by John M. Ford
"In here." They went into a room lit by a hard white downlight. It shone mostly on a telephone switchboard, dozens of sockets and a row of plugs. A refrigerator-sized safe was in the corner. A woman was sitting at the switchboard, wearing a headset. "Hi, Line."
"Hi-de-hi, Lisa."
She moved her right hand out of shadow, put down the revolver that had been hidden there and picked up a coffee mug. "I take it things are all right now."
"Norma Jean got hurt. But she'll be okay, thanks to this guy. He's gonna be moving in with us. Twenty-four."
McCain made the introductions. Lisa picked up a phone and spoke softly while McCain went to the safe and twirled the knob. Danny saw Lisa reach under the switchboard, and the safe door opened. McCain closed it again, came away holding a key on a white tag.
"Give me your left hand."
Danny did. McCain squeezed the end of Danny's ring finger, and he felt a stick. A drop of his blood plopped onto the key tag, which seemed to suck it up like a sponge. The tag glowed for a moment. It was blue now. McCain pressed the key into Danny's palm.
"Lisa, call Michael Reese at six, find out how Norma's doing. Then call her folks."
She made a note. "Anything else?"
"No changes otherwise. G'night, Lisa."
"Good night, Line. And you, Doc."
As they walked down the hall, McCain pointed at the key Danny was turning over in his hand. "Nobody but you can use that now. You need somebody let in, let the staff know. Just pick up the phone in your room, you'll get Lisa or whoever's on the board."
"Is 'hi-de-hi' code for 'everything's okay'?"
"Good thought. Sometimes it is. Know anything about the witch works?"
"Magic?" McCain nodded. "No."
"You'll find out soon enough if you've got the Touch. If you
do, you'll be able to find the key with it. Enough stuff, and you can zap it to you. Here's your room."
Danny waited, then looked down stupidly at the key in his hand. He opened the door.
The room was about the size of the one he'd grown up in, paneled in rich dark wood. Desk, table, big closet door. The sofa would fold out to a bed, or maybe there was a wall bed, a Murphy.
"Front parlor," McCain said. He rapped a knuckle on a wall panel and it swung open. "Coat closet. Next one's the gun cabinet, there's a trick lock on that. We've got an infirmary downstairs, but you might want to keep a crash kit ready in here."
He opened the "closet door," went through into a room three times the size of the entry, fully furnished, with a bar and kitchenette at one end. Danny still didn't see a bed—wait, there was another doorway. This place looked bigger than the house he'd grown up in.
McCain opened the little refrigerator. "Isn't stocked; tell the kitchen what you'd like. Bar's probably dry too. You a beer man?"
"Yeah." He didn't have a clue if that were true: he'd had beers with the fire and rescue guys—everybody knew his age, but nobody said anything. And he'd split a pint of Wild Turkey bourbon with Robin once, before the accident. They had to sleep it off in the field behind Rob's place. He couldn't remember now what dumb excuse they'd come up with after that, but Rob's dad was—well, you could believe he'd been eighteen once.
McCain stood up, opened a drawer, took out a tin box. "Matches." He pointed to a tall-chimneyed kerosene lamp in a reflector on the wall. "You know how to light those?"
"Yes." That was true; he had grown up in Tornado Alley.
"The power's usually pretty good, but this is the Shades. We like to save our generator juice for real emergencies. If you turn out to have the witch gimmick, keep that in mind." He put the matches away. "Bedroom's that way; Lisa called and it should be ready." He went to the entry door, leaned against it, said gently, "Yeah, 1 know you've got about six million questions. Anything that won't wait till tomorrow?"
"When's breakfast?"
McCain laughed. "Hey, this is your house now. Breakfast's
when you wake up and get hungry. The dining room's a floor down, or you can call to have it up here." He looked aside. "That's how it is here: you do as you please—unless it's Mr. Patrise asking."
"You're telling me I just lucked into all this."
"Mr. Patrise says that people make their own luck, and I think I agree with him." McCain knocked wood. "Not to worry, is it? If you're dreamin', you'll wake up somewhere else, won't you? G'night, Doc."
