I was seriously running out of breath when Mr. Piddlesworth dodged behind an especially big bush—one that was taller than me—and gave a sudden, sharpyip!of surprise.
What the hell is he doing now, the little booger?I thought. Panting, I ran around the bush…and saw nothing.
Mr. Piddlesworth seemed to see something, though. He was standing there with all his hair sticking out and his upper lip wrinkled back to show his tiny fangs, growling at some unseen enemy.
“Mr. Piddlesworth, what iswrongwith you?” I demanded, glaring at him. “You nearly gave me a heart-attack chasing after you and now you’re growling at the air. What—”
And then I smelled it.
It was a rotten, putrid odor like a pile of dead fish going bad in the sun. It was also a somehow familiar.
“What in the world?” I muttered, looking around. The area behind the big bush was empty but that awful smell persisted. Where was it coming from?
And then something grabbed me. I couldn’t see what it was, but I felt it—like two big, hard hands gripping me by my upper arms.
“Hey!” I gasped. “Hey, stop! Leave me alone!”
I looked around wildly for help, since I was now being dragged forward by the invisible force and the fishy, rotten odor was getting stronger. I saw some golfers off in the distance and caught the gleam of sunlight on one of their raised golf clubs.
“Help!” I screamed at them, as loudly as I could.“Help me!”
The golfers looked at me curiously and then kind of shook their heads. I must have just looked like a woman alone with her dog, in no particular danger. Because of course, they couldn’t see my attacker any more than I could.
“Hey, lady,” one of them shouted. “You better not let your dog crap on the green—that’s a two hundred dollar fine, ya know!”
And then they all went back to their game.
In the meantime, Mr. Piddlesworth was still yipping like crazy, but even his barking couldn’t drown out what I heard next. It was a voice like two boulders rubbing together and it was speaking right in my ear.
“That’ll be enough of that, girly,” it rumbled. “Ain’t nobody can help you even if they could see me, which they can’t on account of the stealth tech. Now you’re comin’ with me.”
And then my invisible, malodorous attacker dragged me into a hole in the air—that’s the best way I can describe it—and out of my world entirely. The sunshine pouring down, the soft breeze, and the shrill sound of Mr. Piddlesworth barking cut off abruptly and I realized two things…
First, I was no longer on Earth and second, I was in a hell of a lot of trouble.
FIFTY-SIX
SIR
“What is it? What do you want?” I snapped when the incoming call revealed Charnoth, the head Commercian. His long, blue, wormy body was plainly visible on my viewscreen but he was the last being I wanted to see. Seeing him just reminded me of little one and how badly I still missed her.
I was in my office as usual—I had been drowning myself in work for the past two solarwerns—which was easy enough to do. A lot had piled up while I had been gone doing my fact-finding mission to the Goddess’s Cloak galaxy. But no matter how I tried to work myself to exhaustion, I couldn’t get my former pet out of my mind.
Her soft, curvy little body and her big brown eyes and those adorable dimples of hers…the naughty, saucy little smile she gave me when she was getting her own way and the sweet, trusting way she curled up in my arms at night…they were all still with me, every time I closed my eyes. She was all I could think about—I wasmiserablewithout her. And seeing Charnoth pop up on my screen, only made me think of her more.
“Did you not get my last payment?” I demanded, glaring at the Commercian. “Why are you bothering me?”
“Forgive me, Overlord.” Charnoth ducked his head obsequiously. “Yes, we received your last payment, and that is why I am calling.”
“What—is it not enough?” I snarled. “Are you calling me to renegotiate? Because if you are—”
“No, no! It was more than generous!” Charnoth held up about ten of his clawed hands in a gesture that begged for clemency. “But because we took payment for the service of, er, ‘keeping an eye’ as the humans say, on your former pet, I am calling to inform you that she is no longer on Earth.”
“What?”I exploded, rising out of my chair as a cold hand gripped my heart. How had my bond with little one not alerted me that something was wrong? Was it because I had been trying so hard to distance myself from her? Or did it have to do with the physical distance—the thousands of light years—between us? I had no answers—only deep anxiety verging on panic as I contemplated her fate.
“What in the Goddess Eternal’s Afterlife are you talking about? How can shenotbe on Earth anymore?” I demanded.
Charnoth shook his head.