Dinging Off


The press was waiting in the parking lot when we came down the ramp.

“Did you call a press conference?” Howard asked.

“I figured I wouldn’t have to,” Conrad said smugly. “They have to be watching the jail for any interesting visitors.”

Reporters from three channels and two papers ran up to Conrad. Questions were fired in a volley. I can remember “Did Electra interview the accused?”

And “Are you offering to help in her defense?”

And “Will the Sylph Center be involved in her defense?”

No one used Magic’s name. And no one asked how she was holding up. Or how the little sylph was being treated by the bureaucracy.

Conrad handed the carrier to Howard and held up both hands. “Please, please! There hasn’t been an interview. We’ll be talking to the sheriff’s office formally, to try to schedule a formal interview.

“For now, I was just visiting my new sylph.”

“Your new sylph?” a reporter echoed.

“Yes,” Conrad acknowledged. “I have purchased Magic for an undisclosed sum and-“

The carrier rocked as Howard’s hand shot out to grab Conrad’s shoulder. “Mr. Loudon, you do not SAY ‘undisclosed sum,’ you just refuse to answer the question.”

“What question?”

“How much did you pay?” four reporters chorused, smiling. Idiots make for media darlings. Or sacrificial lambs, but they were still willing to let Conrad be a good guy in the story.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, anyway, I wanted to see how she was being treated, to get her side of the story, and to congratulate her for advancing the sylph cause.”

That stunned them. “The sylph cause?” they all asked.

“Of course. She’s been charged with cannibalism.” He stopped in that way he has, when he’s made his point. Whether or not anyone else can understand his point.

“I think,” Howard said, “they need a bit more exposition, Conrad. Which means, keep talking.”

“Oh! Sure. Well, they have charged my sylph with cannibalism. That’s not just making it illegal to eat human flesh. Cannibalism means eating flesh of your own species.”

And suddenly, I got it. And Cher did. He snorted, shaking his head. Delli was still confused. So were the reporters. He kept talking. Howard may have nudged him, I’m not sure.

“See, the AG has made it a legal point that Magic is the same species as Marcus Lowman. So to prosecute her for this crime, he’ll have to overturn the Sylph Act. Sylphs are humans, at least in Idaho. Or whatever the extent of the AG’s jurisdiction.

“With any luck, this’ll go as high as the Supreme Court, making the case national. And changing the law, nationally.” He smiled, smug as he’d ever been, waiting for questions.

“Who thought of that?” was one I wanted to ask. But that was unfair. He couldn’t define ‘precedent,’ but he did a great job reading people.

He knew that the AG had been looking for, hoping for, a legal slam dunk. There was no way he’d risk being the man who caused such a major change in the law.

So whether Conrad’s idea had a leg to stand on or not, there was very probably no way the AG would go forward on the case.

Too much risk of being the guy who had the watch when everything went up in smoke. Personally, I’d think that was a good thing, causing the revolution, but there was no predicting how that would change things.

Conrad dealt with a lot of questions by saying, ‘I don’t know,’ or referring them to legal counsel. Howard said a lot of non-committal things. Eventually they got tired of the lack of answers and walked away.

Conrad took the carrier back, shook Howards hand and walked to his car.

“Let’s go home and wait for the phone call,” he predicted. Smug bastard. Of course, if he was right, I could forgive a little smugness.

-----

In the end, it turned out that Conrad was wrong. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! We did NOT get a phone call. Not at home, not at the office the next day, not before we started getting ready for another visit to the jail.

We were on Conrad’s desk, listing things to pick up on the way.

“A grape,” was Cher’s suggestion. “Something fresh. Everything in prison is canned.”

“I’ll take your word for that,” Conrad said, writing down GRAPE on a memo pad.

“Chocolate!” Delli added.

“We don’t know if she likes milk or dark chocolate,” he protested.

“She clearly has taste, so we’ll get dark,” Delli said in a matter-of-fact tone. “But if you want to play it safe, you can get a little bit of everything.”

