by DD Barant
“Yeah, you’ve really made me the most popular girl in school,” I say. “I hope you’ve got a plan beyond sitting in this booth and soaking up cheap booze. We need a base of operations, for one thing.”
“But we have one,” she says. “Right here. I’ve got a room on the second floor, and no one will think of looking for an NSA agent—or an Astonisher—in a strip club.”
“You don’t think two women in a bar that caters mostly to men will stand out?”
“Not when one of them works there.” She gives me a look with way too much mischief in it. “Now if you’ll excuse me—I go on in a few minutes.”
She gets up and struts toward the stage. Apparently my new partner is not only a magician, she’s an extradimensional stripper.
I sigh, and order another shot of tequila.
FOUR
One nice thing about Vegas is that it’s so arid, I dry off quickly. The air-conditioning helps, too, but I’m shivering before long. I’d like to go outside and warm up, but can’t risk it. The tequila doesn’t actually raise my body temperature, but makes it easier to ignore.
Azura, it turns out, is actually one helluva dancer. She works the guys in the front row like a pro, collects more than her share of tips, and does some acrobatics that would make a Romanian gymnast envious. I wonder if she comes by her talent naturally, or if she’s using some kind of magic—channeling the spirit of a spider monkey, or maybe a boa constrictor. All the yoga classes in the world wouldn’t give me the flexibility to wrap around a pole like that.
I’m only watching with one eye, though—the other’s keeping a lookout for anyone coming through the door that might be trouble, or anyone already here who might be looking to start some. Two women in a strip club are friends out for some wrong-side-of-the-tracks fun; one woman is more conspicuous and more likely to attract drunks with mistaken ideas.
When trouble shows up, it’s not what I expected.
Two thropes at a table between me and the stage are signing to each other—a muzzle full of fangs is designed to tear into flesh, not conversation—and it’s not hard to eavesdrop.
Hey, did you hear about the Flamingo?
I thought they were going to tear that place down.
No, not until next month—but it’s already gone.
What, they moved up the demolition?
No, I mean it’s gone. Disappeared. Some kind of new spell, I guess.
So what’s there now? A big hole? A parking lot?
No, that’s the weird thing. It’s a totally different building instead. And the cops have the whole area cordoned off, not letting anyone in.
Sounds like somebody screwed up.
Yeah. The place was probably supposed to turn into dust or something, and they forget to dot an i or cross a t. Got a Kmart instead of a crater.
Typical.
That doesn’t sound like any spell I’ve ever heard of; if it was that easy to just zap a building out of existence, the Free Human Resistance would have been nine-elevening half the federal structures in Washington. The kind of power needed to do anything like that is usually restricted to what’s known as HPLC, High Power Level Craft, and only government agencies have access to it.
Or rogue sorcerers from another dimension.
Azura disappears into the back when she’s done her set, but I’m not worried about her disappearing—she’s made it clear she needs me, and I have the feeling that someone with her skill set could ditch me at any time if she really wants to, anyway. I figure she’s probably just gone upstairs to freshen up.
Sure enough, she comes back a few minutes later wearing black yoga pants, a belly-baring halter top, and a pair of red cowboy boots. She’s got a plate of onion rings with her, too, which she slaps down in front of me before sliding into the booth. “Grabbed something from the kitchen for you. It’s about the only edible thing they make.”
“Thanks.”
I tell her about the building as I eat. “It’s got to be Ahaseurus,” I say. “Any idea what it means?”
She frowns. “Maybe. We need to check it out, that’s for sure. So what did you think?”
“About what?”
“My set.”
“Oh. You’re, uh, limber. And … extroverted.”
“It’s how I broke in to the Astonishers’ Guild.”
“By taking your clothes off?”
“It’s a competitive field, with not a lot of women; I figured I’d turn a negative into a plus by doing something no one else had done before—and my act featured a lot more than just showing some skin. But you’ve got to draw a crowd before you can astonish them, and striptease does that extremely well. Besides, you’d be amazed how well misdirection and exhibitionism go together.”
