Jumper Cable (23 page)

They woke to an astonishing sound. Dawn leaped up in her bra and panty. “What is that?”

“I think it’s music,” Jumper said.

She went outside, and he followed, glad again, to an extent, that he was not a human man. She really needed to put on more clothing. In Bare Lake was a fish quartet: 1st Tuna, 2nd Tuna, Barracuda, and Bass. They were singing in the new day. With them was a dancing fin, cutting intricate patterns in the surface of the water. Jumper and Dawn watched and listened, entranced. When the song finished, the fish sank back under the water, and the fin angled to the bank. Now it could be seen that it was part of a big doll: a doll fin. The doll emerged from the water and walked on surprisingly little feet to meet them. She was not affected by the water’s skinny property, perhaps because she was a doll.

“Greetings this fine morning,” she said. “I am Little Foot. I wanted to be a marine biologist, but dancing is more fun. I hope you enjoyed our show.”

“We did,” Dawn said. “I am Dawn, and this is Jumper.”

“You have a very nice bra.”

“Thank you. I try to keep it well filled.”

Little Foot looked at Jumper. “We don’t see many spiders your size around here. Are you on leave from a scary dream?”

“No, merely on a mission,” Jumper said.

“Oh? What are you looking for?”

“Innocence,” Dawn said.

Little Foot laughed. “I don’t think you’ll find it in that outfit.” She returned to the water, and soon was nothing but a departing fin.

“She’s right,” Dawn said. Her clothing was dry, and she put it on.

“Maybe now we can complete our mission.”

They got on their bicycles and rode after Sammy, who was bounding along at his usual pace. Until they came to another lake. The path stopped at its bank, and so did the cat.

There was an island in the center, bearing a looming castle. That must be their destination.

“What do we do now?” Dawn asked, abruptly uncertain.

“We cross to the island,” Jumper said.

“I don’t think we want to swim. There might be loan sharks, water dragons, or worse. You can never tell when a dream will turn bad.”

“I think I can manage.” Jumper spun a mass of silk, formed it into a mat, and spread the mat on the water. He stepped onto it, his weight making it dent but not sink, and spun some more. He laid another mat ahead, and moved onto it.

“Suddenly I appreciate your ability,” Dawn said, stepping gingerly onto the first mat. Sammy joined her.

They proceeded on across, slowly. Jumper took up the mat behind them and set it in front, so as not to waste silk. A prettily colored fish swam up, gazing curiously at them. Jumper looked at it with several eyes, and it immediately blushed and turned away.

“That was a coy Koi,” Dawn said. “A harmless creature.”

Oh. Jumper continued with the silk matting, and in due course got them most of the way across to the island.

Then several colored fins cut toward them. “Beware,” Dawn said, alarmed. “Those are loan sharks. They’ll take an arm and a leg if you let them.”

Jumper was not about to let them. He needed all eight legs for his present task. So he spun a lasso and whirled it around. When a fin came close, he lassoed it and gave it a good yank. Part of the shark was jerked out of the water. The thing threshed its tail and escaped, fleeing the area. The other sharks considered. Then they too departed the scene. They were interested only in easy marks.

“You’re really some creature,” Dawn said.

Jumper continued, and soon they were at the island shore. They stepped onto it and looked around.

It seemed to be a complete little land in itself, with fields and forests and even a trickling stream coming from the hill on which the castle perched. The path picked up where it had left off, wending its way toward the castle.

“Uh, Jumper,” Dawn said. “Maybe for our purpose you should turn human again. Whoever this innocence is for, I suspect he or she would not properly appreciate your natural form.”

She was being diplomatic, which was another human quality. She was reminding him that he needed to set up for the standard white lie of his humanity. She was surely correct. A truly innocent human person could freak out at the sight of a giant spider. He took a vial and gulped down the elixir. In barely a moment he was human.

And there was a girl. “Hello, visitors,” she said brightly, “I am Sati Sfaction, here to welcome you to Dust Isle. We have a feast in preparation for you.”

Dawn stepped forward to give the girl a friendly hug. Jumper knew Dawn was actually seeking physical contact so she could learn everything about her. Such as whether she was really friend or foe. “I am Dawn, and this is my friend Jumper.”

