The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  As it had driven Farr mad? Except the light in his eyes that last time she had seen him had been anything but crazy. No, Farr had been perfectly sane, and that was what terrified her.

  Deirdre made a decision. “You can’t keep any more secrets from me, Anders.” She smiled, hoping the expression was more reassuring than it felt. “Not if we’re going to be partners. We have to be able to depend on each other. Understood?”

  Astonishment flickered across his face, followed by a broad grin. “You’ve got it, mate.”

  “So, is there anything else I should know?”

  He scratched his chin, looking uncomfortable. “Well, only that you’ve still got a bit of your lunch in your teeth. I’ve been trying not to notice it, but frankly it’s driving me bonkers. That was why I rushed us out of the pub.”

  Deirdre slapped a hand to her mouth. “Thanks a lot,” she muttered through her fingers.

  Ten minutes later—after a trip to the rest room, toothbrush in hand—Deirdre sat at her desk. Anders was already typing away on his computer, and she supposed the best way to calm her mind was to try focusing on the task at hand. She picked up a pen and started going over the facsimiles from the 1619 case, reminding herself that, four centuries ago, people had had an annoying habit of writing F’s that looked like S’s, using Y’s instead of I’s, and putting E’s on the end of pretty much everything.

  It wasn’t until hours later that she noticed the folder. Anders had gotten up to brew another pot of coffee. Deirdre leaned back, rubbing her neck. She had made good progress on deciphering the pages from one of the old Seeker journals and was ready for more. She shifted one of the towering stacks of papers on her desk.

  Unlike the manila folders she used, this folder was red, its flap tied shut with a string. She glanced up at Anders, but his back was still turned as he worked on the coffee. Quickly, she unwrapped the string from the clasp and opened the folder.

  Inside was a single black-and-white photograph. It showed what looked like a fragment of a clay tablet covered with two rows of writing. The top row looked vaguely familiar. She had seen writing like that before but couldn’t remember exactly what it was. Sumerian cuneiform? No, not quite. Phoenician? Maybe. Then her eyes moved down to the second row of writing, and her breathing ceased.

  She recognized the lines of queer, angular symbols. She had stared at them so long, how could she not? They were the same as the symbols on Glinda’s ring and the keystone.

  “More coffee, Deirdre?”

  She stared at the photograph. Anders’s back was still turned.

  “Deirdre?”

  “Yes,” she said, managing to breathe again. “Please.”

  She shoved the photograph back into the folder. As Anders turned around, mugs in hand, she slipped the folder into one of the stacks on her desk.

  “Found anything interesting yet?” he said, handing her a steaming mug.

  “Not really.”

  She clutched the hot cup; it burned her fingers, but she didn’t let go. I thought you said partners weren’t supposed to keep secrets, Deirdre.

  “Well, keep trying,” Anders said with a wink.

  He returned to his desk. Deirdre ached to pull out the folder again to study the photograph, but she didn’t dare. And she didn’t need to look at it again to know what it was.

  It was her Rosetta Stone.

  30.

  Travis huddled in the blue shadow of an alley a block from the downtown Denver police station, waiting. Cautious, he peered out around the corner of the alley until he could see the front door of the station, but there was no sign of either Jay or Marty. The sun was already skittering across the tops of the foothills. They had been inside over an hour.

  It had been Travis’s idea to come to the police station, to file a missing person report about Caleb Sparkman, and while Marty had agreed right away to the plan, it had taken most of the day to convince Jay it was a good idea. Nor would Marty go without Jay; he looked to the smaller man as his leader.

  “Why don’t you go do it yourself, Mr. Wizard?” Jay had said after the third time Travis asked him to file the report. At the time they were rooting in Dumpsters along Santa Fe, looking for cans and bottles to trade in for money, loading them into a battered shopping cart.

  After swallowing the lump in his throat, Travis had explained how his photo had been shown on the local television news last fall. Marty shrugged at this information, while Jay was clearly impressed. He pestered Travis relentlessly to know what he had done to get on the wrong side of the law. All Travis told him was that it was a misunderstanding, which Jay obviously didn’t believe.

