Jumper Cable (5 page)

“Outrageous! No one can bleeping censor me!”

But the Censor could. He smiled obscurely and faded out. He was imaginary, but his talent was real, and lingered after his departure, and Hottie’s hottest anatomy remained fogged out. Hottie swore up a storm that threatened to rival the one outside, but she had been effectively nullified. Finally she went to perch sullenly in a corner.

“Thank you, Olive,” Jumper said.

“Just get me safely to the Good Magician.”

“We will certainly try.”

Gene’s male eye wandered to Maeve. She met his gaze and drew her lip back in a pointed-tooth snarl. His eye hastily retreated. They concluded the meal. Then Olive imagined some friends with bodies like cans in skirts, but nice arms and legs, and they did a rousing cancan dance that the men watched avidly. It seemed that they admired the dancers’ ability to lift their legs really high, showing their cans. Jumper had just about given up trying to comprehend the interests of human folk.

The girls went upstairs to their rooms. Jumper was too big to fit on the stairs, so he settled down at their base and closed five or six of his eyes to snooze. He tried never to close all his eyes at one time; a fat bug might escape his notice.

In the night there came a faint scream. Jumper! Help! All eight eyes snapped awake. It was completely dark, but he could see well in darkness. There, coming down the stairs, was a ghost. It looked like a man, carry ing a bundle over his shoulder. It was the bundle that was screaming. Jumper didn’t move, but he inspected the bundle as it passed by one of his eyes. It was Phanta! In her ghost form. She looked the same, just less substantial. That meant the male ghost must be her nemesis, Gheorge, the one who stalked her. Somehow he had caught her in darkness. Jumper knew he had to stop this abduction. But how? The ghosts lacked substance; he couldn’t simply grab them. He followed them as they passed through the wooden door. He had to open it to get out, because he didn’t want to break it down. The storm had cleared and the stars were out. And Phanta was being borne helplessly away. What could he do? He quickly spun a loop of web, whirled it around, and lassoed them. But the web passed through them without effect.

Then he had an idea. He rewound his lasso and hurled it straight up at the sky, very high. It snagged on a star. He hauled the star down. It was really quite bright as it got near the land.

He whirled it around and flung it at the ghosts. Suddenly they were illuminated.

And Phanta reverted to her solid living state. Gheorge had no further power over her. All he could do was slink away into the darkness as the captive star lay guttering on the ground.

“Oh, thank you, Jumper!” Phanta cried, planting a kiss on his mandibles. “You saved me from a fate worse than death!” Her bosom was heaving with excitement.

“Well, I did what I could. But how did you get caught in darkness? I thought you always kept a candle burning.”

“I do. I think he blew it out.”

“He can do that?”

“He must have learned how. He caught me off guard. I would have been lost, but for you. He would never have let me see light again. I’m so grateful!” She kissed him again.

“We’ll have to find a light that can’t be blown out.”

“I’m not sure there is any, in Xanth. Unless I can find a fresh plant bulb.”

“We’ll look for one.”

Jumper hauled up the guttering star, that seemed distinctly unhappy on the ground. He dangled it by his web loop. It was trying to burn through the loop and escape, but the web material melted without ever quite letting go.

“The poor thing,” Phanta said.

“I will free it once we have other light. I don’t want Gheorge Ghost to return for you.”

“That makes sense,” she agreed, shuddering. “One thing about you, Jumper, I know you don’t want to do to me what he wanted to.”

Jumper wasn’t quite sure what she meant, so he didn’t question it. Human beings had their own special ways.

They walked back to the inn, where a light had come on. “What’s out three?” Crater bellowed. He was wearing a nightcap and held a club, ready for trouble.

“Me, Phanta, with Jumper,” Phanta called back.

“You have a thing for spidres?” Crater demanded, surprised. “Or is he tyring to eat you?”

“Not exactly. Gheorge tried to abduct me. Jumper saved me. He’s a great guy.”

“Oh. Well. That’s all irght, then.” He put away the club. They reached the inn. “Now I will free this star,” Jumper said. He whirled it around on the end of his cord, then hurled it back up into the sky. It flared happily as it went, glad to return safely home.

“Bye, star!” Phanta called after it, and it flared again, faintly.

“You did not keep a candle bunring?” Crater asked Phanta.

