The day I decided to avoid Kathy and spend the day in Amaranth. I went out and bought a mini-fridge, some eleics, and stocked up on sodas and beer. I’d made some calcutions, and thought I could run the mini-fridge, the security system, my ptop, and the coffee maker, and still charge batteries for my power tools. It seemed worth it to have cold drinks without going through the gate all the time.

  I would have liked to make sor panels work, but I doubted I’d get enough light in the forest to make that make sense.

  I sent the zombies off on their usual lumber run, stocked the new fridge with the drinks I’d bought, and then sat outside for a bit in my zero gravity chair, hoping that Xy might stop by. I had bought a cute two piece swimsuit online, and was feeling positively sexy as I spread out on the chair. The suit robably pletely impractical for swimming in, unless I was trying to have a wardrobe malfun, but it was the sort of thing I would enjoy seeing a woman wear, so naturally, I’d bought it.

  I popped open a cold beer, pulled out my e-reader, and rexed. The same trees that made sor panels a dubious idea also meant that I didn’t have to worry too much about getting sunburned. Which was good, because if the sunburn transferred over to Abel, I’d have some very weird tan lines.

  I heard a sound ing through the forest, and figured it robably Xy, although she was usually quieter. On sed thought, she was always quieter. I put my book into the bag of holding and looked around.

  I didn’t see anything. Was it a bear? Just some deer running through the woods? If I’d heard simir noises oh, at least in suburbia, I would have assumed that whatever it was, it probably wasn’t anything to worry about. I certainly wouldn’t have thought about maybe having to reach for a sword or otherwise defend myself. But I reached for my bag of holding, making sure I kly where it was if I had to pull a sword or a wand out of it, or just run away. It was too useful to risk leaving behind.

  Two figures ehe clearing in front of the tomb. They were both dressed in silvery armor. One, a tousle-headed blond man, was covered pretty much from o feet in pte mail. The other, a beautiful woman with an auburn bob, also had pte mail, but hers was rather more strategically, or non-strategically, arranged. Enough of her chest was bare to dispy quite a bit of cleavage, and there were simir bare areas on her upper arms, ahighs. There were plenty of spots to aim at if you were fighting her, but I couldn’t deny the effect was aesthetically pleasing.

  They both appeared to be human. The man had a ma his hand, the woman had a sword. They had leather packs over their backs. At least her looked immediately hostile.

  “Ho!” said the man.

  “Excuse me?” I said. “We don’t even know each other.” Just because I was wearing a bikini, sheesh.

  “Hail, and well met,” said the woman.

  “Ah, well, hail and well met to you, too.” I stood up. They seemed to be keeping their distance, which satisfied me fine, as they had no apparent ranged ons, and I khat I did.

  “We didn’t expect to find a human here,” the man said.

  “Ah. her did I, holy. Hi. I’m Abby.”

  “I’m Talos,” said the man.

  “And I’m Valeria,” said the woman.

  “We’re padins,” Talos and Valeria said in unison.

  Kill them now. When they aren’t suspeg anything. Padins are the goodest of the good. They are the antithesis of everythiand for. They are as good as we are evil. Just being in the same forest with them is enough to make me want to puke.

  I retty sure that telling them I was a neancer wasn’t the right move, and telling them I was a seductress was right out. “I’m a friend of the forest.”

  “Ah,” Talos said. He gestured to the tomb. “Do you, uh, live in there?”

  It seemed poio deny it. “Yeah.”

  “It’s a tomb, isn’t it? A mausoleum, a crypt, whatever you want to call it?”

  I tried to sound casual. “I suppose it is. Or was. No one buried there now.”

  Yeah. You dumped my bones out back. You know, they might find those.

  “Mind if we take a look inside?” Valeria asked.

  “Um, yeah. It’s my home.”

  “We mean the forest no harm. In fact, we might be helpful,” Valeria said. “We’re not going to do anything to your home, we just want to look around.”

  “Did you e because of the fire?” I asked.

  “Uh, no,” Talos said. He seemed to be having siderable trouble getting his gaze up to look at my eyes. I wondered if he was cheg out the bulge in my bikini bottom, or my boobs. I decided it robably the boobs.

  “Would you like a moment to get some more clothes on?” Valeria asked. “If you don’t have any, I get you something from my pack.”

  I did, in fact, want my clothes. Wearing the skimpy swimsuit made me feel vulnerable in front of strangers. But I wasn’t going into the tomb in front of them, and I didn’t want to pull anything out of my bag of holdiher, unless I o.

  I kept my eyes fixed on Talos. Looking at Valeria too much would be dangerous. As impractical as I thought her armor was, the fsh of thigh between her one-piece swimsuit-like armor ahigh-high armored boots was attractive, and the way her armor, corset-like, pushed up her breasts into two half-moons was distrag too. The st thing I wao do was to get aion. Having clothes would help with that. Not thinking about how embarrassing it would be would probably help with that too. Dammit. I moved so that the chair was between my crotd them.

  “Our priest received a divination that an evil neancer has retly beeing in this area,” Valeria told me. “And we’re here to take care of him. Have you seen any signs of undead activity, or death magic?”

  Oh, crap. I let my eyes go wide in what I hoped was a look of astonishment. “Evil neancer?” I repeated, stalling for time.

  “It’s redundant, I know.”

  If you think they are going to be okay with you, just because you aren’t raising much of a zombie army, you’re mistaken. Their kind hunts down our kind.

