End of the Century (28 page)

He grew silent for a moment and glanced around the room. Alice felt her lids growing heavy. She hadn't had a good night's sleep in days, and instead of perking her up the coffee was just counteracting the effects of the drunk enough to make her aware of just how tired she was, really.

Stillman took a deep breath and shook his head, as if dislodging memories stuck to the sides of his skull.

“Anyway, the Huntsman, right? He was a human affected by a reality incursion, like I said, who subsequently gave rise to legends about the Wild Hunt. A rational event become a myth. He's been around for years, but has to spend half a century hibernating for every couple of years he's awake. When last he was abroad…” He fell silent for a moment, and a cloud passed over his face. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, as if remembering some old pain. Then he opened his eyes and continued. “His dogs, on the
other hand? The Gabriel Hounds, as legend remembers them? They can stay awake and active all the time, more's the pity. Usually they stick near where the Huntsman sleeps, though, which is far enough away not to bother the rest of us. They're damned hard to kill, they are. I saw one of them put down back in the forties, but I'd not want to try that again myself any time soon.”

Alice's head dipped, her chin touching her chest, and she jerked her head back up, trying to make it look like a nod. It felt like her brain was sloshing around in her skull, and she felt dizzy as her eyes rolled.

Stillman's gaze was on the crest on the far wall, his thoughts somewhere far away.

“What about the raven?” Alice said, slurring.

“It's a rook,” Stillman said, still looking at the crest. “As is the tower, if you get right down to it. The legend goes that the continued existence of England depends on the presence of at least seven ravens in the Tower of London. I suppose that's where they got the idea for calling MI8 field operatives ‘Rooks,' what with our headquarters being here beneath the Tower and all.” He turned and took in her bewildered expression. “Oh, you meant the ravens on the road, didn't you?” He shook his head. “Can't help you there, love. Don't have a clue what that was about.”

Alice tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn, and with her voice rising and falling with the yawn, said, “If this is so secret, why are you telling me?”

“What's that?” Stillman cupped his hand to his ear. “Couldn't quite make that out.”

Alice shook her head and, as clearly as she could manage, said, “Why are you telling me all of this, if it's so secret?”

Stillman smiled, sadly. “I'm tired of secrets and mysteries, love. I gave all that up a long time ago. But why I'm telling you? Well, you're something of a mystery yourself, aren't you? Like how you knew my name when I've been careful to be off the books and out of sight for a long, long time. And just what the Huntsman and his dogs want with you, anyway.”

Alice opened her mouth to answer, to say she had no idea, but only yawned again.

“That's enough for one night, I think,” Stillman said, standing up and taking the half-empty mug from Alice's hand and the smoldering cigarette
from between her fingers. “Get some rest, all right, and maybe tomorrow we can find some answers together.”

Alice woke early, as she always did after a night of heavy drinking. It never seemed fair that just when her body most needed the rest, it just couldn't seem to get it. She'd fallen asleep on the couch, right where Stillman had left her. The lights were all off, except for those under the cabinets on the walls of the kitchen, streaming dimly into the living space.

Alice's stomach churned. She felt like she needed to eat, or to vomit, or both. Best to try some food and hope for the best.

In the kitchen, she found what looked like some kind of cinnamon roll in the fridge, and the remains of a pot of tea on the stove. The tea probably belonged down the drain, but while it smelled a little bitter, it tasted all right poured over ice with a few generous spoonfuls of sugar.

With the pastry and iced tea in her, Alice felt marginally better. She turned on a lamp near the sofa, and by its light fished her toiletries out of her backpack. A short while after she emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered, teeth brushed, and dressed in a clean white T-shirt, jeans, and fresh bra and panties. From the looks of the bathroom, there must be another shower in the place, since this one clearly hadn't been used in some time. Probably behind the closed door at the end of the hallway, behind which Stillman was presumably still asleep.

The whole place had a makeshift look to it, as though spaces intended for other uses had been repurposed. The furniture in the living room, for example, must have been the height of fashion in the sixties or seventies, and was still in good enough repair that with the rug underneath it was cozy enough, but on closer examination it was clear that the room had originally been some sort of work space. The kitchen had the look of a filing room into which someone had just added a sink, stove, and refrigerator.

The door to the right of the bathroom was open and led to a narrow hallway. Padding quietly on her bare feet, Alice ventured into the gloom, curious.

At the end of the hallway was another room, and when Alice flipped on
the light switch, she saw it was nearly as large as the living space. Aside from a door in the far wall, the rest of the room was covered in shelves, crammed full of leather-bound books and piles of loose-leaf paper and folders, or framed pictures and paintings.

One painting in particular had a place of prominence, on the left-hand wall. It was hung high with a pair of small spotlights trained on it. It was a portrait of a man in Victorian evening dress, with a red orchid in his lapel. He had an unreadable expression on his face, at once wistful and sad and strange. Alice thought he looked something like Jeremy Irons in
Brideshead Revisited
, which her mother had insisted that they watch every time it was replayed. Where Naomi Vance had a weakness for Michael Caine, for Samatha Fell it was all Jeremy Irons, all the time. Alice, of course, thought they were both crazy; as if any actor could be better than Johnny Depp.

