Under my feet, the floor ripples. I intially suppose this is just one of hte usual side effects of Bob getting creative, but then I hear a crash from the kitchen and Achmed swearing some more.

"OK, now what is this? Achmed, you OK?"

"Yes, sitt. Someone's mucking with the great balance. The whole city must be feeling the ripples."

I crawl out of bed and stomp towards the closet. "All right, that's just enough of that." I dig through the clothes and pull out, not something to cover me, but a scabbarded great sword. Silver, forged by lightning, quenched in blood, etc. etc. "I was willing to be patient and let all the power struggles work their own ways out, but the balance is the balance, and it's supposed to stay, well, balanced!"

Bob snickers, and I spin and point the sword at him, aiming right at the bridge of his nose. "And no more snickering out of you, mister. This is your city too. And, dammit, I cannot deal with all these distractions right now! I've got a deadline to meet! Am I making myself clear!"

Bob's eyes are real big and trying to cross to keep track of the sword tip pointing at him. But there's also a very disturbing smile creeping out. "Yes'm, very clear, sorry if I did anything wrong. Do I need punished?"

I put the sword tip on the floor and lean on the quillons. I so did not need to know he had that kind of kink too. I may never get anything accomplished ever again.

The cats are acting odder than usual. The store cat won't leave my side, and she's usually quite standoffish. Boots has been chasing things I can't see all day, not just at 11 pm. This isn't a good sign. The last time the cats were this crazy was right before the big battle.

I've learned my lesson. I'm staying out of whatever's to come, unless I am attacked. It's become more and more difficult to live here for someone who is not Magically adept, or a Warrior, or connected to the otherwordly things in this town.

I'm just someone who loves books.(and I haven't found L-Space yet,alas) I wish luck upon the forces of Good, but I have nothing to offer here.

"Deimos!" I yell.

My lazy minion appears. "Yes, boss?"

"Do you have my supplies?"

"Yes."

"Good. Good. Bring them to me now." After a weekend of enjoying the city, it's time to get down to some evil. I pull out the vampire ribs I saved and start preparing an enchantment.

Deimos comes in with a good selection of blood, scales, eyes, and other basic supplies. A little bit of that, a little bit of this, and I'm ready. I toss the bones to the ground and they sprout into two skeletons complete with a couple of razor sharp bone swords. Not bad, but I fold in a bunch of wards to counter any spells used against them and a few other magical enhancements to speed them up a bit.

"What do you think of my army Deimos?"

"It's very nice army boss. I've never seen a better one." My spineless minion lies.

"Don't lie. It doesn't look like much does it. Bring in Pete."

Deimos leaves to find Pete. Moments Deimos returns with a massive, heavily muscled demon comes lumbering behind him.

"Grrrraugh?" asks Pete the demon.

"Destroy that skeleton." I point to one of my creations.

Pete swings his huge flail and shatters one of the skeletons. The fragments of bones sprout into a dozen new skeletons as they fall to the ground. I invoke the word that activates the skeletons and will them to attack Pete. It's not much of a fight as the Pete is far to slow to defend himself and is quickly diced.

"Now go and kill Miracleman and any who oppose you." I command. The skeletons hurry off to complete my order.

"Well, Deimos we have cast our first serious attack."

"What happened to the shadow demons boss?" Asks my minion.

I have to think about that one. "My spies reported that he returned the package via an enhancment, but I warded it against such a thing. So... I'm not actually sure where they ended up." I shrug. "It's not really our concern."

I browse scrolls from my collection of nifty evil spells. I find the one I'm looking for, a good fundamental spell to shift the balance way over to the dark. "Time to get to work Deimos." I look over the spell for any missing ingredients. "Looks like we need to bag another Unicorn, you know the drill."

I'm sitting at the table nursing a cup of tea in the KeepsItWarm Mug (™) and flipping pages in the poetry section of the Flatland Review, when I hear a rustling noise in the front room.

I press the button that'll keep it from burning a circle into my tabletop, set my mug down, and go to check.

The mail slot is still swinging. And there's a package on the floor! A little mussed, a little smudged, sender address almost totally obscured, but ooh! Someone's sent me a package. I pick it up and examine the return address. H-g----s ----ol? Something. Huh. Maybe it's my new automatic pancake-flipper from Hagmir's & Harold's.

