"But then?"

  "We are in competition with each other for his attention. Because we are all fairly smitten with him. The nice men we have loved do not exist. The privacy we thought we had was nonexistent. We have all been scr**ed. I am personally furious. How do you think the others will feel?"

  "They'll be spitting fire."

  "And how do we tell them?"

  "I have no idea." But he knew he would have to get an idea soon, because already the Found Cabin was coming into view ahead.

  10

  D*MSEL FURY

  What happened?" Wenda asked. "Did yew prevail?"

  "In a manner," Dawn said. "We were able to gain Hope for the success of the mission."

  "Why do I suspect that's not all?" Haughty asked rhetorically.

  "Jumper will explain. After we leave the dream realm. How did the rest of you fare, these past two days?"

  "Two days?" Phanta asked. "Two hours."

  "But we were gone a day and a night and another day," Dawn protested.

  "In your dream," Eve said, laughing.

  Jumper exchanged a glance with Dawn. Could this be true?

  "Believe it," Maeve said. "We had some good card games, but only two hours' worth."

  "I suppose time is different, in dreams," Jumper said. "But we are ready to return to our waking state."

  "Then I think you won't be needing us anymore," Jenny said. "It has been nice knowing all of you. You really must come visit me in waking life, at Werewolf Island."

  "We'll try to," Olive said. "Sammy has been a big help."

  "He always is," Jenny agreed, picking up her cat. "Fare well, all."

  Then she and the cats faded out.

  "We need to wake also," Jumper said.

  "I'll let the ogres know," Haughty said, and disappeared.

  Then Jumper thought of something. "I thought Olive was limited to one imaginary friend at a time. How could she summon Jenny, then summon others elsewhere?"

  "This is a communal dream," Olive reminded him. "The rules are more liberal. We can all do things in dreams we can't do in real life."

  "Like wildly making out with men we hardly know," Phanta said.

  "Because we know it's only partly real."

  Then the others started disappearing too, one by one. This time Eve was the last to go. "You spent a night with my sister? What did you do with her?"

  She was surely teasing him, so he teased her back. "Nothing I wouldn't do with you," Jumper said. "Especially in a dream."

  "That's entirely too much." She hoisted her skirt, but disappeared before any panty showed. She had mistimed it, this time. That was just as well. What would she do when she learned that her centaur king was really the Demon Pluto?

  Jumper found himself back in the Ogre's Den. "You must be tired,"

  Tandy said. "Maybe you should rest and sleep before you move on."

  Jumper realized that he was indeed tired. Also, that would postpone his explanation about Pluto. "Yes." He reverted with relief to his natural spider form; somehow the change he had made in the dream had held in the waking state.

  First they had a simple meal. Then they found nooks and crannies and settled down to sleep. Wenda came to join him, as she had before.

  He truly appreciated her trust and support. She was their group's most innocent member, but also the most sensitive one.

  "What ever is on yewr mind is pretty heavy," she murmured. "Even in yewr spider form."

  "It is," he agreed.

  To his relief, she did not press him further. She was really a nice girl.

  In the morning they organized and set off early on the path to Castle Roogna, the next address in the Prophecy. Because that was where Button Ghost resided. They were no longer sure the Prophecy was valid, but it was their only guide.

  They found bicycles again, and rode them, making good time.

  Jumper remained in spider form, preferring to bound along rather than struggle with the wheeled machine. It was not an enchanted path, but no monsters threatened them. Maybe the monsters didn't care to tackle a giant spider. Or maybe the monsters just hadn't yet roused themselves.

  They halted a couple hours out at a wayside shelter, where they foraged for breakfast. Then they gathered for the inevitable. The girls had not forgotten Jumper's promise to explain what had happened in their two days/two hours excursion. This was what he dreaded.

  "Dawn and I learned something on the way to discovering and releasing Hope," he said. "You aren't going to like it."

  They waited, not interrupting him, unfortunately.

