by Mick Farren
Windemere was adamantly shaking his head. "You're pushing me too far, Abigail. I mean, look at it from where I'm standing, I didn't ask to take charge of Joe Gibson. The Nine dumped him on me and now the Nine, through you, are complaining about the way I'm handling things. Either you let me do things in my own way, or you get Gibson out of here and stash him someplace else."
Abigail Voud raised a thin, blue-veined hand. "Calm down, Gideon, please. I'm not here to criticize you. None of us were aware that matters would escalate so quickly. We, the Nine, made the original mistake in assuming that the attacks on Gibson were a purely localized, New York threat. Nobody expected either Yancey Slide or a UFO."
Windemere's mouth twisted into a half smile. "Nobody ever expects Yancey Slide or a UFO." He had, however, calmed down quite considerably.
The authority that seemed to be contained in the old lady's tiny body amazed Gibson. Wrapped in a heavily embroidered purple sari that made her look like a cross between Indira Gandhi and the Witch of Gagool, she seemed easily to assume control of the whole room. Nobody had taken time out from this latest crisis to fill Gibson in about what it was in her background that qualified her for a place in the Nine, but from the look of her Gibson could only assume that she was extensively traveled in whatever secret labyrinth linked the occult undergrounds of Europe, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. Gibson knew that during colonial days, strange crossovers had taken place and links had undoubtedly been forged that had lasted to the present, and he wondered what she must have been like when she was young. Perhaps she had been one of those mysteriously seductive dragon-women who, according to legend, film, and fable, moved, fingernails clicking and eyes flashing, through the dark intrigues of the twenties and thirties, spreading chaos and disorder as they played off British military intelligence against the Abwehr and Manchu warlords against the Imperial Japanese Secret Service in that long-gone twilight zone of steamship voyages, romance behind bamboo shutters, and secret assignations in Cairo or Shanghai,
Madame Voud's spectacles flashed as she quickly agreed with Windemere. "Exactly. It's simply that none of us foresaw how the situation would build."
Montgomery glanced over his shoulder. "Seems you got a situation building on the street right now, mon,"
"Oh, Jesus." Windemere quickly crossed to the window and inched back the curtain. "Damn it to hell."
Gibson moved to look for himself. "What is it?"
"You see those two white vans parked across the way there?"
"Cops?"
"SPG. That's all we needed."
"What's the SPG?"
Montgomery supplied the answer. "Special Patrol Group, the heavy mob. They keep them bastards in cages and feed 'em on raw meat, vodka, and copies of Mein Kampf. Only let 'em out when heads gotta be broke."
Smith stood up. "I can deal with the local law enforcement. May I use the phone?"
Gibson continued to peer out of the window. Ever since Voud and her Rastas had come beating on the door, a small silent crowd had been standing on the sidewalk staring at the house as though waiting for a sign. The majority of them were wearing dreadlocks or sculpted hip-hop hairdos, but there was also a sprinkling of leftover hippies and other local weirdos. Three teddy boys even stood with hands thrust into the pockets of their long drape jackets. This was a little odd, given the average ted's extreme and overt racism. The uniformed figures inside the white Ford Transit vans, with the screens over the windows and the riot-control cowcatchers on the front, were now watching the crowd on the sidewalk, and a good many of the crowd were looking right back at them with challenging hostility. For decades, the Ladbroke Grove area had been famous for its riots, and all the ingredients for another one were rapidly gathering right outside the house.
Montgomery seemed to sense this, and he squinted at Smith. "I hope you can pull this off, lady. It's like Windemere say, we don't need the aggravation."
Smith appeared to be on hold. Abigail Voud glanced up at Montgomery. "Can't you get your people to go home?"
The big Rastafarian shook his head. "No chance. Too much blood between jah man and pig rasclat SPG. Pride, see? You know what I'm talking about?"
Smith was now talking fast into the phone. Christobelle glanced at French. "Can she really get the SPG pulled out?"
