calling card."

"I thought he was still locked up at the madhouse."

"It's not necessarily a life sentence. They might have let him out for the party. And if they did..."

"Trouble." She tilted her head in resignation. "Well, sweetie, at least you've never bored me. This has been the most interesting year of my life."

Mine too. I was still fairly sure that was a good thing.

For safety's sake, we hung back in the doorway for a moment while we scoped out the room. On the surface, it all looked normal enough -- normal in J/J/G terms, anyway. It could have passed for a dot-com party or the premiere of some terminally hip independent film, if you didn't count the garish Christmas decorations. Who knew there was that much red and green tinsel in the world?

Cassie nudged me and then leaned close to shout in my ear. "Look up."

I did, expecting a piñata or a paper bell. Instead, I saw mistletoe. "Doesn't count. It's plastic."

"Too bad. You still have to kiss me."

That was true, and I was about to when Randy Harris sauntered by with a sprig of mistletoe sticking out of his fly. It put both of us right out of the mood.

"I'm going to go home after this," Cassie said, disgusted, "and unscrew my head, and wash my brain. Does he really think that's going to work?"

Yes, he probably did, and yes, it probably would; we had a pestilence of sorority girls working as interns that semester. But pointing that out would only ruin her mood. So I steered her toward the bar instead.

Unfortunately, the road to the bar ran through the last people I wanted to see together: Jenner, Jack, Kurt, and Howard Abner. What was that weasel Abner doing here?

"Hi, boss," Kurt called, seeing us approaching. "Come meet the new boss."

"What new boss?"

Abner drew himself up to his full height, smoothing his vest over his paunch. I couldn't help noticing that he was still wearing the big vulgar ring. "That would be me, Miss Kerry. And I'm absolutely delighted to say this: You're fired."

(c) 2000, K.Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

"Fired. Here." Abner dug inside his vest and came up with a pink slip. An actual pink slip. "You have 24 hours to clean out your office. After that, we change the locks."

Distracted by the pink slip -- and by Cassie, who had gotten all the way inside my personal space to see it for herself -- I was no longer listening. It was a preprinted form with "The Family Foundation" printed at the top; someone had crossed out that heading and handwritten the agency's name, but they'd written "JJJ" instead of "J/J/G." Rat-bastard morons. No doubt all those Klan meetings had killed off their last two brain cells.

"Witchcraft?" Cassie's voice hit a pitch that would call dogs in the next county. "Do you know what century this is, Mr. Abner?"

I recovered just in time. "Stay out of this, Cass. This is my fight, not yours."

"Don't even act like you want to go there," she snapped. "You're stuck with me. If you have a fight, I have a fight. If you're fired, I'm fired. Got that?"

"Nobody's fired. Abner's just having brain bubbles. He doesn't even work here. Does he, Mr. Jenner?"

Jenner swallowed hard and tried to hide behind Kurt, who started laughing.

"I don't have to work here. Mr. Jenner made me a partner," Abner explained. "It was either that or lose his agency in court."

"What are you talking about?" Cassie asked impatiently.

He didn't even bother to acknowledge her. "Remember that little tape you made, Miss Kerry? The one you slandered me in by putting me in a dress? You didn't think I knew about that. Well, I wouldn't have, except that your friend Kurt here gave me a copy."

That was very thoughtful of my friend there. And now he was going to die. I was within two steps of Kurt when Cassie grabbed the back of my jacket and tugged me aside. "You can't kill him. Too many witnesses."

"I'm not going to kill him," I lied. "I'm just going to geld him a little."

"You can't do that, either. You don't want to touch that thing. It was up Jack's pants when he was a possum."

She had a point. Grudgingly, I let her guide me back over to Abner. "Go on," I told him coolly. "You were saying...?"

Abner rocked back and forth on his heels a few times, immensely satisfied. "I could have sued this agency. I'd have won. But I couldn't sue you personally, and you're the one who needed to be punished. So I worked out a deal. I get a piece of this agency, and you get fired. Officially, you're fired for insubordination." Smirking, he leaned into my face. "Unofficially, you're fired for perversion."

He never saw it coming. Cassie never let go of my jacket, but she hit him so hard that his fillings must have popped out. For a long moment, he stared at her, swaying, looking vaguely surprised. Then he keeled over, landing with a splat that reminded me of the noise the turkey had made falling out of the chandelier at Thanksgiving -- a disgusting sound I'd never really wanted to hear again.

"Weenie," she declared. "You want to sneak out now, Devvy?"

Yes, but I didn't think we could. Everyone in the ballroom had either seen or heard, and we were the absolute center of attention.

"What the hell's going on over there?" Walt shouted.

There wasn't time to explain. Jack was advancing on Cassie, snarling something about the wages of sin, and the world went bright-red again. The next thing I knew, Jack was flat on his back next to Abner with cartoon stars flying around his head, and I was holding my right hand, which hurt like hell. But it felt good in a way, too.

"Devvy," Cassie said urgently, "we need to get out of here."

I grabbed her head, kissed the top of it, and stepped over the bodies to pop Kurt in the snout as hard as I could. He dropped like a rock. Damn, this was fun. Now, where was Jenner?

Just as I saw one of his shoes disappearing under a banquet table, Chip and Troy skidded to a stop right behind me and grabbed hold.

"Hey! I'm not done!"

"We appreciate it," Troy told me, "but we're getting you out of here. Now. Chip? You got Cass?"

"I've got myself," she said icily. "You just get her out to the car."

Annoyed, I wrenched loose from Troy and yanked Abner's vest open. A sheaf of pink slips fell out. I managed to stuff most of them into my jacket pocket before Troy pulled me away, this time for good.

Through all that, no one in the room had moved. They seemed mesmerized by the violence, as though they were home in their underwear, watching TV.

"Excitement's over!" Chip yelled. "We're leaving!"

Still no reaction. Chip shook his head. Then he and Troy dragged me out of the ballroom, with Cassie covering our escape from the rear. We may have looked a little conspicuous going through the lobby that way, but no one challenged us, and we got to Cassie's car without incident.

Troy shoved me into the passenger seat maybe harder than necessary. "You're a real piece of work, Dev. Did you have to do that?"

I smiled thinly, dug into my jacket pocket for the pink slips, and gave him the one with his name on it. As soon as he figured it out, Chip had to grab hold of him.

"I take that back," he said. "I owe you one. Want me to go back in there and kill them all?"

Before I could answer, we heard a weird clicking/clopping headed in our direction. The source turned out to be Heather, who'd broken a heel but was still making good time. "Dev! Cassie! Wait up! I want to help!"

Cassie had started the car, but she started laughing at that and put the transmission back in park.

"For crying out loud," Chip complained. "What is with you guys tonight? Why do I have to be NATO?"

Silently, I riffled through the pink slips and pulled out his and Heather's. They took them, puzzled...and then the light dawned. This time, Troy and Heather had to hold Chip back.

"You don't want to know," she snapped.

Surreptitiously, I leaned over to check the gauge -- and winced. She was right.

"We're not going to jail, Devvy. I don't care if we have to drive to Trinidad."

"We're not Bonnie and Clyde," I reminded her. "And we can't drive to Trinidad."

"Why not?"

I couldn't help smiling just a bit. "Caribbean Sea."

"I hate it when you get literal."

"Exactly what I always told her," Monica said from a few inches behind us.

We both spun around -- not a good idea on Cassie's part, considering that she was driving. Both our demons were parked on the back seat, as far apart as they could get and still be in the same car. Even for demons, they looked crabby.

Well, tonight that made four of us. Grimly, I turned Cassie back around to make her watch the road and then leaned over the back of the seat. "A fine time for you two to finally show up. Where were you when all that business with Abner started?"

Monica gave me one of her nastier smiles. "Are you saying you wanted my help?"

"She meant both of us," Vanessa corrected.

"You shut up. This is all your fault anyway, you halfwit."

"My fault?" Cassie's demon tossed her head haughtily. "Don't blame me. I didn't start this."

"You babysat the old goat while he was home in bed watching TV all day. You got him started on the God Channel. You gave Abner an opening."

Vanessa didn't like that. "I did not. I kept putting the TV on 'Gilligan's Island' reruns. Can I help it if he figured out how to use the remote?"

"What's the point in making a person watch 'Gilligan's Island'?" I asked, curious. "I'm assuming it has something to do with the shortest path to damnation, or at least insanity, but..."

Monica showed me her fangs. Seeing the wild red light in her eyes, I decided it might be best to stay out of the discussion.

"I tried 'Green Acres,' too. And 'Petticoat Junction,'" Vanessa added.

"This isn't about prehistoric TV," Monica insisted. "You were supposed to keep him out of the way of people like Abner. I wasn't done making Devlin's work life miserable yet. And you hadn't even started, you pathetic human-loving..."

"That's not my job."

"No, but Blondie's your job. And she's in charge of making the rest of Devlin's life miserable."

Cassie, who had been listening with relative patience, stomped on the brakes. "Hey!"

Only my seat belt and a hand on the dash kept me from going through the windshield while we skidded out of traffic and slammed into a curb. It was déjà vu all over again, except that I wasn't driving this time. Fortunately, Cassie's BMW was newer and sturdier than my MG; the car rocked violently but stayed on the ground.

"She's your human," Monica said venomously, to which Vanessa flipped her hair in unconcern.

"Everybody shut up," I demanded. "Cass? Are you OK?"

A little dazed, she nodded. Not quite reassured, I leaned over to kiss her. Then I turned back on the demons. "You two are responsible for this. If she'd been hurt, I'd have taken this out on you personally. I'd have found a voodoo doctor to put a curse on a chicken for me. Then I'd have cursed you with chicken parts. I'd have..."

"Cursed us with chicken parts?" Vanessa raised an eyebrow at Monica. "She didn't learn that from you, did she?"

Monica hissed at her.

"Quit interrupting while I'm threatening you. If you two were any use at all..."

Vanessa laughed. "That's so cute. She's threatening us. Should I turn her into something? How about...oh, I don't know...a bunny rabbit?"

"You mind your own business," Monica told her.

"She is my business. As long as Cassandra loves her..."

"Count on it," Cassie said fiercely.

"...the two of them are a package deal. You should know that, for Lucifer's sake. Didn't you learn anything in Malediction 101?"

Monica defended herself briskly, but I didn't pay any attention. Package deal, were we? It was an oddly appealing concept. Apparently Cassie felt the same way; she reached over to squeeze my hand and didn't bother to let go.

We're in this together, she'd said a few weeks ago. I couldn't let her be in this getting-fired thing together, but just for this evening, it wouldn't hurt to pretend it was true.

The sudden cessation of argument in the back seat distracted me. Suspicious, I turned to see what was going on with them and almost banged heads with the demons, who were leaning forward avidly to see what was going on with us.

Vanessa smirked at my demon. "Told you. They're a twofer."

"We'll see," Monica said ominously. "Now, who takes care of this business back at the party? You? Or me? You started it, so..."

"Tosh. You started everything before that. You fix it."

Cassie and I exchanged glances. "What do you mean, 'fix'?" I asked Monica.

"I'm busy, Devlin," she growled.

"I don't care. What is she supposed to fix?"

"The firings," Monica said, aggrieved. "They weren't supposed to happen. Goldilocks here needs to turn everything back 24 hours."

I was interested against my better judgment. "Can she do that? I saw Superman do it in a movie once, but he had to spin the Earth backward."

This time, Monica hissed at me. Cassie gave her an evil look and pulled me forward.

"I'm not doing it, Monica," Vanessa insisted. "And you can't make me."

"I can make you wish you had."

"You don't scare me. Anyway, you're losing your touch. You couldn't..."

She never finished. There was a little squelching sound, and then her black gown collapsed. Startled, I leaned back over the seat. Monica was smirking, and Vanessa was a toad.

"Not very original," I remarked.

My demon, in no mood for criticism, raised her hand. But just as she did, the toad sprang from the seat into her face. Cursing in a language I didn't recognize, Monica tried to swat it away, but it hopped down into her cleavage. Her eyes met mine in shock for a split-second just before her gown collapsed, too.

Cassie fought over my restraining arm to see what was wrong. "What are they doing?"

"Fighting," I reported. "Vanessa was a toad a second ago. I think she just got even."

Then we saw something wriggling in Monica's gown, and a snake poked its head out of the neck opening. Cassie recoiled, horrified. But the toad, which had jumped to safety on the armrest, hopped up and down meaningfully a couple of times, and the snake turned into...

"What is that?" Cassie whispered.

"A hedgehog. I think." Frowning, I leaned over to get a better look. "It was a lot cuter in the Beatrix Potter books."

The hedgehog didn't appear to like that remark, but it had other things on its mind. It pulled out one of its quills and speared the toad with it, and the toad turned into a cockroach.

I'd seen enough. "Duck," I told Cassie.

"No, honey, I think that's a bug."

There wasn't time to argue. The combatants were going at it hammer and tongs now, turning each other into things at a furious pace. There might have been an actual duck in there somewhere, but it was really hard to keep up with what was what, let alone who was who. Finally, one turned the other into a pigeon, which caused a violent fit of flapping and screeching.

"No birds in this car!" Cassie shrieked, hitting the power-window buttons. "Not on this upholstery!"

The pigeon shot out of the BMW, hotly pursued by a robin. They both did a couple of circuits around the car, flying close enough to the windshield that we saw the tiny fangs in their beaks. Then they lighted out, disappearing into the night.

When the shock had worn off, I reached over Cassie to roll up the back-seat window. "Everything OK, sweetheart?"

She thought about it for a long time. I half-expected her not to answer. Finally, she drew a shaky breath. "Which part of 'everything' do you mean? The part where we're both fired, or the part where we have more time to spend with your family at Christmas?"

"Never mind," I said quickly.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Cassie and I had done all we could about the job thing. We had a lawyer all over it; charges were flying back and forth, and our lives would get very unpleasant soon. But the unpleasantness would keep until after the holidays. Lawyers were human, too, our lawyer explained.

An old joke occurred to me (Q: What do you have when you have a hundred lawyers up to their necks in sand? A: Not enough sand), but I was just able to resist repeating it. Chances were that he'd heard it anyway; a lawyer had told it to me in the first place.

So we had a small forced vacation, which about drove both of us crazy. By Christmas week, we were both eager for trouble. Anything to keep us busy.

Fortunately, I knew just the place to find all the trouble we wanted.

I glanced over at Cassie. "We're legal. Why?"

"That's not what I meant." She leaned all the way over to check the speedometer. "This car goes a lot faster than that. I bet you can get it all the way up to 55 if you really try."

"Speed limit's 55 on this road."

"Do you see anyone else doing the speed limit?"

A huge truck almost blew us off the road as it passed, making me grip the wheel for dear life. The last thing I needed today was to wreck Cassie's BMW. If the crash didn't kill me, she would.

"Bastard," Cassie said, glowering at the truck. "I hope you die soon."

"Your Christmas spirit needs a little work," I told her, amused.

"Don't change the subject. Can't you at least do 60?"

Of course, but I didn't want to. Every mile we traveled got us a mile closer to home, and there was no reason to hurry to get there.

"Devvy?"

"The road's a little slick. Don't want to take any chances. Especially not with you, sweetheart."

That almost got me a kiss -- almost, because she caught on at the last second. Cassie knew me a little too well.

"Try lying to someone who doesn't sleep with you," she advised. "You just don't want to do this, do you?"

"It's not that I don't want to do it. It's..." No, actually, it was that I didn't want to do it. "Never mind."

Another monstrous truck barreled by; she threw a withering glare after it. "I can't think with all this passing going on. Pull over first chance you get."

"There's nothing for a few miles."

"Then that would be the first chance, wouldn't it?"

Irritably, I pulled my sunglasses down to regard the woman more closely. She smiled sweetly and then pointedly turned to look out her window.

Fine. If she wanted to be that way, fine. There was nothing much to see between Meridian and Hawthorne anyway but farmland, billboards, and the occasional pay lake, one of which we were passing just then. CHASE'S, a big wooden sign said, right above a crudely painted fish. Fishing was none of my business, but it had always seemed to me that if the fish in that lake looked anything like the sign, people would be better off going to the grocery.

Then there was the occasional cluster of houses, not enough to constitute a town but too many to be a coincidence. They never changed, even if their occupants did. Even after all these years, I could still pick out the ones that had the lawn jockeys, the sun balls, the windmills -- and the one that had all of the above and the concrete dwarves. Right now, in honor of the season, the dwarves would all be wearing Santa hats. It wasn't something I necessarily needed to see again.

I slowed down a little more, hoping Cassie wouldn't notice.

"What on earth is that up ahead?" she asked suddenly, tapping her side of the windshield.

"The ice tree."

"The what?"

"Ice tree. The people who live there make it every Christmas. They put this really heavy plastic over the trees and spray water on it till it freezes. It takes a couple of weeks to build up enough ice. Then they put food coloring on it." Unwillingly, I smiled. "At night, they have floodlights, so you can see it from miles away. Want me to slow down so you can get a better look?"

Lost in stunned contemplation, Cassie didn't answer, so I slowed down anyway. It gave me an excuse to look myself. Not that I was going to admit it to her, but I kind of liked the thing.

"Wow," she finally said.

"Like it?"

She got her evasive look. I'd always hated that one. "Do you?"

"You haven't seen anything yet. Wait till we get to Hawthorne. I'll take you on a Christmas-lights tour."

"You don't scare me, Devvy."

"No? Are you sure? There's a house that has a 15-foot inflatable snowman. They light it up at night, too -- not that you could really miss a 15-foot inflatable snowman in somebody's front yard. The people next door..."

"Rest stop," she interrupted.

"I'm not tired. Anyway, the house next door has..."

"No, I mean there's a rest stop ahead. Pull off. I want to talk."

I considered pointing out that we were talking and quickly decided against it. Without comment, I pulled into the rest stop, parking as far away from other cars as possible. No point risking some idiot scratching Cassie's paint. "All right, we're pulled off. What's on your mind?"

"I want to know what's on your mind. You're driving like you're on your way to your own execution." Turning all the way sideways, she fixed me with her most intent blue gaze. "Is there something I need to know?"