  "In the dream missions, each of you except Haughty encountered a man," he continued. "We suspected that these men had been disposed by the Demon Pluto to distract you, just as Sharon was distracting me. First they tried to delay us. Then they tried to make us love them, so that we would heed their pleas to abandon our mission. This did not work."

  "If they still like us after we complete the mission," Olive said, "then we'll certainly be interested."

  "Because then we'll know they like us for ourselves," Phanta said. "And are not faking it."

  "A girl needs that reassurance," Maeve agreed.

  And they were not going to get it. "What we learned is that those were not men influenced by Pluto," he said. "They were Pluto."

  There was half a silence. They were not getting it.

  Dawn stepped in. "Pluto assumed their forms."

  An indefinable but not pretty expression hovered in the vicinity of Eve's face. "We were all making out with the same man?"

  There it was. "Yes," Jumper said.

  "I fathomed it," Dawn said. "My talent is to know anything about anything I touch that is alive, and the Demon Pluto is not exactly alive, but I got close enough to him long enough to pick up on it."

  "I'll bet you did, you sneak," Eve snapped. "You're trying to steal my man again."

  "I'm no more thrilled than you are," Dawn said. "I thought I had a handsome king to myself."

  "My courageous warrior?" Maeve asked.

  "My jilted lovesick prince?" Wenda asked.

  "My crazy genius writer?" Olive asked.

  "My remorseful slaughter house shepherd?" Phanta asked.

  "My honorable centaur king?" Eve asked.

  "My dust-creature king," Dawn said regretfully. "All the same." She frowned, an unusual expression for her. "That's not even the worst of it."

  "There's more?" Eve asked.

  "That mysterious man we were competing for before? the reason why we were banished to this mission? he's Pluto too."

  Sudden fury shook Eve. "Him too!"

  "Him too," Dawn agreed, for an instant mirroring her sister's expression. "He was corrupting us before we even knew there was a mission."

  "He has gone too far," Eve said grimly.

  "And my minor Demoness Sharon," Jumper concluded. "Not Pluto, but definitely Pluto's minion. She offered to marry me if I would quit the mission."

  "Suddenly I'm glad I had to sit out those incidents," Haughty said.

  Dawn oriented on Jumper, frowning. "You mean to say that while I was charming the key to the portal to Mundania from King Belial, you were considering marrying his accomplice, Sati Sfaction?"

  "Satisfaction!" Eve exclaimed. "You fell for a pun, Jumper! You've got dust in your head."

  "And you were making out with a centaur," Haughty said to Eve.

  "I'd hate to say what you got in your pants."

  "I turned her down," Jumper said quickly, before the imperious females could come to claws.

  Now both princesses focused on him. "Why did Sharon think you would be interested?" Eve asked.

  "Well, she's a very seductive creature."

  "All of Pluto's forms and minions are seductive," Dawn said. "You practiced to resist that, and she knows it. So why did she think you might take it to the next level?"

  This was awkward, but he had to answer. "She said that when mortals marry demons, the demons get half their souls and become halfway moral. So then I would be able to trust her, and she would really love me, instead of faking it."

  "And that tempted you?" Eve asked.

  He hated this. "Yes. She's a lot of woman, and a shape changer, so she could be a spider with me. She said that once a man has relations with a Demoness, no mortal woman will satisfy him. I fear she is right. I don't think I could find a better match. If only I could trust her."

  "Then you do understand our position," Dawn said.

  "I surely do," he agreed.

  "So you know why we are angry," Eve said.

  "Well, that's not quite the same. My girlfriend isn't the same as all your boyfriends. I don't feel betrayed in the same way."

  "But maybe close enough," Dawn said.

  Jumper was confused. "What are you leading up to?"

  "We will need your cooperation," Eve said.

  "My cooperation for what?"

  "For our practice for what we have to achieve," Dawn said brightly.

  "What is that?"

  "Vengeance," Eve said darkly.

  "I don't understand."

  "Because you're not a woman," Dawn said.

  "Who has discovered that her wonderful boyfriend has been six-timing her," Eve said.

