Stork Naked (20 page)

The peeve refrained. “What are you doing here, Metria?”

“Finding out what you're doing on this course, birdie.”

“I'm looking for three lost children.”

“How long have they been lost?”

“Centuries!” the peeve said sarcastically, losing what little patience it possessed.

“That long ago? Maybe they're at Buick.”

“Where?”

“The colony they founded at Buick Rock.”

“Where?” the peeve repeated peevishly.

“Chevy, Chrysler, Jeep, Ford, Volks—”

Ah. Mundane crates. “Plymouth?”

“Wherever,” she agreed crossly.

“Is there a Plymouth Rock here in the dream realm?”

“No.”

“Then get out of here, you infernal tease!”

“I can't. I'm not through with my dream.”

“Demons can't dream, you twit.”

She looked dismayed. “Oh, that's right! Anyway, I'm currently busy elsewhere. I can't be here.” She faded out, leaving only a wisp of smoke in the form of the heaving outline of her overstuffed halter.

The peeve flew on. Demons were usually a pain in the tail, and this one moreso. It found the boundary wall and scrambled under.

There was a sound, a sustained note. The peeve went toward it, and found several large lakes or small seas. Each was at a different level. The notes were coming from them, each an octave apart. “What's this?” it asked itself.

The demoness reappeared, head, shoulders, bosom trailing into a fuzz of smoke. “The C's,” she explained. “High C, middle C, low C.”

“Get out of here, smoke-tail!”

“Spoilsport.” She vanished.

The peeve flew on across the C's. The dream realm was big, and this wasn't accomplishing much. There needed to be a way to check all of it at once. How could that be accomplished?

At the edge of the lowest C a man of middle age was standing. Maybe he could help.

“Say, grizzlepuss—have you seen three children around here?”

“Call me the Mariner,” the man said affably. “I work with water.” He dipped his hand in the C, splashing the water into an arc. The water remained in the air, and the Mariner put his boots on it and climbed it like a ridge.

The peeve was impressed despite its cynicism. This was useful magic. “What are you doing here?”

“My sole motivation is to find rare and peaceful fishing spots,” the Mariner said. “I always get pulled into some adventure that diverts me. I have an enchanted fishing rod and spear to catch huge catfish, if I ever find the right water.”

“The dream fish that got away?”

The question was meant to be annoying, but the Mariner merely smiled and agreed. Couldn't win them all.

A big whiskered fish poked its head out of the C. “Meow,” it said.

“There's one now,” the Mariner said, whipping his fishing rod around. But in his distraction he forgot his spell on the floating splash of water, and it dropped him into the C with a great splash. The catfish, of course, was gone.

Then the peeve caught on. Fishy business. “Metria.”

The demoness appeared beside him, shifting from catfish to luscious human woman form. “I couldn't resist,” she confessed.

It occurred to the peeve that the bothersome demoness could be useful after all. “How would you like to really mess up the dream realm, prune-bosom?”

“Those are overripe melons, not dried plums,” she said, glancing down at her swelling front. “You didn't notice, muck-tail?” She was handling the insult distressingly well. “How can I mess up big time?”

“Form into a super megaphone and let me use you to blast out my announcement about the children across the entire spectrum.”

Metria considered. “That's too much like doing you a favor, pigeon-brain. I can't risk it.” She faded out.

The peeve hardly cared to admit it, but the demoness was annoying it almost as much as it hoped it was annoying her.

It found the next boundary wall and scrambled under. The next scene was a jungle filled with tigers, crocodiles, mean men with big knives, and other Mundanian brutes, all of them slavering. A lovely young woman in revealingly tattered clothing was fleeing everything, staying barely ahead of the pursuit. This was of course a standard bad dream, probably for delivery to some naughty Mundane maiden. The peeve understood that the export trade was very good; Mundanes were constantly in need of punitive dreams.

Naturally the peeve approached the girl. “Hey, tear-skirt—have you seen three children around here?”

She ignored him, continuing her panting progress up the slope as the monsters gained on her. She panted quite well; human males would be staring.

The peeve landed on her tousled tresses. She had long red hair that flew fetchingly out behind her head. “I said, HAVE YOU SEEN ANY CHILDREN, straggle-locks?”

