by Marc Zicree
Deeply engaged in some inconsequential task, I didn’t realize I was not alone until I heard the door click shut behind me.
“I think you’ve got enough stuff there for a field hospital, Doc.”
I turned.
She was dressed from head to toe in black leather: leather pants, a jacket that hung to mid-thigh. She was a biker Valkyrie. She grinned at me. “Venus’s stuff. Pretty tough, huh? At least, it makes me feel tough. Leather’s good protection.” She patted her thigh, then took another step into the room. “Time to go.”
I was mute.
She gave me a long, level look, then dropped her eyes to the floor. “Look, Viktor. I’m pretty dense a lot of the time, but I don’t have to be hit over the head more than two or three whacks to know … What I’m trying to say is that I think there’s something we need to, um … to work out here.” She paused, raising her eyes to my face. “Isn’t there?”
No pretense. I had promised her that, and I knew it would be impossible for me to break a promise to Colleen. “Last night,” I said, “you accused me of playing the father figure for you. I suppose I have done that, at first unintentionally, and then… with purpose. It was a safe role. But you are right when you say that I am not your father.” I halted, the impossible words frozen on my tongue. “Dear God, how can I say this to you?”
She took another step in, her eyes searing my face. “Just say it.”
“Colleen, the feelings I have for you are not a father’s.” She hesitated, as if waiting for me to say more, then shrugged. “And this is a problem?”
“Is it not a problem? I am old enough—”
“To know better. So am I, come to it, but self-knowledge hasn’t been a real high priority for me until just recently.
Look, Viktor, here’s the flip side. I’m not your daughter. I don’t want you to think of me as a daughter, or treat me like a daughter. I want…”
She struggled for a moment, her eyes locked with mine, then muttered, “Dammit, Viktor.” She took a final step, put her hands to my face and kissed me.
I ceased to analyze and agonize and simply allowed myself to live inside the moment, allowed the cascade of emotion to flow over and into that hollow space. The kiss began with tender discovery and ended with a passion that stunned me to the marrow.
So, this was rebirth.
Finally, Colleen drew back in my arms, releasing a long sigh. “Glory hallelujah,” she said. “You know, I came in here thinking that I was going to tell you how I felt because, well, who knows if we’ll have another chance, right?” She looked up into my eyes, stunning me anew. “But I promise you, Viktor, we’re going to come out of this alive.”
“If you say it, I have no doubt,” I said.
In the hallway outside, someone called our names. Cal. I felt a sudden, swift stab of guilt.
“Damn,” said Colleen, and moved to answer his call. Like a sleepwalker, I followed.
He was standing in the hallway behind the bar, and saw us the moment we emerged from the scullery. “I was wondering where you two went. We’re ready to move out.” He scanned our faces, then asked, “Something wrong?”
Colleen smiled. “Not a thing. Just wanted to make sure Doc wasn’t assembling an entire MASH unit.”
Cal nodded, but as I passed him on the way into the bar, he laid a hand on my arm. “She’s all right, isn’t she?”
I could barely look him in the eye. Stupid, yes? Perhaps it was only in my mind that Colleen and Cal belonged together, but I suspected the connection existed in his mind as well.
“Don’t let her take unnecessary risks. I shall ask her to do the same for you.”
Cal grinned and pressed my arm. “Thanks.”
There was about him the exhilaration I have seen on those who are about to go into battle. In Afghanistan, where I was stationed at a field hospital, I saw it every day on young, ardent faces. At the time, I was horrified by how eager they were to die. I have come to understand that it was not death they yearned for, but action. Action of any kind. Anything but the waiting.
In the bar, we prepared to move out, grimly purposeful. I looked at the leather-clad Valkyrie and wondered if this hard-bitten warrior was really the same woman who had just come to me quaking with uncertainty. Already, my arms felt the ache of returning emptiness.
“This is it,” Cal told me, patting the sword at his thigh. He looked over at Tone and Jelly, who hovered uncertainly behind us. “Wish us luck.”
