Kane petulantly threw the closest attacker against the wall. As the wall was on the opposite side of the street, the man hung there for a moment, before sliding down like a filthy and shattered doll. By then Kane had pulled the head off the next assailant and tossed that bit somewhere in the direction of the Lady in Black. The third dead thing lunged for Kane with his knife, but Kane disarmed him, throwing arm and knife into the darkness, and then deftly ripped out his heart.
Hanging back, the last assailant threw his knife at Kane, and, while Kane was catching the blade, rolled behind a large dustbin and pulled an Uzi from beneath his raincoat.
Kane shoved Lennox onto the pavement, as a burst of 9 mm slugs ripped over them. Twisting away, Kane tugged some sort of pistol from his shoulder holster and pointed it at the dustbin. Dustbin, gunman, a parked car, and most of the wall opposite blew apart into glowing cinders.
The Queen of Spades had disappeared.
Tires howled, and a black Jaguar convertible took the turning on two wheels.
“Pitch him in!” Klesst shouted. She was wearing a black leather jumpsuit, and she was already reversing as Kane tossed in his bowler, umbrella, and Lennox, then tumbled in after—all but crushing the lot.
Perhaps thirty seconds had elapsed from Kane’s first appearance. Lennox was in a state of shell shock.
Kane propped up Lennox against the back seat, as Klesst turned Soho streets into Le Mans.
“Well then, Cody,” Kane shouted. “I really don’t think you should have broken our dinner engagement.”
VI. This Ain’t the Summer of Love
“YOU’VE GOT dead bits all over your suit,” Klesst scolded.
Kane muttered and dropped Lennox onto a leather sofa; he had been carrying him pendulant from his jacket collar, and Lennox collapsed like a stringless puppet.
Lennox said: “I need a drink.”
“Single-malted. No ice.” Kane nodded to Klesst. “Rather a large one, I think. Same for me.”
“You just blew up half of Soho,” Lennox remembered.
Kane was shrugging out of his suit jacket, eyeing his carrion-smeared hands in distaste. “Threw in a mundane this time. Wonder whether for you or for me? Play hostess, Klesst. I need a quick wash-up.”
Lennox noticed the weapon in Kane’s left-hand draw shoulder holster. It seemed to be made of almost translucent black plastic, and it reminded Lennox of the Whitney Lightning .22 automatic he had lusted over in the outdoors magazine ads of his youth.
“He just blew up half of London,” said Lennox, accepting the glass from Klesst. “Is that really a raygun?”
“Cosmic ray laser, as close as you’d understand.”
Lennox watched Klesst over his glass as he drank. “Oh, sure. I’ve read too much science fiction for that. Which hand holds the fusion reactor or something?”
“That’s just a selective transmitter. Broadcast power on tight-contain. Trans time-time. Two black holes locked in an antimatter matrix. Dad worked on it for a long real-time.”
“Am I supposed to believe any of that?”
“No, Cody. It’s really just magic.”
“Carried off by Emperor Ming and his charming daughter. This is where writers get their ideas, you know.” And for a while he sipped his drink and waited to wake up.
“May I have another?” Lennox handed her his empty glass. She was very longlegged and very lovely in tight black leather. He decided that DT’s were nothing to be afraid of, after all.
“You know, my friends did warn me it would come down to this in the end,” he told Klesst.
“Still think you’re hallucinating, Cody?” Kane had scrubbed his large hands and switched into formal evening attire. They seemed to be in a spacious sort of oak-paneled study. Lennox looked about for the butler and a stuffed moose’s head.
“I’m not prepared to argue with a hallucination.”
“You might, if I began to pull off your fingers, one at a time,” suggested Kane.
Lennox turned to Klesst. “You’re not really related to this ogre? You don’t look a bit like Myrna Loy.”
Kane nodded to Klesst, and she left the room.
“Have we been properly introduced?” Lennox gulped his imaginary drink. Excellent dream whisky.
“Only if you bother to count the three times I’ve recently pulled your ass out of the fire. I’m Kane.”
“Charles Foster Kane?”