"Good night, McCain."
After McCain had gone, Danny wandered into the bedroom, into carpet up to his ankles. There was custom cabinetry all around the walls, another desk, and an oversized four-poster bed in carved walnut. His great-grandmother had a bed like that. Her heirs had done everything short of spill blood over who would get it. The covers were turned back, and a white plush robe and a pair of gray pajamas were laid out on the spread.
He picked up the pajamas. Silk. He decided he didn't want to put them on without a shower first.
The bathroom was all glass and chrome and silver-veined black marble. The tub was marble, with taps like spaceship controls; the shower was completely separate, a cylinder of glass block with multiple heads to spray from all directions. Somehow the stone floor was warm.
Washed and in the slippery gray silk, he slipped between the sheets. There was a console at the bedside that controlled every light in the apartment. A dial selected music channels: jazz, jazz, classical, swing, opera, jazz—wasn't this the city? Where was the rock? He got some electric folk and listened for a while. One song was about somebody named Matty Groves and somebody else's wife, another about a bandit on a mountain who got seriously screwed over by a girl.
He snapped off the lights and lay there, stone awake.
Lights on, robe on. A midnight snack—okay, a five AM snack— couldn't hurt. At the last moment he remembered to get the key out of his jeans and stuff it into a robe pocket.
The heavy oak door made no sound at all. Danny looked up and down the hall. The elevator was to the right. So was Lisa's
switchboard room. There must be stairs someplace, especially if the power went off and on. He turned left.
The last door had a glass panel. He could see stairs beyond. He paused to look out the window at the end of the hall. It had bars outside, and steel shutters. He couldn't see very much—what looked like a hedge, maybe a moonlit garden. He went down the stairs.
The hall here had less wood, more crystal and steel. There was an office, that must be a library. . . dining room, yes.
There was a flutter of light just at the edge of his vision, and he turned, half-thinking of Cloudhunter's shotgun at his head.
He saw a woman. She was wearing a black and gold kimono tied with a fringed silk sash. She looked up at Danny, and his heart crashed straight into his brain.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, so much so that he had trouble actually seeing her—the eyes drew him to the lips, and then the chin, the ear, the throat, without a stop to register any of them fully. He tried to speak, but his tongue wouldn't engage and a blimp was docked in his throat.
She smiled. He ached, he hurt, he thought he would drop to his knees. She walked away from him, down the hall. He didn't quite see her go; she was ]usx. gone, and a man's voice said, "Is there something I can get for you, Mr. Hallownight?"
The man was a butler in a perfect gray uniform. Danny felt the sweat on his own palms, his gasping, his locked-and-loaded erection. "Was that—ff—Fay?"
If the butler saw anything untoward about Danny, he gave no sign of it. "I didn't see, sir. Miss Phasia is retired for the night, but it could have been. Can I get you something?"
"A sandwich . . . roast beef? And a glass of milk."
"Certainly, sir. And might I suggest something to help you sleep?"
"Yes."
"I'll have it sent up at once, sir. You know you can telephone us at any time."
Danny climbed the stairs slowly. When he got into the hall, a girl in a gray uniform was coming out of the room. She paused to hold the
door open. "Good night, sir."
"G'night."
There was a tray on the bedside table with a rare roast beef on dark rye, pickles and chips, and a glass of milk with a brown sprinkle on top. Danny sniffed it: nutmeg, and doubtless something under it. Something to sleep on.
Well, he had something, and he couldn't sleep on it unless he stayed flat on his back all night. He looked dizzily at the bed: no, not in those crisp clean sheets. He walked into the bathroom, stripping as he went. The floor was warm to the skin.
He cleaned up, took another couple of minutes' worth of shower, and crawled into bed. He took two bites of the sandwich, which was of course delicious, drank the milk-and-whatever in three gulps, and sank into sleep like quicksand, fully expecting to wake up, naked and damp, somewhere else.
But he didn't: same bed, same bedroom. A sliver of light ran around the drapes. He got hold of his watch, which read PAIN; he threw it across the room. The bedside clock's hands pointed to ten past five. PM, presumably.