  “You know, I wasn’t really expeg guests, or I’d be wearing clothes.”

  Valeria nodded. “Talos, go take a walk.”

  “Why do I have to –” Talos started.

  “Because you’re a boy, and she’s half-naked, and is a temptation beyond what you bear. Don’t think I don’t see the way you’re looking at her. Go somewhere, and say some prayers.” Valeria gave him a little bad wave.

  “Actually, could you both give me a few mio get dressed, and then I’ll be gd to tell you what I’ve seen and heard?”

  “Of course,” Talos said, giving me another head to toe appraisal.

  Valeria looked more doubtful, but Talos whispered something to her, and she nodded. “We’ll walk for a few hundred yards and then e back. Will that give you enough time?”

  I wasn’t sure quite how long that was in time, but I nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t know I’d be having guests.”

  I watched as they walked north. It was the obvious way to go, as the zombies had worn a path in that dire. When they were out of sight, I let myself into the tomb and took a deep breath.

  There is another option to killing them, you know.

  “I’m listening,” I told Enash, hurrying to the boxes where I kept my clothes. The gothy bck dress I’d gotten at the thrift store was my favorite look, but uhese ditions it sort of screamed practitioner of the dark arts. So instead I pulled on a pair of jeans and a tank top, wearing them right over my swimsuit to save time.

  You could seduce them. Padins swear oaths of chastity, I think.

  Huh. And I’d taken Talos and Valeria for a couple. The way she spoke to him about looking at me definitely sounded like a jealous wife. I couldn’t imagihat Talos had been keeping his gaze away from Valeria’s assets all the time, either. The erip? Where did they e from? From what Xy had told me about geography, it was several days travel to any human town.

  Somehow, I had to vihem there was no evil neancer around. I suspected that Enash was right, that ving them that I was a non-evil neancer was going to be difficult. So no nea all.

  I took out my scabbard and sword, and strapped it on to my waist. A neancer would have a wand. Maybe with a shrunken skull on it, like the one I had. The sword, I felt, made me look more like something else, a warrior of some kind maybe. Real warriors probably wore armor, like Valeria. Or maybe something that did a better job of c all the parts.

  In any case, I couldn’t waste time, because I didn’t know how quickly they’d be back. I g my security cameras and didn’t see them, but by the time I could see them that way, they’d be in sight of the tomb. Maybe I should put some farther out, if the wi-fi could reach, but that roject for another day. I opehe gate just wide enough to get out, and then locked it behind me.

  A few mier they came back. I noticed a certain wario them, but ohey saw me they quickly put on open, if insincere, smiles.

  “Thanks fiving me a moment. I really wasn’t expeg pany, and the su good on my skin.”

  “That all over tan,” Valeria said, nodding in agreement.

  Talos gave her a look. “You’ve never –”

  “Oh, stop imagining it,” Valeria told him.

  Yeah, if she wore that outfit all the time, she’d have iing tan lines.

  “So, Abby. How long have you been living in that tomb?” Valeria asked.

  “A month or so, I guess.” I didn’t see any reason to lie.

  “You just kind of stumbled across it and moved in?”

  “It’s a plicated story.”

  “Tell it to us.”

  “No.” I didn’t think I could afford to tell the truth. I could try to tell a fancy lie, but Valeria at least was clearly suspicious of me. I retty sure she’d press and I’d slip up somewhere. Maybe if I’d had time to make up something really good. The way she’d asked the st few questions reminded me of a cop.

  She gred at me. “This is serious business, Abby. There’s a neancer out there. If you think that just because you’re drop dead geous he won’t try to kill you and turn you into a zombie, you’re mistaken. And a tomb is just the sort of pce a neancer would hang out. They like death, and all its maions. They are vile beyond all imagining. The only sins they are ued ihose of the flesh.”

  “Sins of the flesh?” I asked. It seemed like the safest topic.

  Valeria colored. “I think you know what I’m talking about.”

  I walked toward them, giving my hips a little sway. I didn’t io seduyone from their vows. But if they were certain that neancers weren’t ied in that sort of thing, it seemed like I should vihem that I was. “Maybe you should expin it to me.”

  “We have taken an oath of chastity,” Valeria said. “It’s easiest if we don’t even think about things like that.”

  I looked over at Talos. “You think about things like that, don’t you?”

  Talos blushed.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “I think about things like that, too. Especially when a hunky guy and a geous woman show up suddenly together at my doorstep.” I made eye tact with each of them in turn.

  Valeria took a deep breath, whily made more of her chest visible over the corset. “Neancer,” Valeria said, clearly meaning a ge of subject.

  “First you call me a ho, then you call me a neancer,” I said, purposely misuanding. “I thought Padins were supposed to be nice.”

  “Have you seen the neancer?” Valeria asked. “He probably doesn’t look entirely human, or elvish, or whatever. An unnatural pallor, a cadaverous face, that sort of thing.”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t seen anything like that. But when I atrolling the forest, I did find a zombie once. Way to the east, at the very edge. I think he came from outside, I assume in that dire. Does that help? I killed it, of course. Or rather, I cut its head off, and it stopped moving.”

  “Patrolling the forest. Are you like, a ranger or something?” Talos said.

  “Something like that,” I said. I didn’t want to get too specifi case they knew some particur thing rangers were supposed to be able to do. But ranger was the kind of css I would have chosen for myself, if I’d actually gotten a ce to choose.

  “That’s amazing,” Talos said. “But it all makes sense now.”