The need for coffee rose in his clouded mind. He went into the kitchen and began the ritual of heating water, putting coffee in the coffeemaker . . . an extra scoop today . . . and pouring the water in. As he stood at the counter, waiting for the coffee to steep, he moved his tongue around in his mouth. There was the brown taste of sleep; but besides that, a kind of organic taste. He added that to the other disturbing nuggets of confusion. He took down a cup and filled it, going into the living room to sit on the couch, sip the coffee, and stare dully at the wall for half an hour.
As the memories returned, so did the gut-wrenching fear. He gulped the last of the coffee and refilled the cup. Horrible creatures had either been in his bedroom . . . or in his head . . . including the flying creature he’d seen at the embassy.
Or thought he saw? Had that drunken encounter been merely a first inkling of what would come later? Was he having alcoholic hallucinations? Would he end up like one of those ragged wretches huddled next to the stark government buildings, muttering to themselves?
He needed a shower. Drinking the last of the coffee, he shuffled into the bedroom to take off his clothes. His pants waist was loose, because his belt was buckled on the second hole, not the third. Wrong hole. It nagged at him as he stripped down, turned on the shower, and stepped in. The hot water felt so good, and he let it flow down his head.
Toweling off, he went into the bedroom to get fresh shorts and undershirt. He looked down at the bed. It was made, perfectly. The bedspread was smooth, except for the slight indentation where his body had been. Again, confusion, because he hadn’t made a bed that well in his life.
The caffeine was kicking in, a mental fog was clearing, bringing a sharpness. He slipped on his shorts and T-shirt and wrinkled his brow in puzzlement at the anomalies he’d noticed so far. Okay, they were minor, and maybe he was just being obsessive-compulsive, but he decided just to go over his bedroom in minute detail. His bedroom was real, not a dream. If there was some real evidence that something had happened, then his experience was not a dream. He was not crazy. His reporter’s juices began to energize his thought process.
The window was unlocked. He never never never left the window unlocked, mainly because he had stopped opening it, since he woke up that time to find a bird flapping around in the room, dropping crap all over.
He opened the window and inspected the area, scanning the usual magnificent vista of the dirty alley and garbage cans, and the old brick apartment house across the way.
He was just drawing his head in when he glanced down at the peeling paint of the sill. Caught in a fissure was a dark hair! A long, coarse hair! He took it between thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light from the window. Not his hair; not one of Sam’s fine auburn hairs; not one of Anna’s long blond hairs. He found an envelope on his desk, took out the overdue bill it held and carefully put the hair into it.
He returned to scrutinize the sill further. Caught in another fissure were dark blue threads from his bedspread!
Why would his bedspread come in contact with the sill?
He was on the fourth floor, with no fire escape. So nobody would use it to pad the sill while crawling in or out of the window. The hair could have been caught on the sill when the bedspread was shaken out the window.
Mysterious hair . . . neatly draped coat and tie . . . empty liquor bottle . . . wrong buckle hole . . . mouth taste . . . something really, really weird had happened to him in this apartment! And somebody had made it happen!
“TURN OFF THE LIGHTS, YOU CURSED ELVES!” roared Mike the ogre into the radio. He scratched his bulbous belly and glared up at the gleaming orb sailing silently across the black night sky against the backdrop of stars. From his throat rumbled an angry stentorian growl. “Stupid elves,” he muttered. “They mastered wormhole travel, built a technology equal to any, and they cannot remember to turn off the lights!”
“Other species forget, too, y’know,” said Deborah—now A’eiio because she no longer wore her flesh-suit. She stood expectantly beside the ogre in the darkness.
“Yes, but the elves are the worst,” muttered the ogre. “One switch! All they have to remember is to turn off one cursed switch on the other side of the wormhole to make it dark . . . so it won’t look like a light in the sky. And they cannot remember. Or more likely, they do it on purpose to frighten this planet’s poor creatures.”
