by John Farris
The optical and aural effects lasted, perhaps, seven or eight seconds. Vertigo continued for a longer spell. There was serious barfing going on in Emeril’s elegant restaurant. Those on their feet were reeling around like Bedlamites inventing a dance.
“What the fuck was that?” Harlee said. “The last time I—” Then she turned her head sharply aside to pitch her own cookies.
With an effort Eden kept her dinner salad down. She got slowly to her feet, bracing herself with the aid of Simba, her walking stick. Something came rolling across the floor toward her and she lurched aside, her knee twinging sharply; she was panicked as a child until she recognized a Halloween pumpkin with a goofy, gap-toothed smile carved on it.
Eden looked around, and felt her navel buzzing like a defective doorbell.
But almost as soon as she’d received the surefire signal that she and her doppelganger were about to become united again, the connection abruptly was broken. Leaving Eden feeling puzzled and still unsteady, with her mouth putrid-dry and her head thundering. Exactly as if she’d awakened from a binge with an all-time champ of a hangover.
* * *
J. P. O’Hara, ex-DEA and now deputy director of security at the Venetian, happened to be crossing the main lobby on his rounds, heading to the casino and restaurant row, when the phenomenon occurred.
Once his disordered senses, including depth perception, were fractionally restored, the first thing he focused on was a shimmering corona like an aurora borealis, extending nearly the full breadth of the concourse near the casino. The corona rose in a spire that seemed to pierce the sixty-five-foot frescoed ceiling. The spire was also ablaze, like an enormous stalagmite of ice with the sun shining through it. Mildly vaporous, it showered golden droplets. He thought a little dizzily, Theatrical effect. But way out of place here. And what had caused an immensely expensive replica of a doge’s palace to waver like a match flame in a sudden breeze?
O’Hara shook his head a couple of times, wincing, his heart pumping into overdrive. He used his walkie as he glanced around for casualties, damage, terrorists with automatic weapons.
“All security, all security, main lobby on the double! Guests down. Guests down. We need medical! No, I don’t know what the hell—no, no, couldn’t have been an explosion. No smoke, no rubble. Condition is orange. Might be a diversion for a casino robbery. We’re in lockdown, repeat, lockdown. Alert Metro but let’s hold the goddamn SWATs until I get a read on this!”
He was stumbling toward the still-bright corona, weaving to avoid dozens of people prostrate along the concourse. But they all seemed to be stirring, sitting up. Half of them were being sick all over themselves. Panic? Not yet. Thank you, Jesus and Mary.
He felt steady enough on his pins to jog. The spire above the seething borealis, like Technicolor fog across the floor, was beginning to evanesce, spindrift in the air. If any of it was poisonous, the victims closest to the borealis didn’t appear to be gassed.
O’Hara sidestepped puddles of vomit, trying to talk soothingly to the staggered or crawling victims. Thinking, Lawsuits. But who could say the hotel was liable? Not his problem anyway. The long lobby floor was an optical illusion in shades of yellow and brown marble: the illusion that one was climbing steps.
“Everybody stay down, just stay down please!” He spoke again to security control. “Hank—not sure what it was—is—but—hold on a sec—think I see—no, that can’t be!”
But there it was as he approached the main entrance to the Venetian’s casino. Dimly visible within the radiant borealis but—unmistakably—an antique motorcar. Not a sedan. It had racy lines. A mid-1920s sport coupe.
And he thought he saw a woman, shadowy beside the car. Or—his vision wasn’t perfect yet—it could have been the shape of someone at the threshold of the casino, where there was a lot of milling around. Like wacky revelers in shadows and fog. He heard muted cries. But no hysteria yet.
The woman appeared to be holding something in the crook of an arm. An object with a radiance all its own. Like an oddly shaped jar filled with brilliant rubies.
Someone lurched against O’Hara. He looked away, two seconds, looked again for the ghostly woman. Shadows aplenty in the borealis, but she was gone, and so was the ruby light he had glimpsed.
Never mind. He had another, longer look at the antique car sitting just outside the casino floor. What a beauty. He felt both dazzled and a little angry. If the car was part of a show promo or some charity event, security had been left out of the know.
