“Just as well,” said Asil. “No one seems to have reacted to your first shot. If you’d kept going, someone would call the police.”
“Tami is dead,” said Joshua. “Don’t we have to call the police?”
* * *
—
“I was just driving by,” Asil told the fireman. “I saw smoke. That boy—Joshua—he had his sisters out already. I just helped him find his mother.”
The blaze had been going well by the time the first responders showed up. They would find that the fire started in the basement, that the old electrical system sparked something flammable. Every fireman understood that a hoarder’s home was a fire waiting to happen.
With all of the occupants accounted for, no one would be looking for another person to be in the house anyway. Even if they looked, they would not find a trace of Tami or the wyrm, because wyrm flesh, enriched with magic, burned more than hot enough to turn the witch’s body—bone, teeth, and flesh—to ash. At most they would find a place where the fire had burned hotter than usual.
As for Tami’s sudden disappearance—Asil would call upon the Marrok, and they would smooth it over one way or the other—a new boyfriend, a new job, an unexpected opportunity. Asil was not worried about that part of it.
A black witch and a wyrm, both evil creatures, had been eliminated. A family—Asil looked over to where Joshua and his sisters, all wrapped in blankets, were talking to the EMTs who were securing Helen to a stretcher—reunited.
Inshallah.
* * *
—
That night, in his hotel room, Asil opened his laptop and sent an email.
Dear Concerned Friends,
We should talk about the “no dead bodies” clause in our game. Does it count if, by the end of the date, the dead bodies are eliminated? Also, I do not feel that we have the same understanding about the meaning of the words background check.
Sincerely,
Asil
PS I preferred the cat lady.
IN THE DUST
ROBERT E. HAMPSON
“Three . . . two . . . one. Ready or not, here I come.” Winnie thought he had the perfect hiding place but looked up in annoyance as one of his classmates squeezed in next to him. “This is my hiding place,” he hissed.
Jenny just giggled. She did that a lot.
“Quiet. You’ll give us away,” he whispered. “Why’d you have to come in here, anyway?” He was pretty sure he muttered that last part too quietly to be heard, but Jenny giggled again and he heard the sound of footsteps coming closer.
The dark alcove was barely deep enough to hold one person, and Jenny squeezed in tighter. Winnie was eight and Jenny was seven and a half. That half year was important, and he thought of her as just a kid. She didn’t seem to think so, and had an annoying tendency to follow him around. Like now.
Jenny squeezed past him to the back of the alcove. Although her movements were quiet, her squirming around threatened to push him out into view of nine-and-a-half-year-old Chris, who was Seeker this round. His elbow bumped something, and he stifled a shout over the tingling pain shooting down his arm.
The game temporarily forgotten, he turned to examine the wall and the strange projection. A door! It was some sort of hatch, and there was a large lever instead of a conventional handle or doorknob. He pushed on the lever and there was a loud metal-on-metal scraping sound.
“A-HA!” Chris was standing in the hallway, blocking the alcove. “Caught you.”
Jenny quickly kissed Winnie on the cheek, then ducked low and ran under the older boy’s arm. Once in the hallway, she ran straight for the fire hose cabinet that they were using for home base. “Olly Olly Oxenfree!”
Darn it.
The older boy reached out and punched Winnie roughly in the shoulder. “Tag. You’re it.”
* * *
—
“Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to open a door until you know what’s on the other side?” Jenny was tagging along. Again. Sometimes it was annoying, but he had to