French nodded. "We maintain close ties with the locals in all the major cities in which we operate."
Gibson caught the remark. The more he learned of the streamheat, the more they started to resemble an interdimensional CIA, and he was feeling more and more that he trusted them about as much as he would trust the domestic version.
Smith put down the phone. "It's done. The SPG are being removed."
Montgomery looked at her disbelievingly. "How you do that?"
Smith shrugged as though it was the easiest thing in the world. "All under the blanket of national security."
Sure enough, within a matter of minutes, the headlights of the first of the two white Transits came on and it pulled away from the curb, quickly followed by the second. A ragged cheer came from the crowd outside as though they thought the official retreat had been a result of their own hostile stares and intractable attitudes.
Gibson turned away from the window. "They've gone."
Abigail Voud brought the meeting back to order. "Now we have to decide what's to be done with Joseph Gibson."
Every eye in the room turned in his direction, and Gibson felt profoundly uncomfortable. "I'm getting a little tired of listening to people discuss what's to be done with me."
Everyone ignored the remark except Montgomery, who glared at him. "You gotta go, mon, before you cause any more bother."
Gibson stood his ground.
"And doubtless someone's going to tell me where I'm going to be shipped off to next and what drug I'm going to be filled with to keep me quiet on the trip."
Smith's face was cold, as if, as far as she was concerned, he was little more than a recalcitrant package. "It's my opinion that we should take you out of this dimension entirely. "
Gibson's jaw dropped. "Say what?"
"I think the only answer is to transport you out of this dimension entirely. While I'm not totally convinced that all the phenomena that are showing up are solely attracted by you, I think the situation has become far too unpredictable for you to remain."
Abigail Voud was nodding in agreement. "This is also the opinion of the Nine. Although I don't share some of my colleagues' absolute faith in our extradimensional friends, I believe that, in this instance, they are right,"
Gibson couldn't have controlled his anger even if he'd wanted to. "Hold everything just a goddamned minute! Being flown to London is one thing, but being shipped out to another fucking dimension is something else entirely."
French raised an eyebrow. "You have a problem with transfer to another dimension?"
Gibson was close to snarling, "Damn right I have a problem. I've got a serious problem."
"I doubt you have a workable alternative, however."
"I've got one, a real good one. I'm not going, so think of another plan."
The chill of Smith's expression dropped another twenty degrees. "You're being ridiculous."
Gibson finally lost it. "Oh, yeah? I've been chased, scared shitless, followed by UFOs, and visited by demons, and you're telling me I'm being ridiculous because I don't want to go rushing off to someplace that I can't hardly conceive except as some abstract science-fiction concept. Oh, sure, excuse me, I'm being ridiculous." He turned in appeal to Windemere. "Do you have anything to say about this?"
Windemere shook his head. "It's out of my hands."
Gibson's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Fucking great. Even in the occult, passing the buck seems to be a fine art."
Christobelle straight away sprang to her boss's defense. She glared at Gibson. It seemed that the ties formed by lovemaking were peripheral compared with home-team loyalty. "You can't blame Gideon for this. He's done the best he can for you. It's not only a matter
of protecting you from whatever may be coming after us next. Already we've got a mob outside the house. If things go on as they've been going, it's highly likely that one of the locals will become sufficiently pissed off with the weirdness going on here to toss a Molotov cocktail through the front window. What are you going to do then, Joe?"
Gibson felt himself being backed into yet another corner. He rounded on Abigail Voud. "Do you and your eight chums have anything to say about this? Is your best idea just to hand me over to the goddamned streamheat and let them do what they want with me? I didn't ask to be brought into this. Casillas dragged me in on behalf of the Nine and, the way I figure it, the Nine are responsible. You started this shit and you've got to come up with something a bit more satisfactory than handing me over to these three cold bastards and pretending that I never happened."
