seymoure

Chapter 41

“The Sleep, Not the Big One, But Still”

Harriett was getting damn sick and tired of this.

She understood it was part of the profession. Nobody was a perfect and always ahead of the bad guys as the TV sleuths, but still.

Sure, she knew that the pulp dicks her father read aloud to her were always taking this dive. Hammett’s Spade and Chandler’s Marlowe spent nearly as much time waking from unasked for siestas as they did tracking down the back folks, but come on1 Even Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (but never let her father find out she used his name on the same page as the others, he had a real thing about later “pretenders,” but she was pretty sure that was a generational thing.) was conked on the head more times than would be conducive to good cranial health.

But this was getting decidedly annoying.

Not to mention that it gave her headaches the size of a Macy Thanksgiving Day float. Not one of those nice floating balloon characters, but the heavy motorized things with a ton of people waving through chattering frozen teeth.

She was afraid this one had done some brain damage.

The first image that met her slow to focus peepers was an eagle with arrows in its claws.

There might have been more but something large was blocking it out.

She tried to rise but every nerve in her body screamed at her to reconsider. To avoid a general strike she slumped back down on her face.

There were few sounds around to hone in one. No scuffling feet, no throbbing base from passing cars. Not even the squeak of office furniture.

Where the hell was she?

Finally a recognizable sound rolled across the floor to her. It was a groan

The moan was in a voice she knew. Sebastian.

He must have been that large lump piled just past the war eagle.

She opened an eye, winced at the unnecessary amount of light that assailed her, and tried to be certain.

No doubt about it.

That was her lump.

She tried to turn her body, pulling her shoulder back so she was facing her friend.

This had the effect of withdrawing her shoulder from the position that it had held as the one thing stopping her face from smacking flat into the floor.

Now, she shifted her weight to draw herself up on her other shoulder and face Sebastian.

Claus was now looking at her, but his face was still on the carpet.

“Please,” a sickeningly sweet voice told them, “Allow me.”

With a none-to-gentle pull they were airborne for a moment, and then settled on their not to steady legs.

The eagle had been part of the Presidential Seal in the center of the wall to wall carpeting.

Before them was a desk, with the chair turned so as not to be facing them.

With a swivel the figure in that chair turned and revealed herself to be Morgan LeFey.

“Welcome,” she syrupped, “to the Oval Office.”

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