by Tom Deitz
And then he shouted.
Aikin couldn’t understand a word—so much for what Dave had said about Faery communication being automatic. His response was to stand straighter, take a deep breath, and lift an eyebrow quizzically.
“Slo-wer,” he said in English. “Mas despacio” he added in Spanish—and immediately felt like a fool.
Someone flung something dark at him. It splashed against his leg. The smell of spoiled fruit pervaded the air, so cloyingly sweet it clogged his nostrils.
“I’m not your enemy,” he tried again, easing aside to permit the party to pass.
“Mortal man,” someone growled from back in the ranks—and Aikin did understand that. “Far from home, ain’t he? He goes any farther, he’ll know how we feel, to lose the place he came from past regainin’.”
“Shush, Gargyn,” a female voice rasped. “He c’n hear you!”
“Don’t give a rotten gourd if he do,” that voice gave back. “His World’s destroyin’ our’n, ’tis only fair if our’n gets him back.”
“I’m not your enemy,” Aikin repeated, backing even closer to the marge, and wondering if he really should bolt, and if so, how accurate those knives were if thrown, and how sharp. Maybe they were even like elfshot, and would strike him down where he stood. He wondered what happened to those who died upon the Tracks. Dave had never told him. Perhaps he’d never wondered. Or didn’t know.
The leader glanced behind him apprehensively, and Aikin got the sense he was worried about something, almost as though he feared pursuit.
“Tell you what,” Aikin said. “You folks pass, I’ll follow, and get off where I’m supposed to.”
“Like he c’n tell!” someone giggled.
The leader snapped something sharp in that incomprehensible language, and started off again. The small wagon’s axles squeaked ominously as they commenced to roll.
At which point Aikin felt something brush against his calves, and looked down to see the enfield peering at him from between his legs, apparently having sneaked around the refugees through the briars.
He was not prepared for the party’s reaction.
There was a communal intake of breath, a simultaneous harsh, angry hiss. A murmur of indignation and the sound of fumblings—and then the air was thick with thrown objects, some of which glittered disturbingly.
Aikin raised his hand to shield his face, and felt his forearms sting with countless tiny prickles, somewhere between thorns and broken glass. Someone raised what really was a spear. The point glittered balefully.
The enfield uttered a trill of alarm—and bolted.
But she did not run down the Track, neither toward the company and past them, or back the way Aikin and she had come.
Instead, she leapt through a gap in the briar wall he had not noted before, and disappeared.
“Wait!” Aikin yelled, fearing to lose even that shaky ally, in the face of obvious hostility. And with that he spun around and plunged after.
Something bright swished by his ear. Something sharp—a briar, probably—tore at his thigh as he leapt through the gap in the thorns. And then everything changed.
There was no mutter of indignant voices, no clatter of thrown objects upon dry ground. The quality of light had altered, losing the pervasive glow of the Tracks. Come to think of it, so had the terrain. There were no sky-tall trees now—no trees at all, in fact—merely high, rolling moorland and blasted heath beneath twilight skies.
A backward glance showed no horde of waist-high refugees, either—and no Straight Track for them to trek upon. He scrambled back there—and found nothing. Nothing save a thinning of the moss, where it lay behind sparse-spun whorls of briar.
But the Tracks had been activated! The wee folk had to have been going somewhere!
Well, they certainly weren’t activated now. Probably, this was more of that supposed temporal dislocation: the speed of bodies upon the Tracks much faster than the speed by which they would be perceived by an observer. A flash in the eye, the activated Track would have been, to someone where Aikin stood. A shooting star of magic along something even more arcane.
Maybe.
But speaking of things arcane, nowhere in any direction was there any sign of the enfield: the enfield upon which he relied to reaccess the Tracks: the Tracks he must follow to get back home.
A drop of cold scraped his cheek, and he raised a finger to touch that icy runnel: a single drop of rain.
Clouds scudded through skies grown ominous and gloomy.
Abruptly, fear clenched Aikin’s heart in fists of iron.
Before he could stop himself, he was crying.