  After that, Jay had agreed to file the report, and they had headed down Thirteenth Avenue to the police station.

  “Don’t you worry, buddy,” Jay said, punching Travis in the shoulder. “We’ll tell them about old Sparky, but we won’t let it slip about you being here. Right, Marty?”

  Marty had nodded vigorously.

  From his hiding place in the alley, Travis had watched the two men walk up the steps and disappear into the building. Only it wasn’t the thought of their telling the police he was there that worried him. Rather, it was the fact that he could very well be sending them into danger.

  According to Grace, there had been at least one ironheart at the police station. What if he hadn’t been alone? Last fall, the police had been working with Duratek, and in Calavere they had finally learned that Duratek was allied with the forces of Mohg and the Pale King. What if there were more ironhearts in the police station, and they captured Marty and Jay, tortured the two, and made them talk about Travis?

  Now you’re being paranoid, Travis. Marty and Jay are just going to talk about Caleb Sparkman. There’s no way the police could know you’re involved.

  Besides, he couldn’t believe that every officer in Denver was an ironheart, or in the pocket of Duratek. The detective on the news the other night—despite having his words cut off by Anna Ferraro—had seemed like he genuinely cared about the disappearances among the homeless.

  It grew colder. Minutes crystallized into an hour. Then, just when Travis decided Jay and Marty had been captured, that he had to go in and save them, the door of the station opened, and the two men walked down the steps.

  “Did you file the report?” Travis asked as they stepped into the alley.

  Jay let out a disgusted snort. “Finally. I told the police they needed to get off their cans and do something about all the folks disappearing, and they didn’t seem to like that.”

  “I wonder why,” Travis said dryly.

  The little man seemed not to notice him. “Anyway, they couldn’t rush us out of there fast enough, but I told them we weren’t leaving until we got to talk to someone and file a report about Sparky. They agreed and sat us down in a hallway, but I think we’d still be sitting there getting ignored, except I grabbed one of them as he walked by, and he actually listened to us. Sergeant Otero, that was his name.”

  Marty nodded. “I liked him. He gave us coffee.”

  Otero. Travis thought back. Wasn’t that the name of the officer Anna Ferraro had interviewed on the news the other night?

  “What did the sergeant say?”

  Jay jerked his head toward the street. “Let’s head over to the recycle center before it gets dark. We’ll tell you about it on the way.”

  As Marty pushed the shopping cart down the street, Travis walked with Jay, listening as the small man described what had happened in the police station. Sergeant Otero had taken their report himself, and he had been excited when he learned Caleb Sparkman used to work for various local colleges.

  While Marty and Jay drank hot coffee—Travis envied them that—Otero had called several of the colleges until he found one that still had contact information on file for Professor Sparkman. It turned out Sparkman had a sister in Salt Lake City. Otero had called her, and while she hadn’t talked to her brother in years, she had agreed to have her name on the report.

  That w
as good. Sparkman’s sister was a real person, with a real home and an address. The police would have to take this case seriously now. They would look for Sparkman, and the others who were missing.

  Then again, official investigations could be lengthy, and Travis wasn’t sure he had time to wait for the police. He had to find Sparkman. Duratek was behind the disappearances in the city. If Travis found the missing people, he would find Duratek. And, he believed, the gate.

  “We’ve got to start speaking to people,” Travis said. “People like us, on the street. We have to see if anyone saw Professor Sparkman before he disappeared.”

  Jay glared up at him. “For crying out loud, you can’t be serious. We went to the police like you wanted. Now it’s up to them to do their job. We’re done with this.”

  Travis only shook his head, and Jay grumbled about crazy people all the way to the recycle center.