  Oh. "I think I do share your distress, to the extent I am able," Jumper said. "Of course this was all in the dream, so I know I didn't really do with her what it seemed I was doing. But I understand that imaginary interactions can have real effects."

  "You do seem to grasp the situation," Dawn said.

  "So that underlying your imaginary experience is a certain burning rage," Eve said.

  "Yes. What do you want me to do?"

  Dawn looked around the group. "Just resume manform and tell us what is most effective."

  "Most effective?"

  "So we will know how to turn the tables on Pluto," Eve said. "Next time we encounter him, in any guise."

  Jumper still did not really understand, but he gulped a vial and assumed manform. He looked around for clothing, and Wenda brought him a pair of shorts. "Thank you." He put them on. At least this time Dawn and Eve had not flashed him. Their mutual anger at Pluto must have distracted them.

  Wenda took his hand. "Let's forage for something to eat, deer," she said.

  "Deer?" he asked, astonished. "Wenda?"

  She laughed. "Yew really dew knot understand, dew yew! We're practicing to seduce yew and win yewr love, the same way those aspects of Pluto did with us. We need to know what works."

  "But I'm not Pluto! I'm not even a real man."

  "So yew should bee a tougher sell than Pluto," she agreed. "What works on yew should work on him."

  "This seems crazy! I never thought of any of you as girlfriends." Though his most secret guilty fancy would have liked to have any of them that way.

  "We're knot," Wenda said. "But we need to learn to put on a good enough act. Yew need to play along, so we can get it right. Yew must resist our efforts to the best of yewr ability."

  "But how can I play along and resist at the same time?"

  "That is the art of it. Yew must pretend to bee interested, but never actually signal the stork."

  "I suppose," he agreed dubiously. Pretense was another human trait he was struggling to learn.

  "That's wonderful!" She wrapped her arms about him and kissed him.

  Suddenly he was intensely aware of her as a living, fully-formed woman. She was very nice to hold and kiss. "That's effective," he said faintly.

  "Make a note," Wenda said to the others. " 'Deer' did knot work, but a kiss did."

  "Noted," Haughty said. "But it might be that 'dear' would have worked."

  "That's the way she says it," Phanta reminded her. "Any word that has a forest homonym. It's her nature. He knew what she meant."

  That was true. Wenda had been expressing special affection for him.

  "But I gather I am not to believe any expression of romantic interest."

  "That is true," Maeve said. "So if any of us can seduce you when you know we don't mean it, that will be the technique we want."

  They really were practicing for seduction, and this was no longer the dream realm. Jumper wasn't sure how he felt about that.

  They found a pie tree, and harvested an assortment to take back to the others. Jumper found a crabapple tree with several ripe crabs, which he collected for eating when he was back in spider form.

  "Yew're so smart," Wenda said, smiling.

  This bothered Jumper. "You're such a nice girl, and I love to see you smile, but paying me fake compliments turns me off," he said. "I like you best when you're being natural."

  She clouded over. "I'm sorry."

  "And don't pretend tears, either," he said, irritated.

  "Of course knot," she agreed. But her face was wet.

  That was when he realized she wasn't faking the tears. She really was a relatively innocent girl, with feelings that could be hurt. He had blown it.

  "Wenda, I apologize," he said. "I thought—never mind what I thought. I'm sorry."

  She turned away. "I'm knot good at this. I will never bee able to fool Pluto."

  He set down his armful of pies and put his arms around her.

  "Wenda, please. You are my first friend in this world. I do like you. If things weren't so complicated, I'd like to be with you. You're a natural woodlands creature, and a sensitive sweet girl. But I'm not really a man, and we have the mission."

  She rested her head on his shoulder and sobbed. "I dew like yew too, Jumper. I wish there was knot any mission."

  There it was. The mission was a burden on them both. But what could they do but continue?

  After a time they separated. Wenda wiped her face clear and Jumper picked up the pies again. They returned to the others.

  "I dew knot want to dew this anymore," Wenda said.