But what else could a mortal man do? He was lost in an unknown country beside an invisible road, neither of whose laws he remotely understood.
Chapter X: Rude Awakening
(Jackson County, Georgia—Saturday, October 31—morning)
A mime in urban cammos was hunting rabbits with green plastic hand grenades, lobbing them off two-dimensional cliffs at human-sized bunnies that, with a stark-naked Alec McLean, danced to rock and roll. Explosions kept time to the beat and sent up blood-colored fireworks with each burst. Someone—probably that white-faced Faery woman at the base of a mesa that suddenly looked a lot like the buildings on Clayton Street—was going to very high-tech town on a complex keyboard-synthesizer thing. It sounded like King Crimson or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, the way she’d sample some random noise, then drag it out to a tortuous dissolution, extracting melody along the way. Just now she seemed to have sampled a doorbell, because there was certainly a protracted, jingly ringing, repeated at intervals.
On the fourth repetition, David came groggily awake. “Fuck,” he grunted. “Fuck you, tel’phone!”
He considered letting the answering machine do its thing—or yelling at Alec to assume that errand. Only, the machine wasn’t picking up until the sixth ring, and he didn’t think he could listen to its insistent angst that long. Plus, the nightstand that held the damned thing was closer to his bed than his roomie’s—and Alec had had a world-class awful night, until he’d abdicated. David knew: he’d nursed him through two gut-wracking, guilt-tripping hours. If he heard a slurred, “Gotta find ’er, man; gotta find ’er,” one more time, he was gonna shoot somebody. Probably Alec himself. That’d put him out of both their miseries.
Rrrriiinnnnggggg!
“Fuck,” David growled again, and fumbled an arm from under the cover, to send his fingers stumbling over the nightstand like an overweight, drunken tarantula. He missed twice, though he found the wet washcloth he’d bathed Alec’s face with, and the water glass he’d finally managed to empty into him, in the name of brotherly affection.
Rrrriiinnnnnggggg!
“Fuck brotherly affection”—as he finally got the receiver off the cradle, dragged it to his ear, then retracted both beneath sheets that seemed to cover only his upper half.
“’Lo…?” he mumbled, making a point to sound even sleepier than he was.
“This David?” a hoarse female voice wondered. The slight country twang sounded familiar, but mind-fogged as he was, he couldn’t place it.
“Yeah,” he managed, through a yawn.
“Uh, well…this is Cammie,” the caller continued uncertainly. “You know: Aikin’s…friend, and—well, I was kinda wondering if he spent the night at your place last night.”
David scratched his side. “Not unless he sneaked in after I crashed.” Then, more alertly, having noticed the nervous edge on the young woman’s voice, “I mean, he did the Halloween thing with us last night, but he split early. Like, one minute he was there, and the next, he’d just…disappeared.”
“He does that,” Cammie replied. “But…like, I’m moving, see, and he was supposed to help me haul some stuff in his truck this mornin’, only he didn’t show, and he’s always real punctual, and I keep gettin’ his machine, so I figured maybe he’d unplugged his phone or something. But then I remembered he’d said something about partyin’ with you guys
, only I wasn’t sure if you guys were pickin’ him up, or if he was gonna drive, so I thought if he had gone with you, he’d have stayed over at your place—I mean, I knew it was a long shot…”
“Yeah,” David grunted, because he’d only caught about half of what he’d heard. He shifted to a more comfortable sprawl. The sheets promptly oozed to the floor. A glimpse at his watch (nestled inside Cutter’s vest on the floor) showed that it was late morning—and far later than he wanted it to be. The sun was shining in the unshaded window with a vengeance, its cheery yellow beams narrowly missing Alec’s face. His sheets had barely shifted since David tucked him in. The guy looked too damned peaceful. “Yeah,” he repeated, inanely.