He sat up, shook his head, dragged the robe on and walked around the apartment, just checking.
The two bags he'd had in the Triumph were in the entrance room, and the closet door stood open with a couple of paper laundry covers inside. A note was pinned to one of the bags:
Your cases were opened briefly, to check your sizes. Mr. Patrise instructed that you were not to be awakened, but if you rise in time, he will be pleased to see you at La Mirada for dinner at eight o'clock. If these clothes do not suit, please call me at your earliest convenience.
Boris Liczyk
Danny ripped the paper open. Inside was a wide-lapel suit, with pleated trousers in a deep gray-green, a tan silk shirt, and dark golden tie. At the bottom of the closet was a package of underwear and socks, a pair of wingtip shoes, and a black leather doctor's bag. Behind the suit he found a pale-tan trenchcoat, with the full complement of buckles and buttons, and up top a matching snap-brim hat.
On the desk was a pocket watch on a chain, and a leather sack of coins. Danny had read that paper money wasn't worth much in the Shadow; it was barter, or metal.
It was crazy. It was all plain crazy. He moved to check out his own bags, then decided why bother? What did he have worth this crowd's stealing?
The bathroom cabinet had shaving stuff, aspirin and cold pills, a box of rubbers, and some of those sponges girls used. He showered again, shaved carefully, dressed in the new outfit. It all fit nicely, and felt good, crisp and sharp and good. The shirt collar was a little tight, and Danny had never been able to manage a tie knot, but he didn't care. There was a full-length mirror in the bedroom: he looked at himself for a long while, jacket off and on, coat and hat off and on. He experimented with the hat angle. Even his hopeless red hair seemed to look right. The freckles—well.
He hung the coat and jacket up and went downstairs. In the dining room, he found a short, thin man with gray hair, in a perfectly creased navy-blue suit and a red scarf at this throat—ascot, that was it. The man turned.
"Good day to you, Mr. Hallownight. I am Boris Liczyk." It came out Lizzik. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, thanks." Danny began to wonder if there was a way to turn off the solicitude.
The man looked Danny up and down. "It's not bad, not bad— is that how you usually stand, sir?"
"I guess so. Would you call me, uh, Doc?"
"Certainly, Doc. I'm Boris. Now, if you'll just hold still—" Liczyk adjusted Danny's suspenders, pulling the waistband way up. He pinched a seam of the shirt sleeve, and Danny felt a chill down his arm. It passed in a moment. "Don't move, now." Liczyk did the same to the other sleeve. Then he put his hands on the collar, and at once the collar wasn't tight any more. Another touch smoothed the tie knot. "Yes, that's better. Do have me show you how to knot a tie. Do the shoes fit?"
"Fine."
"Mm-hmm. You didn't bring the jacket down."
"No, but it fit just fine."
Liczyk gave a blink of a smile. "Do you expect to be wearing a shoulder holster?"
"I—uh—well, no."
"Good. They're intractable. I'm sorry, I'm probably keeping you from breakfast."
"No, it's okay. I guess I'm having dinner in a couple of hours."
"True. Some juice? Some coffee?"
"Yeah, coffee. And maybe a glass of orange juice."
"Why don't you take them in the north garden? And I'll let Mr. McCain know you're awake."
It was pleasant in the garden; the sun was about to disappear below a building, but the still air was warm. The plants were still surprisingly green, with dashes of color from late-season flowers. There was no view. Brick walls twenty feet high, topped with iron points, enclosed it completely.
McCain entered. "Not bad," he said. "Boris always likes having a new body to work on. You know you're in for a full custom fit-ting."
"Did he use magic on this?" Danny described the work on the shirt seams.
"That's his Touch. All he works with is fabric. Seams, cigarette burns in the carpet. . . He's a wizard with drapes, he is." McCain grinned. "What, did you think it was all throwin' lightning bolts? Come with me. Bring your coffee."
They went down to the garage. The TR3 was there, hood propped open. Jesse the mechanic was leaning over the engine.
"You tune this thing yourself, ki—Doc?" Jesse said.
"When I can get the parts."
