My hands twitched. At the sight of my ex-partner's face I admit a lot of emotions went though me, but on top was outrage, followed by fury.
"You dare," I began in a low voice that made everyone else in the store back away slowly, "to sully the good name of my friend?"
"More than that!" the Skeeve-face gloated. "At the same time he gives up the rest of the energy I need to become a full magician, I take full possession of him, too. He will cease to have any separate existence from my Master Card."
"Well, then, we need to cancel your account," I informed him smoothly.
I darted toward the pouch on his belt. A hand like a steel trap caught mine. He bent my wrist backward until the bones ground together.
He grinned in my face. "Want to hear me sing?"
"Not a chance!" I snarled.
I swept my feet underneath his and sent him sprawling. He had Skeeve's quick reflexes at his command, so he was up in no time. I knocked him down again with a backhanded swipe. He flicked a hand, and I floated up toward the ceiling. I windmilled, trying to get back toward the ground.
"Flying's great, Aahz! Don't you wish you could do it on your own? Oh, but I forgot," the face pouted. "You lost your magik." The pad of air under my body vanished, and I hit the floor. "You kept up a facade like you were still important. You tried to show me how wise you are, but it's all a sham. Everyone pretends they like you, that they feel sorry for you, but inside they're laughing. In this world nothing else matters but power!"
He reached out and pinched his thumb and forefinger together. Suddenly, my ears were filled with a deafening blare of music, voices, and noise. I knew what he had done: he'd destroyed Massha's cone of silence. Without its protection my sensitive ears were going to be overwhelmed by the sounds of The Mall—he hoped.
"You are so wrong, long-nose," I gritted out. "And this is going to end now!"
The ground dropped away from me again, but I had a hand on a display rack. I used my weightlessness to swing my legs around in a circle. I cringed a little at attacking one of my closest friends, but I reminded myself that this was not my friend but someone who wanted to drain the life out of him. At the last moment I tensed so my whole weight hit him in the head. Rattila staggered back a couple of paces, then came roaring in at me. As I swung around I smacked him in the face. He stopped, goggling. I came around the pole again and slapped him so hard he staggered and fell.
My feet settled toward earth.
"Go get him, tiger!" Massha shouted, waving a charm shaped like a scale at me.
I leaped onto the impostor. The Djinnellis and other onlookers crowded in.
"Back off!" I roared. 'This one's mine!"
I hauled Rattila up by the scruff. His mouth and hands twitched. I felt something hot and gluey pour over my head, covering my eyes, nostrils and mouth. I sucked in a deep breath. The stuff solidified, but I didn't let go. I shoved Rattila into the wall and head-butted him. The shell over my face cracked away. I lifted a fist. The blue eyes opened wide.
"Aahz, don't hit me," Skeeve's voice begged me. It caught me off guard. "I didn't mean those things I said. I respect you. Really."
I cocked my head. "Sorry, partner," I replied.
It was a wish for the absent Skeeve, not for this loser. With all the strength in my body, I connected my fist with his jaw. I threw another punch. The head snapped back against the wall, and the long body collapsed in a heap on the floor. I could have stopped then, but I had a lot of resentment to get out of my system, too. I kept pounding on Rattila until the Skeeve-form disappeared, and he became a rat again.
I straightened up and kicked at him. "And your rhyme stinks, too!"
Eskina raced in and bound up the limp rodent's limbs with her cuffs. "Magnificent, Aahz!" she congratulated me. My friends and new acquaintances crowded in to shake my hand and pound me on the back. "Now, where is the device?"
I searched through the greasy black fur until I came up with the gleaming gold card. "Here it is."
"Excellent! Give it to me! I must take it back!"
"No way," I retorted. "This thing is too dangerous to exist. Besides, it's got an imprint in it of everyone that Rattila ever ripped off."
"In spite of my firewall I can still feel a pull from its spell," Massha added.
"I, too," Chumley agreed.
"Unless you can empty it of its charge, you're not getting it back," I concluded.
"But I must bring it back with me!" Eskina shrieked. "Five years I have sought it. The scientists are waiting!"
"And what happens the next time an alchemy lab janitor can't resist the temptation?" I asked.
Eskina looked crestfallen.
"You are right," she acknowledged.
"You have the villain," Parvattani reminded her, coming up to put a consoling arm around her.
She looked up at him gratefully. "That is true," she smiled.
"You two make a good team," I told them. "Think about it."
They both looked shy.
"What about the card, Hot Stuff?" Massha asked.
"History," I snapped out.
I bent the device between my fingers. Unlike the slave cards it could make, the Master Card wouldn't break, no matter how much I twisted it.
"Let me try," Chumley offered.
But he couldn't make a dent in it either. Nor could the magik of any of the Djinnellis, Cire, Sibone, or Chloridia, nor Woofle, who had finally come out from wherever he had been hiding.
"I'm stumped," I admitted.
"Perhaps you had better let me take it back," Eskina offered, sympathetically. "It was made to withstand elemental forces."
"Elemental!" I snapped my fingers. "Jack, are you here?" The climate-control engineer squeezed through the crowd. "What can I do for you, Aahz?"
I tapped a foot on the glowing red floor. "What'll it take to get through this to the lava underneath?"
"A snap," Jack grinned at me. "A cold snap." He pointed a finger at the floor. A white cone formed over the spot.
When he finished there was a round white patch on the floor. I brought a heel down on it. It shattered. Lava splashed up through the broken shards of flooring. I tossed the gold card into the liquid burning stone until the letters on it ran. A chorus of howling voices rose from it as it melted away. The remains flowed off under the floor. Jack spread his hands, and the hole sealed up as if it had never been there. I dusted my hands together.
"It's a time-honored tradition, after all," I remarked, "throwing all-powerful magik items into volcanos to get rid of them."
"I feel so much better!" Massha announced.
"So do I," Chumley agreed.
"Me, too," added Marco.
"And I," a female Deveel put in.
The chorus of voices went on and on, until everyone was looking at one another.
"And the moral of that story is," I concluded, "always look out for those hidden charges."
On the floor at my feet, Rattila groaned.
TWENTY-EIGHT
"You must take this, too, darling madama," Rimbaldi insisted, draping another pair of djeanns on Massha's outstretched arms, this one in acid green. "And accessories! Belts, bracelets, scarves, anything you like! We must make up for the things that villain took from you. My cousin Paolo does his best to repair your lovely belt and bracelets. You shall have more, more, more!"
"I'm overwhelmed, you beautiful man," Massha batted her eyes at him. "That's plenty, honest! Stop!"
All morning the denizens of The Mall had been showing their gratitude for our capture of Rattila and his mob. Massha admired herself in the big three-way mirror, attended by a troop of willing Djinnies and a couple of Rattila's ex-henchrats.
"By the way," I asked, sitting in the midst of a mountain of boxes with my name on them, "what was the deal you made with those creatures?" I gestured toward a rat who went out in search of an orange belt in Massha's size to go with the green pants.