Doc Sidhe

by Aaron Allston

  "Can you dye it blue, like that?" Harris pointed to the one blue garment in the shop.

  "With ease." The tailor looked uncomfortable with Harris' color choice, but said nothing about it.

  So, half an hour later, poorer by about a third of his coins, Harris left. Three sets of jeans for Gaby, three for himself, ready within a few days; he'd have to pay the other half then.

  It was just two errands, but he'd pulled them off without any of Doc's associates leading him around by the hand, without screwing up three ways from Sunday. He smiled at the skyscrapers of Neckerdam and turned back toward the Monarch Building.

  Gaby accepted Alastair's proffered hand and stepped up out of the car. She looked dubiously at the mound of a building. "And these guys are supposed to be able to figure me out."

  Doc joined them on the sidewalk. "If anyone can."

  The building was a mountain of brick. This was no accident of design, no passing similarity. The structure was ten stories tall and took up an entire block. It rose in gradual, irregular curves, slopes, and cliff faces. Bushes grew from outcroppings—and from planters set outside the many lit windows. The shutters across the closed windows blended in with the surrounding brick in color and texture.

  At street level, the doorway into the building was flanked by bearded men sitting against the brick front. One was gray haired, the other brown haired and much younger. Both wore stained garments in dull brown and green. Their eyes were focused on some distant point invisible to Gaby; they did not react to her or to the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk.

  The three of them entered the building's dark, low-ceilinged lobby. "What's their problem?" Gaby asked.

  "Glitter-bright," Doc said. "Highly addictive, very destructive. It's illegal in most kingdoms, but sold everywhere. That's where crime makes a lot of its coin."

  Several old men and women sat on the lobby's sofas, many of them reading newspapers, some playing chess. A set of wooden doors in the far wall vibrated with the music playing beyond. It was much like the music Gaby had heard several times in the fair world, but she had the impression that it was wilder, more powerful.

  Doc's hand closed around her arm, bringing her up short. She looked around in surprise. She was halfway across the lobby, halfway to that set of doors, and couldn't remember getting that far.

  "We don't want to go in there," Doc said.

  Wrong, he was wrong. She could feel something pulling at her from beyond the doors, something very demanding and exciting. "Yes, I do. Why shouldn't I? What's in there?"

  "A dance. A dance from the Old Country. Very potent." He drew her toward another doorway; she could see stairs through it.

  She hung back, trying to pull free. "What's wrong with just taking a look?"

  He smiled thinly. "Nobody just looks, Gaby. You join in. And if we were to join in . . . well, I would have a very good time. Alastair would probably die. And you would become pregnant."

  "Oh, not likely. Even if I were interested, which I'm not, I'm on the pill. It's the wrong time of the month anyway."

  He shook his head. "None of that matters."

  "I'll just take a peek." She tried to pull away, but his grip was like metal. Protesting, she found herself pulled into the narrow stairwell and up dimly lit wooden stairs.

  After a couple of flights, she realized that her breathing was slowing. It startled her; she must have been practically panting before. And the appeal of the dance going on beyond those closed doors was suddenly lost on her.

  She gulped. "Doc, I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me—"

  "I do. Don't concern yourself. It's the usual reaction. One good reason why people with a lot of grimworld blood shouldn't come into neighborhoods where the old customs are kept."

  "On the other hand," Alastair said, "when I'm old and I've decided to die, this is the place and that's the way I'll do it."

  After eight flights, Gaby swore to herself that she was going to start running again. And that she'd never again wear the damned heeled pumps Noriko had found for her. Her toes felt as though mechanics had been at them with pliers and her back was already giving her trouble.

  In the narrow hallway up nine, Doc knocked on an unmarked door. It opened to reveal a woman who couldn't have been more than three and a half feet tall. She was middle-aged and heavily built, with a round, florid, happy face. She wore a bright red shawl and a dark green dress. Gaby decided that she looked like a large rose sprouting from an unusually hefty stem.

  She beamed up at them. "Doc."

