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Chapter 23
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The good Mary stared wide-eyed at her evil half. The last time they met like this, the bad half had made her climax multiple times before saying to the good, “Your way is mine. Go, and be the hero you think you are.” Now, here they were again, halfway between dreaming and being awake.

“What’s wrong, am I not allowed visitations on Sundays?” asked her bad half. “Or I guess it’s Monday now, isn’t it? I’ve never been good at punctuality.”

“What are you planning?” Mary said.

“An epic orgy. A trip to somewhere far away and exotic. Maybe I’ll do both.”

“You and what body, Phoebe?”

The evil one sat still for a moment. For some reason the use of her real name rattled her heart, something she’d never thought she needed. For that matter, she never thought she would ever hear that name again since she was trapped in that artifact centuries ago. She shook it off and regained her composure.

“Oh, come now,” she said to her better half. “Hm, fine choice of words considering how much passion and skin you two just shared. Alright, alright, I promise to behave . . . for now. Just answer me this one question, and do so honestly. Do you care for Kyra?”

Mary said, “Of course I do. I love her.”

“I know that. I know you think you love her, and that you promised to look after her, but do you really care for her. Would you die for her?”

“A second time? In a heartbeat.”

“Good. Good.” Her voice drifted. The succubus was worried, but she could not say why. Some things were better left unsaid, she thought. She hated admitting when something was out of her control.

“You’re hiding something.”

"What? No, I'm not."

"I teach kids at school who are more believable than you."

“Oh, you think so? Fine. I want so much for us all to run away right now. I don't suppose we can, and stir up trouble elsewhere? Make some other country or two out there our brothel for all the world to see and worship? No, I didn't think so. Take good care of her, Maryann, or I’ll make you regret it. Protect her, and yourself, from whatever awaits us. You’ve been able to play hero so far because I’ve let you, because it’s actually fun to watch, but, if you fail to protect her, and not just because she carries a chunk of my soul, then you can kiss everything else you hold dear goodbye.”

Her threat was an endearing one, but a threat all the same.

“Now,” she went on, “about this young, beautiful body lying before us.” Her hand probed Kyra’s sexy shape, starting below her smooth hips.

Kyra, however, muttered through her sleep, “Go back to sleep, Evil Me.”

The succubus smiled, and set her eyes on the good Maryann. Then she vanished, and Mary’s eyes and body suddenly felt quite heavy.

Tatiana was working on making breakfast—Wyatt helped, but mostly just sat reading his copy of a medical journal since it was his wife's turn to cook—when Maryann walked into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” Mary said. Seconds later, she plopped herself down on a chair by the table.

Disturbed by a number of things, Tatiana turned toward her guest. Mary still had a lot to learn, but Tatiana hoped she wouldn’t strangle the woman before teaching her a few things just this morning alone.

“Mary, sweety,” said Tatiana. “If you’re going to live in my house, then there’s something you need to learn about how you sit.”

Mary realized she came down a little too hard on her seat, and opened her mouth as if to apologize, but then her friend continued.

First, Tatiana raised her free hand into the air with two fingers crossed and pointing down. She said, “Good girl,” the same fingers shifted side-by-side, “nice girl,” and finally spread apart, “slut. Do you think you can remember that?”

Wyatt, barely listening, cleared his throat while resisting the urge to look over toward Mary. Mary glanced down, and saw that her legs were indeed open, and she was slouching besides. She sat up and closed her legs, as well as turned toward the table.

“Being a woman is hard,” remarked Mary.

Tatiana turned back to the stove in time for the beeper to go off. She pulled the bacon from the oven while saying, “In our society? You don’t know the half of it, though you’ve been through a lot in the past week. But, yesterday was nice, huh?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I think getting my nails done was nice. Strange that the girl offered to do my horns.”

“Too bad you turned her down. She looked really eager to make those things look and feel nice for you.”

“Weirdos, all of you.”

“Remember, you’re one of us weirdos now too. Sooner or later you may be tempted to give a hornicure a try. Or whatever it’s called.”*

“We could always ask Warren.”

“Let’s not. Texting hippopotami is hard enough to remember.”

Wyatt gazed up from his journal, and said, “You mean the tactile hypnosis?”

“That’s the one. Hey, maybe all you need is a hornicure, and you’ll be able to touch guys again. Wouldn't that be cool?”

Mary opened her mouth as if to say something, but, instead of her own words coming immediately to respond to that, she heard Phoebe laughing in the corner of her mind. Hahaha, horny.

“Somehow,” said Mary, “I get the feeling that won’t work.”

“That what won’t work?” Kyra said, having just entered the room. She also let down her fake invisibility now that she was dressed, so it looked like she practically walked in from out of nowhere.

“Tatiana thinks I’d be able to touch men again if I let that girl treat my horns yesterday,” said Mary.

“Maybe not, but it would have been one more nice thing in addition to everything else you got to experience. Aren’t you the least bit curious how it would feel to have them cleaned like you did your nails?”

Mary wasn’t about to admit it, but she was curious.

Breakfast consisted of tortillas, eggs, and strips of cheese and bacon. Mary got halfway through eating it when she noticed the time on the clock.

