Doc Sidhe

by Aaron Allston

  "You know, that was just about the worst attempted tackle I ever saw. If that's the way you normally try to rescue people, I'd be amazed if most of them didn't make it into the water."

  Jean-Pierre flushed red and stood. He grabbed at something on his belt—something that wasn't there, but just where the handle of a hunting knife might protrude under other circumstances. In spite of his exhaustion, Harris stood up and readied himself for the attack he saw in the other man's face. The doctor merely scooted his chair back and got out from between them; he looked from one to the other with interest.

  The Asian woman spoke; her speech bore a faint accent that was exotic and appealing to Harris' ears. "Jean-Pierre. Sit down. He is correct; the attack was clumsy. He has suffered more than you today." Harris didn't miss the extra stress she put on the last word, nor that she was communicating something else, but he couldn't read the extra meaning in her statement.

  At least Jean-Pierre got himself under control. He sat and angrily drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair. Alastair assumed the same pose and drummed his fingers the same way, a cheerful mockery of Jean-Pierre's motion. Harris sat too, but did not relax.

  "Now," Noriko said, "please. We don't know the answers to your questions. We don't even know what they mean. If you tell us the story of how you came to be on the Island Bridge, perhaps we can puzzle it out."

  "That's . . . reasonable." For the briefest of moments, Harris saw himself through these peoples' eyes, as he sometimes saw himself from the perspective of his opponents; and this time he was an inexplicable creature, a wounded man who was too big and strange, possibly also dangerous and insane. He didn't like that image. "I guess it started at tonight's fight."

  When Harris reached the encounter with the pointy-toothed dwarf in the street, Jean-Pierre jumped up again. Harris tensed, but the other man wasn't angry this time. Even paler than before, he stared in disbelief at Harris. "Angus Powrie," he said.

  Alastair shook his head. "There are a lot of redcaps out there, Jean-Pierre. And a lot of hooligans from the Powrie clans."

  "Maybe." Jean-Pierre dug around in a jacket pocket and brought out his own wallet. He flipped it open, pulled free a piece of cardstock and shoved it at Harris.

  It was a black-and-white photograph, blurry and grainy; it looked like a police photo. The man in it was a little younger than the one who'd chased Harris earlier, but recognizable. Harris nodded. "That's him."

  Jean-Pierre took the photograph back and looked numbly at it. "What have you been doing all these years, Angus?"

  "Mind telling me why you carry his picture around?"

  Jean-Pierre ignored the question. He retreated to his chair and sat, still looking dazed. He fingered the bruise on his jaw. "Kick-boxing, eh?"

  "Yeah. It's the professional form of a whole bunch of martial arts."

  "Well, I certainly feel as though I've been kick-boxed. Noriko, I know some of the people of Wo and their descendants in the New World fight like that."

  Noriko nodded. "Not so much Wo, but Silla and Shanga. I do not think I have ever met a westerner trained in the arts."

  Alastair said, "There's more to him than that. He's got an aura. All-asparkle. I see it with my good eye. But it's not like anything I've ever seen before. I'd love to test his Firbolg Valence."

  Harris sighed. "It sounds to me like nothing I said means a thing to you. Jesus."

  "To speak the truth, it doesn't," said Noriko. "Except one thing. Are you of the Carpenter Cult?"

  "The what?"

  "I have heard you invoke the Carpenter twice. Once just now."

  "Who the hell is the Carpenter?" Then Harris had a sudden suspicion. "Wait a minute. Jesus Christ."

  "Yes. Though his followers hesitate to name him as . . . freely as you do."

  "Oh." Harris had to think about it. "No, I guess I'm not. I'm not anything that way. My parents are, though. Of the `Carpenter Cult'." He sat back frowning as it came home to him that one of the world's largest religions had suddenly been reduced to the status of cult. But there was a little comfort to that, as well. Noriko had heard of something he knew about. One lonely point in common.

  The other three looked helplessly among themselves. Alastair said, "I think we need Doc."

  "Who's Doc? I thought you were a doctor."

