“You think the ghoul of Detroit deliberately created this portal to...” asked Duncan, shocked.

“We don’t know if it was deliberate, or a side effect of using so much death energy all at once,” said the CSIS Director.  “Henry suspects the latter.  I’m inclined to believe him, since the portal seems only half-functional.  We can see the demons, but they can’t pass through.”

Duncan turned to the ghoul.  “So if one of my duels goes horribly wrong...”

“You could create the same here.  You have to stop.”

“No.  I have to be careful.  And you,” Duncan said, turning to the director, “need to get silver on as many people as possible.”

“No.  We will neither aid nor abet this reckless crusade of yours.”

Duncan sighed.  “So you won’t do anything to reduce the threat to the populace?”

The director nodded.  “Of course we will.  If you won’t stop, we’ll stop you.”

“And just how do you propose to do that?” asked Duncan acerbically.

The director studied Duncan for a time.  “This isn’t your body, you claim.  Just a robot double?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.  I don’t have a human body any more.  So without this body I can’t go to work for a week or so.”

“So no real leverage to speak of.”  The director glanced down at the closed file sitting on his desk.  Duncan could see that it had his name on it, and was alarmingly thick.  “And Agent Mackie believes that threatening your family would produce undesirable results.”

“If you consider losing the entire battalion you send to try to collect them ‘undesirable’, then yes.”

The director raised an eyebrow.  “You think you could stop hundreds of soldiers?  From here?”

“Yes.”  There was no doubt in Duncan’s voice.

“Interesting.  So noted, your family will be left out of this.  What will it take to secure your cooperation?”

“How about a convincing argument as to why I should leave the remaining ghouls to kill as they please?”

“Henry?”

The ghoul sighed.  “I will offer myself to your treatment.  Then we will see where things stand.  Will you trust what I say then?”

Duncan nodded slowly.  “If you’re willing to take such a risk, so am I.  I will hear you out.  But... be convincing.  The lesser ghouls are killing people every week.”

“So are cars,” noted the director.  “But nobody’s waging war on them.”

“That’s not the same and you know it.”

“If we assist with the lesser ghouls,” offered Henry, “the ones that cannot subsist on the energy available to them, will you leave the greater alone?”

Duncan looked from Henry to the director.  “Does he speak for you in this?”

“He has been a trusted advisor to the government for a very long time.  His words have weight.”

“Fine.  I shall return when the Moon rises over Ottawa, and we shall see what comes next.  There will be no need to send for me.”

The director chuckled dryly.  “If you are here when you say, there will be no need.  We will discuss the Detroit issue further then.  The Americans have become more forthcoming since learning of you, perhaps we can leverage that to gain more insight.  For now... I’d suggest giving it a wide berth.”

They sent him home by commercial air.  Coach class.  With a layover in Edmonton.  Duncan was glad of the escort that got his partly metallic body through the metal detectors with minimal fuss, and more glad of his ability to turn his body off so that it was not inconvenienced by the cramped seats or the crying baby next to him.

* * *

The next day, Duncan’s boss asked after his absence, wondering why he was of interest to CSIS.  Duncan shrugged.  “Sorry.  I’m not allowed to talk about it.  If it helps, it has nothing to do with anything I do here.”

“Will it be likely to impact your schedule in the future?”

“I hope not.  If it seems likely to, I’ll try to give you some warning next time.”

“Fair enough.”

Conversation turned to the details of the project Duncan was working on, and that was the end of it.

Sidney, of course, was less sanguine.  Not so much about the fact that Duncan had been pulled in by CSIS and spent a day in Ottawa, or that he’d not had a chance to bring back any souvenirs.  What really set her off was hearing that the house was sufficiently armored and armed to stand off an invading army.

“Why do we even need such a thing?” Sidney fussed.  “It’s not like we’re going to be attacked... are we?”

