"I think I'm being voodooed," said Ammit, the Egyptian devourer of souls who was actually just a robot who had sold his soul to the devil once and named himself Ammit.
"By who?" I asked.
"I do not know. I had hoped that you might."
I had only known one houngan in my life (and no mambos), and I was pretty sure he had passed away peacefully in Denmark a few years ago. I couldn't think of anyone that had recently taken up the Haitian death magic. "Maybe it's the devil, getting some revenge on you for ripping him off?" I suggested.
"No, he's not mad about that- he tried to rip me off first, so we called it even and laughed it off."
Just then the papertiger came and delivered the morning news. The headline proclaimed, "Mayor Delves Into Voodoo, Hopes It Will Balance Budget". Ammit and I exchanged surprised looks. We decided to pay a visit to city hall.

The unemployed hockey players who guarded the entrance to city hall blocked our way with their sticks, but Ammit just made his eyes glow red like he does when people get in his way, and they let us pass. I guess they think he has a death beam or something but really his eyes just light up. Ask him to show you sometime.
Mayor Mainott was in his office, which was decorated in a very Haitian style, though Mayor Mainott had never been there, preferring to holiday instead in Denmark. There was a beautiful tanbou in the middle of the office, decorated with a scene of elephants parading in E-Town . Mayor Mainott had been an elephant trainer before he was mayor, and thought it was a good use of budgetary funds to herd elephants down Main Street. He greeted us warmly, even though it looked as if he was quite busy with the budget and his voodoo rituals.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"Have you been voodooing Ammit?" I got right to the point, a useful tactic in dealing with politicans, I had often found.
"No, I never voodoo constituents. That would be a good way to lose votes. I may or may not voodoo non-constituents, for example the mayor of C-Town, but certainly not our own good citizens." He held up a voodoo doll of a suit-and-tie-guy wearing a cowboy hat.
"Hmmm," said Ammit. "Then who could it be?"
"How do you know you are being voodooed?" asked Mayor Mainott.
"My servomotors often act of their own accord. And I get a strange sensation as if someone was poking me with pins and needles."
The mayor nodded thoughtfully. "Well, if you like, I can perform a ritual to see if we can find out."
"No rituals," said Ammit. "Voodoo creeps me out." My old houngan friend would have been offended by this comment, but I could sympathize with Ammit. He was being voodooed after all, and that is enough to creep anyone out.
"Okay, no problem. How about this? I can pass a bill in council making it illegal to not admit it if you are the one voodooing Ammit."
"Do you think that would work?" asked Ammit. I was a little skeptical myself.
"Well, depends if we could enforce it or not. There are quite a few hockey enforcers that need jobs right now, though many of them are in Denmark playing with the minor leagues . . . " In the old days the police force would have handled such a thing, but they had all been fired for putting in too much Overtime. At any rate, the thought of 30 hockey goons running through the streets of E-Town knocking down doors and terrorizing the populace didn't sit too well with me.
"Wouldn't that cost you votes?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, you're probably right. Well, I could form a committee to see if they can determine who is voodooing Ammit." Ammit just rolled his eyes.
"How about if I grant you diplomatic immunity from being voodooed?" Ammit's eyes started to glow.
"Okay, okay, don't shoot. Here's a grant for $30,000." He handed us a moneybag with a dollar sign on it. "Figure it out on your own. Now my budget's shot."
So we used two grand of our grant to buy a voodoodetector, and found out it was just some kid who was trying to build her own remote control robot, and the signals were interfering with Ammit's subprocessors. We gave her fifty bucks so she could get a better RC unit.
Then we used the rest of the grant money to take an extended holiday in Denmark. It was fun.