"Yeah, that's always the trouble." He pointed at the engine block, at places where the metal looked unnaturally shiny, or glowed a deep cobalt blue. "Wasn't any way to go dual-fuel—space, mass, architecture—and you needed new lifters anyway, so I put in sensitives, and bound a desire to the fuel pump. That should get you through any short-term tech failure." Jesse closed the lid. "She's a pretty car, Doc. I wouldn't do her wrong. Turn her over yourself."
Danny slid in. He noticed that a couple of familiar dings were out of the panel, and the rips in the soft top had all been mended.
He started the car. It caught on the first try, and sounded slick as iced snot.
"Take her 'round the block," McCain said. He held out two slabs of plastic: a driver's license and paramedic's card, new ones with his new name. Danny tucked them away, saluted, and put the Triumph into gear.
He got up the ramp, turned onto the street, upshifted. She liked it.
The low sun bronzed the corridors of glass and brick and the stumps of broken skyscrapers. The near buildings were mostly clean and cared for, with here and there a notch of fallen stone. Beyond, there were walls holed with empty windows, holding up nothing, and bare metal frames, twisted like dust devils petrified. Above the near rooflines, Danny could see the tops of skyscrapers: they were dull, and dark, and looked ravaged. Not one seemed to be intact.
A cluster of five motorcycles went by the other way. The riders had this-and-that leathers, not a helmet among them, streaming long hair and tassels and bits of chain. One was a bare-legged barefoot girl. They revved, popped wheelies, split to flow around the Triumph, hooting and hollering. Something bounced off the soft top and crashed against the pavement. Danny drove on, checked the mirror: they gave no sign of doubling back.
He saw the lake then, across a band of highway and a line of wrecked buildings. It roiled, green and whitecapped, more like pictures of the ocean than any lake Danny knew. It faded out into darkness to the east.
He stopped on a bridge, got out of the car for a look around. The river was low, with sludgy banks littered with broken concrete and old metal. There had been a whole series of bridges toward the west; about half of them looked intact, the others just pilings, or collapsed and partially cleared. One looked as if something had bitten out and swallowed its span. Somewhere upstream—no, downstream; the water was, illogically, flowing out of the lake—a cargo ship was beached and rusting along the waterside, tilted twenty degrees over.
To the southeast there was a green park, little smokes eurling up from among the trees. At least it seemed like something people
were doing. He couldn't
tell how far the park went; beyond a certain point, maybe a mile and a half away, the world got vague, like a running watercolor. A long way off to the southeast the sky was just a long smudge of smoky color. Danny had been to the Paint Pots at Yellowstone Park once, all steam and sulfur and colors; it was like that, but stretching for miles.
A breeze whistled through the bridge ironwork. It was the only sound there was. There was nobody here. The emptiness, the loneliness was awful.
A dull metallic sound came from beneath the road. Contraction? Loose bolts? Trolls?
He got back into the car. Up ahead was more iron, framing the street. He took a right, and the sun went out: the street was framed and roofed by metal lacework, big riveted girders. The elevated railroad, Danny realized. There didn't seem to be any trains running, though he saw a couple of station signs, and a stairway with people sitting on the steps.
Danny drove as straight as he could back to the house, down into the garage. McCain and Jesse were playing cards.
"The stuff you put in," Danny said, "does it work, outside? I mean, where there isn't magic?"
"Sure," Jesse said. "Not so well, but better'n spit 'n' baling wire." He put a card down.
McCain picked it up. "You know what—"
"Yeah, I know what baling wire is!" Danny shouted.
Both men were looking at him. Neither had any kind of meaningful expression.
Danny said, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" McCain said. "Now, Jesse, he's gonna be sorry. Gin"" He tossed his cards down. "What do you say we go down to the club now? You'll have a better look before the crowd gets there, and we can get a head start on the evening's serious purposes."
"Without Mr. Patrise?"
"Oh, he'll be there. Get your coat. . . and grab your hat. . . ." He sang the last four words in a terrible baritone. "And don't forget your black bag, Doc."
The took the Triumph, McCain folding with care and some difficulty into the passenger seat.