by John M. Ford
She stopped, rolled back toward him. "Granddad said I should be good to you," she said unsteadily. "That somebody who does— what you do—was really special. You'll tell everybody I miss them, won't you?"
"Of course."
"And tell your girlfriend you're special," she said then, in a voice full of agony and venom. She turned away and was gone.
As he drove back, a windblown winter rain began to fall, that scattered the ghost fires of the Shade far across the real city.
F
riday afternoon, Doc went upstairs to see Patrise. He was sitting behind his silver desk in a long violet dressing gown, feet up, a large book of art reproductions open in his lap.
"I don't expect we'll need you tonight, Hallow," he said. "Have a pleasant evening."
Doc hesitated.
Patrise said, "Was there something else?"
"I was thinking," Doc said, "you know, with all the stuff I carry in my bag, it's a wonder I haven't been jumped before this."
"Do you think so?" Patrise said, sounding interested.
"It makes sense. I mean, I drive a car everybody can recognize, and they probably know I don't carry a gun."
"You haven't wanted to carry a gun."
"I still don't. I just. . . guess I ought to be more careful, from now on."
Patrise's voice cut right across the nonsense. "Who do you think it was that set us up, Hallow? Are you afraid it was Ginevra?"
"No, it couldn't have—she didn't know anything about what was happening, any more than I did."
"You don't know that," Patrise said, calm. "You don't have any way of knowing that."
"No," Doc said, and stopped while he still had his voice.
Patrise put his book on the desk, sat up in his chair facing Doc. "But / know, Hallow. And she did not."
"Then ... do you know—who?"
"Let me tell you something about people, Hallow. If you give people work that makes them feel strong and useful, then they will become strong and useful. Their strength, through you, is power, and astounding things can be done with that power. Impossible things.
"Keep the same people in fear, and you may still get use from them, but never strength. If they find strength despite you, the first thing they will do with it is bring you down. No matter what it costs. Understand that very well, Hallow: any being with a real soul will prize it above anything—certainly above life."
"A soul."
"I am not excluding the Truebloods. If Cloudhunter has no soul, then souls are surely overrated." He leaned back. "Have you thought about where to take Ginevra tonight?"
"Oh . . . the movies, probably."
"Why don't you take her off the Levee?"
"Is something wrong?"
"Not that I know. You should visit the World now and then. The Art Institute is open late tonight. It's not far. Barely past the Shade. Made dinner plans?"
"No."
"The Berghoff should do. Here." He scribbled a note, signed it, folded it. "Please, take it. Let me have my fun."
"Thank you, sir."
Patrise waved. "And think about the Art Institute."
"I'll ask Ginny."
"Yes. Tell me, Hallow, if you don't mind ... do you make her laugh?"
"Uh . . ." Doc had to turn his thoughts sharply around. "She-laughs at the movies. And other times too."
"Good," Mr. Patrise said. "It is an extraordinary thing, that half the human species should need laughter so much from the other half. It is no small gift, you know. Hallow. Magic and Klrland have no substitute for it. Now, the best of nights to both of you. Hallow."
It was beginning to snow when they left the Shadow. Suddenly the air was on fire, turning the snowflakes blood-red; Ginny gasped, and Doc stopped the Triumph for several minutes while they watched the silent, heatless firestorm.
Ginny took his hand. Under her winter coat she was wearing a ruffled white blouse with a small string of pearls, a long black skirt. "I'd forgotten the fire," she said, sounding astonished.
The plaque NEW ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO was on a gray stone building that must have been a department store before the world shifted. The entrance was flanked by huge bronze lions, one old and green, one looking nearly new. A guard tipped his hat as they came through the door; Ginny scanned a brochure on what to see first, and dragged Doc up a flight of stairs, directly to a huge painting of strolling people: Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Doc had seen pictures of it in books, but.. .
"Look at it close," Ginny said.
He did. It was made up of thousands upon thousands of dots of color. Close up, they exploded into an atomic-structure diagram; a step back, and they coalesced again into the calm people in the sunny park.
