Hector is howling under the bed, his writhing causing the frame to jump and rattle. I look up from Yrgwrath's Demon Colloquialisms From the Ungulant Invasion to The Porwefarang Uprising and cock my head.

"What the thousand devils of Hedrogoth is that noise?"

Hector growls and burbles. "Make it stop. Please make it stop..."

"What is it?"

"God they're so smarmy...and cute...where's the kitty? Maybe the kitty can finally eat them..."

Hector has clearly gone insane. Kitty? Smarmy? What?

"Azrael..." he pleads. Now he's asking for the Angel of Death? Well, with this noise, I almost can't blame him.

I put down the grimoire and gather my overcoat and staff. "I'm going out," I tell him. "I may be some time."

See now, that's so much more comfortable, back in my own bubble. The sky looks so blue through my window, and there's a melody drifting through the air. Except that it seems a very even, measured blue. And also it seems to be moving. That can't be normal.

Oh, no, not Smurfs! They ran me out of the last town I went to; I chose Sang Sacre because I thought the porn would keep them out. They've got a natural immunity to it.That's why they spend their days on hillsides picking flowers.

Uh oh. erika brought the Smurfs with her.

The odd "la la la la la la" triggers something in the back of my mind. Almost unconsiously I start singing "Blue people make me sick. Who knows what makes them tick....."

Smurfs.

Time to head home and get the shotgun. Dibs on Smurfette.

(Off topic, but did anyone watch 'TV Funhouse' on SNL this week? They had Smurfette as Anna Nicole Smith, and, Jebus wept, that was some funny shit. Inspired my new tagline.)

Damn, the halographic controller is locked onto the Smurf-a-thon playing on the Blue Stuff Channel and the controller isn't responding to commmands.

"Inga, what operating system did you load on the halographic controller before Hans deployed it?" I ask.

"You'll be angry."

"I will NOT be angry."

"M something."

"M what?"

"Me?"

"I'm almost sure that was it."

"Do you mean I deployed a 8 terrahertz, 6 projector enabled, halographic projector running Windows Me?!!"

"Okay, so all the remote admin functions of the halographic projector are locked up. We've got to get this thing off-line."

Hans considers this. "They're just halograms. They can't hurt anything".

"Maybe not physically. Damn. We' just going to have to go out into that see of smurfs and shut it down at the console."

"Could we just call in a superhero?" Suggests Inga.

"Yeah, Right. Somebody's been watching too much.... Hey, I do have a team of superheros. Send out the signal! Assemble the hall of justice!"

"You mean beep them?" Asks Inga.

"Yeah.... beep them." I've got to set up a more dramtic signaling system.

It's morning in Victoria, and I'm sitting out on my sun porch with a cup of coffee and my laptop, catching up on natter. The sun porch isn't very sunny today, because the unnatural fog that settled over Sang Sacre is still there. Phred called earlier to tell me about the latest bizarreness, an invasion of the city by Smurfs, of all things, but they don't seem to have gotten over to this part of town. Thank heaven for small favors.

I take another sip of coffee, click on 'Read New', but there is no joy, only the Message Center. Drat, that means I have to do some work. I begin sorting through the pile of correspondence I brought out with me, looking for one particular item. Here it is, a past due notice from the outfit that tricked Phred into ordering 200 cases of ink jet cartridges. No way on God's green earth I'm paying it, so I start composing a note to my attorney.

"Hello!"

I turn with a start. "What the..." A face begins to appear out of the fog outside the porch window, which resolves into a giant, animated paperclip. The paperclip continues to speak to me.

"I see you are writing a letter. Would you like my assistance?"

"Auuugh!!!"