Exceptions to Reality_ Stories - Alan Dean Foster [82]
“Oh great!” Latching on to the grizzly’s arm, Jon-Tom struggled to drag him away from the crowd. Behind him, tankards and glasses and Styrofoam cups rose in admiring salute. “We’ve got to get out of here while we have the chance.”
There was no sign of Mudge on the auditorium floor, nor out in the hallway, nor in an annex costume room. Confronting a participant made up as an exceedingly stocky, slime-dripping alien, Jon-Tom fought to keep Stromagg from keeling over.
“This may sound funny, but have you seen a five-foot-tall otter come this way?”
“Nothing funny about it,” the gray-green alien replied in an incongruously high-pitched voice. It jerked a thumb down the hall. “Matter of fact, I just saw two of ’em.”
“Two?” Jon-Tom’s confusion was sincere. Then realization dawned, and he broke into a desperate sprint. “Mudge!”
He found his friend in the third room he tried: an empty office. Bursting in, he and Stromagg discovered Mudge and the otter other in a position that had nothing to do with passing along the finer points of advanced amateur costuming. Jon-Tom’s outrage was palpable.
“Mudge!”
Rising from the couch, his friend looked back over his shoulder, not in the least at a loss.
“’Ello, mate.” He indicated the figure beneath him. “This ’ere is Althea. She’s psychic. We been discussin’ matters of the moment, you might say.”
Stark naked except for otter mask and furry feet, the girl struggled to cover herself as best she could. Though surprised by the unexpected intrusion, she did not appear particularly distressed. Rather the contrary. Ignoring her, an angry Jon-Tom confronted his companion.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Aren’t matters complicated enough as it is?”
Hopping off the long couch and into his short pants, the otter proceeded to defend himself. “Back off, mate. Me and Althea ’ere weren’t ’avin’ no problems. It were all perfectly consentable, it were.”
“That’s right.” Rising in all her admirable suppleness, she reached out with one hand to grab hold of Mudge’s right ear. “And now that I’ve fulfilled my half of the bargain, it’s time to see how your outfit is put together, like you promised.” She pulled hard.
Yelping, Mudge twisted around as his ear was yanked. “Owch! ’Ave a care there, darlin’. I need that.”
Looking puzzled, the girl’s gaze descended. Grabbing a fistful of fur in the otter’s nether regions, she pulled again. Once more the otter let out a hurt bark. A look of confusion crossed her countenance, to be replaced by one of revelation, followed by one of shock. As this panoply of expression transformed her lovely face, Jon-Tom was half carrying Mudge, who was engaged in trying to buckle the belt of his shorts, toward the doorway where Stromagg kept tipsy watch.
“Omigod!” the girl suddenly screamed, one hand rising to her mouth, “it’s not a special effect!”
Wearing a hurt look as he was hauled out the door, an offended Mudge called back, “I resent that, luv!”
Hearing the girl’s screams, a group of heavily armed attendees had begun to gather at the far end of the hallway. While any band of professionals from Lynchbany would have made short work of the lot, several of the costumed cluster did appear to be more than a little competent at arms. Certainly there was nothing slipshod or fragile about the assortment of swords and axes they carried.
“This way!” With the increasingly outraged costumers following, Jon-Tom led his friends around the corner of the hallway that encircled the auditorium, searching for an exit that led back out onto the rain-washed side street.
“Here, you three.” Up ahead, a hotel security guard in a freshly pressed suit and tie had materialized to block their path. “What’s this I hear about you freaks causing trouble wi—” His slightly pompous accusation was cut off in midsentence as Stromagg stiff-armed him into the nearest wall, cracking plaster directly beside a painting of a skinny lord seated astride a decidedly astringent thoroughbred.
Bursting back out into the street, Jon-Tom led the way back