J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (16 page)

Market Street! A Boundary!

Anogh felt almost weary as he watched the mage follow the two mortals onto the busy thoroughfare. An old boundary, a street that had existed for more than a hundred years, a main route that separated two old sections of the city. The poor fellow was making it rather easy for the mage, choosing a path down a Boundary where the separation between the Three Realms was thin and tenuous. While the Sidhe might pass freely from one Realm to another, it was difficult, sometimes near impossible, to bring a mortal across without the use of an old boundary. And Paul had now made it easy for the mage following him.

How could such a wizard be so stupid?

Paul glanced over his shoulder at the apparition following them. As the sun slipped toward the horizon the sky in the west was turning a deep-purple, the kind of sunset that didn’t happen in San Francisco, more like something one might see farther up the coast on a summer night in Seattle. The crowds were thinning as he and Katherine hurried down the street. And farther down Market Paul spotted some sort of street entertainer wearing medieval garb and leading a donkey pulling a two wheeled cart piled with thatch, or hay, or something like that. The guy was going to get arrested. San Francisco didn’t let anyone lead a live donkey down the street.

Katherine tugged on his arm, pulled him to a stop and forced him to face her. “This is all wrong, Paul. Something’s really wrong here.”

As dusk settled over the city the buildings around them had turned tenuous and indistinct, and between buildings he caught glimpses of a green and verdant, rolling countryside. “This is more of your weird shit, isn’t it?”

She put her hands on her hips and frowned angrily. “It’s not
my
weird shit. In the short time I’ve know you I’ve had more weird shit happen to me than in the rest of my entire life.”

Paul glanced back up Market, saw no sign of pointy-ears. “Well we still gotta worry about your elf friend.” He grabbed her elbow, turned and continued east down Market.

At Montgomery Street they stepped off the curb, though they had to skip over a lot of dirt in the gutter. They crossed the street against the light, though, oddly enough, there was no traffic, and he almost slipped in a large stretch of grass in the middle of the street. They both danced around a small shrub, and he wondered for a moment what grass and a shrub were doing in the middle of the street. Katherine stopped and looked at the shrub. “This is not good, Paul.”

“Ya!” he said. “You just figured that out? Maybe some delivery truck from some nursery accidentally dropped part of its load, didn’t bother to stop and clean up the mess.”

She turned and continued across the street, grumbled over her shoulder, “You don’t believe that crap any more than I do.”

He followed close on her heels, dared not slow down, really didn’t want to find out what would happen if pointy-ears caught up with them. But reality shifted, twisted out of control down a strange spiral track, and when they got to the other side of Montgomery there was no curb, just a muddy track and deep grass.

Katherine stopped abruptly and Paul almost ran into her. The sky in the east had taken on the same deep-purple hue as the western horizon where the sun had set. From one heartbeat to the next the street had emptied of all traffic and people, and Paul and Katherine now stood alone on the muddy corner of Market and Montgomery. The buildings around them had grown almost translucent, were now really just shadows of what they’d once been.

Katherine whispered, “We’re in deep shit.”

“Yuh think?”

Paul turned around and looked back up Market, which wasn’t Market anymore. It was just a long dirt road in the middle of a green countryside. And Paul could see pointy-ears clearly now, alone, no crowds in Union Square, no Union Square for that matter, just pointy-ears marching toward them purposefully.

Paul turned full circle. San Francisco was just plain gone. The entire sky had taken on that deep-purple hue, and he and Katherine now stood on a dirt road in the middle of a vast moor. The dirt road snaked into the distance, passing near a stone hut with a thatched roof, where the fellow with the donkey and cart had stopped. The road led to some sort of large medieval structure on the far horizon. It was too distant to make out details, but it appeared to be a castle.

Paul turned back to pointy-ears, and as the man strode up to them, Paul stepped in front of Katherine protectively. The fellow stopped a few paces away and smiled, and in the fading light Paul noticed the pupils of his eyes were vertically slit like those of a cat.

Reality blinked and Paul felt a strange shift in his guts; and now the fellow wore armor brightly enameled in a myriad of colors, with a dangerous looking sword strapped to his side, his face partially hidden behind a masked helm, his cat-eyes peering through narrow slits, his mouth and chin visible below an ornate nose-guard.

