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The arrow Love holds extends itself into a flexible pole They use to lift the black mirror out of Lord Judas’ grasp. The glass is whisked away, presumably back to its place on the balcony.
“Don’t contaminate My home here,” Lord Judas objects. “Christ knows what awful bloody stuff You put in those potions.” He means the poison coating Love’s arrow heads.
“The nectar of disruption,” Love says, and gazes long at the imps who, still silent and slightly bug-eyed, are showing signs of restlessness. Sarconsson has discovered his prehensile toes. He drums them, beating a devil’s tattoo on whatever magical floor supports him. Cornumsdotter flexes and balloons her abdomen to dim and brighten her light show.
A loud crack! They flinch.
Love has snapped the arrow. Breaking the shaft appears also to break whatever spell fixes the toxin because the arrow head sweats beads of milky fluid that ooze and smoke, one moment oily, the next a pale mist that melts in air.
“Oh, what a shame,” Love sighs with a theatrical flourish. “Worthless to Us now.” The Primal Immortal makes a show of casting the weapon away. Up it sails, up, up and over one shining shoulder.
The broken arrow tumbles, tumbles… Two stunned imps cannot not follow its tumbling arc until — crack! again — it lodges point first in the weave of the brass carpet. A drop of poison hisses and evaporates.
Fickle Love has adjourned the meeting. Sarconsson and Cornumsdotter are on their faces, the old familiar imp faces — no more forked tongue or worm mouth — and prone against the glowing rug. They are back among mechanical poppies. Just out of reach is Love’s discarded arrow with its terrible head of black, black rock. According to legend, Love catches meteors before they burn out, snatches the flaming stones right out of the sky and squeezes them, as a potter might wet clay, into the trefoils and triangles and four bladed broadheads that tip Their arrows.
“Don’t you dare,” Cornumsdotter scolds.
Her boyfriend flashes a most endearing grin. He scuttles over the wire weave to the arrow where he untangles it, hides it beneath one leathery wing, drops down and wriggles like a naughty puppy.
“Finders, keepers! Losers, weepers!” Sarconsson crows.
With that, Love is gone and the imps are gone and Lord Judas is alone in His throne room. He is used to Love’s sudden departures. Lord Judas rolls over on His illuminated cushions. He makes a snack of tuna fish on crackers and positions His favorite black mirror so He can go back to watching the live-cast drama in Heaven. Soon the bees will return to announce the top of the hour.