Eileen Wilks - Night Season

Lily didn't seem shocked or even surprised by the subject. "So did my cousin Jenny when she was fifteen. Makeup, I mean, not a wallet. I'm not supposed to know about it, but my cousin Freddy told me once when he was proposing."

Ick. "Your cousin proposed !"

"Second cousin, but we all just say cousin."

"You've got a lot of family."

Lily nodded and waited.

"I don't have any sisters or cousins. I had an aunt—she's the reason I'm not more messed up than I am—but she never had kids." Cynna jammed her hands in the pockets of her new coat. "I was pretty much a cliché growing up, you know? Not just poor, but ghetto poor. Funny how they don't call it that anymore. We have 'urban poor' these days."

"I guess some people think if they keep renaming it, maybe it will go away."

"Yeah. Doesn't work, does it? Kids still grow up like I did—absent father, drunk or junkie mother. I dodged some of the clichés, mostly because of Aunt Pat. I didn't drop out of school or do drugs or get… get…" She stopped, swallowed.

"Pregnant?" Lily said gently.

Cynna tipped her head up and stared at the girders crisscrossing the vaulted glass roof. The sky was blue and bright. After a moment she said, "I didn't hyperventilate. I guess that's progress."

"I guess it is. You want to go to the food court?"

Cynna shook her head. "We'd better head back and get Rule's card. I don't trust that clerk."

"Okay." They reversed direction. "Did you mean it about trying on a skirt?"

"No."

Lily grinned. "Temporary insanity does not constitute—oh, my God." She stopped moving. "What's she doing here?"

Cynna couldn't figure out who Lily was talking about. There were a number of " she's" directly ahead—an older woman with a Talbot's bag, a young mom with a toddler, two teens who should have been in school.

All at once a runty bald something was standing ten feet away. It had breasts, orange skin, and pointy teeth. It—she?—wore a tight yellow dress with purple polka dots, and it was grinning at them. "Hi, Lily Yu!"

The teens screamed. A nearby man in a suit gaped, then swung his briefcase at it.

"Hey!" It grabbed the case with both hands. That's when Cynna saw the tail—long and prehensile, it lashed around to grab the man's ankle. "Did you see that? He tried to hit me! Can I—"

"No," Lily said loudly, hurrying forward. "Turn loose of him and give him back his briefcase."

"But he—"

"Wasn't expecting you," Lily said, tugging on the briefcase. "You startled him."

"What in the hell is that thing?" the man demanded.

My words exactly . Cynna didn't say them, though. Lily seemed to have the whatsit situation under control, so she dealt with the teens. One of them was sobbing and clinging to the other, who glared at Cynna suspiciously.

"Great effect, isn't it?" Cynna said cheerfully. "You didn't see… ah, her coming, did you?"

The dark-haired one frowned harder. "No."

"Great! And your name is—?"

"Shauna. And this is Deanna." Shauna was still suspicious, but her friend stopped crying long enough to protest Shauna's making free with their names, which Mom had told them never, ever to do.

Probably Mom had also told them not to cut school, but never mind that. The girls weren't hysterical anymore.

Lily recovered the briefcase and restored it to its owner. "Sorry for the shock, sir."

"But he tried to hit me!" the orange whatsit exclaimed. It was child-size, but built like a squashed sumo wrestler. With breasts. Big breasts. And that tail. "Can't you shoot him or something?"

"No," Lily said shortly. "Gan, what are you doing here?"

Gan? Cynna looked closer. The body had changed the most, but the face was different, too. Same orange skin and bald head, same ridiculously wide eyes with Maybelline lashes, but the rest of the features were… well, you couldn't call them normal, but it was amazing what a difference a nose could make. Cynna would never have recognized the little demon.

Former demon, she supposed. Gan had been staying with the gnomes while she underwent some kind of mysterious transformation. Cynna ought to have recognized the voice, though—high-pitched and squeaky, as if one of those yappy little dogs decided to talk.

A crowd was gathering. "I'm calling the police," Briefcase Man announced.

Gan ignored him. "I'm going with you, of course. Didn't they tell you I was coming?"

"They?" Lily said. "Who?"

Gan looked around, frowning—an interesting sight, given the lack of eyebrows. Then she rolled her eyes. "Great. They got the timing wrong. Wouldn't you know it! They're supposed to be such hotshot gaters, but they couldn't even sync the—"

The screaming interrupted her.

Cynna and Lily locked glances for a split second, then took off running. The screams were coming from back near the fountain.

The China Doll was smart, she was tough, but Cynna's legs were a lot longer and she knew how to run. As Cynna pulled ahead, she heard the little demon piping away—somehow, despite her runty legs, Gan was keeping up with Lily. "Are you going to shoot someone? Who? I want a gun, too."

Gun. Right. Probably a good idea, so Cynna fished in her purse for her weapon without breaking stride. She had only two offensive spells—one that worked only on demons, and one that required physical contact. If whatever was up ahead required subduing, she'd rather not have to waltz with it.

She swerved around two young men running flat out and nearly collided with one of the stroller-mobiles. Damned bloody things were everywhere! She skidded, managed to dodge it and its terrified mom-motor—and stopped dead.

There were three of them. They stood beside the empty fountain, looking around. The short one wore a short green robe and tights. He looked like a gnome—small, wrinkled, long beard, big nose. A pair of oversize ears parted his scraggly hair, their tips covered by the absurd pouf of a hat he wore. The middle size one was the color of wet clay, his skin damp and shiny, as if he was sweating. His lips were the weirdest part of him, being dusky black, and he was as bald as Gan. The effect was different… maybe because he wore only a loincloth and some sort of fancy boots.

Never mind the funny skin. This dude was beefcake.

The third one was gray, tusked, eight or so feet tall, with tight little curls on his head—no, her head. Those were breasts beneath the brown tunic, not just great pecs.

Didn't matter. Not when she was holding a sword big enough to gut an elephant. Cynna slid into firing position. "Put down the sword!"

They all looked at her. The gnomish one smiled and said something, but the syllables did not add up to English.

"Hold your fire," Lily told her as she skidded into place on Cynna's left, weapon ready.

"Hey! You can't shoot them," Gan squeaked, sounding disappointed as she, too, came to a stop. " Harazeed ," she called out to the trio—or something along those lines. " Ke antar essy isclaum Lily Yu si Cynna Weaver. Ke relan English, you idiot!"

"Ah!" said the little one in the funny hat, beaming. He put one hand on his chest and bobbed his knees once. "Welcome me-you-us, Lily Yu and Cynna Weaver. Please to take us to your leader."

Gan liked cars. She'd been in cars a few times back when she'd been sent to this Earth realm to help that idiot Harlowe. That was before Harlowe got himself killed, which had kept Gan from possessing Lily Yu like she was supposed to, and then they'd been dragged off to Dis, where she ended up liking Lily Yu, which made her start growing a soul so she couldn't be a demon anymore.

Things had sure been simpler back then. Simpler, but not as interesting.