Beetle Juice by Piers Anthony Page A

Tod said, “we can attack it and destroy it. Wizard can fashion a magic bomb to blow it apart.”
    â€œI like that,” Vanja said. “Maybe I can fly into its lair as a bat and spike it with a quick bite to the ugly snout, then change to human form and drain it dry.”
    â€œTwo problems,” Tod said. “It is probably too big to drain that way; you’d swell up and burst and be no further good to us. And its blood probably tastes like rotten swill.”
    â€œI could open a vein and let it bleed out on the ground.”
    â€œNo,” Veee said.
    Vanja looked at her. “It was going to eat you! You can’t forgive that.”
    â€œThere’s nothing to forgive,” Veee said. “It’s not a matter of right and wrong. It’s a predator like any other. We just need to protect ourselves from it and its kind.”
    â€œIts kind,” Vanja repeated thoughtfully.
    â€œShe’s right again,” Wizard said. “Predators don’t grow in isolation any more than prey creatures do. There are ratios, overall balance, natural selection. There will be others like it, some with variants we have not yet thought of. It is the unknown ones ahead of us we need to anticipate and foil, not the one we have escaped. That is our lesson of the occasion.”
    â€œBut it tried to consume all of us,” Vanja protested. “I hate to let it go.”
    â€œJust as that rabbit you tapped hated to let you go,” Veee said. “It would have smashed you if it could.”
    Vanja raised her hands in surrender. “I guess I’m just a bad sport about being considered prey. So let’s devise our defense against future mental predators.”
    â€œI think we all need the three things Wetzel taught me,” Veee said. “To recognize a mental touch before it becomes compulsive. To develop a rape or consumption repellant. To hide our most secret thoughts, so we can plan programs without giving them away, even to telepaths.” She glanced at Wizard. “And to find ways to adapt magic to our defense too, in case some mental predator is proof against our other wiles.”
    â€œWe had better do it now,” Tod agreed. “We have had our warning. We can even test techniques on the local predator, to be sure they are effective.”
    â€œSo the damn thing is useful after all,” Vanja said distastefully.
    They camped where they were and got to work. Wetzel drilled them all on recognition of the mind touch. They already knew how to prevent rape or consumption, thanks to their recent experience. It was the storm shelter that required more attention.
    â€œYou will not enjoy this,” Wetzel said. “You need to revisit your deepest secret fear or shame, the one you most want to bury. That will be the basis for your construction of your personal retreat, your storm shelter. You could do this yourselves, as I did when I made mine, but it will be faster if I guide you.”
    â€œSo you will know our most secret shames,” Vanja said.
    â€œYes. I understand why you would not want to do that.”
    â€œSo we’ll start with you,” Vanja said. “What’s your secret?”
    â€œAs a young child I sneaked into a haunted house with a girl. We were playing Show-Me, and she stripped to her panties. Then the adults caught us, and the girl disappeared. I thought she had been punished for being willing to show herself, and I was frightened and ashamed. She was precociously telepathic; I suspected that this also could be the reason she was sequestered. But at the time I didn’t know. Then when I also became precociously telepathic I feared I would be taken away and perhaps killed, so I found a way to hide. My storm shelter is the cellar where we played our naughty game. So my secret was that I had a secret. As an adult I know that it’s not much of a crime, but it did enable me to make my shelter.”
    â€œYou’re