Paul took a step back and bumped into Katherine. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The fellow’s smile turned into an unfriendly grin. “I have what I want.”

“And what’s that?” Paul demanded, thankful the fellow hadn’t drawn that sword.

“You, mortal,” the man said, and his grin turned absolutely cheesy. “Welcome to Faerie.”

Anogh watched the mage use the Boundary to manipulate the probability of Paul’s existence on the Mortal Plane, watched Katherine sucked into the vortex the mage had created about Paul, watched the two of them slowly grow more indistinct and intangible as they hurried down Market Street. And then reality shifted and they no longer existed in the here and now.

“What say ya, Boo?”

Anogh turned toward the sound of the voice. Boo’Diddle stood leaning against the pole of a streetlight, while Jim’Jiminie sat atop a post office box cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a small dagger. Boo’Diddle said, “Tis a sad day, Jimmie me boy. Sad indeed when a fine Sidhe warrior such as this boy-oh  . . .” He indicated Anogh with a nod of his head. “ . . . stands idly by and allows such injustice to be perpetrated on a poor mortal.”

“Injustice?” Anogh asked. “The young man is a wizard and the young woman a witch. They should’ve known better, but instead were easily—almost foolishly—trapped by a mage. Where’s the injustice in that? And why should I intervene?”

Jim’Jiminie finished working on one of his fingernails and examined it carefully as he said, “You’ll not want the wrath of the old man when he learns of the abduction of his daughter.”

“No one abducted the daughter. She was merely in the way.”

The leprechaun looked at Anogh and grinned. “Do you really think he’ll see it that way?”

The leprechaun was not incorrect in that. “You do have a valid point there, little man.”

Jim’Jiminie cocked his head. “And don’t forget the young wizard is yet unaware of his own powers.”

Now that was something Anogh had not known. And it explained the fellow’s ignorance.

A large black crow fluttered out of the sky and landed on the streetlight above. The triple goddess often appeared in the form of a crow, and Anogh eyed it warily. At the moment he didn’t sense the presence of the Morrigan, but then he couldn’t sense her if she didn’t want him to. And she certainly was in play in this, had awakened after centuries of silence and taken interest in this Paul Conklin fellow.

Boo’Diddle looked up at the crow and grinned. “And the Morrigan will frown upon anyone who prevents him from realizing his full potential.”

Anogh approached the little man and demanded, “And what’s the Morrigan’s interest in this?”

The little man shrugged. “The old hag has not chosen to enlighten me humble self.”

The little fellow pointed a gnarled finger at Anogh. “But take care, knight. Ignore her summons at your own peril. Ignore her summons at the peril of all Faerie.”

The crow squawked angrily, leapt from the top of the streetlight and dove straight for Anogh. He ducked, wary of its talons, but at the last instant it unfurled its wings and pulled out of the dive just above his head, shrieking as it gained altitude. With its wings hammering at the air it screeched and cawed, and as it dwindled in the distance its cries sounded like the insane, diabolical laughter of a madwoman.

Jim’Jiminie waggled his dagger in Anogh’s direction. “The old hag has made her wishes known, knight.”

“And you,” Anogh demanded, looking from one little man to the other. “Why such interest from the non-aligned fey? What game are you playing?”

The two leprechauns looked at each other, grinned, then disappeared.

When Colleen found Paul’s bed empty she used the arcane voice to call McGowan.
Walter, the young man is gone.

She heard McGowan coming up the stairway, taking the steps two at a time. When he burst into the room he stopped just inside the door and snarled. “He broke my sleep spell.”

“Maybe he’s just immune to it.”

McGowan shook his head. “He broke my locator spells too.”

“But how do you break a sleep spell when you’re not conscious to break it.”

McGowan reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a couple of fetishes. “Nothing about this young man adds up.”

As he studied the charms carefully she asked, “What have you got there?”

“Used some blood-soaked threads from his bandages to make it easy to locate him.” He took one fetish in each hand and separated them, looked carefully from one to the other. “Made one for Katherine too. They’re both not far away.”

He turned and strode out of the room, saying over his shoulder, “Let’s go.”

Colleen followed him down the stairs and out onto the street. The old man moved quickly and she had trouble keeping up with him. “Slow down,” she shouted.

