Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money. I'm just playing.
Shadow Puppets
Chapter 6
"Good morning, sunshine!"
Lester woke to the sound of Bobby's cheerful voice next to his bed. He kept his eyes firmly closed as he answered. "What time is it?"
"Time to get up. Your date is here early."
His eyes snapped open at that and he squinted at the clock that sat beside his bed in the fourth floor apartment. "What? I'm not due to pick her up until eleven. I have hours."
Bobby gave him a wide grin. "Alas, she was too excited to wait. She's in conference room three and she's all packed and ready for you."
Lester pulled his pillow over his head. "Just shoot me."
"Oh no. This is way more fun. You have thirty minutes to shower and dress before I send her to come and find you."
Bobby closed the door behind him just before the pillow hit it.
o0o o0o o0o
Hal shot out of conference room three as soon as Lester opened the door.
"She's all yours, man," he called down the corridor behind him. "Keep your back against the wall."
Lester tamped down the urge to flee as well and pasted a smile onto his face. "Good morning, Mrs Mazur."
Edna was bouncing on her seat with suppressed excitement. "Call me Edna, please. Now that we're going to be partners and all."
Lester winced slightly. "I thought I was supposed to be picking you up on the way to the airport?"
"Ellen thought I should come here early in case anything came up. She said you might have a proper range for me to practice in too. I don't know what she's so uptight about, I was doing great with the bottles on the front fence. I'd hit nearly half those suckers already. It was just bad luck about that car going past. Could have happened to anyone."
o0o o0o o0o
Edna deliberately lagged behind Lester to admire the view as he carried their bags towards the small Cessna.
After a couple of steps he realized that she wasn't with him and turned back. "Coming?"
"Not in years," she sighed.
He froze for a second before assuming a suitably blank face and fishing for a safe subject. "Ever flown in a light aircraft before?"
"No, always commercial. This is going to be something to tell the girls at the Clip 'n' Curl, I can tell you. Flying lessons with a hot young stud."
"Lessons?" Lester's voice carried a note of suppressed panic. "Who said anything about lessons?"
"Well, I had hoped that, since it was just the two of us, there might be a chance for me to learn. It might be useful in case we have to fight our way out."
"No. No can do, absolutely not. And there will be no fighting. We're interviewing the representative of a very reputable coven, not planning an assault."
"Even so, I've got your back, soldier."
Lester whimpered under his breath and concentrated on loading the bags into the plane.
o0o o0o o0o
They arrived at Dane County airport, Wisconsin in the early evening and took a rental car to the hotel that Bobby had booked for them.
"Two rooms for RangeMan?" Lester flashed a smile at the middle-aged motel receptionist and watched her flush and drop her pen as she checked the name in the register.
"You have two rooms next to each other on the first floor, Mr Santos." She handed a key to Lester and another one to Edna. "Dinner is available in the restaurant from six onwards, or there are other places locally that you can try."
"Is there room service?" Edna asked.
"The menu is in your room."
As Lester carried their bags to the rooms, Edna yawned and stretched. "You know, I'm not so young as I used to be, and the flying really took it out of me. I think I'll order room service and have an early night. Is that okay with you?"
"Fine," Lester said immediately, offering thanks to any deity that would listen. "You get plenty of rest and I'll see you at breakfast. Eight o'clock?"
"Sounds good." Edna disappeared into her room and closed the door behind her.
Freed from the responsibility of grandma-sitting, Lester went into his own room and showered quickly before heading out to check out the local possibilities for female company.
o0o o0o o0o
At midnight he was staggering back towards the hotel with a giggling blonde – Tina? Trina? Something like that – when he caught sight of a familiar looking shape through the window of a small bar.
"Wait!" He caught his companion's hand and pulled her to a stop. "I just need to check something out."
He moved close to the window and watched as a slightly hunched figure with tight gray sausage curls put her hand on the thigh of the elderly man sitting next to her and whispered something in his ear.
"Damn it, Grandma," he muttered, "I thought you were having an early night."
As he continued to watch, his companion forgotten, the man pulled a little bottle of pills out of his breast pocket and shook it. Edna's hand crept a little further up his thigh and Lester closed his eyes before he saw something that might scar his mind forever.