“Palm one thing while you’re flashing another?”
“Exactly.”
I understood what it was like to hit the glass ceiling in a profession dominated by men—but at the FBI, at least I’d managed to do it without resorting to pasties and a G-string. “Kind of a cheap trick, if you ask me.”
She raises an eyebrow, but the smile stays on her face. “There are no cheap tricks, Jace—just the ones that work and the ones that don’t. Like getting an NSA agent to desert her post for a sketchy meeting.”
“That was a calculated risk—”
“So I’m guessing math wasn’t one of your stronger subjects?”
Now I’m the one who’s smiling—and it’s not a nice smile. “As a matter of fact, I did very well at math. And forensics. And ballistics. And criminal psychology—oh, wait, you probably don’t even know what the last two are, do you? Though I’m sure you got high marks in bra tossing and putting your ankles behind your ears.”
She meets my eyes levelly, two cats with twitching tails staring at each other on a fence and waiting for the other one to lose her nerve.
“You don’t like me very much, do you?” she asks.
“I don’t know you. From what I’ve seen so far, you’re manipulative, flamboyant, overly cheerful, and cute as a kitten. No, I don’t like you.”
“Well, there’s really only one way I can respond to that.” She stands up. “Hot shower. Dry clothes. Twenty-year-old scotch. And if you can hold off on cutting my throat for a few minutes longer, freshly made espresso.”
I blink. “You’re not fooling me. You’re Satan, with … with perky breasts.”
She walks away, crooking her finger for me to follow. I wonder if I can glare at her hard enough to make her burst into flames—then I can just take the keys from her charred corpse and help myself.
That doesn’t happen. I surrender to the inevitable, muttering all the way. I think I would have just shot her and called it a day if she hadn’t offered me espresso …
* * *
The apartment Azura’s staying in is tiny, but she’s got a shower massager in her bathroom, a bottle of something called McBeastie with a kilt-wearing thrope howling at the moon on the label, and an honest-to-God espresso machine in her minuscule kitchen. It looks like she ripped out the microwave to make room for it.
I take her up on the shower and the caffeine, but pass on the scotch. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a nice single-malt, but the tequila is starting to wear off and it’s giving me the kind of jagged clarity that a mild hangover induces—you know, when the world is turned up just a little too high? Uncomfortable, but it can be a useful tool. I discovered it by accident, working on a case in Georgia near the beginning of my career—the brutality of the crime scenes had me using whiskey to kill the nightmares, and the morning-after effects wound up helping me catch the killer.
Before I get in the shower, I pull out my cell phone. I don’t care what Miss Voodoo Boobs says, I need to know if Charlie’s all right. And of course, I discover that our little midnight dip has drowned the damn thing—I should have downloaded that waterproofing app Gretchen was talking about.
I sigh and clean up. There’s sweatpants and a T-shirt that almost fits waiting for me when I’m don
e; Azura must have stuck them through the door while I was showering.
I get dressed and rejoin her. She’s got a double shot of espresso ready and waiting, which I grudgingly accept.
“When your clothes are dry, we’ll head over to the Flamingo,” she says.
I down the espresso and slap the cup down on the Formica countertop. “I’m good now. Besides, it’ll take my shoes forever to dry out—I’ll wear them as is.”
She slips on an oversize zip-up black hoodie. “Ready when you are.”
I strap on my gun, throw on my damp jacket, and we go outside and hail a cab. He can’t get us any closer to the Flamingo than a block away—the police have it cordoned off.
We get out and join the crowd that’s pressed up against the roadblocks, gawking. What I can see isn’t all that impressive—just a big gray building, similar to a warehouse, maybe three stories high. Nobody seems to be going in or out.
“That’s not a casino,” Azura murmurs.
“Not unless gray and boring is the new neon.”
