E. Godz (22 page)

Like her brother before her, Peez regretted that you couldn't slam the receiver of a cell
phone, so she did the next best thing, throwing it to the ground and stamping down on it
so viciously that it shattered.

Throughout the Cafe du Monde, every woman and a fair number of the men present
broke into spontaneous applause as she stormed out, with Dov hurrying after, trailing
little puffs of sugar as they ran.

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but the way to Mom's heart is
through the Internet," said Dov. He hunched over his laptop keyboard, his eyes alight
with a zealot's wild devotion. From time to time he moved over to type in a few
characters on Peez's laptop, which was set up right next to his own, attached by a tangled
maze of wires, all of them glowing with the magic that the siblings had effectively used
to double their electronic arsenal.

"How's it coming?" asked Peez from a short distance away. She sounded doubtful and
with good cause:

The two of them had discussed potential strategies for hours on end, most of the way
from New Orleans to Poughkeepsie, via airport limo and plane and train and taxi. They
set aside all thought of using a rental car solely because they did not want the distraction
of hands-on driving to eat into precious plotting time. They proposed and disposed and
discarded unworkable portions of one scenario only to tack the useful leftovers onto the
body of an altogether different scheme. They guzzled obscene amounts of coffee to keep
themselves sharp, and the more coffee they drank, the more inspired every aspect of their
conspiracy sounded.

But even the most potent of caffeine buzzes has a finite trajectory. By the time they
actually set foot within the Poughkeepsie city limits, it was difficult to tell for sure
whether their master plan was really as foolproof as it sounded, or if it only seemed
foolproof because their brains were starting to turn into piles of played-out espresso
grounds. Peez had come down off her mocha-java high just in time to realize this, and it
was not the sort of epiphany that gave you confidence in the future.

"It's coming just fine," Dov called back to her. "The link's holding. We may not have
as much magical power as she's got, but by taking our magic plus the stuff we're pulling
in through the tapping spell and slaving the whole thing to our Net access, there won't be
a firewall in existence that can keep us out of Edwina's system! It's just going to take a
little time."

"You're sure she won't be able to tell we're doing this until we're ready to make our
move?"

"Relax, Sis. We are golden. Say she does catch wise that someone's ferreting around
in her system, the only way she can intervene is by locating the source. That would be
child's play for her: Just slip a tracking spell into the wires. She can't do that to us the way

I've got this set up. No wires, no way to trace the connection."

"No wires, no electrical feed for the laptops," Peez said. "I've never tried anything
like this before. What happens if we power down in the middle of it?"

"We won't," Dov reassured her. "Not as long as we've got good, solid battery backup.
Not as long as you keep feeding our batteries."

"Yeah, but what happens when I run out of peanuts?"

As if to answer her question, a large gray squirrel not six inches away from Peez's
feet sat up on its haunches and set off a long stream of loud, chittering complaints. Peez
threw him another peanut and thought that this was one hell of a way to harness the earth-
power.

It did look somewhat bizarre to the untrained eye. It even looked bizarre by the
standards of some of E. Godz, Inc.'s more eccentric (pronounced "woo-woo") clients. Of
course anything looks bizarre when it involves squirrels.

A nineteenth-century French painter might have made a pretty picture of the siblings'
command center for Operation Bad Mommy, titling it Le Takeover Hostile Sur l'Herbe.
While Dov delved deeply into Edwina's databanks, Peez sat on the grass under the
outspread branches of a venerable sycamore tree on the campus of Vassar College, a
giant economy-sized bag of peanuts in her lap. Every so often she tossed a handful to the
coterie of about twenty squirrels surrounding her, making sure to keep them from losing
interest and scampering away. The squirrels' plump bodies pulsed with waves of energy
which was being siphoned away along threadlike conduits all leading to Dov's tandem
laptops, giving him all the power he needed.

"By the time you run out of peanuts, we'll be done," he told his sister. "Then we'll go
pay a little call on Edwina."

"I hope you're right," Peez said. "And I hope the creatures will be satisfied with what
I gave them. I don't like the way that big bull squirrel's looking at me. I think he might be
plotting something. Did we have to use squirrels? Even back in New York City, they
gave me the creeps. They're always watching."

