I looked up from signing a registration form for Allie and me. Allie had driven me the two hundred miles east of Portland to Pasco, Washington, home of the High Desert Con.

“Squishy!” I called back, beckoning the squarely built, forty something woman with board straight hair dyed an impossible blonde. I knew no other name for her than the handle she used on-line and for con badges.

“I need to talk to you,” my acquaintance said on an urgent whisper.

“Go have a cup of coffee. And put your foot up. I’ll take the luggage to our room,” Allie urged me toward the garden café in the middle of the hotel ground floor. She hoisted her overnight bag and dragged my wheeled suitcase toward one of the sprawling wings. The desk clerk had taken one look at my booted cast and walking staff and changed our room from the quiet third floor at the far end of the most inaccessible wing to a close handicap room on the ground floor.

I’d have to remember that trick next year. Might save me about three miles of walking each day.

Scrap turned bright yellow and popped out of my vision. He loved exploring conventions, sniffing out who wore a costume and who used costumes as an excuse to shape-change into demon form. Most of the attending demons were relatively benign, just trying to fit into modern society. A con gave them the chance to let their hair down, so to speak, and be themselves.

Donovan claimed that these were the Kajiri demons he worked to find a homeland for, the ones who were too human to live as a demon and too much a demon to truly live as human all of the time. They needed to shape-change at least once a month and take an occasional sip of blood.

Gave new meaning to “That time of the month.”

I suspected from oblique conversations that Donovan really dealt with those Kajiri who used their human facade to prey upon the innocent. The closer to their demon roots they remained, the more they needed hot fresh blood to survive.

Lady Lucia Continelli actually lived as a vampire in Las Vegas, finding it a more socially acceptable way to drink blood than admitting her very dilute demon heritage. In fact, Lady Lucia hadn’t craved blood until she tasted some as part of her facade. She worked hard at maintaining her image as the vampire crime boss of Sin City.

“What’s up, Squishy?” I asked, stumping toward the café.

“Something weird I need advice on. But more important, what happened to you?” She claimed a booth just inside the arched entrance to the eating area.

Artificial shrubs and a chest-high brick wall gave the illusion of separating patrons from the mass of convention goers. Illusion only. We could check out and be checked out by all those who wandered around in search of old friends.

“I tripped over a blackberry vine while jogging,” I muttered as I plopped into my seat and scooted toward the wall so I could stretch my leg sideways along the bench.

“You know that I’m a nurse. Anything I can do to help?”

“I guessed you were a healthcare professional from the detailed answers you give to research questions on our email list.” I shifted and squirmed to get more comfortable. The four-hour drive in a small car had been a nightmare. Now my foot had swelled because I hadn’t been able elevate it.

“What did you break?” She peered at the redness of my exposed toes.

“Soft tissue damage. The doctor put the cast on to keep me off it and slow me down. He didn’t trust me with an air cast. If I could figure a way to saw it off I would. At least I’m not still on crutches. “

“Don’t.” She glared at me sternly. “And get some ice on your toes, soon.”

Our coffee came and I dumped sugar into it, thought about indulging in the savory richness of real cream, and settled for packets of dry whitener I carried with me. I’d had one bout of lactose intolerance—inherited from my tight bond with Scrap—and studiously avoided all dairy products ever after.

“It hurts. I may have to do a bar con this year,” I muttered.

“I’ve never known you to sit still long enough to let the con come to you in the bar, or the café,” she laughed, more of a snort.

“So, what’s so weird it couldn’t wait?” I kept half an eye on the increasing crowd wandering the open area in and around the café. The con didn’t officially start until noon the next day, but early arrivals were beginning the party already.

“First off, I brought a ... er ... friend to the con. It’s her first. Her husband reads a lot of SF and attends the occasional con. She wants to understand the attraction and I’m trying ...”

“You want to protect her from the weirdest of the weird.”

“Yeah. She’ll probably spend most of the con in the room reading or with costumers. But ... um ...”

“My word of honor I won’t mention this conversation to you again except in deepest privacy. Now, what is so weird you have to talk to me about it?”

“Back to being a nurse: I’ve worked most every department at one time or another. So, even though I’m now in a specialty ward, when other departments get busy I fill in. Last month I did a stint in the ER. On the night of the full moon, a Tuesday I believe, I assisted in a slash and grab C-section. We didn’t have time to get the mother to surgery. Didn’t even have time to get an OB GYN resident out of bed. Except they were all busy in their ward with deliveries.” Her ruddy complexion paled a bit and stress lines around her eyes and mouth deepened. That experience must not have been pretty.

“I hear that happens fairly frequently on the night of the full moon.”

“It does. But not like this one.”

“I’m a fantasy writer. Why do you need to talk to me about a medical problem?”

“The whole thing felt like something from one of your books.” She studied her milky tea as if it held the answers to all universal mysteries. “Or one of my horror short stories. Not sure where to draw the line between horror and dark fantasy these days.”

I’d never read her fiction. Maybe I should search it out.

“Describe the baby.” I sat straighter, instantly alert. Scrap had told me about the scaly skin and wood scent of newborns with hysterical mothers. “You know that reality is often more horrific than fiction,” I hedged. “Describe the baby.”

Squishy dropped her gaze back into the depths of her tea. “When he first came out, breech, the skin looked dark. Mom is Caucasian. I hadn’t met the father, but mixed couples aren’t unusual any more, so I didn’t question it. As more and more of him presented, the skin looked mottled, scaly, like bark. And he had one tuft of green hair that looked like moss. His cries were weak—he was about five weeks premature—sounded like tree limbs sawing together in the wind. But his eyes ... red and very aware.”