  "Hedda." Doc stooped to kiss her. "I bring you Gabriela Donohue and Doctor Alastair Kornbock."

  "Gods' graces on you." She stepped back to allow them entry. "You are the young lady with the troublesome Gift?"

  "I'm afraid so." Gaby decided the woman sounded German.

  "We will unwrap it for you."

  The flat beyond was dim, its inadequate electric lamps illuminating age-darkened walls, but clean. Chairs, tables and sofas were drawn away from the center of the room, and a rug was rolled up against one wall. A dented platter painted with apples sat in the floor's center, loaded down with little pots and jars.

  It was all very homey and charming, but there was something about the place. The shadows were thick against the walls and seemed darker than they should have been; Gaby fancied that she saw deeper blackness rising and ebbing within them. She smoothed down the hair on her arms where it tried to stand.

  Hedda shut the door behind them. "We will do this very slow, with tradition and care. But first, there is something important I must know."

  "What is it?"

  "Would you like xioc? Tea? There is fresh pastry."

  Kneeling, Gaby read the words aloud, the ones Hedda had spelled out phonetically on the piece of paper before her. She kept her thoughts focused on the words, on the smell of jasmine incense, on her contented state of mind.

  Around her was the conjurer's circle she and Hedda had made together. The diminutive woman had told her to hold each piece of chalk, each little pot of paint. Only when Gaby had warmed it in her hands would Hedda take the item and begin working on the circle. The outer circle was of yellow chalk and an unbroken stream of yellow sand; the inner, the same but in red. The symbols between, carefully chalked in by Hedda and then painted by Gaby, each in a different color. It had taken nearly an entire bell to complete.

  She reached the end of the last page. "Think of him as a smiling man," Hedda had said. "The eyes of a wise man, the smile of a lover. Light shines from his face. Call to the light. Beg it. Ask for the wisdom behind it."

  She did, effortlessly holding the image in her thoughts, relaxed, clear-minded, waiting.

  Nothing.

  She heard Doc sigh. She opened her eyes. He and Alastair stared at her from their chairs outside the conjuration circle; Doc shook his head.

  She looked at Hedda, unhappy. "I did it wrong."

  "No, sweet. You did it right. Every step true." The woman looked apologetic. "What confused Doc confuses me. I could feel your strength when we put the circle together. You have Gift. I wish I had your strength. But it does not come out."

  "You're having the exact same results someone like Harris or Noriko would," Doc said. "But unlike them, you're full of the Gift. Your well of power just seems somehow capped."

  "Sorry."

  "Don't be." He rested his chin on his hand and stared morosely at her. "We've learned some things, today and in my tests. We know what you can't do."

  "Such as?" Her tone was sharp.

  "Don't be annoyed."

  "I just don't like being told what I can't do."

  "So I gather. Gaby, your Gift doesn't follow the traditional patterns. You have no Good Eye; you can't see the residue of devisements. You don't see the future. You don't see events imbedded in the objects that have experienced them. There's no sign of a cord between you and some twin, real or mystic. You can't melt your flesh and reshape it."

  "People do that?"

  "Not many
. It's a dying art."

  Hedda smiled. "Which is sad. It can be such fun."

  "Today, we learned that you can't project your voice to the ears of the gods. You make no links between objects or places, even with conjuration circles. You do not weave patterns of your Gift into things you make with your hands. You do not send your sight away from your body. You do not affect fire, water, air, or earth."

  "Does that leave anything?"

  Doc didn't answer. Alastair said, "Well, yes, countless things. But they are so rare, and often—I will be frank—so irrelevant that there are no tests devised for them." He gave her an apologetic smile. "For example, a few years ago, I tested a woman who showed sign of Gift but didn't follow the usual patterns. I found that her Gift was directed inside her. All her sons grew up to look just like her father. Identical, to the last mole and birthmark. Except for the one who looked like Kiddain Ohawr, the star of stage and screen. You can't imagine the trouble that caused with her family."

  She laughed, then sobered. "You're saying that this Gift could be something totally useless."

