Esrever Doom (Xanth) by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page B

they signal the stork, and months later the stork brings it. No stork signaling, no babies. The population will crash.”
    Oh. Storks were literal too. “So what was your Question?”
    “It all started innocently enough. I was passing by this village, and there was this village lout, so naturally I flashed him with my panties. I mean, that’s what a girl does with a village lout; she flashes him and he freaks out and by the time he recovers she’s long gone and he is frustrated as bleep. More fun!”
    “Let me be sure I understand. Just the sight of a girl’s panties freaks out a man? Puts him into some kind of stasis?”
    “Exactly. It’s a great weapon in the battle of the gendarmes.”
    “The what?”
    “Police, officer, guard, grammatical, sexuality—”
    “Genders?”
    “Whatever! So there I was, doing what comes naturally, and this lout just stares and doesn’t freak. Can you imagine a worse disaster?”
    “Well, considering that I am of the lout persuasion myself—”
    “Never mind. It really beetled me.”
    This time Kody refrained from asking for a clarification of the term; he already had a fair notion. “Understandable.”
    “So I finally went to the Good Magician, and he told me that the girls had developed a panty shield that generates a local field that shrouds their panties and prevents louts from peeking at them. All they see is a fogged-out outline, a fuzzy blob. That’s no good for freaking.”
    “No good,” Kody agreed. “They do that with Mundane TV when there is too much exposure.”
    “Then one oaf got hold of a shield in a panty raid. At first he didn’t realize what it was, as it looks much like a panty. Now he’s using it to get into young women’s homes and steal more panties. They can’t freak him out. So my assignment is to recover that panty shield so it can’t do any more damage. Only problem is that I don’t know where it is. The villain strikes by night, and by the time I learn of a raid, he’s long gone. So I have to work here until I recover that shield.”
    “That seems fair enough. But I find it hard to believe that the mere sight of a girl’s panties can freak a man out. I have never been freaked that way.”
    “Oh? Look at this.” Metria turned and hoisted her short skirt.
    Fingers snapped near his ear, and he came out of his reverie. The demoness was no longer standing in front of him, but beside him. “What happened?”
    “You freaked out,” she said with satisfaction.
    “But I was aware of nothing.”
    “Here’s a repeat, in slow motion.” She stood before him and hooked her fingers into her hem, slowly lifting it. First her well-fleshed thighs showed, then the bottom line of her panty.
    Kody’s breath quickened. His eyes locked in place, starting to glaze. “I … see … your … p-p-”
    “Panty?” She lowered the hem a fraction so he could recover enough to speak clearly.
    “P-p-point. I do freak out. But is it really the panty? You have a remarkable bottom.”
    “It’s the panty. Here, I’ll show you.”
    “Don’t do that!”
    But her panty line had already dissipated into smoke. Now she hauled her skirt up to show her bare bottom.
    Kody was impressed, but he didn’t freak out. She had a most evocative bottom, but he could look at it without his eyes glazing.
    “So you see,” she concluded. “Panty magic.”
    “Panty magic,” he agreed.
    “All of which is beside the point. I wouldn’t waste time like this if I didn’t like flashing men. I won’t let you by until you figure out what I’m doing.” The mass of fur reappeared in her hands; it had faded out during their dialogue. She plucked at it with her fingers, and an awful screeching emerged.
    “You’re torturing an animal.”
    “Not exactly.” She plucked again, and the sour notes formed a crude melody.
    “You seem to be playing what appears to be the corpse of a hairy little monster.”
    “Not exactly,” she repeated.
    “Actually it’s in the rough shape