Night & Demons (5 page)

Kernes
whuffed
backwards as if a giant had kicked him. There was a look of amazement on his face and nothing more; but momentarily, something hung in the air between the dead man and the living, something as impalpable as the muzzle blast that rocked the hillside—and as real.

Deehalter’s flesh
gave
and for a startled second he/it knew why the Indians had buried their possessed brother alive, to trap the contagion with him in the rock instead of merely passing it on to raven and slay again. . . .

Then the sun was bright on Deehalter’s back, casting his shadow across the body of the man he had murdered. He recalled nothing of the moment just past.

Except that when he remembered the creature’s last red leer, he seemed to be seeing the image in a mirror.

A LAND OF
ROMANCE

L. Sprague de Camp had greater influence on me as an SF reader and writer than anyone else. After World War II, a number of fans became publishers, joining August Derleth of Arkham House in reprinting works from
Golden Age
and earlier pulps. The Clinton (Iowa) Public Library in 1957 had a large collection of these books. (The entrance of major publishers, particularly Doubleday, into the SF market in the early ’50s crushed the niche companies with the exception of Arkham House itself.)

Two of the small presses, Fantasy Press and Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. collected a good deal of Sprague’s fiction from
Astounding and Unknown (Worlds)
. Either his rigor, intelligence, and focus on plot formed my opinion of what SF and fantasy should be, or they perfectly matched the model lurking somewhere in my childish subconscious.

In later years I got to know Sprague on terms of friendship, though we weren’t as close as I was with Manly Wade Wellman, his contemporary and friend from the ’30s and ’40s. I encouraged Jim Baen to reprint the stories of Sprague’s which I most liked. I did introductions for the volumes and stories in the style of Sprague’s work as part of that encouragement.

Harry Turtledove, who like me was greatly influenced by Sprague, proposed a de Camp Festschrift to Baen Books. I happily wrote “A Land of Romance” for it, trying to create a story that Sprague might’ve written for
Unknown
.

I’ll add two minor notes about the story itself. The full name of the former Secretary of Defense is Robert Strange McNamara, and the greatest buffalo meat entrepreneur in the country is Ted Turner (at the time I wrote the story, Mr. Jane Fonda). Both of those facts have bearing on the text.

* * *

T
he marketing bullpen at Strangeco Headquarters held seventy-five desks. Howard Jones was the only person in the huge room when the phone began ringing. He ignored the sound and went on with what he was doing. It was a wrong number—it had to be. Nobody’d be calling seriously on a Sunday morning.

Dynamic twenty-five-year-old executive . . . . Howard sucked in his gut as he typed, not that there was much gut to worry about. Ready to take on adventurous new challenges . . . .

The phone continued to ring. It could be the manager of one of the Middle Eastern outlets where they kept a Friday-Saturday weekend, with a problem that only a bold—a
swashbuckling
—marketing professional like Howard Jones could take on. Did Strangeco have a branch in the Casbah of Algiers?

The company slogan circled the ceiling in shimmering neon letters: It’s not a sandwich—it’s a Strangewich! Slices of kangaroo, cassowary, and elk in a secret dressing! Strangewich—the healthy alternative!

The phone
still
rang. Howard’s image staring from the resume on the screen had a stern look. Was he missing his big chance? The caller could be a headhunter who needed the hard-charging determination of a man willing to work all the hours on the clock.

Howard grabbed the phone and punched line one. “Strangeco Inc!” he said in what he hoped was a stalwart tone. “Howard Jones, Assistant Marketing Associate speaking. How may I help you?”

“Oh!” said the male voice on the other end of the line. “Oh, I’m very sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb anybody important.”

Sure, a wrong number. Well, Howard had known that there wouldn’t really be a summons to a life of dizzying adventure when he—

“I’m at Mr. Strange’s house,” the voice continued, “and I was hoping somebody could come over to help me word an advertisement. I’m sorry to have—”

“Wait!” Howard said. He knew the call couldn’t be what it sounded like, but it was sure the most interesting thing going this Sunday morning. It
sounded
like the most interesting thing of a lifetime for Howard Albing Jones.

