BIHATRA AND THEODOSIUS WERE NOT VERY GOOD ROOMMATES—but you, Dear Reader, could have predicted that.

"If you so much as think about snoring, I will smother you with a pillow and then eviscerate you with a toothbrush," Bihatra said. She sat on the bed nearest the heavily-curtained window, wearing a pair of rainbow pajamas that had come from nowhere. She slid her hooves under the covers and then held up a clawed finger. "No, wait: other way around."

Theo, wearing the same clothes he had worn to be nearly killed in—bloody scissor-hole and all—scooted to the far side of his bed, crawled underneath the covers, and tried to pretend that he did not exist. As he closed his eyes, he thought of Tansy, and the idea that he might somehow get his beloved wife back at the end of this torment was enough to keep him from dying of sheer misery.

In the corner of the room, lying where it had been tossed on the laminated hotel room table, was the towel, throbbing ominously with the energy it had absorbed from the life essence of Winslow W. Worthington, a 78-year-old retired life insurance salesman who had died without any supernatural intervention whatsoever, thank you very much. Winslow W. Worthington had simply been undergoing open heart surgery when the surgeon, in the midst of performing an exceptionally delicate maneuver, had been startled by the sound of a small girl coughing loudly.

"Oops!" the surgeon had said. "Time of death: 5:54 PM. Bless you."

Totally normal. This is a story about normal things.

***

Theo slept an unsettled and not particularly restful sleep. He awoke bleary-eyed the next morning when he landed on the musty hotel room carpet. He blinked, Bihatra's black hooves coming in and out of focus, and looked up...up...up at her.

"Get up," Bihatra said. "We're going to Pinkleton."

"Ow," said Theodosius, more or less in response.

It took the two of them very little time to pack up their meager collection of belongings into the plastic Discount Soopers shopping bags. When they had done this, Bihatra—in the guise of Sweetbriar—led the way to the lobby of the hotel. Theodosius was rather sad to see the last of the magic mirror with the little people inside, but he was not about to do anything that might slow their progress toward raising Paula Wolfe from the dead. Not only was every step toward the grisly resurrection a step toward his reunion with Tansy; every step toward the grisly resurrection was, he hoped, half a step away from Bihatra.

"We need a taxi," Bihatra announced to the attendant at the front desk. It was no longer the quailing man from the night before; it was now a teenager with her black hair in braids. The girl was frantically tapping away with her thumbs on a device that looked like a minuscule version of the magic mirror. Theo craned his neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of the tiny people inside, but the screen just presented some strange blocks of script.

"So call one," the girl said.

"Let me rephrase," Bihatra said. "Call us a taxi."

The girl looked up with a frown and reached for the front desk phone with an unamused quirk of her eyebrow. "'Kay," she muttered. "And where are you going in this taxi?"

"Pinkleton."

With a snort, the girl hung up the phone again. "A taxi ain't going to take you to Pinkleton."

"A taxi will be taking us to Pinkleton, now, or I will be upset," said Bihatra. Since she looked to be no more than ten years old, only someone who knew what lay behind those big doe eyes could be properly afraid.

Theo knew, and he was indeed properly afraid.

"Well, good luck," the girl replied with a shrug of her shoulder. She was focused on the phone again. "Bus doesn't run out that far, and a taxi won't, either. Maybe if you pay with your left arm and a human soul."

Theo edged away from Bihatra, holding his left arm protectively in his right.

Bihatra fumed, turning away from the front desk counter and storming toward the door. In her diminutive form, this demonstration of emotion seemed to meet the adoring approval of the elderly couple standing just outside with their suitcase...but Theo gave the disguised demoness a goodly head start before he, too, walked out of the hotel.

"What now?" he asked, still anxiously clutching his left arm.

The demoness shook her head. "Well, no bus. No taxi. I'm very good at commandeering ships, but that won't do us any good here. Can a person commandeer a car?" She looked thoughtfully at the car the elderly couple had left parked just outside the hotel lobby.

At that very moment, a befreckled youth scooted by on a very loud machine. It had four wheels and was grass green with an arcane crest of a yellow deer painted on the side. He nodded at Bihatra and Theodosius as he passed, and when the machine rumbled up onto the lawn at the side of the hotel, he flipped a switch and the machine started making an even more terrifying noise and began to shred the grass over which it rolled.

"What's that?" Theo asked.

"What?"

"What's that?" he asked, more loudly.

"It's a lawn mower!" Bihatra shouted in reply. "Criminy, you're from the Dark Ages!"

"A lawn mower? Oh." He hesitated, wondering how Bihatra had so much knowledge about this world. "Do they have lawns in Hell? Wait! No: a far more important and relevant question. Can we commandeer that?"

"You want to ride a lawn mower to Pinkleton?"

"It's just that it's green." Theo steepled his fingers, the risk to his left arm temporarily forgotten. "I could hex it. Green things take uncommonly well to hexes, and I happen to know an especially good hex for making something fly." He thought with some nostalgia about the broom Bihatra had not let him buy at Discount Soopers. He thought also of the fact that commandeering the car owned by the elderly couple might very well involve stabbing them with scissors, and the old lady had reminded him of his odoriferous line-mate from the gleaming vestibule of Hell, Mildred. Theo had not especially liked Mildred, but he would not have wanted her to be stabbed with scissors.

Bihatra raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. "You want to hex the lawn mower and not one of these cars? Cars that would have enclosed cabins and air conditioning?"

"What's air conditioning?" Theo asked. Seeing the demoness's annoyed expression, he hastened to append, "No, no. It's just that the lawn mower is green, so it will be easier to hex it, and it's smaller, so the hex will last longer, and my impression is that this—Pinkleton—is quite a ways away." A long trip could be made less long—shorter, so to speak—if the means of conveyance went by air rather than land. Of this, Theo was more or less confident.

The demoness rolled her eyes. She started down the walk toward the stretch of lawn where the youth was riding his emerald mount. As she walked, she slowly grew in height. Her disheveled braids unraveled and lengthened into long, lush curls, and a tail sprouted from beneath her skirt. By the time she stopped in front of the lawn mowing man, she was in her demonic form, wearing a much tighter version of Sweetbriar's daisy dress.

The lawn mowing man stopped lawn mowing. He blinked at Bihatra, his mouth hanging open.

"Can I have this?" Bihatra asked, her voice a croon.

He did not seem to move; it was as if he levitated off of the lawn mower. In the space of a breath, he was standing awkwardly a few paces away, leaving the lawn mower in Bihatra's care.

"Thanks. Go away." Shooing the man with one hand, Bihatra jerked her chin at Theo to beckon him over. Warily, Theo approached, cracking his knuckles in preparation for the first hex he had cast in well over sixteen years.