"Jesus. Steph's going to kill me if she finds out Grandma's out getting laid," he said to the glass in front of him.
"You're supposed to be watching your grandma?" Tina or Trina asked. "And who's Steph? Man, you worm. Fancy sneaking out on your grandma to go to a bar. Shithead."
She stormed away up the street, tottering on her high heels.
"Tina, wait!"
"That's Lena, you asshole!"
Lester stood on the street sadly watching her depart before skulking back to his hotel room alone and trying to get some sleep.
His night was complete when he was woken by giggles in the corridor and the sound of a key in Edna's door.
He put his pillow over his head and tried to ignore the giggles and the occasional thump coming from the room next to his, until he finally fell asleep. Alone.
o0o o0o o0o
Edna came down to breakfast with her wrinkled conquest, whom she introduced as Terry.
Lester concentrated on his bacon and fantasized about different ways of killing Bobby for getting out of this job as he tried to ignore them feeding each other pieces of toast and murmuring to each other.
He listened incredulously as Edna solemnly informed Terry that they were on a mission of life and death importance and her life didn't lend itself to relationships. At one point he tried to catch her eye to warn her to knock it off, but she cheerfully ignored him.
Finally Terry said his goodbyes and left Lester and Edna sitting alone at their table.
Lester glared at her. "Early night, huh?"
She grinned back unrepentantly. "He's mine, he just doesn't know it yet. Let's see the local women beat that."
"Mrs M, we're a thousand miles from home."
"Young man, when you're my age, you'd go a thousand miles for a chance at a live one, too. When this is all over, I'm coming back to claim my prize."
"Sounds like there was plenty of claiming going on last night." He wasn't jealous. Of course not. Just sleep deprived. Nope, not jealous of the seniors from hell at all.
A satisfied look spread across her face and she stretched in a way that might have been luxurious in a woman forty years younger. In her case, something clicked audibly in her back as she extended, making her wince and drop back into her normal, slightly hunched, outline.
"Don't get old," she muttered. "The golden years are a bitch."
o0o o0o o0o
After breakfast they drove down to the place where they had arranged to meet their contact.
The visitors' centre in the forest park was quaintly rustic and designed to appeal to tourists, but served reasonable coffee.
"So who are we waiting for?" Edna asked as they nursed drinks in the half-empty café area.
"Her name's Donna, and she's the representative of a fairly open local coven. Bobby found them through an old military contact who had dealings with Circle when they went through all that business getting Wicca recognised as a religion for military burials. Now, when she gets here, leave the talking to me, you hear?"
"Of course," Edna replied blandly.
Lester looked at her suspiciously. "I mean it."
"I wouldn't dream of interfering," Edna assured him, with a face so open that it went right through honest and out the other side all the way back to suspicious.
"Never trust little old ladies with honest faces, didn't you know that?" A tall woman with long brunette hair in a no-nonsense braid sat down at their table. "I'm Donna. Are you Lester?"
"The same. This honest looking lady is Edna, and, trust me, I don't trust her as far as I can throw her." He looked straight at Edna. "Which could be a long way."
Edna just winked at him. Lester tried to ignore a sense of impending doom and chose instead to concentrate on the new arrival.
He wasn't sure if he was encouraged or not. She looked absolutely normal. Fresh-faced, no make up, jeans, tee-shirt, and walking boots covered with mud. A stray leaf clung to the end of her braid.
"As you can see, no black cats, no pointy hats, no bat-shaped earrings," she said dryly. "You look like you don't know what to think now."
"Oh, I know what to think." He turned on his lazy smile, the one that never failed when he put it to serious use. Time to turn on the Santos charm that guaranteed full co-operation every time. And in every way.
Her wry smile softened and she visibly bloomed under his appreciative gaze. Direct hit.
"Can you turn people into frogs?"
And there it was. The Edna-shaped sleeper on the railroad track of seduction. Lester cursed Edna silently as Donna stifled a laugh and shifted her attention to his unwanted sidekick. "No, I can't. No–one can."
"How about other things? Trees? Statues? Muppets?"
