In one of these rooms, Michael surmised, the bodies of Lamia and Tristesse had been found. He could not tell which room. If the police had laid down paint or chalk around the bodies, it was no longer evident, at least not in the dimming beam of his flashlight.
He shook the light and felt a small anxiety at its declining batteries.
The membrane between himself and the otherness was thinning. Michael was certain that at some time in the recent past, Sidhe had been here. What they had been doing, and with what purpose, he could not tell.
Someone or something had returned through Clarkham's house, a solitary return, not likely to be repeated because the house had felt inert. The eleventh floor of the Tippett Residential Hotel did not feel inert.
Sidhe were migrating to Earth. He had seen that much in his "dreams".
Soon, a gate would open here, and many Sidhe would emigrate through this building, perhaps on this very floor.
Possibly, at the beginning, Lamia and Tristesse had tried to block passage to the hotel. The Sidhe themselves had cursed them to assume the roles of guardian and gatekeeper, but when they were no longer necessary, in fact an impediment, the sisters - Clarkham's former lovers - might have been killed and cast aside by much stronger forces.
The door to the staircase going to the penthouse had been propped open with a crumbling rubber doorstop. Michael ascended from the eleventh floor to the twelfth, leaving behind the imprisoned music.
The penthouse apartment had once been surrounded by broad, floor-to-ceiling windows, fitted with heavy drapes. The drapes were gone, leaving only their broken and despondent fittings, and the glass windows had been shattered. Their shards crunched under his shoes. Wind blew through the empty suite of rooms, whistling but not mourning, for only the skeleton of the building restrained it on this level.
On the open deck, Michael stood with his hair flicking back and forth, looking out across the hills behind the Strip. Most of the lights in the Hyatt had been turned off. He walked around the deck to the opposite side and stared across the bright lights of downtown Hollywood and Los Angeles beyond. Dawn was the faintest suggestion of a lighter midnight blue in the east. The air smelled sweet and pure after the decay in the enclosed spaces below. He breathed deeply of it and stretched his arms out, jaws gaping wide, neck bones cracking with tension.
"What a night," he said. His voice was flat and vague in the wind-sound.
Something was very definitely going to happen. Whether he was prepared or not, Michael didn't know, but he was expectant, almost eager.
"Come and get me," he said, and then felt a chill. But stay away from those I love.
Even at this hour, the city lights were a wonder and a glory. Ranks of orange streetlights marched off to the horizon. High-rise towers, far off in the clear night air, offered random glowing floors as cleaning crews finished their night's work.
People.
His kind.
Shitting on floors.
Dreaming, growing old or sleeping in cribs with developing minds dreaming feverishly of vague infant things; working late into the morning or tossing restlessly, coming up out of slumber into an awareness of the imminent day; maybe somewhere someone killing a person, an animal, an insect, someone killing himself; someone being born; someone realizing inadequacies, or preparing breakfast for the early-risers; sleeping off a drunk or making early morning love; tossing through insomnia. Mourning a loved one. Waiting for the night to be over.
Just sleeping.
Just sleeping.
Just sleeping.
Unaware.
Having lived all their lives in the midst of mind-silence, in the midst of stolid and infinitely detailed reality. Never knowing anything of their distant past except perhaps through vague racial memories, bubbling up as fantasy or delusion.
Hoping for magic and change; hoping desperately for escape; or simply clinging, unable to imagine something beyond. Once in, never out, except through the black hole of death.
"Jesus," he whispered on the deck above the city and the hills. His mind was racing toward a precipice.
Every little fractured emotion, every grand exaltation, all bred of Earth and nurtured by Earth and all without the compensation of what Michael had experienced, the true and undeniable awareness of another reality, another history and truth to match the grandest fantasies.
His neck-hair rose again. Some of the music he had felt through his skin one floor below had insinuated itself through the building and found him again. A high, piercing chord of horns and strings blowing and bowing without relenting, a note of intermingled doom and hope (how was that possible?) conveying an
emotion unfelt for ages
Michael began to shake
the emotion that was the grandfather of all emotions, from which all human feelings had been struck off like shards from a flint core.
Michael heard a voice in his mind, neither Death's Radio nor Arno Waltiri, a voice he did not recognize, very old, conveying the word Preeda
that was its name, the emotion that burned inside of him, threatened to burn him hollow; the only true emotion, foreign to the Sidhefor sixty million years and almost lost to humans.
Michael reveled in the sudden breaking of the mind-silence, and simultaneously a muscle-twitching terror infused him through the burning Preeda.
Soon we will meet, the ancient voice conveyed.
Earth's silence had been broken.