“No, but see,” Cammie went on breathlessly, “I called one of my friends out at Whitehall to see if his truck was there and then call me back, so she did, and she said it was, but then my friend went over there and knocked, and nobody answered, so she looked in his window and saw his costume and stuff just thrown around his room like he took it off in a hurry. And—”
“So he’s prob’ly out collectin’ leaves or something…”
“Not if he was gonna help me move that stuff! You’re his buddy, you know what a time nut he is: he’s never late. If he even thinks he’s gonna be, he calls.”
“So you thought maybe he’d got real drunk or something, and we’d stopped by his place on the way back and dropped off his truck…”
A troubled pause. “Yeah, I guess I kinda thought something like that—but I’m kinda worried now. See—well, this is gonna sound really crazy, but…he’s been, like, real preoccupied the last couple of days, and I know he keeps a journal—he tapes it while he’s drivin’, and then transcribes it on his PC. But anyway, this friend of mine had loaned him a bunch of lecture tapes, so while she was over there, she saw some tapes and a player in his truck and thought they might be hers, and she needed ’em back, and the truck was unlocked, so she just reached in and got ’em. Only she stuck one in, you know, to see if she’d got the right one. And she backed it up a little, and it was Aik workin’ on his journal…and the part she caught—just the tail end—was him sayin’, ‘It’s Halloween eve, and I’m goin’ to town with some friends, and then I’m gonna let the enfield out, and really party.’”
David sat bolt upright. “Enfield? You’re sure the word was enfield?”
Cammie’s control was weakening. “That’s…some kinda gun, isn’t it, and I think Aik’s got one, so I got scared, and all. I mean, he’s been actin’ real strange lately, and…”
David was on his feet, abruptly all attention. “It’s cool—I think. Not what you think, anyway. But— Oh crap, I guess I’d better get over there.”
“Want me to meet you? I mean, if something’s happened…”
“Nothing has,” David assured her firmly, adding a silent, I hope, before continuing. “I think I know what he meant, and if I’m right—”
“He’s not gonna…shoot himself, or anything, is he?”
“No,” David said with conviction. “Look, this is something…secret between him and me; something we’ve…been workin’ on that I can’t tell you about. So just hang tight, and I’ll go over to his place and check things out. Did your friend take that tape?”
“She, uh, kinda freaked and thought it might be…evidence, or something. It’s where she left it. She didn’t even lock the truck.”
David couldn’t stifle a grim chuckle.
“It’s not funny!”
“Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from cryin’.”
“So you really think Aik’s okay?”
“I think so.”
“So where is he?”
A pause. “I think he’s gone walkabout in the…woods.”
The ensuing hesitation suggested that Cammie was unconvinced. “Know anybody with a truck?” she laughed almost hysterically.
“Not that’s available right now,” David replied with a heartiness he didn’t feel, and hung up.
*
Alec was still cutting uppercase Zs when David looked in on him eight minutes later. In spite of an odd sense of urgency that was already toasting him around the edges (his middle remained very soggy indeed), he’d forced himself to stay cool long enough to make a pot of real coffee, chug a cup, and leave the rest for his roommate, along with a note—in the unlikely event Alec rejoined the living before he returned. He hoped the guy appreciated what he and Liz had done. Lugging a barely conscious comic-hero around wasn’t fun. Nor was undressing one who’d tossed ’em all down his front, nor supporting one in the shower in hopes of getting him sufficiently clean and sober to put to bed. Any one of those things would have been tolerable, but the cumulative effect…well, that kinda got to a guy—’specially when he’d been more than a little buzzed himself.
No rest for the weary, he sighed, and turned away. Giving his hastily scribbled note a “Stay there!” swat to affix it to the front door, he puffed his cheeks, eased outside—and headed for the battered ’66 Mustang he’d long ago nicknamed The Mustang-of-Death.
He wished he hadn’t called it that now. He’d already had too much dying.
* * *
Unfortunately, Whitehall was clear across town from Casa McLean y Sullivan, which was effectively in the country. And double-unfortunately, there was no quick way there. The bypass curved so far around that it took as long as cutting straight through town, with its only real advantage being a lack of stoplights—which was illusionary time-saving at best. David chose that route, however, because, with fewer distractions, it was easier to think.
