by Peter David
“What?” Arthur couldn’t believe it. “Taylor? The Democratic nominee? Is he dead?”
“No. But they had to pump about twenty gallons of the East River out of his lungs, and he broke half his body. He’s in the hospital. He’s critical.”
“Of what? Is it an exceptionally bad hospital?”
Ron grew silent on the other end, clearly not understanding Arthur’s reply. But then he said, “Not critical of the hospital. He’s in critical condition.”
“Threw himself off a bridge?” It didn’t sound right to Arthur somehow. It sounded almost . . . convenient.
“They said if he makes it through the next twenty-four hours, he’s got a chance of pulling through.”
“But . . . what happens now?” asked Arthur. “With the election, I mean.”
“That’s to be determined. Boy, it’s certainly ironic, isn’t it.”
“In what way?”
“Well, the papers were all saying that Taylor took a drop in the polls. Who’d’ve thought he’d take it so literally?”
CHAPTRE
THE TWENTY-FIRST
GWEN KEPT HER face resolutely down toward the sidewalk, not even looking the campaigner in the face as he thrust a flier at her. Arthur’s face smiled at her from the paper as the enthusiastic young man said, “Polls close in four hours, be sure to vote for Arthur.” Gwen nodded, knowing that her concerns lay somewhere besides a voting booth.
She’d walked the block for hours, looking and looking. Not look where it isn’t. Did that mean something, or was that simply Miss Basil being cryptic in order to confuse her. It wasn’t here. She’d known it wasn’t here. She’d known it all along, it was all a joke, it was . . .
She sagged onto a stoop, thinking desperately. She’d read about what happened with that candidate, Kent Taylor. She knew it was Morgan’s doing; she felt it in her bones. It was all part of some great plan to take down Arthur, to build him up just before knocking the props out from under him. To make her vengeance and schemes all the more stinging when they were completed. Gwen was positive—even though she couldn’t know for sure, she was positive nevertheless . . .
Positive.
Sure.
“I have to be sure,” she whispered. “I have to believe it’s here.” Slowly she got to her feet and looked around, wondering how she could be absolutely sure of seeing something that she wasn’t sure about. And then she thought about the old thing the Marines said, or maybe it was the Navy SEALS, but she remembered what it was: Failure was not an option. She had to find the book, because it was what her studies told her she needed, and she had to use it to get to Morgan, to find Merlin, to succeed. And she had to succeed because failure was not an option, and the only way to avoid failure was to find the bookstore, so it simply had to be there, that was all, it had to be there because it couldn’t not be there. With every fiber of her being, she refused, absolutely refused, to think that it wasn’t there.
She looked in front of her. It had no name, there was no bell, nothing to use to knock on the door, just simply the word BOOKS written in the window. She could practically smell the must coming off it, and she hadn’t even opened the door yet. The window was so dark that she could see nothing within.
Six steps led to the door, and she took them two at a time. At the door, she placed her hand on the knob and wondered what she was going to do if she tried to turn it and it was locked. She jiggled the handle; it didn’t turn. There was no sign of life from inside. Then she thought, It has to be open. No other possibility will be allowed. She turned the knob with authority this time, and the door opened right up. She stepped in and felt chilled, but pushed it out of her bones, and thus felt warmer.
She’d been right about the must. All the air in her lungs was immediately replaced by it. And she had never seen so many books packed into so small a place. The dust was an inch thick and the lighting so dim she couldn’t make out a single title on a single spine. When she heard a creak in a floorboard nearby, it was all she could do not to jump a foot in the air. She whirled and saw an old man standing behind her. He had a pointed black beard and was peering owlishly over half-rim spectacles. He said nothing, obviously waiting for her to speak.
“I’ve been all over town,” she said. No response. “For weeks. Looking for a book.” Still no response. “I need to do something, and I need to find a particular book that can help me do it.” Again, nothing. He just stared at her, even through her. “It has to do with the occult. I was told you had books on the occult here. But it doesn’t say so in the window.”
