Haughty Harpy arrived. “Who would have thunk it,” she said, her gaze covering landscape and castle.
Jumper explained the situation.
Maeve appeared. They caught her up on things. “How about some clothing?” she asked.
They explored the bedroom area of the castle, and discovered a number of royal robes, evidently set up for the handsome prince the De mon ess hoped some day to marry. Maeve tried one on, and it fit her perfectly, being gender neutral or, more likely, a magic gown. “I’m beautiful!” she exclaimed, surprised, as she gazed in a wall-sized mirror. She was correct.
Wenda came. “Ooo, I want one too!” she exclaimed when she saw Maeve, though she was clothed. “Have yew another?” Soon she too was breathtakingly lovely in a royal gown.
And finally Dawn appeared. She immediately knew the situation the moment she touched Jumper. “Well, we’ll see,” she said. Soon they were all gathered in the castle’s family room. The girls were richly garbed, stunningly fair, for they had not only dressed, they 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 244 244
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had washed their faces and done their hair. But Dawn was noticeably fairer than the others, including her sister. Jumper realized that this was not accidental. Dawn, not Eve, was the one who might have considered marrying the Demon. Except that it had turned out to be a De mon ess. Jumper wasn’t sure what was going on in either of their minds. There was a silence. Jumper realized that someone had to conduct the negotiation, and he, being neither girl nor De mon ess, seemed to be the one. He opened his mouth— and was overtaken by a pause. For there before him stood Sharon. She was breathtakingly beautiful, fully equivalent to the others.
“What are you doing here?” Jumper demanded.
“I believe I belong in this number,” she said. “And I may have something to contribute.”
Now Eris showed some emotion. “You betrayed me, foul creature!”
“And was in turn betrayed,” Sharon responded.
“That surely served you right.”
“Aren’t you curious about the details?”
“No.” For she was a De mon ess, and the details could not relate to any acquisition of power on her part.
“But we are,” Haughty said. She too had donned a bit of costume: a scintillating tiara. “You have been serving Pluto. What could have changed your mind, you scheming h*ssy?”
“I am a schemer,” Sharon agreed. “It comes with the condition of being female.” She looked around, and only Wenda shook her head in denial. She had not yet had enough experience as a whole woman to properly develop that trait.
“Get on with it,” Haughty snapped.
“I am Charon’s sister, and was Pluto’s lover. I did Pluto’s bidding, in the hope that in time he would marry me. I enabled him to achieve promotion to full Demon status. But then he married that mortal upstart Persephone.” She frowned. “A mortal! Can you believe it?”
“Actually, yes,” Dawn said. “It seems Demons have a taste for mortal princesses.”
“She was no princess!”
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“She was the equivalent,” Dawn said. “She was the daughter of a god, and beautiful. What more could any male ask?”
“A De mon ess!”
“Are you, or have you ever been, innocent?”
“Of course not! No De mon ess is or ever was.”
“As a mortal Persephone surely was. That appeals also.”
“Oh, damn, you’re right,” Sharon said, realizing. As an un-innocent De mon ess she wasn’t bound by limitations of vocabulary, and could utter uncensored words.
“But didn’t that happen a century or more ago?” Jumper asked.
“Yes. She married him when he achieved full Demon status, and backdated the historic references. And I, fool that I was, helped him achieve it.”
“You know,” Haughty said, “Sharon has a case. She is a woman scorned, like the rest of you.”
“But why did you help him against us?” Jumper demanded. “You should have been on our side.”
“I should have been,” she agreed. “Especially since I found another male I could respect. But I was in denial about Pluto. I clung to the illusion that if he ever tired of Persephone, he would take me. So I helped him again— or tried to.” She shook her head. “How wrong I was!”
Jumper was stunned. She had found another male? Wasn’t he the only new one she had met?
“Wrong?” Haughty asked.
“He didn’t dump Persephone,” Sharon said angrily. “She dumped him. When he was demoted back to Dwarf Demon status. And he still didn’t take me. He has found another woman. Another mortal. Another princess. That’s the final outrage. I’ll never help him again.”
“Who?” Haughty asked.
“I don’t know. Only that it happened very recently. Someone he met in a dream.”
Eve swooned. Fortunately Olive and Phanta, standing on either side of her, caught her before she hit the floor.
Only Dawn seemed not entirely surprised. “Snap out of it, you faker!
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Why are you trying to promote my assistance to the De mon ess Eris?”
she demanded.
“So you wouldn’t try to steal my boyfriend— again,” Eve said, recovering swiftly. “Or at least, the one I’m interested in.”
“And who is that?”
“The Demon Pluto.”
“So you’re the one!” Sharon said, outraged. “I should have suspected.”
“I didn’t think I had a chance,” Eve confessed. “But I had to try.”
“And it seems you succeeded,” Dawn said. “That must have been some session with the Centaur King.”
“It was.”
“And you
were pretending to be one of the Furious D*msels,”
Jumper said indignantly. “When you had already used your wiles to corrupt him.”