He didn’t need this, dammit! He had his own demons to quell, and they didn’t include buds going psycho right and left. Shoot, it was like Alec and Aikin were suddenly two different people, with Aik manic as hell one minute and morose the next, and Alec’s ongoing mooning over Eva suddenly maxed way past overload.
So what had changed? What had made two normally rational guys go stark raving bonkers? For that matter, when had all these changes occurred? When was their last, relatively speaking, normal day? Well, he’d been antsy about the anniversary of David-the-Elder’s death, but had managed to keep that more or less under control—until the dream. Aikin had been—overtly—fine until they’d seen the deer. And Alec—
It was the ulunsuti! It had to be! Everything pointed to that failed scrying last Saturday. Certainly his own nagging grief had resurfaced then, with the dream he’d had after the attempted divination. The A-Men had conked out then, too—and been strangely reticent thereafter. But if his own dream—vision, whatever—of David-the-Elder’s death had been a function of the ulunsuti, was there any reason his buds couldn’t have had similar dreams?
“It works best if you worry at it,” Alec had said over and over. And on that day, the anniversary of David-the-Elder’s death, he’d certainly been…not so much worried, as preoccupied—which was much the same thing.
And what had Alec been worrying about? Eva—of course. And what had pushed his buttons again last night? Someone who looked like her!
Almost he turned around at that, for a coldness gripped his gut so strongly he well-nigh spewed his coffee. But no, Alec, at least, was okay. Ten minutes ago he’d been flat on his back in bed, dead to the world. Soon as he got back from this little errand, though, they’d have a talk, and he’d invoke the Vow, and they’d have a tiff, but all this secret angst would come out, and things’d be cool again. He’d have to spill his own guts too, of course, but that was the price one paid.
So what was gnawing Aikin? What, last Saturday, would have been his hidden obsession? Faerie! Specifically, his desire to experience that otherness firsthand.
But suppose the enfield had shown up again, as was perfectly possible. And suppose Aik had found it—again, quite reasonable, given how the critter had warmed to him—and suppose he’d tried to get it to show him how to access that place…
Yeah, that was it! Had to be…
Or maybe the little dweeb really was collecti
ng leaves.
He floored the accelerator.
*
It was twenty minutes to Whitehall from Casa McLean y Sullivan. Five of those had elapsed before David’s revelation. He made the remaining fifteen in ten.
Happily, the gate was open when he arrived, so he didn’t have to either explain himself or park the car and run the remaining two miles to the cabin.
Even better, there was no one about. He’d been afraid Cammie had missed his request that she not drop by, and there was no telling what might be up with whichever neighbor had conducted that initial survey. And while Cammie’s nameless friend might be spying from one of the nearby cabins, that he could handle. If affairs lay as he suspected, he’d not be around long anyway.
Still, his drive had given him time to work out a rough battle plan, and the coffee was finally kicking in enough to jump-start his logic, so that he was at once wired to the hilt and strangely calm when he ground to a halt in Aikin’s yard.
A quick check of the windows proved that Cammie had been right about the costume: it was scattered around the room—floor and bed both, the latter evidently not slept in. David tried the front door, but it was locked and he had no key. Aikin’s pickup wasn’t, however, and he quickly found the suspect tape and confirmed the quote about the enfield. He thought of listening to more, since the key to this whole affair was almost certainly squirreled away in there, but one more thing needed checking first. Aik had said he would take the enfield. That implied he had it at his beck and call. Probably he wouldn’t have stashed it in his room (nor was there any sign of that), but there were a number of other places he could think of right off that might do.
Scowling, he made his way down the still-muddy slope beside the cabin to its lower level. Yep, there they were: the fiberglass cages he’d remembered from his last visit. All were empty, but by the time he was in a position to inspect them, he’d also seen the open basement door—and the footprints: two sets of muddy sneaker treads that, by their small size, were surely Aikin’s, one going in, one going out across the concrete porch. The second set was also more widely spaced, as though his friend had been in a hurry. And when David followed them, he found the third.