After dinner, Jabber took Eridian’s ruined bust home and set it aside in his foyer. He was too tired to think of a good scheme to get rid of it without provoking Eridian’s ire. Possibly, he thought as he shuffled up his stairs to bed, he could just store it in his garage or basement until Eridian forgot about the whole thing? If she asked for it, he could always tell her he was trying to find someone with the requisite skills to restore the bust to perfection. And besides, he chuckled to himself, he could always actually get it repaired and deliver it back to Eridian if Fokso ever got on his nerves again.

  Unfortunately for Eridian’s bust, however, Oikos was coming to Jabber’s house the next afternoon to repair the venting for the magician’s cast-iron stove while he was out. Eridian still had refused to pay Oikos until the man had replaced all the sterling silver sigils he had installed with fine silver ones, which left Oikos with the triple whammy of owing payment for the set of sigils he had to remove, having to pay his distributor even more money for fine silver ones, and not receiving a single penny from Eridian to boot. He had debts, a family to feed, and was very angry at the situation.

  All of which explains why the moment he walked into Jabber’s foyer and saw Eridian’s bust staring at him with those uncaring draconian eyes, he began cursing in his native Ashki.

  “Oi makalos mikanaa! Shib dan lenak tarna bitchum! Sumentagra, diknatali cuntom tuye asstali natu mikanna!!!”

  I will spare the reader the translation but needless to say it involved many curse words, disparagements to Eridian's virtue, and various unmentionable parts of her body. This went on for several minutes until Oikos had worked himself up into such a spit of anger, he yanked out his work-wand and set about destroying even more of Eridian’s precious bust.

  Jabber, meanwhile, was having the time of his life wooing Angelica back from the brink of her celestial harassment complaint. He was in his element, laying on the smarm thick and fast, for despite his generally acerbic demeanor, Jabber had considerable reserves of charm to pull from when needed. Combining that with the fact he had retired his GOAT helmet for good, he was confident he had this thing in the bag.

  They were at a two-seater table at the Devil’s Garden, Jabber’s usual haunt. Angelica was explaining why it was inappropriate for him to ask questions about her body.

  “You do understand that this is my halo? And you don’t have a right to ask about things related to my body?”

  “Of course,” Jabber replied. “Of course! I’m a bit of an old fogie as you can see.” Jabber removed his pointed hat to show his bald head. “Sometimes things pop out of my mouth that I regret later. It was completely inappropriate of me to ask such personal questions.”

  Angelica nodded primly. Her eyes were open and sincere as she listened to his explanations. “And as for sniffing me? And using me as a lamp to read mail?”

  “Oh my dear Lost Lord!” Jabber said, covering his eyes with his hands in faux shame. “I can see how you thought I was sniffing you when I leaned in. My aged nose sometimes gets stuffy and I’m often grunting and sniffling to breathe through it. Even when it’s clear, my breaths are wheezy.” To emphasize this point, Jabber exhaled from his nose, and indeed there was a slight raspy whistle as the air flowed through the forest of white hairs sprouting in his nostrils.

  Angelica gave a little giggle. “Well, that’s true. You do breathe rather noisily.”

  “I’ve got one foot in the grave after all!” Jabber laughed with her. “My eyes are weak too, which is why I wear these thick glasses and sometimes it’s frustrating not being able to see well enough to read, and, well, I’m a bit shy about my eyesight, and I made the mistake of trying to use the closest source of light.” At this Angelica reached her hands up uncomfortably towards the side of her head where her halo was casting gentle golden light. Seeing this, Jabber added, “But it won’t happen again, I swear. I may be old but this scraggly hellhound can still learn new tricks!”

  Angelica smiled at this and took a sip of her virgin espresso martini.

  Feeling he was on a roll, Jabber continued, “And that wasn’t Andreas Tatius, that was Fokso Barmuffian, my estate and financial agent. He’s not even an angel, just a chubby middle aged man who I’m friends with and takes care of my assets.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Angelica was listening intently and the relief slowly washing over her that Jabber wasn’t associated with that infamous demonophobe was clearly visible. Much of the tension in the air had nearly dissipated.