Finally he spoke, in a tired whisper. “When you’ve got the real thing, you don’t advertise.” He paused a moment and then said, “What do you need?”
“The Carpathian Book of the Fey and Daemonfolk.”
“My,” was all he said. Then he turned and disappeared behind a bookshelf. She wasn’t sure if she was expected to follow him, and finally elected to. She headed around the same shelf, and blinked when she saw that the stacks seemed to extend much farther than she would have thought possible, given the confines of the store.
There was a loud haruumph behind her, and she whirled. He was standing there, and she had no idea how she could possibly have walked past him in the confined space, but there he was. He was holding up a book that was heavy and leathery and had a pentagram embossed on the cover. Slowly, he nodded.
There was a crack of thunder from outside, and a flash of lightning illuminated the interior of the store.
Not too melodramatic, she thought.
“How much is it?” she asked.
“What are you going to use it for?”
She took a breath, forming it into words for the first time. “To summon a demon.”
He regarded her for a long moment, and then he said, “Take it.”
He thrust it into her hands. She took it in surprise, impressed at its heft. “Are you sure?”
“I will not ask you for any price ... for you, my dear, will have enough problems.”
“Problems?”
“You intend to consort with demons, my dear. Even if you bind them to you, compel them to obey you . . . there is always a price to be paid. Always.”
“What . . . sort of price?” she asked uneasily.
“It could be anything. The demon could ask for it immediately, or it could be karmic in nature. It might not be today, it could be tomorrow, or ten years from now, or in another incarnation. But, somehow, in some way . . . there will be a price.”
“If that’s the case,” Gwen said grimly, “I may already be paying for it, from a previous lifetime.”
THE COLONIAL ROOM at the Roosevelt Hotel, near Grand Central Station, had been made over completely in preparation for election night. The walls and ceilings had been festooned with balloons and crepe paper. Three televisions had been set up to monitor the election returns as broadcast by local news stations and network affiliates. Tables had been laid with enormous amounts of food, including chicken legs, meatballs, and countless other munchies. The room was already packed with supporters, apprehensive campaign workers, news people, and whoever else had even a semilegitimate reason for being there.
Suddenly there was a burst of applause, which quickly spread over the entirety of the room, as the workers saw Arthur enter. Elvis, Buddy, Percival, and Ronnie surrounded him, as did several other upper-echelon campaign workers. As Arthur moved through the crowd, people came in from all sides, wanting to shake his hand or even just touch his sleeve.
“Arthur,” Ronnie was saying, “you’re really supposed to wait upstairs until the results are tabulated. Then you make an entrance.”
“My dear Ronnie,” Arthur replied coolly, “you’ve done a marvelous job these past weeks. But this is my decision.” He raised his voice so that it carried above the noise as he declared, “Whatever the results are, good or bad, yea or nay ... we shall witness them together.”
Buddy called out, “Is this some kinda king or what?”
The cheers h
elped to drown out, just for a moment, Arthur’s wishing that Gwen were there. He wondered if she was even in the city anymore ... if she even cared anymore, about him, or about anything.
GWEN HAD BEEN staying at the apartment of an old college friend, Sheila O’Shea (“If you’re ever in trouble, just think S.O.S!” she’d always been fond of saying). Sheila, however, hadn’t been home for a few days: not an unusual occurrence for someone who had a weakness for base players. This had suited Gwen just fine, particularly considering what she was about to do.
She had cleared a space in the middle of the apartment, and drawn a large pentagram on the floor. White candles were set to burn at each of the five points. Gwen made one final check to make sure that the chalk line was uninterrupted and unbroken. Then she sat on the floor outside the pentagram and opened the Carpathian book to a marked place.
“Two can play at this game,” she said softly.
She prepared herself, took a deep breath, and started to speak words, old, ancient and—to her—incomprehensible. Outside, the thunder and lightning worsened, and she wondered whether it was just coincidence or whether she was somehow causing it.
She continued the incantation, and slowly she held up a piece of cloth. She had no idea what impulse had prompted her to keep it with her since she’d ripped it off the clothing of the demon waiter who had taken Merlin. But kept it she had. She spoke the words, being careful not to stumble over any of them. “Take your time,” the man in the store had cautioned her. “There is no consequence for taking your time and saying them correctly; however, if you rush and speak them incorrectly, the results can be nasty.”
She held the cloth tightly, continuing to speak the words. And now it seemed to her as if the words were taking on a life of their own. She no longer had to avoid stumbling over the words; they flowed through her. The cloth began to glow, then became hotter and hotter. She was almost through the spell, and she had to hold on to the cloth until she had completed it, but it was getting more difficult to hold on to with each passing moment. She got to the last words just as she shrieked, unable to hold the cloth anymore, and it practically flew out of her hand.
The air within the pentagram shimmered, bent back on itself, and the demon materialized in the heart of it. It was brown and scaly, like a gargoyle come to life, and it took one look at Gwen and lunged at her with a roar. There was a sound like nails raking chalkboard, and the demon slammed to a halt, crashing into the edges of the pentagram, confined by the eldritch power of the mystic shape she had drawn on the floor. As long as Gwen did nothing to break the line, the demon could not emerge.
It glared at her with primeval fury. “Lady, you don’t know what you’re screwing with.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” she shot back calmly. She was already flipping through the pages to another place she had marked in the book. She found it and started speaking.
The demon stiffened, recognizing it immediately. “Stop it! That’s a binding spell! You . . .” Quickly he adopted a pleading tone. “You don’t want to be doing that . . . you . . .”
She didn’t listen. Instead she hurried through the spell. Upon her speaking the last words, the demon sank to the floor in frustration. “Say it,” she told him.
“Damn you.”
“Say it,” she repeated.
“I am bound, I am bound, I am bound,” snarled the demon. “What wilt thou?”
“I need you to take me to Morgan.”
“Ohhhh, you don’t want to go to Morgan,” said the demon. There was something that sounded like genuine panic in his voice.
“Oh, yes,” said Gwen. “I do. I do want to go to Morgan. And you’ll take me there.”
“But she’ll kill me! And then she’ll kill you.” The demon tried to strike a conversational tone. “Let’s talk about this sensibly. We’re caught in circumstances here. No sense both of us dying, right? So let me kill you quickly and painlessly, and at least one of us can go on living.”
“And where does that leave me?” said Gwen.
“Always in my heart,” he assured her.
“Nice try,” said Gwen. “Take me to her. Now!”
“I can’t!” He was genuinely afraid. She’d almost have felt sympathy for him if the circumstances had been otherwise. “She’ll kill me, I swear!”
“You should have thought of that before you kidnapped Merlin.”
“Please! Please, you . . . you’re an amateur! You don’t know what you’re getting into! She’ll . . . she’ll pick you apart like an insect! And me, the things she’ll do to me! When I took Merlin, that was the closure of my service to her! I was so looking forward to free agency! And now you come along and bind me with a piece of personal possession that you lucked into, and you’re going to put me up against her, and it’s not fair! It’s not fair! I don’t . . . I . . . I . . .” The demon suddenly started to breathe rapidly.
Gwen looked down at it frantically. “What the hell is it now?”
“I’m—” The demon gasped repeatedly. “I’m hyperventilating.”
“Yeah, right . . . this is a stupid trick, isn’t it?”
“I swear! I swear it isn’t!”
“You swear? Demons lie like humans breathe!”
Except even she had to admit that it didn’t look like he was lying. He was flat on the floor, his chest continuing to rise and fall rapidly. “A-hunh! A-hunh! A-hunh!”
“Oh, Jesus Christ in the foothills. Wait here.”
She went into the kitchen, grabbed a paper bag, walked back to the out-of-breath demon and extended her hand across the pentagram. It was only at that instant that she realized, in doing so, she was breaking the circle.
