But in a lot of cases, folks were still in the grip of mania and largely beyond helping. Some could see dead relatives. Others were confronted with bad people from their past. Phobias were coming to life. And a number of those were taking on a kind of substance.
Lauren was rounding a corner when a shark came at her, swimming through thin air like it was water. She had no idea why any person who was trapped in a landlocked town would be afraid of sharks – perhaps he’d seen them on TV. But it looked real enough. Its jaws were snapping.
She pulled out her gun and emptied half the clip into the thing, without slowing it down.
Ducked away to the right, but it turned sinuously, following her. And in another split-instant, it was on her, its teeth closing round her shoulder.
Lauren yelped, feeling a brief pain. But the creature disappeared from view as soon as it had done that. And she staggered back.
Cass came running up to her.
“You okay?”
“I think so. But was that real or not?”
“No telling.” Cassie looked decidedly uneasy. “But we need to watch our step. And we’re not going fast enough, so we’d better split up.”
“Makes sense,” Lauren agreed, although she didn’t like the idea much.
“We each take a section and head west, right? Meet up again at the top of Crealley Street?”
They agreed that was the best plan. And they both got going.
Jesus, in the last fifteen minutes she had had to deal with a whole mess of tarantulas, a berserk Great Dane with glowing, bright green eyes, the corpse of someone’s grandma and – to cap it all – a giant crow. People’s personal fears here seemed to run the entire gamut. Exactly like the normal world, Lauren guessed. But in the normal world, phobias had the good manners to stay where they belonged and not come striding out into the light of day, whichever color it was.
But she’d gotten a lot of people moving in the right direction. She had done some limited good. She was perspiring by the time that she reached Crealley Street.
She’d expected Cassie to already be there. But the road was empty. Lauren swiveled round.
“Cass?”
She started getting a cold, empty feeling in her gut. What if something really bad had happened?
“Cassie?”
Lauren thought of heading back to look for her … but in what direction? There was silence all around her, and she felt her mind start fogging up.
But then she heard a whimper, off from the next street along. And she couldn’t be certain, but she moved toward it.
The noise came again, more plaintive than before.
And then, she could hear Cassie shouting.
And she’d never heard the woman sound so horrified or anguished. Lauren started running.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Woody,” I complained, wobbling slightly and then regaining my balance, “if you do that again without warning me, I’m going to punch you out, I swear it. I don’t care how powerful you are.”
He smirked.
“This is hardly the time for macho posturing, Devries.”
And why was he in such a good mood? Maybe the notion of the real world falling apart pleased him in some way.
I took note of where we were. It wasn’t in the ballroom, nor even the games room, the two places that we usually met. This had to be a room along one side of his mansion, since there was a window. It was filled with vaguely human shapes I quickly figured out were statues. No light was coming through the windowpanes, so that Woody was enfolded in his usual dense shadow. But I could still see through the glass, an oddity I’d noticed about this place in the past.
We were looking out into the overgrown and tangled grounds. And one of those glowing purple holes was hanging in the air, about a hundred yards away. So that was how Woody had gotten into the Oon’s world.
“We’ve very little time left,” Raine said, bringing my attention back around. “Reality throughout the town is on the brink of absolute collapse.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “I already noticed.”
“But fortunately, I’ve brought my full intellect to bear on the situation.”
His full what?
“And I’ve discovered something that might help us.”
I knew that it might merely be some strange delusion, but I let the man go on.
He explained what he’d been doing for the past half hour. Where he’d been, and who he had turned into. And I have to admit, I’d heard some crazy things from him before, but this one beat the rest of them by several miles. Could he possibly be serious?
“You went into Regis Raine?” I goggled at him. “Tell me that you’re kidding.”
“Not at all. I call it a Spell of Ancestral Linkage. A rather clumsy name, I’m afraid. But I haven’t had the opportunity to come up with anything better.”
“Are you sure that you weren’t dreaming this?” I inquired suspiciously.
“Do I seem fanciful to you?”
And I decided not to answer that. Then struggled to get my mind around what I’d been told. If Woody could send his consciousness into the past, then working through the medium of another person he could …
“You’re going to find this Violet and take the Amethyst away from her?” I asked.
But the only thing that happened was that Woody’s bright gaze narrowed sharply.
“Why assume it’s going to be me, old chum?”
An old, familiar resentment stirred inside me.
“Why not?”
“Regis is still in this mansion,” Woody pointed out. “I’m not sure how far his power extends. And he might get to Union Square too late. And besides,” he added, “I don’t like to be outdoors, as you know perfectly well. I have to say, too, that I’m not overly fond of physical activity.”
My frustration boiled over
“For chrissake, we’re not talking about the Ultimate Fighting Championships here!” I bellowed. “We’re talking about taking a gemstone away from a little beggar girl!”
“Which is partially my point as well. Violet still has the Amethyst. And, considering the extent of my magic powers, if she manages to turn them against me …”
He let the sentence peter off. Then finished up with, “It’s going to have to be you, sport.”