“You saw what happened last full Moon.  The RCMP weren’t here to help, they were here to take you as leverage.  Stupid, but that’s government for you.  And now the highest levels are involved, so...”

Sidney sighed.  “Why us?”

Duncan shrugged.  “You know why.  It’s not the ghoul issue any more, not really.  It’s the amount of power I represent.”  He refrained from mentioning Detroit, not wanting to worry Sidney further.  

“What about if this armory of yours goes off by accident?”

“It won’t,” replied Duncan confidently.  “It can’t fire unless I will it to fire.  It’s not like I’ve placed automated weapons all over the place.  I can increase the security interlocks to make extra sure.”

“Can you make the weapons non-lethal?  I’d rather not wake up to a dead canvasser on the doorstep just because you got nervous.”

Duncan smiled at that.  “That’s a really good idea.  Having layered defenses would let me dissuade attackers without having to bring the big guns to bear.  I wonder if I could make a mine that would transform whoever steps on it...”

“Duncan!”

“Basic petrification shouldn’t be too hard,” he mused.  “Though shrinking is easiest.  Could I make a one-shot shrink ray?  It’d only work when the Moon is up.  Hm.”

“Shrink ray?” asked Sidney, curious now.  “You really think you could make one?”

“Well, it’d be magic, not super-tech, despite how it would look.  Why, would you want one?” he asked with a grin on his face.

“I...”  Sidney blushed.  “Maybe.”

“I’ll have a chat with Gwen to see what we can set up.  Dial-a-size might be asking a bit much.  How small should it make people?”

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but... six inches tall?  That was a fun size last time.”

Duncan grinned at her.  “Planning to use it on yourself, or...”

Sidney grinned at him.  “Maybe it’s your turn to be toy-sized.”

Courtney of course picked up on that, and asked if she could be toy-sized too.  Duncan laughed at the question, and even more at Sidney’s chagrin.  “Yes sweetie.  We’ll all be toy-sized one night when the Moon is right.”

“Tonight?”

“Not tonight.  The Moon isn’t strong enough.  Next week.”

“Yay!”

Sidney sighed.  “You’re actually going to shrink our kids?  What if you don’t put them back to the right height afterward?”

Duncan waved that off.  “Drawing the energy off always puts things back to rights.”

Sidney didn’t look entirely mollified. “And you won’t leave us stranded at a tiny size due to the Moon setting?”

“Nah, it sets way after their bedtime when we hit the first quarter.  It’ll be fine.”

“Right.  I’ve heard that before.”

Duncan grinned.  “Of course, the kids probably don’t know when the Moon sets...”

Sidney rolled her eyes, but smiled back at him.  “You’re trouble.”

“And you like it.  Most of the time, anyway.”  Duncan pulled her into a hug, and Sidney didn’t protest.

* * *

The rest of the week went by uneventfully.  Duncan did notice a black SUV tailing him when he was out driving, but other than getting the chance to wave to Agent Mackie once, nothing came of it.  The awareness that he was being observed worried him a little, and made him determined to improve his preparations even more once the Moon’s first quarter arrived.

To that end, he spent much of the weekend consulting with Gwen, sketching out a variety of ideas.  The shrink-ray plan was quickly discarded, much to Sidney’s disappointment.  Shrink mines, however, looked feasible.  The issue was keeping the subject safe afterward.  Gwen jokingly suggested they have them snap around and enclose the target, but while the idea amused everyone (especially Courtney, who recognized Gwen’s sketched red-and-white design) it didn’t seem possible to make it safe.  It could too easily snap closed with the target only halfway inside.

The final design that they came up with was a small sphere that had a single-shot transformation bound to it.  When it broke, the nearest human-sized object would be turned into a six inch tall teddy bear.  Courtney asked if some could turn people into plush kittens or bunnies instead, and Duncan promised to make all sorts of different ones.

“How small do you think you can make them?” asked Gwen.