"You'll know everything you need to know soon enough. Five minutes with my mother, and you'll think your family is the Cleavers."

"Get real -- nobody wants to be the Cleavers. Besides, your mother can't be that bad."

I didn't even smile.

"She doesn't have a tail. She doesn't breathe fire. I've met her, remember? Sure, she was a little cranky, but..."

"You don't even know what 'cranky' is yet."

"Bet I do. I know you, don't I?" She reached over for my hand and discreetly pressed it to her lips for a split-second. "I think...what's wrong?"

I yanked my hand back before answering. "Don't do that. Not in public. Not around here."

"You're kidding. How is that a problem?"

"Being stomped to death by hilljacks would be a problem. Trust me -- I'm from around here."

"Nobody noticed. I was careful." She tried to take hold of my hand again, but I stuck it in my coat pocket. "Would you just relax?"

"This might be a good time to try practicing the Just Friends thing. You promised not to touch me in public."

"Yes, but this isn't your parents' house. It's..."

"Fifty miles away. Anyone here might know them. And anyone who knows them might tell."

Cassie bit her lip slightly, looking thoughtful. Then she slid closer and put a hand on my forehead. "Don't take this personally; I'm just checking for fever."

Getting seriously annoyed, I pushed her back.

"All right, all right. Take it easy. I'll behave while we're there. But if I have to be a nun for four whole days, I'd like to get a little physical with you first."

"What about this morning? That didn't count?"

A little smirk. "Well..."

"Well nothing. We were an hour late getting started because of that." Then it hit me -- I'd been so busy worrying about not wanting to get there that I'd forgotten how much trouble I'd be in for getting there late. Quickly, I checked my watch. Damn. "And now we're an hour and a half late. Mom's going to kill me."

Cassie slid closer again. "Think carefully before you answer this, honey: Are you sorry?"

"How stupid do you think I am?" I growled. "Would I say so if I were? No, I'm not sorry. I just don't know how I'm going to explain being late, that's all."

"Then don't." Making sure no one was close enough to see in, she put one hand way up my thigh and leaned closer. "One kiss? For the road?"

"Cassie..."

"I can't wait to see what this mother of yours is like," she said acidly. "If she's got you this paranoid from 50 miles away, she must be a real barracuda."

"My mother has nothing to do with it. I'm just not into PDAs. Now would you get off?"

She narrowed her eyes a bit. "Of course. After you kiss me."

Clearly, I wasn't going to win this one. And we weren't going to be alone for long; a battered old van was heading in our direction. "All right, dammit, I'll make you a deal. Get off me, and I'll see what I can do about sneaking into your room at night."

"You'll see?" She leaned closer and blew lightly in my ear. "You'll see?"

The van was getting closer -- close enough for me to notice the Confederate-flag license plate bolted to the front fender. And Cassie was practically on my lap, with no intention of going anywhere. If she did that blowing-in-the-ear thing one more time, I was going to be in bad trouble in front of Bubba.

"OK," I said quickly. "I'll make a point of it. Now for God's sake, back off before somebody sees this."

"I don't have to be a nun after all?"

"Only in front of people. Now get off. Please."

Cassie glanced over her shoulder at the van, which was signaling its intent to pull in to one of the parking spaces near us. Without any further argument, she backed off, rolled her window down a crack, and started talking very loudly about opera -- a form of gargoylism, I was sure. That would scare the creatures away, if they wanted to make an issue of whatever they might have seen.

"I love you," I told her, truly meaning it.

She didn't miss a beat, working herself up into an outrage about the subtitles at the Met, but she winked. She didn't like opera either.

Well, maybe I could distract her for a few minutes. "Guess we'll have to skip the Christmas-lights tour tonight, Cass. You lucked out. But we still have to go by the Martins' house. I'll bet they have the big Rudolph on their roof again this year. What do you bet?"

"Maybe you should drive now and badger me later," she said in a small voice.

"I'm not badgering you. Believe me, you'd know." Not taking my eyes off the road, I reached over to stroke her hair for a second. "We're fine, sweetheart. I've driven in this town all my life. We'll be there in a few minutes. That's when the trouble starts."

She smiled mechanically.

"Let's go over the battle plan one more time," I suggested. "We don't tell them about the job thing yet. We don't confirm or deny our relationship. We avoid PDAs like the plague. We let them figure out whether there's any subtext going on. Check?"

"Check."

Squinting through the windshield, I barely made out the street sign at the stoplight ahead. But it was the right one. We'd be there after one more turn and six blocks. "One last thing."

"What?"

"Whatever my brothers tell you is a lie."

That finally did the trick. She relaxed visibly, not even flinching as we skidded a little going through the turn.

And then, too soon, the house loomed up out of the snow at the end of the cul-de-sac. There were lights on in every window, which could mean only one thing: My brothers were home. And that in turn could mean only one thing: My mother was going to be in a bad mood already, grinching about the electricity bill.

"Buckle up," I told Cassie as we pulled into the drive. "It's going to be a bumpy Christmas."

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Festivus begins with the airing of grievances.

-- "Seinfeld"

"Hello?" I called again. "Where is everybody?"

Except for CNN and The Messiah, there wasn't a sound. Uneasy, I set my luggage down and opened the coat-closet door. Nothing.

"What are you doing?" Cassie asked, setting down her own bags.

"Looking for relatives."

"Why would they be in the closet?"

"You don't know these people. They could be anywhere." Suspicious, I poked something in the back; it was just one of Ryan's old parkas. "Give me your coat, anyway. We might as well hang them up."

She handed hers over, and I shoehorned them both into the inadequate space that was left, most of the rest being hogged by my brothers' old coats. Why didn't they take the things home with them sometime or at least give them to Goodwill? Of all the stupid -- wait. Was that one of my old coats back there?

"Devvy?"

It sounded almost like a warning, but being busy digging through outerwear, I didn't answer right away. "Hmmmm?"

A wild battle cry rang out behind me, and a snowball bounced off the top of my head. I didn't even have to turn to know who the culprit was. Connor.

"Defend yourself, English pig-dog!" he shouted.

I scooped up the snowball and wheeled around. He and Ryan were right behind me, trying to look tough.

"So. We meet again," I said.

Ryan nodded. "We brought our armies. They're just waiting for our signal."

Not too gently, I pushed them apart to see. My sisters-in-law were standing behind them, holding big Tupperware bowls full of snowballs. "Hi, Jen. Hi, Amy."

They both wished me Merry Christmas, smiling brightly.

"This isn't a good idea right now," I remarked. "We have company. If we could be civilized here for just a split-second and introduce ourselves..."

"It's all right, Devvy," Cassie said happily. "We can introduce ourselves later. Your brothers want to say hello to you first."

Ryan nudged Connor. "I like her. She's not a sissy."

"And she's kind of sort of really, really good-looking," he agreed. "Maybe I'll marry her. Of course, that would be bigamy. Big of her, too."

Jen, long accustomed to her husband, just rolled her eyes. I shook my head and started to walk away, but Connor got a grip on my arm. "Not so fast. We haven't had the airing of grievances yet."

"Grievances, hell. You just want an excuse to show off in front of your wives. Except that you both throw like little girls." The snowball was getting really cold; I pushed back between them and dropped it in Amy's bowl. "Now, if the two of you want to put on some pathetic exhibition between yourselves..."

"War!" Connor howled. "Artillery captains! Fire!"

Snowballs started flying around the living room, mostly at me. That did it. Dodging around Ryan's left, I stole Jen's snowball bowl -- she was laughing too hard to keep a grip on it -- and started firing the contents back. Cassie was at my side in a flash, giving as good as we got.

"The enemy is persistent," Ryan remarked, wiping snow out of his eyes. "And the blonde one has done this before. What do you think? Should we pitchez la vache?"

"STOP THAT THIS MINUTE!"

Everyone froze, even Cassie, who had so little experience with the woman.

Mom waited a few seconds to be sure that her message had gotten through before she advanced on us. She was so mad that her glasses were practically steamed up from the inside, so mad that the jingle bells on her Christmas apron were tinkling a mile a minute. Connor, who towered over her, almost tripped in his hurry to get out of her way.

"Now," Mom demanded, "I want an explanation. I want to know who started this, and why. Connor? Ryan?"

Both of my strapping blond brothers looked at their feet.

"Devlin?"

I shrugged.

"I want to know why this happens every year. Every year, when you all know better. How many times do I have to tell you not to throw snowballs in the house?"

"At least one more," Ryan said solemnly.

We all looked at one another, trying our hardest not to laugh. But when I caught Amy's eye, she completely lost it, and that was that.

"Do you think this is funny?" Mom barked. "Just wait till your father gets home. He'll have something to say about this."

So she was going to try to be like that, was she? Not on my watch. Narrowing my eyes, I stepped into her path. "Just so you know, Mom, Dad started this whole thing 15 years ago. The Christmas Connor came home from college for the first time. Would you mind if I introduce our guest now?"

She didn't hear the last part, which was typical; it didn't involve her directly. "Your father's a grown man. He would never..."

"Dev's right," Ryan interrupted. "Dad and I snuck out of the house the night before to make the snowballs."

"'Sneaked,'" Mom corrected. "Not 'snuck.' How many times..."

Ryan sighed. "School's out, Mom. Get over it." He stepped around a big clump of snow on the rug to extend his hand to Cassie. "We haven't really met yet. I'm Ryan. You would have to be Cassie, wouldn't you? Welcome. The big dumb-looking guy is my brother Connor..."

"I didn't come here to be exonerated," Connor declared.

Without missing a beat, Ryan did a rim shot on the nearest table. "...who didn't come here to be exonerated. That's my lovely wife, Amy; his lovely wife, Jenny; our mother, who isn't related to any of us..."

It was showtime already, and Cassie hadn't been there a half-hour yet. Protectively, I moved a little closer to her. "Don't pay any attention. They'll calm down after a while. Maybe."

She smiled. There was melted snow on her eyelashes; I badly wanted to do something about that, but not in front of my family.

"You're all dripping on my rug," Mom snapped. "Go dry off this minute. All of you."

Connor started to tell her that we couldn't all, not at the same time, because there weren't enough baths to go around and a person needed privacy, for crying out loud, but she wasn't in the mood to hear other opinions. She sent him and Jen up to the master bath, Ryan and Amy up to the guest bath, and me to the half-bath downstairs. Only as an afterthought did she include Cassie. I made a mental note about that.

"And hang up the towels when you're done," Mom called after all of us. "I don't want to find towels wadded up all over the floor."

She would, though. I could have made her a list right then of all the things she'd find: water all over the bathrooms, empty beer bottles on the kitchen counter, male offspring drinking milk out of the carton when her back was turned. Not to mention all the lights on all the time, or the TV and stereo both on when no one was paying attention to either. None of it was my fault, but I would be guilty by association. That was OK, though, because it was better to be with my brothers than against them. Those two were lunatics.

Cassie waited to ask until I closed the half-bath door behind us. "Is she really mad?"

"No. She's just warming up. But so are they." Resigned, I pulled the last clean towel off the rack -- apparently, my brothers had already passed through there -- and handed it to her. "Go ahead. I'll use it when you're done."

A little smile flickered on her lips. "I've got a better idea."

"What?"

She looped the towel around my neck and gave the ends a tug, pulling me toward her. For quite a while, no drying-off got done.

Fortunately, we'd just broken off when something tapped on the door. I opened it a few inches; Connor squeezed his face as far through the opening as he could, which was a very weird effect, which he knew. To my annoyance, Cassie started laughing.

"That's disgusting," I told him. "What do you want?"

"Police, ma'am. We got a complaint that you were having a good time in there. Will you be needing one cell or two downtown?"

I tried to slam the door on his face, but he got out in time. Cassie, being no help, was half-collapsed on the sink, still laughing.

"You only think they're funny," I grumbled.

"I do, actually. This might be fun after all."

Wisely, I didn't argue with her. She had no idea; she would find out in time.

Let me rephrase that: We played the Kerry Edition of Trivial Pursuit. Over the years, there'd been so many heated arguments over so many questions that we'd just started throwing disputed cards away. That left us so short of cards after a while that we started filling in with cards from other editions. Then, the horse being out of the stable and halfway to town already, we started making up our own cards. The questions about family trivia counted double.

I tried to get Cassie a dispensation for those questions, but no one would hear of it, including her. That troubled me. What had I told her about the family? How much was I going to regret it? It was bad enough that Connor and Jen were on our team; he was the worst one of all of us about challenging questions and starting fights. I noticed that he already had a stack of reference books handy.

"Those won't save you," I predicted. "If I weren't on your side, you'd go down in flames again, just like last year."

"I hate to remind you, Dev," Jen said, "but you went down the year before that. And the year before that, too."

I surveyed her coolly. "Who let you in this family, anyway?"

"Your brother." She yawned and put her head on his shoulder. "I think I'll divorce him for it in 70 or 80 years."

Was it my imagination, or did Cassie move a little closer to me on the couch? Better not have. "Shut up and roll the dice," I growled.

Mom launched into a complaint about the lack of respect we were showing one another, and at Christmas, of all times, until Dad pulled his reading glasses down on his nose and gave her a severe look.

"Thanks, Pop," Connor said, reaching for the dice.

At first, everything was fine. There were only two challenges and one incident of throwing dice at people in the first half-hour, and the game was close. Then Ryan had to draw one of the family-trivia cards on Cassie's turn. Name our ancestor who was lynched in Scotland, and why. Extra point for each reason after three.

Visibly agitated, Mom tried to snatch the card out of his hand. "I thought you promised me you took that card out. Ryan, give me that. Draw another one. This..."

"George Buchanan," Cassie said calmly. "Devvy's great-great-great-great-grandfather."

Dead, shocked silence. My family looked at me accusingly. Scowling, I refused to be cowed. It was a good story, and so what if I'd told it to my best friend?

"You'll have to give me a minute on all the reasons," she continued. "There were five or six of them, weren't there?"

Touché. Proud of her against my will, I patted her on the back. My brothers and their wives, I noticed, were amused.

My mother was not. And she was not one to keep a feeling -- any feeling -- to herself. "This is a silly game. A silly waste of time. We could all be having a nice conversation, or going for a walk, but here we sit, raking up ancient garbage and..."

"Here's a trivia question for you, Mom," Connor cut in. "In what year did you stop treating your grown children like 2-year-olds?"

Exasperated, I nudged him as hard as I could. He nudged back. Then he made a buzzer noise. "Sorry, Mrs. Kerry, your time is up. The answer is: never! But we do have some lovely parting gifts for..."

Mom didn't wait to hear the rest of it. She got up and marched upstairs without a backward look. We waited in silence until we heard a door slam.

"Way to go, Einstein," I muttered. "Go apologize."

He looked to his wife uncertainly. Not liking the look he got back, he turned to Dad. Even worse. "I was only kidding. Besides, what's the big deal? It's your ancestor, not hers."

"Apologize to your mother," Dad told him, his tone absolutely flat.

Connor threw up his hands and started up the stairs, stomping a little harder than necessary.

"I'm really sorry," Cassie said. "I didn't know it would be a problem. But Devvy told me the story, and it's sort of a hard one to forget, so..."

Dad waved her apology off. "You have nothing to apologize for. Martha gets a little overexcited this time of year."

And all other times of year, I thought. Carefully, making sure no one could possibly see, I rubbed the small of her back reassuringly.

"She'll slam doors for a few minutes, and then she'll go out on the balcony to smoke a couple of cigarettes. After that, she'll be fine." Dad leaned forward confidentially. "So did Devlin tell you that George Buchanan fathered 30 children out of wedlock?"

That time I got up and left the room.

But I hadn't been in bed five minutes before she sneaked in.

"You're not serious," I protested. "It's 1:00 in the morning."

"I don't want to do that. Well, I do, but I'll live tonight. I just want to sleep. Move over."

"This is kind of risky, Cass. Mom gets up early."

"So? You're being awfully proper for someone whose ancestor fathered 30 children out of wedlock."

"We don't know that for sure," I said defensively, but moved over to let her in. "Promise you'll go back upstairs early?"

She busied herself getting comfortable. "Set the alarm, and I will."

That was all I could ask, then. Reaching up to the end table, I grabbed the travel alarm, reset it, and put it back. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

"You too," she murmured. "Sweet dreams."

It was very quiet for a long time.

"Devvy?"

"Cass?"

"What if we just have 15 children out of wedlock? I think 30 would be showing off."

I pulled the pillow out from under my head, whacked her with it, and then replaced it without a word. Cassie just laughed.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Apprehensively, I got out of bed and slipped out of the den, taking care not to wake her. It was still early, and everything seemed quiet; I'd just make a quick reconnaissance pass before deciding what to do.

First, though, I was going to turn up the thermostat. The house was freezing.

I'd just touched the dial when a small noise startled me. Connor was sacked out in the recliner, snoring lightly. Great. Either Jen had kicked him out of bed for some trespass or he'd gotten up in the middle of the night to watch "Mystery Science Theater" reruns, but it didn't matter -- this was a problem. Cassie would complain when I woke her, loudly enough to wake him, and I wasn't up to explanations. Not even to lies. Not before coffee.

Troubled, I considered the situation. He seemed to be dead to the world, but you could never tell with Connor; he could doze off watching football but tell you the score if you poked him. It was one of his scarier talents.

I was on the verge of poking him just to see what would happen when a hand landed on my shoulder. The surprise was too much; a second before I realized who it was, I yelped. Cassie tried to slap her other hand over my mouth, but it was too late. Connor was awake. Worse, he was in a good mood.

"Is this some strange sexual practice I should know about?" he asked.

Seriously annoyed, I threw Cassie off. "Get therapy, Connor."

"What for? I never felt better." Yawning, he ran a hand over his disheveled hair. "Morning, Cassie. You're looking lovely today. Sleep well, did you?"

She glanced at me before answering. "I did, thanks. You?"

"Oh, not so well, not so well, not so well. Jenny threw me out for snoring. She said if she has to deal with my mother all day, she needs a whole night's sleep."

"She has a point," I remarked. "Sleep, and maybe a Doberman."