There was no time left to argue with him. Damn! I absolutely hated magic being used on me. And the thought of my body and my spirit being split apart like two halves of a walnut chilled me to the bone.
But for once, Woody was right. His supernatural talents did count against him on this occasion. And if there were no other candidates, I guessed that it was down to me.
“I’d like to take Cass with,” I told him.
“Just to get a gemstone off a little beggar girl?”
“I want her in case anything goes wrong.” And when he looked nonplussed, I added, “When it comes to magic, things are rarely simple.”
He gave that some thought, then nodded.
“Okay, then. I’ll fetch her here.”
I saw his narrow fingers crossing. He was going to conjure her into this room, the same way he had conjured me. An impulse told me ‘not that way.’ But then I saw it was the quickest method.
So I let him do it.
I’d expected a Cass Mallory to appear who was standing upright, fully alert, and prepared for action. Which was not what I got. I reeled with surprise.
She showed up in a sudden flash, exactly as I had been hoping. But was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up in front of her, her elbows propped on those. And she had both hands pressed to her face, covering it up.
And she was not alone. Lauren Brennan had arrived with her. That had to have happened because they were touching.
The blond woman was kneeling down, her arm around Cassie’s shoulder. Cass was trembling, her whole frame being racked by violent shudders. What on earth was wrong?
Lauren took in where she was, her eyes widening, then stood up.
And
told me, “The madness has gotten to her too. I can’t seem to get through to her.”
“I can hear them,” Cass was mumbling, when I stepped a little closer. “I can hear all three of them.”
Three what? I went quickly over, crouching down beside her. Took hold of her wrists as gently as I could, and eased her hands away from her cheeks.
Her face was awash with the gray staining of tears. Her gaze was red, so reflective and stony that it wasn’t even seeing me. Cassie stared out past me, her mouth coming open slackly. Then her body shook again, so fiercely that it almost broke my grip.
“They’re in Hell!” she shouted.
“Who are, Cassie?”
“My kids! That’s where they went after they disappeared. I can hear them screaming. I can smell them burning. My babies are in hellfire, and there’s nothing I can do about it!”
I recalled what had been going on before. The real world breaking down so badly some people were living out their deepest fears. And this was obviously hers. What else would it be?
I did my best to draw her away from her wild delusions, Lauren standing helplessly behind me.
“It’s not real, Cassie.”
“I can hear them!” she repeated, getting angry.
“Try to listen. Try to focus. Your kids are okay.”
But she wasn’t hearing me. She snatched her wrists out of my grasp, placed her palms over her swollen eyes again, then started letting out an anguished, keening noise.
There was the soft rustle of cloth beside me. Raine had moved up close as well. His golden eyes were studying her patiently. And under normal circumstances, Woodard Raine is as detached as an oil painting.
This time, though, I thought I could make out a hint of sympathy creeping into his expression.
“Dear oh dear,” he sighed. “A mother lioness, grieving for her cubs. It must be absolutely dreadful for her.”
Then he crouched down next to me. I was so amazed I didn’t protest. He reached out with one pale hand, extending the narrow index finger. Put it underneath her chin, and tilted her face up to look at him.
Cassie’s hands dropped away, her scarlet-marbled eyeballs coming into view once more.
And Woody’s gaze glowed even brighter. Cassie’s trembling stopped, and her features untensed.
Either he was managing to calm her down. Or he was drawing the madness out of her, absorbing it into himself.
Whichever it was, I was pretty astonished.
Mark this down as an important day in our town’s history. Woodard Raine was being genuinely useful, without being prodded.
She’d settled down fully in another minute, back to normal, the bad fantasies gone. Cass made a stab at wiping her face with her sleeve, then stood up shakily, looking embarrassed.
“Hell,” she muttered, “I was really out of it.”
“You’re not the only one. Half the town’s that way”
She nodded at that. Then I explained to her the plan that we’d devised. And the more she heard the details, then the more she stared at me like I had gone insane myself. And – quite frankly – I couldn’t blame her.
“We’re going back into our own dead relatives?” she blurted.
Put that way, it didn’t sound too good.
“Which ones?” she asked.
We both turned around to Woody, who looked mightily bemused.
“Ah, I never thought of that,” he stammered. “To be honest, there’s no way of telling.”
“So I could wind up in my grandma back when she was six months old?” Cass practically exploded. “That’ll be a fat load of use!”
She was right. But that didn’t change the fact we had no other way to go and we were on the clock.
“If you don’t want to do this, Cassie, then I’ll do it on my own,” I told her. “If it’s the only chance we’ve got, I’ll take it. But I’d rather that you came along.”
That got her simmered partway down. She still looked uncertain, but she nodded in a pensive manner.
So I swiveled back to Woody.
“Okay, genius, let’s do this thing.”
It was quite a long, protracted spell, with an awful load of repetitions. And Woody stumbled over parts of it, struggling to get the words in the right order.
But finally, I felt an odd sensation in my eyes. It was like my pupils had begun sparkling.
