Robert Asprin - E.Godz

She smiled and tried to be polite about it—he was such a dear, grandfatherly type— but he kept droning on and on and on about that elusive twelfth animal. Then he let her know that he had been born in the Year of the Rabbit, while Beruria Jane had been born in the Year of the Dragon. Naturally this led him to explain the characteristics of people born under those two signs, and which signs were compatible, and that his late wife had been born in the Year of the Horse. He had forgotten whether that made the two of them compatible or incompatible, but since she had been run over by a combine harvester on their fifth anniversary they really had not had much opportunity to discover whether or not they were compatible in the long run.

"And have you ever seen a combine harvester in action, my dear? Fascinating things, really. Even in spite of their tendency to run over a person's wife now and then, they are quite ingenious machines. It makes me proud to be an American, just thinking about them. Even if the Industrial Revolution didn't get started over here, we Yankees sure as shootin' knew how to make the most of it, I'll say. Although a body could come to believe that the Industrial Revolution has generated more problems than solutions, especially if you listen to the way Beruria Jane's boy, Kelvin, tells it. Not to speak ill of one's own nephew, but if that boy wasn't a born Bolshevik, then God didn't make little green apples, and I know for a fact that He did. Mighty tasty things, too, with enough sugar sprinkled on 'em. There's not enough sugar in this world to take away the taste of that Kelvin's sour attitude, though. Still, he's my dear, late sister Beruria Jane's only child, and children are a blessing. Too bad my darling Lucy Kathleen and I were never so blessed—did I tell you the peculiar way she died? It's not the sort of thing you hear tell of every day—but it was the Lord's will, and what's more—"

The man was still bemoaning the fact that he and his prematurely harvested wife had not had any children of their own—not even a Bolshevik to bless themselves with—when Peez croaked out a desperate, " 'Scuse me, please, but I really have to go to the bathroom right now," and fled for her life.

Alone in the stall, she leaned her throbbing head against the cool metal wall and mumbled, "What did I do to deserve that?"

Meanwhile, Dov had just been asked to step into a side room and disrobe. He heard the snap of a latex glove being donned and shuddered. What did I do to deserve this? he wondered.

He was not alone. The spells that the warring siblings had unleashed upon each other were fired off in haste, impulsively, and without filing an Environmental Impact Statement beforehand. Innocent bystanders and passers-by in the general vicinity when the spells were launched found themselves enduring weaker versions of the same ordeals assailing Dov and Peez. Never had so many suitcases taken off for parts unknown, never had so many bores and buttonholers decided that the total stranger who just happened to be seated next to them on the plane needed to know their life stories.

As for that part of Peez's spell causing security systems to go berserk, the less said, the better. Things were bad enough without vindictive magic mucking them up even further.

Fortunately for the continued smooth running of L.A. International, the fallout effect of the Godz siblings' spells had a very short half-life. Though the magic would continue to dog its original targets until they realized they'd been hexed and wiped it away with a counterspell, it did not continue to plague the truly innocent indefinitely. By the time Dov's Seattle-bound flight was airborne, most of it had dissipated, and by the time Peez arrived at the Serene Temple of Unfailing Lifescores, it had all vanished.

"Excuse me," Peez said, tapping the shoulder of the handsome young man who had picked her up at the airport. "I thought we were going to meet the Reverend Everything at the Serene Temple of Unfailing Lifescores."

"Yuh-huh," he replied with a smile as flashy as the world's largest cubic zirconia. They were standing in front of the very building which Dov had left less than a day before. The spires still glittered, the white stairs still gleamed, the neon lotus blossoms still winked on and off, and the parking lot still teemed with Porsches, Mercedes, Carmen Ghias, Alfa Romeos, and one lonesome Segway.

Only the name on the two-story sign in front had been changed to read Soulhaven Retreat and Starchild Immersionarium.

"Well, I can read, you know," Peez said, tapping her foot and pointing at the telltale sign. "And that does not say anything about serenity or temples or lifescores—whatever the heck those are."

"Yuh?" The pretty man tilted his head in a fetching manner and held that pose as if listening to the rapid-fire click-click-click of a distant camera shutter. Then at last he said, "Oh," and nodded, holding that pose for a few more imaginary headshots.

This was not a satisfactory answer for Peez. "Look, if you don't want to ask directions, I'll be glad to handle it. Better yet, never mind. I'll just give the Reverend Everything a call, tell him where I am, and he can tell us how to reach the Temple."

She suited the action to the words at once, feeling that life (and her allotted time in L.A.) was too short for her to await the mental processing that would elicit a confirming yuh from her handsome nougat-brained escort. The E. Godz, Inc. records provided the Reverend Everything's private cell phone number, and Peez was not afraid to use it.

"Hello, Reverend Everything? Peez Godz, here. I'm afraid that we've somehow managed to get lost on our way from the airport to the Serene Temple of Unfailing— Oh, really? ... You don't say ... Is that so? ... Yuh-huh, yuh-huh, yuh-huh, I see. I think."

A look of consternation came over her face. She squinted at the two-story-high sign and nodded automatically, even though there was no way for the person on the other end of that phone call to see her doing so.

Then again, perhaps there was.

Peez looked away from the sign and up to the westernmost spire of the

Retreat/Immersionarium. The Reverend Everything, a silvery cell phone in his hand, gazed down at her cheerfully and waved.

Shortly thereafter, Peez found herself touring the temporarily empty sanctuary. There had been some changes made, though she was not in a position to realize this. The pseudo-Aztec trappings and all the jungly glory of the building's previous incarnation had been swept away as if by magic. In place of the flowers, the vines, the fake jade throne, and the rest of the package there was now a towering, clear-sided tank where a pair of dolphins swam, splashed, and otherwise disported themselves.

"I am so very pleased to have you visit us, my dear Ms. Godz," the Reverend Everything said as he steered Peez around the wide, carpeted deck encircling the top of the dolphin tank. "I'm sure you're aware that your dear brother Dov was just here as well, though he had to depart rather precipitously. That was a shame. You see, while we were in the middle of our services, I was blessed to receive a revelation which told me that it was time to change the spiritual focus of my flock. Naturally I put my loyal followers to work upon making that vision a reality. Their labors are not yet complete, but we've managed to get things arranged well enough for us to celebrate our inaugural services within the hour. I do hope you won't have to rush off the way your brother did?"

"I, uh, really couldn't say," Peez replied, nervously eyeing the tank. She knew it was silly, but she couldn't quite shake the feeling that one misspoken word, rather than one misstep, could send her plunging into the depths.

The Reverend Everything smiled benevolently. In truth, he didn't seem capable of smiling any other way. While Dov had amassed a whole wardrobe of smiles, keeping one on tap for every possible eventuality, the Reverend Everything had discovered that wondrous thing, the Little Black Dress smile, suitable for every occasion. It said, variously: