I am the sort of woman other people confide in. They feel safe with me, sure that I'll make no demands on them in exchange for their confidence. Because of this, Prescott and I were pals when he had the other half of the duplex. After he got busted and moved out, it wasn't long before the new tenant and I were on a "Hi, how's things?" basis.

Stephen Weil was a sturdy, compact sort with straight, brown hair, only a little bit long. Unlike Prescott, he was always clean shaven. When I got off work at the library at 4:30 each day, I would usually see Weil when I came home with groceries or a six-pack.

He'd be sitting on his porch, sketching, with music from the Chieftains coming from the open door behind him. Prescott would have had the Rolling Stones.

"Have a beer, Weil?" I would ask as he always rose and helped me in with my load.

"Thanks, uh --" he said the first time.

"Shelly."

"Thank-you, Shelly."

We would seat ourselves on the rickety porch chairs and he'd let me see what he was drawing. It was always something weird -- dragons or griffins, wizards and castles. That sort of thing.

"You paint that stuff?" I asked one day and he nodded.

"I like it," he added, a little defensively.

Me, I don't pry. Prescott had his secrets, until some narc got the goods on him, and Weil was welcome to his own. He was probably embarrassed about drawing such childish stuff.

But after a while I wondered if it was more than that. For one thing, Weil didn't look too good some days. There was one Saturday morning when I was working on my car and he wandered out around eleven like he didn't know where he was. I was shocked at the sight of his pale, haggard face.

"Tie one on last night?" I asked him.

He blinked and gave a belated nod. His eyes were deep and bruised looking, haunted, I thought. He walked as though he were afraid he would fall over, blinking at the light like Count Dracula about to turn into dust. If only things had been that simple.

I was busy changing the oil so I didn't get up and offer to make breakfast or anything. Anyway, he probably wasn't hungry. After a few minutes, he went back in.

Later, as I came up onto the porch, I smelled a funny smell -- not dope, which is what I would have smelled if Prescott had been there. This was more like incense. The light was funny around his door, too. Strobe? Like that, anyway. Mystified, I went back inside my own door and temporarily forgot about it.

Later that evening, I had gone out for pizza with a couple of friends and came in around ten o'clock. I switched on the news, kicked off my boots and settled down in my favorite, dumpy green chair. It still had a line of black grease on one arm from when Prescott had once sat there and shared a smoke with me. I thought of him now and hoped he hadn't been sent up. He'd go crazy without his bike and his friends, poor guy. Maybe he got probation.

Babe, the cat, blinked at me from the bookshelf, tail twitching as some jerk came on the screen and tried to sell me a car. In the middle of his spiel, something hit the wall between my living room and Weil's.

I thought he was having a party. Then the bump came again and I remembered there hadn't been any lights on that side when I drove up. I heard a grunt, some words that might have been an oath, and a piece of furniture fell over.

Suddenly this seemed like a good time to borrow a cup of sugar. Once I had come in with a pipe wrench to help Prescott get rid of some unwelcome guests. Weil, being a smaller, less physical type, might like a similar visit.

I stuck the wrench in the pocket of my army jacket and wandered out onto the porch. The funny shimmer was back and something in there was yowling like a million angry tomcats. I heard Weil grunt what sounded like, "Take that, you ____!" followed by a meaty thunk.

I rang the bell and, when no one answered, pushed the door ajar. I was just in time to see Weil raise a sword over his head and bring it down on a shadowy form that crouched on the rug before him. I thought I had witnessed a murder.

The light came from the bedroom, bluish and flickering like a TV screen. I flicked on the electric bulb overhead and Weil swung about, seeing me for the first time. He was clutching one arm and in his hand he still held the weapon. His eyes were wide and harried, blinking in the sudden glare. I still couldn't make out what was on the floor.

"Uh," he said, and then, "Shelly. What a surprise."

There was sticky stuff on the rug and I was in my socks. It looked like green paint and smelled like dead fish. I stepped gingerly, moving around Weil until I got a good look at what lay at his feet.

It was a dragon.

I just stood there, my back to Weil, trying to make sense of things. It occurred to me that he could have taken my head off with that sword if he had cared to, but the fact did not seem overly important at the time. As it happened, he apologised instead.

It is difficult to explain a dead dragon, and he did not do it well. Nor did it help matters that we were surrounded by the paraphernalia of magic -- vials and pentagrams, herbs and candles. I let him wind down.

"What happened to your arm?" I asked at last.

"It bit me." He took his hand away and I could see, below the stained sleeve of his pullover, the marks of teeth in his flesh. Fortunately, it had been a small dragon.

"Shouldn't you have a tetanus shot or something?" I asked.

"Something," he said. "It's in the cupboard over the stove."

I got the bottle and poured into two not very clean mugs. "Mr. Van is going to be mad," I said. "He had to replace that rug once already after Prescott left."

"Shelly," he told me, "Mr. Van is the least of my problems."

"I know."

I searched around for something else to say. All I could think of was, "What on earth led you to conjure a dragon? And where did you get that sword?"

I took the weapon from him and studied it. The blade was sticky with dragon slime, the hilt plain but beautiful.

"I painted it," he said. "The sword. And I didn't conjure the dragon. I was trying to keep it from -- from manifesting."

"Oh," I said. "Why didn't I think of that?" I poured us each another two fingers.

"It's my uncle's fault!" he burst out. "He gave me his paints and – and disappeared!"

"What happened to him?"

"I don't know. He just went away is all."

I drank, wandered over and toed the thing on the rug. It was about the size of a St. Bernard, covered with iridescent scales, and it smelled bad. It was just possible that Weil was putting me on and I was turning this over in my mind when I saw the burned spots on the wall.

"The dragon do that?" I asked.

Weil nodded glumly.

"You paint it too?"

Another nod.

I mulled things over, gave up. "Tell on," I said.

"Shelly, I didn't know. It was something in the paint. I used it before I knew what it was."

"You mean," I said slowly, "your painting came alive?"

"In a way. It served as a sort of door, I guess. To somewhere where the things I painted were real."

"Now that," I told him after a moment, "has possibilities." Grisly ones, I should have added, but that was before a lot of other stuff that happened later.

"There was some mention of the, er, phenomenon in his diary, but I thought he had slipped a cog -- from being so bright and all. My uncle was a very strange man."

"A wizard?" In the presence of an undeniable, though smallish, dragon, I could hardly stick at one further stretch of improbability.

Weil took my question at face value. He shrugged. "I don't think so. He sold insurance -- he and my father both. But he got bored after a while and took up painting."

"I guess we'd better get rid of the body," I suggested presently. I poured us each another drink, spilling a little on the rug.

"Easier said than done," he said morosely. "And then there is the rug."

"First the dragon. Then we'll try spot remover." I giggled suddenly, wondering if you could name a dragon Spot.

"We could rent a shampooer," he said. "At one of those all-night places."

We put the dragon in Weil's van and took it to a quarry. Fortunately it was heavy enough to sink without aid. The van smelled like dragon afterwards..

On the way back we rented a shampooer and bought two gallons of shampoo, but the rug did not come very clean. Not only that, but the wall was charred and the furniture was never going to be the same. By the time we gave up, it was morning and Weil took me out to breakfast.

Over my toast and orange juice, I asked if he had done any more paintings with his uncle's paints. He mumbled something about nothing very dangerous and I let it go. I suppose I was too tired for anything more.

On Monday, I met the two dead guys. It was lunch hour and I was minding the desk while Mrs. Persons shelved a cart of books. A few office types were reading newspapers and an old man was browsing the 900's. No one looked up when the door opened to admit two weirdos.

Both were tall, eyes recessed, faces puffy, color not good. They came directly to the desk and stopped like clockwork just short of a collision.

"Weil," one of them said in a flat voice.

"No," I told him. "You have the wrong person." I held my ground, gripping the big stapler which might work in place of my wrench.

He leaned over the desk and I smelled a smell like something left in a pond for a while. Up close, I had an even clearer view of how bloated and wrinkly he was. His glassy eyes dilated and contracted, making me think of a cat.

"No," he said ponderously at last. "You are not Weil."

I swallowed, tried to say something and could not. I knew for a fact they were dead -- long dead -- and now they were here in the library in broad daylight on a Monday morning. The ordinariness of things was no defense! There went that primal innocence that makes us afraid of the dark but not of the daylight.