Connor smiled. "Maybe an armed Doberman. But never mind that. How did you sleep?"

This concern about my well-being was new and unwelcome. He was up to something. "Fine."

"Swell to hear it. I was worried you might be...oh, I don't know...lonesome in there all by yourself. Or cold. Or something. Hmmmm?"

Cassie coughed significantly and announced that she was going back upstairs. I waited until she turned the corner on the stair landing to whack my brother upside his pointy head.

"What was that for?" he protested, rubbing it.

"I'll give you something, buster. Wait till I tell your wife you were flirting with Cassie. You may never get something again without a credit card."

"Flirting? That's not flirting. I'm just being friendly. Not as friendly as you, of course, but...hey!"

It wasn't nice to pull his chest hair, but it was his own fault for having any. "Whatever you're up to, stop it."

"I'm not up to anything. Can't a person have a polite conversation around here?"

"No."

Unfazed, he flashed one of those big dopey grins of his. "Suit yourself. I was going to start out polite this morning and work up to charming by lunch, but if you want me to just be myself..."

"Lesser of two evils," I snapped.

"Temper," he cautioned. "It's Christmas."

Not for two more days, it wasn't, which gave me time to wreak justice on him. But before I could start wreaking, we heard the terrible scuff of Mom's slippers on the stair landing.

Connor grimaced. "You get the thermostat. I'll get the coffee. Run!"

Dourly, I poured another shot. Connor did overdo it some, but better that than the way Mom made it, which was more like essence of coffee than the thing itself.

"There's coffee cake," she added, also for the dozenth time. "Where's Carrie?"

"Cassie," I corrected. "Taking a shower, I imagine. Why?"

"I just hope there's enough hot water for everyone. All of you take so long in the shower, and..."

"Drop it, Mother."

"Well, you do."

Irritably, I looked to Connor for some help. Mom and Dad had put in an industrial-size water heater a few years ago, after Ryan got married, so that we wouldn't have an excuse to stay at the Holiday Inn when we all came home for Christmas. The only way we were going to run out of hot water now would be if Luxembourg came over for a bath.

"We do not," Connor argued. "And even if we do, at least we're clean. Isn't cleanliness next to godliness? Or is that wealthiness?"

I shrugged. "Depends on the denomination."

"Stop that," Mom ordered me.

"Stop what? I haven't said anything sacrilegious yet."

"Yet?"

Dammit. "Never mind."

Laughing, Connor tipped his chair back and started clucking.

"Forget it," I told him. "That only works on Ryan."

He clucked louder.

"You're wasting your time, Connor."

More clucking.

"I mean it."

Clucking and wing-flapping. I sprang at him just as he was rocking his chair back again and took him to the floor with a satisfying crash.

At which moment, of course, Cassie and Amy walked into the kitchen. I couldn't bring myself to see what Cassie thought, but Amy was perfectly calm. In fact, she just stepped around Connor and me; pulled up a chair; and nodded to Mom, who was speechless with shock.

"I have to tell you, Mrs. Kerry," she remarked, "I have never been bored in this family."

Point to the sister-in-law. Connor and I disentangled ourselves and retreated to opposite sides of the table. Only when I was safely seated again did I risk a glance at Cassie. She had her most neutral expression on, but her eyes warmed when they met mine, and a tiny smile touched her lips. That meant she was probably going to forgive me.

Not that she had a choice. Without me, she'd be all alone with these maniacs.

"He clucked at me," I explained, a little defensively.

"Really?" My sister-in-law reached for the coffee cake. "I thought that only worked on Ryan. Want me to go get him before you lose your dignity?"

Cassie and Connor liked that. So, by her smirk, did Amy, who was getting to be too much like one of us already. If Ryan was rubbing off on her the way Connor had on his own wife, I was doomed to smart-alecky relatives all the way to the grave. Especially if they ever figured out how to reproduce.

"That's enough," Mom said abruptly. "Carrie, have some coffee cake."

I cleared my throat. "Cassie. Not Carrie."

"Thank God," Connor said. "Carrie Kerry would be a terrible name. Don't you think?"

No one said anything. That was very bad. You were in trouble in this family only if everyone shut up.

"I'm going to take a shower," I said, trying to make it sound like a threat. "And then Cass and I going to go check in at the Holiday Inn."

Mom frowned. "Don't be silly. We've got plenty of room."

"It's not the room I'm worried about. It's the company." At which point I scowled at Connor. "Clucking at me, when you don't have the nerve to ask me outright if I'm sleeping with her."

You could've cut the quiet with a chainsaw.

"Devvy?" Cassie asked softly.

I was still glowering at my brother. "What?"

"I'll handle this. Go take your shower."

"There's nothing to handle. Just get packed. I'll be fast."

"I thought we came here to spend Christmas with your family," she said, sounding dangerously reasonable. "It would defeat the purpose if we stayed somewhere else, wouldn't it?"

For the first time, Mom looked at her with something like approval. "It would also be expensive."

"Yes, it would," Cassie agreed.

Mom nodded. "Paying for two rooms and all."

Cassie heard the slight stress she put on "two" and gave her a very charming smile. "Absolutely."

"This is not about money," I protested. "Or about how many rooms. It's about..."

The doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," Connor said, too quickly, and practically ran to the door. Spitefully, I clucked at him -- and got such bad looks from Mom and Amy that I stopped. No one said a word until Connor came back.

"Who is it?" Mom asked.

"It's for Dev. Some hot-looking babe. Says she's from the agency."

Uneasily, I got up to see what the problem was -- just as the problem strolled in.

I muttered a bad word. "Vanessa."

"Razor-sharp as ever," she shot back. "Why, I'll bet you can count to 20 without even using your toes. I just came by to drop off your termination papers. I can't believe I had to come all the way to this sorry excuse for a one-horse town." A little smirk. "So where do they keep the horse?...You look awful, by the way. Is this your family?"

"She doesn't look awful," Cassie growled. "She just hasn't had a shower yet."

Wonderful. Out of all that gibberish, she chose that part to respond to. My mother, on the other hand, zeroed right in. "Termination papers?"

"Oh, yes. It's a long story. May I?" Without waiting to find out whether she might, Vanessa took the last vacant chair. "She was fired a couple of weeks ago. They were both fired, actually. Devlin's problem was something about insubordination and witchcraft, but..."

"She was fired?" Mom repeated, rounding on me with a dire expression.

I didn't need that right then. "We're appealing it. It's a misunderstanding."

"That's not the point, young lady. You were fired, and you didn't tell me?"

"How is it your business?"

"If I could finish," Vanessa said, clearly enjoying herself, "I'll tell you about the insubordination."

I broke off glaring back at Mom long enough to include her. Then I checked Connor and Amy. They looked vaguely stunned, which was fine as long as it kept them both quiet. "Just give me the papers, Vanessa. Then get out."

"What for? I might miss something."

"That's the point."

Cassie narrowed her eyes at Vanessa. "Let's have a little talk in the other room. Devvy, why don't you go get your shower now?"

"Not a chance. I'm not leaving you alone with that...that..."

"Demon?" Vanessa supplied sweetly.

I let that go. "Not to mention alone with my family. We're going to pack now and go straight to the motel, got that?"

"No," Cassie said.

"No?"

"No." Purposefully, she pushed her chair back and walked over to pat my shoulder. "I'll handle this."

"But..."

"No buts. Go shower. I'll handle it." When I hesitated, she gave me a little push. "Don't make me force you."

"I'd pay to see that," Connor said reverently.

Amy, somewhat recovered, kicked him hard enough to make him jump.

"Go," Cassie said again. "Now. Please?"

I couldn't very well refuse when she'd asked nicely; it would get me a lecture from Mom on top of the lecture I would already get about being fired. Besides, it would give me time to think. I did some of my best thinking in the shower; maybe lightning would strike.

Reluctantly, I turned to go upstairs. The last thing I heard was Vanessa's laughter.

I hoped she got a bad piece of coffee cake.

Muttering, I got a towel and washcloth out of the linen closet and started unpacking my toilet kit on the counter. Just as I was pulling the razor out of its travel case, something moved in the mirror behind me. Startled, I turned. Nothing was there. And for my trouble, I'd cut myself with the razor.

I jumped again as a breeze blew past. That might have been my imagination, and so might the soft laughter that went with it, but it might also have been Vanessa's idea of a prank. The best thing to do was get a quick shower and get out.

Putting the weirdness firmly out of my mind, I hung my robe on the linen-closet doorknob and turned on the tap in the bathtub. A stream of bright-red liquid flowed out. It looked disturbingly like...

Blood. Quickly, I shut the tap off. A few seconds later, I turned it on again. The water ran clear.

"Humbug," I said deliberately, getting in and pulling the curtain.

It was almost the fastest shower on record. I was just rinsing my hair when the lights went out, which was inconvenient but not critical. There were candles on the counter -- Hawthorne women were big on decorating bathrooms with fancy soaps and candles, which I'd learned the hard way were not for actual use -- and I could always light one.

But before I could even turn off the water, I heard a match strike and saw a faint glow through the shower curtain.

"Cassie?"

No answer. Maybe she was busy lighting the candles; the room was starting to fill with flickering light.

"What happened? Did the power go out?"

Very brief silence. Then a strong wind rose out of nowhere, flapping the shower curtain and blowing out the candles.

"Vanessa?"

I half-heard that soft laughter again -- immediately followed by an explosion of thunder and lightning.

There wasn't time to be scared. Whether the bathroom was haunted was pretty much irrelevant at the moment anyway; I was standing in a shower in a lightning storm, which was asking for trouble. Reaching down, I tried to shut the water off, but my hand passed through something ice-cold. Alarmed, I pulled back.

In the flashes of lightning, I faintly made out the shape of a woman dressed in black, standing under the shower spray. I couldn't see her face, but her hair was blowing as though she were in a high wind -- and both it and her clothes were completely dry. In the darkness between lightning bolts, I saw a pair of glowing red eyes.

Oh-oh.

Not being a fool, I tried to get out of the tub at that point. But the shower curtain wouldn't budge. That wasn't good. I was a little underdressed for an emergency, not to mention soaking wet, and the only weapon at hand was a plastic squeegee. Still, you do what you have to do with what you have. Yanking the squeegee off its hook, I held it out in front of me like a sword.

The thing in the shower spray laughed -- a weird sort of laughter, like mice on helium. Then it disappeared. But was it really gone?

Again, my peripheral vision caught movement, this time above me. I waited for the next flare of lightning.

A huge black snake was wrapped around the shower head, its own head inches from mine, forked tongue flickering.

Well, that was just about enough shower time for one day. And it was time to get the hell out of there. Still gripping the squeegee, I gathered all my strength and tackled the immovable curtain.

A second too late, I realized that everything had suddenly gone back to normal -- the storm was gone, the lights were back on, and I was hurtling through an ordinary, very movable shower curtain at a high rate of speed. Whatever I hit, it was going to hurt.

I braced for the worst as something grabbed me.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Still in shock, I tried to break free, but Cassie held on. "Easy. Take it easy. It's me. What's the matter?"

Getting words out took a few tries. "It's in the shower."

"OK," she said evenly. "Let's have a look. Let me have this first." When I refused, she tried to pry my fingers off the squeegee. "Come on -- let go now."

"It's huge. Gigantic. It did this thing with its tongue, and..."

Still intent on disarming me, she only half-listened to that. "And you were going to squeegee it to death? Great plan, honey. Let go."

With a vicious swipe, I took it out of her reach. Keeping a sharp eye on her, I put my robe on -- rather awkwardly, what with having a squeegee in one hand, but on just the same. "Stand back," I warned.

"Why?"

Why? I'd show her why. Then she'd be sorry. Weapon at the ready, I advanced on the shower curtain and yanked it down the rod, revealing...nothing. No monster serpents, no apparitions, nothing. Just the water still running.

Sighing, Cassie leaned back against the counter. "I can't wait to hear the explanation for this."

"There was a snake in the shower," I said sulkily. "As big as Refrigerator Perry."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. What kind of question is that?"

"Well, honey, it's winter. There's a foot of snow on the ground. If your parents have snakes, they're probably hibernating."

"Snakes don't hibernate."

"How do you know?"

I didn't, in fact, but we were getting off the subject. "That one was wide awake."

Cassie thought it over for a second. Then she crossed the bath to give me an oppressively comforting hug. "It's all right now. Everything's fine. You've just had too much stress lately. Why don't..."

"I'm not having stress!" I shouted, pushing her away.

"...you get dressed, and we'll go for a walk. I think we could both use some fresh air. How about it?"

"Don't patronize me."

"I'm not patronizing you. I'm trying to get you to calm down and start making sense. Give me that." Making an unexpected move, she seized the squeegee and threw it in the clothes hamper, where it wouldn't be a distraction anymore. "Now talk to me. What happened?"

Bitterly, knowing she wouldn't believe me, I told her.

"It's probably just Monica," she said.

"Not her style."

"She has no style."

I started to argue the point but decided it would be a fool's errand. "Would it be too much trouble to tell me what you're doing in here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be downstairs handling my family?"

"Oh. That." To my alarm, she looked vaguely guilty. "Well, you see, Devvy..."

"I never end up liking sentences that start that way," I muttered.

"...I was trying to tell them to go easy on you, because it's not against the law, but..."

"What's not against the law?"

"You and me. Us. Together. You know." You'd better know, her expression added. "I was trying to get them to back off, but your mother got upset, and...well..."

Worse and worse. "And then what?"

"I handled them," Vanessa said.

We both spun around. Cassie's demon was perched on the counter, filing her claws.

"What did you do?" I demanded.

"Nothing permanent."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning," Vanessa said, affecting great weariness, "that I put them on hold for a little while. All that talking was giving me a headache. Does anyone in your family ever shut up, Devlin?"

Cassie tried to make it seem as though she'd been coughing. I added that to the list of things we would discuss later. "On hold?"

"They're fine. Just resting. Don't you believe me?"

By way of answer, I shoved her aside and raced down to the kitchen.

"They were arguing," Cassie murmured.

I jumped a little, not having heard her follow me downstairs.

"They bored me," the demon said, behind us.

I didn't even bother to turn. "That's not the point, Vanessa."

"Of course it's the point. Your family is positively awful, Devlin. That explains a lot about you, but they're still awful. Want me to put them to sleep for you?"

"Maybe later. Right now, I want you to unzap them and then go away so I can get dressed."

"You look all right," the demon said. "For you, anyway."

"I can't go around in a robe all day."

"Oh, I don't know about that. You're not always this uptight. And Lucifer knows she isn't. There was that one day at the beach..." She let her voice trail off delicately, to give us time to catch her drift.

"How do you know about that?" Cassie asked, outraged.

"I get around. It's one of the perks of the job."

I was going to perk her for that. But Cassie blocked me and refused to move. "You mean you see everything that goes on?"

"We can if we want. It's a little like being Santa." The demon smirked and then broke into song:

That last word was supposed to be "Oh!", of course, but Cassie had just pinched her.

"Just fix it," I told Vanessa.

"Oh, all right." Sulking, she started to take the spell off, but then something occurred to her. "Do you want a couple of minutes' head start?"

"What for?"

"You forgot to turn the shower off. If your mother finds out, you're in big trouble."

I hated it when demons were right. Unwillingly, I turned to go back upstairs.

"By the way," Vanessa called. "About the snake."

Damn -- I'd already forgotten about it. What did it say for my quality of life that I had worse problems than snakes in the shower? "What about it?"

"That was Monica's idea. I can't help you with her here. Wish I could."

Cassie blanched. "You mean there really was a snake?"

"An anaconda," Vanessa confirmed.

I smiled triumphantly at Cassie, who was edging closer to me.

"It might be back," the demon added. "I really don't know what Monica's up to. But don't worry -- anacondas aren't poisonous. They just squeeze you to death."

There was a very long silence in the kitchen, and not just on the part of the frozen parties.

"Hurry up and get dressed," Cassie finally said. "I'll call the Holiday Inn."

"I was born in this town," I told Cassie absently. "And I'm going to die here. This Christmas."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not." She stopped unpacking cosmetics long enough to give me a severe look in the mirror. "Stop right there. I mean it."

I stopped. But my inner 2-year-old was still jumping up and down, howling, and it still wanted out.

"You're not going to die, Devvy. Even if you want to, I won't let you. Got that?"

The phone rang. Reluctantly, I rolled over and grabbed it. "Got it....Hello?"

"This is your mother," Mom said sternly.

Fear gripped me for a second, but then I remembered I was dead anyway, so what the hell. "I don't believe you. Do you have ID?"

"You're not funny, young lady."

"Wrong on both counts, Mother."

Cassie, still busy unpacking, dropped something in the sink with an awful clatter.

Mom heard. "What was that?"

"Cassie."

"She's in your room?"

For the love of God. "She's in our room. Was there something you wanted?"

"Aunt Kitty and Uncle Edgar are coming over for dinner."

"How nice for them. And...?"

"Don't get smart. They'll want to see you. You need to be here by 6."

"Is that an invitation or an order?"

There was silence on the line.

"Mom?" The bed shifted as Cassie sat down next to me; she gave me an inquiring look, which I answered with a shrug. "Hello?"

"This is difficult for all of us," Mom finally said. "I don't think we need to discuss the...issue in front of them. Do you suppose your friend could just stay at the motel?"

I slammed the phone down so hard that everything on the night table jumped.

"Devvy? What is it?"

"I'm not leaving you anywhere," I told her fiercely. "Not now, not later, not ever."

She smiled uncertainly and stroked my cheek. "Good, because I'm not going to be left. What brought that on?"

"My mother."

"I know." She kept stroking. "What did she say?"

It didn't matter. Suddenly, a five-alarm blaze was burning inside me, and the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my mother. With a suddenness that surprised both of us, I swept Cassie into my arms and down onto the bed.

"Something you want, lamb chop?" she asked.

There was, as a matter of fact. And I was in no mood to wait until Christmas.

Fortunately, she wasn't either.

After all the trouble I went to, teaching you how to tell time, Mom would say. Do you know how long it took me to do that?