“I think I know what it is, though. A morgoleum.”
“Sounds like an ointment.”
“It’s where they store underdead workers between shifts.” She shakes her head. “This isn’t what I was expecting at all. Unless … no, that can’t be it.”
“What?”
“Never mind. We need to get inside.”
“I’ve got an NSA badge and you can look like anyone. I don’t think we’ll have any problems. Uh—you can look like anyone, right? Not just me? Because I’d rather not do this as the Doublemint Twins.”
“My repetoire isn’t unlimited, but I’ll manage. I’m going to stick with my real appearance for now, all right?”
“Yeah, sure. Just follow my lead, okay?”
We stride up to the bored-looking thrope guarding the barricade. I flash my badge.
“We need to get a closer look at the phenomenon,” I say.
The thrope is a burly Latino guy. He’s doing that thing some cops like to do—transforming just enough to make his eyes go yellow, his teeth and ears sharpen, and a three-day growth of stubble sprout on his chin. Back where I come from, they grow mustaches—same thing, really.
“Can I see that again?” he says. His voice is deep and guttural, but the effect is ruined by the slight lisp his deformed mouth is producing.
Uh-oh. Didn’t think they’d have local law enforcement looking for me this fast.
Which is when Azura steps forward. Except she’s not Azura anymore.
“Excuse me, pilgrim,” John Wayne says. He’s wearing a dark blue denim suit that would look ridiculous on anyone else, and his cowboy boots are now black. “I’ve got a fair bit of money tied up in that casino, and I’d really appreciate taking a closer look.”
The thrope’s eyes go wide. “I didn’t know you owned the Flamingo, Mr. Wayne.”
The Duke chuckles. “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. But I am one of the owners, and apparently I’m the only one in town. The other guys asked me to drop by, see what’s going on. That all right with you, son?”
He hesitates, but there are stars in his eyes and one right in front of him. “Sure, Mr. Wayne. Absolutely.”
“Thank you. You come on by the bar at the hotel when this is all straightened out, tell ’em the Duke said they owe you a drink.”
“I’ll do that!”
We hop the barricade and stride toward the building before he remembers that something about me was off.
“John Wayne?” I say once we’re out of earshot.
“What, you don’t like cowboys?”
“On my world, he’s dead. Cancer. Caused, some people say, by nuclear tests done near here that fried his cells with radiation while he was shooting Westerns out in the desert.”
“Radiation,” she says. Her voice is hard, as opposed to questioning.
“You have that where you come from?”
“In a way. Ours is worse.”
It’s not just the casino that’s missing, it’s the entire patch of ground that the hotel and parking structure stood on. What’s there now is just bare earth, the same kind of rocky terrain that surrounds Vegas. Azura goes down on one knee and scoops up a handful, rubs it between her fingers. “Interesting,” she says.
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you after we’ve looked inside.”
“Fine.” I draw my gun. “Let’s do this.”
We walk up to the front door, which is a big, barn-like affair with leather hinges. I grab the handle and ease it open. We peer inside.
It looks like a warehouse, row after row of shelves that go all the way up to the roof. Walkways line them at the first and second stories, and ladders provide access at the end of every row.
But this building isn’t designed to store merchandise. What’s on the shelves are bodies.
I can see the soles of their shoes, one pair at the open end of every single compartment. It’s like looking at a Costco of corpses; the only thing missing is a few cashiers and some extra-large shopping carts.
Azura and I both step forward at the same time.
And everything goes black.
I haven’t lost consciousness. What I have lost is everything else—sight, hearing, taste, smell, sense of touch. I’m awake, but with only my own thoughts for company; my voice, my body, my new stripper-slash-partner are all AWOL.
And then I hear the voice.
A long, long time ago, at the beginning of all things, there was Chaos. And Chaos gave birth to Order, for Chaos inevitably gives birth to all things. But Order was different, for Order resisted the destruction that Chaos also inevitably brings; and Order spread, until it was the equal of Chaos and could spread no more.
