I focused my mind back into Topaz’s. “Not to alarm you, Priestess, but your goddess has an arsenal of explosives, which she probably already planted, at least a portion of, around the island, probably with the help of the traitor. This, it seems, was the real reason she attacked just before you came and got me, apart from getting me to come in the first place.”
“Not to alarm me, though.”
I shrugged, at least inside my head. “Um, okay, to alarm you then. And, I’m guessing, the rest of the arsenal is aboard the boat she arrived on today, perhaps being planted even as we, uh, speak.”
“Fuck,” said the priestess.
“Yeah,” said I. “Been there, done that.”
Again there was a pause in our communication. When she returned, she told me, “Blondella is done with her speech. The islanders now believe she’s returned to lead them.”
“Yeah. Lead them to their doom, that is.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Though I’ll stay close to her now, keep an eye on her. She doesn’t know what I know of her. As to her plan, the explosives, these zombies you seek, I will do my best to make sure they are all taken care of.”
“And us?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“You’re prisoners,” she responded.
“Duh.”
Her voice in my head grew softer, as if she was moving away. “One problem at a time, Creature . . .”
And then she was gone, the voice silenced, the connection broken.
Again I turned to Lola. “Good news or bad news first?” I said.
“Good news, please.”
I moved away from the door and closer to her. “Topaz and VaVa are on our side. They’re going to help.”
“And the bad news?” she asked, looking at me reluctantly.
“If they rescue us now, they’ll throw suspicion their way.”
“Ah,” she ahed. “Bad news indeed. Because I’m the star. And stars don’t patiently sit in the wings all that well.”
“Tell me about it,” I replied, “Still, if you want, I could radiate our way through the door and then battle the guards outside. We may end up with a few holes in our bodies, perhaps faces, but we’ll be no worse the wear, or at least no deader.”
She lifted her index finger in the air, contemplated my remark, and then said, “Okay, I suppose I could wait in the wings a little while longer, though not patiently, of course.”
“Of course.”
***
So wait we did. Until we no longer needed to. That is to say, until the play came to us.
In she walked, or at least hobbled, badly. “My, my,” she said, closing the door behind her. “You all do seem to make a habit of getting caught.”
“And escaping,” I couldn’t help but remind her.
“Except now you have me, my zombie guards, which replaced the human ones, and an entire island of humans against you,” she, in turn, couldn’t help but remind me. “Check and mate.”
I grinned, despite the dire circumstances, if only to piss her off. “Not check, not yet, not while there are still two queens on the board.”
“Temporarily,” she intoned. The atoms inside of me started to bump and grind, but then just as quickly and surprisingly got tamped down. “Tut, tut, Creature,” she added. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice—”
“And smash you with a disco ball?”
She cringed, but them seemed to regain her composure, if only too piss me off. So, yes, the queens on the board were indeed evenly matched. “In any case, Creature, thanks to you, I now know of my other powers, and mine seem to cancel yours out. So no funny stuff, please. Which, if memory serves, was never much your forté anyway.”
She had me there; I felt it, internally speaking. My snapping and crackling were fine, but my popping went poop whenever I tried. “So why are you here then, Blondella? For old time’s sake? To, blech, kiss and make up?”
She shrugged. “Nope. Just a nice little gloat.” She grinned, or at least tried to. It didn’t come off that well, all things considered—all things being a half-smooshed face, that is. “Gloat,” she then barked, just before she left us alone again, the door closing behind her.
Lola’s tensed shoulders eased down a tad. “She doesn’t make it easy to like her, does she?”
“Not when she was alive—”
“And certainly not in death.” Lola interrupted, grinning, and it was one of those delicious cat-eating-the-canary type of grins, even though there were no more cats, no more canaries, and we certainly couldn’t eat. “But she has given me an idea.”
“Really? An idea or a headache? Because both come from the same source.”
Her smile remained. “She has your powers now.”
I frowned. “And?”
“And she can tamp your powers down with hers.”
I held my hand up for her to stop. “Speaking of headaches, Lola, just get to the good part, please.”
She nodded her head. “Got it,” she agreed. “In any case, if she can tamp your powers down with hers, then perhaps you can bump my powers up with yours. Maybe all it takes for me to use mine is a little three hundred year boost of yours.”
“But you don’t have any powers,” I reminded her. “You tried and failed in that regard. You told me so yourself.”