“Just Kane.”
“So, Kane,” said Lennox, sitting up. “How you been? I heard your old folks got evicted. You and your brother still not getting along?”
“Chance?” wondered Klesst, returning with an agate box.
“Not likely. He has the power, but not the control. That’s why they want him. And why they can still get to him.”
Kane opened the box. It was filled with a white powder. “Care to partake of a few numbers, Cody? Time you were getting back to some semblance of lucidity.”
“You Brits manage some awesome coke,” Lennox approved. “Let’s toot up and party till dawn. You’re a great host, Kane, you know, and I’m sorry I called you on ogre. I’m really going to miss you when I wake up. By the way, how old’s your daughter?”
“Old enough to break your back,” Klesst assured him.
“Kinky.” Lennox dipped a golden coke spoon into the white powder, snorted, and refilled for his other nostril. “Smooth.” He quickly repeated the process and handed box and spoon to Kane.
“My special blend,” said Kane. “Took some work to get right. First one’s free.”
“Shit,” said Lennox. He was experiencing a rush like nothing he’d ever felt before. A moment ago he had been close to dropping off into an alcoholic stupor—assuming he hadn’t already passed out somewhere. The drug—clearly not cocaine—cut through the alcohol-soaked blur of his consciousness as shockingly as splinters of ice thrust into his brain. Lennox felt suddenly sober, suddenly aware that he was seated in an opulent study with a leather-clad young lady and a very large and very intimidating man in black tie, and suddenly he began to suspect that this might not be a dream.
“So glad that you could finally join us, Cody,” said Kane. “If you care to stay alive very much longer, there are a few things you really need to know about yourself and about those others who already know all about you.”
Lennox looked at his hands. They should have been trembling, but they weren’t. So, this still had to be a dream.
“Do you understand the popular expression ‘synchronicity’ as used in the sense of ‘coincidence’?”
“Easy one, mine host. Random events or experiences that appear to align in non-random patterns. You start to call your great-aunt Biddie to whom you haven’t spoken in years, and as you reach for the phone, it rings, and it’s your great-aunt Biddie. Some call it ESP. Paranoids see patterns in it all.”
“And you know about the Harmonic Convergence?”
“Some sort of alignment of the planets. Supposed to unleash all sorts of astrological forces, mumbo-jumbo, etc., etc., etc., and change the world forever. What’s your sign, by the way?”
“Not on your zodiac. Give him another hit, Klesst.”
Lennox helped himself to a couple more generous snorts. “It’s some kind of speed, right? Maybe crystal meth mixed with coke?”
“Old world secret,” said Kane. “I’ll send some home with you, perhaps.”
He settled into a leather chair and sipped his drink, watching Lennox. “Suppose a person had the power to control random events?”
“He’d be a very wealthy gambler.”
“Won much on the fruit machines, Cody?”
“Now, whoa!”
“Suppose the conscious wish to talk to great-aunt Biddie were powerful enough to cause her to phone up in response to the wish?”
“Suppose great-aunt Biddie’s wish to talk to me was the cause of my suddenly thinking of her? Touché, I think.”
“Rather, that’s the whole point, Cody. Cause or effect? Because if synchro
nicity is not a random phenomenon, then who controls it? Who is the master?”
“Klesst, sweetheart—go fetch your father his nightly Thorazine, while we discuss the one about the chicken and the egg. By the way, where did you buy that outfit?”
“Kensington Market. I have a stall there. Come visit. We also do tattoos and piercing.”
Lennox was starting to fade, despite the drug. “Already had my ear pierced.”
“That’s just a start.”
“What a coincidence,” said Kane. “Klesst, why not give Cody a sample of your jewelry stock—something to remember us by?”
Lennox was helping himself to the whisky. “I really should be waking up—I mean, getting back. This really has been real, gang. I just hope I can remember it all tomorrow long enough to write it down.”
“You will,” Kane told him. “I’ve seen to that.”
Lennox tossed back straight whisky, then poured another. It was his dream, so he could do as he pleased. “So what about the Moronic Confluence?”