“Holy crap!” she exclaimed.

“What?” asked Wyatt and Tatiana. "Is it that good?"

“It’s 7:40. I’ve got twenty minutes to get to work.”

“Work?” asked Tatiana. “What work?”

“Steel Canyon Intermediate School. I’m gym coach there, or I was . . . as David. Break just ended, and I need to show up if I want to keep my job. No, calling in sick isn't an option right now.”

“You might have other things to worry about, Mary. Besides, I thought break ended last week, like with Founder's Creek.”

“It changes with little rhyme or reason from school to school. The district board thinks it keeps kids from crowding the malls, but what it does is keeps families from going out of town when one kid is in elementary and the other is in high school.”

“That’s stupid.”

“And I have nineteen minutes to clock in and be ready to teach. I know, things will be hard to explain, but I’ll come up with something.”

“How fast can you get ready?”

“Five to ten minutes. Maybe.”

“I’ll get you there. Kyra too if she wants to come.” That seemed to satisfy a silent, but enthusiastic, Kyra. Tatiana went on, “Just finish your breakfast. I have somewhere to go a little after that, myself. An appointment.”

“What kind of appointment?” said Mary.

“A doctor who specializes in metahuman cases. A lady doctor.” She didn’t want to concern anyone with why she was going, and still hoped it was nothing.

Everyone else exhaled audibly, though wordlessly.

Mary was the first to be teleported onto school premises, followed by Kyra, since Tatiana could only teleport so many people at once. Luckily, Tatiana knew the school well enough to bring both women to a corner of the girls’ locker room. She once brought lunch to a young friend of hers that had forgotten it that day.

Kyra nearly sighed in disappointment that it wasn’t the other locker room, but then she remembered how young the students were, and it was suddenly for the best.

“OK, girls,” said Tatiana, concealing her identity so that no one could see who had the same sparkly teleportation ability as Princess Undercut. “Have fun, stay out of trouble . . .”

“Find more oxymoron’s to play with,” Mary said.

“. . . and I’ll see you tonight. Mortar’s place. See ya.”

“Hey, wait,” said Kyra, hoping to catch Tatiana before she vanished. “Good luck at the doctor’s. I hope it’s good news.”

Kyra could actually sense it for some reason, but she didn’t want to say anything more than that. Not until Tatiana learned from a medical professional. So, she went no further.

“Thanks, sweety.” Then Tatiana teleported out of sight, mere seconds before the first few girl students walked into the locker room.

As it turned out, David’s aunt and uncle had notified the school that he was missing. Mary decided to work with that as best as she could. She would have to explain this to her boss later on, but the kids didn't need to know a whole lot.

Mary and Kyra walked into the gymnasium to find a few classes waiting for their coaches. They approached the one from which there included whispers of Coach Curry being missing. This was David’s—or rather Mary’s—first class of the day.

The ratio of boys to girls was three to two, which was an inverse of the school’s ratio, the last time David checked about a couple months ago. So Mary had to be careful, not knowing how her touch would affect underage boys.

The class saw her and Kyra. A few of them fell silent at first, mostly out of curiosity.

“Alright, everyone,” said Mary, “settle down. Settle down. As you may or may not be aware right now, your coach David Curry is presently unavailable. My lovely assistant here and I will be filling in for him until things are straightened out. Call me Mary, Mary Curry.”

One student raised his hand, and asked, “Are you Coach’s sister?”

“Note the horns.” She pointed to the bulges beneath her beanie. Back as David, he did not get along very well with Jackie. As Mary, she still had no desire to dwell on that, for various reasons. “Now, who here has heard about Coach Hobbs? Lovely lady, loved to teach dancing here before any of you started coming to this school.”

“There’s a small display dedicated to her,” pointed out another student.

“Yes, thank you. Kyra here is her daughter. I know we’re not doing dancing today, but she’ll be helping us out whenever possible. Let’s see, Monday is aerobics day, so everyone on your feet. Stretch and spread out for a moment while I get your roll call completed.”

While the class spread out and started doing their stretches, Kyra looked over at the display case that Mary’s student had mentioned. She hardly remembered the case even being there back when Kyra’s mom had worked here. Kyra had gone to another school than this one, or else she might have met Judy all those years ago.

She approached it when she was able. There were a few ribbons, a couple trophies, and other rewards given to her mother’s students over the years, all dedicated to their teacher. But, standing next to the one trophy belonging to Kyra’s mother herself, there was a picture of her, a ballerina giving a performance to a group of students in the background.

Kyra touched the glass and whispered, “Mom.” She missed her. She missed not having to worry so much about villains or sinister mystics. Kyra thought that, maybe someday soon, everything would be back to normal, and she could be with her mom again.

A deep, guttural laugh echoed around her then. Kyra thought that it was fear creeping up on her, but it was another feeling. A sense of drifting, similar to when she had blacked out and woke up somewhere else a couple times before. When the echo was over, Kyra looked around, but found herself exactly in the same place as she’d been standing before the echo had begun.

Mary called to her. “Are you alright?”

Kyra nodded back. But, really, she was unsure. That laugh; it was familiar. It was evil. And it was calling her.