  “This has all been a series of unfortunate incidents and miscommunications,” Jabber said, pressing the charge as Angelica nodded. “I’m not some sort of evil wizard or demonophobic magician. That’s not me . . . I’m not obsessed with angels, my ex-wife is a lovely demon for God’s missing sake! ”

  Angelica took a deep breath. “I can see that we both made certain assumptions and took some regrettable actions based on those assumptions.”

  “Yes! Unfortunate assumptions! Exactly. And I truly, deeply apologize . . . in fact I came here to ask if you would be willing to come back to the laboratory and work with me again.”

  “Well, I . . ..” Angelica looked down at her hands shyly.

  “And I miss Bella! Oh, how I miss that little hell-pooch!” Jabber switched his voice low into the baby babble people use when speaking to or about dogs. “She’s a good little girl! Such beautiful eyes and white teeth she has! Doesn’t she? She does indeed!”

  At this Angelica laughed out loud, covering her mouth demurely with her hands. “All right,” she said. “All right. I’m happy to put this behind us.”

  “Oh wonderful!” Jabber said, clasping his hands in a cheer. “You won’t regret this, I have all sorts of wonderful projects for a PhD in humanities such as yourself to work on–” all at once, Jabber stopped his prattling as he noticed Theodore walking past the restaurant bar. The silver-haired angel hadn’t seen Jabber yet but he would in a moment when he turned towards the door.

  “Yes?” Angelica asked excitedly. “What sorts of projects?!”

  “Oh never mind that now, I’ll explain later. . . Can I? Do you mind if I just?” Jabber said as he moved from his chair to sit on the banquette right next to Angelica.

  “What are you doing? No! You can’t sit here!” Angela exclaimed in shock.

  She made to shift away from Jabber but he pointed his wand at her and muttered, “Buttus tuus in seaticus manet!” At once her buttocks were lodged firmly to the banquette.

  Angelica gave Jabber a look of horror. “What the hell are you doing?!”

  “Noli speakui!” Jabber added with another flick of his wand. The color drained from Angelica’s face as she realized she could no longer talk. Being forced to sit silent next to the magician was the manifestation of all her worst fears about her former boss.

  “Just, one moment,” Jabber replied out of the side of his mouth, looking towards Theodore. “I just need to sit next to you for one second. It’ll only take a heartbeat.” The demoness squirmed next to him, but it was to no avail, the magic held her fast.

  Theodore, meanwhile, was nearing the door and saw Jabber, who waved hello to him. The angel greeted him with a wave of his own as Jabber pointed to Angelica and then himself and mouthed, “See?” Theodore took half a moment to consider, then nodded, giving Jabber a light smile and a thumbs up as he said, “Okay, fine,” and then left the restaurant. Jabber grinned in satisfaction, moved back to his original seat, and released Angelica from his spells.

  Angelica immediately grabbed her purse and coat and stood to go. “How dare you?!” she said with barely contained rage. “I came here hoping against hope that this had all been some kind of misunderstanding . . . I was ready to hear you out but you don’t get to silence me and force me to sit next to you with magic! You’re an animal!”

  “No,” Jabber stuttered. “No, you don’t understand, I just needed to show my friend–”

  “What?!” Angelica half-shouted. “You froze me with a spell to show off to your friend?! What kind of a sicko are you?”

  “No, that wasn’t–”

  But Angelica didn’t stay to hear anything else. She stormed out of the restaurant without looking back.

  “Goddammit!” Jabber muttered to himself, throwing his napkin on the table.

  At that moment the waiter came up to refill the magician’s water. He was the same server from Jabber’s previous lunch with Vicky.

  “My dear Mr. Jabber!” the man said. “How did those test results turn out? You know we’ve all been really praying for you.”

  “Indeed? How wonderful!” Jabber said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “The tests turned out fine. I’m doing fine. Thank you.”

  “How blessed!” The waiter smiled in genuine pleasure. “Sounds like Our Missing Lord answered your prayers!”

  As he walked away, Jabber stared at his table thoughtfully, wondering why with all his magic, wealth, and clean bill of health he didn’t feel very blessed. It was quite the conundrum.

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