Tone shook his head and held out one hand. “You’re a crazy shit, Calvin. Hope you’re a lucky shit, too.”
Cal took the hand and shook it.
We headed up the stairs to the street then, Goldie trailing the double tether that joined him to Magritte—nylon and light. My connection to Colleen was, blessedly, invisible. Before Cal could lay a hand on the door, it opened, admitting a shaft of amber light. The soft radiance framed a short, misshapen figure.
“Boy howdy,” said Goldie. “If it ain’t the prodigal troll.”
Enid swore, Colleen threatened, and Howard Russo shuffled from one foot to the other, glancing at each of us in turn. He looked down at the floor, nudging a knothole with his toe as if he might cover it up or erase it.
He finally looked up and met Cal’s eyes. “I feel like shit,” he said. “I’m not a bad man. Just a scared man. Just wanted to go home. Couldn’t get out.” His eyes darted about, making him look like a trapped thing. “It wouldn’t let me out.”
“So you came crawling to us,” said Colleen. “How noble.”
Russo nearly snarled at her. “Didn’t have to. Could’ve gone to Primal. Maybe if I gave him something he wanted, he’d cut me loose.”
Colleen snorted. “You would’ve cut a deal for Enid? Fed him to the contract so you could get out of it?”
Russo’s eyes snapped to her face. “Would’ve. Didn’t. I didn’t. See?”
Colleen ran a hand through her hair, leaving it in wild disarray. “So that’s it? You’ve come back to apologize for dumping our asses on Primal’s doorstep?”
“No. To help.” Russo turned to Enid. “Feel like crap. I like you, Enid. Always have. Didn’t want to hurt you. Just got cold feet.” He curled his bare, gray toes as if to illustrate. “Came back ’cause I can help you get in. I can set you up to talk to Primal.”
“Set us up,” repeated Colleen. “Good choice of words, Howie.”
The color of Russo’s face altered subtly. “Wouldn’t do that. I mean it.”
Cal was focused tightly on Russo’s face. “All right. Let’s assume for a moment that we take you up on your offer. How do you intend to get us in?”
The big milky eyes were suddenly very direct. “I only look useless. Primal’s got my contract, too. He wants something from me.”
“What?”
“I’m a manager. Manage talent. S’posed to help him hang on to what he’s got.” He turned his milky gaze up into Enid’s face. “I let you get away. Let a couple others get away, too. S’pose he figures I owe him something for that.”
Enid took a step back, steadying himself against a table. “You let me get away?”
Russo nodded. “He was pissed as hell. That’s why he took over the contract.”
Cal dropped his gaze to the floor. “All right, Howard. You come. But for your sake, be straight with us.”
“Straight,” said Russo, making a vague gesture over his heart.
We walked out into the amber daylight then. At the top of the steps, Colleen paused to adjust the crossbow that hung beneath the skirt of her jacket.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “You have the talisman Papa Sky gave you?”
She smiled and fetched the thing out of the front of her shirt. She had cut a hole into it and hung it on the chain that bore her father’s dog tags. She laid the charm and tags in my hand. They still carried the warmth of her body. I felt a soft tingle of something more from the strange chip of leather.
“I’m taking all my good luck into that place.” Her
smile became lopsided, eyeing me. “Well, almost all.”
Around my own neck, I wore a silver cross. Nurya had made up the fable that reformed vampires haunted the blood bank at the hospital and that the cross would protect me if one of them should “fall off the wagon,” as the Americans say. I pulled the chain off over my head and draped it around Colleen’s neck, then returned the charms to their place.
Her smile was gone. She grasped my hand and held it over her heart for an instant before we turned and went after the others.
IV
In the House
of Suddhoo
A stone’s throw out on either hand From that well-ordered road we tread, And all the world is wild and strange: Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite Shall bear us company tonight, For we have reached the Oldest Land Wherein the Powers of Darkness range.