Abigail Voud was very calm. "We're not pretending that you never happened or ducking our responsibilities. I've already told you that I don't put as much faith in the streamheat as Carlos Casiltas and some of the others, but, in this instance, I can't see another viable alternative."
"Viable alternative? Shit! You're the Nine. You're supposed to be defending the planet, and you can't even protect one man without outside help. You claim to have secure installations all over, so why don't you take me to one of those? Hide me out in Tibet or somewhere like that."
Smith was staring at him with open contempt. "We were in Lhasa just a week ago. Believe me, it's a lot less safe there than it is here."
Christobelle joined in. She seemed quiet adept at herding Gibson in directions that he didn't want to go. "Why don't you get real, Joe? You'd hate Tibet. There's nothing there but monks, yaks, and the army of the People's Republic of China. They don't even have decent booze. I would have thought you'd treat going to another dimension as an adventure."
Gibson scowled. "So you go. This boy's had his share of adventures. I'm sick of fucking adventures. That's why I became a drunk."
Klein made an attempt to cool him down. "Perhaps if you heard a little about the dimension we had in mind you might…"
"I don't want to hear shit. Read my lips, Jack. I ain't going. Hell I don't even know why I have to go. I still want to know what's so bloody special about me. Why's everyone after my ass?" He stabbed a finger at Abigail Voud. "You want to tell me? You got an answer to that? And I don't want to hear no aura talk, either."
Abigail Voud laughed, and her eyes flashed with an electrical sparkle that had to come from somewhere out of her past. The sparkle quite convinced Gibson that, once upon a time, she could have been a killer Dragon Lady.
"My dear boy, I don't know why you're in me trouble you're in, but you really ought to stop pouting about it. Pouting only hampers practical action. I don't doubt you'd rather not hear about auras, but ignorance is no protection at all, believe me, particularly as you're walking around with a black cloud hanging over you that would terrify the hardest old soothsaying crone on the Street of Mirrors. Are you sure you don't want to see it? Just as a part of your education?"
Gibson continued to pout. "I don't want to see anything. I'm sick of all this."
"You're scared?"
"Sure I'm scared."
"Maybe if you saw what you're carrying around with you, you might be more able to accept the things that are happening to you."
Gibson sighed. "Okay, okay, show me the rucking aura."
Smith made an impatient gesture. "Do we have to have more party tricks? Weren't Slide's this afternoon enough?"
Abigail Voud looked at her sharply. "I think it might help Gibson."
"I'm starting to think that Gibson's beyond help."
Madame Voud paid no attention to Smith's last remark and faced Gibson. She held up her right hand with the palm inward. "What I'm going to do first is show you a comparatively normal aura. Christobelle, do you mind if I use you for an example?"
Christobelle didn't look exactly pleased, but she nodded her assent. "Okay."
There was a ruby ring on the third finger of the old woman's left hand with a stone the size of a pigeon's egg. Abigail Voud closed her eyes and concentrated. The stone started to glow.
"This isn't going to hurt, so don't be frightened."
Christobelle's eyes widened as tiny points of blue light sparkled in the air around her. They increased in both number and density for about a minute, and then Madame Voud lowered her hand. The lights around Christobelle and the glow of the ruby both faded.
Abigail Voud opened her eyes. "Now that was a normal aura. Are you ready to see yours, Joe?"
"What do I have to do?"
"Just stand still and don't panic at anything that happens."
Gibson stood still. Abigail Voud held up her hand again. The ring began to glow. At first nothing happened, and then, just as Gibson was about to open his mouth to protest, he was suddenly enclosed in a pillar of cold black flame.
"Jesus Christ!"
Through the weird flames, he could see everyone in Windemere's drawing room staring at him open-mouthed. It was like he was looking at them through dirty water. Montgomery's eyes were wide with shock. Even though there was neither heat nor pain, Gibson's first instinct was to try and beat out the flames, to shake them from his body-but then he remembered Voud's warning not to panic. When he spoke, though, his voice was far from stress-free.