"Squirrels are nature's most compact and efficient gatherers of the earth-power," Dov
said, sounding almost as dull as a tenured professor. "Have you ever seen how fast they
can move? Pure energy. They press their little bodies right up against tree trunks for
better power absorption, and they've perfected the method for extracting the potential
energy of a full-grown oak, maple, pine, whatever kind of tree from the seeds, nuts, and
acorns they ingest. You call them rodents: I call them fuzzy plutonium! And this place
seems to have an infinite supply of the little buggers."

"If you say so," Peez said. She continued to dole out peanuts. The squirrels, much like
a gaggle of junior faculty members, put up with any kind of public humiliation if it meant
that they got to stick close to a source of free food.

At last Dov hit one final keystroke, slapped both laptops shut simultaneously, flopped
over onto his back and triumphantly announced: "Finished!"

"What did you do?" Peez asked.

"Oh, nothing much." He rolled onto his stomach and sat up again. "I just isolated all
of her assets, monetary as well as supernatural. She's down to the spare change level on
all fronts. She may have more experience than we do when it comes to magic, but a fat
lot of good that'll do her when she can't reach the stuff she needs to power her spells."

"Like owning a Mercedes but only having enough money to buy a teaspoonful of
gas?" Peez liked the idea.

"Bingo." Dov tapped the tip of his nose. He stood up and offered Peez his hand.
"Give the furry-tailed rats the rest of the peanuts and let's go pay a call on dear, dear
Mamma."

Giggling, Peez tossed the remaining peanuts to the squirrels before allowing Dov to
help her up. As they walked off, Dov flipped open his cell phone to call for a taxi. He was
so engrossed in the call that he didn't notice the big male squirrel sitting right in his path
until he almost trod on him. The two of them exchanged peevish stares.

"Shoo!" Dov commanded. "Scat! Get out of the way!"

"That's him," Peez exclaimed, pointing wildly at the beast. "That's the one that was
looking at me before! He wants something; I can tell."

"What he wants is a kick in the rump for bothering my sister," Dov said grimly. "And
I'm the guy to give it to him." He drew back his right leg, ready to suit the action to the
word.

* * *

"How are you feeling, Mr. Godz?" the doctor asked brightly.

"Better. I think." Dov moved cautiously on the examination table, but not cautiously
enough. Sharp pains shot all up and down the length of his right side where the squirrel
had ducked inside his trousers and run races around Dov's leg before finally scooting out
and away.

"You're just lucky that the scratches were superficial and that you didn't get bitten,"
the doctor went on. "Of course even without a bite there's still the chance of rabies
infection if—"

"Rabies?" Dov was panic-stricken. "But that's just from bites. That rotten little
bastard didn't bite me."

"True, but if the squirrel was rabid and some of his saliva got into your system via
those scratches ... Would you happen to know if that happened?"

"You want me to figure out if the bloody damn squirrel that ran up my pants was
drooling at the time?"

"Well, failing that knowledge, and since we don't have the squirrel itself to examine, I
would suggest that you have the inoculations."

"Shots? You want me to have rabies shots? No. No way. I know all about them and
they hurt!"

"They don't hurt as much as they used to," the doctor said primly. "But rabies still
kills."

"Doctor, let me talk to my brother," Peez said. "I think I can persuade him to take the
shots. May we have a moment alone?"

The doctor shrugged. He was busy. "Have them page me when you're ready," he said,
leaving the examination room.

"I am not having rabies shots!" Dov declared, clutching his leg. It was almost
completely swathed in bandages where the doctor had tended to the squirrel scratches.
Pulling his pants back on over all that gauze would be an adventure.

"Shush; you don't need them." Peez laid her hand on Dov's leg and closed her eyes.
She began to hum and murmur, swaying back and forth gently. Dov felt a warm, pleasant
sensation creeping over his leg, as if he were slowly immersing it in a tropical sea. Peez
stopped humming and opened her eyes. "It's okay," she said. "The squirrel wasn't rabid."

"How do you know?"

"A little something I picked up in my travels. Part of it's stuff I learned out in
Arizona, part's drawn from things Mr. Bones taught me, but it all boils down to being
able to read the body so you can heal it. Your body says it's definitely not harboring any
rabies virus, the scratches will be gone in a few days, and for the love of heaven, stop
eating all that damn pastrami."