“Ah, sir,” he continued, hoping that the fellow wasn’t offended that Howard had bellowed at him a moment ago.
“
You say you’re calling from Mr. Strange’s house. That would be, ah, which house?”

“Oh, dear, he probably does have a lot of them, doesn’t he?” the voice said. “I mean the one right next door, though. Do you think that you could send somebody not too important over to help me, sir?”

Howard cleared his throat.
“
Well, as a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind visiting the Strange Mansion myself. But, ah, Strangeco staff isn’t ordinarily allowed across the skyway, you know.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” the voice said in obvious relief. “Mr. Strange said I could call on any of his people for whatever I wished. But I really don’t like to disturb you, Mr. Jones.”

“Quite all right, Mister . . .” Howard said. “Ah, I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name?”

“Oh, I’m Wally Popple,” the voice said. “Just come over whenever you’re ready to, Mr. Jones. I’ll tell the guards to send you down.”

He hung up. Howard replaced his handset and stared at the resume photograph. That Howard Jones looked very professional in blue suit, blue shirt, and a tie with an insouciant slash of red. Whereas today—Sunday—Assistant Marketing Associate Jones wore jeans and a Fuqua School of Business sweatshirt.

Howard rose to his feet. Daring, swashbuckling Howard Jones was going to risk entering the Strange Mansion in casual clothes.

A transparent tube arched between the third floors of the Strange Mansion and Strangeco Headquarters to connect the two sprawling buildings. When Strange occasionally called an executive to the mansion, the rest of the staff lined the windows to watch the chosen person shuffle through open air in fear of what waited on the other side.

Shortly thereafter, sometimes only minutes later, the summoned parties returned. A few of them moved at once to larger offices; most began to clean out their desks.

Only executives were known to use the skyway, though rumor had it that sometimes Robert Strange himself crossed over at midnight to pace the halls of his headquarters silently as a bat. Now it was Howard Jones who looked out over cornfields and woodland in one direction and the vast staff parking lot in the other.

The skyway was hot and musty. That made sense when Howard thought about it: a clear plastic tube was going to heat up in the bright sun, and the arch meant the hottest air would hang in the middle like the bubble in a level. Howard had never before considered physics when he daydreamed of receiving Robert Strange’s summons.

The wrought-iron grill at the far end was delicate but still a real barrier, even without the two guards on the other side watching as Howard approached. They were alert, very big, and not in the least friendly.

Muscle-bound, Howard told himself. I could slice them into lunchmeat with my rapier!

He knew he was lying, and it didn’t even make him feel better. Quite apart from big men
not
necessarily being slow, this pair held shotguns.

“Good morning!” Howard said, trying for “brightly” and hitting “brittle” instead. “I have an urgent summons from Mr. Popple!”

Christ on a crutch! What if this was some kid’s practical joke? Let’s see if we can scam some sucker into busting into the Strange Mansion! Maybe they’ll shoot him right where we can watch!

Howard glanced down, which probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do now that he wasn’t protected by the excitement of the thing. At least he didn’t see kids with a cell phone and gleeful expressions peering up expectantly.

One of the guards said, “Who’re you?” His tone would have been a little too grim for a judge passing a death sentence.

Howard’s mind went blank. All he could think of was the accusing glare of his resume picture—but wait! Beside the picture was a name!

“Howard Albing Jones!” he said triumphantly.

“Nothing here about ‘Albing,’” said the other guard.

The first guard shrugged. “Look, it’s Sunday,” he said to his partner. Fixing Howard with a glare that could’ve set rivets, he said, “We’re letting you in, buddy. But as Howard Jones, that’s all. That’s how you sign the book.”

“All right,” said Howard. “I’m willing to be flexible.”

One guard unlocked the grating; the other nodded Howard toward a folio bound in some unfamiliar form of leather, waiting open on a stand in the doorway. The last name above Howard’s was that of a regional manager who’d been sobbing as he trudged into the parking lot for the last time.

The first guard pinned a blank metal badge on Howard’s sweatshirt, right in the center of Fuqua. “Keep it on,” he said. “See the yellow strip?”

He gestured with his shotgun, then returned the muzzle to point just under where the badge rested.