“The Harmonic Convergence was a cosmic expression of synchronicity. It unleashed certain forces, certain latent powers. Your powers, for instance.”
“So now the world will become a better place for all?”
“Afraid not, Cody. It only unleashed forces which you would consider forces of evil.”
“Bummer!”
“Try this.” Klesst handed Lennox a silver pendant affixed to a French hook. It was a sunburst, about the size of a one-pound coin. A circle of somewhat serpentine sunrays framed a sun whose face was that of a snarling demon.
Lennox gazed at the amulet uncertainly.
“Allow me,” said Kane. Very quickly he inserted the silver hook through Lennox’s left earlobe. Lennox winced, touched his hand to his ear, saw blood on his finger. It had been some time since he had had his ear pierced, and the opening must have begun to close.
“Looks good,” approved Klesst.
Lennox remembered that you weren’t supposed to feel pain in a dream, but then he also felt like he was about to pass out, and that wasn’t right for a dream either.
“Where’s that coke?”
“Don’t want to overdo it first time, do we, Cody?” said Kane. “I think you’ve had enough to handle tonight. But not to worry: I’ll be in touch tomorrow. Too late for a taxi, I’m afraid, but we’ll see you safely to your hotel.”
“Keys,” said Klesst, and caught them as Kane tossed.
“I was really very sober there for a minute or two,” Lennox explained, bouncing against Kane’s huge shoulder.
“Short-term effect,” said Kane. “Just be glad of that.”
“How come only evil forces were released?”
“Because there are no good forces.”
“So, then. You don’t believe that there is a God.”
“There was a god.”
“Well, then. Where is he now?”
“I killed him,” said Kane.
VII. Strange Days Have Found Us
LENNOX AWOKE when his bedside phone began ringing at noon. He was in his hotel room, but he hadn’t the slightest as to how he had arrived there. He had some confused memories of the night before . . . But first, the phone.
It was Carson. “Wake up, you lazy sod. We’re all waiting on you.”
“Where?”
“In the downstairs bar. Me and Jack, Geoffrey Marsh and Kent Allard. Come on, you’re missing your breakfast.”
“Be right down.”
Lennox automatically went through the motions of dressing. The morning after a blackout was nothing new for him. He wished he had time to shower, but settled for splashing cold water over his face and shoulders, toweling vigorously. The towel caught on something on his left ear, tugged painfully. Lennox wiped cold water from his eyes and saw the sunburst amulet dangling from his left ear.
“Get serious,” he told his reflection. Must have bought it off a stall during one of his blackouts. But it was all coming back. Vivid memories of Kane and zombie assassins. No way. Another all-too-real nightmare. Maybe he really should cut down on the booze.
Lennox fingered the silver amulet, but the French hook seemed to be fixed within his earlobe, and it hurt to try to draw it free. No time to fool with it now. Lennox splashed a little whisky onto his ear to guard against infection, finished dressing, and took the stairway to the downstairs bar. Art Nouveau stained-glass windows, brightened by the midday sun, made each landing a sort of kaleidoscope, and Lennox was winded and dizzy by the time he reached Peter’s Bar.
“Steam into this,” Carson said. “Reckoned you’d fancy a lager.”
Lennox wedged into the table and drained half the pint in a long swallow. “God, that feels good!” He was surprised to notice that his hands were steady. Must have made it an earlier evening than he’d thought. Good job, that. He was aware that they were all trying not to watch him.
“So, where do you guys want to go for lunch?” Jack Martin asked. “Is there someplace near here where we could, like, get a real pizza?”
“Pizza Express in Soho has American-style pizza,” offered Geoffrey Marsh. “How’ve you been, Cody? Enjoying your trip?”
“So far, so good.” Cody shook hands across the table. “Good to see you, Geoffrey. Jack said you were over.”
Marsh was an athletically fit man whose hair was starting to thin and whose brown beard was showing grey. As he was the same age as Lennox and Martin, the two consoled one another that workouts and tennis evidently could not slow the aging process, and that therefore there was no point in their mending their ways. Marsh wrote what he liked to call “quiet horror” under various pseudonyms, several of which sold very well indeed. He, Martin, and Lennox had been friends and colleagues long enough to become regarded as “the Old Guard” of the horror genre.