  Doc nodded. "Yes. That would be a waste. You have so much of it. But you should prepare yourself for that possibility. Hedda, I'm sorry. I've taken up your whole afternoon."

  "But not wasted. You are always good company. And the young lady likes my pastries."

  On one Neckerdam broadcast channel, the talk-box showed square dancing. Not too different from similar stuff he'd seen on the grim world. On the other channel, it was the game they called crackbat—part baseball, part jai alai. Harris settled on it and concentrated on trying to figure out the rules.

  The little talk-box, the one that acted as his telephone, rang. He picked up the handset without taking his attention off the screen. The runner in his padded suit, still holding the flat bat with the net at the end, charged the base and whacked the ball out of the net of its defender. He crashed into the defender and both landed on the base. "Hello."

  "Goodsir Greene?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Brannach the Seamer. Three days ago, you brought in an order for demasalle trousers."

  "Oh, right. Hi. Grace on you."

  "And on you. They're almost finished, but I needed to know if the lady's trousers were also supposed to have buttons for suspenders."

  "Suspenders? No, no, no. Belt loops. They're supposed to be worn with belts." Another batter was up. The pitcher threw the ball and hit him with it. The crowd groaned; the batter walked dejectedly away from the base. The next batter up took his place. "Did you put buttons for suspenders on my trousers, too?"

  "Of course, sir."

  "My fault for not explaining things better. All six pairs need to have loops for belts, but no attachments for suspenders. Is that going to cause any trouble?"

  This batter ducked the first pitch. He managed to sway back and catch the second pitch in the net. He spun around, hurling the ball far out beyond the base defenders, and dashed for the first base, his bat still in hand.

  "No trouble, sir. I'm afraid I'll have to charge an extra four dec for the additional work. And they probably will not be ready for a couple of bells more. We are open until five bells, though, and they will certainly be ready by then."

  "That's great. I'll be by then for them." He hung up, wondering why the runner on third base looked as though he were preparing to hurl his bat at the pitcher.

  Harris hadn't felt imprisoned since he'd begun his walks outside the Monarch Building. He did follow Jean-Pierre's advice, not leaving at the same time or by the same door every day, varying his route, staying alert. Nothing ever happened.

  It was time to further expand his options.

  He stuck his head in the laboratory door. Joseph and Jean-Pierre were there. Joseph was lifting a barbell that looked impossibly heavy. Jean-Pierre, stretched out on a couch, took notes on a pad of paper. Harris waved to get their attention. "Hey, you guys, I'm going out to get my pants. Either of you want anything?"

  "Hot xioc," Jean-Pierre said. "Joseph?"

  The giant shook his head. He set down the barbell and began adding weights to it.

  "Be back soon."

  But instead of descending to the lobby, Harris went down two, to the garage. The mechanic, Fergus Bootblack, listened to his request.

  "Take the Hutchen," Fergus said. "You can drive, can't you? Good. Are you carrying fire?"

  "Fire? Like a cigarette lighter?"

  "No, no, no." Fergus pointed his finger, miming a gun.

  "Oh, fire. Yeah."

  "Good. Oh, and Doc wants you and the lady Donohue to use the faraway ramp whenever you leave the building."

  "Use the what?"

  Fergus pointed to a shadowy far corner of the garage. There, a dimly lit concrete corner led away from the garage at a right angle to Harris' line of sight. "That leads to a ramp that comes out one block over. Anyone waiting for you outside the Monarch Building will miss you. Come back in the same way."

  "Sure thing." He looked around. "What's a Hutchen?"

  The Hutchen turned out to be an anonymously boxy dark green two-seater; it had a high clearance and looked a little like pictures of the Model T. Fergus had Harris wait a couple of minutes while he logged the car out on the records in his office, then showed him which button started the ignition. It took Harris a minute to reacquaint himself with the concept of the choke, but fortunately he'd learned to drive on his grandfather's archaic pickup truck and not on a more modern vehicle. He groped around for the seatbelts for a long minute before realizing, dismayed, that there were none for him to find.