Michael saw mapped across the back of his brain an infinity of shining scales and dark, murky water.
"Enough!" he screamed out across the city. "Please! Enough!"
The building became as dead and silent as the rest of the Earth.
Michael gulped back saliva to soothe his raw throat and wiped the flood of wetness from his cheeks and eyes. He might be hoarse for a week. Certainly he would be hoarse when he met Kristine Pendeers to show her the manuscript.
Everyday was back. Thoughts, concerns, schedules, plans.
Preeda was gone, but where it had been, its track was clear. And he had brought it on himself, by concentrating on the city and the people - the humans - living in it, by concentrating on their situation and breaking through to some sort of understanding.
The dissonant chord of homs and strings had also pushed.
Hopkins was waiting for him in the lobby, sitting on the top of the counter, heels kicking at the torn upholstery. "See any spooks?' he asked.
Michael shook his head.
"Find any more bodies?"
"No."
"Now do you see why no one would live here?"
He slipped one hand in his coat pocket, then nodded. "Yes."
"Thought you might. You look the type that might understand." Hopkins's Adam's apple convulsed in his long neck. "Thank you for that, and amen," he said, and led Michael down the stairs to the maintenance door.
They separated in the dawn with nothing more said.
Chapter Six
He did not sleep. By the time he returned to the house, there was less than an hour before Kristine would arrive. He showered and changed his clothes, then decided now was as good a time as any to do a load of laundry. He did not feel sleepy; the old patterns could be retrieved without effort, apparently.
He hauled his clothes in a wicker basket to the service porch, across from the closed basement door, and stuffed them into the washer, then poured in soap from a half-empty box of detergent. He hefted the box thoughtfully. Golda had used the first half.
Michael suddenly felt like an invader. Whether or not he had been invited, this was not his home; he did not have any real place on Earth now, and he had never found a place in the Realm. He had neither the achieved position of an adult nor the allotted circumstances of a child; what he had was a kind of mid-range sinecure.
But he was hardly so naive as to believe that Waltiri had arranged for the sinecure out of the goodness of his heart. "You'll earn your place," he told himself, dipping his hand into the spray of warm water in the washing
machine.
He entered the library and looked around for things to straighten or put back in place, more out of nerves than necessity. The room was neat and quiet. Opening the safe, he removed the manuscript of Opus 45 and carefully slipped it into a manila envelope. The smell had dissipated, for which he was grateful. He carried the package into the living room and placed it on the polished black lacquer surface of the closed piano lid.
Letting everything take its course.
And when would he begin to guide the process?
At seven-fifteen, the door chimes rang. Michael answered expectantly and found himself face-to-face with a man in a brown suit, arms folded, carrying a zippered black folder tucked beneath one. The surprise on Michael's face must have been evident.
"Excuse me," the man said. "I'm Lieutenant Brian Harvey, LAPD homicide." He held the case under his elbow and produced a badge in a leather holder, which he suspended before Michael for several seconds, letting him examine it carefully. "This house belongs to - belonged to - Mr. Arno Waltiri?"
"Yes," Michael said. He suddenly felt guilty. The man's clear, steady blue eyes regarded him without accusation or any sign of emotion, but Michael's thoughts were already racing to find some explanation for the presence of a police detective.
"I'm sorry to be here so early, but I need to ask you some questions," Harvey continued. "Your name is Michael Perkins?"
"Perrin," Michael corrected.
"And you're in charge of Mr. Waltiri's estate."
"Yes."
"May I come in?"
Michael stood aside and motioned for the detective to enter. Harvey surveyed the hall and living room with eyebrows lifted. His receding fair hair had been cut to a close bristle on his scalp. His skin was pink and slightly puffy, but he appeared slender and in good shape. Michael did not even think of probing his aura of memory; it did not seem appropriate under the circumstances, and he was wary of what might happen if the lieutenant suspected he was doing something unusual.
Why so anxious? he asked himself.
He thought of Alyons, and of the Sidhe who had taken him into the Irall - his last brushes with appointed authority.
"We've encountered Mr. Waltiri's name under some unusual circumstances," Harvey said, standing before an easy chair. "May I sit?"
Michael nodded.
"Are you expecting somebody?" The lieutenant sat with the black folder resting on his crossed knees.
Yes, actually," Michael said. "But if I can help you."
"Maybe you can. I don't know. You made some visits to the Tippett Residential Hotel up on Sunset. Why?"