I had no doubt they would kill Mrs. Persons if I called her over -- or the old man, or the office people. I knew this in the dark gut place where we know and recognise our nightmares.

One of the guys took a step backward. My hand clenched on the stapler. His coat was mildewed, his death no more than a faint effluvium -- a suggestion more horrible than all-out putrefaction.

Mrs. Persons looked up, a book in her hand, and made as though to come over.

"Get out," I croaked. "I'm not Weil. Get out!"

The eyes dilated, contracted, did not blink. No breath hissed in and out of that shapeless nose. One swollen hand reached for me and I brought the stapler down on those sausage fingers as hard as I could.

There was a disgusting sound and I saw them blacken. The hand was withdrawn, the eyes never changing. "Tell Weil we'll come for him," the thing said and then they turned together and shuffled for the door. Mrs. Persons came hurrying up.

"What happened, Shelly? Shall I call the police?"

"No, Mrs. Persons. I handled it."

She knows I am not the sort anyone would get fresh with. Wisely, she let it go.

"It smells musty in here," she said then and I agreed.

"Why don't you turn up the air conditioner?" I suggested.

As soon as the desk people came back from lunch, I retreated to my cubicle and grabbed a phone book. First the duplex -- no luck there -- and then the local college art department which rang and rang until I thought I had struck out on that one too. But at last I got a guy who sounded put out and rather breathless.

"Stephen Weil," I said. "It's an emergency."

"Weil? He's gone -- no wait --"

I waited. Around me, voices hummed, a keyboard clicked and somebody dropped a stack of magazines.

He came on at last, surprised, but not overly so.

"Two dead guys," I said. "Out of a pond."

"Oh."

"Oh shit! They found me -- sniffed me out somehow and thought it was you until I convinced them otherwise."

"I'm sorry I got you involved, Shelly."

"Not half as sorry as I am!" Then I relented. "Weil, they didn't come to thank you for painting them. You did paint them, didn't you?"

"I guess so." He sounded pretty upset.

"And what else?"

"They were about the worst."

"Based on your experience with the dragon," I ventured, "would you say your life is in danger?"

"Probably."

"Okay, let's meet somewhere."

"Same place we had breakfast on Sunday?" he suggested. "We should be safe in a restaurant."

"Don't count on it," I told him. "But okay. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

I hung up and told Mrs. Persons I had a headache. I thought I saw a long, scaly tail in the bushes beside the library but it turned out to be a hose. Across the street, a man on a bench looked like he had fangs. I began to develop a bonafide headache as I climbed into my car.

As I pulled out, I heard a motorcycle revving up, but the guy had his back turned and I couldn't see him. I thought poignantly of Prescott and drove on.

I beat Weil to the restaurant, found they didn't serve beer and had a coke. Weil was five minutes late.

"Any trouble?" I asked him.

"I thought I saw a guy with fangs."

"Where?"

"Few blocks back. Crossing the street."

"You paint him?"

"I don't remember." He glanced up at a waitress who gave him a melting smile. Nobody gives me melting smiles. I sucked ice and grinned at her nastily. "Coke," Weil said. "Like anything else, Shelly?"

"Cut it out! This isn't a date." I got up. "Forget the coke," I told the girl.

"Shelly --"

"Back way. We'll take my car. Let them sniff over the van for a while."

"Where are we going?"

"Someplace we can see a long way. Park?"

He nodded. The sun was bright and it seemed like a good idea. "I guess the house is out," he said.

"Weil," I began as he held the car door for me -- something Prescott had never thought to do -- "you haven't levelled with me. I don't have all the facts, do I?"

He got in, slumped in his seat. "All right, Shelly. I'm sorry -- I already said I was sorry, didn't I?"

"Forget sorry. Talk."

He talked all the way to the park. His uncle hadn't exactly disappeared -- that is, he had, but Weil knew where he'd gone. Only he didn't precisely know where that was but he did know how to get there --

"Come on," I said, waiting for a pickup to make up its mind. "Get to the point."

"He painted himself."

"He what?"

"He painted a portrait of himself. I didn't believe it at first. I mean that's what he said in his diary he was going to do. It was the only way to close the door he had made. To keep his own creatures out of this world, he had to join them in theirs." He spread his hands. "Of course I thought he was mad. Until the dragon."