"Well, thank god," I mutter as I take it into the kitchen. "I've been waiting for that to arrive for weeks."

We’re in the middle of the memorial service for the mambo troupe. The music is reaching its climax and we’re swirling and twirling when we hear it.

“Que diablos?”

We hear it again. Shaking, rattling, scraping. It sounds like bones breaking. We catch some flashes of light through the big plate glass window at the front of the studio.

“Puta la hueva! No respect for the dead.”

“Calmate, nino. Sears. That can’t be good. I guess we should go see what it’s all about.”

“No, no. We should go home. It’s really none of our...” He’s talking to my back.

We go to the second floor and sneak in past the Junior Miss section, through Petites and Lingerie. We creep up to the second floor railing and peer over. A big, ugly demon is being attacked by skeletons with swords. Every time he destroys one, dozens more spring up in its place. Soon the skeletons have the demon down. Hmm. I ‘ve never seen skeletons devour anything before. I wonder where the meat goes.

“That was cool.” I shush Raul. Men.

“Now go and kill Miracleman and any who oppose you.”

“Uh-oh. That’s not good. Let’s get out of here.”

Once we’re outside of Sears, I look around. There’s one hiding in the shadows. I gesture to it and it comes over to me reluctantly.

“Don’t look at me like that. I just want you to deliver a message for me. It won’t take long.” The little grey cat wrinkles its nose at me. He’ll do it. “It’s important. I need you to do it now. That’s now my time, not now your time.” A little more nose wrinkling. “Ok, fine. Come by the hotel later.” I scoop up the grey and whisper in its ear: multiplying skeletons, can’t be destroyed with conventional weapons, wards and spells. Once he’s got the message, I set him on the ground. “Go tell Miracleman.”

As he melts away, I turn to Raul. “We have to go by the mercado on the way home.”

“We just went yesterday.”

“I know, pero tenemos que comprar pescado, lots and lots of fish.”

Knut wants to go to Miracleman's to see what's up. It sounds like a good idea to me. His name has been coming up a lot lately, in all kinds of contexts.

I've stuffed my backpack with extra Instalgolem, plus lunch and a flask of whiskey, in case we need refreshment. Knut doesn't have any weapons yet. He says he probably won't need any. I suspect the words "nigh invulnerable" might apply to Knut.

We're about to head out the door when we hear Mrs. Thorne shouting from the porch.

"Messengers of Darkness, you have no power here. You can do no harm!"

Just beyond the yard there's a small group of heavily armed skeletons gnashing their teeth and making menacing gestures with their swords. Holy Mother of Dog. Knut and I stand by, ready to help, although I'm a little fuzzy on how we might do that.

Mrs. Thorne recites an incantation in a language I don't know. She shakes a bottle of vitamins at the bony monsters, sending a shower of sparks their way.

"Now get OFF OF MY LAWN!" She orders. The skeletons back off, but not far.

"Mrs. Thorne. . . " I begin.

"No time. Go to Miracleman." She hands us each a vitamin. "Take one now. It will give you 10 minutes of safety. Hurry!"

"Whatcha reading there Inga?" I ask as I observe that my assistant has her concenation trained on a pamplet rather than the control panel for the new quantum reactor.

"It's the literature that the cultists left off."

"Cultists?"

"Yeah, a couple guys in suits showed up. Turned out they were with the cult of Cthulhu. They left this literature and a couple of Cthulhu cookies." She waves the pamplet at me. I assume the cookies are long gone.

"Isn't Cthulhu sort of...you know...evil?"

"You'd think that, but this pamplet is really pretty compelling. I'm thinking of maybe going to the bake sale."

"Whatever, just make sure the reactor is running smooth."

I flip on a monitor and start looking over reports from the various electronic spying equipment in the city. Hmm... new Cthulhu temple, odd weather, animated skeletons. I start to suspect something is up, but nothing really posing a threat to the castle for now. Nonetheless, I press the key combination to activate my defense robot. Maybe I'll get a excuse to try it out and debug that new AI software.

I glance at the vitamin before swallowing, hoping for a Dino, but it's Barney. I always get Barney.

Penny's at the door, impatient to get started. Zar is growling at the skeletons.

"Move!" Mrs. Thorne shouts.