In one of the modern halls, there was a painting of a theater usher, a girl in cap and vest standing in a golden slant of light. She looked weary; she looked terrifyingly alone. When he could look away from the girl, he saw that the pattern of the walls was a precise reproduction of a corner of the Biograph's lobby. Or was it the other way around?
He turned, a little dizzy, and there was another image he had seen any number of times before, but never like this: a long horizontal frame, a night scene somewhere in a big city, a streetcorner diner lit against the gloom. A sign on the brick wall sold nickel cigars to a disbelieving world. Inside, small at the big L-shaped counter, were a handful of people huddled over their coffee and pie, a counterman in white. No reproduction Doc had ever seen captured the electric green of the fluorescent light—it was like spellbox neon, though the artist had died long before things changed.
He looked at that picture for a long time, too, until its loneliness was too much to stand.
Near the museum exit was a room bannered The Third Fire.
Third? Doc thought. Just inside the door were two enormous engraved illustrations: the Great Fire of 1871, facing the "White City," the Columbian Exposition of 1892, burning at the turn of the century.
Beyond was an architectural model of the original Art Institute building, and an array of photographs. They showed the old building in flames, and a small army of people moving paintings and sculpture and art objects across littered, flame-lit streets. A glass case held a chunk of verdigris bronze: the distorted face of a lion, like those at the doorway looked out.
"The building burned when Elfland came back, you see?" Ginny said wonderingly, pointing at a map. "They moved it all— in one night, this says."
"Under cover of firehose and spell," a voice said. A uniformed museum guard was standing a little behind them, a plump woman with a small, secret smile. "We lost a few paintings, and a fair amount of sculpture, sad to tell. And one of the lions, of course. But look here." She led them to a side alcove: it was filled with a painting, a surreal, darkly vivid nightscape laced with flame and streaking energy. Across the center, figures—some human, some Ellyll—formed a chain, carrying paintings that, in contrast with the rest of the picture, were rendered with photographic realism.
"Picasso Crossing Adams" the woman said. "The elves knew something, even that first awful night. We hardly ever see one here now, but that night—" She shrugged, and smiled again. "Pleasant evening to you."
The woman left. Ginny said suddenly, directly into Doc's ear, "Shall I ask you now? I want to ask now."
"Ask what?"
"If you're coming home with me tonight. You don't have to. you know that. But there's enough suspense in mv life. And if we're going to have a really special dinner, I don't want to be knotted up all through it. So just tell me now, and it'll be OVCI with."
He stared at the painting, the tire and art and sorccrv and said. "Yes."
She let out a breath and hugged his shoulders.
Berghoff's restaurant was a crowded, bustling, jolly place, with fancy wood and stained glass. The maitre d' looked coldly at the young couple with no reservation until he saw Mr. Patrise's note, and at once they were given a table, and brought soup and steak and amazing platters of sausage, with d
ark beer to wash them down, until Doc wasn't sure the TR3 would carry their weight. There did not seem to be any question of presenting a bill.
Doc parked the car in front of Ginny's building. As they went up the front steps, Ginny slipped in the fresh snow, and Doc caught her. He had a brief, wild thought of carrying her inside, but he didn't; just kept his arm around her shoulders all the way in. Ginny locked the door behind them. "You remember when I said there was too much suspense in my life?"
"Yeah?"
"Maybe I was wrong."
He found himself unbuttoning her blouse before she had quite pulled him into the bedroom. He had heard it wasn't difficult, after the first time. It was easier. He still seemed to weigh too much— the dinner was only part of that.
It wasn't that there was any difficulty. She seemed pleased, and that alone was enough to make him feel good. But something wasn't quite there: the Wild Hunt didn't ride, and he knew that she knew it. Still she sighed happily, and laughed, and held him all night.
Still, he knew what was locked up in his thoughts, and hoped desperately that she did not.