Duncan’s eyes turned to a silver-lined chest sitting beside them.  It was full of tiny beads of magic, preserved through the Moon’s dark weeks by the silver surrounding them.  “The stored magic could be pretty small, if I can come up with some way to crack it.  The breaking of a larger sphere... hm.  I bet I can get it down to point six eight inches, though.”

Gwen looked at him curiously.  “Why that size?”

Duncan grinned. “So it can fit in a paintball gun, of course.”

Gwen laughed and shook her head.  “That’d be a different kind of game.  Zombie plush attack!  How fast would they change?”

Duncan’s expression fell and he sighed.  “Not fast enough to be a useful weapon.  The usual minute, unless it’s you or me.  I still don’t know any way to accelerate that.  Magically-created bonds would be faster, except it’d have no way to orient.”

“Why magically created bonds?” asked Gwen.  “Couldn’t you make something conventional that acts the same?”

“Oh!  Yeah.  Something like Syndrome used in The Incredibles, an expanding sticky-ball launcher.  I could do that easy.  Best part is it would be completely conventional, so there’d be no worries about it only working when the Moon is up.  I’ll make some prototypes Monday.”

“Monday?  Why not now?”

“I’d rather not crack the mana chest until first quarter, or all the beads will start fading.”

“How much did you stash this time?” asked Gwen, eagerly.

“Lots and lots.  Enough for hundreds of changes.”

“Can I take some to the club?  We haven’t been able to do anything fun for weeks now.  Plus there’s a couple of newbies that want to pull a prank on a friend.”

“Do tell.”  Duncan leaned forward curiously.

Gwen looked reluctant.  “You’ll be jealous.”

“Of?”

“They want to get turned into her underwear and hidden in her drawer.  So she’ll wear them without even knowing they’re there.”

Duncan grinned.  “Oh!  That would be...”  He looked over at Sidney who was raising her eyebrows.  “Ah.  Yeah.  Was it really so bad?”

Sidney sighed.  “Just the ‘no husband’ part.  Wearing you isn’t the same as being able to hug you.”

“I don’t have to be in this body to control it, you know...  My ‘real’ body is still in that box in the china cabinet.  I can turn into anything I want once the Moon rises on Monday.”

“I’ll think about it.  Given the choice of you as a human or you as a robot...”

“Yes?” asked Duncan, a bit too eagerly.

“I don’t know.”  Sidney grinned.  “Robot Duncan doesn’t snore.”

“So I can be whatever I like while you’re sleeping?  That works for me.”

“Hey, I didn’t... well.  OK, I did kind of walk into that.  So what would you want to be?”

Duncan shrugged.  “Maybe a comfy nightie.”  At Sidney’s neutral expression he sighed.  “Or maybe something that’s not even here.”

“The club?   You want to go back there at night?”

“Would that be so bad?  I’ll be sleeping beside you, and also making dreams come true.”

Sidney chuckled softly.  “Is that how you see it?”

Duncan turned to Gwen, who nodded.  “You really should see how happy people are to have magic in their lives.”

Sidney’s smile twisted ever so slightly.  “It’s different when you can’t avoid it.”

Duncan patted her hand softly.  “Considering what it has brought us?  You have a brand new gorgeous kitchen, and if you want some other room renovated this month, all I need is a design.  Any shiny thing you want can be yours.”

That made her grin.  “I still haven’t gotten my new phone.”

“We have more than enough gold.  I should talk to my contacts in the government about moving a substantial amount of it without getting investigated.  Then you could buy anything you like.”

“Oooh!  Shopping trip!”

Gwen grinned along with Sidney.  “Can I tag along?”

“The more the merrier.  Maybe Donna should come too.”

Duncan’s eyebrows rose into his curly hair.  “Really?  That’d be...  I mean, yeah, sounds good.”

“Could you stay here as Duncan and come with us as well?”

Duncan nodded.  “It’d be good practice.”