"Okay, I think you made your point. Could you stop this please?"
Madame Voud lowered her hand, the ruby ceased to glow, and the flames around him vanished.
"That's my aura."
"That's your aura, Joe."
"I think I'm in a lot of trouble."
"That's what we've been trying to tell you."
Gibson sat down. "I need to sort my head out."
Smith stood up. "Don't take too long. The sooner we're out of here the better."
Gibson looked up. "Did I say I was coming with you?"
Smith's shoulders sagged slightly, as though she was weary of Gibson's objections. "What other real choice do you have? The Nine obviously can't do anything for you, and Windemere doesn't want you."
"Aren't you forgetting one thing?"
"What's that?"
"I'm still my own man. I didn't ask to get into this mess and I can walk away from it any time I want to."
"After what you've seen."
"After what I've seen, I don't trust anyone. I may be in a lot of trouble but I've been in trouble before and got myself out of it."
French sneered. "From what I've heard, you've mainly drunk your way out of it."
"So? At least everyone can be assured that a drunk isn't a cosmic danger."
Smith sighed. "And where exactly would you walk to?"
Gibson smiled for the first time since he'd been dragged out of bed by the hammering on the door. "I'd walk out of here and that'd be that. You wouldn't have to worry about me anymore. I wouldn't be your problem. The one thing that you're all forgetting is that I'm Joe Gibson. I know people in London. People you wouldn't even imagine. I'll make it."
"You think so?"
"Like I said, you don't have to worry about it."
"You wouldn't last through tomorrow morning."
It was Gibson's turn to sneer. "You think I'm completely helpless?"
Smith turned and faced him. "I think after the police get a call from me, they'll pick you up pretty quickly."
Gibson's eyebrows shot up. "For what?"
"For being an illegal immigrant."
"What are you talking about?"
"There's no record of you entering the country."
"It was all arranged with the State Department. Casillas told me that."
"I think you'll find that those arrangements have been quite forgotten. You entered the country as J. Edgar Hoover. Try convincing the London bobbies that you're the late director of the FBI."
Light dawned on Gibson. "Now you're blackmailing me."
"It's an ugly word."
"You really think I couldn't go to ground in Londo
n?"
"Without money and without papers? You might manage it, but would you like it?"
Gibson shrugged. "So what's the worst that could happen to me? I could be deported back to the U.S., right?"
"I imagine that there might be a couple of agents from the IRS Criminal Investigation Division waiting to arrest you when you got to JFK."
"Another phone call?"
Smith nodded. "Another phone call."
Gibson looked helplessly round the room. "None of this makes any sense. Remember me? Worthless Joe Gibson, the no-account, burned-out drunk. How come you streamheat are suddenly so keen to whisk me off to another dimension? "
Christobelle, who had been sitting quietly since Madame Voud had used her as a guinea pig, leaned forward in her chair. "Joe's got a point. You streamheat have done nothing but call him a drunk and treat him as an unwanted burden. Now you're all but putting a gun to his head to force him to go with you. Would you care to explain?"
Now everyone in the room was looking at the three streamheat. For the slightest fraction of an instant, Klein glanced at Smith to see what she was going to say, and, in that same fraction of an instant, Gibson knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that for some mysterious reason of their own, the streamheat wanted him; they had wanted him all along, and they'd been lying to him ever since they had all left New York on the private jet. It was like a weight being lifted. He still didn't know what they intended to do with him, but at least they'd shown a part of their hand and given him some slight idea of how to play his own sorry collection of cards. Smith's response to Christobelle only confirmed what Gibson was thinking.
"We haven't put a gun to his head yet."
Gibson almost smiled. "But you would if you had to?"
Smith realized she'd blundered by being too glib and hastily spun into damage control. "You have to face it, Gibson, what with the aura that Madame Voud showed you and all the things that have been happening, your best chance is with us."