I did know, as it happened; she'd mentioned it several hundred times in the course of our acquaintance. Maybe she'd be too distracted by the issue to bring it up tonight, though.

"You're sure this is a good idea?" Cassie asked.

I smiled at her over the car roof. "No."

She scooped a handful of snow off the hood and threw it at me.

"Not now, sweetheart. We're going to be late."

I'd just bent back over my task when a snowball clipped my shoulder. Cassie struck a mock-defiant pose, gloved hands on hips. "Dare you," she said.

"Don't be a fool. You can't win. And you'll just get your hair all wet."

She made a moué and threw another snowball.

"I love you too, Cassie. Now come on and finish scraping your side so we can get..."

A snowball exploded on my chest, scattering down my coat and inside my sweater. Swearing at the shock of the cold, I danced around a little.

"Don't make me cluck at you, honey," she said.

That meant war. In a matter of minutes, Cassie's BMW was all cleared off -- we'd thrown all the snow at each other -- and we were going down the parking lot, scooping ammo off other people's cars. We called a truce only when I happened to look at my watch and realized that we were already 15 minutes late.

Back in the room, we quickly changed clothes. Then, while Cassie dried her hair, I called the house. To my relief, Dad answered.

"Hi, Dad. It's me. We're running behind. Why don't you go ahead and start with..." I broke off, realizing that I was talking to nobody; he'd put his hand over the mouthpiece and was talking to someone in the background. "Dad? You there?"

"Sorry, Devlin. Your mother's a little upset. You know how she gets. Where are you?"

"At the hotel. We'll be leaving in a couple of minutes. But go ahead and start dinner without us. OK?"

He put his hand over the mouthpiece again and relayed that information. Impatiently, I waited for him to come back. "Devlin?"

"Still here."

"Your mother wants to know if you're going to behave yourself tonight." He dropped his voice confidentially. "That's not quite how I would have put it, but..."

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Would you give Mom a message from me?"

"Of course. What message?"

I slammed the phone down again.

At the mirror, Cassie frowned and switched off the blow dryer for a second. "What now?"

"If you've got any asbestos underwear," I growled, "wear it. This is going to be a hell of a night."

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

"Wonder when that happened," Cassie remarked. "I didn't notice any power outages on the way over, did you?"

"No." Warily, I studied the house. "Park away from it, Cass."

"What are you talking about?"

"The house. Something's not right. Just to be safe, let's park on the street."

She hit the brakes, making the BMW skid slightly. "Would you mind not talking like that? I'm already nervous."

"Sorry, sweetheart."

Not entirely reassured, she pulled up to the curb a few houses away -- very close to the plowed-off snow, which was piled up to nearly the door handles. I had some trouble getting out but didn't mention it. Better to save my fire for a battle that mattered.

We walked toward the house in silence except for the crunch of our footsteps on the snowy street. The closer we got, the more apprehensive I got. There was just enough moonlight to show the Christmas decorations on the neighbors' houses -- decorations that on this dead, dark cul-de-sac had the effect of wreaths on a tomb.

Cassie touched my coat sleeve. "Look. Full moon."

We stopped to admire it, our breath misting up around us in the frozen night. The moon was half-shrouded in haze, which meant more snow later. But it was a thing of ghostly beauty now.

"You know what they say about full moons," I said. "The inmates take over the asylums, and all the dogs go mad."

She reached into my coat pocket to squeeze my hand. "You're such a comfort, pookie."

"Just telling you what I hear."

Still holding onto my hand, she gave me a little tug to start us walking again. We passed the Hills' house, where the kids had built a crude snowman in the front yard; as we drew even with it, the head fell off, hitting the ground with a thump and rolling toward us. Startled, I kicked the thing away.

Cassie didn't say anything, but she moved a little closer.

As we reached the end of my parents' driveway, the black bulk in it resolved itself into a Cadillac parked at a weird angle. In fact, it had been driven in at a weird angle, judging by the tire tracks across the neighbors' yard. Uncle Edgar couldn't drive worth a damn. It was one of the many things Mom had against him.

Truth be told, I didn't like him either -- much less Aunt Kitty. And they were both inside right now, waiting for us like spiders.

Not cheered by this train of thought, I led Cassie up the drive. We were close enough now to notice a dim, shifting glow in the windows, which had to be candlelight. I wished we'd thought to bring the flashlight from the car, but we could always go back for it. Besides, there had to be a flashlight in that barge of Uncle Edgar's. You couldn't have a car that big and not have something in it.

I'd just touched the doorknob when the doorbell caught my attention. The electricity was out, but the button was glowing. That didn't make sense. As I watched, the light began to change shape, forming into something like a human face -- an old man in an old-fashioned nightcap, looking very much like...

"Stop that!" I shouted.

The face vanished and the doorbell reappeared, dark this time.

"Did I just see what I thought I just saw?" Cassie asked.

"That depends," I said cautiously. "What do you think you just saw?"

She thought about it briefly, then exhaled in frustration, sending up a huge plume of steam. "Forget it. It's too stupid."

"Then you saw it. Monica's making a little Dickens joke."

"Not a very good one." She touched the doorbell tentatively. "If this were a movie, you know, this would be the part where the audience would tell us to run."

"But if we did, there wouldn't be a movie, would there?"

Cassie laughed. "Let's get this over with, then. I've got plans for after the show."

Well, we wouldn't stay long. I didn't want to ruin our fun, either.

Politely, I walked Cassie over to my aunt and uncle. They blinked at her, froglike, while I introduced her. Not for the first time, I wished I had presentable relatives. By candlelight especially, their features were grotesque; they might have crawled out of drains in the middle of the night. On top of that, Uncle Edgar still wore that godawful vulgar gold chain. It was like being related to hillbilly Mafiosi.

"So," Aunt Kitty said. "You're Candy."

Mom shook her head. "Carrie."

"Cassie," I growled.

Cassie smiled sweetly. "Whatever's easiest for you."

"And you're a friend of my niece," Aunt Kitty said.

"A very good friend," Cassie confirmed.

Across the room, Connor snickered. Ryan and Jen both poked him hard, but I got the impression it was just for show.

Aunt Kitty frowned at him over her glasses. "What's funny?"

"Nothing," I assured her. "Connor's a jerk. You know that."

"You're all jerks," she said -- without malice, as a statement of plain fact. "Now give me a kiss."

Cassie, expecting the worst, held her breath. But I simply did as I was told -- resentfully and with only one lip, but without argument. Aunt Kitty was even worse than Mom when she wasn't happy, which was almost always.

Dad jumped in before the situation could deteriorate any further. "So now we're all here. Glad you two made it. We don't know about dinner..."

"It was almost ready when the power went out," Mom snapped.

"No one said it was your fault," he soothed her. "I'm just saying we don't know when we'll have dinner."

She refused to be soothed. "As soon as the power comes back on, that's when."

Everyone shifted uneasily except Aunt Kitty, who was already deep in the grape, and Uncle Edgar, who hadn't actually participated in conversation since 1941. I glanced over at Ryan; he mouthed the word "Help."

Well, what was I supposed to do? We all knew how this went. Mom didn't like her sister, who didn't like her back, but neither of them would admit it, so these little gatherings made everyone crazy. There was nothing to do but endure until Kitty got on her broomstick and left.

Correctly interpreting the unhelpful look I gave Ryan, Jen tried her luck at damage control. "I don't think we're going to starve with all this food around. Dev, Cassie, come try this cheese ball. It's fantastic."

"It's a heart attack on crackers," Aunt Kitty countered.

I gave her what may have looked like a smile. "Do let me get you some."

Cassie jabbed me.

"Killjoy," I muttered. "Come on. Let's have some anyway."

We were about halfway across the kitchen when Cassie tripped over something and grabbed my arm for balance. As she did, the lights came back on, and we all saw what she'd tripped over:

A big black anaconda.

No one moved. Not a muscle. Even Cassie, who liked snakes about as much as she liked mice, which was not at all, was riveted to the spot.

"Oh, there you are, Milton," Mom said.

Two more beats of silence -- and then everyone else jumped up on furniture. It took a few extra seconds for what she'd said to register.

"M-M-M-Milton?" Amy quavered.

Mom, insultingly calm, spread braunschweiger on a cracker. "He was a science project. Got away from one of my students last year when he was a baby. He must've come home with me in my briefcase....Here, Milton. Have some braunschweiger."

Many conflicting ideas crashed in my brain, which was in serious danger of exploding. It was a real snake. My mother knew it. My mother was feeding it braunschweiger. But worst of all...

"Milton?" I demanded, as soon as my voice worked. "Milton? What evil, twisted sonuvabitch would name a snake Milton?"

"Watch your language," Mom said, fixing another cracker.

"And why would you have a runaway science project? You teach English."

She ignored me, crooning something to the snake, which was swaying expectantly on the linoleum.

Cassie's reflexes finally kicked back in. She'd jumped on the same chair as me, largely because she'd never let go of my arm, and she released her grip slightly now, but not enough to give me full use of my circulation.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

She drew a ragged breath and leaned her head against mine. "I don't know anymore. It's been so long since anything was normal."

There was nothing to do but laugh. After a second, she did too. Then my brothers and their wives joined in, and even Dad cracked a smile.

"I don't see anything funny," Mom complained.

Dad was still smiling. "Never mind, Martha. Boys, get down here and help me with this snake."

They didn't move. "You said 'boys,'" Connor explained. "We're men."

"Manly men," Ryan agreed.

"Doing manly things," Connor added.

Dad's patience ran out. "Now."

Grumbling, they climbed down and took up battle positions. There was a long, complicated argument about tactics, but they finally agreed on herding the snake into a packing box. That led to an argument about whether a person could actually herd a snake and, if so, whether that would make them snakeboys or snakemen.

The snake settled the argument by slithering under the refrigerator.

Mom got up and dusted her hands off briskly. "Don't worry. He'll turn up again. Let's eat."

Aunt Kitty especially. She'd had four glasses of wine, which was three past her tolerance, and she'd been watching Cassie and me all through dinner as though we might try to steal the silverware. I tried staring back at her, but the woman was shameless.

Finally, Mom brought out the coffee and rum cake. It was almost over. Uncle Edgar would light one of those two-bit cigars and use his dessert plate as an ashtray, which would give us two disgusting excuses to leave.

"We can go in a few minutes," I whispered to Cassie. "You OK?"

She nodded. "Just."

"Hang in there. The worst is..."

"What are you two whispering about?" Mom asked sharply. "Is there something you'd like to share with the rest of us?"

My mother, the terror of the classroom. Wishing she would learn, just once, to give it a rest, I scowled at her.

"Kids today," Aunt Kitty remarked.

Ryan cleared his throat. "We're not really kids, Aunt Kitty. I can't speak for Dev, but Connor and I are snakemen, with all the honors and privileges appurtenant thereto, and I think..."

"Don't talk back to your aunt," Uncle Edgar warned.

Connor, Ryan, and I went slack-jawed with astonishment. That was the most the man had talked in years.

"They have terrible manners," Aunt Kitty complained to Mom. "Especially Devlin. This is your fault for letting her go into advertising."

"Hey!" I objected.

"She's not in it anymore," Mom said. "They fired her a couple of weeks ago."

Aunt Kitty frowned. "Because of that girl, I bet."

The only sound in the dining room was the clatter of silver on china as everyone dropped their forks.

"No offense, Candy," she added, "but this isn't Los Angeles. Hey, do you two know Ellen?"

Cassie, finally maxed out, started laughing hysterically. But I was not amused, and I pushed my chair back with serious intent.

"Sit down," Mom ordered. "Don't pay any attention. Kitty's had too much to drink."

"She always does, Mother. She's an alcoholic."

Both Mom and Aunt Kitty froze -- the latter in the act of raising a glass to her lips.

I bent down to whisper to Cassie. "Go get our coats. I'll be right out." Then, to the others, "If we're going to hang out the dirty laundry, let's empty the hamper, shall we?"

Furious, Mom started to argue back, but Dad cut her off. "She was insulted, Martha. Let her have her say."

"You always stick up for her," Mom spat.

He didn't back down. "Because you never do."

Cassie had been halfway out of the dining room and stopped to hear the rest. But Jen and Amy got out of their chairs in a flash to get her out of the line of fire. "It's only safe in there for Kerrys right now," I heard Amy explain.

Wrong. It was safe for no one. Coolly, I grabbed Aunt Kitty's wine bottle and poured what little was left on the centerpiece, which had a lighted candle in the middle.

Mom interrupted her argument for a second. "What are you doing?"

"Burning down the house," I explained, tipping over the candle.

The centerpiece caught fire in spectacular fashion. Cheap wine was good for that, if nothing else. I watched it burn for a second, watched them argue about how to put it out, and then left the room.

On the way out, I saw the snake. It saw me, too, and its eyes glittered ruby-red.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Cassie, enjoying this outlaw moment too much, gunned the motor as soon as I jumped in and then took off in a horrible fishtailing, snow-spraying screech. It reminded me of Vanessa doing doughnuts in the J/J/G parking lot. Did she get it from Cassie, or was it the other way around?

"So much for sneaking in and sneaking out," I grumbled, yanking my sunglasses off. It had been her idea for us to wear them, even though there wasn't a hint of sun.

"We got away, didn't we?"

"We aren't away yet. We still have to go back tomorrow."

"We'll worry about that tomorrow," she said serenely. "Right now, let's just have a nice day avoiding your family, OK?"

There was no avoiding those people, not really, not in a town this size. But there was no point worrying her.

Yet.

"This is kind of a cute place," Cassie remarked. "What would you call it? Country French?"

More like Alimony French; I'd heard that Debra got a bundle in the second divorce. "Something like that."

"I might redo the kitchen like this. Would you like to have breakfast every morning with calico chickens?"

"No."

She shrugged. "Well, we could lose the chickens."

"Don't let me stop you. It's your house."

"I was talking about your condo."

I looked up from the menu in surprise. "What would I want chickens in my kitchen for?"

"They'd be cute. They'd be decorative. Your place is so...earth-tone. A little color would cheer it up."

"I don't want it cheered up. Especially not in the morning."

She made a show of studying her fingernails. For an awful moment, I thought she was going to start filing them. "Fine. Then I'll redo my kitchen and your bedroom."

I was rapidly losing track of this conversation. "You want to redo my bedroom?"

"No -- I want you to move in with me. But if you're going to keep being stubborn, I think you should let me redecorate something."

"Why is that fair?"

"I don't know that it is," she admitted. "But it would be a nice Christmas present from you to me."

Unnerved, I considered the implications. I'd already gotten her a nice Christmas present. Several of them, actually; Visa would probably send a thank-you note with my next statement. But this wasn't about Christmas. It wasn't about interior decoration, either. It was about...

"Ah. There you are."

We both jumped a little. Vanessa was pulling up a chair, looking very much at home. She was, in fact, wearing the same dress that the owner of the restaurant had on.

"Can anyone see you?" I whispered.

The demon flipped her hair. "You're kidding, right? I didn't get this cute just so nobody could see me."

All right; whatever. If Debra came out to check on us later, I'd let her deal with it.

"Go away," Cassie told her. "Devvy and I are talking."

"And you're losing," Vanessa replied, getting comfy. "Didn't you ever learn anything about redirection? You don't just tell them what you want; you weasel around it. If they don't think it's their idea..."

"I'm not a them," I growled.

"...they won't do it. You know how they are."

"I'm not a guy!"

"No one said you were, pumpkin," Vanessa purred. "Now, what's good here? I could go for eels or snails or something."

We both stared at her, disgusted.

"What's the problem? This is a French joint, isn't it?"

"This is Hawthorne," I explained.

A dark Presence loomed over my shoulder. "I'll give her eels."

Damn. Damn. Without even looking at her, I reached over and pulled out the last empty chair.

Monica took it with exaggerated grace. "I can give her sautéed rat, if I really want to. But it's Christmas. I'll be nice." She shot a bad look at Cassie, who gave it right back. "Hello, Cassandra. You're looking lifelike."

"So are you," she said pleasantly. "The implants are holding up really well, don't you think, Devvy?"

I didn't think. If all went well, I would never have to think again. In grim silence, I studied the menu.

"For the record," Cassie continued, addressing the demons, "this is a private lunch. You two weren't invited. So you should go now. We really wouldn't want to have to ask the owner to throw you out."

Monica laughed scornfully. "Did you meet her?"

"No, but..."

"She's a Junior Leaguer. She wouldn't do anything that might break a nail. Including sex. Ask her ex-husbands."

She hadn't bothered to lower her voice, of course, and a few titters broke out among our fellow diners. Mortified, I made a don't-mind-her-she's-crazy gesture to the area at large and then turned on my demon. "Keep it down. This is a public place."

"Would keeping it down make it any less true?" She raised her voice slightly. "Would you rather I discuss your sex life?"

Cassie and I answered together: "NO!!"

"Humans," she sniffed. "You act like sex is a life-and-death secret, but you all do it. Or want to. Even your mother, Devlin. Did you know that?"

Yes, I knew that technically. Connor, Ryan, and I had worked it out years ago: Mom and Dad had Done It three times. But it wasn't something a person liked to think about.

At all. Ever.

Seeing my expression, Monica smiled evilly. "Do you know what a prude is? A prude is someone who's ashamed of having been born naked in bed with a woman."

The titters turned to open laughter. Even Cassie started to giggle. To her credit, she caught herself and reached over to pat my knee reassuringly.

I wasn't reassured. "What do you want, Monica? Aren't you supposed to be slithering around my parents' house?"

Cassie still had her hand on my knee, and her grip tightened at that. "What?"

"That wasn't a runaway snake last night. Or in the shower. That was her."

"It might have been," Monica said airily. "It might not have been. There really is a Milton. There might be two snakes around at any given time, just for fun. But your mother's loony. You know that, too, don't you?"

Our waitress showed up at that moment, and I could have kissed her for it. Cassie would have ripped my lips off, though. So I settled for smiling.

"Do you have sautéed rat?" I asked.

The girl blinked, uncertain. "Sautéed what?"

"Never mind. We'll start with a bottle of your best champagne. And one of them gets the bill." I gestured between Monica and Vanessa. "I don't care which one. Whichever annoys you more."

