“You’re cracked and no one in her right mind would believe a thing you’ve said,” she replied firmly.
Kildaredevil is a devilish name. What is his game? She thought. Cool, confident, a trickster, Loki. Was she about to lose her heart and mind to a trickster?
She had to be careful. But could she be open to love? Love, what is she talking about? I’m not looking for love but money. She was conflicted, not knowing what she wanted. She must persevere, never give up on herself, fight her way to clarity and get the money.
He was in a tight spot. Then he took a second look at the file and putting his hands to the side of his head said, “Oops, wrong file. It’s from a novel I’m working on. Here’s the real file.” He pulled up another file that showed in boring, glowing, and exhausting detail the name, date of birth, and physical condition of every animal ever owned by anyone in the world.”
He typed in the words un-dead hamster or undead hamster.
“Nothing, nada, bupkis, zilch.”
“I get it,” she said. “Why don’t we go back to the first file you pulled up?”
“That’s from a novel, a purely fictional work.”
“Maybe, that’s what an undead-hamster is?”
“We need to fight fire with fire?”
”Exactly!”
They had connected. She was now, she felt, in the inner circle of whatever crazed, twisted psyche confronted her, and who would make her a top global gold digger, the benchmark by which all Harlequin girls are judged.
“It seems to me that an un-dead hamster is a fabled one.”
“No other classification fits,” she said. “except possibly ‘those who belong to the emperor.’
“Which emperor?”
“That of the undead,” Nathasha practically shrieked. “We have Dracula’s pet hamster!”
“Dracula, a pet owner, who would have thought?” the good doctor commented, amazed. Then in a more professional tone, he continued. “I need to observe Dracula’s, I mean your pet overnight,” the doctor said.
Or do you need to pet me overnight? She thought. Did he want to pet her while both thought of Dracula wanting his pet back?
Their relationship was reaching a crisis point, she felt. Could she trust a man trying to gaslight her by reading her this absurd litany of categories? Yet, she could not refuse him, particularly now when she was so vulnerable, having the responsibility for an undead hamster.
He turned off the computer and looked at her straight in the eye, his hand perilously close to hers, and asked calmly, “Do you trust me?”
So bold, so direct! She felt emotionally naked, exposed.
“As far as I can throw you,” she laughed.
It was as good as it was going to get, he thought. Then, he said, “Your hamster cannot be cured using normal methods. We must seek the root cause.”
“Yes,” she assented. She knew. The dystopic futuristic city and the un-dead: synergy.
At that point, all the lights went out.
The humans in the building could feel the approach of a dark, evil presence, some horrid caricature of a comedy act about to inflict itself upon the world. Barbaric puns, double-entendres, vaudeville gags.
Apocalypse now. It was midnight when the Owl of Minerva flew out.
Were the Old Ones returning to the earth to reclaim it and wreak their vengeance upon its inhabitants.