* * *

On Monday, Duncan pulled over on his drive to work.  The black SUV following him stopped behind him, and Agent Mackie rolled down his window as Duncan walked back to it.  “You’re not supposed to do this, you know.”

“Oh come on, it’s not like you’re being subtle.”

Agent Mackie shrugged.  “I’m pretty sure you’re not trying to lose me.  What’s on your mind?”

“Gold.  I’ve got a large pile of it, and I want to turn it into cash without getting various bits of the government on my case.”

“Should I worry about how you ended up with so much?”

“It’s not stolen.  Nor is it going to evaporate, like Leprechaun gold.”

“Oh, I see now.  How much?”

“For now, a couple hundred kilograms.”

“For now?” sputtered Agent Mackie.  “You’re talking about millions of dollars.  That... yeah, I see your point.  Not exactly pawn broker quantities.  I suppose we owe you that much for the help with the ghouls.”

“If some of it found its way into the Service’s operations budget, would that help?”

“Are you trying to bribe us?” asked Mackie coldly.

Duncan waved it off.  “Not at all.  Just trying to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.  I transfer the gold to CSIS, you take care of selling it legitimately, and take a percentage for your troubles.”

“I’ll talk to my boss.”

Duncan nodded.  “Thanks.  Enjoy the drive.”

He returned to his car, and carried on to work.

When he returned home, there was an armored car waiting for him outside the house.  A few minutes later it drove off, riding slightly lower on its shocks.

“What was all that about?” asked Sidney once Duncan came back inside.

“Bulk sale of gold.  If CSIS is going to take such an interest in me and my doings, we might as well get some use of it.  We’ll get a better deal than we would via random brokers, and attract less attention from the government.  On the down-side, we’ll have to pay taxes on it.”

“How much?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” Duncan said with a shrug.  “A few million.”

“Why are you going to work, then?” asked Sidney incredulously.

“I hate leaving projects unfinished.  We’re just about done with the project I’ve been working on since I started, and next month is going to be crazy.  If I bail on them, they’d be hosed.”

“So?  Why should you care?”

Duncan sighed.  They’d been over this before in the context of playing the lottery.  “I do, okay?  They’re good people, they don’t deserve that.”

Sidney shook her head, and returned to getting dinner ready.

Duncan played with the kids for a while before dinner, and afterward helped put Victor to bed.  Just as his son was settling down, there was a knock at the door.  Gwen was there, and nodded when he put a finger to his lips.  They moved quietly to the dining room, where Sidney looked up at Gwen, puzzled.  “Why are you here?”

“Monday night.  First quarter Moon is up.  Time to try out all those ideas from the weekend.”

Sidney sighed.  “But no shrink rays, because that doesn’t work?”

“Impractical, not impossible,” said Duncan.  “Not a very effective home defense system due to targeting and range issues.  Lousy in close quarters due to the speed problem.  However, as a toy...”  He opened the chest full of stored magic, and withdrew enough to fill his reserve and then some.  

The brimming magic spilled over to Gwen as well, and she grinned.  “Oh yeah.  How much do you have in there?”  She stared in wonder at the array of tiny beads.  “Foo.  I can’t use these myself.  Too hard.”

Duncan frowned.  “I hadn’t thought of that...  I’ll figure something out.  But first, our prop.”

A silvery form took shape over the dining room table.  It looked like a cross between an expensive toy and an old-school science fiction ray-gun.  It had a bulbous body, a slim handle, and a series of vanes and rings that were purely for show.  It wafted to the table then settled gently there.  

Sidney picked the ray-gun up, curious.  “How does it work?”

Duncan sighed.  “It doesn’t, yet.  I need to figure out how to create a generic magical effect.  Like that cat figurine you ran into way back when.”

“Sort of like a crystallized magical effect?” asked Gwen.

Duncan nodded.  “Yeah.  Mind if I shrink you to study the effect?”