The light grew larger and larger. In only seconds more it would grow to outshine all the stars, becoming what the planet’s indigenous species would call an “unidentified aerial phenomenon.”
“The lights! The lights! The lights!” the ogre chanted into the radio, until abruptly, the object blinked out. “Thank you!” he grunted sarcastically.
Now the wormhole was a sphere of total light-swallowing blackness that descended smoothly toward them in the wooded valley in the fairies’ farm, far beyond any town. The elves, as forgetful as they were about lights, were expert wormhole pilots.
Now the elves switched on the lights, and the wormhole became a luminous sphere casting its light on the desert below. The glow revealed a large cadre of fairies, trolls, werewolves, gnomes, and elves peering upward as the hole grew larger. It halted to hover above them, a subtly hued aurora of red, green, yellow, and blue shimmering about its surface. A faint hiss and crackling enveloped the crowd, telling of air molecules tortured as they impacted with the interdimensional portal. And the sharp tang of ozone told of the cosmic energy being pumped into the atmosphere.
A small knot of vampires lurked well outside the illuminated circle, averse to bright lights. They would wait until the elves obligingly dimmed the lights to conduct their commerce with the various races on the other side of the visiting wormhole.
Mike the ogre continued to manage the process, hitching up the leather loincloth that reached from his belly down to the tree-trunk-thick legs.
“Hold, please,” he said, his voice still tinged with sarcastic impatience. He spoke into the radio once more, but this time to the Allies guarding the gates to the sprawling private farm that was their landing port. To any wayfarers, they would appear to be mere farm hands tending to evening chores at the gates of the farm. “Any interest from the locals?” he asked.
“No traffic,” came the answer. “No vehicles. You’re all right to proceed.”
“Form the aperture,” instructed the ogre, and one side of the wormhole flattened, and a ramp extended to the ground from the shimmering globe.
The ogre stalked up the ramp and poked his large head through. “Begin transport,” he commanded.
He withdrew, to be followed by three elves, their spindly legs and arms fighting the planet’s gravity, which was nearly twice that of their home planet. Their beady eyes also strained to make out the area, given that the light was far lower than what they were used to. Each of them donned light-amplifying goggles that gave their eyes a large bulbous look.
The lead elf emitted a litany of scritchy-squeaks at the ogre—a language that few could understand.
Except pixies. From behind the ogre came the far more pleasant tones of Sam the pixie. “We are terribly sorry,” came the translation. “We will take more care with the illumination.”
“Let’s just begin the unloading,” grumped the ogre. “We haven’t got all night.”
“Well, actually we have,” came a lilting voice from inside the hole, and a fairy Warden stepped out, wearing the large, gold chain, with the Control medallion that was the sign of his office. It was covered with glowing colored buttons with which Wardens communicated and managed the exiles who were their responsibility.
The hulking ogre seemed to shrink in size, as he ducked his grotesque head in submission. “Oh . . . sir . . . I didn’t . . . I thought . . . Of course, sir. Welcome, sir.”
The Warden smiled tolerantly. He was used to such stammering. After all, when he or another Warden wielded the Control medallion, they literally held the fate of all the planet’s exiled Mythicals in their hands.
“Please carry on,” said the Warden. “I will conduct my business.”
The ogre, the elves, and the other Mythicals began to pass the cylindrical cargo containers out of the wormhole, distributing them as required.
For A’eiio, the important containers held new flesh-suits for her and E’iouy, and she hauled them to her waiting SUV. She also pocketed the small test kit, smiling to herself. But the smile faded with the acute awareness that next would come a meeting with the Warden.
She passed by a chilling reminder of what punishment that meeting might bring. As she walked to meet the Warden in a secluded clearing nearby, two barrel-chested werewolves were sliding a coffin-like case through the hole, to be trans-shipped to a penal colony on some barren planet on the other side of the wormhole.