“SOMEONE will eat whatever we bring back from the jail,” I pointed out. He nodded. He does that when I’m right. So he does that a lot.

Did I mention that the smug bastard was wrong?

Anyway, that’s when Lisa came into his office. “Gerald Archer is in the lobby, Conrad. He wants to see you!”

“Who’s Gerald Archer?” he asked.

“Oh, good LORD!” I snapped. “He’s the state Attorney General. Your foe for the last two weeks!?!”

“Oh!” He brightened. “I guess I’d never heard his name.”

We, the sylphs and Lisa, all burst out laughing. He looked from face to face, confused.

“Boss,” Lisa said, “I heard you draw attention to his initials. G.A. the A.G.? You wondered if he was forced into this job?”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” he told her. I groaned because I could feel his sincerity. He looked at faces again. “So, we should assume this is about Magic?”

“You should,” Lisa said, before anyone could reply. She sounded firm on this. And not just that it was obvious…. What did she know?

“Do I need my lawyer present?”

“I’ve already called his firm.” Lisa is a critical component to the operation of our studio. “They’re sending someone. But I don’t think it’s critical.”

“Okay. Okay.” He nodded. “Game faces?”

“I need to fix her hair,” Cher said. Conrad carried us to the Set while Lisa went to see to our guest.

When we entered the conference room, we understood Lisa’s comment. Archer sat in the middle of one side of the table. Before him was a mug of coffee and a croissant, obviously supplied by our receptionist.

Also in front of him was a small bamboo cage, with Magic inside it.

Conrad sat across from him, placing the three of us on the table. I started to run over to Magic, but Cher placed a hand on my shoulder.

Magic waved, apparently happily enough.

“I, uh, I guess this is a peace offering,” Archer said. He reached over to open the cage. Magic ran over to us. I grabbed her in a hug. Her arms held me tightly, almost as tight as Thog’s grip had been.

“Thank you so much!” she said into my ear. Cher and Delli hugged against us both.

Over our heads, Conrad’s tone remained conversational, though his emotions were almost violent over our bond.

“I don’t think a just outcome is much of a peace offering,” Conrad said.

“I suppose, from your point of view, I’ve been, what, an evil villain for all this?” Archer asked. He gave a half-laugh, inviting us to laugh with him, to pretend he was joking.

“You wanted to kill a friend of mine for political posturing,” our owner replied.

“Well, ‘friend’ might be a little strong.” Archer said.

“I’m going to warn you right off,” Conrad said, lifting a hand. “I consider all the sylphs on the table to be my friends. One of them is my girlfriend. So before you’re dismissive about my feelings towards Magic, you really have no idea what they are.

“And whatever you think my feelings SHOULD be, I really don’t give a fuck. Okay?”

“Um… Okay….” Archer said slowly.

“Now, with that settled,” Conrad said, leaning forward and cupping his hands around us. “If you’re worried about how we’re going to treat your efforts on Electra’s show…. It’s a happy ending and I’m not terribly vindictive.”

Archer seemed to relax, a bit, but he still looked wary. Was Conrad stating intentions or beginning negotiations? I didn’t know any more than he did.

I wondered if Conrad even knew?

“We don’t typically use the interviews to rant about politics,” Conrad said. “But if it comes up during the conversation, we’ll probably whine about The System, not individuals in the system.”

“That’s my point!” Archer said. “I was just trying to obey the law. I wanted the decisions of actual courts to be on the books, precedents established.”

“Sure,” Conrad said. “I can see that as a rational excuse.” Then he cleared his throat. “But you still directed people to kill someone that I think of as a person, as if they were just a wild animal.

“Now, you can finish your coffee and your croissant, but we’re closing the studio early, today. There’s a lot of ice cream at Baskin Robbins and they may need our help controlling their inventory.”

“But we don’t know if Magic likes Ice Cream,” Delli said, mocking master’s protest about chocolate.