Gwen giggled and posed.  “Not at all.”  Her grin got even bigger as she started shrinking.

Duncan studied the magic as it worked on Gwen, nodding slowly.  “Okay... I think I see.”

Duncan wasn’t the only one watching.  Once Gwen’s shrinking stopped, Courtney knelt beside her in wonder.  “You’re a dolly!”

Gwen’s expression grew alarmed for a moment, then froze as her body turned to plastic.

“Nice one.  She’s safe to play with now, Courtney.  And I’m quite sure she won’t mind.”

“Yay!”

While Courtney started dancing about with her new doll, Duncan worked on the ray-gun.  A hexagonal crystal formed at the tip, and grew backward into the casing.  “There...  Want to try testing it out?  I haven’t worked out the stored power just yet, but I can charge it up for a shot.”

Sidney grinned like a kid in a candy store, pointed it at Duncan, and pulled the trigger.  There was no visible effect.  “Did it work?  Oh!  You’re shrinking...”

Duncan laughed. “Yep.  All because of you.  How does that make you feel?”

Sidney stared at her dwindling husband with stars in her eyes.  “Powerful.”

Duncan hopped up onto a dining room chair, then onto the table as his robotic body dwindled.  “This will work well, could you set it beside me?  Sweetie?”

Sidney scooped him up instead.  “You’re so cute like this!  I just want to cuddle you and... do things that I probably shouldn’t while Courtney is up.”  Sidney sighed, and set both Duncan and the ray-gun on the table.  “Fine. Now what?”

Duncan pressed a hidden catch, and the side of the shrink ray opened up.  A cloud of sparkling crystals rose out of the chest and filled the cavity.  “OK.  We have power.  We have a short-range shrink effect.  The trick is to connect the two.  Courtney?”

“Yes Daddy?  Oooh, Daddy’s a dolly too!”

Duncan’s body took on a plastic sheen.  “Careful sweetie.  I need Gwen back for a bit.  Then you’ll have three dollies to play with, okay?”

“Three...” asked Sidney, then her eyes went wide.  “Is that wise?”

“Don’t fret, sweetie.  My other half will be watching over us.”  Duncan nodded to the box that held his crystalline ‘body’.

“Oh, right.  So... you need to make the trigger break the magic stuff, is that it?”

Duncan nodded, and gestured at the Gwen doll that Courtney had set beside him.  “Come back to us, Gwen.”

Gwen shook herself, and grinned.  “Sorry.  It’s getting too easy to change myself, I got a little too into the role.  So... magic conversion.  Are you thinking mechanical, like a little grinder, or something like a hopper with another magical effect at the base that turns these seeds into charge?”

“The latter sounds tidier.  We’ll try the grinder if it doesn’t work.  So... hm.”

“Same as before, observe yourself opening one of the crystals?” suggested Gwen.

Duncan nodded, and a few of the crystals inside the open ray-gun flared and vanished, adding their glow to the crystalline rod at the core of the gun.  “Oh... yeah, that’s not too difficult.”  A smaller crystal formed alongside the larger one, and the crystals against it flared and vanished.  It got brighter and brighter as more crystals fell into place and vanished in turn.

“Crap.  Needs a governor.”

“Before it shrinks the whole house, yes.”  Gwen pointed to the lack of chairs on the far side of the table, where the gun was aiming.

“Oops.”

“Dolly toys!” cried Courtney.  She dashed over to the tiny chairs, and started shrinking.

“Duncan!” cried Sidney.  She dashed to where her daughter was dwindling, and got caught up in the effect as well.  “Turn it off!”

“Right!”  Duncan created a protective sleeve around the second crystal, and the glow faded.  “Well.  That was a bit too effective.”

Gwen laughed.  “On the plus side, you now have an obvious trigger mechanism.  Put the shroud on a slider, and when the trigger is pulled, move it out of the way.”