"Thanks, Sis." Dov got off the examining table and started getting dressed. "We've
lost enough time over that blasted squirrel. Let's get out of here, grab a cab to Edwina's
and do this thing." He stopped wrestling with his trousers when he heard Peez laughing.
"And what is so funny?"

"Remember right before that squirrel ran up your pants leg when I said he wanted
something only I didn't know what?" she said, still snickering. "Well, now I do know
what he was after: bigger nuts. Bwahahaha!"

Dov made a face. "I think I liked you better when you were a virgin."

* * *

The taxi dropped them off outside the gates to Edwina's house. Dov and Peez gazed
at the building they hadn't seen in years. After they'd left home, their return trips had
gone from compulsory holiday get-togethers bristling with hostility and ill will to
grudging individual social calls. In time they'd given up coming at all, except when
Edwina sent for them to discuss business matters. Soon even those visits stopped and all
such meetings were held via e-mail, fax or phone.

"I never saw the point of coming back here," Dov said. "This never felt like home."

"What did?" Peez said.

"Nowhere." He looked at her. "Nowhere so far. Maybe that's going to change, too.
Peez, have you ever seen Miami? It's a neat place. I think you'd like it, and I know a lot of
people down there who'd help me show you a good time. How about Thanksgiving? Or
before that, if you've got the time."

"I'd like that, Dov." Peez smiled. "But if you came up to New York for Thanksgiving
we could see the Macy's parade together. My office has a great view of the route. Oh!
And you absolutely have to come up for Christmas! Everyone loves the city lights,
whether or not they celebrate the holiday. I have a duplex; you can stay with me."

"I'll tell you what: Why don't we take care of Mom first, then we can decide who's
bringing the mince pie, okay?"

There was no problem gaining access to the grounds. Dov's explorations in
cyberspace revealed that Edwina did not maintain the kind of security system you could
buy through normal channels. When you had magic, who needed burglar alarms? Why
defend your grounds when all the stuff worth stealing was inside the house?

The house itself was another story. Dov and Peez both sensed the all-enshrouding
presence of warding spells. These were set on "Low," intended to be more deterrent than
destructive. If a trespasser couldn't take the hint, there would be stronger stuff awaiting
him inside.

Dov deferred to Peez, letting his big sister disarm the wards while he called up a
counterspell to create the illusion that the wards hadn't been touched at all. Peez cleverly
snagged a couple of scraps from the warding spells before discarding the rest. She slipped
them over herself and her brother so that they could enter the house undetected. It was
like tearing a camouflage tarp off a tank and using it to mask your own presence. The
same wards that discouraged intruders by making them feel as though they were trying to
penetrate doors and windows snugly clogged with yard-thick layers of rubber cement also
had the power to make surveillance spells rebound.

Once thus concealed from view, there was no reason that Dov and Peez had to play
ninja. They waltzed right into the house by the front door, their only precaution being to
waltz as quietly as possible. Now all they had to do was locate their mother and spring
their surprise.

Where do you think she is? Dov mouthed silently at Peez.

What? She mouthed back.

This time he exaggerated his lip movements: I said, where do you think she is? In the
bedroom?

Did you say the bathroom?

Right, right! Pretending to be dying.

Peez nodded. No harm in trying, she agreed, starting to climb the staircase to the
upper floors.

Dov followed. He had just set foot on the first step when suddenly, as if from
nowhere, a small, round, bushy-tailed shape darted out of the shadows and planted itself
right in his path. Beady eyes glittered balefully, teeth like tiny chisels clashed together,
and Dov found himself staring into the fuzzy face of doom.

He couldn't help it: He screamed.

Peez whirled around just in time to be the first human being on the face of the planet
to hear a squirrel laugh.

"There you are, children," said Edwina. A double crash underscored her appearance.
She had thrust aside the sleeve doors of the front parlor (the actual parlor, not the one that
was her incognito office) with a dramatic gesture like Samson pushing down the pillars of
the Philistines' temple. The thick panels flew aside on their well-oiled brass rollers,
making a thunderous noise that was quite impressive.