—In the House of Suddhoo by Rudyard Kipling
TWENTY-FOUR
CAL
Howard didn’t lead us back through the business district. He swung east toward the lake and up through the rail yards to Grant Park. It was nothing like I remembered it. The defunct trains had become a neighborhood on useless wheels. Boxcars, passenger cars, cabooses, even engines had been converted for human use. It had to beat trying to maintain a household in a twenty-five-story walk-up.
The park’s lawns, which once seemed to go on forever and had been dotted with picnickers, volleyball games, and joggers, were now divided into farm plots, tent towns, and graveyards littered with sad little markers. There were no flowers, but some of the graves seemed to have collected piles of offerings: bows, feathers, ribbons, other odds and ends.
It was easier going here, oddly enough, because the people seemed not to care about us. Neither Magritte nor Howard, shambling along smothered in his sweatsuit, aroused any particular interest. Maybe it was because an armed group of normals with two twists in tow merely looked like a successful hunting party. Whatever the reason, they looked at us; they looked away, they went about their business. And, I noticed distractedly, there seemed to be a lot of business going on in some quarters.
“Balbo Market,” said Howard, apparently catching my curiosity about the busy clumps of tents, stalls, and makeshift wagons. “People gotta eat, and they gotta have stuff, y’know, so …” He waved an arm at the small but bustling throng.
I slowed my pace a little to watch the patrons of Balbo Market interact. I saw haggling, items changing hands, hands being shaken in accord. Adaptation passing for normalcy.
“Life finds a way,” murmured Goldie.
I focused my attention on the cluttered path ahead. I couldn’t yet see the Black Tower through the combination of fey red haze and smoke, but the closer we got to it, the tighter my nerves twisted.
I distracted them with a study of Howard Russo. Who was this guy, really? Was he the victim of circumstance who bravely allowed Enid and others to escape Primal’s grasp, or was he the weasel who sold out flares and a handful of musicians to save his own hide? Was he both? Was there any way to find out before we walked into Primal’s fortress? Was there any way to find out what Primal was?
“Howard, the devas that Primal keeps—are they his allies or his slaves?”
Howard glanced up at me from inside his hood, his mirror lenses nearly blinding me. “I didn’t sell those people.”
“Chill, Howie,” said Colleen. “Cal’s just trying to get at the truth.”
“Is Primal a group of flares?” I asked bluntly.
The lenses flashed at me again. “Primal is Primal. But it likes the devas.”
“Why? What does ‘it’ want with them?”
“Not sure,” Howard said.
“Maybe the question is backward,” suggested Colleen. “Maybe the question is: What do the flares want with Primal?”
I shook my head. “We’ve never known flares to be devious or dangerous.”
“But they could be, couldn’t they? I mean, look at the pull the Source has on them. Alice, Faun.”
The memory of losing Faun raised an ache in my heart. It carried its own freight of agony, on top of reminding me of what I’d gone through with Tina. “Faun and Alice weren’t…” I hesitated.
“I think evil is the word you’re searching for,” Goldie said baldly.
“They weren’t evil. They were tortured, pulled between opposing forces. Look, this conversation is pointless.”
“Is it?” Colleen asked. “If we knew how the flares figured in this, we’d have a lot better idea what to expect once we’re inside. What d’you think they’re gonna do, Cal? Give us a hero’s welcome?”
I guess I had expected that—or at least that we’d be viewed as a rescue party.
“Colleen may be right,” said Doc. “What if this is the way these flares protect themselves from the Source? Might they not take us as a threat?”
I turned my attention back to Howard. “Is Primal protecting the flares, Howard?”
He considered it, his mouth puckering. “They’re safe there. Safer than they’d be anywhere else.”
“And what does Primal get out of it?”
“Shit.” Colleen gripped my arm so tightly I knew I’d bruise. “We’re forgetting something. Primal’s a tweak. Maybe even a flare. He’d have to have some way of protecting himself from the Source.”
One Voice in front of many. A mutual protection society, very much like Enid and Magritte’s. We wouldn’t be heroes; we’d be invaders.
“Tweak?” echoed Howard.