"Weil!" I exclaimed, aghast. "That's horrible!"

"Not quite. You see," he went on, "he didn't paint himself middle-aged like he was, or bald. He painted himself as Conan the Barbarian, actually. Young, powerful, well-armed. He painted Mrs. Anderson with him."

"Who is Mrs. Anderson?"

"A widow. His girlfriend. He made her into an amazon. It's a beautiful painting, like the cover of a book. But it's still them -- you can tell."

I chewed on that one for a while, swallowed and choked. We passed the park, slowed, and there, waiting for us, was the guy with fangs. A motorcycle cut around a corner, roaring. I had a glimpse of leather, some beard, and then a car came between us. When it passed, the biker was gone.

"Where now?" I asked. "I don't think the park is such a good idea after all."

"I don't know if I could do it, Shelly. I mean --"

"Do what?" I asked, annoyed.

"Paint myself. It would be the decent thing, of course."

"Decent! It might be your only chance of survival."

"I've thought of -- of being a more physical type. Bigger, maybe."

My head was reeling. We cut through a residential area and traffic thinned out. A big dog ran in front of us and I swerved to miss it. Something thunked against the side of the car and I stared for a moment into a pair of hot, golden eyes.

The eyes belonged to a wolf and the wolf was now on the hood of the car, changing into a man as I watched.

I floored the accelerator, seeing the others loping along on the sidewalk. Our unwanted passenger hung on, tried to hook a hand-paw around the side just as Weil rolled his window up.

I couldn't see very well, but I heard the motorcycles behind us. A moment later they were beside us. Somebody swung a chain at the front of the car taking out the wolfman and cracking my windshield.

With a howl, another wolf leaped for the window as I came to a screeching stop. I retrieved the length of pipe I keep under the seat.

A guy yelled, something else howled, and I saw Prescott all tangled up with the wolf. I wasn't sure who was winning. Prescott's buddies were all around us now but it wasn't long before the wolf pack caught up.

Weil didn't do too badly in the fight that ensued. Prescott's wolf succumbed to my pipe and there was time to give Weil the extra knife from Prescott's boot. A few of us got bitten, somebody kept yelling, "Mad dogs!" from a window and somebody else screamed, "Hell's Angels!" None of them interfered.

When the last wolf was dead, none of them turned back into people. They just stayed wolves which was a good thing. Dead people would have been hard to explain.

"Prescott!" I gasped when we had both gotten our breath. "Boy am I glad to see you! I thought you were in jail."

My old neighbor grinned widely and gave me a large, malodorous hug. "Out on bail," he said. "My friends chipped in."

I thought it more likely they had robbed a gas station, but I kept that to myself. "You showed up just in time," I said instead.

"I've been following you. Went to the house today to look you up and met these two stiffs --"

"The dead guys," I said.

"Really? I wasn't sure."

Good old Prescott always took things in stride.

"Go on," I said.

"They came up to me and asked for somebody called Weil. I said I didn't know him and one of them grabbed my arm." He showed me a dark, purpling bruise around his wrist. "It hurt plenty and I belted him until he let go. But man was that ____ strong! And he stunk too."

I didn't comment on that either. I located Weil among the bikers and made introductions. "Looks like we're in danger no matter what we do," I told Prescott. "But we have one hope."

Weil swallowed. "Yes," he said. "It's my fault and I can make it right."

"If we get back to the house," I qualified. "And there's nothing waiting for us."

"You know," Prescott said, glancing uncertainly from one to the other of us, "I saw a guy with fangs back there. And some other stuff I'm not sure of."

"Yes," I told him wearily, "so did we. You don't have to be involved if it's too weird."

He flushed, offended. "I'm involved," he said and spat. "We'll escort you back."

I got back into the car. Weil didn't look happy and I didn't blame him. He couldn't have known how his experiment would turn out.

Or could he? "You did have some idea what would happen, didn't you?" I asked as we drove with the bikers all around us.

"Maybe an inkling. But how could anyone believe wholeheartedly in something like that?"

"You could have just done one painting," I suggested. "Let it go until you knew."