Below the portrait, in a display case, was a silver chalice of some kind. It had a large bowl with letters or runes engraved around the rim, sitting on top of a conically shaped foot, with a round bulb where the bowl met the base.

“Quite the liberty taker, aren't you, love?”

Alice whirled around, her heart in her throat.

In the open door stood Stillman Waters, wearing a silk dressing gown, leaning casually against the jamb. His hair was out-of-the-shower damp, and his face was clean shaven.

“Helped yourself to the last of my Chelsea buns, I see. And used the shower in the bargain.”

“The knob for the cold water sticks in the shower.”

Stillman smiled. “That's why I never use that one, myself. Put it in for visitors, didn't I? But doesn't do much good if no one ever visits, which they don't.”

Alice turned and looked up at the portrait. “Who is that?”

Stillman came to stand beside her. It was a long moment before he spoke. “A…friend…of mine. He died in Iceland, a long time ago.”

“Ah.” Alice nodded. She could tell by the way he'd said it that “friend” really mean “more than a friend.”

“Ah?” Stillman looked at her with an eyebrow cocked.

“Sorry,” Alice said, flustered. “I mean…I just wasn't sure, you know?”

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans, her elbows tucked in tight. “I apparently have difficulty telling the difference between English and gay.”

Stillman smiled. “Well, I don't make it any easier on you being both, do I?” He looked up at the portrait. “But
he
wasn't even English. Was one of the original Americans, I suppose you might say.”

Alice looked back at the young Jeremy Irons with the strange, far-off look and the red orchid in his lapel. “He doesn't
look
much like a Native American.”

“Oh, not a Red Indian, love. I meant…” He shook his head. “Oh, never mind.”

Alice shrugged and drifted on down the wall. Next to the portrait in its place of prominence was a black-and-white photograph in a gold frame. There were two men and a woman in the picture. One of the men was clearly the same as the one in the portrait, but Jeremy Irons a few years on,
Lolita
, maybe, or even older. The other seemed to be a younger Stillman Waters, a Michael Caine somewhere between
Alfie
and
The Ipcress File
. And the woman?

“Hey!” Alice leaned in close. Sure enough. “That looks just like the chick I met last night in the bar. Her name was Roxanne…Roxanne Something-or-other.” She turned to Stillman. “A few years older, though. And it couldn't be the same woman, of course. Maybe her mother? Or grandmother even?”

Stillman looked from the photo to Alice, head tilted to one side. “Roxanne, you say?” He glanced back at the picture. “Interesting.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, puzzling something out. He moved to stand before the chalice and squinted at the figures engraved around its rim.

“What's it say?” Alice asked.

“Never could make heads or tails of it. It's Old Norse, but nonsense.” He leaned closer, raising his eyebrows, and began to read aloud, “
Vetki, tveir, vetki, sjau…
” He left off, straightened, and turned to look at Alice. “‘Nothing, two, nothing, seven…' Just goes on like that. If it's a poem, it's an exceedingly poor one. It was a gift from a friend a long time ago. But…” He trailed off and glanced at the portrait. Then he clapped his hands and brightened. “But enough of these moldering memories. Come on, let me fix us a proper breakfast.”

Alice sat on the couch with a fresh mug of coffee, watching television while Stillman stood over the stove, a frying pan's handle in one hand, a spatula in the other. The room filled with the smell of toasting bread and bacon and made Alice's mouth water. The cinnamon roll—or Chelsea bun, as Stillman called it—had staved off the worst of the hunger pangs, but she was still absolutely starving.

Lighting a cigarette, Alice moved the ashtray onto the cushion next to her, propped her feet up on the coffee table, and flipped through the channels with the remote. On one channel there was something called
Blue Peter
, which seemed to be about a group of extremely friendly people who couldn't stop smiling, their pets, and crafts. Another channel was showing American cartoons. Another was running some sort of newsmagazine. Another sports highlights. And so on. Alice settled on the newsmagazine.

She'd flipped over midway through a story about the Glastonbury Festival, the same outdoor concert she'd seen on television the day before. This one was a bit more in depth, and kept showing clips from previous festivals, apparently dating back to the late sixties or early seventies, from the looks of them. There was David Bowie, in his long-haired hippie days. And here was David Rapapport backstage, whom Alice recognized as the little person from
Time Bandits
. And here was Iain Temple, made up to look like an alien in a silver jumpsuit, head and brows completely shaved, and eyes hidden behind opalescent contacts. The host of the news show came on and informed younger viewers that, Yes, the alien on screen was indeed the founder and CEO of Temple Enterprises in his more carefree days. Cut to a more recent bit of file footage, and a more normal-looking Iain Temple dressed in a collarless shirt and vest, being interviewed on the occasion of the grand opening of his London headquarters, Glasshouse in Canary Wharf; Temple responded to old accusations that Bowie had stolen his entire look for
The Man Who Fell to Earth
, which had fueled rumors that the idea of Ziggy Stardust, too, had been inspired by Iain Temple's opal-eyed “Visitor from a Broken Earth” persona.

Then the story shifted, talking about the origins of the Glastonbury Festival, about how it had supposedly been inspired in part by
The View over
Atlantis
, John Michell's 1969 book that proposed that nearby Glastonbury was part of the hidden landscape of England, one of a number of nexuses of power where ley lines met, an ancient holy sanctuary.