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giving off a thin wispy smoke. With sheer enjoyment she thrust it under the
demons nose. He twisted and turned, but Mac's powerful
'
grip held him now.
At the first whiff he recoiled; his voice became a strangled whisper, a
whimper almost. "Take it away! he pleaded. "Take it away! I'll do it! The
jewel is yours!
"
"
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Walters smiled and gestured to Oona to remove the bowl.
"Five seconds," the man from another world toldhim. "You have five seconds to
tell me where the jewel is. Otherwise I walk out of here and leave the two of
you alone for the day!"
Balthazar was only too anxious. There's a pouch-a skin flap, a cavity between
my genitals and
"
my ass! It's in there!"
So that was it! Walters spread the demon on the floor and got a good wrestling
position on him despite his bonds. He reached down, felt around, and found the
pouch. It took a little doing to haul the jewel out, but he managed it.
The jewel looked just like Mogarts.
'
Mac released the demon.,"One thing I don't understand," he said to him. "If
you had it all the time, why didn't you use it?
"
"I-I would have," the demon admitted, "but that would have taken some
twisting with these bonds, and I didn't see the need. There would be time,
later, when I would be alone and would not have to betray the location to you.
"
Oona looked pleased but confused. Mac turned to face her. Oona, I wish I could
help you, at
"
least tell you what I have to do now-but there's no way."
She couldn't understand a word of what he was say-ing, but
something in his tone and
expression got through.
"Dend not Dend," he told her. "Dend come back, no remember Oona."
She seemed to understand, although there was a tear or two in her eyes. In her
own terms, he was a spirit in Dend's body, an enemy spirit to that of the
witch doctor; and now he had won, now he had to go.
He smiled compassionately and kissed her lightly on the forehead, then turned
to go.
"
Hey! Mogart man! Untie me! I have kept my end of the bargain!" the demon
shouted anxiously.
"You cant leave me here with
'
her!"
Mac Walters turned, and a strange look appeared on his primitive face.
"No break law," he responded in the language of these people. No law for Dend
break."
"
Dona started laughing, laughing deep and hard, as she reached over to the bowl
and glowing ember.
The screams of. the demon and the almost unholy laughter would scare
the hell out of any searchers below rather than attract them. And even if
they were brave enough to investigate, hell, theyd probably love to watch the
bastard squirm.
'
The sun was just coming up over the canyon wall, and Mac felt its warmth start
to bathe the cold canyon walls and glisten off the slow, lazy river below.
He sighed and gripped the jewel tightly in his right hand.
"Take me to Asmodeus Mogart! he commanded. The bright sun, the warmth, and
the canyon
"
vanished.
Main Line +2076
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THE BAR APPEARED MUCH AS HED LEFT IT. THE PEOPLE had changed
position
'
slightly; the bartender was starting to pour a beer that would take a long,
long time to reach the glass, but that was about it.
Mac Walters turned but didn't leave the chalk pentagram on the floor. He
spotted Mogart at a bar stool nursing a large and barely diluted Scotch.
"
Hey! Mogart! I got your damned jewel! he called
Mogart jumped, slightly startled, then turned slowly lifting his head to
see the source of the commotion.
"Wa-Waltersh! he called, suddenly remembering who the man was.
"
Mac Walters held up the jewel and tossed it to Mogart. Drunk as the demon
obviously was, he nonetheless caught it and looked at it wonderingly. "Be
damned, Mogart muttered. "That makes
"
three!"
Walters' eyebrows went up. "Three? Then the girl got one?" He should have been
elated, but it kind of hurt his male ego to have been beaten to the punch.
Maybe she had a faster time line, he consoled himself.
Mogart stood up and struggled uncertainly over to the pentagram.
"You shertainly took yer time," he accused.
Walters felt his sense of victory deflate and looked at the clock. They'd left
at-what? Six-fifteen or so. It was now almost nine o'clock.
The big man sighed. "Well, let's get me to the next one as fast as we can,
huh?"
Mogart stepped into the pentagram. Up, up, and away!" he shouted.
"
Both vanished from the bar that had not seen them in the first place. To those
inside, less than a tenth of a second had passed from Walters' appearance to
his disappearance. Time moved very,
very slowly in the bar at Mogarts time rate, the fastest he could exist at and
still be able to get the
'
booze and translate it to his time speed.
But time still moved.
Main Line +1302 Makiva
1
"
AN EASY ONE THIS TIME, ALTHOUGH DEADLY DANGEROUS," Asmodeus Mogart told
Jill McCulloch as they materialized around a city street scene-or,
to be more correct, the scene materialized around them. It was chilly and
damp, not at all what she'd been used to. She shivered.
"Let's get on with this," she urged him. "I'm freez-ing to death!"
He grinned and motioned her to follow him.
It was another primitive world-non-industrial, any-way-but obviously a
lot more culturally advanced and cosmopolitan than the world of the Holy
Spirit. Still, the men in robes and cloaks and hoods and the women in similar
garb reminded her of her previous experiences. "No gods from the sky punishing
sinners around here, are there?" she asked hopefully.
Mogart chuckled. "Oh, no. None of that. Gods and devils and spirits and spells
galore, but no all-knowing, all-seeing being or system that I know of. You can
lie and cheat and steal-even kill-to your heart's content here, subject only
to the same thing we are used to: don't get caught."
She passed on responding to his cynical view of crime and instead
pressed him for more concrete in-formation. "Why was this world set up, and
what're the details?
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"
Mogart stopped in the middle of a busy street, allowing pedestrians and
occasional horses and oxen-pulled carts to go through him. She was almost as
blase as he by this point and didn't let it bother her.
"Makiva is one of about a hundred or so planes set up with differing rules of
magic, he told
"
her. "Most of the worlds below the two-thousand mark are basically
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