“I think he blew it out. Candles are no longer safe.”

“So you need to get to the Good Magician soon.”

“Yes. Thank you so much for arranging this, Crater.”

Crater fetched a storm lantern and lit the wick. “Let’s see him blow this out,” he said grimly. “But I’m sruprised a ghost can blow at all.”

“He’s really after me,” Phanta said. “I don’t know why.”

“Because you’er a good-looking wench,” Crater said gruffly. “Why else do you think I have you sevring food?”

“Because your last waitress married a patron and retired to easy living?”

“That too,” he agreed.

“And the one before her quit when someone goosed her?”

“Well, men will be men,” he said, seeming embarrassed. “If any tyr that with you, let me know and I’ll boot them out.”

“No need. They can’t goose me.”

“They can’t?” he asked, surprised.

She smiled. “Try it, Crater.”

“Nuh-uh! You’ve got one cute bottom, but I don’t want you to quit too.”

“I’m departing tomorrow anyway, remember? So you can risk it.”

“Well, if you’er suer.” He reached out and took a hold of her bottom as she closed her eyes. And his hand passed right through it. “Hey!”

“I turned ghost for a moment,” Phanta explained, opening her eyes.

“I can do that by shutting my eyes. I solidify again when I open them.”

“So it seems dark to you,” Jumper said. “But then how can you sleep without becoming a ghost?”

“I do turn ghost then, but I solidify the moment I wake and open my eyes. So it’s safe, as long as there’s a light.”

“I never knew,” Crater said, amazed

“Well, you never tried it.” She smiled obscurely. “Of course I might not have ghosted with you.”

The man blushed, for some reason. “So tarvelers have been tyring it all along?”

“Yes. But I watch them, and blink when they touch. Of course that’s when I’m not holding a dish.”

“That’s why you sometimes dorp dishes! You can’t hang on to them when you’er ghosting.”

“Sorry about that,” she said apologetically.

“And that mug of gorg that landed in that tarveler’s lap— that was why?”

“Yes.”

“He never complained.”

“Because he knew I would tell why, and you would boot him.”

Crater shook his head. “Dran! I wish I could keep you.”

“You’re sweet.”

“But we’re wasting the night,” Crater said. “Back to bed.”

“I think I’ll stay down here with Jumper,” Phanta said. “Just in case Gheorge does find a way to blow out the lantern.”

“As you wish,” Crater agreed, and returned to his room.

“There is much I think I don’t understand,” Jumper said.

“Well, you’re a spider. Your male eyes don’t glaze at this sight of well-filled pan ties.”

“Should they?”

“Here’s the thing, Jumper: when a human man sees a human girl’s pan ties, he freaks out. It’s part of the background magic of Xanth. It happens to a lesser extent when he sees things like Hottie’s bare bosom or a girl’s full bra. But men are so crazy, they actually try to see these things. So we girls show them only as we choose, usually just enough to get their attention without getting them all worked up. When we find a

man we want to keep, we show more, reeling him in. It can be a fine line, and sometimes we misjudge.”

“That’s when they duck you!” he exclaimed.

“Well, close enough,” she agreed, smiling. “They aren’t supposed to goose, but travelers can be uncouth. Fortunately I can prevent them.”

“You said you might not have ghosted with Crater, and he blushed. I don’t understand that either.”

“I was teasing him. The rule is, a man may look but not touch, unless a girl wants him to. He follows that rule. But when I hinted I might want him to, he couldn’t help getting all excited. Men are foolish that way.”

“Would you really let him touch?”

“I might. He’s a good guy. It depends on my mood at the time.”

“Teasing—is this nice?”

She considered. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. Now that I ponder it, I think maybe I shouldn’t have teased him. Especially since I’m leaving.”

“There’s not much to be done about it now.”

A dim blue bulb flashed over her head. Jumper recognized it: not an idea bulb, but a decision bulb. “There you’re wrong. I’m going to go untease him, just for to night. A kind of going away present.”

“Untease?”

“I’m going to let him touch me. He’ll like that.”

“I don’t see how a duck— I mean, goose— would make much of a difference.”

“You wouldn’t,” she said. “This is more than that. I’ll see you in the morning, Jumper. Thanks for everything.” She departed, heading for Crater’s door.