  Alastair beamed. "I am. But I'm not Doc. Doc is Doc. And Doc is due . . . " He reached inelegantly under his shirt and pulled out a large pocket watch. "Two chimes ago. Late, as ever."

  "So this Doc can get me figured out?"

  Jean-Pierre shrugged. "If anyone can. He's a deviser, you know."

  "Ah. Well, that explains everything, doesn't it?" Harris shook his head dubiously . . . and caught sight of what was tacked up on the wall behind him: a map. A map with the recognizable outlines of the continents.

  He read some of the names printed there . . . and suddenly found himself standing on his sofa, both palms pressed against the map as he stared disbelievingly at it.

  There was Manhattan, but the name Neckerdam was printed next to it, and some of the other boroughs were colored more like park than city. And New York State wasn't outlined with familiar borders. Its boundaries reaching about as far north as Albany should be, and much farther south, to the Philadelphia area ("Nyrax"); the whole area was labelled Novimagos.

  Farther north, Nova Scotia and some of whatever province was next to it—New Brunswick? Harris couldn't remember—were labelled Acadia. To the south, much of Central America was labelled Mejicalia, a name that at least looked a little familiar, but few borders were drawn in that area of the map. Southeast of Mejicalia, what was Aluxia?

  Things were no better in Europe. Most of central Spain was taken up by Castilia, a name Harris thought he remembered from school. All of England and Ireland were labelled Cretanis. These nations were further broken up into hundreds more small territories with names he didn't know. So was all the rest of Europe.

  There was no sign of Hawaii, or most of the islands of the South Pacific, just the words "Many Islands" and a picture of a sea serpent.

  Harris turned away from the map, feeling faint and not entirely able to accept what he'd just seen. He sank back down to sit on the sofa, feeling the gaze of the others on him, and didn't bother to ask them if that thing on the wall were a joke.

  Nearly a thousand feet below, a dozen men entered the lobby of the Monarch Building. They paid no attention to the doorman who admitted them, to the veined white marble walls and reflective black marble floor, to the bustle of people moving in and out of the building even at this late hour. With the nonchalance of office workers familiar with the building, they moved straight to the elevators and boarded the first available car.

  But they weren't office workers. The green-uniformed elevator operator took a look at the large instrument cases they carried, at the cheap red suits they wore, and sighed. Musicians. Rowdy musicians with their bad tips. Still, he adjusted his cap and put on his most professional face, and as the band entered his car he said, "Floor, goodsirs."

  The smallest of the musicians, the one who stood right by the door with the trumpet case in his hands, smiled winningly at him. "Roof."

  "I'm sorry, this car only goes up eighty-nine. The remaining floors are private property."

  The trumpeter frowned. "Private? We have an engagement on the roof. A wedding."

  The elevator operator tried not to look as confused as he was. "I don't think so, sir. There's no place up there to have a wedding. A talk-box reception tower and some machinery, I think."

  "Then what's that black thing on your uniform?"

  The uniformed man looked down at his front and finally showed confusion. "Sir, there's nothing—"

  He did not see the other musician wield the blackjack. He did feel blinding pain as the lead shot-filled weapon rapped down on his uniform cap, and that was the last he knew. His legs gave way and he thudded onto the carpeted floor of the elevator car.

  The trumpeter tipped his hat at the unc
onscious elevator operator, then nodded at the sap-wielder. "Now. Take us up."

  The big man pocketed the sap. He took the car's control handle. "He was telling the truth. You know whose building this is."

  "Yes."

  "So this car won't go up past up eighty-nine. You know he has to be higher than that."

  "Yes. Take us up eighty-nine." The trumpeter smiled and patted his instrument case. "Everything we need is in here. Trust me. Trust him."

  The big man grimaced, then set the car into motion.

  Chapter Six

  Noriko tilted her head to the side, concentrating. "Rotorkite," she announced. "Doc is here."

  The others listened. At first Harris could hear nothing but a constant, dull wash of noise—the faint remnants of street sound from a thousand feet below. Then he caught the sound that had alerted Noriko: a faint thup-thup-thup that began to grow louder. It sounded just like an incoming helicopter.