“I-“ Magic started to reply.

“Inside joke,” Cher said softly. Conrad was just ignoring Delli. That’s when the lawyer from Howard’s firm walked in.

There was a brief conversation. I remember ‘all charges dropped,’ and ‘no further interest’ and some other legalese. But essentially it was the happy ending Conrad thought.

-----

Then we all got into the carrier while Conrad told everyone else to go home. He swung by to lift the carrier and put it next to the Set. “And get her out of the orange jumpsuit,” he ordered.

Then he went through the offices, turning out the lights.

“Naked?” Magic asked.

“No,” Delli said firmly. “He wants you dressed up like the rest of us.”

“Ignoring the fact that you’re naked,” Cher told Delli.

“Oh. Well, like the rest of THEM. But you CAN be naked if you want! We can be bare-bosom-buddies!”

“Show her those cargo pants you made last week,” I told Delli.

She smiled, said, “I think I know where those are!” and ran out the door, into the Set and her wardrobe. Cher went with her to help search.

I turned to Magic. “Okay, one thing is certain, you’re going to have a name change.”

“Right,” she nodded. “New owner, new name.”

“No, no,” I said. “He’s for sure going to give you the last name of ‘Loudon.’ The rest is up to you.”

“The rest?”

“If you want to honor Marcus by keeping ‘Magic,’ Conrad won’t take it personally. But if it’s too painful, he’ll allow you to change it so you’re not reminded of him.”

“I… Won’t HE be reminded that I’m The Cannibal Sylph?” she asked.

“Honestly, I don’t think he’ll ever forget that.” I glanced up to see Cher and Delli coming back. She had a handful of denim. “But he won’t tease you about it.”

“Oh, God,” Delli said. “Imagine if he tried to give you a name to honor your status in the media. Little Eater Loudon or something like that.”

“No, he’d try to be subtle,” Cher said. “Donner Loudon. He’d TELL people it was for donner kebabs, but it’d be for the Donner Party.”

“I think that’s pronounced donor…” I said.

“Which would be an instant derail, making people forget Little Donner’s name in all the fuss!” Cher said triumphantly. He began to imitate Master’s bluster about Donner, Donor, Dinar…

Magic smiled, then frowned. “But will people tease HIM about owning the man-eating sylph?”

“OATES!” Delli said, snapping her fingers. “That’s Conrad-level subtlety. Tell people you really like oat meal cookies, but instead it’s for the song-“

“Oh, oh, hear she comes,” Magic sang. We all chorused “She’s a man-eater!” We all laughed. I liked that Magic could laugh after her ordeal. I looked forward to getting to know her.

But it didn’t last. The hurt was still new, raw. She winced and looked guilty. I suspect she felt guilty about laughing when she hadn’t grieved Marcus properly.

Cher chose to interpret her reaction as being to Conrad’s hypothetical teasing. He put an arm around Magic’s shoulders. “He sucks at puns, but he’s great at people. The whole world could tease him about your traumatic experience and he’ll cheerfully tell them to fuck off.”

The lights went out at that moment, so we couldn’t see Magic’s expression. Delli was closest to the carrier door and screamed, “We’re still IN HERE, Conrad!”

“Oh, sorry!” He then groped through the darkened room to find the carrier and took us out to the car.

A smarter owner might have turned the lights back on. Then again, even in the dark, he knew exactly where we all were…

Once on the way, Delli got Magic dressed up in a denim explorer suit. Pants and a shirt with lots and lots of pockets.

Conrad was appreciative of Magic’s new look when we stepped out onto the table at the ice cream parlor. At least, she chose to take it as a compliment. He took one look at her and moaned. “I’m going to be spending a lot more time outdoors, aren’t I?” We all laughed.

As we sat around the waffle-bowl, eating our sundae, I pointed out to Conrad, “Hey, you know, we ARE a political show. We always have been. Sylph Center sort of politics.”