“Like you,” said Goldie, “or Magritte.”
“Primal’s not like any of us,” Howard said, and my blood congealed in my veins.
“Shit,” Colleen said again. “This sucks.”
She could hear the flare voices, but only faintly. And she could drive them almost completely from her head if she kept one of Enid’s songs in mind. Enid, wrapped in Magritte’s flare shielding, heard nothing. He sweated the situation anyway.
“This doesn’t seem right—me hangin’ while you get into this up to your armpits. If I went in with you—”
Cal was adamant. “You can’t. If you went in, you might never come out.” He glanced at Magritte. “Either of you. We don’t know what might happen if you went in there before your contract is voided. I’d rather not find out.”
Enid took a deep breath and stared up at the Tower. In the strange gleam of Chicago daylight, its darkened windows and steel frame spat iridescence back at the sun. “Yeah,” he said. “Me neither.”
The front doors of the Chicago Media Group were massive, glass-and-brass revolving mechanisms set in two ranks with a ten-foot windbreak between. We watched them for several minutes from the half-shattered lobby of a building across the street. No one came in or out.
“We go?” Howard asked from beside me.
“No time like the present.” I patted the copy of Enid’s contract I carried in an inside pocket of my jacket and turned to Doc. “You’re our backup contingency plan. If this is a trap, or if something goes wrong, you may be our only way out.”
Doc nodded grimly and worried the hilt of a knife that had never been used for anything but cutting bandages.
Colleen put her hand over his, stopping the nervous clenching of his fingers. “Don’t cut yourself on that thing, Viktor. It’d be pretty embarrassing if I had to patch you up.”
He smiled faintly. “I will try not to cut myself. Good luck.”
Colleen smiled and squeezed her odd collection of charms. I noticed there was a silver cross among them now. Funny. I hadn’t thought she was particularly religious. “I’ll see you later,” she answered, and started for the street, leaping nimbly over a fall of broken glass and mortar.
Howard and I followed, leaving Goldie behind to make his good-byes. We’d reached the great doors by the time he came loping up behind us. They weren’t guarded, and in my eagerness to get in, I simply put my hand out to give one of them a push.
“No! No!” Howard howled, and Colleen threw a body block, bowling me ov
er. When she hauled me upright, she and Howard and Goldie were all talking at once.
“What the hell was that for?” I asked.
“Didn’t you see it?” Colleen flung an arm at the doors. “See what?” asked Goldie, glancing from me to Colleen. “Can’t just walk in,” Howard lectured. “There’s proto -
cols.” He swung away and shuffled over behind a pillar. “See what?” Goldie asked again.
Colleen squinted at the doors. “The … the force field.”
I grabbed her arm and physically moved her out of my way, trying to keep an eye on what Howard was doing. He was peering at a mail slot centered in a brass plate. He poked the end of one finger into the slot, then jumped as if he’d been shocked and stuck the finger in his mouth to suck on it.
Strange. “I don’t see anything,” I said.
Goldie shook his head. “Me neither.”
“Whoa. Well, neither do I now, but a second ago there was this … Well, it looked kind of like a curtain of static electricity. Yellow and green and all …” She made a circular motion with her hand.
“Wax on, wax off?”
She threw Goldie a dirty look. “Staticky.”
Howard had shuffled back to us. “Okay. Now we go in.” He led the way, turning the doors as if they were made of balsa wood instead of thick, tempered glass. I will forever be amazed at how much strength is contained in a grunter’s body.
We crossed the windbreak and went through the second door into the foyer. It was a huge, vaulted chamber, harshly lit by sun filtered through the ruby veil. Banks of elevators lay in the semidarkness beyond, useless now; twin escalators, reduced to toothy staircases, led to the second floor.
I looked up as we entered the hall, our footsteps tapping out echoes on the gray marble underfoot. The upper floor was dimly lit by globes of light much like the ones Goldie produced. These were the color of dying embers and filled the upper reaches of the building with a dull, red gleam that made me think of volcanoes, lava lamps, and hell.