"But they haven't..."

"They will," I assured her. "Don't worry; I'll make up for it in your tip."

The demons just sat there demurely, looking as harmless as Easter eggs. Brother, I thought.

Well, it didn't look good.

Monica started it. Debra had flounced out to see how I was doing, not that she cared, and we'd both been excruciatingly polite. She'd even pretended not to notice that Vanessa had the same dress on. (In perfect truth, it looked better on Vanessa.) She was just leaving when Monica decided to have some fun.

"You knew Devlin in high school, did you?" she asked Debra, all deceptive innocence.

The woman smiled too brightly. "Not well, but yes, I did."

"Not well? Does that mean you didn't sleep with her?"

Cassie almost snorted coffee. I looked around for a trap door in the floor.

"Of course not," Debra said, offended. "I had boyfriends."

"So did your boyfriends," Vanessa piped up.

Monica scowled at her. "Keep out of this. I'm working here."

"Oh, working, hell; you're just trying to guilt Devlin out. Again." Cassie's demon tossed her head. "So she wanted to sleep with that little bitchkitty in high school. So what? She's got better taste now."

Everyone looked at me -- everyone at my table and at every other table within earshot. The people at the next table actually moved their chairs closer. I tried to look outraged, but it was too hard to be outraged and guilty at the same time.

"You didn't," Cassie informed me. "You told me..."

"Of course I didn't!"

"I'll say," Debra barked. "Just so you know, Devlin Kerry, I'd sooner sleep with a goat."

A goat? I shoved my chair back. Now I was outraged.

"What kind of goat?" Vanessa asked, interested.

Debra and I were both standing now, glaring at each other. We ignored the question.

"Don't flatter yourself," I told Debra. "I'd sleep with a cow first."

"No cow is that hard up," she shot back.

The room found that cute. Cassie did not. She jumped to her feet and to my side, menacing the woman with her worst dare-you expression.

But Vanessa just looked petulant. "What kind of cow? I need details."

"I think you should leave," Debra said icily. "And take your...friends with you. How much did they rent for, anyway?"

Cassie slapped her face so hard, one of her earrings flew off. Attagirl. I didn't get a chance to congratulate her, though; Debra was trying to slap her back, and I was having a devil of a time keeping between them.

"You get your hands off," Debra snarled at me. "If you think you're going to cop a feel this way..."

Was she crazy? Even if I'd wanted to, even if Cassie wouldn't have killed me for it, I wouldn't have done it in front of an audience. The whole restaurant was paying rapt attention now; even the staff had stopped work to goggle at the spectacle. A couple of the cooks were standing in the kitchen doorway, wiping their hands. I recognized one of them, and vice versa; he waved at me. Great. Our mothers were in a few clubs together, which meant this would be the talk of the town for months.

Then everything went completely to hell. Before I could stop her, Debra dodged around me, grabbed Monica's dessert, and smashed it into Cassie's face.

That would really irritate Cassie; she didn't like meringue. Without really thinking about the consequences, I straight-armed Debra into the table behind her. It collapsed with a crash as I turned to help Cassie.

The next thing I knew, the very air was alive with flying things -- food, tableware, even wine bottles, whizzing in all directions. It wasn't even us; the other patrons had snapped. Cassie and I watched, appalled, as they brawled like beasts. What was it with us that this sort of thing kept happening when we were around?

Check that -- I knew exactly what it was with us. We had demons. The demons in question were still sitting at our table, looking bored now. Good. I'd meant it about giving them the check.

"Let's get out of here," I told Cassie.

"Right behind you, sweetie."

At the door, she told me to hold up while she dug in her purse for her sunglasses. Reluctantly, I put mine on too.

"They already know who we are," I reminded her.

"That's not the point. The point is looking dignified." Frowning slightly, she pulled her sunglasses down to study me. "You have mashed potatoes in your hair."

With all the dignity possible under the circumstances, I opened the door and let her out.

So of course the phone rang.

Cassie muttered something about red-hot axes but snuggled closer. I reached over to answer. "Hello?"

"Hi, Dev. It's Jen. What's up?"

She didn't really want to know. "Nothing. We're watching It's a Wonderful Life. What's up with you?"

"Nothing."

The conversation stopped at that point. What now?

"Jimmy Stewart just called Lionel Barrymore a scurvy old spider," I reported. "Lionel Barrymore doesn't seem to be impressed. So he's..."

"Your mom says thanks for the tablecloth and the centerpiece."

"Does she, now? Hang on." I put my hand over the receiver and turned to Cassie. "Mom says thanks for the stuff. Not herself personally, but through Jen. What do you think?"

"I think your mother is a scurvy old spider," she said.

I kissed the top of her head and got back on the phone. "Tell her she's welcome. What does she really want?"

Jen started laughing. "I hate this family -- you're all so smart. She wants to know if you're going to church tonight."

I told her to wait again.

"What kind of service is it?" Cassie asked.

"Candlelight service. Nothing religious; we're Methodists."

She sighed. "I guess it can't hurt. Can it?"

"Probably not," I told her. "What else could happen?"

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

"It's not funny," I muttered.

She gave me her sweetest smile. "Of course it is."

"Don't let them fool you. They only look friendly. If they knew anything, they'd stone me."

"Not while I'm around, honey."

Abruptly, I pulled her off to one side -- as much privacy as I could manage in that crowd. "Don't call me 'honey.' Not here."

"What's wrong? Don't you love me anymore?" Wicked blue lights started dancing in her eyes. "Does this mean I have to fall asleep empty and unfulfilled tonight?"

I grabbed her coat lapel viciously. Then, politely, I started shoving churchgoers out of the way so I could drag her outside. Cassie was laughing so hard that she didn't resist. Only when we got to the very back of the parking lot did I feel it was safe enough to talk.

"This is the last place on earth you can do that," I snapped. "I grew up going to this church. I learned everything I know about hellfire and damnation here. If you don't cut it out, God's going to smite me."

She turned serious, finally. "I don't much like your God, Devvy."

"I don't either. But you know what the Jesuits say about getting a kid before he's seven. These people got hold of me when I was born."

"And what did they teach you? That love is evil?"

I said it without thinking: "No. Just sex."

There was long, long silence in the parking lot. Then Cassie pulled me closer to the streetlight and studied my expression. Uncomfortable under the scrutiny, and freezing to death now that we were standing out in the open, I shifted from foot to foot a few times.

"Well, that explains the witch," she finally said.

Did it? Monica herself had suggested as much, all those months ago when she'd told me what she was. But...

Never mind. There wasn't time for theology now; we were due in church.

"It's not that simple, Cass."

"You were little. It had to be simple." She sighed in exasperation, her breath white on the calm air. "So does this mean you think I'm evil?"

"No. You're just high-maintenance."

Surprised by that answer, she laughed.

"Very, very high-maintenance," I added.

"You can stop any time."

"But I wouldn't have you any other way." Before she could say anything to that, I kissed her. "I love you, no matter how evil you are."

"You too, pookie."

"Now will you behave yourself in there? For me?"

She pretended to consider. "For you?"

"You will if you love me."

"That is so not fair," she grumbled.

"I know. Believe me, I know." I kissed her again. "Ready?"

She shook her head but took my arm, and we headed back. Light snow was starting to fall, dusting the windshields of the parked cars; it made the brightly lighted church look more inviting. We passed the floodlighted Hawthorne United Methodist Church sign, built close to the ground per the zoning ordinances in that part of town, and as we did, Debra and her current family crossed our path like so many black cats.

Bad luck, all right. I'd meant to go back to the restaurant later to pay for lunch and/or damages, but Cassie had other ideas about how to spend the afternoon. So I'd never...

"Why, Devlin Kerry," Debra said, with simulated pleasure. "I haven't seen you for a couple of years at least. How are you?"

A couple of years? I frowned. "Fine. You? Listen, about your restaurant..."

Her smile grew larger and phonier. "Oh, you've heard about it? Yes, I'm really enjoying it. It's doing really well. Do stop in while you're in town, won't you? I'll make sure you get free dessert."

Cassie and I glanced at each other warily. We'd had dessert at her restaurant just a few hours ago, and neither of us was likely to forget it as long as we lived.

"Maybe we will," I told Debra.

Her charity work complete, Debra turned sharply to go inside. She hadn't bothered to introduce her family to me or herself to Cassie, but somehow I felt no loss.

Cassie stared after her. "That was strange. Is she loony?"

"Probably." Privately, I suspected Vanessa was up to something, but it wasn't the time to discuss her. "C'mon. It's cold out here."

"Selective memory," I insisted when we finally got away. "My friends and I used to throw spit wads in church."

She just smiled.

"How come you didn't have to go through this at Thanksgiving?"

"I'm not stupid, Devvy. I wasn't about to introduce you to any more people than I had to."

Smart. She was smart, all right. I was doomed but good.

We passed another pew, and I felt the temperature drop sharply, as it does in the most haunted part of the house. Mom and Aunt Kitty were sitting there, along with Dad, Connor and Jen, both of them looking particularly unappeasable.

"Evening. What happened to Ryan and Amy?" I asked.

"They'll be along," Mom said curtly. Her glance swept up and down us both, clearly disapproving of our nice wool trousers.

"We didn't pack prom dresses," I explained. "Besides, it's 15 degrees out. Too cold for panty hose."

She didn't respond, except to cross her panty-hosed legs ostentatiously. Well, if she wanted to catch pneumonia, that was her business.

"You can sit here," Aunt Kitty said grudgingly. "There's probably room if we all move down."

With maximum effort, I smiled. "Wouldn't think of putting you to any trouble." Then I pulled Cassie down the aisle to an empty pew, Mom and Aunt Kitty glaring holes in the back of my head all the way.

"What do we do with these things?" Cassie asked, gesturing with her candle.

"This." I stuck mine into one of the holes in the pew back in front of us. They were, I dimly remembered, for the little cups of grape juice Methodists got at communion, but they were just candle-holders to me now. She did the same. No sooner had we finished getting settled than Ryan and Amy shoved in.

"You're late," I said, feeling virtuous.

Ryan shrugged. "We were watching a movie. You going to move down and let us in, or what?"

"Depends. What movie?"

"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians."

"Move," I told Cassie.

We scooted down to give them room. Ryan climbed over both of us to sit on my right, and Amy sat on Cassie's left.

"It's probably not safe to let them sit together," Amy told her, "but it'll probably be more fun in the long run."

Cassie laughed. "I've known Devvy for six years. It's really hard to scare me."

"Happy to try," Ryan offered.

I was about to have back at him when the choir started filing in. I knew most of the members in one way or another -- a friend's father, a local pharmacist, my junior-high geography teacher -- and was careful to smile. But the friend's father saw Ryan and me sitting together, and a dark look crossed his face.

"I bet he's remembering the Jesus Christmas," Ryan whispered in the sudden hush.

That almost caused me to lose it. A few years ago, for reasons known only to them, Connor and Ryan had started telling me Jesus jokes during the service, and they got so outrageous that I cracked up several times.

Of course, sitting next to either of my brothers at this service was never a good idea. If "We Three Kings" was on the program, which it usually was, they always sang the version about the rubber cigar. Then we'd all start doing sotto-voce commentary on the sermon, and at least one of us would have to leave the sanctuary to laugh.

This year, though, Cassie was with me. I wasn't going to subject her to showtime with the Kerry kids in the middle of church. Even though she might never have to come back to this town, I would, and I wasn't going to have people thinking badly of her for something that wasn't her fault. Let them think whatever they wanted about me, but not...

Something small, hard, and wet hit me in the back of the head. Scowling, I turned around. Connor tried to look innocent, pretending to be fascinated by the poinsettia arrangement on the altar, but I wasn't fooled for a second. If he was going to start throwing spit wads, I was eventually going to revert and start throwing them back.

Closing my eyes, I repented most of my life to date. Somehow, I hadn't realized that bringing Cassie to this church would mean giving her a tour of my childhood -- the moral equivalent of touring a swamp in a glass-bottom boat. By seventh grade, my friends and I were sneaking out during the sermons to steal Cokes out of the Coke machine in the basement. We'd started filling out the guest books with fictitious names. We'd even called the church office a few times to ask if their refrigerator was running. And on top of all that, I had these brothers to deal with. No wonder I had a demon.

Cassie nudged me. "What's wrong?"

Another spit wad whizzed through my hair; I got a hand up just in time to catch it. For answer, I showed it to her.

Where was Mom while he was being such a brat, anyway? I turned around again. She was deep in conversation with Aunt Kitty; they appeared to be gossiping about someone in the choir. Oh, well, she probably didn't even know why Connor was doing it, so it would be no fun making her mad about it. The reason was that when we were kids, we'd gone to Gatlinburg several times, and our favorite thing to do there was ride the chairlift up Crockett Mountain. It wasn't that we liked the ride so much; it was that at one point, the line went over a motel swimming pool, fairly low. Connor and I liked to spit on whoever was in the pool.

I repented that, too, as yet another spit wad hit me. Verily, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

"He's been practicing," Ryan observed. "Just proves he has no life. Let's make a bunch of wads and ambush him after church."

Amy leaned around Cassie to give him a stern look.

"Oh, c'mon, babe," he protested. "This is about honor."

She shook her head but sat back. It was just as well; the choir was about to sing. I glanced over them with little curiosity, more or less counting heads. One head in particular caught my attention.

I blinked, but it was no use; it was Vanessa, trying to look angelic in a choir robe. That was no use, too.

Alarmed, I leaned over to whisper to Cassie. "Third row, second from left."

"I saw," she whispered back. "Fourth row, far right."

Fourth row, far right, fourth row, far... Oh, hell.

Monica waited till our eyes met. Then she smiled just enough to show her fangs.

"Where do you want to be buried?" I asked Cassie.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

What shall we hang? The holly, or each other?

"Cheer up," Cassie demanded as we walked up the drive. "It's Christmas."

"Exactly."

"Cranky. Why are you cranky after last night?"

"That was then. This is now."

She sighed. "We really have to work on the romance thing, honey."

I knew from hard experience to ignore remarks like that. Besides, if she wanted romance, she could go buy a cheesy paperback at the drugstore.

"Devvy?"

"Light of my life?"

"You're not fooling anyone, you know. You're sappier than I am."

I stopped walking. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, don't worry -- I won't tell. But you are."

There she went, leaping to conclusions again. Just because I'd given her jewelry didn't make me sappy. Maybe she meant the poetry later. But that didn't prove anything either. A person ought to be able to get some use out of all those years of English lit.

"Are we going to go in and get this over with?" I asked, with injured dignity. "Or are we going to stand out here and make false accusations all morning?"

Cassie just laughed and pulled me the rest of the way up the driveway.

"Hello," I said experimentally.

Mom turned her head slightly and frowned. "Oh. It's you."

Who was she expecting? Reindeer? "Yes, it is. Good morning. Merry Christmas."

I couldn't quite hear her response, but it didn't sound festive. Oh, well, she'd probably just gotten up on the wrong side of the moat. So I tried again. "Where's Dad?"

"Out looking for you," she snapped.

God, give me patience this instant. "Well, he won't find us unless he's looking here. Why would he be doing that anyway?"

"You should have been here an hour ago. He thought something happened to you."

Cassie shook her head slightly in warning; I pretended not to notice. "Nobody said anything about a schedule. I told Connor and Ryan we'd be here by ten. And we were. Why didn't he just call the hotel?"

"He was worried."

Impatient, I speed-read the situation. My brothers weren't talking. Dad was out driving. Yup, Mom was on her horse. It was going to be one of those Christmases.

"Coffee," I said to no one in particular and went to the kitchen.

So we sat down to open presents. Ryan played Santa, which he'd done every year since he was 6, and we were teddibly, teddibly polite about it all. We took turns; we didn't rip the paper off like savages; we didn't even count packages first. That last part was for Cassie's benefit, though, because Connor, Ryan, and I always counted first. One year, we'd also measured and weighed. But Mom had thrown a fit, so we rarely did that anymore, and only in private.

"Don't shake this one," Ryan told Connor as he handed him another package. "It's from Dev. It's probably ticking."

Cassie smiled at him. "Not that one. But be careful you don't cover the air holes. They get really mad when they can't breathe."

Very funny. My brothers actually thought so, however, so I let her get away with it. Anyway, it was just another of the toys that we always gave one another: laser guns, guns that launched little helicopters, little containers of goo and eyeballs. This one was a Magic 8 Ball. Connor had broken the one he got last year when it didn't give him the answer he wanted.

Cassie looked on, bemused. Mom had been decent enough to get her a couple of small things so that she'd have something to unwrap, but they were along the lines of scarves, which she didn't wear. Neither of her daughters-in-law did either, but they got them every year anyway.

Never mind, though -- Cass and I were going to have a private Christmas when we got home. I didn't know what might be in all those packages from her parents, but I knew for a fact that there were no scarves in the ones from me.

"I love it," Connor said, displaying the 8 Ball for general admiration. "It's stunning. Just stunning. What is it? Does it come with directions?"

"Wise guy," I muttered.

He winked and sailed a small package across the room at me. Then he tossed an identical one to Cassie.

"Hey!" Ryan huffed. "I'm Santa around here."

"These aren't from Santa. They're from Jen and me."

Skeptical, I opened mine. Cassie watched a little apprehensively; the last thing from Connor and Jen had been one of those singing fish. Ryan had liked it, but then, Ryan was weird.

"What is this?" I asked Connor, staring at the plastic egg.

"Open it and see."

I pressed the latch, and the top popped up. Inside was a miniature ocean with plastic whales. "I see. But I still don't..."

"You have to open it all the way," Jen directed.

So I did. The little egg shuddered, and the scene came to life in my hand, the tiny whales swimming and the tiny waves churning. Totally against my will, I was enchanted.

Relieved, Cassie opened hers. She got a pond with little ducks, which was almost -- but not quite -- as cool as mine.

"I love this," she told them. "Thank you. I'm going to take it to client meetings and play with it when I get bored. Which will be all the time."

She started her toy again, and as she did, Mom leaned forward, suddenly alert.

"Something wrong?" I asked her.