Jumper settled down again for the night, marveling at the obscure ways of human women. He continued to wonder as he heard muted noises coming from Crater’s room. It sounded as though they were wrestling. That made no sense at all.

“And I thought I was hot,” Hottie Harpie said from the corner. Jumper had forgotten she was there. “That’s the one thing I envy full-human girls: their legs.”

“You have legs,” Jumper reminded her.

“Bird legs don’t freak human men.”

He realized that must be true. Maybe some day he would figure out why human legs did.

In the morning they gathered: five maidens and Jumper. Crater packed them a knapsack with food for the journey. He looked surprisingly cheerful, as if he had had an excellent night. Jumper glanced at Phanta with a single eye, but she gave no sign.

“I’ll miss you grils,” Crater said. “I hate having to do all the wrok myself.”

“There will surely be other girls,” Phanta said.

“Not like you.”

“If I didn’t know better,” Olive murmured privately to Jumper, “I’d suspect he was smitten with her. But of course he likes the way she brings in travelers.”

“She does that?” Jumper asked.

“They come from all around to gawk at her skirt.”

This did not match what Hottie had said. “Not her legs?”

For some reason she laughed. “Those too.”

Maybe he was destined never to understand.

“Who carries the pack?” Haughty asked. “I can’t.”

A glance circled around. “I can try,” Wenda said. But when she tried to put it on, it sagged so badly around her hollow back that she couldn’t. Phanta tried it, and it fit reasonably well, but when she blinked it dropped to the ground. It seemed that even the briefest closing of her eyes had the ghost effect. Olive tried it, but turned out not to be strong enough to carry it well. Maeve put it on, and she was strong enough.

“But it’s pretty heavy,” Jumper said. “I might carry it more readily.”

They rigged a harness and fastened it to his back, and Jumper had no trouble carry ing it.

Maeve made an effort. “I’m trying to be girlish, to mask my nature,”

she said. “To thank you for taking the pack, I’ll try to kiss you without biting.” She approached Jumper, put her mouth to his mandible, and jerked her head back just before her teeth snapped together. “Sorry about that. I have not yet conquered my nature.”

They marched out into a beautiful morning. There was a path leading to the enchanted path. It wound through field and forest, o’er hill and dale, past rocks and rills, enjoying the sights as it went. “We’ll be there in another hour,” Haughty said.

Then suddenly there was a blast of thunder. A storm was zooming out from cover behind a large tree.

“F**k!” Haughty swore. “Fracto ambushed us!”

“Flak,” Maeve murmured. “Harpies hate antiaircraft fire.”

The dark cloud spread out in seconds, and lightning flashed. They were about to get drenched, or worse.

“Maybe I can help,” Olive Hue said. “One of my friends has a special talent.”

“Make it fast,” Phanta said. “Fracto means to wash us out.”

A young man appeared. “You look worried, Olive,” he remarked.

“We need protection from Fracto,” Olive said. “We need to get safely to the enchanted path.”

“That’s my specialty,” he agreed. He concentrated.

“This is my imaginary friend Jestin,” Olive said to the others. “He conjures a portable section of an enchanted path.”

“Hello, Jestin,” Phanta said, switching her little skirt about. His eyes started to glaze. There just seemed to be something about that skirt despite its smallness. As it was, it was barely big enough to cover her pan ties.

Olive hastily got between them, blocking off Jestin’s view. “Wait until he finishes the path,” she said urgently.

“Oh.” Phanta toned it down.

The path appeared. It looked ordinary, except that it was undisturbed by the rising wind. They crowded onto it just as the storm let loose half a deluge of rain. The water sluiced away, not touching them. Now Phanta approached Jestin again. “Thank you so much for your help,” she said, kissing him. She could do what Maeve could not: kissing without biting. Then, before she could freak him out, Jestin faded. “We can’t have a distraction,” Olive snapped. “We have to make our way to the permanent enchanted path before this one breaks down from the strain.”

“One might almost suspect that one girl is a tiny bit jealous of her friends,” Haughty murmured.

“Almost,” Jumper agreed.

They followed the path, but soon it ended. Ahead the storm was intensifying, with lightning striking trees and wind battering them, and of course water beginning to flood.

“We pick up the rear section and carry it forward,” Olive said. She put her hands down, and a section of the path came up. She carried it to the front and aligned it with the section they were on. Then they all stepped onto that.