  He managed to get the Hutchen into gear without embarrassing himself—the gearshift was an H-pattern, floor-mounted stick familiar to him—and carefully guided it into the opening Fergus had pointed out.

  A long tunnel, four sides of concrete and bare lightbulbs overhead, it traveled at least a block. Halfway along, Harris was sure that he heard the rush of a subway train beneath him.

  The ramp at the far end took him up to where the tunnel terminated in a large warehouse-type door. There had to be unseen operators at work; in the rearview mirror, he saw a similar door slide into place behind him before the exterior door slid open. Beyond, quick and noisy traffic zipped by in both directions. Streetlights gleamed atop Greek-style columns, moths fluttering their lives away around them.

  At last, he was vehicular again. It felt pretty good. He eased the Hutchen forward; during a break in traffic, he turned left onto King's Road, staying alert to the simple fact that traffic here ran on the wrong sides of the road. It felt like he was sixteen again, with a freshly minted driver's license, trying to keep all the rules in mind at the same time.

  Harris stuck his hand out the window and signaled, bicycle-style, the way the other motorists did it, for his right turn from King's Road onto Damablanca. He passed the glowing green-and-gold sign over Banwite's and threw a salute his one-time benefactor couldn't see.

  There was no parking space open in front of Brannach's. Harris sighed and drove on past. Parking was better in Neckerdam than in New York, but he might have to go around the block once or twice before he found a spot for the Hutchen.

  Still scanning for a place to park, he continued a block, then turned left onto the two-lane northbound-only avenue labelled Attorcoppe.

  A horn blared behind him and he heard a sickening crunch, felt the Hutchen shudder as its right rear quarter slammed into something.

  He cringed. He knew, without having to turn and look, what had happened. Coming off Damablanca, distracted, he'd gravitated like an idiot into the right lane. At least on this one-way street it hadn't been a lane full of southbound traffic. He slowed and looked over his shoulder at the car he'd hit, preparing to mouth an apology to its driver, something to tide him over the few seconds it would take to pull the two cars to the side.

  In the glare from the streetlights, he saw that the driver of the car was staring at him, cursing. No surprise. Two of the three men in the car with him were also glaring.


  The last man, the rear-seat passenger on the left side of the car, was half out of the window, reaching down for something bouncing and teetering on the car's running board. Harris glanced at it.

  It was a Klapper autogun, the same sort of brassy submachine gun Alastair had used when the assassins struck at Doc's lab.

  The same sort of gun the other two men in the car were now bringing up to aim at Harris.

  Chapter Fifteen

  "Damn it!" Harris hunched down, mashed the accelerator, jerked the car to the left.

  There was a roar from the other car, like the world's loudest lawn mower starting, and Harris felt hail batter the side of the Hutchen. He flinched and ducked as low as he could. The shuddering went on and on.

  He felt hot stings in his back and neck. It couldn't be gunfire—that would hurt worse, stop him, wouldn't it?

  He wheeled left at the first cross-street, automatically slid into one of the lanes to the right of the median, and realized that all the traffic he could see was headed his way. Headlights ahead swerved and horns honked. There was a moment's break in the gunfire from the other car. Then it started again, from directly behind; the back of the Hutchen shook under dozens of impacts.

  Harris swore. The car pursuing him was a long, low-slung, fast-looking job like one of Doc's. He wouldn't be able to outrun it.

  One of the oncoming autos roared past him in the other lane. A few hundred feet ahead, both lanes were occupied by oncoming headlights.

  Harris yanked the wheel left, aiming for a gap between two trees in the median. He felt a tremendous bang as his front wheels hit the curb; the Hutchen bounced up, slowed as it plowed through a bush planted between the trees, and rocked as it came down the curb on the far side.

  An oncoming car in his lane screeched as it braked; it swerved but managed to skid to a stop just feet away. Harris turned right, finally traveling with the traffic.

  There was the sound of an impact behind him, followed by a metallic crunch. Harris looked in the rearview mirror—to no avail; it was shattered, pieces of glass still falling from the frame. He glanced over his shoulder.