Michael's nerves suddenly calmed. Now he knew the direction the conversation was going to take. He immediately probed the lieutenant: a quiet, orderly room with stacks of paper awaiting methodic and concentrated attention. Michael liked the man almost immediately; he was no Alyons. Harvey was smart and cautious and thoroughly professional. Michael had no reason to hide anything from him but no immediate reason to divulge anything, either.
"I heard about the bodies found there," Michael said. "Maybe it was ghoulish, but I decided to go have a look."
"And Mr. Ronald Hopkins gave you access to the building just this morning. About four hours ago."
"Yes. He said he was the former owner."
"Did he tell you the place was haunted?"
Michael nodded. "Something to that effect."
Harvey smiled pleasantly "Just happenstance, whim, that you went there, then"
Michael returned the smile.
"Do you know anything about the bodies found in the Tippett building?"
"Yes," Michael said. Harvey's eyes widened with interest, and he nodded encouragement to continue. "One was a very large woman, about eight hundred pounds, and the other was a mummy"
"That's all?"
"Hopkins said they were named Lamia and Tristesse. Sadness."
"You found that intriguing?"
"Yes."
"Did he tell you about the note found with them?"
"He said there was a carved stone tablet with their names on it."
"But he didn't see the tablet himself?"
"I don't think so. I don't know."
"Did you see the tablet?"
Michael shook his head.
"No, and neither did photographers from the papers, or anybody outside my department. I have photographs of the bodies. Could you identify them?"
Michael shrugged. "It should be easy to tell-"
"What I'm asking, Mr. Perrin, is whether you know of any connection between Mr. Waltiri and these women?"
"No"
"It's just coincidence that you're interested in the building at this particular time."
Michael said nothing. Harvey opened the folder. "You were missing for five years, right? Your parents notified the police five-and-a-half years ago, and when you returned, you didn't offer any explanations. Was this in connection with Arno Waltiri?"
"Yes," Michael said,
"But he was dead before you. left the scene. Did he give you any instructions, any last-will-and-testament-type requests?"
"Yes."
"What were they?"
"I am to care for his estate and prepare his papers for donation to an institution."
"Did he give you instructions before you left?"
Michael shook his head. Let the detective interpret that whichever way he wanted.
"Did you know these two women?"
The simplest answer, Michael decided, was none at all.
Harvey waited patiently and, when Michael didn't reply, sighed and said, "Do you know of any connection between them and Waltiri?"
"No."
"Then why was Waltiri's name on the stone tablet, along with theirs?"
"I don't understand."
The lieutenant produced a glossy eight-by-ten photograph from the folder and held it out with fingers at the top corners for Michael's inspection. Michael took the photo and sat down in the chair across from Harvey's. The depiction was of a block of stone, about ten inches square and several inches deep, judging from a ballpoint pen placed on the floor beside it for scale. On the tablet was carved:
Lamia
Tristesse
Guardians past need
Victims of Arno Waltiri
"Can you see why we might be suspicious, why we think there might be a connection?" Harvey asked. "One of my younger officers knew that Waltiri was a composer and that he had died. I took it from there. Eventually, you made the connection seem much stronger."
"How did they die?" Michael asked.
"We don't know. The mummy had been dead for some time. And if you're concerned about my not believing a very strange story, well, don't be. I'll listen to anything."
"I still don't understand," Michael said.
Harvey leaned forward, replacing the photograph. "The fat woman was shedding her skin. It was loose, like a sack. And the mummy." He cleared his throat and looked troubled. "Had a very odd affliction. Too many joints. Some sort of freak. We thought they might be circus freaks. Were they ever in the circus?"
"I don't know," Michael said.
Harvey took a deep breath. "There's stuff you'd tell me, but-"
The chimes sounded again.
"Your visitor," Harvey said.
"Yes."
"Was it murder?" Harvey asked, staring at him intently.
"I don't know," Michael said.,
"You're not holding something back because you're involved?"
"No, I'm not," Michael said. "It would be difficult to explain. Perhaps later - we can talk? If you'll tell me more, I'll tell you. " No need to dissemble. "I'll tell you as much as you'll believe. I don't want to hide anything. Their being in the building was a surprise to me."
Harvey took another deep breath and stood up. "Later today?"
"Fine."
"Four o'clock this afternoon, I'll call you here."
"Fine."
"You're not leaving town, Mr. Perrin?"
&nbs
p; "No."
"Better answer your door."
Michael opened the door, and Kristine stood there, smiling and radiant and expectant. The contrast was so sharp Michael felt another brush with Preeda. Harvey stepped up behind him, said hello pleasantly to her, and then glanced at Michael as he walked in an S around them and out the door. "Four o'clock," he reiterated.
Greg Bear - Songs of Earth 2 - Serpent Mage Page 7