“I didn’t think I succeeded,” Eve said. “So I was angry too.”
“So there you have it,” Sharon said. “I’m in the same corset the rest of you are. Except for her.” She shot a venomous glance at Eve. Fortunately the venom froze, bounced off Eve’s face, and dropped to the floor with a glasslike tinkle.
“So why should you help us?” Dawn asked.
“Two reasons. Vengeance. And vengeance.”
“I think I get the first,” Dawn said. “But I don’t understand the second.”
“The first is the why of it. The second is the how.”
“The how?”
“Eve will see your mission through. That will thoroughly embarrass Pluto.”
“But why?” Haughty asked. “Isn’t Eve changing sides, which will ruin the mission?”
“Of course I’m not changing sides,” Eve snapped. “I agreed to see the mission through, and I will do it. I will marry him only after the mission is complete.”
“See?” Sharon asked. “She is going to bring him more pain than I ever could.”
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“But won’t he dump her, then?” Jumper asked.
“It is a matter of dominance,” Eve said. “I will marry him on my terms or not at all.”
Sharon nodded. “I am almost beginning to like you, you shameless feminist.”
“So what will you do?” Dawn asked Sharon.
“I have discovered my own mortal interest.”
“Who?”
“Jumper.”
Now Jumper almost swooned. She really did like him! But could he trust her? This could be another devious ploy. Dawn shook her head. “If only we could trust Demons.”
“You could if you married us.”
“Not before the mission is complete.”
“So let’s get that mission completed,” Eris said. “I have no interest there;
I want only to escape confinement.”
Dawn turned a meltingly brilliant smile on her. “You have only to finish the Prophecy so we can complete our mission. And resolve the situation of my companions. Then in gratitude I will bamboozle a prince to marry you and make your next half century miserable.”
“You are making two demands?” Eris asked. “Mission and friends? You are entitled to only one.”
“Really? I must have miscounted. In that case, I shall have to look for someone else to oblige.” She turned as if about to depart, in the pro cess showing a fine silhouette as her gown flared.
“She’s good,” Sharon murmured.
“Wait!” Eris said desperately. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t honor two.”
“Oh?” Dawn turned back. This time her gown caught the light behind her, becoming halfway translucent, so that her bra and pan ties blurrily showed. Jumper’s breath caught as he fought down a blurry freak, and Button Ghost, in the direct line of sight, froze in place for a full moment.
“Really good,” Sharon said.
“What do your companions require?” Eris asked.
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interested in them, even granting them favors they would not have in waking life, only to later discover that these were not individual men but aspects of the Demon Pluto. So their romances were fraudulent throughout. They are embarrassed, humiliated, and most annoyed.”
“Why?”
“Once you get half a prince’s soul, you won’t have to ask that question. But for now I’ll explain that girls prefer to lend their favors only to the men they truly respect or love, and betrayal feels to them a bit like losing a Demon bet.”
Eris fell back as if suffering a severe jolt of pain. “Now I understand.”
“Since it was a Demon who caused this outrage, we feel that it will require the power of another Demon to abate it.”
“That is rational,” Eris agreed. “How should it be accomplished?”
Dawn turned to Jumper. “I think this is your area of expertise. What program can you recommend?”
Jumper was set back almost as forcefully as he had been by her blurred silhouette flash. He had no idea how to fix false love. “Uh—”
“Do you want my help?” Sharon murmured.
She could help? “Yes!”
“What do you offer in return?”
“What do you want?”
“Forgiveness.”
“For what?”
“For deceiving you before about my interest in you.”
“Are you interested in me now?”
“Yes, as I said.”
“I mean, why are you interested now, when you were faking it before?”
“When Pluto dumped me, I realized that he was a lying male who had played me along without ever intending to get serious. I also realized that you are an honest male. You would not lie to me. I can trust you. I like that. You have other qualities to recommend you, as did your ancestor Jumper, but that was the turning point.”
“You trust him?” Eris asked, surprised.
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“Yes. He’s not like me.”
“So it seems.” Was Eris actually impressed? Why? But Jumper had a more immediate question. “How can I believe you?”
“I said that before too: marry me.”
“Not before I complete the mission.”
She nodded. “You have always been open about that. So here’s the deal. Marriage after. Forgiveness before.”
That seemed to make sense. “I forgive you.” And he did, for she was right about his weakness: he could not tell a lie. And he did like her, and wanted to be with her, despite her nature. Despite knowing better. She kissed him on the cheek. Then she spoke in a low tone that only he could hear. “I happen to know something about the mechanism Pluto used to invoke those men. They are not pure inventions; he lacks the imagination. They are takes on living men whose details are as represented. They were put into sleep and summoned to the communal dream, where they interacted with your girls. I think the men are quite taken with the girls, but they believe they are merely dream girls.”
Jumper looked at her. “Can we reach those men?”