"No, no and no. Not unless I have a multi-million dollar special effects budget, anyway. I could maybe make someone think they were one of those things if I didn't know better. Just as harmful in its own way. But most curses tend to involve things like erectile dysfunction, loss of hair, sores or hives."
His attention snapped back to the job. It might not have been the way he would have asked, but Edna had gone straight to the point and gotten answers. Wretched woman.
"Know better?" he prompted.
"Ever hear of the rule of three?"
"Three little pigs, three billy goats gruff, three wishes?"
"No. Put the fairy tales back in the book; they won't help you here. I'm talking about the rule that says that anything you do using witchcraft, you'll get back threefold. Now first of all, understand that my coven is strictly white magic so we would never do a casting intending harm in the first place. But, theoretically speaking, if I did a casting to, say, give a love rival hives, I'd better get the calamine lotion in for myself first."
"Do you do all your rituals naked?" Edna was sitting forward and vibrating with excitement.
While wanting to quietly strangle Edna, Lester was also interested in Donna's answer. He leaned forward, waiting for her response and picturing the scene.
Donna caught Lester's stare and flushed slightly. "A lot of people like to work sky clad, but it isn't obligatory."
"I could do that. I wouldn't mind."
And there it was again. A naked Edna invaded his mind's eye and sat there front and center. Grinning at him. He sighed inwardly; where was brain bleach when you needed it? Much more time in Edna's company and he was going to need therapy.
"Can I ask you about black magic?" he asked cautiously. "It's important."
Donna's brow furrowed slightly. "I'll answer as honestly as I can, but I won't teach you enough to do it."
"Trust me, this is strictly a rescue mission. We need to break a curse, not make one."
"Then ask. I've broken plenty of curses."
"Can anyone turn people into other things? Say black witches, or maybe demon worshippers or voodoo priests?"
"Not as far as I know. Look, I think you need to tell me exactly what your problem actually is."
"You might not believe us."
"Try me," she challenged.
"Two of our friends have been turned into muppets, we think by a curse."
Donna stared at him for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. Heads turned towards them from the other tables.
"As far as I know, Jim Henson is neither a witch, a demon worshipper or a vodoun practitioner. You two need a Hollywood agent, not a witch, but thanks for the laugh. You just made my week."
She got up and walked out of the visitors' centre, still laughing and shaking her head.
Lester and Edna looked at each other.
"Fuck," Lester said. "Now what?"
o0o o0o o0o
They reviewed their options that evening at a steakhouse down the road from the hotel.
Lester tried not to watch Edna working pieces of steak out from behind her dentures with her tongue as he outlined the situation as he saw it. "So, nothing that Donna told us gave us a lead to follow up on. We're no further forward than before, so I see no point in staying out for the whole week." Plus if he spent a whole week with Edna, he'd probably never get it up ever again. It was definitely time to go back to base and fight Bobby for the office job. "We'll get some rest tonight, then fly back to Trenton in the morning. You know, they had soup on the menu. Why didn't you order something softer if steak gives you so much trouble?"
"I'm retired, not dead. I can eat steak, I just need to get rid of the fibers afterwards. Just look away if it bothers you so much."
He wished he could, but it was like watching a car wreck. You hated yourself for it, but you watched with a kind of horrified fascination, unable to tear your eyes away.
Edna pushed at the front of her denture plate with her tongue a couple of times before sucking at it loudly.
"Got it!" she announced, and took a large mouthful of wine, which she swilled around her denture plate before swallowing. "All clear. So shall we look at the dessert menu?"
The waitress put the check on the table at the end of dinner with a flirtatious wink and a little pat on his shoulder. He picked up the check and found a scrap of paper underneath it with a name and telephone number written on it. He turned to watch her sashay away from the table, and his groin stirred when he found her peeking over her shoulder at him as she walked.
"You go for it, hot stuff." Edna's cackle cut into his concentration.
And that was that. Dead in the water. For the third time. As soon as he pictured Grandma sucking her dentures on the other side of the wall in the hotel, all below the waist interest died. He couldn't have taken up the waitress's offer if he'd wanted to.
He wanted to cry. As it turned out, it wasn't just witches that could kill a man's virility stone dead. Wrinkled old ladies with knowing expressions could do the job just as well.