Instantly the demon vaulted out of the enclosure, slamming Gwen to the floor. The two of them went down in a tangle. She wanted to let out a shriek of alarm, but her throat was constricted with terror. The demon clawed at her.
No, he clawed past her, snagging the paper bag from her hand, rolled off her, and brought it up to his mouth. He breathed in and out rapidly, the bag inflating and deflating. Gwen sat up, staring at him, as he managed to get out, “Sorry” while breathing into the bag.
“Don’t mention it,” Gwen managed to say. She watched him until his breathing slowed to a normal level and then said, “Uhm, you want to lie down or something? I’ve got some Xanax in the bathroom.”
“Sure, sure, thanks,” he said. She went to get it and, when she returned a few moments later, she found him lying on the couch. She leaned over the demon and proffered him a Xanax and a cup of water. The demon waved off the water and simply gulped down the tranquilizers. Then he lay back full on the bed and tried to calm down. “I’m . . . I’m sorry—”
“Be quiet. Just get yourself together.” She shook her head. “All the demons in the world and I get one who goes hyper in tense situations.”
“Look!” said the demon. “There’s demons and there’s demons.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “We’re all pretty much alike to you mortals, like you’re pretty much all alike to us. Some of us just handle tension better than others. Besides, you’re not exactly Miss Tough-as -Nails either. Look at you. Your hands are shaking. Your eyes are glazed.”
“Of course they are,” snapped Gwen. “I haven’t slept for days now. I’ve been gathering things, working, studying, reading, running around like a lunatic, going everywhere I could to find what I was looking for. I’ve been cramming for this confrontation with you . . . and with her. I’m so loaded with uppers, I have to wear lead weights on my belt to keep my feet on the floor.”
“Oh, dear.”
“You bet your ass, Oh dear.’ “
The demon regarded her with open curiosity. Gwen had pulled her strawberry blonde hair back in a tight bun. She wore a tight-fitting black sweater, black slacks, and black shoes. “You’re not at all the way I remember you, or the way Morgan described you. You were a cream puff.”
“Cream puffs get stale fast.” She had pulled out her skull-headed knife fro
m a sheathe strapped to her leg. It made her feel a little better, waving it around. “Come on, up. Let’s go. Let’s move it.”
The demon nodded slowly. “My name’s Morty,” he said. “I just think I should warn you . . . there’s a price—”
“In dealing with demons, yeah, I know. Considering my life up until now, it’d be hard for me to tell when some sort of karmic backlash hits me.”
“Trust me, you’ll know,” he said darkly.
“And you’re warning me of this, why?”
“Because, you seem like a nice person. And I don’t run into many of those.” He glanced at the candles. “You even used white ones instead of black. It’s just a nice change of pace. You, uhm . . . you sure I can’t just kill you now? Save us both some—?”
She waved the dagger in the vicinity of his throat.
“No, I didn’t think so,” he sighed. Morty stood and weaved slightly from side to side.
“What is it now?”
“That tranquilizer—I’m feeling really woozy.”
“Well, let’s get moving before you get too woozy to do anything useful.”
The demon walked over to her, raised his arms and said, “Hold me around the waist.”
Gwen complied. Her face against the demon’s back, she said, “Is this necessary for me to be transported with you?”
“Not at all,” said the demon. “But I get off on it.”
Before Gwen could reply, they vanished in a puff of black smoke.
ALL EYES IN the ballroom were riveted on reporter Louise Simonson, standing out in the rain near a polling place, looking a bit bedraggled as she said, “With the polls closed barely an hour ago, the first returns are coming in. And it looks right from the start that the all-important mayoral race is going to be tough to call. With prevoting surveys indicating that Kent Taylor’s numbers are practically nonexistent, the battle between Keating and Penn has narrowed, as we wait to find out whether swing or undecided voters will go with the feisty Republican or the genuinely original Independent.”