  They traded in the cans and bottles, getting over forty dollars in return. To celebrate, they went to a convenience store and indulged in coffee and microwave burritos, then went back to the warehouses off Kalamath where they had been camping out. They had rigged a kind of shelter from loading pallets and a tarp Marty had bought at a thrift store, and once Travis got the fire going, it was almost luxurious, especially when they broke out the chocolate bars they had bought with their new money.

  The next morning they woke after dawn, and as they ate powdered donuts out of cellophane packets, Marty suggested they should get an early start talking to people about Sparkman.

  Jay let out a groan. “Not you, too, Marty. What’s up with you two morons? I could care less about old Sparky.”

  “That’s not true, Jay,” Marty said quietly. “He’s a human being. You have to care.”

  “The hell I do.” Jay waved a powdered-sugar-covered hand. “I don’t give a damn about anyone.”

  Marty gazed at him a long moment, then stood. “Come on, Travis. I think we should leave Jay alone.”

  “Cut that crap out,” Jay said, jumping to his feet. “You guys aren’t ditching me. If anyone is going to ditch anyone, I’m going to ditch you. Only I’m not. So shut up about all this leaving junk and let’s get going.”

  Marty knelt to roll up his and Jay’s sleeping bags, but not before Travis noticed a smile on his lips. Travis smiled himself despite the sourness in his stomach. Maybe Jay wasn’t the leader of the duo after all.

  They walked over to Civic Center Park first, got coffee from the same street vendor as before, and spent most of the day talking to anyone who would let three dirty, unshaven men approach them. However, no one they spoke to had seen Sparkman the day he disappeared. As far as Travis could tell, the three of them were the last people to see the professor.

  Finally, the sun was sliding down toward the mountains, and Travis’s stomach was growling again. Jay wanted to head to the shelter to see if they could get a handout for dinner and save some of their precious cash. Reluctantly, Travis agreed. However, as they walked through the row of columns at the park’s entrance, a man ambled up to them. He was old and stooped, his gray hair and beard stained yellow, his dirty fingers poking out of worn gloves.

  “Are you three the ones asking all them questions about some homeless guy in a wheelchair who disappeared?” the old man said.

  Travis gave Marty and Jay a startled glance, then looked back at the old man. He reminded Travis a little of Ezekiel Frost, the half-mad old mountain man in Castle City who had died at the hands of the sorcerer. Only that had been over a century ago.

  “How do you know that?” Travis said.

  The old man pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “A friend of mine said you was here in the park, and that you’d give a dollar to anyone who knew someone who had vanished.”

  “A dollar?” Jay snorted. “There’s not a chance in hell, we’d give you a—”

  Travis punched Jay in the shoulder and ignored his yowl of pain.

  “That’s right,” Travis said to the grizzled man. “Did you know Professor Sparkman?”

  “No, but I do know Myra. Did you know her?”

  Travis shook his head.

  “Old gal, wore a pink coat, usually worked Sixteenth Street. Nice as anything, liked to sing hymns. She went missing a couple of nights ago. We were going to meet at the Steel Cathedral, to see if we could get us some charity. Only she didn’t show up, and I haven’t seen her since.” The old man’s expression grew wistful.

  Jay’s eyes lit up, his outrage forgotten. “So how was it? The Steel Cathedral?”

  The old man clapped his hands together and smiled. “It was like heaven on Earth. A warm bed, a hot meal. I was sorry Myra didn’t see it. I’m going back there tonight.” His eyes narrowed. “So where’s my dollar?”

  “Is that all you know?” Travis said.

  He nodded and held out his hand. Travis glanced at Jay, and the little man swore as he fished a dollar out of his pocket and slapped it on the old man’s hand.

  “That’s coming out of your share, Mr. Wizard,” Jay said as they walked away.

  Travis hardly heard him. Something the old man had said was important, but it was too cold to think.

  “Two nights ago,” Marty said. “That was probably when the aliens came for Sparky.”

  Travis halted. That was it. Myra had vanished the same night as Sparkman. If they found her, maybe they’d find Sparkman as well.

  Jay glared at him. “What are you stopping for?”