  Noriko and Jean-Pierre were up in an instant, headed out through the nearest door in the wall; Harris and then Alastair followed. The door nearest the sofas opened into a dim, carpeted corridor, and Noriko and Jean-Pierre led the way to a nearby bank of elevators.

  One elevator was already open. They piled into it, Jean-Pierre sliding shut first the gratelike outer door and then the matching inner door, pulling up on the handle that sent the elevator upward.

  The elevator rose three stories into what had to be a hangar. It was enormous, taking up at least two building stories; the floor was concrete and splashed with oil. There were work-benches and tools, rolling carts, and what looked liked oversized car engines hanging from chains and pulleys. On one side of the big chamber was a strange carlike vehicle, a rounded lozenge forty feet long and ten wide; it rested on a series of struts with wheels at the bottom, and a large, irregular mass of what looked like tan sails lashed to the top.

  Noriko headed over to a wall-mounted board of large mechanical switches and pushed one up.

  There was an immediate grinding noise from overhead and the lights dimmed briefly. Then, slowly and ponderously, one large section of roof, directly over the flooring, began to open up. It was a huge door powered by mechanical hinges. Above it, Harris could see a widening stripe of nighttime sky, clouds reflecting the city lights below them. It had clouded up in the time since he was brought here. It was sprinkling, and a stray breeze tossed droplets of rain into their faces.

  The thup-thup-thup grew louder. It took Harris a moment to spot its source: a vague, dark shape with tiny red and green lights glinting on its belly. It got bigger until light from the hangar bathed the underside.

  It descended into the hangar, a diamond shape all in dark blue, with a helicopter-style rotor at either end. It was about as large as a Coast Guard rescue helicopter, but broader in the middle where the diamond shape was at its widest. It touched down on four wheels.

  As the rotors spun down, Noriko returned the switch to its original position; the overhead door groaned and began to close again. On a narrow end of the helicopter—rotorkite? that's what Noriko had called it—a gullwing door opened. A man climbed out and dropped to the hangar floor.

  He was tall—taller even than Harris, the first man Harris had seen here who didn't make him feel like some sort of Viking invader. He was broad-shouldered but otherwise built lean, and moved as gracefully as a dancer.

  He wore loose-fitting dark slacks tucked into high leather boots, and was bundled into a waist-length coat of yellow leather worn over a white shirt with an elaborate frilled collar. As he turned toward Harris and the others, he tugged off a yellow leather helmet fitted with archaic glass goggles; out tumbled shoulder-length hair. Hair that was pure white, the precise white and softness of thick clouds. Hair that didn't quite conceal the most sharply pointed ears Harris had yet seen.

  His features were young, of a man perhaps thirty, but there was nothing youthful in his unsettling, pale blue eyes.

  He saw Harris and stopped. With a trace of curiosity in his expression, he looked Harris over before turning to the other three.

  "A guest," Alastair said, gesturing at Harris. "You remember guests, don't you? We used to have them from time to time. Doc, this is Harris Greene, who wears blue so we don't understand the name. Harris, this is your host, Doc—Doctor Desmond MaqqRee, founder of the Sidhe Foundation." He pronounced it "She Foundation."

  Doc looked at Harris again, his lips moving a little; he appeared to be working out a problem. Finally, in a surprisingly deep and rich voice, he said, "Grace upon you, Harris, health and wealth, love and children, and on all your line."

  "Hi," Harris said.

  "High." Doc wasn't returning the greeting; he was puzzling it out. Alastair snickered at his obvious discomfiture.

  It took twenty minutes, as Doc and Jean-Pierre checked the rotorkite from end to end, for Harris to repeat his story. Doc had him back up and go over several points and incidents; he paid special attention to Harris' descriptions of the glorious blond man. They returned to the laboratory before the story was done. Doc was removing his pilot's gear and settling on one of the sofas when Harris described the dwarf who'd thrown the concrete block. Doc looked over at Jean-Pierre.

  The other man nodded grimly. "I've already shown him the picture. It was Angus Powrie."

  Doc returned his attention to Harris. "You mention a thing called a pannyfack."

  "Fanny pack." Harris looked around for it but didn't see it.