He frowned. "It was a delayed reaction," he said. "I did the dragon first. It was lovely -- as though the paints themselves were richer, deeper, almost glowing --"

"The dragon was first?"

"Well, after the sword and a few props."

I concentrated on the road, saw a shadow swoop overhead and one of our escort pointing to it. I think it was a pterodactyl.

"You painted a lot of things, didn't you?" I said. "Just got carried away with your little brush and --"

He cut me off with a shake of his head. "You don't understand, Shelly. The colors were like jewels," he said dreamily. "I did my quarter's project with uncle's paints."

"What was it?"

"A nice bit out of Lovecraft. A bunch of things coming out of the sea. I've already turned it in."

"You don't miss a chance to mess up, do you?" I grated as I upped my speed. Another pterodactyl buzzed us and Prescott took a swing at it. "You just turned your subconscious wrong side out and laid it right on the canvas."

He looked defensive. " I liked stuff like that. Fantasy, horror. Lots of people do."

"You don't like it now, do you?" I asked him. "Now that it has come alive?"

He pursed his lips. "I'm not sure," he said slowly. One of the wolves had chewed him up some and there was blood on his jeans where his calf had been torn. I sighed. Maybe with a few more inches on him and some biceps, he'd get along all right in that other world. Maybe he'd even meet his uncle.

I could see the old boy painting himself young and his Mrs. Anderson beautiful.

I am not beautiful. I am not even pretty. I can wield a wrench or a pipe, catalog books, fix cars -- and probably drink even Prescott under the table. At least a tie. But no one has ever stopped to look at me twice or send me flowers.

It was a funny train of thought. I glanced sideways at Weil. He really wasn't such a wimp as I had thought. And he did okay with that dragon. I saw him on the other side with the sword he had painted. I saw possibilities. I didn't have to stay here -- I could maybe be someone different. Someone men would look twice at.

We pulled up in the driveway, the bikers still with us. I could see at once the place had been broken into. My side too. Babe was up a tree giving her opinion of whoever had done this. Her tail was a big as she was.

We checked out Weil's place first and found that his paintings were gone. "Scratch one idea," I said. "I thought we might destroy them."

"The paint is still there," he said, emerging from the bedroom with a box in one hand and a pair of socks in the other.

Behind me, Prescott waited, arms akimbo, staring at the mess. Presently he waded through the remains of the couch and picked up Weil's sword. "Okay," he said. "Tell me the whole story."

I filled him in, especially the part about the Lovecraft monsters coming up out of the sea. "I think we're in a hurry on that one," I added. "It was the most recent and it hasn't happened yet."

"All my canvasses are ruined," Weil told us, surveying the wrecked apartment.

"Use the walls." Prescott shoved a pile of splintered wood and some books aside, clearing a space large enough for a good-sized portrait.

"I need to concentrate. If you wouldn't mind --"

"Come on," I said to Prescott. "Let's see if they found the beer."

We went next door and retrieved a case from under my bed. A friend had stored it there for a party but I thought she would understand. Prescott's friends perched on bits of my upended furniture and finished it off in record time, even for them. Killing werewolves was thirsty work.

I was just going to check on Weil when a leathery wing filled the living room window. A moment later, glass showered into the room. Two of Prescott's friends leaped away just as a great, toothy head shoved its way inside.

Luckily, Prescott had kept the sword and knew how to use it. With one thwack, the head fell onto a pile of ripped drapes.

"Weil!" I cried, remembering the artist alone in his own side of the house. We all ran outside.

There were three more pterodactyls in the yard. A guy named Blaise was knocked forward with a chunk ripped out of his jacket. He rolled away and skittered crabwise to cover among the parked bikes. They kept us busy for a few minutes. Weil came out to see what was going on.

"Get back to work!" I shouted. "Before something else comes along."

He went in and I followed him. He had the background painted in -- green and rolling, with a castle on a hill. The sky was full of puffy summer clouds and there was an empty space in the foreground. "I'm just getting to the hard part," he said.

"Yeah." I tried not to think about what Weil was actually doing. Instead, I took up Prescott's spare knife which Weil had removed from his belt and laid next to the dinner plate he was using for a palette.

He began to sketch in a figure -- a princess maybe. She had long hair and a slim waist. He glanced at me once, shyly without speaking, and I almost loved him for that look.

