Masters of Fantasy Part 44

two mystic rubies suspended from his neck on a golden chain. When he exhaled, small clouds of vapor emanated from his mouth and nostrils.

"Why should I knock?" replied the Grundy. "Did you knock when you stole my broom from me?"

"I didn't steal it," said Mallory. "h.e.l.l, I just drove across the city to return it."

"Yet here it is," said the Grundy, pointing to Hecate.

"Take it," said Mallory. "I didn't ask for it and I don't want it. It's yours."

"How can you say that after all we've been to each other?" demanded the broom.

"We haven't been a thing to each other, and we're never going to see each other again!" snapped

Mallory. He picked the broom up and thrust it into the Grundy's hands. "Take it and get the h.e.l.l out of here."

"You still have no fear of me, have you?" asked the Grundy curiously.

"Let's say I have a healthy respect for what you can do," answered Mallory.

"But no fear.""Not today. I didn't steal the d.a.m.ned thing, and you must know it. It's not my fault that your broom has a crush on me." He paused thoughtfully. "Maybe you should introduce it to a nice, masculine mop."

"No!" cried the broom. "It's you that I want!"Mallory and the Grundy exchanged looks, and for the first time since arriving in this Manhattan from his own, the detective actually felt a surge of sympathy for the demon. What could one, even a demon, do in the face of such earnest if misdirected pa.s.sion?

"Mallory!" screamed the broom, as the Grundy secured his grip on it. "Aren't you going to say

anything?"

"We'll always have Paris," answered Mallory.

And then the Grundy and the broom blinked out of sight, all trace of them gone in the smallest fraction of a second.

"Well," said Mallory, "what did you think of that?"

"I felt sorry for it," said Winnifred.

"We've got Felina. One freeloader is enough."

"But to spend the rest of its life hanging on a wall . . ."

"It's a broom, for G.o.d's sake!" said Mallory irritably. "It doesn't have a life."

"It feels and it thinks," insisted Winnifred stubbornly.

"It feels foolishly and it thinks irrationally," replied Mallory.

"So says the man who's about to bet on Flyaway again."

"Maybe I'll just go to the Emerald Isle Pub and hang one on," muttered Mallory. "I've got to get away from this place."

"I'll go with you," said a voice.

"s.h.i.t! You're back again?" growled Mallory, looking around the room until he finally spotted the broom leaning against the fireplace. "Didn't the Grundy just take you away about two minutes ago?"

"He adjusts time for his own convenience," said the broom. "I've been back at the castle for almost three days of subjective time. I had to wait until the room was empty of trolls, goblins, and leprechauns before I made my escape."

"You know that I'm just going to send you back," said Mallory wearily.

"No!" cried the broom. "You can't send me back to a life of humiliation and degradation. Everyone looks at me as if I'm . . . I'm some kind of object."

"I don't know how to tell you this gently," said Mallory, "but you are an object."

"No! I'm a living ent.i.ty, with hopes and dreams and fears and s.e.xual needs!"

"I don't think I want to hear about this," said Mallory.

"You can't send me back! I beg of you, Mallory-I live only for you! Let me come out and catch criminals with you!"

"I'm not a cop. I don't go out and walk a beat and catch criminals. I'm a detective. I wait until someone hires me."

"You need management. Advertising. Let me write your phone book ads." It lowered its voice to a whisper. "And lose the fat broad. I'm all you'll ever need."

"Well, I like that!" snorted Winnifred.

"Have you any other requests?" asked Mallory sardonically.

"Make sure the cat thing doesn't sharpen her claws on me."

"That's all?"

"That's all-except that I'm dying to see you work. When do you expect to be tailing a villain up a dark alley?"

"Not for at least five or ten minutes," said Mallory sardonically.

"Then I'll just stay right here and admire you," said the broom. "You're beautiful, John Justin Mallory.

Exquisite. Perfection personified."

"Thank you," said Mallory in bored tones.

"I'll bet you'd be h.e.l.l in a heart-shaped waterbed with a mirror on the ceiling."

"G.o.ddammit!" snapped Mallory. "I've been in this Manhattan for almost two years now, and every time

I think I'm starting to really understand it, someone says something like that!"

"I understand it," offered Felina. "It's filled with people who were put here to scratch me and feed me." She sidled over to Mallory. "Ask it if it drinks milk.""You want to share your milk with it?" asked Mallory, surprised."If it says it does, I'll scratch it until it's nothing but a pile of wood shavings.""I heard that!" said the broom sternly. "What kind of monsters do you keep in your office, Mallory?"The detective sighed. "The kind that won't go away.""In answer to the cat thing's question, I don't drink milk.""Just out of curiosity, what do you eat and drink?" asked Mallory, still wondering where its mouth was."It's been so long since I've eaten, I can't remember," said the broom. "Not all of us lead a life of privilege. Some of us undergo endless privation while the object of our affection continues to ignore us."

"I've been the object of your affection for about ten minutes, tops," said Mallory.

"Not so. I've loved you from afar for years."

"Years?" demanded Mallory.

"Well, weeks, anyway," said the broom. "Why must you insist on precision, John Justin Mallory? Why

don't you just sweep me up in your arms and tell me you return my love?"

"You want a list of reasons?"

"My G.o.d, you know how to hurt a person!" moaned the broom. "This is so humiliating-especially in

front of the fat broad and the cat thing."

"I'm sure they both appreciate your sensitivity."

"How could they? They're still here!"

"They belong here. You don't."

"How can you say that to me?" demanded the broom. "Who else loves you so completely and

unselfishly? Who else hears heavenly music at the sound of your voice? This is the pa.s.sion of the eons!

How can you be so blind to it?"

"I have cataracts," said Mallory dryly.

"I pour my heart out in front of these two unwanted hangers-on, and you make puny little jokes. Do you enjoy causing me such pain?"

"I hadn't really thought about it," admitted Mallory. "But now that you mention it, somehow I don't feel guilty at all."

The broom screamed in agony. "Cut me to the quick! Spit on my love! See if I care!"

"This has gone on long enough," said Mallory. He picked up his phone and dialed the letters G, R, U, N, D and Y in succession. An instant later the Grundy materialized in front of the detective's desk.

"Will you please take your emotionally unstable broom back?" said Mallory.

The Grundy stared at the broom for a long moment, then turned back to the detective. "This broom is proving to be more trouble than it's worth. I hereby give it to you."

"I don't want it."

The broom moaned.

"What you want doesn't interest me," said the Grundy. "The broom is yours."

"You're all heart, Grundy," said Mallory.

"Save your sarcasm, Mallory," said the Grundy. "You will need it for comfort when I am slowly and

painfully disemboweling you."

"Were you planning on doing that sometime soon?"

"Soon, late, what is the difference? Death always wins in the end."

"I don't know why you're so anxious to kill me," said Mallory. "I'm the only person you know who's

never lied to you."

"Why do you think you're still alive?" said the demon, and vanished.

"Everyone comes and goes so fast here," said Mallory sarcastically. "Somehow, I don't think we're in