“I know,” he said. “But that’s not political in the manner GA the AG would understand it. “

I accepted that. Magic looked confused. Or at least curious. Conrad noticed and spoke directly to her.

“If he had the chance to control the cutest sylph on television, and a national audience, he would be stoking a much more explicit agenda. Naming names and suggesting voting and phone calls.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “But what’s your political?”

“Our,” he said with a smile, stressing the word to make it inviting her into our little show, “effort is to make people see sylphs as people.”

“And undines!” I pointed out.

“Well, yes, undines,” he said. “That goes without saying.”

“It nearly did,” Cher said. “Until Electra said it.”

“Can we NOT try to make Magic think we’re constantly at each other’s throats?” Conrad pleaded.

“Actually, sir,” Magic started to say.

“Oh, he’s not ‘sir,’ Magic,” I told her.

“Unless Ace is visiting,” Delli told me.

“Well, yeah,” I said, “that goes without saying.”

“Can we PLEASE?” Conrad whimpered.

“Actually, CONRAD,” Magic stressed his name, her use of his name, “I can tell you all really love each other. I, uh, I really hope I can fit in.”

“Coke or Pepsi?” he asked instantly.

“Um, er…” She looked around. I made a little ‘c’ with my fingers. Delli mouthed ‘Coke.’ Cher… I didn’t know what Cher was doing. Gesturing, but I couldn’t decipher it.

“Coke?” Magic guessed.

“Okay!” Conrad said. “You’ll fit right in!”

When Conrad went to wash his hands (and wash off Delli… She got a little excited with the fudge sauce.), I turned to Cher. “What the hell were you trying to gesture?”

“That’s the one I got!” Magic said cheerfully. “He was snorting a bump of coke off of his knuckle!”

“Oh! Well, now it makes sense.”

“Um, no,” Cher said. “I was, um, moving as to open a bottle of Coke.” He gestured again. He was holding his fist up close to his face, though. I could see why Magic thought of it as… Well.

“How is that distinguishing Coke rather than Pepsi?” I had to ask.

He looked flustered for a second. “I, uh… Well, I guess I was thinking… Conrad buys Coke in bottles, and his dad, Wade, gets Pepsi in cans.”

“But she hasn’t met Wade, and both come in both, Cher,” I said. Magic giggled at his expression.

“Don’t judge!” he snapped. We both laughed at him. He blushed.

Conrad came back, gathered everyone in the carrier once again, and we went home.

-----

He carried us all in his cupped hands as he showed Magic her new home. He included showing the empty aquarium that used to be Delli’s bedroom, before she and Cher created the Love Nest downstairs.

“You can decorate this, and pick where we move it to,” he told her.

“You’re going to want to be downstairs,” Cher advised her.

“No,” Delli insisted. “You NEED to be downstairs. Away from the demonic infestation of Castle Hill Avenue!”

“Ah-har-har,” Conrad deadpanned.

“Marcus snored,” Magic said. She sounded wistful.

“And on that note,” Conrad said. He carried everyone into the kitchen and put us on the table. There was a Sylph Registration Form next to a pen fitted with a sylph harness.

The name was already partially filled in. As I’d predicted, he’d started with ‘Loudon,’ the ending.

“I, uh…” he said, suddenly at a loss for words. Magic placed a hand on his wrist.

“Electra explained that you don’t mind if I don’t want to forget Marcus.”

“I don’t,” he said, clearly relieved. “If you want ‘Magic,’ I’m okay with it. With you.” He lifted the pen up beside her. “Do you want to…?”

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, “he DOES mind if you call him sir. We were serious about that.”

“Right, right,” she muttered, slinging the harness on and writing MAGIC carefully on the line. Then she looked around at us, up at Conrad.

For a middle name, she wrote COKE. No one asked why, though we did look at her with clear interest. She shrugged. “I, I really want to fit in,” she said.

“Perfect,” Conrad said. He folded up the form and sealed it in the envelope the Registry had supplied.

