Myth-Ing Persons By Robert L Asprin

“If he had wanted to do us harm, all he would have had to do was blow the whistle on us while we were still in town,” I pointed out. “Let’s just take things at face value and assume he was really being as nice as he seemed … for all our peace of minds.”

I wished I was as confident as I sounded. We were a long way out in the boondocks, and if Vilhelm had wanted to send us off on a wild goose chase, he couldn’t have picked a better direction to start us off in.

“Yeah, well I’d feel a lot better if we weren’t being followed,” Guido grumbled.

I stopped in my tracks. So did Massha … in her tracks, that is. The bodyguard managed to stumble into us before bringing his own forward progress to a halt.

“What is it, Boss? Something wrong?”

“For a minute there, I thought I heard you say that we were being followed.”

“Yeah. Since we left the Dispatcher’s. Why does . . . you mean you didn’t know?”

I resisted an impulse to throttle him.

“No, Guido. I didn’t know. You see, my bodyguard didn’t tell me. He was too busy complaining about the road conditions to have time to mention anything as trivial as someone following us.”

Guido took a few shaky steps backward.

“Hey! C’mon, Boss. Don’t be like that. I thought you knew! Honest. Whoever’s back there isn’t doin’ such a hot job of hiding the fact that they’re dogging our trail. Any idiot could’ve spotted . . . I mean….”

“Keep going, Dark and Deadly,” Massha urged. “You’re digging yourself in further with every word, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

With great effort I brought myself back under control.