She tried to brush it off her head, but the peeve fluttered up, avoiding her swing, and landed again when her hand was safely past. “Answer, or I'll poop.”

That got her attention. “Get out of here, you stupid little bird, before you mess up the shot.”

“You were warned.” The peeve let loose a foul poop that splattered on her glorious hair.

“Ugh!” she cried, trying desperately to brush off the stinky stuff. But her effort only got her dainty hand gooked too. “Yuckety yuckety yuck!” she cursed.

“Cut!” someone yelled loudly. The monsters paused in place. A stout man in a visor appeared, carrying a megaphone. “That's not in the script, Diana. You know you're not supposed to use foul language. What's the matter with you?”

The luscious redhead became a small blonde woman wearing glasses. “This awful bird just soiled my hair!”

“What bird?” the man demanded. For of course the peeve had vacated the moment the action paused. It was inspecting the megaphone from cover. It also noticed that there was a crew with a fancy camera, and a number of other hangers-on. This was a full-fledged filming. Could this dream be intended for a Mundane movie starlet?

“An obnoxious little green talking bird,” Diana said. “Look at what it did to my hair! Director, you've got to do something.” She showed her poopy head. “I didn't escape to fantasy to endure an outrage like this.”

The director snapped his fingers. Immediately two plain women appeared with water, soap, sponges and other apparatus and got to work on the soiled hair and hand. In one and a half moments they had her clean and shining again.

“Action!” the director said, the megaphone amplifying his voice. Diana resumed her vibrant full-breasted red-haired persona and her panting fleeing, and the monsters their slavering pursuit.

A shape appeared on the slope above. It had four legs below, two in the middle, two arms above, a head in front and another at the top, and glinted somberly. The monsters held back, wary of this apparition. “Avast, varlet!” it cried.

The maiden paused. “A knight!” she exclaimed. “My rescue is at hand!”

The knight lifted his visor to peer down at her. “A damsel in distress.”

“Verily!” she exclaimed gladly, her bosom heavingly active. Her décolletage had slipped somewhat, revealing additional rondure. “Swoop me up in your mighty arms and take me away from all this.”

But the knight did not swoop her up. He peered down inside her fragmented halter as if there was something interesting there. “A point of observation, damsel. Do I bestride a horse?”

“No,” she said, surprised. “It is a great black bull.”

“Does my armor shine?”

She looked more carefully. “No, it glints darkly.”

“And what does that signal to your limited intellect?”

She clapped the back of her hand to her forehead. “You don't serve the light.”

“I am a dark and stormy knight,” he agreed. “I serve the Dark Power. I certainly have a use for a creature of the light as lusciously exposive as you are, but I would not term this 'rescue.' Acquisition is more like it. Now yield thee to my dubious mercy forthwith and I will not throw you to the monsters after I and my virile steed are done with you. You will serve as a scullery maid betweentimes.”

“Never!” she cried despairingly, evidently having some inkling of his sinister intent.

“Too bad, slut.” His visor snapped back into place, and a long dark lance appeared in his hands. “I will simply run you through in another fashion.” His armored bull snorted and charged, steam blowing from its nostrils.

“eeeEE!” she cried, in her distraction capitalizing the last two e's. She dodged to the side, so that the point of his lance missed by a medium hair breadth. He was unable to stop his charge quickly, as it was downhill, so he moved on down, skewering bystanding monsters galore. The monsters were hardly pleased.

Meanwhile the maiden, having dodged the bull-et, resumed her plunge up the hill, panting anew.

The peeve flew back into the scene. “You were about to tell me about the children, Diana,” it said.

She flinched, but couldn't answer without violating the script. She forged on up the slope.

“So it's like that,” the peeve said, landing back on her head. “Are you sure you don't want to answer? It would be such a shame to poop such lovely fresh-washed hair again.”

Now the fleeing maiden came to the brink of a horrendous cliff. Vultures circled above the abyss below, eying her hungrily. The monsters behind closed in, knowing they had her trapped. “Get lost, you little turd,” she hissed. The air shimmered around the dirty word, and the hint of a foul smell wafted out.

“So be it, wastrel.” The peeve readied a phenomenal poop.