As the borealis continued to fade and a degree of calm spread, a red-haired boy, midteens probably, crawled unsteadily out of the speedster and leaned weakly against the open driver’s door. Someone else, O’Hara saw, remained inside, not moving.
The boy raised his head and looked around. Still acting stunned. His voice had a squeaky break to it.
“Gwe-ENNNN?” he called. He took a couple of steps and stumbled against a man twice his size. The man wore a cream-colored Stetson and had that well-heeled, oil-patch look.
He caught Patrick and steadied him. “Hey, son, turn on your headlights,” he said, laughing.
There was another one, same size, same Stetson. Identical twins. Family name Tustin. Val and—O’Hara shook his head, his brain still a little dopey, as if he’d spent four hours at the dentist. Cleve was the other twin. They were high rollers exclusive to the Venetian, therefore among thirty or so of the hotel’s most valued guests.
Patrick took in the tall lookalike men and all the security, then glanced behind him at the casino, big as a carnival lot and in the thinning fog as unreal to his eyes as a trompe l’oeil painting.
“Is this your car?” O’Hara demanded.
Patrick looked vaguely at him and at the security badge. Inside the car, his uncle Mickey stirred and moaned softly.
“Hey, not so fast,” Cleve Tustin said with a gold-lined smile. “We saw it first.”
Val, who was still holding Patrick on his feet, said to O’Hara, “Mean to tell us the hotel don’t own it?”
“Well—I—I—couldn’t really say right this moment, Mr. Tustin; but if you and your brother are interested I’ll certainly look into the matter of ownership.”
“It’s m-mine,” Patrick said in a low tone. “MINE and my uncle Mickey’s.”
“What’s your name?” O’Hara barked at Patrick. “And how did you get this car in here? You don’t look old enough to—I think you’d better come with me, I want some answers right now!”
Val Tustin literally placed Patrick under his wing, and looked at O’Hara a shade coolly.
“Well, now. With all the fireworks under control, maybe you need to give the boy a little time to collect himself. Catch his breath. What did you say your name was, son?”
“P-P-Patrick.”
“Pleased to know you, Patrick. I’m Val. This here’s Cleve, the ugly twin. We collect rare cars. You ever laid eyes on a ’26 Franklin coupe in showroom condition, Cleve? Me neither. Like to make you an offer, Patrick, you and your uncle. We could talk about it over dinner if that’s agreeable to the two a you.”
Patrick shuddered; his eyes squinched and tears fell.
“W-where am I?” he said, almost inaudibly. “ANother damn V-Vortex? This CAN’T be a real p-place.”
The mysterious but largely localized disturbance on the main floor of the Venetian between the immense casino and restaurant row, which had been caused by the precipitous arrival of Jonas Fresno’s own sports-model time machine, had barely been felt around the reproduction of St. Mark’s Square on an upper level of the hotel.
Harlee Nations’s crew, doing some shopping on the concourse along the quarter mile of indoor canal, thought, as did everyone else nearby, that the unusual vibration and funhouse-mirror warping of perspective had to have been the result of a minor quake. The singing gondolier whose voice filled the concourse scarcely muffed a note. The water in the canal had slopped against the brick sides, then settled back placidly. That was the extent of the
disturbance in their neighborhood.
Only Flicka, something of a klutz anyway, had lost her balance. She ended up sprawled on one of the arched bridges over the canal. She sat there for a few minutes holding her head during a spell of dizziness, refusing medical attention. Devon brought her a cup of water.
“Must have been the zuppa di pesce,” Flicka muttered.
Devon, Honeydew, and Reese went into Banana Republic to browse. Nic chatted with a Marine in dress uniform. A gondolier standing in the prow of his boat grinned up at Flicka before ducking his head as he passed under the bridge. His single passenger, seated at the other end, didn’t look at Flicka. Her eyes were closed. She looked pale and exhausted. The ruby skull cradled in her lap glowered like a graven image in a novelty-store window.
Flicka, astonished, got to her feet and leaned over the railing on the other side of the bridge as the gondola glided away. Then she called to Devon, who was trying on a safari-style shirt dress in the store. Flicka motioned frantically when Devon looked around. Devon left the store with the other two girls and crossed to the canal in time to see the woman with the ruby skull.
“Omigod!” she whispered.