He stopped, turned and waited for her to catch up, though he vibrated with impatience. “There’s something wrong about that young man. And if Katherine’s anywhere near him, she might be in danger.”

Colleen walked by his side as he marched down the street. When he turned onto Powell and headed down Nob Hill, she sensed something else of the arcane, something in play she couldn’t quite identify. A few blocks above Union Square McGowan stopped at an ATM, sniffed around it like a hound on the scent. “They met here, then continued on together.”

When he turned to follow she snarled, “Wait.”

He stopped and turned to face her, frowning.

She stepped a few paces away from him to lessen the scent of his arcane influence. Trying to understand the undercurrent she sensed, she turned about slowly, and then she had it. “I sense a Summer Court mage in this—two of them actually—though one of them reeks of the Winter Court.”

At that moment McGowan started, lifted the two fetishes and looked at them carefully. “They’re gone. Both of them. They’re no longer on the Mortal Plane.”

“The Netherworld again.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll have to follow their trail. Maybe we can find out.”

She walked with him down Powell, then diagonally across Union Square, then down Geary and onto Market. “Faerie,” she said as they hit Market. She could feel the influence of the fey in her bones.

“Ya,” he said as he stopped on the corner of Montgomery. “Seelie Court. Magreth is going to answer for this.”

Chapter 10: Down the Drain

“Welcome to Faerie, mortal,” the Sidhe mage said. “And you brought a friend. How quaint.”

Standing behind Paul, and keeping her eyes on the Sidhe mage, Katherine leaned forward and whispered in Paul’s ear. “Let me handle this.”

He turned his head slightly. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Probably more than you.”

Paul agreed with a shrug. “You got a point there.”

He stepped aside, let her step forward to stand beside him, though she had to walk on her toes to keep the stiletto heels from sinking into the dirt road. Erik would’ve insisted on the macho thing, would’ve demanded she be the weak and submissive woman so he could handle the tough stuff, had always relegated her to that second-class citizenship, and she liked the way Paul didn’t do that.

“No names,” she whispered. “Not until we know more.”

She’d never before met a Sidhe, but her father had trained her carefully and she knew not to look into its eyes until she’d had time to prepare the proper protections. “Who are you? And why have you brought us here, to Faerie?”

He gave her a patronizing smile. “I am Cadilus, High Chancellor to the Seelie Court. And I didn’t bring you here.” He nodded toward Paul. “I brought him, and you stumbled into the vortex of his possibilities. Rather foolishly, I might add.”

“Then why did you bring him?”

The mage looked at her and his eyes narrowed. “He is a curiosity. He is more than he seems  . . . and less.”

He looked her over carefully, assessing her. “And I begin to think you are more than you seem. But enough of this. Her Majesty grows impatient.”

He waved a hand in a wide gesture, and both Paul and Katherine took an involuntary step back. Katherine forgot about the heels and she stumbled as one of them sank into the road. Paul caught her by the elbow and she leaned on him. “Conklin,” she said angrily as she bent down to remove the shoes. “You are shoe-hell personified.”

“What?” Paul pleaded, frustration dripping from every word. “What’d I do?”

She pointed the heel of one of her shoes at him like a wand. “That little shoot-em-up in the hospital cost me a beautiful pair of Pradas. This better not cost me these Louis Vuittons.”

“Silence,” Cadilus shouted.

The magic in his words struck her like a whip, and that infuriated her.

At the mage’s shout Paul was struck dumb, couldn’t have uttered a word if he’d wanted to, knew it was some sort of magic thing he was powerless to resist. But Katherine was apparently unaffected by whatever the mage had done. Her eyes flashed with anger, she turned and marched up to the mage in her stocking feet, waving one of her stiletto heels at him like a sword, the air about her crackling with some sort of power. The mage stepped back warily, almost fearfully, as she snarled, “Don’t you dare attempt to command me. My father trained me well, and your
voice
has little effect.”

A woman’s voice, regal and haughty, said calmly, “And who is your father, child?”

In a heartbeat they’d gone from standing on a dirt road in the middle of a vast moor, to standing in the middle of an immense hall built of pale yellow stone. Tapestries covered the walls, depicting images of knights hunting unicorns, and flaming sconces lit the room with flickering light and dancing shadows. It was all very medieval.