“Nice earring, Cody,” said Kent Allard. “Are you turning cyberpunk on us?”
“More likely cyberdrunk,” Lennox said, finishing his pint. “I caught Follies last night, then crawled back here somehow. Look at all the loot I won on the way.”
As he poured forth a handful of fruit machine tokens, Lennox asked casually: “Hear about anything going down in Soho last night? Could have sworn I heard some sort of gunfire or something.”
“Probably just yobbos,” suggested Carson.
“Check the papers, maybe,” said Marsh.
“I never read beyond page three,” Allard said.
Martin was looking hungrily at the fistful of tokens. “Let’s try the machine here. Will it take these same tokens?”
“Just watch me,” Lennox said. “I’m on a streak. Has to do with the Harmonic Convergence.”
As he and Martin made for a fruit machine, Marsh watched them with concern. He asked Carson: “How’s Cody doing? Really.”
Carson was acutely aware of Allard’s attention, and Allard was a notorious gossip. “He’s doing OK,” he lied. “Good as any man might after his wife and her lover are found dead in bed in some posh hotel room. He’ll get through it.”
“I wonder,” said Allard.
“Just watch him, Mike,” worried Marsh. “I don’t think he’s in control just now.”
“Was he ever?” Carson wondered.
It took Martin most of ten minutes to lose all of Lennox’s tokens in the fruit machine, plus the five quid Lennox won for him by suggesting when to hold. Martin then said: “I’m ready to . . .”
Lennox was already starting for the door, but he stopped short. Martin’s voice had halted, as had the plume of his cigarette smoke. Lennox turned about. No one was moving in the pub. Nothing was moving in the pub. Totally freeze-frame. Awesome.
“Same again, mate?” asked Kane, filling a pint mug from behind the bar. “Lager, isn’t it?” He was dressed as a hotel barman.
“What have you done?” Lennox took the pint.
“Time-time,” said Kane, helping himself to a pint of Royal Oak. There were bits floating in it. Kane waited for them to settle.
“It
isn’t three yet,” Lennox protested. The pub and all within were entirely motionless.
“I really like your sense of humor. Actually, I meant I’m holding time-time at stop just a bit. Did you know, Cody, that the energy currently being expended could create two moderately large star systems?”
“All right, I’m impressed,” admitted Lennox. “Are you real, or am I really over the edge?”
“Right on both counts, Cody.” Kane lifted his mug. “Cheers.”
Lennox knocked back his pint, set it down on the bar. Nothing moved, save he and Kane.
“Same again?” Kane asked.
“Might as well. Can anyone else see you?”
“Confusing me with Harvey?” Kane refilled their pints. “And after I’ve just saved your ass yet again.”
“How’s that?” Lennox drank, because there was little else he could do about matters.
“A horrid and malevolent tentacled thing was lurking about. Here. Just now. Looking for you, I think.”
“Didn’t notice one. Where? In the Gents’?”
“No. Behind the fireplace over there. Take a closer look at its tiles, by the way.”
“I’ve seen them. It’s St. George slaying the dragon.”
“I said, a closer look. Take it from an experienced dragon fighter: George isn’t doing all that well. Could have been you just now.”
“I need to sit down.”
“I’ll join you later.”
“I’m going back to my room.”
“In that case, that’s four pounds eighty, please.”
Lennox passed Kane a five pound note, and suddenly everything was moving again.
“. . . go get something to eat,” said Martin, banging on the fruit machine.
“I need out of here!” Lennox was headed for the stair.
But Kane was already seated at their table. He was wearing stone-washed jeans, a Grateful Dead t-shirt, and mirror shades. Lennox was grateful for that last.
“Hello, Cody,” said Kane. “Been so looking forward to meeting you at last.”
“This is Mr. Kane, said Allard, breaking off their earnest conversation. “He’s brought us all invitations . . .”
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