“Yes.”
The others joined them.
“What’s wrong with you two?” Nic demanded. She was cranky from her impacted wisdom tooth in spite of the Darvon she’d been taking.
Flicka pointed and continued to whisper. “There goes the Avatar.”
“Omigod!” Reese said. “You sure?”
Devon nodded. “Harlee and I saw her earlier tonight at that gallery opposite St. Mark’s. There was a party. Harlee crashed so she could—” Devon paused, frowned. “But the Av was dressed differently then.”
“Where’s Harlee now?” Honeydew asked.
“Don’t know.” She also didn’t know if that was something to be concerned about as she watched the departing gondola disappear around a bend in the canal. Devon’s pulses raced. Something wrong here. “Wait a minute.” She was focused on the red crystal skull. The last time she’d seen it, the skull had been in Harlee’s possession. Devon quickly became anxious. Her thoughts skipped past the skull to that holographic image of Eden Waring’s doppelganger she’d seen at Linc’s place on Charleston Mountain.
What had the dpg hologram been wearing? Devon had a fantastic memory for clothes, if not always for faces. She recalled a ribbed, dark brown or black mock-turtleneck sweater, hip-length over casual plaid slacks. Yes, and leather Nikes or Reeboks. No jewelry. And the Avatar riding in the gondola—hadn’t she been wearing an identical sweater?
Devon gathered the crew around her.
“That wasn’t the Avatar we saw in that gondola! It was her doppelganger.”
“A what?”
“C’mon, Devon.”
“No, I’m double-damn certain of it.”
“How do you know she was a doppel—whatever. Goober,” Reese said, and snickered.
Nic said, “Everybody has one, you gink. Fetchlings included. They’re mirror images. We just can’t get them to show themselves to us. Only Avatars can summon their dpg’s.”
“It’s not a Black Art,” Flicka said. “Is it?”
“This is all real confusin’,” Honeydew drawled. “And a little scary. Two of them? What kind of power does one of these doppelgangers have?”
Nic yawned. “I think they just have to do what they’re told,” she suggested. Her last couple of painkillers had her on the nod at last. She propped herself against lanky Flicka, who adored Nic even when she was moody or caustic. Flicka nuzzled the back of her favorite lover’s head.
“We can talk about dpg’s another time,” Devon said. “Flicka, take Nic home, give her a bath, and put an ice pack on that jaw before she goes to sleep. You two have a job to do on Bertie Nkambe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I’m havin’ dental surgery tomorrow!”
“Right, then. The day after tomorrow. But don’t delay any longer, chums, should they decide to move the Supa to another hospital or a private clinic. Honeydew, you and Reese come with me.”
“Where to?”
“We must catch up to that doppelganger.”
“Uh-oh,” Honeydew said. “Why?”
“We need to learn how she came by that crystal skull. Harlee’s supposed to have it, but—”
“What’s so important about the skull?” Reese asked as the three Fetchlings hurried along the concourse toward the loggia that overlooked the Strip.
“The Great One is depending on it,” Devon said. “That’s all I need to know.”
CHARLESTON MOUNTAIN • NOVEMBER 1 •
12:36 A.M.
Dr. Marcus Woolwine had been looking up on the Web an article from a back issue of Scientific American when he was distracted by a knock on the door of his suite. A Limey houseman told him he had visitors in the first-floor great room of the Magician’s mountain home.
The visitors were three very attractive young women the houseman hadn’t seen before, who were escorting Lincoln Grayle’s female guest of a few days ago. Woolwine received that news with a ripple of electricity up his spine as he pulled on a velvet robe. The houseman went on to observe that Eden Waring’s dpg had appeared unable to stand erect without assistance. And, oh yes, she had with her—was hanging on to with a death grip as it were—an exotic-looking red crystal skull that, frankly, had given the houseman the willies.
Woolwine made haste down to the great room, which had a large circular fireplace in the middle of it, an artificial log fire blazing beneath a dome of tempered bronzed glass.
Gwen was seated on a sectional sofa between two of the girls whom Woolwine didn’t know. The other girl was Devon, the gray-eyed Irish Fetchling whose presence gave him a reminiscent chill as he recalled the stiletto she carried beneath a sleeve of her blouse. Nevertheless he smiled at her.
