"I'll ask Mr. Charpe, Phred, but we've got ourselves a bit of a situation here right now, so it could be awhile." Sergeant Pit Chopper hung up the phone and walked back into the office where Captain Rockhard Charpe grimly considered the pair of faces glaring back at him from across a shabby wooden table. They were obviously Elvish, tall and lithe, with flowing blonde hair and pointed ears. They were dressed in bright red breeches and cloaks, in sharp contrast to the dull green jackets the two orc militiamen were wearing. But it was their faces that Charpe was looking at in wonder. Their faces were identical to those of Charpe and Chopper.

"Let's go through it again. You just suddenly appeared in our barracks, and you have no idea how you got here. Is that it?"

The Charpe!elf gave the real Charpe a nasty look, and spoke in a cultured, vaguely otherworldly voice that held just a hint of disdain, "Yes, that is it. The sergeant and I were in our barracks, we looked at the mirror, and then we were here, with you chaps holding weapons to our throats. As I said before, I am Turotulco Keensight, Major in His Majesty's First Keebler Regiment, and this is Sergeant Callow Stringplucker."

"Did you hear that, Pit? The poncey gits were just minding their own business, and then they just happened to pop in here by accident. Don't you just hate when that happens, Pit?"

"Yes, sir, I hate accidents. Usually means it's gonna be a real bad day," came the answer.

"A real bad day," Charpe repeated. "We've been having a lot of those since Aeshma came back to town. You fellows know Aeshma, don't yeh?"

"I've never heard of the chap," said Turotulco offhandedly, leaning back in his chair. "But if he's causing you trouble, I think I should like to meet the fellow."

Charpe leaned in towards Turotulco, his face only an inch or two from the Major's. "You know what I think? I think you two are his spies. That evil wizard sent you here to make sure the militia was removed from the picture when he sent in another invading army."

Turotulco, removed a handkerchief from his pocket, and dabbed it at his face. "Evil wizard? Come now, if anyone would be in the hire of an evil wizard, it would be an orc, not an elf."

As Charpe thought about this last, Chopper motioned to follow him out of the room. Charpe closed the door behind him. "He's a point there, sir," said Chopper. "Remember, we're the ones who switched sides."

"True, Pit, but if they're not his spies, how did they get here?"

"Sir, I had a call from Phred. He said that someone enchanted all the mirrors in town, and that folk's opposites were stepping out of them. Do ya think?"

"Those fops are our opposites? Actually, that makes sense. We're going to need more information."

Charpe went back into the office and faced the two elves. "On your feet! We're gonna go have a drink."

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Edward has escaped to find his Satanic overlord. Well, I, for one, am not going to waste my time chasing a tiny stuffed toy around town any longer. It looks ridiculous, I'm tired, and there are too many issues to think about. BlackPants!Knut is out there somewhere, and I have an apparently urgent message in my hand.

Let him win? Who's he? Who sent this? What is going on, I ask myself for the 27 thousandth time today. Behind me, WhiteKnut is laughing.

"What's up, Knut? Good news?"

"...and a policy of, uh, education in the Mystical Arts, uh, and increase in the Evil Incursion Defense budget perhaps...Hector will you stop that tap-dancing, you really suck at it."

Just then a paper airplane shoots through the window, arrowing for between my eyes. I incinerate it.

"Where were we? Yes, right. What other policies should we infuse into our candidate? I, personally, would like a tax break for magical research..."

"Boss?"

"It's criminal, really, that I can't write off my books and potions and whatnot. I could really use the extra beer money to be frank..."

"Boss."

"Also, perhaps we can do something about the continuous use of foodstuffs as minions..."

"Boss!"

"What?!"

"You better read this."

Sighing I take Hec's message. "'Let 'em win'? What sort of nonsense is that?"

"Maybe he's thinking that with, you know, all the headaches he has to deal with Aeshma will abdicate quickly."

"But...but...but that's...that's letting him win."

"Yeah, but the prize sucks. I guess."

"But, Hector...that's letting him win."

"Yes, boss, I understand that, but what I think Hec's saying is..."

"But..."

Aimee lays a hand on my arm. "MM...shut up. Let the wookie win."

"A wookie, certainly, fine upstanding folks, wookies...but Aeshma is..."

"Evil."

"Right."

"But that's not why you're upset."