“Eris can. She can trace the connections Pluto made, and locate them, and conjure them here. The rest would be up to your girls.”
“They will be able to handle it,” he said.
“But there needs to be a framework for interaction. It’s the human way; I have observed it over the centuries. A ball, perhaps.”
“They would play with a ball?”
She smiled. “A fancy dance. Dawn can surely or ga nize that.”
“Thank you.”
“A kiss would convey the sentiment better.”
Oh. He started to take her into his arms, awkwardly. Then it became supremely un-awkward as she melted into his embrace and kissed him with the kind of passion he had not experienced since— since Phanta, not long ago. She was being the woman she could be, and that was a great deal of woman.
After he caught his breath and equilibrium, he addressed Eris, who had waited with Demonic patience. “Trace down and conjure here the 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 250 250
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six— no, the five men who dated Wenda, Maeve, Olive, Phanta, and Eve in our dreams. Provide suitable clothing for them so they can attend the ball without embarrassment.”
“Delete mine,” Eve said. “My interest is not in the centaur, but in the one who governed him.”
Oh. “The four.”
“That will take four moments.”
But in half a moment someone else appeared. This was an old, crooked, but still spry man carry ing a long staff or pole.
“Charon!” Sharon exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“Fetching you away from here, little sister,” Charon said. “You must not serve the interest of any Demon but Pluto.”
“You can’t tell me what to do!” Sharon protested.
“We shall see.” Charon faced her, raising his staff. A horrible power emanated from it.
Sharon shrank back, evidently knowing and fearing that power. Jumper thought he should do something, but he had no idea what. If Pluto was a Dwarf Demon, Charon was a Mini-Demon, but still way beyond anything Jumper could handle.
Then Haughty flew across the chamber, converting to Hottie. She smacked into Charon, kiss first. It was so hot that wisps of steam curled up from the contact.
The Demon stepped back, but Hottie stayed with him, her kiss heating into smokiness. Little hearts . . . no, planets . . . no, coins orbited their heads.
Charon backed into an ice wall, which started to melt, but Hottie continued to kiss him. Jumper doubted he had been kissed so hotly in centuries.
Finally he managed to break it off. “All right!” he gasped. “You win.” He cast aside his staff and transformed into a male harpy. It seemed he was another shape changer, like his sister. The two harpies flew up to a rafter and perched. Then they settled into some serious necking, making feathers fly.
“She saved me,” Sharon breathed. “He would have sent me across the Styx.”
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“His stick is on the floor,” Jumper said. “Are there other sticks?”
She gazed at him. “And that is what I like most about you: your innocence. No, the Styx is the river that borders Hades, Pluto’s domain. Now let’s see to the ball.”
They returned their attention to the preparations. The several moments had evidently passed, and there were four men standing in the hall, looking slightly baffled. Jumper recognized them: Warren Warrior, Prince Charming, Dick Philip, and Shepherd. Maeve was talking to Warren, Wenda to Charming, Olive to Dick Philip, and Phanta with Shepherd, explainin
g the situation. When the men started kissing the girls, Jumper knew it was working out. Eris had succeeded in meeting Eve’s second demand.
Only Eve stood apart, lovely but alone.
One more man appeared, stout and strong with a vaguely doglike visage. “The Demon Pluto himself!” Sharon whispered ner vous ly. “He can be a real canine when crossed.”
“Who has interfered with my minion Charon?” Pluto growled peremptorily.
“I did, you t**d from h**l!” Haughty screeched from the rafter. He whirled on her, sighting up as if aiming a rifle, not that such things existed in Xanth. “You, birdbrain?”
“Me, you s*n of a b**ch!” she screeched back. “He’s not your minion anymore.”
Pluto swelled up like a fire from the netherworld.
“Well, now, impostor,” Eris said.
The fire evaporated. “You!”
“You have wandered into my temporary domain,” Eris said. “You have no power here, traitor. Begone, like the treasonous cur you are.”
Eve looked pained. “Please,” she said.
Dawn picked up on it immediately. “Eris, for the sake of the deal we are making,” she said. “Can’t we have a truce, at least for the ball?”
Meanwhile Eve was taking Pluto’s hand. “We are having a party here. I would appreciate it if you joined in. Please make a temporary truce with Eris.”
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turning to display their charms. The Demon slowly melted, and the De mon ess reluctantly yielded. Now Jumper saw that there was nothing incidental in the way Eve addressed Pluto. When she moved, parts of her body showed, seemingly by accident, and her mannerisms were those of a girl desperately in love with the man she addressed. All the seductive devices the girls had discovered and practiced were being subtly focused on the Demon. Nothing was being wasted. What a display! She was absolutely lovely, and worse, sexy.
It was working too. Pluto was not freaking out, but his attention was riveted. Eve was Seduction Incarnate. No man could have withstood the sheer force of her appeal, and it seemed no Demon either. She was invoking his most ardent desire. A soulless Demon might not be capable of love, but he could be aroused. Pluto wanted her. Desperately.