Then he tapped his fingers on the table. “This part, however, will be harder.”

“What?” I asked. I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Well, Marcus’ heir pretty much liquidated his assets and ran. Nothing against Darren, but he didn’t pay a lot of attention to Marcus, himself.” Conrad squirmed a bit. “I somehow ended up making the arrangements for his funeral.”

“Oh!” Magic looked stunned. “How, uh, how was it?”

“It’s day after tomorrow,” he said. “Some of his coworkers expressed an interest, but they all told me it should wait until you could be there. I made the call while I was turning lights off.”

She bit her lip. Cher wrapped her up in one of those monster hugs of his and Delli translated. “She says thank you, Conrad.”

He looked at Delli and in as stern a voice as he was capable of, said, “Attire will be mandatory.”

“Of course!” she replied. “Let me get Magic and Electra in something black and demure, and Cher and I in something not outrageous.”

“I do appreciate it,” he told her.

“Me, too,” Magic said, taking Delli into a hug.

Delli stood on tiptoe to whisper, “I will help you honor his memory, okay?”

While those two went off to take measurements for the funeral dress, Cher went to work out.

I climbed up Conrad’s arm to sit on his shoulder. “You know, we’re going to need another bed in the Set.”

“I figured a big double-bed in the garage,” he said. “For Delli and Cher. Then you two can share the bedroom.”

“OOooh! Then we’ll have room for another sylph!”

“Sure,” he said. “Let me know when I can use my legal-fu to rescue another sylph so you guys can have a roommate.”

I stood up and grabbed his ear. He stood very still, helping me keep my balance.

“You did good, Conrad,” I told him, speaking softly into his ear.

“Thank you,” he said. I kissed his lobe and he reached up to pat my back.

Then we went to watch some TV for a while. Supersylph was on in about half an hour…. We found something familiar, in syndication, for the interim.

I was just staring at the TV, stroking Conrad’s neck, when suddenly this painful wave of anger came over our bond. Conrad was as pissed as I’d ever known him to me.

And this was the 43rd time we’d seen this episode of M*A*S*H, so it wasn’t Father Mulcahy’s piano playing…

He started to shake under me. What was wrong?

I could see the Set door open, and Delli came running out onto the porch, looking terrified. So, she’d felt it, too.

Magic came along behind her, looking confused.

Down on the floor, Cher walked into view, one dumbbell still in hand.

“Conrad?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“You… You… DAMMIT, Electra!” he snapped. Holy crap, what had I done? I wasn’t doing ANYTHING!

He reached up for me. I could see his hand trembling. I didn’t want to anger him any further, but I certainly didn’t want to be in his grip right then.

I turned and ran. I jumped for the back of the sofa and ran along the back, jumping to the end table, then dropping to the floor.

He was on me in an instant, dropping to his knees and reaching towards the corner.

“NO!” I screamed. He paused and I ducked under his hand to run under the couch. “At least tell me what I DID!?!?!”

“How could you DARE?” he wailed. “I mean, if ANYONE in the house would do that, it’d be me, and I DIDN’T DO IT!!” He clenched fists and pounded the carpet. “I’d have thought better of all you guys, but especially YOU, Electra.”

“What did she do?” Delli shrieked.

Conrad paused. I could almost hear him thinking. Whatever I’d done, he didn’t want to discuss it.

But he couldn’t really punish me in front of the other sylphs without explaining at least what my crime was.

So, thank God, he’d have to tell them what had happened, so I’d learn what I’d done.

“She was humming a song,” he finally said through gritted teeth.

Oh. Oh, crap.

“Oh,” Delli said.

“She chose to hum a Hall and Oates song, Maneater. I admit, we heard that song a lot when it made #1 on the charts, but we haven’t really heard it since. So it must have been something she brought up to make fun of Magic.”

My heart sank. I mean, the joking we did before must have put the song in my head, and I just hummed it naturally. But I could never convince him of that.