Paul and Katherine both turned toward the woman’s voice. They were now standing beneath a dais upon which rested a massive throne made of what appeared to be hundreds of bleached-white human skulls. Or maybe they were Sidhe skulls; Paul wouldn’t know the difference. But the throne was as nothing compared to the woman seated upon it.

Her stark white hair had been piled atop her head in an elaborate coif decorated with gems and silver trinkets. She wore a gown that shimmered with a rainbow of colors and changed constantly with the dancing shadows. The skin of her face was pale white, stretched over an oval face with high cheek bones. She had a small, delicate mouth, with lips the color of dark, reddish-brown blood. Had it not been for her eyes, she’d have been the most beautiful woman Paul had ever seen. But her almond shaped eyes were filled with fire, angry flames that burned into his soul when she cast her gaze upon him.

Behind him, Paul heard Katherine say, “Your Majesty,” and any anger or challenge had left her voice completely.

He turned toward Katherine, who was now gowned in something from an eighteenth century European court. She curtsied, did a better job of it than any courtesan might.

“Rise,” the queen said.

Paul prayed this wasn’t going to turn into an
Alice in Wonderland
thing with a mad queen shouting insane commands at them. He looked down at his clothing, really didn’t want to find he was wearing a doublet and hose from the eighteenth century, took some comfort in the fact he was still wearing his jeans and sneakers.

“Why is he not attired properly?” the mad queen demanded.

The mage responded with, “I know not, Your Majesty. Perhaps he resists.”

She turned her fiery eyes upon Paul. “You insult me by coming before me dressed as a common huckster.”

Paul knew he was totally out of his element. He wanted to say something like,
Fuck you, bitch
, but he suspected that wouldn’t go well. No, think of some movie, some period piece, and try to mimic the courtiers. “I didn’t come before you, Your Majesty. I was taken against my will, and brought before you without my knowledge or permission. If you dislike my attire, or you find it insulting in some way, perhaps you should look to this  . . .” He turned toward the mage. “ . . . this Cadilus fellow.”

The mad queen looked from Paul to Cadilus to Katherine, then back to Paul. If she’d had real eyeballs, instead of just pits of fire, the gaze she turned upon him would have been angry and hard. But it was just fucking fiery. “You mock me, mortal?”

Something dark and really scary suddenly emerged in the hall, and Paul knew he was on the edge of oblivion with this mad queen. He bowed from the waist, did his best imitation of an eighteenth century courtier, held the bow and said, “No, Your Majesty. I merely, humbly, speak the truth. And I pray you judge me on that.” He held the bow and waited.

The dark something that had invaded the room suddenly disappeared, though a hint of it remained hovering in the background, like a dangerous beast brought to heel at the foot of its master. “You may rise, mortal mage.”

Paul straightened slowly, though some instinct told him to keep his eyes downcast.

The queen lifted a hand, waggled a finger at Katherine and said, “Come forward, girl.”

Katherine advanced with the soft hiss of swirling petticoats, stopped at the base of the dais, bowed her head and said, “Your Majesty.”

“There is the matter of your father, my dear.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The queen leaned forward, and if flaming eyes could be said to narrow, hers did. “His name? Though I begin to suspect I know the answer.”

“Your Majesty, in Faerie he’s known as the Old Wizard.”

The queen leaned back on the throne and nodded. “As I thought.”

She lifted her gaze to Cadilus. “You should have been more careful, High Chancellor. This does complicate matters.”

One moment Paul stood before the mad queen, and in the next heartbeat he stood in a box of a room with walls, floor and ceiling all made from the same pale, yellow stone. There was an elaborate writing desk and chair that must’ve come out of some expensive antique shop somewhere, a soft bed against one wall, but no doors or windows. The old Paul would’ve spent some time wondering how he could get into a room with no way in or out, but the new Paul had come to accept these things.

He explored the room carefully, which didn’t take long, because it was just a box. Walls, floor, ceiling, desk, chair, bed; really just a prison cell. At least it wasn’t some dark dungeon.

There was nothing he could do so he laid down on the bed and tried to sleep. He lay there for quite some time, but sleep eluded him. He did need to piss, wasn’t sure what he was going to do about that, sat up, wondering if there might be a chamber pot beneath the bed. But now there was a door in one wall, a door he knew full well hadn’t been there before.