  Jean-Pierre brought it up from behind his chair and tossed it to Doc. "It's all there. One pocketbook crowded with paper treasury notes and draft-notes I don't recognize, many cards all bearing the name of Gabriela Dono-hooey—"

  "That's Donohue."

  "Thank you, Harris, why don't you and your friends learn to spell more sensibly?—including one of the drover licenses like Harris had, some coins, a small gnarled canister of `pepper spray,' seasonings I suppose, and miscellaneous items. I also put Harris' keys and clasp-knife in there." As Harris groped his pocket, belatedly realizing that his things wouldn't be in these pants anyway, Jean-Pierre smiled mockingly at him. "My apologies, Harris. I didn't know whether or not you would want to come after me with that knife. I couldn't risk it, once I noticed your knife's special trait."

  Harris frowned at that. "What trait is that?"

  Doc looked at him, then unzipped the main pocket of the fanny pack. He pulled out the lockback hunting knife Harris usually carried. He turned it over, looking at the wooden tang with its brass ends. "Unusual design, but I see nothing else strange about it." Then his thumb brushed the back of the blade.

  Doc hissed and involuntarily dropped the knife back into the pack. He put the last joint of his thumb into his mouth and looked curiously at Harris. Then he blew on his injured thumb, on the blister Harris saw rising there, and asked, "You carry a knife with a steel blade, Harris?"

  "Sure. Why not?"

  "Odd question. Because it will make you sick. Noriko at least has the sense to keep her steel fully sheathed when she's not using it. You must touch that blade every time you put your hand in your pocket."

  "So what?" Harris moved over to Doc, then reached into the fanny pack and came up with his knife. He held it so that the closed blade touched his skin. Then, slowly and with exaggerated care, he opened it out and placed the blade across his palm.

  He lifted the blade to show them there was no problem with his skin. The surprised reactions of the other four were very gratifying. Then, with malicious humor, he slowly drew the back of the blade across his tongue, and was rewarded with a startled hiss from Alastair.

  Jean-Pierre stood and took a step away from Harris. "He's obviously insane, Doc. A high degree of immunity, surely. But mad anyway."

  Doc also stood, looking troubled. "I don't think so. He shows no pain at all."

  "Completely immune," Alastair said. "I've heard of such people, but never thought I'd live long enough to see one."

  Harris folded and pocketed the knife. In spite of the fact he did
n't know what any of this meant, he felt strangely superior. He rooted around in the pack, retrieved and pocketed his keys, and then took the fanny pack back to the sofa.

  He told himself that all he wanted to do was make sure she hadn't lost anything. But after he determined that the pack still held Gaby's keychain and pocketbook, he kept looking.

  On the chain was her canister of defensive pepper spray. Harris grinned at the thought of Jean-Pierre trying to hose down a salad with the stuff. Maybe he should let him try; that might be entertaining. But the canister was strangely twisted, as if exposed to great heat, and the plastic spray mechanism on top was melted and fused, obviously not usable. He'd seen it only two days ago, and it was normal then.

  He looked in the fanny pack's other compartment; it still held things he didn't care to prowl through, like wadded facial tissues, bottles of nail polish, tampons.

  The others murmured among themselves, excluding him from their conversation. That was fine. He used the opportunity to sneak a look through the contents of her pocketbook. Maybe there he'd find some clue explaining why she'd left him. He had a right to know, didn't he? He ignored the little voice that immediately whispered No.

  Two credit cards, two gas cards, a New York driver's license that gave her address on Waverly, an employee identification card for the local UHF TV station she served as program manager, her miniature address book, thirty dollars plus change, her checkbook showing less than two hundred dollars in the bank, miscellaneous other effects.

  No photograph of some new guy who looked like he belonged on a soap opera. No letter to her friend Elaine explaining the situation. No checklist detailing the characteristics of her ideal man with notes on where Harris fell short. No names in her address book that he didn't recognize. Of course, it could be someone they both already knew. Zeb? Nah.

  A shadow fell across Harris; he started guiltily and looked up at Doc, who'd appeared beside his couch without making a sound. "The Changeling," said Doc.