So he thought I was capable of that sort of teasing… That I’d treat Magic’s horrible tragedy that way. Even if, in the circumstances, it seemed like a joke between me and Conrad, it was too cruel to imagine.

Oh, God, he’d never trust me again… I could just die!

That’s the moment when Magic truly joined our family.

“Sir!” she called out.

“I’m not a ‘sir,’ Magic,” he said automatically.

“I know, sir, but I really need you to listen to me, sir!”

I was flat on the floor, looking out under the sofa’s skirt. All I could see was Conrad’s knees as he turned to face his newest pet. But he did turn to face her. He gave her the attention she was demanding.

“Sir, she wasn’t teasing me!” Magic promised him.

“No, I know you couldn’t hear it, Magic,” he said. “And I know you’re automatically on her side, sylphs against the world and all that, but still-“

“NO!” she shouted. I think she stamped her foot. “Sir, the song came up in conversation earlier. That’s why it was on her mind, sir.”

“It came up earlier?” If anything he sounded more angry. Because Magic had known about what he thought was teasing. That was, if nothing else, discourteous. Mom would have a fit!

“No, no, no, sir!” Magic said quickly. “It wasn’t teasing.”

“Then what was it?” he asked, his voice clipped.

“It was…” She paused. “Well, actually, sir, they were making fun of you.”

“What, really?” All the anger popped like a balloon. He was confused, but no longer homicidal. I could live through this. He thought about it for a second. “Okay, don’t let the brilliant legal maneuvering fool you, I’m as dumb as a rock.

“So it’s not that I don’t believe you, but you need to draw me a picture. How does their singing ‘Man-Eater’ target me?”

“They, uh, they said you were absolutely terrible at puns, Conrad.” That was good. I loved how she switched to his name, knowing that she had his full attention.

“I think it’s that they don’t GET my puns,” he protested, but softly.

“Yes, of course, but still, this was a sylph-only conversation, so their opinion-“

“Yes, yes,” he stipulated.

“Well, they said if you were a worse sort of person, you might have named me ‘Oates,’ you see?”

“Or ‘Holland,’” he said in an instant. “On the registry, it’d be spelled ‘Hall And,’ but for day to day-“

“Yes, of course,” Magic agreed.

“But I’d never have done that,” he said seriously.

“I know that and believe it utterly,” she replied. “And they didn’t mean to imply that you would. It was really a wonderful gesture, Conrad. They shared with me, in a moment of intimacy, helping me feel closer to them AND to you.”

“I understand,” he assured her. “We do the same thing talking about my father and the Privacy Game.”

And the incident was over. Just like that. Then I felt his attention turn to me. “Of course, now I’ll have to use imported chocolate to convince Electra that it’s safe to come out from under there.”

Obviously, he didn’t need to bribe or entice me. I could tell his anger was gone and he knew it.

The candy would just be his form of apology for losing his temper.

“I was scared, too!” Delli pointed out.

“We all were!” Cher shouted up to him.

“Noted,” he said. “I know where there’s a Toblerone bar…”

“Milk or Dark chocolate?” Delli asked.

“We’ll let Magic decide,” he said.

“Dark,” she said firmly.

“Dark it is,” he nodded. “One apology coming right up.” He strode off towards the kitchen.

As soon as he left the living room, I ran out to stare up at Magic. She was hugging Delli. “That was awesome!” I called up to them.

“I, uh, I told on you guys.”

“And saved my LIFE!”

“Conrad doesn’t mind being the butt of a joke,” Cher said. “As long as it’s a funny joke.”

“And as long as we tell him the joke,” Delli added.

Then we heard something rattling on a saucer. “Quick!” Delli shouted. She jumped down from the table to the floor. Magic followed.

When Conrad came back, we all ran under the sofa.

He lay flat on his belly, gently enticing one pet after the other to come out and take a piece of chocolate.



-----
Index

148. Dining Off

107. Blank