The girl looked directly at Jumper for the first time. “Ek,” she screamed faintly, blushing, not even managing to squeeze out two E’s. Then she swooned.

For Jumper was naked. In the distraction of the island, in the absence of Wenda, they had forgotten to put clothing on him.

“Quick, spin yourself some clothing,” Dawn said. “Not that it really matters.”

This made him pause. “What?”

“Sati isn’t really an innocent girl. She’s something else. I can’t tell what.”

He spun silk and quickly wove it into a pair of shorts, which he donned. “But you can tell anything about any living thing.”

“Yes. She’s not a living thing. Not exactly.”

“Then what is she?”

“The minor De mon ess Sharon,” the girl said, sitting up. Obviously she had not freaked out, and had faked her swoon. “We are neither living nor dead; we’re eternal entities.”

“Sharon!” he exclaimed, now seeing the resemblance. “You always appear as someone’s sister.”

“This time I’m someone’s daughter. I have a role to fulfill, so for now I’m Sati. I can sense ghosts, and even lend them a physical body, for a while.”

“You would like our friend Phanta,” Jumper said.

“A role?” Dawn asked suspiciously. “You’re Pluto’s minion, trying to mess up our mission.”

“Yes. But there are pa ram e ters.”

“There are whats?”

“Pa ram e ters. Variable guidelines that shift with the situation. I am confined to limited devices of corruption.”

“Such as?”

“Such as making Jumper fall in love with me, so that he will give up the mission in order to win my return love.”

That put it out into the open. “But demons, capped or uncapped, have no souls,” Dawn said. “They can’t love.”

“But we can make deals,” Sharon said. “If Jumper makes the deal, I will put on such an emulation of love that he won’t be able to tell the difference.”

Which meant that he could not afford to love her. She needed to be limited to a stork object. “Let’s get on with the delivery,” he said gruffly. Sammy had been loitering. Now he moved smartly along the path toward the castle, and they followed.

“To do that,” Sharon said, “you will have to play the part.” Her countenance changed subtly, and she was the girl Sati Sfaction again.

“I’ll play my part,” Jumper said impatiently. He was annoyed with himself because he still hoped for a session alone with her, corrupting as it might be.

“Then I must introduce you to my father, King Belial,” Sati said. “I love him, of course, but he’s a domineering man who constantly spies on me. He has the talent of creating, controlling and banishing creatures of dust.”

“Dust dev ils,” Dawn said.

“Sort of. These aren’t real ones, just his artificial ones. But you can’t tell their nature from seeing them.”

“I can tell dust from a living creature,” Dawn said.

“Can you? What about that?”

They looked. A fat piglike creature was coming toward them, bearing an array of sharp quills. It emitted an odor of pine trees. “That’s a

porkypine,” Dawn said. “A cross between a pig and a pine tree. They’re rare.”

Then the porkypine dissolved into a cloud of dust and fell apart.

“One of Belial’s dust creatures,” Sati said, having made her point.

“He uses them to watch me. He’s afraid I might meet someone manly and do something I shouldn’t.”

“Would you?” Dawn asked.

“Of course. I’m a naughty girl.”

“Well, we have our own chore to complete, regardless,” Dawn said.

“We have to restore a girl’s lost innocence.”

Sati laughed somewhat harder than strictly necessary. “Lotsa luck!”

“It does seem unlikely,” Dawn agreed. “Nevertheless, that’s our mission.”

“I think it’s impossible. Apart from that, I’m the only woman in the castle who is even theoretically innocent, and no spell will restore me to my pristine state, if it ever existed.”

“Maybe it’s for a man,” Jumper said.

“Such as my father Belial? Forget it. You have a bum lead this time.”

“Sammy doesn’t think so,” Dawn said, evidently nettled. Indeed, the cat was still sedately leading the way.

Sati shrugged. “Well, what will be, will be.”

They came to the castle gate. Sammy went right on in, and they followed. He led the way up a huge winding stone stairway. A mouse peeked at them from a crevice, then dissolved into dust. The proprietor was watching them.

“I am getting curiouser and curiouser,” Sati said. “This is where my father’s bedroom is. There’s been no one innocent there in generations.”