The case held the unconscious body of one of their kind, another exile, who had sought revenge on a citizen of this planet by revealing his horrific snarling face to the victim. The werewolf Warden had triggered the exile’s coma chip, rendering him unconscious until he would wake up in a cell, where he would stay for decades to come. The errant werewolf’s relatively short exile to this planet for illegal financial dealings had now been extended and made more onerous by his near-violent behavior.
A’eiio approached their meeting spot, her wings twitching nervously. The Warden fairy sat on a rock, a data screen floating before him, no doubt reviewing her records. Unsmiling, the Warden gestured to another rock nearby. But A’eiio indicated she would rather stand. Actually, she would rather rev up her wings and sail away from what would be a very uncomfortable grilling.
The Warden waved the data screen to the side and began to speak in the language of their race—an intricate pattern of chirped tones, modulated in subtle ways to convey meaning.
“You’ve done well in your sixty-five years here,” he sang. “There have been no instances of untoward conduct. You have done good works. Your achievements have helped the other Mythicals here to serve their sentences surreptitiously and productively.”
“Yes, I’ve tried to make exile useful for all of us.”
“Well, you did not make the best choice in your reaction to the accident.”
“I did what I—” Just then a vampire wandered past into the arroyo, seeking darkness and waiting for his turn at the wormhole. They fell silent until he was gone.
The Warden continued his assessment. “Our analysis of your incident report concludes that you should have covered your face in some way, called for your vehicle, and exited as if you had just suffered an injury. That would have increased the likelihood of a successful retreat than your tactic of running upstairs, doffing your suit, and flying away. Your unwise action triggered the need for one witness to be neutralized and another to be dissimulated.”
“Both actions seem to have been successful.”
“One, anyway. The one who was neutralized . . .” The Warden consulted the screen. “. . . Geniato Belligrado . . . accepted the annuity, has been resettled far away, and has agreed to become an Ally. The other . . . Jack March . . . . It still remains to be seen. He is an aggressive sort. Managing him is now your responsibility. Now, as to the penalty, the Warden Council has decided that you will be placed on probation for five years. Another incident will add thirty years to your sentence.”
Before the verdict, she hadn’t been able to resist quivering her wings in anxiety. Now, they grew still as she relaxed. Probation! Not a sentence to a penal planet. Not even an extension of her sentence. E’iouy would be pleased. She would call him as soon as the hole departed.
She left the clearing and returned to the wormhole landing site, where one last package was being brought through from the other side. It was a large metal cylinder with a folded parabolic reflector on one end and a control panel on the other. After it was hefted through, one of the werewolves managing it, pressed buttons on the panel. Four sturdy metal robotic legs unfurled from the cylinder’s body, and with the rising whine of electric motors, the cylinder walked itself to a waiting freight truck and up the extended ramp.
The cargo delivery complete, the lights in the hole dimmed. The vampires were more comfortable in the darkness, and they seemed to glide forward to conduct their business with others of their kind who emerged.
The fairies, trolls, werewolves, gnomes, and elves went to their vehicles, and began to don their flesh-suits, transforming from a menagerie of species into the planet’s natives—tall, short, fat, thin, male, female, light-skinned, and dark-skinned.
A’eiio had begun to do the same, but some nagging puzzlement stopped her. That last shipment wasn’t the usual cargo container, but some kind of apparatus. She went over to the truck, where a werewolf worked inside the back securing the mysterious metal cylinder.
“That doesn’t look familiar,” she said to the werewolf. “What’s it for?”
The werewolf stood up from its task and glared at her for a long moment, curling his lips to reveal needle-sharp fangs. Then saying nothing, he leaped out and slammed down the truck’s overhead door.
• • •
Jack entered the bar with its usual bunch of familiar, woozy local drinkers and sat on the same stool he’d occupied when he first saw Sam. It might help him sort through the profoundly disturbing previous night. Phil plunked the glass down in front of Jack and stood, eyebrows raised expectantly, waiting for the usual order.
