E. Godz by Robert Asprin, Esther Friesner Page A

shook his head. "No sale. You think these people are
rubes? They've got their own resources for detecting bugs, even magical ones." He hung
the amulet back on the fax machine and brushed invisible dust from his hands. As he
turned to go he said, "Sorry, Ammi, but there's really no good reason for me to take you
with me."
    He was almost to the door when a very small, very shaky voice behind him said, "But
I'll miss you."
    Dov stopped in his tracks and looked back. "Say what?"
    "I said I'll miss you," the amulet repeated, almost reluctantly. "A lot. There. I said it.
Happy?"
    Dov snatched the little trinket up again and confronted it with the impossible. "You're
an appliance. How could you miss me? Or anyone, for the matter? It's like someone
claiming he can't program his VCR because he once said something to hurt its feelings."
    "Look, I can't explain it; I just know it," the amulet said, getting defensive. "And that
crack about VCRs was uncalled for: They happen to be very sensitive. It comes from all
the soppy chick flicks people make them play. Hey, take me with you or leave me
behind, see if I care. But I'll tell you this much: It's going to get mighty lonely out there
on the road, and one of those cold, solitary nights you're going to wish you had a
sympathetic ear to listen to your troubles, even if it's only one that's made out of silver."
    Dov stared at the amulet, taken aback by its outburst. The trouble was, its words made
sense and he knew it. Only an idiot kept fighting when it was past time to surrender.
    "Oh, fine," he growled. "You'll probably do something nasty to the fax machine if I
leave you here alone. Might as well take you with me." He thrust the amulet into his
pocket.
    There was only one problem: He was still wearing nothing but a towel.
    "Put on some pants, Einstein," said Ammi from the floor where he'd fallen. "Then
let's get this show on the road."

Chapter Four
    "Ah, Salem!" said Teddy Tumtum, pressing his fuzzy nose to the glass of the
passenger's side window as Peez's rental car glided up Lafayette Street, heading north for
the center of town. "Lovely, notorious Salem, infamous and immortal for fostering the
mass hysteria that reached its bloody conclusion in the seventeenth-century witchcraft
trials ... not!" He giggled.
    Peez pulled the car over. "What do you mean, 'not'?" she demanded. "Everyone who
knows even a crumb of American history has heard of the Salem witchcraft trials!"
    "Sure," said the diabolical bear, enjoying himself. "The way they've heard of George
Washington's wooden teeth and Pocahontas being a total supermodel babe with the hots
for John Smith and Betsy Ross making the first United States flag ... not!"
    "I wish you'd stop saying that," Peez muttered. "You sound like a refugee from a no-
brainer teen flick."
    "Flick? Did you say flick?" The bear could not open his mouth, but he gestured at it
with his paw and made choking noises. "Even your vocabulary is dowdy, and your lack
of cool is immeasurable. Gag me with a spoon full of honey!"
    "I would, if it'd shut you up. I may not be 'cool,' but I'm sure I know more about
American history than you do, you glorified wad of dryer lint!"
    "This is the thanks I get for trying to educate you," Teddy Tumtum said. He sounded
worse than hurt: He sounded Stereotype Jewish Mother hurt, the kind of hurt that packs a
load of payback. "You only think you know American history when all you really know
is a grab bag full of popular anecdotes, sound bites, and shaggy dog stories that are about
as historically accurate as saying that the French invented French fries!"
    "They didn't?" Peez was genuinely taken aback.
    "Nope. That was the Belgians."
    "Oh." Suddenly she realized she'd given the bear the upper hand. She quickly affected
a fake air of indifference, trying to regain lost ground. "I mean, oh, who cares, anyway?
History is irrelevant."
    "Not here in Salem, it's not," the bear replied. "Here it's business.