"It...might be."

She sighs. "It's not and you know it. It's letting Aeshma win that bothers you. You're far too competitive."

"I just don't like the man is all," I mutter.

"There there. Calm down. Have a cookie." She hands me what smells like a gingerbread cookie. It's shaped like a creature out of nightmare.

"Vote for me!" it squeaks. I feel it's oily mental presence attempting to subvert my will.

I eat it. It's not bad.

Nothing compares to sitting bundled on your couch, fire merrily crackling, cats dozing, husband doing something fragrant and fattening in the kitchen, watching television. It's good. It's more than good - it's shiny.

My comfort is somewhat disturbed when a paper airplane hits me in the head. I unfold the gorram thing; it's from Hec. Something about by-laws. Huh. I start to read it, but then something on the screen catches my eyes.

"Holy shit!" I grab the remote and hit realtime rewind. "Brian! Get up here! You will not believe what Jayne and Simon just did!"

Brian comes running into the room, a heaping plate of cookies in one hand. "Wait a sec, let me get settled."

He plunks down beside me, rearranging the blanket and cats. I grab for the plate; Hec's note is still crumpled in my hand. It hinders my gathering of food. I drop it to the floor. Brian shoots me a look and picks it up.

"What's this?"

"I dunno. Hec sent it. Something about civics, I think."

Brian tosses it into the fire and offers me a cookie.

"Thanks." I take a closer look. "What's this? A lamb?"

"Goat. Eat up, I've got like a thousand of them."

"Let him win?" I look at Bob, who's lounging by the fire. Ten minutes later, I get my brain back from the happy, lustful place it always goes to when I gaze on Bob with the firelight on his cheekbones and the highlights in--

"Argh! Stop flexing like that, I need to think. And no, not about that."

Bob sighs. "Why not? It's a simple plan, let the nutcase win."

"But--he's unleased unspeaking evils on the town!"

"Yep."

"And caused destructive chaos and upset--and the donut shop burned down!"

"I don't htink he did that."

"He could have, it wouldn't have if he weren't here."

"True. But, still, let him win."

"Then he'd be in charge!"

"Yep."

"Of Sang Sacre!"

"Yep."

"Of our town, our very own mystic town, where everything's just the way we like it ..." I fade off. "Oh."

"Yep."

"Our town."

He starts crawling towards me. "Our town."

"Where everything works the way we want it."

"Uh huh."

"And he thinks ..."

"Yep."

"That's evil."

"Wish you'd thought of it?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Good. Now stop frowning, we've got more research to do."

"Ow!"

I bend down and pick up the paper airplane that just hit me in the shoulder.

"Looks like I got one of Hec's messages. I agree with him."

Miracleman gives me a withering look. "I still don't like it", he informs me.

"Why am I not surprised. But Hec is the level-headed one around here, so I think we should listen to him."

Clovis is staring fixedly at the cookie in Aimee's hand.

"minion! gingerbread minon! mine mine mine give now now now!"

He waves his paws at her and does his best I'm a cute adorable bunny who shouldn't be denied anything look. Which, considering the fangs and the fact that 'minion' is his favorite word, is surprisingly effective.

"I thought you wanted to find Edward?" I remind him.

"edward safe now. not in mirror. will find me soon, like good minion should. now want gingerbread minion! now now now! pleeeeeeaaaase?"

I take a closer look at the gingerbread cookie.

"Uh, Aimee? Just where did you get that cookie?" I ask nervously.

"Ummm...not sure. Kitchen, I guess. I don't really remember. Come to think of it, I don't. Remember. Anything. Well, not anything, just the past, like, hour or so."

There's a sudden, sharp pain in my shoulder. And then my head. Images of Sang Sacre in ruins, bunnies in chains and rottenness all around flash through my thoughts.

And then, another image. Me and Penny, our second meeting, The Prancing Pony, waflles, someone walks behind us and touches me???

"Miracleman!!"

I pass out.

Knut the Good - whom I've decided is closest to old Knut - assures me that this is not an election year. Knut the Slacker merely shrugs. I get the impression that he doesn't give a rat's ass, and wouldn't if he found one in his morning nachos.

"Why are you laughing? Who's Hec?"

