Mything Persons

my apparent acceptance, I pushed ahead with the con-

versation.

"Actually, I'm not too big on night life. I'm trying to

run down an old friend of mine I've lost touch with. Is

there a post office or a police station in Blut I could ask

at?"

38 Robert Asprin

"Better than that," the man laughed. "The one you

want to talk to is the Dispatcher. He keeps tabs on

everybody. The third warehouse on your left as you

enter town. He's converted the whole second floor into

an office. If he can't help you, nobody can."

As vital as the information was, I only paid it partial

attention. When the man laughed, I had gotten a better

look at his mouth. His teeth were....

"Look at his teeth!" the girl gasped, speaking for the

first time.

"My teeth?" I blinked, realizing with a start that she

was staring at me with undisguised astonishment.

Her companion, in the meantime, had paled notice-

ably and was backing away on unsteady legs.

"You ... you're ... Where did you come from?"

Trying my best to maintain a normal manner until I

had figured out what was going on, I moved forward to

keep our earlier conversational distance.

"The castle on the hill back there. I was just...."

"THE CASTLE!?!"

In a flash the couple turned and sprinted away from

me down the road.

"Monster!! Help!! MONSTER!!!"

I actually spun and looked down the road behind me,

trying to spot the object of their terror. Looking at the

empty road, however, it slowly began to sink in. They

were afraid of me\ Monster?

Of all the reactions I had tried to anticipate for our

reception in this new land, I had never in my wildest

imaginings expected this.

Me? A monster?

"I think we've got problems. High Roller," Massha

said as she and Guido emerged from the brush at my

side.

MYTH-ING PERSONS 39

"I'll say. Unless I'm reading the signs all wrong,

they're afraid of me."

She heaved a great sigh and shook her head.

"That's not what I'm talking about. Did you see their

teeth?"

"I saw his," I said."The canines were long and

pointed. Pretty weird, huh?"

"Not all that weird, Hot Stuff. Think about it. My

bet is that you were just talking to a couple of vam-

pires!"

MYTH-ING PERSONS 41

Chapter Five:

"To survive, one must be able to adapt to

changing situations."

—TYRANNOSAURUS REX

"VAMPIRES," I said carefully.

"Sure. It all fits." Massha nodded. "The pale skin,

the sharp fangs, the red eyeliner, the way they turned

into bats...."

"Turned into bats?"

"You missed it. Boss," Guido supplied. "You were

lookin' behind you when they did it. Wildest thing I ever

saw. One second they was runnin' for their lives, and

the next they're flutterin' up into the dark. Are all the

other dimensions like this?"

"Vampires...."

Actually, my shock wasn't all that great. Realizing

the things Aahz and I had run into cruising the so-called

"known and safe" dimensions, I had expected some-

thing a bit out of the ordinary in this one. If anything, I

was a bit relieved. The second shoe had been dropped

... and it really wasn't all that bad! That is, it could

have been worse. (If hanging around with Aahz had

40

taught me anything, it was that things could always be

worse!) The repetitive nature of my conversational bril-

liance was merely a clever ploy to cover my mental ef-

forts to both digest this new bit of information and

decide what to do with it.

"Vampires are rare in any dimension," my appren-

tice replied, stepping into the void to answer Guide's

question. "What's more, they're pretty much feared

universally. What I can't figure out is why those two

were so scared of Skeeve here."

"Then again," I said thoughtfully, "there's the ques-

tion of whether or not we can safely assume the whole

dimension is populated with beings like the two we just

met. I know it's a long shot, but we might have run into

the only two vampires in the place."

"I dunno. High Roller. They acted pretty much at

home here, and they sure didn't think you'd find any-

thing unusual about their appearance. My guess is that

they're the norm and we're the exceptions around

here."

"Whatever," I said, reaching a decision at last,

"they're the only two examples we have to work with so

far, so that's what we'll base our actions on until proven

different."

"So what do we do against a bunch of vampires?"

As a bodyguard, Guido seemed a bit uneasy about

our assessment of the situation.

"Relax," I smiled. "The first order of business is to

turn on the old reliable disguise spell. Just a few quick

touch-ups and they won't be able to tell us apart from

the natives. We could walk through a town of vampires

and they'd never spot us."

With that, I closed my eyes and went to work. Like I

told the staff, this was going to be easy. Maintain

everyone's normal appearance except for paler skin,

42

MYTH-ING PERSONS 43

Robert Asprin

longer canines, and a little artful reddening of the eyes,

and the job was done.

"Okay," I said, opening my eyes again. "What's

next?"

"I don't like to quote you back at yourself. Hot

Stuff," Massha drawled, "but didn't you say something

about disguises being the first thing before we went any

further?"