"I don't remember seeing Carrie wearing a ring yesterday."

Cassie looked up from her ducks with a quizzical expression.

"Cassie," I corrected wearily. "And she has lots of jewelry, Mom. She can't wear all of it every day."

It wasn't a lie exactly. I wasn't even sure why I'd told it. But it was none of my mother's business where the ring had come from, and if she pressed the issue, Cassie could simply lie and say...

"It was a Christmas present from Devvy," Cassie said.

Hell and damnation. I mentally subtracted one of the packages under her tree back home.

Everyone else, of course, was all ears about this news. Amy jumped up to have a closer look, and only then did I realize which finger Cassie was wearing the ring on. It didn't mean anything; it wasn't a diamond; we weren't doing that. But did she have to wear it on that finger, in front of my mother? Mom took the etiquette books so seriously that she probably didn't wear white underwear after Labor Day, and she wasn't going to care that people wore rings everywhere nowadays. Including some places I didn't even want to think about.

"Let me see that," Mom said brusquely, moving Amy aside.

Cassie patiently let Mom study the ring from all angles. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"It looks expensive," she said. "I thought you didn't have a job anymore, Devlin."

I scowled at her. "We're appealing. We'll be back to work any day now. And how is it your affair anyway?"

"You shouldn't be giving such expensive gifts to a girlfriend. People will talk."

Of course they would. Talk was the only thing most people of my acquaintance were good for. But it was none of their business either. "Well, she is my girlfriend."

"That's not funny."

Cassie started to excuse herself, but I spiked her in place with a look. "You're right, Mom; it's not. Which part are you having the trouble with? 'Girl'? Or 'friend'?"

"You know very well what I mean, young lady. It's..."

"Immoral?" Connor supplied.

Jen backhanded him hard in the stomach. Fortunately for him, he was getting a little paunchy, so it couldn't have hurt much.

Mom frowned -- not at the violence, but at the interruption. "Indecent."

"Indecent," I repeated. "I see. It's indecent. Cass?"

"Devvy?"

"Will you answer a question? For my mother's edification?"

"Shoot."

"Are you wearing underwear right now?"

Ryan spat coffee several feet across the living room. For her part, Cassie was dumbstruck.

"It's a serious question," I assured her. "My mother has really specific ideas about decency. When I was little, she said it wasn't decent to go around without underwear, even if it was August."

Cassie relaxed visibly. "That's interesting. My mother said it wasn't decent to say the word 'underpants' in front of company. So I don't know if we should even be having this conversation."

I didn't try to hide the goofy smile. God, I adored her.

"But since you ask," she added sweetly, "yes, I am. My very best underpants, because it's Christmas."

My brothers and sisters-in-law collapsed in snorting, hiccuping laughter. Dad looked as though he wanted to laugh too but didn't want to pay the price his wife would charge him for it.

Satisfied, I turned back to Mom. "Does that clarify your thinking?"

"You get this from your father's side of the family," she said darkly.

Dad cleared his throat. "Now, Martha..."

"Stay out of this, Patrick."

For a moment, we all thought he was going to stand up to her. It happened as often as once or twice a year. But the moment passed, and before anyone could stop him, Dad had grabbed his coat, hat, and keys again.

No one spoke until the sound of the Oldsmobile's motor faded in the distance. And when she did, she said exactly the wrong thing.

"I hope you're happy now," Mom growled. "You've ruined Christmas."

Was that all it took nowadays? Exasperated, I turned to my brothers for help -- and got none, which I would remember. "Me? This is your fault, Mother."

She gave me a severe classroom stare over the rims of her glasses. "I don't mean just you. I mean both of you. You and...Carrie."

Jen and Amy knew a small-craft warning when they saw it; they jumped up and ran for their lives.

"Go there," I warned her coldly, "and it will be the last place you go on this earth."

Mom pulled her glasses down even farther. "It takes two to tango, Devlin."

I don't remember much about the next few minutes. Cassie told me later that it was the most methodical rampage she ever saw -- supposedly I tore off the Christmas lights first, batting ornaments in all directions, and then shook the tree to knock off the rest of the decorations before I started swinging it around the living room like a mace. There was some property damage, but she said I was careful not to hit the TV. She said I was less careful not to hit Connor, who barely dived off the loveseat in time.

The next thing I do remember was standing in a snowdrift up to my knees, staring at a battered blue spruce in the street, where I'd apparently thrown it. A few strings of tinsel left on it fluttered in the breeze.

I was bending over the tree, carefully taking off the last of the tinsel, when Cassie put a warm hand on my shoulder.

"I brought your coat," she said. "Want to get out of here for a while?"

"You're not mad at me?"

As soon as the question was out, I regretted having asked it. But her smile was worth my having sounded so stupid. "No, sweetie. I'm not mad. I'm proud of you."

"Proud?"

"Mmmhmm." She held up my coat, indicating that she would help me put it on. "Very proud."

I thought about that while she smoothed my coat front. "But I really did ruin Christmas just now."

"You think so? Well, I don't know about that. I think you just gave your mother a great Christmas present."

Not following, I blinked at her.

"She gets to tell all her friends about it," she explained. "She'll be the martyr of Hawthorne for a whole year."

Damn. Cassie was right. "I love you," I told her, meaning every syllable.

"I love you too, honey. Here. I saved your whales."

I stuck the toy in my pocket and kissed her with feeling, right there in the street, in broad daylight.

"Devvy?" she murmured after a while.

"Hmmm?"

"I really am wearing my best underpants."

She was crazy. She was absolutely perfect. "C'mon, wild thing. Let's vote each other off this stupid island."

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Granted, it should have been; we were the only customers. But the waiter didn't have to keep checking on us every few minutes. I watched him with suspicion, trying to decide what he was more interested in: Cassie, or her duck toy. She'd been playing with it all through dinner. Then she'd borrowed mine. By the fortune cookies, I was starting to worry.

"Are you ever going to give it back?" I asked, watching her watch the whales.

She didn't even look up. "No."

"So you admit it. You only like me for my stuff."

Still no response. But a stockinged foot slipped up my trouser leg under the table.

"Then I get to open both fortune cookies," I said. "And I get to keep the fortune I like best."

Cassie finally put down the toy. She made unnecessarily sarcastic kissing noises at me, reached for a cookie, and cracked it open. A look of evil triumph lit up her face. "Read it and weep, Devvy."

"Oh, all right, just keep the whales," I grumbled.

Cassie laughed. In the next instant, the waiter was back at her elbow, refilling her teacup from the pot that had been sitting right in front of her all along.

"With all due respect to the little blonde lotus flower," I told him, "her arm's not in a sling. She can probably manage a teapot."

The foot that was still up my trouser leg gave me a kick. But its owner was smirking, and the waiter seemed not to understand anyway. He nodded at me, beamed at her, and left us again. Cassie's smirk got a little bigger.

"You love when this happens," I accused. "You do it on purpose."

"Do what, pookie?"

I hated that word. But the more I objected, the more she used it, so I was trying to let it roll off. "Collect waiters."

"It's a hobby," she said, amused. "I never had the patience for needlepoint."

"You're getting an attitude on you, Wolfe."

"Can't help it. Look who I'm with."

Trumped. Again. I threw down my napkin in surrender. "I could take the ring back."

"You could get your heart carved out," she replied.

I considered the next few moves. No good. Best to take the high road and concede. "Then I'm glad you like it that much. If we're still speaking next Christmas, I'll get you the earrings too. Are you done playing games with me now?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Why?"

"Because you really ought to call your parents."

Stricken, she checked her watch. "Oh, no -- it's afternoon. They're going to kill me!"

"They'll have to go through me first." Easy to say; they were several hundred miles away at the moment. Which was the only reason I said it. I could probably handle Mrs. Wolfe in an emergency, but all bets were off with the rest of that crowd. "Do you want to go back to the room and call?"

She was already rummaging through her purse. "That'll make it even later. I'll just call them on my cell....Dammit, where is that thing?"

In the spirit of Christmas, I declined to point out that this was what happened when you bought a Barbie-size phone and kept it in a big purse. While she was occupied, I took back my whales. Then I frowned at the waiter, who was making another pass. "She's having a crisis. Tea can't help her now. But if you have a flashlight, or maybe industrial salvage equipment..."

Victorious, Cassie emerged from her purse. "Ha! It was in the little pocket."

"Just the check, then," I told the waiter.

I followed him to the cash register, to pay and to give Cassie some privacy for her call home. Not coincidentally, this meant I wouldn't be on hand if one of her family wanted to say hello. But she didn't have to know that.

The waiter, ever attentive, came along when I headed back toward the dining room to check on her. So I pulled him aside. If this didn't stop now, we were going to have an incident.

"Quite a looker, isn't she?" I asked casually. "My friend in there, I mean. Very beautiful. Wouldn't you say?"

He smiled, nodding agreement. Encouraged, I put a friendly arm around his shoulders and went on.

"She has a thousand engagement rings in her old room at home. She kept them all. Every last one of them. And she keeps her old boyfriends' heads in jars in the basement." I pretended that he'd just asked a question. "What kind? Ball jars, I think. She had to shrink the heads first, of course. Ball didn't make jars that big."

The waiter's smile didn't waver, but it was starting to look a bit forced.

"Cass' parents are dragons, you know. I've seen them myself. The father has spikes on his tail ten feet high. And the mother breathes green fire when..."

Yikes. Where had she come from?

The waiter, who apparently knew more English than he let on, took off like a shot. And just when I didn't want to be alone with Cassie. She didn't look upset, exactly, but...

"Feel free to start explaining any time," she said.

I tried to look innocent. "Writing practice?"

"You already get lots of practice."

Not enough, if I was going to keep getting into situations like this. "It's not what you think. The kid lusts after you. I know you don't know this, based on your past, but lust is a deadly sin. I was trying to scare him for the good of his soul."

"How? By telling him my parents are dragons?" Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "What did I miss that you told him about me?"

"Nothing."

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Because you're really, really smart. Have I told you today that you're beautiful, too?"

"Nice try. But it won't work, Devvy."

"You don't sound 100 percent sure," I said, encouraged. "What about amnesty on this one, on account of Christmas?"

"One condition."

That was easy. "What condition?"

"We go back to your parents' house for a few minutes."

"Are you crazy?"

"Fifty-fifty chance. You are. It might be contagious."

I was not amused. "I just trashed the living room with a Christmas tree, Cassie. I'm not going to be very popular."

"No, but it'll help mend fences if you apologize. You don't have to mean it. You just have to pretend."

"Why should I apologize? My brothers acted like frat boys around you. My mother kept calling you the wrong name. And don't even start me on that hellcat sister of hers. If she were any more impossible, she'd be co-hosting with Regis. If you think for one second that we're going back so they can insult you again..."

"They're your family, Devvy."

"I know. That's the problem."

"That's not what I mean. I mean, you have to see them at least once a year, whether you want to or not. And I really don't want to go through this again next year. So..."

"You're not going through it next year. I'm not throwing you into that snake pit again."

She got her Determined look. "You didn't throw me -- I jumped. And if I feel like jumping again, I will."

"But..."

"And if you won't go back, I will. By myself."

"That's not fair," I argued. "You know I won't let you go in there alone."

"Never said it was fair."

I glared at her for a couple of minutes, trying to break her resolve. She refused to break. Finally, I threw up my hands. "All right. Five minutes. In and out. Deal?"

"Deal. Thank you. You can win the next one."

"The next two," I countered. "And you buy dinner tonight."

"Aunt Kitty's here," I told Cassie.

She patted my shoulder. "She can't live forever."

"I'm not up to taking the long view right now. I just want to get through the next few minutes without tearing someone's face off."

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked, in an insultingly reasonable tone.

"I don't know," I said irritably. "It was the first thing that came to mind. But it would probably hurt. And a person would be in trouble without a face, right?"

"All right, all right, calm down. I was just asking."

"I am calm!"

Cassie bit her lip to keep from laughing and tried to look sympathetic.

"Devvy, honey, precious, I really wasn't thinking that."

I wasn't convinced. "You weren't?"

"Of course not."

Her expression said I was thinking Lithium instead, but she didn't actually say it, so what could I do? Nothing. I just went on into the house, determined to get it over with fast, no longer determined not to take faces.

It took a few seconds for anyone to notice. Amy was first; she let out a little scream and threw her napkin in the air. As the others realized what was going on, a whole constellation of reactions went around the table. My favorite was Aunt Kitty's. She'd frozen with the wineglass not all the way to her lips, so wine was trickling out of the glass and down her cleavage. That would do it for that dress.

"I came to say goodbye," I told them. "I'm not sure yet whether I came to say I'm sorry, too."

"You have your nerve, showing up here like nothing happened," Mom snapped.

Cassie moved a couple of steps back, out of the direct line of fire, but she put a comforting hand on the small of my back.

"I do have nerve," I admitted. "It comes on one of the chromosomes in this family. My guess is that it would be from your side, Mom, but if Dad wants to make a case for his..."

Connor snickered, and Ryan looked a little less hostile. But Dad frowned. "This isn't a good time, Devlin. Your mother's a little upset. Maybe you should come back tomorrow."

"There won't be a tomorrow. We're going back to Greenville tonight."

"Why?" Ryan chirped. "Are there innocent Christmas trees there you have to murder?"

Amy and Jen, flanking him at the table, elbowed him hard on each side. Very nice. That would take him out of play for a while.

"We're going back tonight," I repeated, "so I wanted to come by and thank you for the hospitality. Such as it was."

Mom looked daggers at me in absolute silence. But Aunt Kitty was muttering. To be annoying, I cupped a hand to my ear. "Excuse me, auntie dearest? Didn't catch that."

"I said, 'Good riddance,' that's what I said," she barked. "Tearing up your mother's house like an animal. And sleeping with that...that..."

Only Cassie's sudden grip on my sweater kept me from de-facing her then and there. "Woman. That woman. I'm aware of her gender. What's your problem with her, anyway? It was her idea to come over here and apologize. Not mine. And you were about to call her something I'd have to hurt you for, weren't you?"

She just stared at us, at a loss for words for once.

"My Aunt Kitty is a nut case," I told Cassie. "You already knew that, but sometimes it's nice to have these things confirmed. Do you know what she and Uncle Edgar do every Christmas Eve?"

Mom said my name in a menacing way. I ignored her.

"They open their presents on Christmas Eve. That's barbaric all by itself. But do you know what they do right after they open presents?"

"This is awesome," Connor told Jen cheerfully.

I ignored him too. "Right after they open presents, they take their tree down. On Christmas Eve. And you know what the worst part is?" For dramatic effect, I paused. No one interrupted. "The worst part is, it's not even a real tree. It's one of those aluminum things. You can't put tinsel on an aluminum tree, now, can you? No. That would be stupid. But guess what? They do it anyway. And you know what else?"

Amy was starting to recover her wits a bit. She looked around the room nervously before she spoke. "Um, Dev, I really don't think..."

"Then don't think. In this family, you'll live longer." Perplexed by the interruption, I turned to Cassie. "Where was I?"

"You were about to tell me what else," she said, enjoying the spectacle. "Aluminum tree, tinsel..."

"Oh. Right. I forgot the revolving spotlight. It turns the tree different colors. If you half-close your eyes, you think you're in a disco in Hell." Evilly, I smiled at Aunt Kitty. "Go on, Cass. Ask me what's on top of the tree."

Cassie released her grip and slipped her hand inside the back of my sweater. "What's on top of the tree?"

"An angel kitten."

She burst into startled laughter.

"God, I'd forgotten about that," Connor said thoughtfully. "The angel kitten. That's a bad one, all right."

I glanced at Aunt Kitty, who was too poleaxed by now to respond, and then at Mom, who was ditto. But Uncle Edgar might have been on the moon, for all the attention he was paying. I suspected he secretly agreed with me.

"So let's not get into an etiquette smackdown," I said. "I shouldn't have wrecked the living room with the tree. But you shouldn't have driven me crazy. Agreed?"

There was complete silence for at least a minute -- a very long time for silence, especially among people who never shut up.

Then Dad pushed his chair back, crossed the room, and extended his hand to Cassie. "It was a pleasure meeting you," he told her sincerely. "I hope we'll see you again."

Cassie shot a bewildered glance at me. "Thank you. I hope so too."

He nodded. They shook and let go. When they did, Dad put his hand on my shoulder. "Devlin, take care of yourself. Come see us again soon."

Aw, dammit, this was going to ruin my exit. Reluctantly, I gave him a hug. "Merry Christmas, Dad."

It wasn't his fault he married into a family of monsters, after all. But next Christmas, I was going to buy him a spine.

The park was full of kids trying out their new Christmas sleds and snow discs, so we skirted the hills and went to a flat area by the merry-go-round.

"I haven't done this in years," she mused.

"You'll love it. It's just like you remember."

"I hope not. I got snow in some really bad places the last time."

After a second's debate, I decided that I didn't need to know. "C'mon. Over here."

We jumped as far as we could into a patch of snow that didn't have footprints on it. Then we dropped back into it and made the angels.

"They look great," she said, inspecting them. "People are going to think real angels..." Then something caught her eye. "Devvy?"

"Angel?"

To my annoyance, she didn't hear that. "What did you do when you made yours?"

"The same thing everyone does. Why?"

She pointed. I leaned farther forward. There in the snow where I'd made my angel were the clear, distinctive outlines of horns and a long pointed tail.

"Monica!" I shouted.

When the demon didn't show after a few seconds, Cassie slipped her arm around me. "I guess you're just a devil. But you're my devil."

"Very funny," I said, trying not to look flattered.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

That was the plan. But Leonard Nimoy foiled it the first morning back. And then a fish finished me off.

"It is not. Besides, I thought you liked 'Star Trek.'"

On the front porch, "If I Had a Hammer" got even louder. Gritting my teeth, I willed myself not to hear it. "This isn't 'Star Trek.' This is Golden Throats. And this isn't the first time they've done this to me."

She stopped misbuttoning her sweater long enough to give me a very crabby look. "Well, now they're doing it to me, too. Satisfied?"

"No."