An amber track lighted up in the center of the hallway beyond. The glow was so faint that it illuminated only itself. Focusing his eyes on it meant that Howard didn’t have to stare at the shotgun.

“Right,” he said. “Right!”

“You follow it,” said the guard. “It’ll take you where you’re supposed to go. And you
don’t
step off it, you understand?”

“Right,” said Howard, afraid that he sounded brittle again.
“
I certainly don’t want you gentlemen coming after me.”

The other guard laughed. “Oh, we wouldn’t do that,” he said. “Pete and me watch—” he nodded to the bank of TV monitors, blanked during Howard’s presence “—but we ain’t cleared to go wandering around the mansion. Believe me, buddy, we’re not ready to die.”

Howard walked down the hall with a fixed smile until the amber strip led him around a corner. He risked a glance backwards then and saw that the light was fading behind him. He supposed it’d reappear when it was time for him to leave.

He supposed so.

Howard hadn’t had any idea of what the inside of the Strange Mansion would be like. There were a thousand rumors about the Wizard of Fast Food but almost no facts. Howard himself had envisioned cathedral-vaulted ceilings and swaying chandeliers from which a bold man could swing one-handed while the blade of his rapier parried the thrusts of a score of minions.

There might be chandeliers, stone ledges, and high balconies on the other side of the blank gray walls but that no longer seemed likely. The corridor surfaces were extruded from some dense plastic, and the doors fitted like airlocks with no external latches.

The amber strip led through branching corridors, occasionally going downward by ramps. The building sighed and murmured like a sleeping beast.

Howard tried to imagine the Thief of Baghdad dancing away from foes in this featureless warren, but he quickly gave it up as a bad job. It was like trying to imagine King Kong on the set of
2001
.

The strip of light stopped at a closed door. Howard eyed the blank panel, then tried knocking. It was like rapping his knuckles on a bank vault, soundless and rather painful.

“Hello?” he said diffidently. “Hello!”

The corridor stretched to right and left, empty and silent. The amber glow had melted into the surrounding gray, leaving only a vague memory of itself. What would Robin Hood have done?

“
Hello!
” Howard shouted. “
Mister Popple!
”

“Hello,” said the pleasant voice of the girl who’d come up behind him.

Howard executed a leap and pirouette that would have done Robin—or for that matter, a Bolshoi prima ballerina—proud. “Wha?” he said.

The girl was of middle height with short black hair and a perky expression that implied her pale skin was hereditary rather than a look.
“
I’m afraid Wally gets distracted,” she said with a smile.
“
Come around through my rooms and I’ll let you in from the side. The laboratory started out as a garage, you know.”

“Ah, I was told not to leave . . .” Howard said, tilting forward slightly without actually moving his feet from the point at which the guide strip had deposited him. After the guards’ casual threats, he no longer believed that the worst thing that could happen to him in the Strange Mansion was that he’d lose his job.

“Oh, give me that,” the girl said. She deftly unpinned the badge from Howard’s sweatshirt and pressed her thumb in the middle of its blankness, then handed it back to him. “There, I’ve turned it off.”

She walked toward the door she’d come out of, bringing Howard with her by her breezy nonchalance. He said, “Ah, you work here, miss?”

“Actually, the only people who work here are Wally and the cleaning crews,” the girl said. “And my father, of course. I’m Genie Strange.”

She led Howard into a room with low, Japanese-style furniture and translucent walls of pastel blue. It was like walking along the bottom of a shallow sea.

“Have you known Wally long?” Genie said, apparently unaware that she’d numbed Howard by telling him she was Robert Strange’s daughter. “He’s such a sweetheart, don’t you think? Of course, I don’t get to meet many people. Robert says that’s for my safety, but . . .”

“I’ve enjoyed my contact with Mr. Popple so far,” Howard said. He didn’t see any reason to amplify the truthful comment. Well, the more or less truthful comment.

Genie opened another door at the end of the short hallway at the back of the suite. “Wally?” she called. “I brought your visitor.”

The laboratory buzzed like a meadow full of bees. The lighting was that of an ordinary office; Howard’s eyes had adapted to the corridors’ muted illumination, so he sneezed. If the room had been a garage, then it was intended for people who drove semis.