“My dear!” He looked in astonishment at Gwen, who was gazing at him as if he had appeared within a mantle of thick fog, trying to recall who he was. “Wherever did you find Gwen? I’d all but given up hope—” His gaze lingered, fascinated, on the red skull Gwen held in her lap.
“We found her at the Venetian. Gliding westbound in a gondola.”
“Well, Gwen,” Woolwine said, drawing closer to her, wary of a circulating sparkle like tiny orbiting worlds within the electric depths of the red skull, “I’m amazed that you were able to bring yourself back.”
“Back from where?” asked a fair, toothy girl with a sun goddess’s fluffed corona of white-blond hair. Another Fetchling, he assumed.
“Honeydew, I’ve already explained,” Devon said patiently, as if the fair one were a couple of bananas shy of a bunch. “She was time-traveling in hyperspace. Doppelgangers often take a notion to do that.” Dev looked at Woolwine. “At least that’s what Dr. Woolwine told Harlee and me while we were here the other night.”
Woolwine nodded. “I spoke the solemn truth. By the way, I’m also delighted to see you again. Devon, is it?”
“Who is yon dwarfish fellow?” Delilah asked, before Gwen’s eyes glazed and her head began to loll.
“It’s all right, lovey,” Devon said to her. “You know him. He’s a doctor. Your doctor. He’ll look after you until you’re feeling ever so much better.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Woolwine said. “Not ill, is she?”
“Just out of it.”
“Maybe she suffered reentry problems,” said Reese, who was on the other side of Gwen with a helpful arm around the dpg’s shoulders. “Like, coming in from hyperspace, couldn’t that knock a kidney loose or something? I’m only speculating.”
“Smell her breath,” Honeydew objected mildly. “She’s snockered. I’m talkin’ totally blitzed, y’all.”
Delilah began to sing, softly, “My Baby Don’t Wear No Shoes.”
“Extraordinary,” Woolwine said, his hairless scalp tingling. He decided to retreat from the cosmically active skull, afraid that his pacemaker might misbehave.
“Whatever the proble
m, a good night’s sleep is the best thing for her,” Devon said. She looked pointedly at Woolwine. Her Borgia stare. “She will be all right here? We’ve all become rather F-O-N-D of Gwen.”
“Even though she can be funny-talkin’,” Honeydew observed. “I mean funny like Elizabethan hip-hop.”
“I’ll be personally responsible for her,” Woolwine said, “in the absence of our host.” He was looking now at the taped gauzelike patch on the side of Gwen’s neck where he had implanted his Magnetic Flux Inhibitor Unit, which sequestered Gwen from her homebody’s beck and call. Was it still there? If not, who had excised it, Gwen herself? Too many mysteries all at once, and he was up past his usual bedtime. “If I may presume,” he continued, with a blithe smile at Devon, “you have all been so thoughtful thus far, but from the look of her Gwen ought to be put to bed immediately. I’ll give her a little something to ensure sound rejuvenating sleep. All of you are welcome to stay the night—or for as long as you like. Of course, we are at the threshold of a potential tragedy—”
Devon shook her head, russet hair aswirl. “Don’t say that! The Gr—Lincoln Grayle is not dead! He isn’t missing either, in spite of what everyone thinks. He will be back, and quite soon.”
“That’s wonderful news. So you’ve heard from—”
“No. Not us. But Harlee—I think Harlee knows for sure. I trust Harlee.”
“Wonderful news,” Woolwine repeated, looking unenlightened.
Gwen’s eyes had been closed; now she looked back at him, then all around the great room with its dome of fire and corner shadows. For now Woolwine was gratified to have Gwen back, more interested in her than he was in Lincoln Grayle’s whereabouts. Gwen presented to him, in his eighth decade, a unique opportunity that had gone unexplored in the limited time they’d already spent together. As for the refreshing night’s sleep he’d proposed—he had the expertise and chemical means to keep Gwen isolated, docile, and fully under his control for as long as he wished. Assuming that Lincoln Grayle had no further use for her. But Grayle, in spite of Devon’s assurances, was most likely in a highly pulverized state beneath tons of concrete and rock at the foot of the mountain that bore his name.