“What offer?” I asked him.

“A relationship,” he replied. “With me.”

Yeah. He actually said it like that.

“Um,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Maybe you could clarify what you mean by a relationship. Because I’ve got to tell you, Bob, I’ve, uh… I’ve been hurt.”

The joke missed him completely. I was apparently snarking on the wrong frequency. “In the nature of an apprenticeship,” he said. “You have sound fundamental skills. You are practical. Your ambition is tempered by an understanding of your limits. You have the potential to be an excellent partner.”

“And I’m not flipping insane like the Corpsetaker,” I said.

“Hardly. But your insanities are more manageable,” Evil Bob said, “and you have few self-delusions.” He sniffed. “The Master never favored that creature, in any case. But he would have been interested in you.”

“Even if Kemmler was still around, I’m pretty sure a relationship with him wouldn’t be in the cards, either,” I said in an apologetic tone. “I’ve got a strict rule about dating older men.”

The spirit looked at me blankly for a moment. Then, as the real Bob sometimes did, he gave me the impression of an expression that simple, immobile bone could not possibly have expressed. His eyes slowly widened.

“You…” he said slowly, “are mocking me.”

I whistled through my teeth. “Guess the real Bob made you from the slow bits, huh?”

The blue lights flared brighter, and I felt heat on my face even from six feet away. “I am the real one,” he said in a hard, distant tone. “The true creation of the Master. Finally shed of my weakness. My doubt. Freed to use my power.”

“Guess he threw in a little of his narcissism, too,” I drawled—but I met his gaze with my own and felt an odd little smile turn up the sides of my mouth.

The skull’s jaws slowly parted like a snake preparing to strike. “You who are barely more than an apprentice—you will die for mocking me.”

“Yeah. But I will never, ever throw in with you,” I snarled back. “I will never be like you or your precious Master or that nutball Corpsetaker. So take your offer of a relationship and shove it up your schutzstaffel.”

Evil Bob’s eyelights blazed and he wrenched at the staff.

He really was a lackey. A real mastermind wannabe would have boned up on the Evil Overlord list. He’d felt so confident in his power (okay, maybe not without reason) that he’d spent a moment talking to me instead of just moving on. Worse, he’d given me a chance to start lipping off to him, and that comes so naturally to me that I don’t really need to consciously consider it anymore, except on special occasions.

So, what with my brain being unoccupied and all, I’d had the opportunity to realize a fundamental truth about the Nevernever. Here the spiritual becomes the material. Here spiritual power is physical power. Strength of mind and will are as real as muscle and sinew.