  Quickly, he related his thoughts to Jay and Marty. Myra and Sparkman had vanished the same night. Maybe they had been taken together. The old man had said Myra had been heading to the Steel Cathedral. Sparkman could have been going there, too. After all, it was one of the few places he could have gone for shelter.

  “Maybe someone saw them on their way to the Steel Cathedral,” Travis finished.

  Marty grinned. “Good thinking, Travis.”

  “Fine,” Jay said, pulling his knit cap down over his ears. “I’ve been wanting to check out that place for ages, anyway, only Marty would never let me. So let’s hoof it on down there and see if anyone knows anything about old Sparky. We’ll probably find him lounging in a soft bed, eating hot food. And I plan on joining him.”

  “What about his wheelchair?” Marty said. “Why was it still here in the park?”

  “Hell, the folks at the Steel Cathedral probably gave him a silver-plated one. They’re rich, aren’t they? I guess if you’re holy enough, all of them prayers for money must really work.”

  Marty looked up at the sky. “Does that mean if you’re poor, you’ve done something bad?”

  Jay’s expression softened a fraction. “You aren’t capable of being bad, Marty. That’s my job. Come on, let’s go.”

  Jay and Marty started walking, but Travis hesitated. The two turned and looked at him. Travis wasn’t sure why, but for some reason he didn’t want to go to the Steel Cathedral. He couldn’t put the feeling into words. Maybe it was just that a place that grand didn’t seem for the likes of him.

  “You two go ahead and check it out,” Travis said. “I’m going to collect some cans so I can make up for the money we had to give that old guy. Okay?”

  Marty gazed at him with his thoughtful brown eyes, but Jay shrugged.

  “Suit yourself, Mr. Wizard. Come on, Marty. Let’s go see if we can get us some good Christian charity.”

  Travis agreed to meet them later in Confluence Park. He watched the two men walk away, trying to ignore the odd feeling of dread in his stomach. He pilfered a plastic bag from one of the park’s trash receptacles and started collecting cans.

  “And that was when I saw the light. It was, like, totally blinding, but it didn’t hurt to look at it.”

  Travis’s can collecting had taken him to the south side of the park, to the edge of the outdoor amphitheater where plays and concerts were performed in the summer. A dozen or so teenagers were hanging out on the stone benches, some lying on their backs, others grooving as a boom box thumped out a techno beat.
Despite the cold, they bared as much flesh as they could to show off their multiple tattoos and body piercings.

  The young people were speaking over the music, their voices echoing around the amphitheater. Travis froze in the act of reaching into a trash can as the young woman whose voice he had first heard rang out again.

  “So he tells me, ‘The Brights are coming, they’ll take you away from me, we’ve got to go.’ And he grabs my hand, and we run like crazy, and I swear my heart is going to explode.”

  For emphasis she pounded the front of her puffy down vest, and the others who watched her raptly let out appreciative gasps. She was pretty, despite being too thin, and despite the bad dye job on her green hair and the thick black lines around her eyes, which gave her pale face a sickly cast.

  “Finally, we get to his car, and he floors it, and we get out of there. Only then I look back out the window, and for a second I swear I can see them in the light. The Brights.”

  “So did they get you, Jessie?” a young man asked, awe on his pimply face, his speech slurred by the multiple rings jutting out of his lower lip.

  She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “I know it’s hard for you, Todd, but try thinking. If they got me, would I be here talking to you now?”

  The young man tugged on his lip rings; it was going to take him a while to puzzle that one out.

  The young woman—Jessie—looked up, her dark eyes glinting. “Hey, up there—grungy old man rooting around in the trash can. I know you’re listening to us.”

  Travis pulled his hand out of the trash can and stood up. “It’s sort of hard not to.” His own heart was thumping. Had she just been telling a story to impress her friends? Or had she really seen something? Something that came in light. . . .

  It can’t be, Travis. She’s just making it up. You should go meet Jay and Marty. They’ll be waiting for you.

  He set down his bag of cans and started down the steps of the amphitheater.