Duncan nodded, and did so.  He closed up the shrink ray’s side, and patted it.  “Done.  Shall we join the others?”

Gwen hopped off the table, and Duncan followed behind, bouncing onto the seat of one of the remaining chairs before jumping to the floor.  Sidney was standing next to her shrunken daughter, staring at her in wonder.  The ray had been set to reduce everything to a specific height, so they were both the same size.

Sidney sighed softly, and pulled Courtney into her arms. “I’m not ready for you to be as tall as me yet.”

“Mooom,” protested Courtney.  “Oh, hi Daddy.  Time to be dollies?”

“Do you want to be a doll, too?” asked Duncan.  “Who’s going to play with us then?”

“We can all play dollies together!”

Duncan looked over to Sidney.  “Ready to be a doll?”

Sidney frowned, then looked thoughtful.  “That’ll make us harder to hurt, right?”

“Right.”

“Oh, what the heck.  Let’s let Courtney have her fun.”

“Yay!”

They spent the next hour playing games at Courtney’s command.  First, they went on a grand adventure through the house, gathering essential items.  A set of doll sized cups and plates from Courtney’s doll-house.  A tiny pitcher of juice from the kitchen.  The most challenging of all was the descent downstairs to fetch a doll-sized blanket from the playroom.  Finally they were ready... for a tea party on the living room floor.

Afterward, Donna escorted a restored and yawning Courtney to bed, leaving Duncan, Sidney and Gwen as dolls on the living room floor.

Sidney smiled at her husband.  “Still with me?”

The doll sitting to her right nodded.  “Yeah.  Getting the hang of having two bodies at once.  Not like it’s the first time, though splitting myself in half at Christmas was... distinctly more complicated.”

Sidney chuckled.  “That sounded like quite the adventure when Gwen told me about it.  Was it really so bad?”

“To lose my creative half?  It was horrible.  I felt less real than I do now, in a robot-doll body that’s not even my real body.  I lost everything that made me feel special.”

Donna came back into the living room, towering over the dolls.  “Time to put the toys away,” she sang.

“Hey!” protested Sidney.  “We’re not...”  

Donna scooped all three up and tucked them into the toy box.  “Now, now.  Toys don’t talk.”

Sidney stared up at her sullenly, and Donna started to laugh.  “Oh, the expression on your face.  Of course I’m not going to leave you like this.  The Moon’s still up for hours yet.  Have a little fun with it first.”

Sidney pointed to her mouth, and soon could speak again.  “What was the big idea?”

“You seemed to like being a toy.  If you hadn’t fussed, maybe we could have stayed that way longer,” said the Duncan doll.

“But someone needs to keep an eye on the kids.  And make food, and...”

“Doesn’t have to be you, does it?  You could spend a few days as a toy, and let someone else do all the work.”

“Days?” asked Sidney worriedly.  “As in... stuck when the moon is down and can’t change back even if I want to days?”

Duncan sighed softly.  “Yes.  You’d be a little doll for our daughter to play with for two days.  No more.  I’ll even leave a little Duncan behind to play with you as well.  Three bodies can’t be that much harder than two.”

“Just... just two days?  And you promise I can be normal again after?”

“I promise,” said Duncan earnestly.

Donna crouched to put her head nearer to them.  “I think I can even set it up so you’ll change back automatically in two days.  Well, plus or minus a bit, I’ve mostly only used this for hours.”

Sidney looked up at the giant face wonderingly.  “You can do that?”

Donna nodded emphatically, then got a faraway look for a moment.  “It’s done.   Still not quite sure of the timing, so it might unravel a bit early.”

“You’re really sure?” asked Sidney.  “No ‘oops, it unravelled wrong and now you’re stuck as a doll’?”

“I am absolutely certain that barring the use of silver, within forty to forty-eight hours you’ll be back to normal.”

Sidney looked over at her shrunken doll of a husband.  “Okay.  I’ll do it.”