Diana leaped into the void, avoiding the valiant effort, and also, incidentally, the charging monsters. She sailed downward in a swan dive, her lovely hair spreading like a parachute. The peeve was annoyed; she had caused it to waste a significant deposit. After all, quality poop didn't grow on trees.

Well, she wasn't going to escape that way. The peeve folded its wings and dived after her.

A Mundane helicopter zoomed across, its enormous whirling propeller almost chopping through the peeve. The peeve had to take immediate evasive action to avoid losing some tail-feathers. “Bleep!” it swore.

The helicopter dropped a dangling ladder right before the diving maiden. She caught the bottom rung with both hands and swung like a pendulum below the machine, hair and skirt flaring appealingly. “Saved!” she cried.

A large man with a complexion reminiscent of a warthog leaned out of the copter. “Ha!” he exulted. “Now you are in my power, you luscious wench!”

The maiden looked up. Panic spread across her face and down her neck to her bosom, almost obliterating a heave. “Oh, no! Black Repete!”

“Your ancient nemesis,” Repete exulted. “Come on up, my lovely, so I may have my ill way with you repeatedly before I throw you to the monsters.”

“Never!” Diana cried plaintively.

“That's what you think, you tempting tidbit. If you won't come up, I'll come down.” Repete swung himself onto the ladder, showing heavily muscled arms. “I'll ravish you in midair. I always wanted to do that.”

“Eeeeek!” the maiden cried despairingly.

But now the peeve caught up. It perched again on her hair. “Now will you tell me about the children?”

“You unmitigated—” she started.

“Thank you,” Black Repete said. He hadn't seen the peeve.

“One more chance,” the peeve said, lifting its tail.

“Oh! You're awful!” she cried in the very depths of disgust.

“I am indeed,” Repete agreed. He was almost down to where she clung.

Then the maiden let go of the rung.

“Cut!” the director bawled through his megaphone. “That's not in the script!” He and the monsters were standing at the brink of the cliff, above.

“Bleep the script!” Repete growled. “What happened?”

The maiden dropped below camera range, bounced on the safety net, and sailed up almost as far as she had dropped. “That bleeping bird was going to poop on me again!” she said furiously.

“What bird?” Repete demanded.

By this time the peeve had reached the director's megaphone. It put its beak to it and let forth its loudest voice, suitably amplified. “THIS BIRD, MORON!”

Several startled assistants and a monster or two almost fell off the cliff. The director lifted up the megaphone, but the peeve clung to it. “WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?” its voice reverberated.

“What children?” the director asked, trying to shake the bird off.

“THE LOST CHILDREN, IMBECILE.”

“You've ruined the whole scene,” the director complained. “We'll have to shoot it over from the beginning.”

“Not before you tell me about the children, dimwit,” the peeve said, finally shaken loose from the megaphone.

“I don't know anything about children!” the director said. “This is an adult-rated dream. No children here.”

“What about in the rest of the dream realm, jerk?”

“How should I know? I'm just doing my own scene. Now get out of here, you speck of dirt, before I call the law.”

“What law? I'll poop on your head.” The peeve flew up over the director.

Then the entire scene froze. The director and monsters were unmoving, the helicopter blades became visible and still, and Diana hovered in mid-bounce, part of an eyeball-freaking panty showing under the floating skirt.

The great Night Stallion stood in mid air. “This law,” he said without moving his mouth. “We can't have our sets disrupted by intruders.”

“Too bad, horse-face. I won't leave until I get what I came for.”

“You will leave when I hurl you out, bird.”

That made the peeve nervous, but he bluffed it out. “Try it and I'll poop on your mane, founder-foot.”

The air wavered around the Stallion. A tremendous force coalesced, focusing in the peeve. The entire realm of dreams seemed to turn inside out.

When it cleared, the peeve remained where it was. It had not been ejected. “What the matter, numbskull? Lose your power?”

“You're not of this reality,” the Stallion said, surprised. “I lack power over your dreams.”

“Tough spit, cow-eye. So you'd better just tell me what I need to know.”

The Stallion steamed slightly, but his voice was even. “What is that?”

“Where are the three lost children? Ted, Monica, Woe Betide?”

“That would be complicated. I would have to inventory all our children, to ascertain whether those three are among them.”