He approached it warily, tested the knob and it opened easily. Beyond it he found a modern bathroom not unlike that in his apartment. He used the toilet, and as he was washing his hands his stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten anything since before his trip into the Netherworld, and now that he thought about it he was famished.

When he returned to the main room he found a tray of food had appeared on the desk. It was Suzanna’s famous pot roast. He sat down on the bed, buried his face in his hands and cried like a baby.

Suzanna sat down beside him, threw a comforting arm over his shoulders.
Don’t worry, Paul. It’ll be all right.

Yes, daddy,
Cloe said, standing in front of him and tugging at his sleeve.
Everything’s gonna be all right.

Paul found, through simple experimentation, that merely wanting something made it appear. He took a hot shower, needed to change the bandages on his cuts, found supplies of gauze, bandages and medication waiting for him in a cabinet that had suddenly appeared in the bathroom. There hadn’t been a razor and shaving cream before, but when he wanted them they appeared. And he could make things go away as well, like the dirty dishes from his meal. Just a thought, with desire behind it, that’s all it took. A clock on the wall to keep time, a dresser with changes of clothing and underwear, a book to read. Little by little he furnished the room, turned it into a comfortable bedroom. He even desired, and received, a separate room furnished more like a study where he could sit and read one of his books.

These spooky fairy people must have a direct conduit right into his brain, knew every thought, whim or desire, were willing to give him almost anything he wanted, anything but an exit. He tried for a way out, a door, a window, anything. He wished for it, desired it, did everything but shout out a demand. Nothing. No, these pointy-eared people had definite limits on what they’d allow.

He thought about desiring the presence of the mad queen so he could ask her some questions, decided even if he could make her appear, that really wasn’t a good idea. And then he thought about desiring Katherine’s presence, and blink, she appeared right in front of him, now wearing her modern business suit and standing in her stocking feet, still holding her stiletto heels dangling from one hand.

She started, said, “Paul!”

Her eyes blinked rapidly, she turned about slowly and took in her surroundings, turned full circle until she came back to him. “Where are we?”

“My prison cell.”

She looked about the room again. “Doesn’t look too much like a prison.”

He explained about the room, how everything appeared or disappeared with merely a thought, everything but a way out.

She frowned. “How long have you been here?”

He wasn’t sure his watch, or the clock on the wall, were keeping accurate time. “I’d guess about a full day. I read a book for a couple of hours, ate a couple of meals, got a good night’s sleep. Why? Where’ve you been?”

They were standing in the study, and with a dazed look on her face she turned and walked into the bedroom. He followed her there, watched her look about, open a drawer in the dresser, peer at its contents for a moment, then close it. She walked to the bathroom, stopped in the doorway and glanced around quickly, turned back and started across the bedroom.

He followed her as she walked into the study, looked around again, then turned and faced him. “Only a few moments ago I was standing in the throne room next to you listening to Magreth tell Cadilus I was a complication.”

“That’s crazy.”

The dazed look disappeared, was replaced by determination. “No, this is Faerie. I’ve never been here before but my father told me time doesn’t operate the same here. Said it isn’t linear, whatever that means.”

She looked at him carefully and he could tell her thoughts were racing. She walked up to him, still dangling the stiletto heels from one finger. “So, whatever you want, you just desire it  . . . and it appears?”

“Ya, basically.”

She moved in closer, traced a finger along his chin and cocked her head coquettishly. “Do you think you could desire some Pradas? Maybe some Fendis too, and some Christian Louboutin’s.” Her eyes brightened and she continued almost breathlessly. “And the matching purses. And some Vera Wang dresses. And some pant suits. I still have to hide the bruises on my legs  . . .”

She suddenly hesitated, frowned, looked at Paul side-long and grimaced, continued in a more subdued tone, “I kind of lost it there  . . . for a moment, didn’t I?”

Paul raised an eyebrow at her. “Yuh think?”

She gritted her teeth and pleaded, “Maybe just the shoes?”

“Your Majesty,” Cadilus said carefully, cautiously. “I believe we may have made a mistake.”

Magreth turned emerald green eyes upon him. “How so?”

“Indulge me, Your Majesty, if you will.” Cadilus opened a portal into Paul’s
apartment
. Magreth turned to step through it, but he stepped in front of her. “Please, allow me to precede you, as a matter of safety.”