The cat drew up at a massive closed wooden door. “What we want must be beyond that door,” Dawn said.

“Then you want my father.” Sati knocked.

In half a moment it opened. There stood a solid but still handsome older man. This was obviously King Belial. “The feast is downstairs,”

he said gruffly.

But Sammy walked right by him, and up to a closed closet door. He sat again, waiting.

“That closet is private,” Belial said.

“But that’s where we have to go,” Jumper said.

“Too bad. The door is locked, and only I know the magic password to open it. Go down to the banquet hall, feast, spend the night if you wish, then go home. There’s nothing for you here.”

“You can’t—” Jumper started.

But Dawn put a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you let Sati give you a tour of the grounds while I reason with Belial? Perhaps I can persuade him of the logic of our case.”

Jumper was about to protest, uncertain what kind of persuasion she had in mind. But Sati took his arm. “This seems reasonable,” she murmured. “We have marvelous sights to show off.” She guided him out the bedroom door.

Jumper glanced back. That was one of the awkward things about this human form: he couldn’t see behind him without turning his head, so that everyone knew what he was looking at. Dawn was also taking the king by the arm and guiding him toward the bed. She was going to show him her bra, or worse!

Sati didn’t take Jumper outside, but to her own bedroom suite. “You know I can’t let you go without indulging in some intimate dialogue,”

she said, closing the door behind them.

“But we aren’t even at our destination,” he protested. “This is just a stop along the way.”

“A pleasant stop,” she agreed, stepping out of her clothes. Which was surely what Dawn was doing with the king. Well, when push came to shove, he realized that Dawn was a princess, and of an age to do what she liked. She wanted to have her share of the free fun the dream realm offered, if only to match what her sister had done.

“You pause to think too much,” Sharon said, pulling him close to her. “It slows the narrative.” He discovered that his silk shorts were off; she must have removed them during his distraction. They landed together on her bed. Then the rest of the dream realm faded out of his awareness as he became lost in the ever new and exciting wonder of her eager body. How he wished that such an affair could be real, instead of just a diversion to

prevent him from completing his mission! She was such a fine woman, even if she wasn’t really a woman, but a De mon ess. She had said that she wanted to make him fall in love with her, so that he would give up the mission to win her return love. But a De mon ess couldn’t truly love, so his wish was foolish. Even so, he was well on the way to that folly.

“A punny for your thoughts,” she said as they lay surfeit for the moment.

“What?”

“Did you hear the one about the quarter pounder? It’s a sledgehammer used to pound quarters.”

“Who would want to pound residential quarters?” he asked, perplexed. She laughed. “Oh, Dawn is right! You are such a delight.”

Then he realized that it was her pun. He had walked right into it, and now was required to share his thoughts.

He sighed. The human form was good for that. “I was wishing for the impossible.”

“That I would love you for real, instead of in pretense?”

“Yes.”

“Let me tell you something, Jumper. There are fundamental laws of magic that apply even to Demons. One is the rule of marriage. When a mortal marries a D/demon— that is, capped or not— half the mortal’s soul goes to the demon. That changes the nature of the demon so that she develops a conscience, and is capable of love.”

He stared at her. “If you married me—”

“My love for you would become real. I would be constrained by the same ethical guidelines as a mortal woman, though I would remain immortal. Your wish would be granted.”

He was amazed. “Then—”

“All you need to do is marry me.”

Then he saw the catch. “But of course you would never do that. It would be too limiting for you.”

“Jumper, if that’s what it takes to stop your mission, I’ll do it. All you have to do is ask me.”

“Ask you?”

“To marry you. In return for abandoning your mission.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Too bad. If you married me, not only would I be perpetually loyal to you, I’d do it with you every day. Every hour, if you chose.”

“Do it?” he asked blankly.

“This.” She took hold of him and led him into another fantastic sequence of lovemaking.

“But I’m a spider!” he protested when he recovered his breath after the siege.

“And I’m a shape changer.” Suddenly she was a giant spider. “I am your best match, Jumper. For a price.”

She was indeed. But he refused to pay her price. “I won’t ask you,”

he said.

She reverted to sexy human form. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”