We regarded each other in hostile silence. It was nothing personal; we knew we still liked each other. But it was very, very early in the morning to be awake, let alone to be awake while Mr. Spock was singing. And that part was her fault.

"I'll go let them in," I said. "If they don't have a fantastic reason for being here, you clean up the mess. You'll need a big mop."

"Sweet-talker," she groused.

Perversely, that made me feel better. I went downstairs; rummaged in the toolbox; and threw the front door open, ready for anything. Or at least for Heather, Chip, and Troy.

"Off," I told Troy.

He turned off the boom box.

"Tape."

Uncertain, he looked to the others for advice. Heather shrugged. He ejected the tape and handed it over.

"Now you do have a hammer," I told them, bringing it out from behind my back.

They backed off, which was the first smart thing they'd done that day. Carefully, I positioned the cassette on the porch railing.

I was still whacking it when Cassie came out. She watched for a second and then borrowed the hammer. Little chips of plastic flew in all directions as she reduced what was left to scrap. We would never have to hear Kirk or Spock sing again.

The woman had her points.

"If it's not a secret," I said, "you might tell me why you're here. At this hour, the day after Christmas."

"We're on our way to work," Chip answered.

"Work? We were all fired a few weeks ago."

"Well, that's just it, Dev. We're kind of un-fired now."

Cassie rolled her eyes but didn't comment.

"Un-fired?"

Heather took over. "It's Howard Abner. Jenner hates him. Ever since he found out that Abner won't let him have girlfriends..."

"Won't let him?"

"Doesn't want him to, I mean. He says it sets a bad example."

"For who?" I frowned, debating whether it should be "whom" instead, but finally decided I didn't care. "It's an ad agency, not church camp."

"Just let me tell it, will you?"

I gave up and let her. She always took twice as long as necessary to tell a story, but if you kept interrupting her, she took even longer to get to the point. The point in this case was that Jenner feared marital fidelity more than he feared lawsuits. Consequently, he was maneuvering to get rid of Abner, and his first move was to reinstate all of Abner's firees.

"'All,' as in all?" Cassie asked.

Heather nodded. "You two especially. He's been after us every day to find out when you're coming back. I bet he'll reinstate you with big raises, if..."

"We don't want to be reinstated," I said.

They all stared at me in disbelief.

"Sorry -- I shouldn't speak for Cass. I don't want to be reinstated. At least, not without a lot more information this time. She can do what she wants."

"Not without you," she protested.

I motioned to her to save it for private discussion. "Is that why you're here, then? Jenner sent you to tell us the good news?"

"In a nutshell," Heather admitted. "He really wants you two back. But that isn't..."

"Tell him not to kill the fatted calf just yet," I said. "Now you'd better go. You don't want to be late for work."

"OK, OK, we're going. But we've got a Christmas present for you first."

"It's for both of you," Chip added. "From all of us."

Cassie took the package from him, thanked him, and tore the paper off. For quite a while, she just stared at whatever it was.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

Too moved to speak, she handed it across the table. And then I understood.

"It has a Santa hat on," I said numbly.

"Oh, come on, this is really cool," Troy said. "It sings 'Jingle Bells.' Push the red button."

Cassie pushed her chair back so fast that it tipped over. "We will later. Thanks, guys. It was really sweet of you. Really."

She went on to usher them out, leaving me alone with the fish. It was a while before I could look at it again. It seemed harmless. Stupid, but harmless.

I poked it a few times. Plastic. Nothing scary. I inspected the little hat. I pried open the mouth, to see what was in there. Furtively, I checked to see whether it was anatomically correct -- not that I would know one way or the other. Finally, and only for research purposes, I pressed the button to make it sing.

Cassie came back to find me on the kitchen floor, howling with laughter. It took her a few minutes to get me to give up the fish and a few more to get me back upstairs, tucked into bed.

"Two days," Cassie said, sounding weary. "Give or take an hour or two."

Already bored with eavesdropping on the conversation in the hall, I went back to flipping channels. When the knock came, I ignored it.

"Dev? It's Rita Sanchez. Can I come in?"

No. It was nice of her to stop by, and now she could go. Yawning, I switched over to the Cartoon Network.

The bedroom door opened anyway. Sanchez walked in, Cassie right behind her.

"You look awful," Sanchez declared.

I shrugged. "I'm on strike."

"That's not what I hear." She took a seat on the bed -- not too close, just in case I hadn't showered lately. "I hear you think you've cracked up. Have you?"

"I went to pieces over a singing fish."

"That doesn't prove anything."

"It's a fish, Sanchez. It sings Christmas carols. How much more evidence do you need?"

Under her breath, she said something Spanish. I hated when she did that; she was from Illinois.

"I'm going along with her for now," Cassie explained. "If she wants a little time off from reality, I guess she should have it. She really doesn't ask much." She reached over to pat my cheek. "Do you, bunny?"

Impassively, I turned up the volume on a Marvin the Martian cartoon.

Cassie shook her head. "Two days, Rita. I may be crazy by tomorrow."

Well, why not? There was plenty of room in this bed for her, too. And I'd showered and changed the sheets every day, so it wasn't like she'd have to be insane in squalor. No law said crazy people had to be slobs.

"Can you just tell me why?" she'd asked at the start.

"Stress."

"But Christmas is over."

"It's not just Christmas. It's everything. Nothing makes sense anymore. Every time I turn around, my office is on fire, or people are turning into possums, or I'm in trouble with God or Jack or Jenner or Channel 12. On top of that, you and I are trying to figure out this relationship thing, and..."

"Problem with that?"

"No. But it's still new. That's more stress. And when you add in my family...or yours..."

"Oh, come on, Devvy. It hasn't been that bad."

"Michael," I said flatly.

She considered. "All right. Michael's bad. But..."

"Buster."

"He's just a dog."

"Just a dog? He almost had a close personal relationship with me."

She considered again. "OK, you can have that one too. But that was a month ago. You were fine up till..."

"My mother."

Deep, thoughtful silence brooded over the bedroom. Then Cassie bent down to kiss my forehead.

"I'll get you some more pillows, sweetie," she said.

Back in the present, Rita Sanchez studied the situation. Engrossed in the cartoon, I paid her no mind.

"Mr. Jenner wants you to come back to work," she finally said. "Both of you. He sent an offer along with me. It's in writing. What more do you want? An engraved invitation?"

"No, but I could do with a frappucino. You want to pop over to Starbucks for me?"

Cassie smoothed my hair down. "You're not going to get anywhere with her today, Rita. Maybe if you just leave the offer, I can get her to read it later. OK?"

"Maybe if I just shoot her with ping-pong balls," Sanchez grumbled, reaching into her purse.

Still focused on the cartoon, I opened the night-table drawer and pulled out my own ping-pong gun.

"You're kidding," she insisted.

Not kidding, I shot her.

Sanchez gave up and put her weapon away. "You could be in trouble here, Cassie. She might really be loco. Let me see this fish that started this mess."

"I hid it. If I'm lucky, she'll never find it again."

"I could find it if I wanted," I told her.

"No, you couldn't, Devvy. I hid it where you'll never even think to look."

"Kitchen, huh?" Sanchez asked.

They had a nice laugh at my expense. In response, I turned the volume up some more.

"Oh, all right, I'm going." She gathered up her purse and then handed an envelope to Cassie. "It's all in here. Make sure she reads it, would you? He's going to bug me about it all afternoon."

"Suppose I walk you out," Cassie said.

She was up to something. She always was, though. Unconcerned, I fluffed my pillow and settled back again, intent on staying there another two days.

A second later, Monica tapped me on the shoulder, and I shot straight up in the air, scattering pillows everywhere.

"Don't do that!" I yelled. "I hate that. What are you doing here?"

"Visiting the sick. Move over."

Not having any better ideas, I moved over.

"Isn't this cozy?" she asked. "Just like old times. Have you missed me?"

"You never give me a chance to miss you. You never go away."

The demon was unperturbed. "The better to keep an eye on you."

"Ha! She's just nosy," Vanessa said.

I jumped again. No matter how long I was around demons, I could never get used to the way they came and went, and there was no way to prepare for what happened when they did. Right now, for example, I was in bed with two demons through no fault of my own, and if Cassie walked in...

Which, of course, she did.

After interminable silence, she crawled up on the bed and wedged herself in between Monica and me. Thoughtfully, Vanessa handed her a pillow to use as a backrest. No one said a word.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

Golden Throats is (c) 1988, Rhino Records Inc. Big Mouth Billy Bass is (c) 1999, Gemmy Inc., and yes, the Christmas version is real.

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

"So? What do you think?" she asked.

"I think I need a bigger house if they're going to keep hanging around."

"That's not what I meant. I meant about what Vanessa said. But now that you bring up houses..."

I cut her off at the pass. "Vanessa's loony."

"Still mad about the shirt, honey?"

"Guess you are," she observed. "Never mind, then -- we'll talk about her later. What do you think about going back to work?"

"I don't know. Jenner's sold us out twice already. And I don't think I can work for Jack if he's got religion -- he was bad enough without it. What do you want to do?"

"Seriously?"

I gave her a severe look. "Of course seriously."

"I want to start our own agency."

"We've had this talk before. You didn't really mean it. So..."

"I'm not going back there without you. Get that all the way out of your mind."

"Why?"

Cassie exhaled in frustration and pulled the BMW over to the curb -- not recklessly, for once. She put on her flashers. Then she turned all the way sideways in her seat and waited. And waited. And waited.

"What?" I finally asked.

"What do you think? I'm not going anywhere without you. Especially not back into that hellhole." An involuntary smile tugged at her lips. "Who would scare clients for me when they need scaring?"

"Forget the clients. There are worse problems in-house."

Now she was smiling openly. "You're the worst problem. Remember the day Chip had to peel you off that creep from Meridian Motors?"

It was probably bad that I couldn't place him offhand. Then it came to me: He'd wanted to use his teenage stepdaughter in the ad as a hood ornament, in a bikini, so I'd flattened him. Fortunately, he didn't press charges. "I'm not big on incest."

"Or the time you told Walt to kiss his boys goodbye? In front of a client?"

"If we're going to dredge up the past, Cass, I could tell a few stories on you."

"We could tell stories on each other forever. That was half the fun. We did have fun, didn't we?"

Past tense.

"Yeah, we did," I finally said, wondering why it hurt. "Come on. Let's get a big pizza."

As a passenger, I didn't find that statement reassuring. But being her passenger was never reassuring, so I saw no reason to panic. "Do your best. We're almost there."

We traveled another block or so, and then I noticed the smoke just over the treeline. She noticed too. "That's strange," she said. "It looks like somebody's burning something."

"Better not be. We've got all those open-burning ordinances."

Before she could say anything to that, we heard sirens. They were very high-pitched, higher than ambulance or police sirens, which meant...

"Fire," she said, pulling over.

For no reason, my blood went cold.

"It must be close," she added. "Look."

Now we could see an orange glow through the trees. It was close, all right. And the bad feeling was getting stronger.

I stood it another few seconds. Then I jumped out of the car and started running toward the trouble.

"Devvy! Where are you going?" Cassie yelled.

Home. I knew it for a fact now: My condo was on fire.

"It'll be OK, Dev," Heather said again. "You're insured. You can get all new stuff. We'll go shopping for days."

I gave her a tiny smile. She'd come over as soon as Cassie had called her and then started calling people herself on her cell phone. Half the agency was here now, and I thought I would be touched by their concern later, after the shock wore off.

Someone handed me another coffee. I thanked him and tried to warm my hands on the cup. The fire people had given Cassie and me blankets, but even with the blanket and my coat, I couldn't seem to get warm. Not even Cassie helped, and she'd been as close as decently possible the whole time.

Chip parked himself on the curb next to us. "I'm not that kind of person, Dev, but I wish I could beat somebody up for this."

"She usually does her own beating-up," Cassie said -- a little absently, watching a fireman carry a smoldering couch cushion out of the condo.

Where did I get this rep, anyway? I'd never really damaged anyone -- except Kurt and maybe the Meridian Motors guy -- and never anyone who didn't have it coming. "Thanks anyway, Chip. I appreciate the thought."

"Still wish I could. This sucks."

"Yeah. It does."

Cassie put her arms around me again and squeezed a little. There was nothing really to say beyond that.

Then I saw the top of a familiar head moving toward us. "Cass? Chip? Over there. Who does that look like to you?"

"Jenner," he said. "But it can't be. Can it?"

No, but it was. We just sat there, astonished, as he wormed his way through the crowd. Even more astonishing, Wife No. 5 was tagging along behind. They were both dressed to the teeth, as though they were on their way to some nightmarish society event, and I couldn't imagine what they were doing here.

As soon as they got within view, Jenner made straight for us. "Derry? Are you all right?"

As opposed to what? But I bit the question back; he seemed to be genuinely concerned. "I'm fine. Thanks, Mr. Jenner. What brings you here?"

"Your house is on fire, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said thoughtfully. "It has been for a couple of hours now."

"Well, there you are. I don't like fires. They're bad for business."

Cassie pretended to be coughing. Under the blanket, she gave me a little nudge.

"I don't think insurance companies like them much either," I agreed. "But that still doesn't explain why you're here."

He wagged his finger at me. "I can't have an employee homeless. That would look bad."

"But I'm not an employee anymore. You fired me at the Christmas party."

"Yes. Well..." He shifted from foot to foot for a second, trying to think how to put it. "That was Howard Abner. Howard Abner was a mistake, Derry. A bad, bad mistake. I want you to come back. You and Miss Wolfe. It's not the same without the two of you."

"Yeah. It's a lot quieter," Heather chipped in.

I turned to glare at her. She'd sneaked up behind us, the better to eavesdrop.

"You read my offer, didn't you?" Jenner asked. "You're both getting raises, you know."

His wife, suddenly petulant, tugged on his coat sleeve.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Effie, you don't need another fur. And it's my money." He turned to Cassie. "You want to come back, don't you, Miss Wolfe?"

"Yes, I do," she admitted. "I may be partly insane. But I'm not coming back without Devvy. And she's not coming back if Jack..."

Jenner didn't have to hear the rest of that sentence. "Forget Harper. He's gone. The miserable son of a bitch found God. I can't have that. What do you say, Derry?"

"This probably isn't the time or place," I told him. "My house is on fire. Could we talk about this later?"

"No," Jenner said.

"No?"

"No." He dug in his coat pocket and produced a key ring. "This is for the house at the country club. We don't need it for clients right now, and you need a place to stay. The catch is, you have to be an employee to stay there. So if that would help you make up your mind..."

"She's not homeless," Cassie protested. "She'll move in with me."

"Is that what you want, Derry? Or is that what she wants?" A little glint appeared in his eyes under the streetlight. Unwillingly, I had to admire his deviousness. "It's a nice house. It'll give you a nice place of your own" -- he put a slight extra stress on own -- "to stay till you find a new one. So what do you say?"

Without any cooperation from my brain, my lips said yes. I may have been the most surprised person there. But a few seconds' reflection didn't change the answer.

As for Cassie, she didn't quite know what to think yet; she'd won one battle, lost another, and wasn't sure which counted more. "We'll talk about this later," she whispered.

"Of course we will," I assured her. "Let me finish this." I took the key ring from Jenner. "Thanks. Which key?"

"The square one. You can move in tonight. And now that you're both employees again, you'll come to the New Year's Eve party. Abner's going to be there." That little glint appeared again. "I won't be responsible for anything you might decide to do to him, Derry. Understood?"

Ahhhh. It was good to be back. "Understood, sir."

"All right, then. We're off to a dinner party. Good luck with your fire."

We waited until they were out of earshot again to breathe.

"I'll be damned," Heather remarked.

A faint possibility was tickling at me. But better not to discuss it yet. "We already are," I said.

"Well," she finally said, "at least we get to do lots and lots of shopping now. I always did want to do something about your wardrobe."

"And you can just keep wanting."

She laughed. "We'll see. I still wish we knew what happened, though."

"They'll find out. It's probably electrical. The wiring in that place was never much good."

She glanced over -- maybe a little too long for safety, for someone who was driving. "Do you really believe that?"

"I don't have many choices, Cass. I can believe it was an electrical short. I can believe it was spontaneous combustion. Or I can believe that demons did it. Which explanation do you want to give my landlord?"

"I think it was them. They were there. They probably got into a fight over the remote and started throwing fireballs around."

"Tosh," Vanessa said from the back seat.

The BMW skidded a few hundred feet before Cassie recovered. I kept both hands braced on the dash, just in case. "What do you mean, 'tosh'? She's got a point," I snapped. "It probably was you."

"Of course it was me. But I didn't have to throw fireballs. Really, Devlin. Did you read too many comic books when you were little?"

Cassie, who had pulled the car over the second Vanessa confessed, slammed it into park. "You burned her house down?"

Monica appeared at the other end of the back seat, looking bored. "She had a theory."

"A theory?" Cassie asked dangerously.

"She thought it would finally get Devlin to move in with you." She smirked at Vanessa. "Wrong again."

"It's not over till it's over, broadzilla," Vanessa shot back.

That started hissing and hair-pulling between them. Not in the mood for it, I reached over to honk the horn -- and held it down until they quit. Then I caught Cassie's eye. "I don't know about you," I told her, "but I think we got Teenage Mutant Ninja Demons instead of the real thing. There was nothing about hair-pulling in The Exorcist."

She studied me critically for a second. "You're being awfully calm about this. Vanessa just said she burned down your condo, and you're making jokes?"

"What should I do instead? Call the police? Sue her? Bite her?"

"Empty threat. You wouldn't even bite me," Monica sulked.

Cassie murdered her with a look, which she chose to ignore.

"She's a demon, Cass," I continued. "I can't do much about her. If she wants to burn my place down every day of the week, she can. The only option I know of is going back to men..."

"Only if you want to die," she warned.

"...so I'm going to have to live with this till I figure something else out. And so are you."

"She is being calm," Vanessa fretted. "I don't like it."

Monica frowned. "Neither do I. She should have blamed you. And then Cassandra."

"Me?" Cassie asked, infuriated.

"You're the one who's been bothering her about moving in together. She might have thought you put Vanessa up to this."