M
londay night the usual poker crowd met at the Rush Street Grill. They sat over Flats Montoya's wonderful burgers with an uneasy quiet; Doc kept thinking of the Hopper painting, the diner at midnight. It was a relief to go back to the poker room, where quiet and blank looks were part of the game.
The Fox's game was way off form, and it threw everyone else's play off as well. After an hour, Kitsune tossed in her cards—an ace flipped upright—and said, "That's all. Good night, everybody."
Carmen said, "I'll get the box."
"Just say I'm tapped." She hurried out.
Stagger Lee counted Kitsune's chips. "Everyone agree we'll hold her share out?"
They did. "Who'll see her first? Lucius?"
"I'll take it to the Mirada. Shaker can hold the stake."
After another hour the raid alarm went off, and everyone went through the ritual of tossing in and covering up.
It wasn't the usual Copperbutton squad. It was Rico and Linn, with two very worried-looking Coppers trailing behind.
"Hello, Officers," Flats said. "Can I offer you something hot on a cold night?"
"Don't you love it?" Rico said. "Everybody here's the Welcome Wagon. Linn."
The elf went to the table where Doc and company were sitting. He looked at the people, then took a lens-shaped blue crystal from his belt. He gave it a snap of the wrist and it hung, spinning, in the air above the table, casting an electric-blue light. The tabletop turned transparent, showing the bucket of cards and chips beneath, the sitters' legs, a glimpse of their leg bones. Linn snatched the stone from the air with an easy movement and a tight little smile. He tucked it away.
Rico said, "The stuff that passes for cop work around here."
Carmen said, "We've got a seat open, Lieutenant. Maybe you'd like to sit in? There's room for two."
"Maybe some other time, honey."
"You mean that?"
"Yeah. I mean that."
"Look forward to it."
The police went out. The patrons dug into their pie and brandy.
A burst of gunfire came from the front of the restaurant, and a long crash of glass. Someone screamed. Stagger Lee, with a completely artificial calm, said, "Somebody's wa off script."
Doc was on his feet by instinct, grabbing his bag. "Keep do**, dammit," Lucius yelled, and Doc dropped into a booth-high crouch.
Just as he got to the front room, there was a brilliant white Hare from outside, and the front of the restaurant blew in. The shock
knocked Doc down; he huddled for a few breaths against debris and any second detonation, but the booth wall had protected him well enough. He got up.
The room was smoky, and smelled of hot metal and burning. People were groaning, but not screaming now. There was some blood, but no immediately apparent critical cases. The front windows were pretty well demolished, and the oak front door was a jagged strip of bare wood.
Lieutenant Linn came in, breathing mist. His white wand was out, floating between his open hands; a black nimbus of negative light surrounded it. He looked at Doc, who went outside.
Rico was on the sidewalk outside, sitting up against the front of the building. Her left leg looked chewed, and her mirrorshades hung broken from one ear.
Doc snipped away her trouser leg, sponged blood off. The wounds were fairly minor; no heavy bleeders, bones intact. He got some dressings on. "You should be okay. Got any drug allergies?"
"Yeah. To needles. Go ahead, kid."
"People usually call me Doc."
"Yeah. Shit, that's cold."
"That's thorncast salve. It'll pull any fragments out. Did you hit your head?"
"Other end. Linn saw the bikes coming, got a ward up. Any sign of our so-called backups, Linn?"
Doc was conscious of Lt. Linn standing behind him, but missed any reply. He looked at Lt. Rico's pupils: they were even, but dilated. He pulled off her glasses—carefully, around a bad bruise on her cheek—shone a light on one eye.
"Watch it! Those used to be Night Owls."
"Sorry."
" 'S'okay. Doc."
"Lieutenant Linn, would you help me get her inside?"
Linn picked Rico up, carried her in to a bench. Doc saw to the other injured. Through some combination of luck and Linn's spell, nobody had caught a bullet or major fragment.
There was no question of going on with the games. The place cleared out quickly. Carmen left with Stagger Lee, and then it was
just Doc, Lucius, Rico and Linn, and Flats, who brought out real coffee with Kahlua and cream.
