I chamber a shell into the shotgun, but Bob catches my arm before I can aim.

"Don't shoot the TV," he says calmly.

"Laugh track! On the news! Happy smiley perky people!"

"I know, sweetheart, but you can't shoot the TV. You won't be able to watch your new Angel Season Ten DVDs if you do. And I know you want to watch the Subtext Becomes Text episode where they find Angel and Spike in the shower together."

"You're right. I should go down to the studio and shoot the happy smiley perky people in person."

"Right--um, wait. I'm fairly sure I should object to that for some reason. Give me a few minutes."

I half listen as Malphas finishes his report on the dismal and excellent state of the city.

"Very good. What's next on the agenda?"

"Vengence." Says Malphas, reading from his PDA.

"Good. I have decided it is time for my old enemy MiracleMan, to feel my wrath."

"Do you want me to hire a hit-demon sir?" Asks Malphas.

"No. I have a better plan, one that will strike at the very core of his being."

(buh-buh-bum!)

Right in the middle of a conversation with a ministry of happiness member, I'm interrupted by a police officer entering my office. My his manner and appearence I can tell he is one of the old officers left over from before my reorganization of city services.

The police officer walks up the desk, he appears a little nervous, but determined. "Sorry to interrupt, but I've been hearing about these new regulations and they are...well I don't think the police are going to want to enforce then. Maybe the new guys, but they're....different. I just think..."

I interrupt him. "The ministry of happiness will handle enforcement."

"Oh." He looks over to Mary, the ministry of happiness member I was talking to. She's a petite woman, attractive, scrub, and tastefully attired with a pleasent smile and dead eyes.

"No offense to the ministry, but don't they usually just hand out pamplets and stuff."

I shake my head. "I don't you think you realize just what they are."

"But people are going to resist this, you can't just let a bunch of..." He goes on.

I interrupt him again. "Kill her."

His eyes widen, "What!?"

"You want to see if they can handle resistence. So try to kill her." I point to Mary who is still smiling pleasently at the police officer.

"I can't do that. You're crazy." His eys dart between Mary and I.

"I quite agree that you can't do that. But if you want motivation..." I turn to Mary. "Dispose of the officer Mary."

I use a charm to protect my ears from the gunshots and screams as Mary takes care of the situation. Just as well to root out problem personal in the police force. Once Mary is finished, I page someone to take care of the mess and Mary and I go find a conference room to hammer out more details.

Sang Sacre Local Newcast...

...which tied up traffic for a good part of the morning.

Now for the weather...

I ran into the store in the lobby of the Folly. "Did you hear--?"

Hans was already stationed in front of the main cooler, his sawed-off shotgun in his hands. "We heard."

"What are you going to . . . oh, dear."

Franz was assembling a Browning Assault Rifle on its legs for best sweep coverage of the front door. "Have you met Betsy?"

Pub quiz night had been awful.

The depressive funk that had settled over the town had so thoroughly distracted the teams that even the simplest challenges weren't getting the proper response. I tried making the questions simpler ("Adder's venon and myrrh are two components of what common five ingredient potion?"). I tried making them impossibly hard ("Name the starting nine of the 1995 Mariners after Ken Griffey Jr went down to his wrist injury, and which one had the gift of parselmouth?"). At the end of the night, the Wizards Who Didn't Give A Damn had 30 points out of 200. They won. And I barely had enough to keep the pub's lights on.

I sent the help home and closed up alone. No one was going to show, not this evening. I was worrying about too many things: whether the pub could last with the increasingly entrenched ennui, how to deal with a toddler who was already showing signs of being super-gifted at magic, why it suddenly smelled like hydrogen sulfide.

Him.

Ancalagon.

I wheeled around. I hadn't seen him since that fateful day in 1998, when he obliterated half the team before I could drop a high-test protection charm. I have to say that the Derbyshire trolls were awfully crafty to block the way to the Sphere by gold and gems. Ancalagon took one look at that, and suddenly he was no longer part of Task Force Olive, and the rest of us were toast.

After that, I refused any spec ops work with a dragon on the team. And here he was, sitting in my pub.

"You still have any beer?"

"Weren't you a Glenelvish sort?"

"Yeah, but I need a beer. Ministry's banned it."

Crap.

"Why should I trust you? Last time I saw you...."

"Yeah, look, I'm sorry, but.... Look, I'm a dragon, and dragons and treasure...."

"Yeah. So, why you in town?"

"Working for the Ministry."

"That really makes me want to sell you a beer."

"Hey. OK. Tell you what, make it Glenelvish."

I turned and moved to try and find the bottle on the lazy susan on the shelf above the bar. I turned it 180 degrees to the left. Normally, I'd turn it 90 degrees left, just to make the beer non-alcoholic for family events and AA meetings. 180 not only removes the alcohol from the beer in the building, it turns it into nothing but colored water. The bottle of Glenelvish, of course, was on a different shelf.

Later that evening, when the Ministry thugs came around to confiscate the beer, they fought for three hours with the usual riddles, defenses, and giant hops that protect a bierkeller, only to find they had reached a keller with nothing but kegs of water.

The Magick of Adolph Coors was worth the gold I laid down for it.

And then, of course, one of them had to get huffy, saying how she was going to take me down and the family was going to be sold into slavery and they'd never find my body -- and then she bumped me.

Sadly, she didn't even have a chance to scream as a keg floated up and turned her body into a bloody stain on the floor.

The rest of the thugs stared, then got the message that it was time to leave posthaste when the giant hops started closing in again.

That's the nice thing about a 200 year old pub -- the protective magic comes pre-installed.

This just in. The Mayor has issued new regulations banning the sale, possession, and consumption of beer. The ministry of happiness has announced they they will begin enforcement immediately and will be confiscating all of the beer in the city.

Laugh tracks, I could deal with.

Wanton death and destruction, I could deal with.

"Hector, while you're up get me a beer, would you?"

"Uh...no."

No? My wroth is great.

"And why not?"

Hector is sweating so heavily it's visible through the thick carpet of night-black fur that covers his entire body. "There...isn't...any."

"So go buy some."

"There's none...in...Sang Sacre."

We'll repair the roof later. For now...there is all-too-sober smiting to be done.

"How goes the new ban Malphas?"

"Very well sir, there was some resistence at the Folly/Wal-Mart but they were just using guns, so they weren't able to hurt the ministry members. We lost a ministry member to crushing, but with the new pod nursery in the dungeon we now grow two ministry members for every one lost."

"But what about the beer? Is the ban holding?"

"Yes. There are some suspect blackmarket location, but the ministry expects to deal with them quickly."

"Excellent. My vengence should be felt." I take a moment to enjoy the vengence. "Now what else is on the agenda."

Malphas takes out a folder. "Evilcon sir. The city is hosting it this year."

I smile. "Ah Evilcon, how many events have they requested I attend."

Malphas shuffles his hooves. "About that....um....they has been a change."

"What!? What change."

Malphas swallows. "They ended up getting Voldemort at the last moment, so they replaced you on some panels."

"Voldemort! He's nothing compared to me. How many panels did he replace me on?"

"Um....all of them si......" Malpas trails off distracted by his death as I split him in two with my sword.

Dammit, I've been bumped from Evilcon and a now I need a new city manager. I hate Mondays.