"She wouldn't ever have thought anything if you'd kept your big mouth shut," Vanessa snapped at her.

"Don't blame me, you toad. Any competent demon would know how to do this. You should have burned Cassandra's house down."

Vanessa, who had started to argue back, suddenly fell silent.

"Then moving in together would have been Devlin's idea," Monica added. "She's a sucker that way. But giving her no choice..."

"What would she do with choice?" Vanessa replied hotly. "If you'd given her a choice, she'd still be lusting in her heart after actresses. They were all prettier than you, by the way."

Cassie winced and reached for the door handle, to save time in case we had to run for it.

"This isn't about me," Monica insisted. "This is about you. You should never have gotten above junior apprentice tempter, with your powers of logic."

Vanessa sneered at her. "Oh, go kiss a Baptist."

This time, I reached for the door handle.

"Sticks and stones. You burned down the wrong house, girlie."

Vanessa's eyes blazed bright red. "Well, I can fix that, can't I?"

"NO!" I shouted, trying to dive over the back seat and kill her, in complete disregard for what I'd said minutes before. But Vanessa had already aimed her index finger, and just before I grabbed her, she fired.

Cassie jumped as though she'd been stuck with a pin. For a second, nothing happened.

Then we saw the orange glow in the distance.

(c) 2000, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

In fact, we stayed up all night talking about it. Well, arguing.

"You'd move in with me if you loved me," she finally said, exasperated.

That made two of us. "If you loved me, you wouldn't keep saying, 'If you loved me....'"

"Oh, yes, I would. Because it drives you crazy."

Blindsided by the admission, I glared at her. "Why do you have to drive me crazy?"

"Because it's such a short trip!"

Silence.

"I didn't mean that quite like it sounded," she said, looking a little sheepish.

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't. Really. What I meant to say...what I meant was..."

More silence.

"Fine," I said sharply, getting up. "I'll be at the guest house, if you ever decide what you meant."

Surprised, she grabbed my sleeve. "You can't go now. It's 3 in the morning."

"It'll be 3 in the morning there, too. But at least it'll be quiet." Frowning, I searched the dresser again. "Where are the keys?"

"I'll tell you if you answer one question."

"What question?"

"Why won't you move in with me?"

Annoyed, I started to repeat all the reasons I'd given her, over and over, for weeks. (1) We were both used to living alone. (2) We hadn't been together that way very long. (3) We had no idea whether this kind of relationship could last. And (4) I didn't want to wake up in a peach-and-white bedroom every morning. But none of those reasons was the whole truth. The whole truth was...

"I don't want to."

Cassie looked stunned.

"It's not that I don't love you. I do. But I also love that we're both independent."

She gave me her very worst Bad Look. "I'm not asking to put a leash on you."

"Too kinky."

She didn't even smile.

"All right, let me put it another way. I don't think we'd last very long if we moved in together. You know what women say when their husbands retire? 'I married you for better or worse, not for lunch.' You're not with me for lunch, Cass."

"That’s not for you to decide."

"Maybe not. But how do you know it would be any different with us?"

"Because I love you." She glowered at me. "Well, sometimes I love you. When you're not being impossible."

"Forget that for a second. I know you. You're not good at the long-term thing. And I don't have a clue about relationships anymore. What if we moved in together and then decided we hate each other?"

"We already do," she snapped. "What's your point?"

Wearily, I rubbed the bridge of my nose. This could go for on for a few more hours -- or the rest of our lives. "Tell you what. Let's try to make a deal. Interested?"

"Depends," she said suspiciously. "What deal?"

"Let's try it this way. We keep our own places for now. I'll rent another condo or something, and we leave things the way they are. Then..."

"That doesn't sound like a deal to me."

"I'm not done yet. Then, if we're still together after a year, we'll talk about moving in. OK?"

She thought it over. "That's your best offer?"

"My best offer," I confirmed, "and my absolute final answer. What do you say?"

Cassie thought a little more. "All right, fine. Have it your way. But we make the year retroactive to Halloween."

"What? Why would we want to do that?"

"That was when all this started. I would say it's our anniversary, but you hate that."

"I hate it," I agreed.

"Anyway, I gave; now you have to give. One year from Halloween. Deal?"

That was two months less than I'd bargained for, and I wasn't sure I wanted to give them up. So I told her to give me a minute and then started to pace. How many things had I already done that I didn't want to do?

"Am I taking you out New Year's Eve?" I asked.

She smiled. "Stupid question."

That was that, then. I was done for. Not just because I'd done those things, but also because, given the choice, I'd have done them all over again.

"Deal," I finally said, and spat in my hand. "Shake."

Cassie looked disgusted, but she reciprocated, and we shook on it.

Wouldn't want to get sentimental, after all.

(c) 2001, K. Simpson

(c) 2000, M.C. Sak

Cassie stepped cautiously around a victim, trying not to catch her heels on his fake-suede jacket. "Do you think he's dead?"

"Only if the fashion police shot him," I said, half-seriously.

She made a moué and reached over the body to hang her coat up. "I'm going to work the room for a while. You will dance with me later."

"We'll see."

"You will," she repeated, leaning over to give me a quick kiss before she left.

We'd see.

Rhetorical question.

Dourly, I gave the crazy woman another once-over. She was holding court in a herd of overheated males, reveling in the attention, which was understandable given what she had on. Or, more precisely, didn't. It was less a dress than an innuendo -- the black halter was cut too low; the long black skirt was slit too high -- and it could only lead to trouble.

Speaking of which...

"So, Dev," Walt said, "where'd you two get the Bride of Satan getups?"

I gave him a thin, cool smile and no satisfaction.

"Oh, c'mon, I'm kidding. I like 'em. No kidding." He threw down a shot of Scotch -- not his first. "You gonna dance with her? Can I watch?"

"Weren't you married a minute ago?" I asked, unamused.

"Married doesn't mean dead."

"It will if your wife ever hears about this conversation."

He was a good-enough sport to laugh, but not very hard. "You take all the fun out of working with gay babes, you know?"

"We're not g..." Oh, hell. "Never mind."

He was about to punish me for that mistake when Heather raced over, breathing hard. "I got here as fast as I could," she told me, glowering at Walt. "Has he been stupid yet?"

"Baby love, you hurt me," he complained. "I was just making nice polite conversation about how I want to see Dev and Cass do the horizontal mambo tonight, but if that's what you call stupid...Ow! Ow! Damn!"

Heather, who had just stamped on one of his wingtips with a very sharp heel, rolled her eyes as he hopped off.

One down, but way too many to go. And Kurt wasn't even here yet.

I didn't doubt it. "Have you, now?"

"And a lot of questions about our living arrangements."

"What kind of questions?"

"Interesting ones." She smiled, daring me to take the bait.

"Cassie..."

"All right, all right, all right. I'm not telling anyone much. I'm just saying you're staying at the guest house until you figure out what to do."

Watching her narrowly, I shook my head. "That's not what I heard. I heard you said we're going to buy a house together."

"Gossip," she said dismissively.

"Gossip that started somewhere, with somebody."

She frowned. "Well, not with me. Who would start that kind of rumor anyway?"

"Guess," Monica said.

We spun around. Monica had Vanessa by the ear, clearly having dragged her along, and Vanessa didn't look happy about it.

"Let go!" she told Monica. "That hurts!"

My demon was unsympathetic. "Don't be a baby. It's your own fault for wearing all those earrings."

Vanessa wrenched free and retreated a few steps, rubbing her ear. It probably did hurt; she had enough jewelry on that ear to make her list slightly to starboard. But the excess went with her dress, which might have been something Bob Mackie designed for Barbie.

"Why are you both here?" I asked. "Don't tell me there are no parties in Hell tonight. I've always thought New Year's Eve was invented in Hell, as far as that..."

"Save it," Monica snapped. "You have bigger problems. Little Miss Disinformation here has been making people think you two are picking out silver patterns."

"What for? We both have our own silverware."

"Literal," she muttered. "Great Satan, I never saw anyone so literal. You do it to spite me, don't you?" Before I could answer, she waved me off. "Never mind, never mind. Living together is a terrible idea, Devlin. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

"I don't remember asking you," Cassie told her hotly.

The look Monica gave her was enough to start a small fire, so I got in the middle. "We're not moving in together. Not for a year at least..."

Cassie cleared her throat significantly. "Ten months."

"...and maybe never. I don't see what it has to do with you anyway. What's it to you where I live?"

Monica scowled. "Vanessa."

"What about her?"

"I'm not sharing a house with that."

Cassie and I exchanged puzzled glances.

"Think," Monica insisted. "If the two of you live together, the four of us live together. And I am not living with her."

"Same to you but more of it," Vanessa huffed.

Pretending to have given it some thought, Cassie offered a solution. "We could build doghouses for you. Devvy could walk you once in a while so you don't get fat. Would that work?"

Monica studied her with distaste. "I can't imagine what you see in her, Devlin. She's always going to be like this."

"Good." I almost meant it, too. "Now, is that all you wanted? Because if it is, we're done here."

"We're done," Vanessa said. "Except for one little thing."

She was Cassie's demon, so I let Cassie handle it. "Make it really little," she told Vanessa.

"You're wrong about the ten months, girlfriend. You'll get hooked up sooner than that. I give it six months. Maybe less. You never know."

"Over my dead body," Monica warned.

Vanessa smiled sweetly. "It could be arranged." Then she threw up a hand, and Monica vanished in a little puff of black smoke.

"Did you really kill her?" Cassie asked hopefully.

"Naaaah. Just sent her to a bridal show. She'll hate it." The demon regarded me critically. "So what's with the leather? You planning on kissing or killing tonight?"

Who knew? "The night is young," I said darkly, and stalked off.

"What the hell...?" J.B. asked, jerking his head toward the door. People were stampeding both toward and away from whatever had just come in, which we couldn't see from our angle.

Instantly, I scanned the room for Cassie. She was safely removed from whatever was going on, but she could see it from where she was standing -- and she didn't look happy.

"Hold this," I said, handing my drink to one of the editors, even though I knew he'd only finish it. Then I headed for Cassie on a path that would put me between her and the trouble. The idea was to protect the trouble.

Meanwhile, the screaming, shouting, and howling laughter at ground zero never stopped. What was wrong with these people?

"Kurt," Sanchez explained when I grabbed her.

"What about him?"

She just dissolved into a fit of giggles, which was no help at all. Annoyed, I pushed aside the last few obstacles, and then I saw all.

I do mean all. Or at least most of it. Kurt was dressed up like Baby New Year, wearing nothing but a sash and a diaper. And he hadn't been particular about how he'd fastened the diaper.

"Criminey," I growled. "Kurt, this had better be a medication accident."

He lighted up as though he were glad to see me. "Boss! What's wrong? You don't like the outfit?"

"No. Where's Peg?"

"She stayed home. Said she didn't want to be seen in public with me."

Go figure. "You'd better go home and change. You can't leave your wife home on New Year's Eve."

"It's OK. She went to her mother's. I think they're running Harrison Ford movies or something." Absently, he scratched himself. "What's that guy got that I don't, anyway?"

Fortunately, Cassie turned up before I had to answer. "Hello, Kurt. Don't scratch diaper rash. You'll only make it worse."

He didn't respond, mainly because all the blood had just rushed from his brain to his eyeballs. Lust was a disturbing look on a grown man in a diaper, and I decided I didn't like it.

"Stop it," I ordered.

Cassie smirked at me a little; I pretended not to notice. Kurt certainly didn't.

He jumped, causing the diaper to slip and a few girls to shriek. But he didn't notice those things either. "Whoa," he said, still riveted on Cassie.

"I'll take that as a compliment," she told him.

"Oh, yeah. Damn, Cass, that dress is something. Really something. You're a piece of work when you want to be, you know that?"

She smirked at me again. I was starting to hate this evening. "Drop it, Kurt," I told him.

"Awfully touchy for someone in leather," he said, unfazed. "And by the way, I kind of like your outfit too, boss. Have I told you how glad I am that you're coming back?"

Unsure which comment to jump on, I waited to hear what he had to say next.

"It hasn't been any fun without you. I thought it would be, but it's not. Abner's a bastard. He's like Jack used to be when he couldn't get laid, only worse." Hitching up his diaper, he looked around furtively. "You haven't seen him yet, have you?"

"Abner? No. But I'm not looking for him. Why would he be here anyway? Parties are evil, right?"

He leered at Cassie again, this time including me at the very end. "With any luck, they are. You two going to dance?"

"If we do," I said wearily, "I'm selling tickets. Now, what's the problem with Abner?"

"Well..."

He never got any farther. A large, Baptist-shaped shadow fell over us, and we didn't even have to look to know.

"Mr. Wheeler," Abner intoned.

Kurt tried to squirm behind me. "Hello, Mr. Abner. Sir."

"Does Mr. Jenner know about..." He gestured at the diaper. "That?"

"I haven't seen him yet, sir. But it's a funny thing, you know? At the Halloween party, he was dressed up like a c..."

I cut Kurt off with a well-placed grip on the windpipe. Abner was not impressed.

"I'm going to go find him," he declared. "We'll discuss the new dress code. I'll make sure it includes a clause specifically about diapers. Excuse me."

Cassie and I stood back so that no part of him would touch us as he passed. But before he cleared us, something occurred to him, and he backtracked. "Aren't you two supposed to be fired?"

"Not anymore," I said.

Abner's brows contracted. He essentially had only one. "I'll talk to him about that, too."

Cassie stuck out her foot to trip him; I barely managed to pull her back in time. Then I happened to glance after Abner's retreating bulk.

Vanessa was following him, looking as happy as I'd ever seen her. I hoped no one else noticed the bright-red blaze in her eyes.

Something worse than just the music, anyway. Jenner had a Wurlitzer that I'd always coveted -- one of those huge jukeboxes with neon and bubble tubes and enough chrome for a T-Bird -- but his music collection was too retro. We'd been listening to the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, and that crowd all night, and most of us were getting restless. Didn't Jenner have anything harder? Or at least a little more current?

On the other hand, maybe I wouldn't have to dance with Cassie after all if this kept up. She'd started leaving the room every time someone played "Wipeout," which seemed to be every few minutes.

Bored myself, I wandered over to the jukebox to see what else was in there. Chip joined me. "Find anything good?"

"Depends what you call good." I checked again; one title caught my eye. "How are you for car songs?"

"Car songs?"

After a brief mental debate, I punched the numbers. "Car songs. I always thought the Go-Gos wrote 'Skidmarks on My Heart' to get even for this whole genre. Want to dance?"

He did. "Little Deuce Coupe" wasn't bad as car songs went, and we weren't going to do much better, so we had a little fun.

OK, maybe more than a little. So Cassie got even by dancing with Randy Harris. Then with Walt. And after that with Kurt. That last one wasn't pretty, to the point that I might have made a trip too many to the bar.

Then, without warning, it was almost midnight, and Cassie was back to oppress me. "One dance. With me this time. No excuses. Ready?"

"There's nothing good on the jukebox," I protested.

"Don't worry about that. Vanessa's got it covered."

I tried another tack. "I think I broke my leg a few minutes ago."

"No problem," she said calmly. "I'll lead."

"Dancing's against my religion?"

Cassie shook her head. "Give up, Devvy. You're outnumbered."

"Counting who? Demons?"

"Not them. Them." She indicated everyone in particular; they were all watching with great interest. "It'll kill them if we don't."

"Problem with that?"

She ignored the question and pulled me out to the dance floor. I tried limping, but it didn't work.

Cassie closed in and searched the room for Vanessa. The demon was standing by the jukebox, trying to look casual; when she caught Cassie's signal, she kicked the machine. "Louie Louie" cut off, and to my dismay, "Hot Stuff" cut on.

To her credit, Cassie was dismayed too. "That's not what I asked for. I asked for Sade."

She turned to glare at Vanessa, who pretended not to understand what the matter was. Meanwhile, the crowd was getting impatient.

"We're not seeing any dancing!" someone yelled.

A second voice added, "Or anything else!"

That caused general merriment at our expense, and more encouragement from the peanut gallery. Even Cassie was starting to look like she was having second thoughts. I was about to suggest that we run for it when I saw Howard Abner standing a few feet away, grim as a stone idol.

And that single instant pushed me over the line. Enough was enough was enough. Political Correctness and censure are two sides of a very thin coin, and thanks to Cassie's parents, my parents, my brothers, our co-workers, the Family Foundation, and ninety percent of the population, I'd finally had all of both that I needed -- enough for a lifetime, probably. It was time to start the payback. And Howard Abner was as good a place to start as any.

So I pulled Cassie in and locked eyes with her. "If they want a show," I told her, "I say we give them one. Want to make this a slow dance?"

She smiled, closing the rest of the distance between us. "Very slow."

We never heard the thud.

"Mostly." I kept searching through the CDs; it was here somewhere. "The best part was Abner."

I'd liked that part, all right. True, I hadn't meant him to have a heart attack, not even a mild one like that. But when the paramedics came, and opened his shirt, and found the tattoo on his chest...

Well, Kurt had said it best: God save the Queen.

It was Vanessa's doing, of course. Even at my most suspicious, I knew Abner wasn't gay. But it had been very fine just the same to see him with a heart-and-snake tattoo with MITCH in the middle. And if the paramedics -- and everyone else at the party -- had seen it, who was I to say it wasn't real?

Ah, there it was. I opened the jewel case and stuck the disc in the player just as Cassie leaned into me.

"The best part?" she asked menacingly, her breath warm in my ear.

Oh-oh. "Second-best," I corrected.

She didn't back off. In fact, she got closer. "I had all kinds of offers tonight, you know. I could have gone home with anyone. Did I tell you Walt offered me a kidney?"

"You don't need any more kidneys." I pressed Play, cued the disc to "A Common Disaster," and then turned toward her. "Last dance?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

There are worse ways to wind up New Year's Eve. We took one last spin in Cassie's peach-and-white bedroom while Cowboy Junkies told our future:

We weren't out of the woods yet. We were still going to have trouble -- maybe even disaster -- and it might never get any easier. But when they're playing your song on the jukebox in Hell, you might as well dance.

(c) 2001, K. Simpson