"Hec is Friend Hecubus, and his ways are wise and cunning!" Knut starts chuckling to himself again. "The forces of evil have not reckoned with the craft of Hecubus. Ho! Ho! Verily will the Evil One rue the day he paid down his campaign deposit."

I think about this. I used to cover politics in towns rather like Sang Sacre, and one this I always noticed was the aging effect of holding office. Even a city councillor without committees gets a haggard, hunted look in a few months. What could being mayor of this town do to an impatient person with ambition? It's a lovely, evil thought.

"Good Gravy, Knut! You're right. The pressure, the fund-raising!"

"The media!"

"Going door-to-door!"

"Debates!"

"Photo Opportunities!"

"Background checks"

"Polling!"

"Election readiness!"

"Ha! He'll be half-dead before election night, and if he wins. . . "

"If he wins, he has city council to deal with!" Knut concludes

"So we just do nothing?" Slacker Knut sounds hopeful.

WhiteKnut and I look at each other, grinning. Neither one of us is the do-nothing type.

"Boss, you need to see this."

I hate it when he says that. I put down the election poster I've been working on. It says, "Vote for Aeshma. He's never been convicted." I've been working on posters like this since I got Hec's air mail. Anything to get the sonuvabitch elected.

I walk into the main room, and see Phred talking to Charpe and Chopper. "Oh good, you're here. Did Phred tell you about our little problem?" I notice the two figures that Chopper is guarding. Their wrists are bound with rope. Elves? Elves in bright red uniforms? I look a little more closely at their faces. What the frell? Then I get it. "These guys stepped out of a mirror, didn't they?"

Charpe answers with that peculiar Orkshire accent of his. "Yeah. We think so. They appeared in our barracks, and there's a looking glass there. There was a looking glass there. I thought they might be Aeshma's spies."

I look at the two. The resemblance is uncanny. "Don't worry," I say to them. "You're among friends. Captain, do you need to keep them bound like that? I think we're all probably on the same side. Why'd you bring them here?"

Charpe nods to Chopper, and the big orc pulls out an enormous blade and deftly slices the ropes binding the elves hands. "Sergeant Chopper told me what happened to your bird. I thought that you could probably figure out what's going on. You know this town better than I do."

The Charpe!elf is rubbing his wrists as he speaks to me. "Thank you. I am Major Turotulco Keensight of His Elven Majesty's First..."

Charpe cuts him off with a wave of his hand. "That'll do." He looks at me. "Can you explain it?"

"Yeah, why are they elves?" Phred says. "I thought all the folks stepping out of the mirrors were double... dopple... ya know, evil twins."

"Doppelgängers. Not evil twins. Opposites. Extremes. They're only evil if the subject is good." I cast about in the recesses of my memory. Something I read once. Ah, there it is. "If I remember right, the original orcs were created by the magical corruption of elves. Is that right, Captain?" Blank looks from the orcs, while the elves start to sputter.

"Why the very idea," ranted Turotulco. "Elves couldn't poss..."

I hold up my hand for quiet, cutting the major off, then address Charpe and Chopper. "It's not that they're your evil twins, it's that you're their evil twins. Only you switched sides." To Turotulco and the Chopper!elf, "We'll see what we can do about getting you back to your 'verse, but I suspect we'll need a wizard for that. Right now we have some serious problems going on here. Will you help?"

"Hey, we've got the new poll results." Says my campaign manager while waving a sheet of paper clapsed in his clawed hand.

"Whatever." I drop into my chair and ready myself for yet another boring meeting. I stave off sleep my thinking of new ways to kill my campaign manager once the election is won.

"It's good news. The Elder Cookie party has suffered damaging attrition from rain and consumption and is falling well behind. The Meadow party's canidate is still a threat, but we're going to start up a new attack on his morality. He was once a member of a satanic heavy metal band and is vunerable to charges of penguin-lust."

"Very well. Then I shall leave you..." I begin to get out of my chair thankful that this has been brief. I haven't been able to get any evil done for days.

"Wait. We still need to go over preparations for your press conference and there are the new TV ads. Not to mention...."

I drown out his annoying voice as I imagine new ways for him to die, today the theme is 'acid'. I notice that he appears to be waiting for me.

"The press conference?" He asks.

"The press. They will be the first to perish when I am mayor and my word is law."

My manager frowns. "Actually, the mayor has to work with the city council and I don't think that killing the press is within the authority of either."

"City council?"