  Olive objected. "But we have to find out how to—"

  "I dew knot want to fake liking a person I already like," Wenda said simply.

  There was half a silence. Then Maeve stepped forward. "Then I will take over. I have a more vicious nature." She glanced at Jumper. "You know I'd as soon tear off your foot as kiss you."

  "Yes," Jumper agreed, though he doubted it. He liked Maeve too, and believed she liked him despite her truly vicious underlying nature.

  "So this is sheer fakery." She hugged him and kissed him. She must have learned how to do it, because it was one savagely effective smooch.

  He fell back, a quarter stunned. "Fakery," he agreed.

  They exchanged a glance, neither fooled. If Wenda was adorable because of her simple innocence, Maeve was attractive because of her fierce passion. She should certainly be able to fake it, when the time came.

  There was a horrendous steamy grinding sound. They all jumped up, alert.

  It burst into view. It was a small bird.

  They stared. How could all this sound be coming from such a small creature?

  The bird saw them and paused. "Hello," he said. "I am Roger Road-runner." Then he ran on, and the sounds followed him. It was a hard blacktop road that formed in Roger's wake.

  "Well, it's going our way," Dawn said. "It will make it easier to cycle on."

  They ate the pies and resumed riding their bicycles, this time on the newly paved road. It did seem to be easier for the girls. Maeve rode beside Jumper, and he couldn't help noticing the way her nice legs flexed when pedaling, and how her nice bosom accented itself because of her forward-leaning position. It didn't help that he was sure she was making sure he noticed. She was practicing a silent seduction, and it was uncomfortably effective. He felt both guilty and embarrassed: guilty for the stirring desire, and embarrassed that the girls could so readily invoke it.

  "Make a note," he said to Haughty as she flew by.

  "Noted," she agreed, needing no explanation.

  They made good progress, until they encountered the dragon.

  It was a smoker standing on the path facing them. "Beware," Dawn murmured. "Folk fear fire breathers, but steamers and smokers are just as dangerous. We don't want to mess with it." She had surely encountered dragons before, and so knew all about them.

  "Pluto must've sent it to block our route to Castle Roogna," Haughty said. "We don't need a long detour."

  "So it is my job to deal with it," Jumper said. "I'll need to change form, so I can use my silk."

  "Don't bother," Haughty said. "I know a better way." She flew forward, right up to the dragon, changing to Hottie Harpie in midair. Before it could exhale a cloud of suffocating smoke, she kissed it smack on the snoot.

  The dragon was so surprised and perhaps dismayed that its charge of smoke backfired. Its snoot swelled up like a balloon, its eyeballs bulged, and smoke leaked out of its ears. Then it exploded. Foul smoke roiled in a giant ball, polluting the entire path.

  The party backed up as the smoke surged toward them. Haughty remanifested and flew, barely escaping it. "Contamination!" she screeched.

  "She's right," Eve said darkly. "There are trace elements that will get in our lungs, blood, and bones, making our lives miserable. We don't want to touch that cloud."

  "So we have to detour after all," Jumper said.

  "Yes," Dawn agreed. "That dragon was obviously sent by Pluto to prevent us from reaching Castle Roogna. It was a Demonic trap: either the dragon balked us directly, or the toxic cloud formed by its destruction balked us."

  "So if we detour, won't he send another monster to balk us again?"

  Haughty asked.

  "Yes," Eve said. "But now we have been warned. We can try to be better prepared for the next."

  Jumper made a human sigh. They would have to try a new route.

  They turned their bikes around and retraced their route until they came to a crossing of paths. "Which one do we take?" Jumper asked.

  "The one leading to the right," Eve said after touching it. "It loops about wastefully, but does eventually lead to Castle Roogna. We can still make it by to night if we ride swiftly."

  They took the right path, and rode swiftly along. Sure enough, it looped freely, turning in great circles to cross over or under itself. They couldn't avoid the loops without getting off their cycles and climbing up or down to the continuation, which would have taken more time than simply cycling on. So they kept going, not completely pleased.