Seven

"Oh, s***. I'm a bloody liar," said one drunken Silver Fox.

"Wah," added one murring firefox.

Cuddles!

Mai clung tightly to the hair. It was moving and high up. Together those made the kitten very uneasy. She might even be higher up than her human form was tall and that was simply a scary thought. She meowed pitifully for someone to take pity on the fuzzy cute thing and remove her. And possibly get her some water.

"I thought I heard my name," puzzled a new arrival. Pasht stepped lightly through the closed doorway, now glistening dark red around the jamb on account of her magic.

"Oh, Jaine," the vampire murmured. "Drunk again! I hope this time it was not blue." After a moment's reflection, she added, "Nor green."

Jaina dozed and hiccupped.

''It's hot.''

The inn was full of people, and although Agueda imagined that some of them wouldn't give off much, if any, body heat, she still found it a little crowded and warm. And she was thirsty.

That liquor had been all together too sweet. It had served its purpose and sorted out the empty hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, but now she could forget the events of the last two days and kick-start the rest of her life with a real drink!

She crossd the room and headed towards the bar, winking at Carnil as she went and pinching Weft's ass as she passed him.

She had woken up that morning with the world on top of her. Now she was on top of the world. And it felt great.

She ran her fingers along the top of the bar, watching with the great cloud of dust her actions produced swirling high in the air and cascading behind the bar.

''What does it take to get a little service in this place?'' she joked, and quite unexpectedly, giggled.

She felt great.

"Define `service,'" Pasht grinned licentiously. "Unless you seek something I can provide for you," the vampire winked, "I can't help you. I know not the barkeep, having just gotten here." She was quite willing to rectify that ASAP.

The dust swirled and fell behind the bar.

Then there was a sneeze.

And it wasn't Izzy.

And Agueda felt the hollow feeling settling in her stomach again.

With a soft rush of air, there was a brownish-red presence by Pasht's feet.

"Mwah!" it said.

Paying absolutely no mind to this, Geekov had turned his attention away from the increasingly less dynamic Weft-Lance-Amber dynamic, put down his Accountants: The Reckoning sourcebook, and waved bashfully to the prophet and the vamp. He was going largely ignored and feeling great. It just went to show that a pair of glasses can form an impenetrable disguise - when backed up with a seamless full-body illusion and a wholly uninteresting mien, anyway.

Weft had just emitted a small sound something between a yowl and a "yii!", and slipped gracefully and fast out from behind the bar as Agueda passed. He was meant to be pulling the sexual harassment scam here, darn it. Attaining a safe distance, he straightened his shades, fixed his hair, checked his weapons and generally indulged in indignant displacement activity.

Weft was not a kitty.

Lance and Amber simultaneously snapped out of their daze, blinking three times in unison.

"Right...what was going on?" Lance asked.

Lucifer was eyeing the drunk Jaina and wondering what to do with her. He wasn't accustomed to this part of human behaviour.

"You, angel," Baskerville said, "were about to help me move some tables outdoors. Free drinks; and warm, sweaty work is more fun with more than one."

He eyed Agueda as if to say wouldn't you agree, miss?

She smiled and licked her lips... s-l-o-w-l-y.

"So will you be joining, or just watching?" Baskerville chirped.


"Get off me," Weft muttered. "I've warned you before, you're very nice, but everyone's trying to manhandle me today and I'm feeling very weird so would you leave my shoulders alone? And remove your tongue from my ear."
"Wah!"

''Well, I'm your girl if you need a hand.''

Besides, she needed to try and force that image of Izzy and Micah from her head. Sure, it wasn't such a big problem in the animal kingom, but it still make her feel woozy...

And strangely ancy.

''Shouldn't we get down to it?''

Agueda thought Basky rather... exciting. A little rough around the edges, although she'd seen his exemplary conduct with ze countessa earlier. Perhaps he just didn't like to get whipped with a riding crop.

Shame...

Yes, he was definately in charge. In command. Wearing the trousers.

Not for long? Agueda tried to stop smiling.

''Do you need a hand?''

He seemed to size her up a couple of times.

"You sure you're up to table-shifting?" he asked dubiously. "They's big buggers. You could be in charge of sanding; that'd be helpful."

Baskerville never wore trousers for very long.

''Sure. Sure. A good rubbing never did anyone any harm.''

Izzy and Micah had since vacated the area behind the bar and, temporarily at least, the entire inn. More dust seemed to be swirling from the rafters above and Izzy was getting annoyed with Micah having to stop and sneeze all the time.

Agueda had also noticed the dust. And the shaky roof.

''Is this place going to hold for much longer?.. Oh, and I'm sorry but I didn't catch your name when I came in.''

"Oh, absolutely. I'm sure you can be wonderfully abrasive when you put your mind to it," the leather-jacketed one quipped. "My name's Baskerville, and I don't think I caught yours, though I'm sure it's something delightful."

He blinked his red eyes cheekily. And we don't mean bloodshot or red-irised; we mean red all over, and glowing faintly from reflected light. Weft still had Basky's sunglasses.


The assassin seemed to have submitted to the ineffable, and was stroking his temporary shoulderguard under its rather adorable chin. Said shoulderguard yawned, expelled a sigh and rolled forwards off Weft's shoulder, forcing him to catch it cradled in his arms or let it drop.

But nobody had ever let Bede drop.

The red panda settled down as though on a branch, both right legs dangling, and appeared to fall asleep again. Weft tried to look as though he wasn't being used as a hammock by a cuddly bamboo-muncher.

Pasht felt a draft by her ankle and thought nothing of it. It took the "Mwah!" to draw her surprised gaze to downward, where it lingered.

"What are you supposed to be, I wonder?" the vampiress asked the panda as she hunkered down to its level. (She didn't generally expect animals to reply, but the Inn seemed a place for odd happenings. Besides, the newcomer's inability to verbalise didn't mean they couldn't have a perfectly civil exchange of wordless voice, posturing and the like.)

A certain kitten decided that her topknot perch was getting boring. Upon spying a vacant tabletop, Mai launched herself in the air, flying squirrel style, and hit her target with a muffled SPLAT. Oh, she landed on her feet. It's just that her feet landed in dust, which made them slip. While her momentum still drove her torso into the tabletop.

Mai ended up spreadeagled on oak. Pasht noticed and thought it reminiscent of a poor tawdry novel.

Jaina had gone out cold sometime while no-one was looking. A certain fangface briefly considered punching her in the gut to clear out her system.

''Agueda.'' She said simply and smiled.

After a short pause, ''Actually, it's Agueda Molvidr. And speaking of delightful, you have extraordinary eyes. When did you get those done?''

She saw he hadn't recognised the prophetess status of her name and was relieved. Although he didn't seem like the type, preconceived ideas and/or relentless questions usually followed that discovery... and, right now, it wasn't what she could do that interested her.

"For these, you can thank a nifty bit of genetic engineering," Baskerville twinkled. "But I can't claim all the credit for that. It happened a few generations ago.

"So tell me, Agueda Molvidr, what is it that you do? When you're not hanging round in bars with reprehensible dogs of war, that is."

(Surely the 'dogs of war' had been a metaphor... right?)


Bede looked over from his current, Weft-shaped perch and gave Pasht a huge yawn and a smile.

"Crazy animal," Pasht told Bede. Her face twisted peculiarly. "Sensible creatures don't like me, dearheart. You too!" she said toward her feet.

"Sweet, stupid beasts." But she spoke with a true smile.