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Blue Moon 4.2

by Donna Lamb

"While it has become traditional recently to refer to agents of celestial being with my assignment as 'Clarence,' my name is actually Theodosius." The prim gentleman sharing the backseat of the hellish taxi with the personage calling herself Sophie Drake nodded politely.

"Well, TED," Sophie drawled. "You're nothing but a damned hitchhiker."

Still smiling, the angel nodded again. "This vehicle travels toward Hell, in that sense, we are damned."

"I don't appreciate you insinuating yourself into my transportation; didn't running over you convey a tiny bit of animosity?"

"Oh yes, I got the 'message''." He put the quotes around the word with his fingers, a mannerism that annoyed Sophie when used by others toward her. She'd invented the gesture in the sixteenth century to prick that insufferable poet, Willy Shaxsper.

"She made another wish, she's my plaything and you can't do anything about it." Sophie stuck her tongue out. It really was forked but the clarence ignored that.

"Not necessarily," said the angel. "I've a commission signed by Mary and Her Son to protect this Messenger person as much as I can but we can negotiate the exact terms of what you can do to her in regards her latest wish."

"It's still Strangefellows Day in her time zone! I can do whatever I want to her!"

"You know that isn't so, uh, Sophia."

The Devil in Drag blustered some more but finally gave in. "All right, it's not worth missing playing with my other toys this day to argue with you. What are your terms, Angelman?"

"It is the position of my Superior, that you have to abide strictly by the words of the wish. And since she phrased her desire in the proper subjunctive, that you cannot alter the past this time. We think you cheated on that first wish; the man, Richard also used the subjunctive and you should not have altered the past."

Sophie smiled."I didn't at first, and I only altered time as far back as last Strangefellows Day in my second intervention, just two months." She laughed. "The poor booby hasn't discovered what I did yet."

The clarence waggled a finger at her. "No more of that. Your justification for the second intervention violated several rules; Joel did not actually make a wish in simply agreeing with Richard's and you changed time. It is the position of my Principal that what is done is done and what is undone is undone, so no more mucking about with time."

She glared at him. "You were a lawyer in life?"

"A solicitor," he said.

"You're supposed to be one of mine, you back-stabbing shyster!"

Ted, for so his friends actually did address him, tut-tutted the Devil to her face. Angel-ified English barristers do not quail in front of opponents no matter how powerful. "It is our position," he went on, "that Jo's wish can be bent only a little, and that only in terms long agreed between us; to wit, if an unclear word or phrase has been used, you may define that word or phrase to your liking.

"Hmm. The twit said, 'I w-wish this all were a little easier.'" The Devil in Drag mimicked Jo's voice perfectly, including the stutter.

"Yes, well, as unwise as it may have been," he pronounced 'been' to rhyme with the vegetable and not the clock, "the only unclear reference in her wish is just exactly what she meant by 'this all.'"

Sophie smiled. "So I can define those two words to suit me?"

Ted winced. "Yes. But you cannot alter her consciousness of who she is, only her body parts and environment and no playing with the Wayback Machine."

She shrugged, thinking. "I can live with that."

Ted stared at her a moment. "We expect you to try to cheat, you know."

"Of course." She nodded. "That's the fun of these contests. Cheating within the rules."

Jo's clarence sighed. "May I ask what you're going to do? What do you intend to treat the words as meaning?"

Sophie grinned. "I think when she said 'this all' she meant 'my virtue.'"

"High five, boss," said the driver, holding his hand up above the seat back. Sophie cackled and slapped the blunt-fingered hand of her henchman, Bill Z. Bubb.

Ted looked appalled. "That's diabolical," he said.

"Why thank you, clarence," Sophie purred. "High five." She held up her hand again.

"No," said Ted, crossing his arms and looking so terribly stiff upper lip about it.