Robert Asprin - E.Godz

He blushed to realize that he'd actually given the thing a name.

"This is all her fault," he snarled under his breath. His bitter words did not escape Ammi's silvery ears.

"Oh, come on, now! You can't blame your mother for dying!"

"I'm not talking about her: I'm talking about my sister, Peez." The look in Dov's eyes was grim and brimming with years' worth of anger.

Peez, his dowdy, depressing, hangdog big sister. Peez, who didn't have the socialization skills of a squashed spider; Peez, who couldn't make a friend if Dr. Frankenstein himself gave her the raw materials, the how-to instructions, and a spare needle and thread; Peez, who lacked the affable, easygoing charm that seemed to have come to Dov naturally.

Peez, who had envied Dov's personal magnetism from the day that they were both placed in the same class at school, and who decided that if she couldn't have her baby brother's boundless charisma and all the good things it brought him, at least she could enjoy playing the harpy and tainting everything before he had a hope of enjoying it himself.

Friends? Dov could still hear her dry, mocking laughter in his head. It was Valentine's Day and while his construction paper mailbox was stuffed full to bursting with flocks of little white envelopes from their classmates, hers was almost as flat as when she'd finished making it. You think they're your friends? Why? Just because they gave you valentines? Stupid! They only did it because their parents forced them to! And you know why? Because the only reason anyone ever does anything nice for us is because they want something from Mother!

He remembered fighting back against the ugly words, arguing that if what she said were true, then wouldn't the kids have given her a bunch of valentines too?

She only laughed again. She didn't even try to answer his question, she just gave him the same look she'd given him when he'd found out the truth about Santa Claus. It was a horribly knowing look that said: Have it your way. They're all your dear, dear friends. Sure they are. Trust them. Only when they make a fool of you, don't come crying to me. I tried to warn you. I tried to tell you the truth.

"It's all her fault," Dov repeated. "She's the reason I never let anyone get too close, the reason I've got hundreds of acquaintances, associates, social contacts, but not one single, solitary friend. She's why I've got no one I can really talk to except—except a refugee from a charm bracelet!"

"Thanks a lot," the amulet said dryly. "You think I like her any better than you do?" The chain that usually suspended Ammi from the front of the fax machine made a tinkling sound when the amulet trembled with rage in Dov's hand. "I can't stand it when I've got to announce a fax from that one. The bile positively oozes from every syllable in her transmissions! Mind you, big guy, you give her back as good as you get, but being forced to listen in on your exchanges is like playing go-between for a pair of rabid hyenas. It's starting to wear on my nerves."

Dov's mouth quirked up at one corner. "You don't have nerves."

"I've got sorcery-generated circuitry," Ammi replied peevishly. "It's practically the same thing."

"Well, in that case, I've got some good news for you: You won't be troubled by faxes between my sister and me for much longer. You know what the rest of Mother's message said, don't you? She's going to leave the family business to just one of us." His mouth tightened. "That one's going to be me."

He strode over to his desk and snapped his fingers. The polished glass top glowed. Rainbow-hued swirls of energy swam across the surface, transforming it into a seer's pool. Most mere mortals owned desktop computers that they hoped would meet all their needs, but Dov Godz was master of a real desktop that actually could do that and more.

"Research all available data and compile a list of key players in the E. Godz corporation. Include prospective as well as active clients if their potential influence is comparable. Make all necessary travel arrangements enabling me to visit each of these in the most efficient manner possible, allowing for M.E.S.T."

"M.E.S.T.?" Ammi the amulet echoed.

"Minimum Essential Schmooze Time," Dov replied. "I want to depart today by—" He consulted his wristwatch. Then he noticed that it wasn't there. He'd taken it off for his aromatherapy-massage session. "Oh, hell, I'll leave at six. Make New Orleans my first stop and get a really good dinner before getting down to business. No way New Orleans won't make the list." He glanced at the still-swirling desktop. "Stream the appropriate documents to my palmtop. Copy that?"

The desk uttered a soft, almost voluptuous sigh and in the voice of the divine Diana Rigg replied, "Anything you say, Dov."

Dov grinned. "I never get tired of that."

"I do," Ammi said petulantly.

"Jealous?" Dov's grin widened. "Too bad. And now it's back to the fax for you." He headed for the machine, intent on replacing the moody amulet.

"Wait a minute!" Ammi protested. "Don't put me back there! Take me with you!"

"Why?"

"I can provide remote access for all fax messages that might arrive in your absence."

"My palmtop already has that capability."

"I'm a portable firewall. You can stick me on your hotel phone and I'll screen all your calls."

"Nothing a discretionary shielding spell can't do."

By now the little amulet was grasping at straws. "Take me into any jewelry store and have them chip off as many bits of me as you want. Drop them off on the clients and you'll be able to eavesdrop on everything they're up to even after you're long gone!"

Dov clicked his tongue and shook his head. "No sale. You think these people are rubes? They've got their own resources for detecting bugs, even magical ones." He hung the amulet back on the fax machine and brushed invisible dust from his hands. As he turned to go he said, "Sorry, Ammi, but there's really no good reason for me to take you with me."

He was almost to the door when a very small, very shaky voice behind him said, "But I'll miss you."

Dov stopped in his tracks and looked back. "Say what?"

"I said I'll miss you," the amulet repeated, almost reluctantly. "A lot. There. I said it. Happy?"

Dov snatched the little trinket up again and confronted it with the impossible. "You're an appliance. How could you miss me? Or anyone, for the matter? It's like someone claiming he can't program his VCR because he once said something to hurt its feelings."

"Look, I can't explain it; I just know it," the amulet said, getting defensive. "And that crack about VCRs was uncalled for: They happen to be very sensitive. It comes from all the soppy chick flicks people make them play. Hey, take me with you or leave me behind, see if I care. But I'll tell you this much: It's going to get mighty lonely out there on the road, and one of those cold, solitary nights you're going to wish you had a sympathetic ear to listen to your troubles, even if it's only one that's made out of silver."

Dov stared at the amulet, taken aback by its outburst. The trouble was, its words made sense and he knew it. Only an idiot kept fighting when it was past time to surrender.

"Oh, fine," he growled. "You'll probably do something nasty to the fax machine if I leave you here alone. Might as well take you with me." He thrust the amulet into his pocket.

There was only one problem: He was still wearing nothing but a towel.

"Put on some pants, Einstein," said Ammi from the floor where he'd fallen. "Then let's get this show on the road."

"Ah, Salem!" said Teddy Tumtum, pressing his fuzzy nose to the glass of the passenger's side window as Peez's rental car glided up Lafayette Street, heading north for the center of town. "Lovely, notorious Salem, infamous and immortal for fostering the mass hysteria that reached its bloody conclusion in the seventeenth-century witchcraft trials ... not!" He giggled.