My gut sank. “What ... what did you do?”

“The attending and I sort of stared at each other. I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was, some kind of terrible birth defect. We wondered if it would be kinder to everyone involved if we just sort of.... We’d never do it, but sometimes we think it might solve a lot of problems.” She shook her head as if rousing from a nightmare.

I wondered if in the same situation I’d have the courage to go through with a mercy killing of a horribly deformed baby.

“Then, before we could decide to do anything about it, the baby took a deep breath and squalled like a normal infant and he just sort of morphed into a regular pink baby with a shock of dark brown hair on his head. The bark scales sloughed off. I saved them in a baggie but I haven’t figured out how to get a DNA test and keep it anonymous.”

“You’re trying to tell yourself it was a trick of the light, but the image won’t go away,” I finished for her.

“Yeah.”

“And the mom started screaming as if living a nightmare.”

She nodded. “In the psych ward I’d seen another mother with the same reaction. The attending is researching to see if we have a new form of postpartum hysteria. I don’t think it’s from imbalanced hormones. I think there is something in the babies.”

“So why talk to me about it? It was a trick of light. Mom had a stressful birth and was in a lot of pain.”

“But ...”

“Convince yourself it was a trick of the light. You’ll be safer both physically and mentally. Burn the scales.”

“The hysteria?”

“Uneducated women, or unemployed families subsisting on welfare, who barely know how to care for themselves let alone an infant.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I am right. So why tell me about your nightmares? We’re Internet and con acquaintances, not best friends.”

“Word gets around. You have a reputation for stumbling into trouble and the explanations are a bit contrived. In this community, people believe in the stuff we write. Some other weird things have happened too. And I found that ER attending looking on the Internet for other ‘woody’ babies. I’ve begun to wonder just how blurred the boundaries between realities have become.”

“Ground yourself in mundane details and you’ll forget about it before long,” I promised her. Actually I lied. I knew she’d never forget. I hadn’t.

But then I had Scrap to remind me of my responsibilities to maintain a balance between dimensions.

Speaking of the brat, where had he gone?

Right here, babe. He flitted to my shoulder, an almost weight. He’d returned to his normal translucent gray-green. Squishy’s the nurse I saw in the psych ward with the first baby I noticed. You’re safe with her. He yawned.

Then, within another heartbeat he began to glow bright red.

Huh? Why the color of danger if I was safe with Squishy?

“There’s another thing, Tess,” Squishy set her chin and fixed my gaze. “There’s a gang of kids here for the con.”

“Three boys, two girls. Their costumes look an awful lot like that baby. They look too real to be latex. Woody skin, mossy hair, and red contact lenses.” I described the phalanx of Nörglein flowing out from the glass corridor that led to the party wing. “Their jeans and T-shirts are brand new, fresh out of the package, never been washed. Since when do teens at cons look like store models?”

Yeah, that’s what I was going to tell you.

I smell rotting vegetables and putrid water. My body needs to stretch and sharpen.

Tess sits, wounded and inert. She cannot fight. We cannot fight here in a public place.

The compulsion to transform into the twin, half moon blades makes my every bone and muscle ache. My ears elongate and meld together above my head. My tail stretches and curves, flattens into half a scimitar.

Not yet.

I cannot go beyond this until Tess commands me. And yet the need is so powerful I wonder that I continue to live half in one state, half in another.

“Um ... Tess, what’s that red glob on your shoulder?” Squishy asks, pointing directly at me.

Apparently, the forest teens see me too. They stop short in their march around the central lobby. The youngest boy hesitates and half turns as if ready to retreat back up one of the arms of the hotel.

The girl next to him grabs his arm. “Don’t even think about it!” she chides him. I hear a bit of German—or maybe it’s old Italian—in her accent.

Yep, these kids were raised by a Nörglein.

I don’t believe in coincidence. Our Nörglein sent them to deal with my Tess.

My body feels as if every joint will twist into a huge knot if Tess doesn’t command my transformation this very instant.

The kids turn to their right and head toward the conference center where the gamers are setting up in one of the divided ballrooms.

They stop just shy of the double doors they seek. Donovan, dressed all in black, as usual, stands in their way. They exchange quiet words and the kids slink out into the parking lot. He starts to follow them, thinks better of it, and heads to the registration desk.

He has no luggage. We’ve never seen him carry any. But he always has clean, freshly pressed clothes.

Doreen joins him at the desk. She’s pulling a full-sized rolling suitcase. And she looks angry. She and Donovan exchange a few words. Then he smiles that all too charming smile, kisses her cheek, and saunters off. Doreen clenches her teeth and leaves finger impressions in the handle of her rolling suitcase. She’s pissed. Really pissed. At Donovan?

I don’t know if Tess sees her or not. Her focus remains on the double doors that block her view of the forest children.

The grinding heat inside me tamps down to glowing embers. I fade to dark pink.

Tess relaxes, or is that collapses, against the banquette of her booth. Her grip on her walking staff loosens and her knuckles turn from frigid snow to warming spring pink.

Squishy shakes her head and mutters something. She sits back as if she only imagined me.

When I see Allie circle around the café looking for us, I know my dahling Tess will be safe for a few moments.

“See ya, babe. I need a smoke.” And I flit off in the opposite direction in dire need of some mold to soothe my frazzled nerves and upset tummy.

The high desert of the Columbia River Basin is notoriously dry and mold free. But I know a few air conditioners that need cleaning.