IT WAS A LONG AND ARDUOUS JOURNEY.
It was also very boring, which is why I am not going to tell you about it, except for that one bit just there where I told you it was both long and arduous.
After all, you have been with us long enough, Dear Reader, that you could probably write the chapter about this lengthy journey yourself. Bihatra did a lot of threatening and complaining. Theodosius did a lot of cowering. Elliott heaped them both generously with clever insults. And Tansy—well, Tansy was in a bottle, so she didn't do much of anything.
I value your time. I hope you know that by now. You and I, we're practically friends. And because I respect you—because, dare I say, I care about you—I'm going to skip you right to the good stuff.
You're welcome.
***
It was a sweltering summer day by the time our merry band of misadventurers reached their destination.
Theodosius was not a fan of summer. It was too hot a season to be respectable, in his opinion. He was damp, especially in the places he wished he weren't damp. The fact that he was wearing woolen robes did not help in the least.
He seemed to be the only one suffering the heat, which just made it worse. Bihatra, being a creature of Hell, was naturally content in the blazing sun and awful humidity. She was nearly cheerful, in fact. Have you ever been around a cheerful demoness?
It is scary.
"Terrifying, in fact," Theodosius said.
"What's terrifying?" asked Bihatra, turning her wide, sharp, terrifying grin upon Theo.
"...Nothing," Theo whimpered.
"You. He's still terrified of you. Predictable." Elliott trotted along at Theo's heels. Even he seemed to be in better spirits than was typical; he had never been known as a cheerful character. Then again, Elliott had no sweat glands any more, or internal organs, or skin, or any of the bits that normally got all hot and unpleasantly damp. What did he have to be grumpy about? Nothing. Nothing at all.
And there was Tansy, who was still in a bottle, not doing much of anything.
"This is not at all what I expected," Theo mumbled, trudging behind Bihatra as she led the way along a cobblestone walk. On either side of the road, which was paved and in good repair, there were tall, beautiful houses with large, sparkling windows and lush flower beds out front. The houses were painted in giddy colors. They had mailboxes and wind chimes and probably very few bears.
"What do you mean?" asked Tansy. Her voice from the bottle was very muted and squished. It sounded like her nose was stuffed.
"Well, it just looks so..." Theo gestured around at the pretty houses and their tidy gardens and their charming stone bird baths, grasping for a word. "...Nice."
"Why wouldn't it be nice?" Tansy asked. Theo had taken to wearing her on his hip, the bottle dangling from his belt. He had to walk carefully to avoid jostling her too much, but even so, the bottle tended to spin one way and then another.
"Because...well...because she's a witch."
"Oh. And because she's a witch, she's supposed to live in a creepy, awful house? A house with creaky floorboards and cobwebs all over? One of the ones with spooky, dead trees out front?"
"Yes. Maybe."
"Or is she supposed to live in a deep, dark forest, in a tiny cottage all surrounded by poison berry bushes? A cottage built out of the bones of the people she's killed?"
"Possibly."
"Or is it that she should live in a stinking bog, haunted with the ghosts of all the hapless people she's cursed over the endless years of her evildoing existence?"
"That's...That's also a very appropriate option." Theo was confused and a little worried. He was beginning to suspect that he was failing a test that had sneaked up on him from behind.
A stuffy-nosed harrumph sounded from the bottle. "You can be so wrapped up in stereotypes sometimes, Theo. Honestly. I suppose that just because you're a sorcerer, you're some kind of shrunken man with an unwashed beard who's more comfortable with books than with people? A man who wears dusty old robes and lives in a house full of strange, unfinished experiments?"
Theodosius looked down at the bottle, bemused. "That sounds pretty much like me. Yes."
"Please, stop making words," Bihatra groaned. "We're here. You'd better keep your wits about you. Don't do anything stupid. Don't do anything idiotic. I do not have time to be cursed or hexed. We get in, we get what's-her-face back into a body with bones and some skin, or whatever, and then we get out."
They had drawn to a stop outside of one of the cheerful homes. It was painted lavender, with tasteful bat wing shutters and a crooked chimney from which puffs of smoke issued into the bright blue sky. Out front were lovely, well-kept bushes and flower beds. Theo wondered whether any or all of them were poisonous. There was a squat little mailbox in front of the home. On its side in curling script was painted, Victoria the Badass.
Bihatra continued, "Don't talk more than you have to. Don't ask too many questions. And do. Not. Touch anything. Got it?"
Theo nodded, unconsciously resting his hand over the cap of Tansy's bottle. "No doing stupid things. No touching anything."
"Good." The demoness began to walk again, her tail flicking with preemptive annoyance as she made her way up the picturesque cobblestone walk to the front of the house. Elliott padded behind, his toe bones clicking softly against the stones. Theo followed.
Bihatra knocked several times on the door. After a moment, the door opened slowly inward. Theo braced himself for a shadowed interior festooned with the aforementioned cobwebs and lots of furniture that would be appropriate for a crypt, but what was revealed instead was an airy entryway with a beautiful crystal chandelier and shining wooden floors. Not much more of the room was visible because of the rotting corpse standing in the doorway.
Well, maybe he wasn't a corpse, but he was certainly rotting. His skin was sallow, turning green in places, and one of his eyelids drooped like the fallen hem of a petticoat. He was dressed in a neat black and white suit with a satiny purple bow tie.
And he smelled.
He smelled bad.
"How can I help you?" the stinky whatever-he-was asked pleasantly. His grin was ghastly, thin-lipped and toothy in the way only a dessicated human's could be.
"We're here to see Victoria the Badass," Bihatra said.
"The witch," Theo added.
"Do you have an appointment?" asked the odoriferous creature.
"What—?" Bihatra stiffened, then put her hands on her hips, her tail flicking angrily. "No. We do not have an appointment. But we have walked halfway across the world to get here, so perhaps she could pencil us in."
The thing—
"Are you a zombie?" Theo asked abruptly as all of the loose pieces clicked into place. "Are you actually a reanimated corpse?"
The thing—the zombie, he had to be—frowned at Theo, affronted. "Excuse me?"
"Out of professional interest, I just need to know if you're a—?"
"That is a very personal question," said the probably-zombie, frowning at Theo. "You said you were here to see Madame Victoria. Let me see if she has an opening in her schedule."
Just as he was turning around, a voice called from inside the house: "Nnnope!"
The zombie blinked at Bihatra and Theo, standing still for a few seconds. Then, with a pleasant smile, he said, "She isn't in today."
And he closed the door.