Penny bangs through the door, and I duck under the lintel and drop off the porch. The skeletons wave their swords and jabber noiselessly. I wonder if this is what things looked like between takes of Jason and the Argonauts.

"Do you know where this Miracleman lives?" I ask Penny.

"Yes. Follow me!"

"All right." I lumber across the lawn, telling it to GROW as I do so. The grass thickens and climbs, the blades twining around one another and hardening like bamboo to form a barrier that should keep Mrs. Thorne's out of the press of the battle. Not that she seems helpless, or anything.

A squad of skeletal halberdiers get in my way, and I throw a fist through a ribcage, shatter a kneecap with a kick. They break easily, but the pieces start regrowing others, and soon where there were six there are sixty. Uh-oh.

I run faster, and find my way out of the throng, at least for the moment. At the last moment I seize a skeleton and twist its skull off to carry along. Any counter-spell is going to need some hair of the dog, and this should do the trick.

With Zar beside me I chase after Penny.

"Clovis Clovis Clovis!"

A small mob of gremlins runs around the store, carrying my Devilbunny on their shoulders. I grab him as they make their third sweep around the counter.

"not the ears not the ears!"

"Clovis, where did the gremlins come from?" I ask in a reasonably patient manner.

"new minions. prezzie for cute bunny."

"Yes, but where did they come from?"

"front door?"

I sigh, then turn to glare at the gremlins. They stare back at me in a googley-eyed fashion. I point at the almost-but-not-quite person-sized antique bird cage in the corner of the shop, with the door conveniently (and 'accidentally') swinging open. The gremlins stop meeting my eyes and suddenly find their feet fascinating.

"In. The. Cage."

As one, the gremlins sigh, give Clovis a mournful look, and troop into the birdcage. The cage door slams shut behind them with a satisfying clang.

"my minions", Clovis informs me in a sulky tone.

"Not until we know where they came from. There's been all sorts of wierd things happening in the past few days, and I'm not letting you play with unidentified gremlins."

There's a roll of thunder, and a sudden rain of marzipan frogs. Which would be fine, but that sort of thing doesn't normally occur inside the store.

"candy! candy candy candy!" squeals Clovis, paws outstretched to catch anything he can.

I run over to the front door, lock it, and flip the sign to "Closed".

"Honey! I need to check the wards! Stay in the studio, and don't answer the phone, door, or any flaming messages on the walls!"

Pete sticks his head out from his studio. "What?! What are you talking about?"

He does a double-take at the drifts of marzipan frogs on the floor, says "Right. Don't answer flaming messages on the walls", and retreats to the relative sanity of his artwork.

(edited by DX to fix font tag)

I'm halfway through Harvorth's Memoirs of A Yeti Hunter when Hector interrupts me.

"Hey, boss. What's with the cat?"

"Cat?" I look down. I've apparently been absent-mindedly petting a grey cat for the past few minutes. It wrinkles its nose at me and meows.

"Skeletons? Can't be killed by normal means. Criminy." I put down the book just as the doorbell rings.

I pause before opening the door. It could be anyone, really. "Who is it?" I call.

There's a rattling and shuffling on the other side. "Uh...candygram."

"Oh. For me?" I reach for the doorknob, but Hector grabs my wrist.

"Boss, 'candygram' is the oldest...and stupidest...trick in the book."

"Which book?"

Hector rolls his eyes. Then he clears his throat and speaks through the door. "I don't believe you," he calls out.

There's more rattling. "Uh...Land Shark."

"Curiouser and curiouser," I mutter.

Hector peeks through the peephole. "It's a bunch of skeletons."

"Are you sure?"

"Either that or it's a bunch of reps for the SuperDuper Atkins Diet."

I take a look. "No, I think they're skeletons."

"What do we do?"

Hm. The cat said that they couldn't be killed by normal means. Let's try...

A blood-curdling incantation later, Hector's peering through the peephole. His eyes go wide.

"Jell-O?"

"Lime Jell-O. With little bits of pear and banana stuck in."

"You're weird boss."

"Did it work?"

"Well...they're Jell-O, all right. But, uh..."

Just then a skeletal-shaped hand of green gelatin (with little bits of pear and banana stuck in) gropes under the door.

"Aw, fuck," I say.