And then the room faded away, and we were gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Sergeant Jackson James Devries slipped his billy club from the belt of his coat and started twirling it as he progressed along O’Connell Street. Cabs and wagons went by on the cobblestones, their wheels rumbling and the horses’ shod hooves clopping. People on the street who knew him greeted him politely as they passed by, and he nodded briskly back.
He was a ferocious giant of a man, six foot five and deeply muscular. Before he’d joined the police force, he had made his living as a bare-knuckled boxer. There were two scars on his face, a horseshoe-shaped one on his chin, and a much wider one down his left cheek His hair was dark blond, and he sported – in the fashion of the day – a neatly trimmed moustache.
He was clad in the uniform of the age. A dark, knee-length topcoat with a row of silver buttons down the front. And a tall, pointed helmet with a chinstrap, like a British bobby’s.
A badge shone on his chest, there were three chevrons on his sleeve, and he wore those symbols of authority with open pride.
His steely gray eyes flickered everywhere. This wasn’t the worst neighborhood he’d ever had to pound a beat. The houses north of here were mostly grand ones. And the majority of O’Connell was given over to reputable stores. But the alleyways to the south of here were narrow and complex, and had a tendency to fill up with the local scum. And there were a few watering holes along this very byway that attracted customers you might call ‘dubious’ if you were being kind.
His gaze fell on the owner of one such establishment. Hamilton Tye, the proprietor of the Three Oaks Tavern. Business was apparently slow today, because the snub-nosed man was stood outside his place, puffing on a corncob pipe. He wore a leather apron, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up.
They knew each other very well. Hamilton kept his ear to the ground and picked up on the local gossip. And the sergeant had found such information useful on occasion. So he marched across, capturing the man’s attention.
“G’day, Sergeant Jack,” came the greeting.
“G’day, Ham. And how goes the scuttlebutt on O’Connell Street?”
Hamilton respected the big man. Most coppers in town took bribes, but not this one. He wasn’t the sort to the bought or sold. Nor crossed either – Sergeant Devries had an infamous temper.
So the barkeep looked about and took another puff before replying.
“Word’s going round about this feller called Soaper who has gotten his hands on an enchanted ‘iron.’ When fired – or so it’s said – it never misses. And the bullet always strikes the heart.”
An enchanted pistol, eh? That was a new one. The sergeant’s free hand went to the revolver on his belt. When he was forced to draw it, he rarely missed either. So, one way or another, he would settle this Soaper’s hash.
“Anything else?”
Hamilton pursed his lips.
“The usual dips, fences, and Bunko men, most of whom you know by sight. But there’s a couple of new paperhangers in the area, who you’ll become acquainted with soon enough.”
Pickpockets and con artists were common in this district. But there’d been no one writing bad checks for a while. And now, apparently, there were two of them. Jackson leaned in closer.
“Describe them,” he growled.
And Hamilton was about to do precisely that, when something happened that astonished him.
The sergeant’s back went very straight. The pupils of his gray eyes glittered for a second. Then he staggered slightly, peering around as though he’d become unfamiliar with his surroundings.
And before anot
her word could pass between them, he had turned around on the heels of his big boots. And he began running, as fast as he could, in the direction of Union Square.
There were no obvious disturbances off there.
So what on earth – the barkeep wondered puzzledly – had made the man do that?
“Why, you hapless, helpless, hopeless lummox!”
Cookie Bullingham brought a meaty hand down with a whack against the side of Daisy Fairchild’s head. No one even knew it yet, but in four years’ time Daisy would get married and become a Mallory.
The girl shrieked with pain, then cringed and whimpered. But that wasn’t good enough for Cookie.
“Call this a clean floor? I’ve seen unwashed dinner plates cleaner than this! You’re being paid a living wage, and this is the best that you can manage?”
Her real name wasn’t Cookie, it was Cynthia. But everyone in the Bretten household – north of O’Connell – called her that. She was in charge of the kitchen, the scullery and pantries. And ruled over her staff with a rod of iron. Her tongue was fiery, her fuse so short as to be non-existent, and even Pearce – the family butler – was afraid of her.
“Can’t you even use a mop? Can’t you even scrub? You’re about as much use to me as a month-old piece of cod! I ought to fire you on the spot!”
Her hand came down a second time, and Daisy howled with agony. Cookie was a massive woman, with huge reddened fists and meaty arms. And Daisy – fifteen years old, tall for her age but gawky – was totally unused to violence. This was her first job.
All that she could do was shrink down, cover up her head, and wait for the beating to stop.
But it showed no signs of doing so. Cookie’s face had turned bright scarlet.
“I don’t know why I hired you in the first place! Clumsy, wretched, stupid brat! If it’s the last thing that I do, I’ll pound some sense into your head! And what are you going to do to stop me?”
Her hand came swinging down again. But this time, it did not connect. Because the cook’s thick wrist was suddenly enfolded in a vise like grip.
Daisy had stopped crying, and was peering at her coldly.
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