“Yeah, double please, sir,” said Jack. He didn’t order the cheap stuff. He needed everything to remain as usual as possible, given his traumatic experience. Phil nodded and obliged, then moved off to serve a gaunt middle-aged woman at the end of the bar. Jack motioned him back over. “Say, I was in here last night.”
“Wouldn’t know. I wasn’t. Got sick in the afternoon.”
“Yeah, there was another guy here. Not one of your other guys.”
“They got sick, too. Roberto was here with me, but we both didn’t feel good. Maybe a bad sandwich or something.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah, I woulda had to close down and disappoint all my friends . . .” He grinned and gestured at the regulars who were in every night. “But I was draggin’ my ass around after Roberto left, and there was a guy here who said he was a bartender who didn’t have a shift that night. His name was Anthony. He gave me a reference . . . another bar . . . and I called. They said he was honest and a good worker, so I took a chance and turned over the bar to him and went home. I felt better around midnight, so I did manage to come back and close out the register. The bar had a good night, it turned out. More customers than usual.”
“I need to contact the guy. Ask him about a girl I was with.”
Phil chortled, his jowly face breaking into a grin. “Jackie-boy, did you forget to get her number? Not like you!”
“Sometimes it happens.”
“Well, I paid the guy in cash. He left me a number, in case I needed him again.” Phil rummaged around beside the cash register and came up with a slip of paper, handing it to Jack. He went outside where it was quieter and punched the number in on his phone.
“Yeah,” a voice answered loudly. The noise of a bar in the background made it hard to hear.
“Anthony, are you the guy who took over for Phil last night?”
“Yeah, can I help you?”
“I wonder if you remember me. I was in . . . with a girl.”
“That narrows it down.”
“I’m a young guy, blondish hair, wore a coat and tie. She was really good-looking. Cute face. Really blue eyes. Had a red dress on.”
“You drank doubles?”
“Yeah, I was here with her for about an hour.”
There was a long pause. “Uh . . . friend, you were alone.”
“What? No, no. She made a phone call. She was really upset, crying because she was stood up. You would have noticed that.”
“I did notice you. Okay, pal, I don’t want to offend you or anything, but you acted weird. You sat there drinking and talking to yourself. To tell the
truth, I was thinking of calling police. But you seemed like a regular, and I was just a temp there. So, I thought maybe you just talked to yourself and that was you being you. And you didn’t cause trouble, and you paid, so I thought I’d just leave you alone.”
“No, I was with this girl. She—”
“Sorry, bud, you got to deal with your problem. I can’t help you.” He hung up.
Jack went back into the bar, gulped down his drink and ordered another. He puzzled over the phone call. The guy said he was alone. Was Jack going nuts? Should he go see a doctor? Well, the experience in his apartment was hallucinatory. Colors on walls, monsters in his bed. The girl who wasn’t there.
But what about the evidence that it was real? Those mesmerizing kisses, her undressing him, her naked. That experience must have been real! But the rest of the evidence was shaky, really shaky. He could have just buckled his pants loosely that day. Funny taste in his mouth? What the hell did that prove? Empty liquor bottle? That argued for a drunken stupor, not hallucinations. Neatly draped coat and tie? That just meant he was a neat drunk. If he were covering a story as a reporter, none of that stuff would make the cut in the first draft.
But there was one thing. He took out the envelope, peering into it. The coarse hair was still there. His sanity literally hung by a hair. Fortunately, there was one expert who could help him and who owed him a favor.
• • •
A’eiio rolled over, willed herself to wakefulness, and looked somberly at her husband’s peacefully sleeping face. She waited until he stirred, then stroked that face gently, until he opened his sapphire eyes.
“You got in late,” he whispered in a voice thick with sleep.
“The unloading took longer. Some kind of accident on the road from the farm. But I got the new suits. And some news that’s . . . well . . . not terrible. And some that’s great.”
Now he was wide awake, wrinkling his brow and rolling to face her, stretching his wings out behind him to unlimber his flight muscles. “Does ‘not terrible’ news means it’s bad? Give me that news first.”
Mythicals Page 4