He got her roughed in and started on himself. "I've decided not to be a warrior," he said. I'm going to be a wizard. I don't want to change myself too much."

I nodded. "You're okay the way you are."

He smiled a little and went on sketching. "I wish," he said tentatively, "you'd call me Steve."

"Okay, Steve." I watched the young wizard grow. He had a staff in his hand and he wore a long, flowing cape. I could almost see it flapping in the wind of that bright, far place.

Outside, somebody screamed.

"Keep painting," I called and ran for the door. The dead guys were back and they had brought some even deader guys with them. Two bikers were down and Prescott was hacking a skeleton to bits -- only it kept on fighting with a rusty sword even with its left arm gone and part of its head.

I kicked the legs out from under it and grabbed the sword before it could get up. Then Prescott and I stomped it into fragments. We were still stomping when one of the puffy guys hooked an arm about Prescott's throat dragging him backwards, his face purpling, his hands up and clutching. He lost his own sword and I picked it up.

There was no place to strike without hitting Prescott, so I ran around behind and stabbed the dead guy in the kidneys again and again to no effect. Prescott's struggles were getting weaker. In desperation, I leaped up and grabbed the thing's hair, feeling the whole mass come away in my hand.

At any other time, I would have lost my lunch. But Prescott's life was at stake! Steeling myself, I threw the hair aside and sank my fingers into the dead guy's pulpy flesh, pulling it away in gobs until he overbalanced and Prescott got some leverage on his arms. Then it was hack and stomp for a while until at length we stood leaning on each other, panting.

I think that was the first time I noticed that Prescott's eyes were cat green, glowing now with the light of battle, transforming his angular, battered face. There were a lot of things I had never noticed about Prescott -- a lot of things I liked. Things I had always liked.

And then I remembered the painting! The princess who was to be me! "Just a minute," I said and ran for the house.

Inside, the walls wavered. One moment I trod on ruined rug, the next on verdant turf.

"Steve!" I shouted. "Don't paint me!"

He turned. Both figures were nearly finished.

"Steve," I panted, "I'm not a princess! Or a fair damsel or anything like that. Paint somebody else. She isn't me!"

"Shelly, what are you talking about?"

There was a rustle in the bedroom. A moment later, Weil was knocked flat as fangface swept down on us.

He had me in his arms before I could move. He opened his mouth wide.

I kicked him and he let go. I saw Weil hovering uncertainly in the background, the brush dripping in his hand.

"Paint!" I shrieked. "He'll disappear when you finish! But not me -- I don't want to go with you. I can't --"

He raised the brush uncertainly.

"Paint!"

Fangface was on me again, his dirty nails raking furrows on my arms, his breath nonexistent. I pulled Prescott's knife from my belt. The hand on my wrist was like a steel band as he shoved my head back with those fangs closing in on my throat. It was a kind of rape -- only worse, because I had a feeling it would never end. I struggled, butted him with my head, hooked one leg around his and --

-- I was falling, the knife in my hand. I had a brief vision of the castle on the hill, the wizard Steven Weil and his princess, and then it was gone. So was fangface.

"Shelly!" I heard Prescott calling. "Shelly, I thought --"

"That I'd go with him?" I asked, sitting up. I hurt in a dozen places. Prescott didn't look so good either. His face was very white where it wasn't bruised or bloody or bearded, and he was staring at me like he never saw me before.

"I like it better here," I said and he came over and helped me up. "I didn't want to be his princess when I could be -- "

He held onto me for a few seconds longer than he had to and I didn't shake him off. "You don't look like a princess," he said thickly. "But you look all right to me."

I took his hand. "Thanks, Prescott."

"If they send me up," he said then, "will you wait for me?"

"You know I will."

He gave me another one of his hugs, hard enough that we both winced a little. The studs on his jacket made little dents in my side and his beard tickled when I kissed him. But that was okay. That was just fine.

Wherever Weil had gone, we wished him well.

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Author Bio

Colleen Drippe' has two stories in Infinite Space, Infinite God, an anthology of science fiction with Catholic themes now out by Twilight Times Books. She has had one science fiction novel published and several books for children. Some of her science fiction and fantasy stories can be found on the Internet.

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