But time blurs borders, and so it was with the border between Chaos and Order. What began as a shifting battlefront expanded over billennia to be a realm of both and neither; a place where some things held true and others did not, of laws that could be bent and improbabilities that could be tamed.
This was Reality.
And Life arose within Reality, and so too did Death. And Life and Death and Chaos and Order were the Powers that governed all things.
But Chaos was not content, for Chaos demands change, always. And so Chaos visited Life herself, and crept into her blood while she slept; for Chaos is at his most powerful in those parts of Reality that are very, very small. And Life’s blood boiled with chance and change, and she bore him many children.
The offspring of Life and Chaos was also very small but very numerous; and it spread from Life’s blood to many living creatures. And those creatures that it came to rest within were transformed into beings with aspects both animal and human; and they were called Weres.
The Weres were cherished by their mother, for Life loves all that lives; and she saw the multiplicity of their forms and the cleverness of their minds, and was pleased.
When Order saw this he was most unhappy, for he knew the children of Chaos would only spread more uncertainty and change in the world. So he resolved to counter this development, in his own straightforward, unimaginative way.
He began to court Death.
He had an advantage in that Death was not used to being courted; indeed, in her entire existence few beings welcomed her approach, let alone sought her out. Perhaps another would have been dismayed, even offended by Order’s offer, but Death was lonely; and so she accepted his proposed arrangement.
And thus the Underdead were created.
Not born, no; for they were made of human beings who had abandoned Life, and so were no longer under her sway. And Order decreed that they would be nourished by the decay of all living things, and would be linked to all of Reality by the fundamental forces that he embodied; and those forces were the things that kept the planets and the moons and the stars in their orbits, for Order is at his most powerful with things that are very, very big.
And thus the Underdead did not rot, as other dead things do. Nor did they think—at least, not as living b
eings do, for their minds had none of the freedom that Chaos brings. They could not dream, or imagine, or play. They were creatures of Death and Order, unchanging and unfeeling.
There was, on one shelf of Reality, a land called Nightshadow. Nightshadow was encircled by mountains on every side, and the sun, even in highest summer, never rose past their peaks; it crept behind them instead, making the mountaintops glow crimson and making even Nightshadow’s brightest days those of twilight.
But it was not a cold place, oh no, for many hot springs bubbled and steamed in its valleys, and the air was warm and moist. And even without sunlight, plants grew lush and thick: mushrooms and toadstools and fungus, towering as high as any tree and in all the blazing colors of nature, from iridescent greens and sky blues to passionflower oranges and yellows and scarlets.
And this land called to the Weres and the Underdead and the mysterious Lyrastoi, for they were all creatures that loved the darkness and mistrusted the sun; the Underdead especially, for the rays of the sun turned them into cold, unmoving stone. And so Nightshadow filled with beings of every kind, from human to animal to Were to Underdead, and they lived in harmony side by side; for any human who felt the call of wildness in his blood could choose to become a Were, and those who did not were left in peace.
But Chaos saw this and was not content, for Chaos demands change in all things. And so he took upon himself a new and terrible form, born of the sun itself, that he called Fyre. And he swept down into the valleys of Nightshadow and brought destruction to Were and human and Underdead alike.
But the Lyrastoi were clever, and they devised a way to drive Fyre from Nightshadow. They called upon the Underdead to counter Chaos, for were they not the children of Order? And the Underdead agreed to help for the good of all.
It took much time and much labor, but what is that to those with no desires, no hopes, no plans? The Underdead toiled, without complaint, without rest, from the deepest valleys of Nightshadow to the highest, rocky cliffs, planting and tending the crops that the Lyrastoi cultivated, and in time a vast web of roots underlay all the land; these roots, hidden beneath the soil, were safe from the depredations of Fyre, and the Lyrastoi charged them with a mighty enchantment that banished Fyre from Nightshadow forever.