"You said they were on bikes?" Doc said.
"Did I say that? I must have been delirious."
Doc glanced at Lucius, who raised an eyebrow and half of his mouth.
Flats said, "How about you, Linn? You ever talk?"
Linn shook his head.
"You gotta have something," Rico said. "When you're trying to do a job nobody wants done, by flaky rules, in a hostile country, among people who don't want you there in the first place, you've got to have some way of knowing who you are. That or go dinky-dau."
"What?"
"Crazy. Something my dad used to say."
Doc said, "You'll be sore for a while."
"I've been torn up before, Doc. I'll make it."
Doc nodded. "Take you home, Lucius?"
"Don't mind, Doctor."
"Hey, Doc," Rico said. "Thanks. And hey, Jake Lingle."
Lucius said, "Yes, Lieutenant, ma'am?"
"I read your column all the time. Nice to meet you."
"Thank you very kindly, Lieutenant."
"Don't get killed."
Lucius snapped a salute. They went outside, their shoes crunching on broken glass.
"So which way's home?" Doc said.
"Drop me at the Mirada. I've got to give Shaker the Fox's stake, remember?"
"Yeah." Doc thought about Kitsune's behavior, about speaking of it. But he didn't. Instead he said, "Who's Jake Lingle?"
"Famed local reporter, from the real gangland days. The Ca-pone boys shot him dead one day."
"Oh."
"There was a rule back then, never shoot three sorts of people: cops, judges, and reporters. Too much hear, you see. And what do you know but that Jake's paper raised a row that eventual!) did
help bring Al down." He turned his head. "You know Capone's Four Deuces club—that was the street address, two-two-two-two— was just over there a couple of blocks."
"You will be careful, won't you, Lucius?"
"I haven't gotten to the punch line yet, Doc. Jake Lingle, mob martyr, was taking fifty thousand Depression dollars a year from Capone. It's an ill wind, eh, Doctor?"
He let Lucius off at the club, knowing that things were no better than they had been a week ago. Maybe worse.
and the house barber had restyled his hair to conceal the wound and Doc's chopping.
That afte
rnoon Doc went to Patrise's office, intending finally to ask what the lead mining was for. Once there, however, in the glare of light on wood and metal, with Mr. Patrise—who had never wronged him, never, so far as he knew, lied—seated calmly at a side table, reading an old leatherbound book, Doc choked on the question. He managed to get out, "There's something—I have to know. About, well, magic, I guess.. .."
Mr. Patrise shut his book. "Are you afraid of the sources of power?" He stood up, sat against the edge of his enormous desk. "Do you think that someday you will open a door, like Bluebeard's wife, and find the sort of place you saw under the streets?"
"I just want to understand."
"I know that," Mr. Patrise said gently, "and there is nothing more becoming to want. But would you ever be satisfied with an answer? I could give you all the keys I have, and you could still suspect I had left out the one key key. Now Bluebeard, on the other hand, gave out the master key first thing.
"Here is something you should recognize, Hallow: the True Blood is psychically bound to dominant modes of thought—in plainer words, slaves to fashion. This once was part of their power, when their culture was all the culture on Earth, and we huddled under trees because the sun and the rain made us afraid. The Truebloods said to the hominids, Do things in the way we tell you, and we did, because they were more frightening still."
"Trees," Doc said. "Elves are supposed to be tree people, in the old stories."
"Congratulations, Hallow," Mr. Patrise said, with what sounded like real pleasure.
"Eventually the Truebloods went away, and after—oh, who knows how long—we started to forget that they had been real. But we kept the inspiration: we continued to do things by rules, whether or not the rules made sense, to act as the group did, even when the group was insane, to enjoy making a pattern and watching the crowd squeeze into it. In time we technologized the process, industrialized it, networked it. It was, if you like, our magic."
Doc said, "And when the Truebloods came back?"
"They were bewildered at first by what they saw. There are hints that they did not recognize us as human—they thought we were some otherworldly species that had colonized the Earth.