Crashing Paradise

by Christopher Golden

  “Leonard?” Conan Doyle asked.

  “I’ll make my own way,” replied the ghost, his substance fluttering like the curtains that rustled in the night breeze.

  “Call to me, and I’ll find you.”

  “So be it,” the mage said.

  The wind swirled around them. Within the ice sphere atop Ceridwen’s staff, a tiny ball of fire churned. A rushing noise filled the room, and the four of them were plucked from the ground by a massive gust of wind that drew them upward for just a moment before they vanished entirely.

  Alone, the ghost stared at the place where they’d stood, and wondered what would come of all this. Of late he had doubted whether or not he could trust Conan Doyle, and now his trust in Clay had been called into question. Graves wondered if he could truly trust any of them. The thought disturbed him. If the Menagerie could not rely upon one another, they could not stand side by side against the horrors that preyed upon humanity, and certainly would never be able to combat the Demogorgon when it finally arrived.

  It worried him. Even a dead man could feel fear.

  THE world transformed into a rush of blue and gray, the wind propelling them forward even as it encircled and held them aloft. Conan Doyle squinted, wishing that for once he could get a clear view of the world around him as the elemental spirits hurtled them toward their destination. Glimpses of towns and forests and a bit of ocean were all he could manage.

  He had never been certain if those fragmentary images were real and tangible—that the traveling wind simply rushed Ceridwen through the physical world—or if the elemental spirits transported her into their own realm, a place of wind and storm, and those glimpses were windows. He suspected the latter, but even Ceridwen did not know for certain, and her rapport with the elements far exceeded that of any ordinary human sorcerer, no matter how accomplished.

  In the grasp of the wind, Conan Doyle tried to force himself to relax, to surrender to them, but he had never been comfortable with giving over control to others. Squire liked it even less. He could hear the hobgoblin cursing as though far, far away, the words stolen away by the gale, lost in their trail. Conan Doyle tried to glance back, but the ’goblin was little more than a dark blur. He felt Ceridwen’s grip tighten on his hand and looked at her, then past her, at the heavy, golemlike figure of Clay. He had reverted to his natural form, and the wind scoured away bits of dirt, eroding his face to a strange smoothness.

  His jacket whipped around him, snapping like a flag.

  Conan Doyle heard Ceridwen shout at Squire. Apparently his questing hands, in search of a more substantial grip, had slipped beneath her dress. The mage could not help smiling.

  Then he felt one of the hobgoblin’s hands clutch at his arm, and he nearly lost his grip. Conan Doyle cursed, trying not to imagine where he might land if Ceridwen were to lose track of him in the midst of the traveling wind.

  They slowed. The blur of air twisted around them in a kind of cyclone. Arthur could not help it—every time Ceridwen transported him this way, he waited for the drop, for the impact of his feet upon solid ground. Yet as ever, the traveling wind began to dissipate, and he felt only the weight of his own body settling once more, and found himself standing in the midst of a thick forest whose trees were like things out of legend. Their trunks were thick with gnarled bark, and their branches twisted up into the night sky. The trees towered above them ominously, as though they might come to life at any moment.

  But this wasn’t that kind of forest.

  The wind whispered through the leaves and across the forest floor, and only the natural breeze remained. The air held the scent of the ocean, only miles to the west.

  Ceridwen released his hand, perhaps a bit too quickly. Her blond hair was wild from the wind and her violet eyes gleamed with a preternatural light. He saw disappointment in those eyes.

  “Here we are,” she said.

  Conan Doyle’s expression became grim. He reached for her hand, fingers brushing against hers. “It will be fine. The time is coming when we will need every ally who will stand with us. That’s why I conducted the conclave in the first place.”

  “Don’t concern yourself,” she replied.

  Yet he could not help but be concerned.

  Ceridwen wandered away from him, staring up through the trees at the night sky and peering into the trees around them. The fire inside the ice sphere atop her staff glowed a deep blue that spread its light around them, the trees casting sinister shadows.

  “Where the fuck are we?” Squire asked.

  Conan Doyle spun on him. “Would you, for once in your life, attempt to speak plainly and without profane adornment?” he said, far more sharply than he’d intended.

  Squire blinked. “Where the hell are we?”

  The mage sighed. “Still in Croatia. Looking for that old friend I mentioned.”

  Clay stood several feet away. His face, arms, and chest seemed to have been partially worn away and a scattering of fresh dirt the color of his body lay on the ground around him.

  He shuddered, then changed form, flesh fluidly shifting into the human face he so often wore.

  “Are you all right?” Conan Doyle asked.

  “I am, thanks. An odd experience, though. I thought traveling in that form might be less unsettling, but it’s far worse. I won’t do that again,” Clay vowed. “What about Leonard?”

  Conan Doyle nodded and looked up into the night, as though he could peer into the ghost world with ordinary, human eyes. “Dr. Graves! Leonard Graves! Join us, if you will.”

  Squire looked around. “No sign. Maybe we need a Ouija board.”

  “He’ll be here,” Clay said.

  “Arthur,” Ceridwen called.

  Conan Doyle and his companions turned as one to see Ceridwen holding up her staff and moving off through the trees.

  “Ceri, wait!” the mage said.

  “This way,” the Faerie princess said, continuing on.

  The three of them watched her go a moment, then Conan Doyle scowled. “I suppose Dr. Graves can catch up to us.”

  “What’s eating her?” Squire asked.

  Conan Doyle shot him a dark look.

  “Someone named Jelena, apparently,” Clay replied, as if the mage wasn’t there at all. “I’m beginning to think she’s not everybody’s ‘old friend.’”

  “Save your speculation,” Conan Doyle warned. “You’ll meet her soon enough.”

  The mage strode after Ceridwen, leaving Clay and Squire to follow in his wake. They did so in surprising silence, given that the hobgoblin rarely kept quiet for more than a few minutes at a time unless there was a television present. Ahead, Ceri could be seen bathed in the pale, blue light, and soon enough the three of them caught up with her.

  For perhaps twenty minutes they made their way through the forest, following paths rarely trod by human feet, over roots and low hills, always beneath the web of tree branches, so that they seemed lost in an endless, primeval forest. If not for the perfectly ordinary cast of the night sky, with its infinite pinpoints of celestial light and the scimitar moon, he might have thought they were no longer in the human world at all. Ceridwen paused and backtracked, adjusting her course several times.

  At last she slowed. Conan Doyle gestured to Clay and Squire, and when the hobgoblin began to whisper some question in a hoarse rasp, the mage pointed at him, freezing him with a stern look. Squire held up his hands in surrender and pretended to zipper his lip. Conan Doyle considered doing it in reality.

  The rush and tumble of a river filled the night. Ceridwen picked up her pace again, and the rest of them followed suit.

  In moments they emerged from the trees before a crumbling stone structure that had once been a mill, its wheel halfrotted by time and mold, but still dipped into the water that flowed by beneath.

  “What is this?” Clay asked, voice low. “There isn’t a trace of any settlement here. Who’d build a mill out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  Conan Doyle turned to him.
“It wasn’t built in this world. It shifted here, long ago, the way things sometimes do.”

  Squire sighed. “What does that even mean?”

  Ceridwen raised her staff, and the blue light brightened, drawing their attention. Eerie shadows danced across the broken, cracked, collapsed face of the mill. Some of the shadows seemed to exist on their own, without any object to throw them.

  Halfway across the space that separated Conan Doyle from Ceridwen, the ghost of Dr. Graves manifested in near silence, only a kind of low static marking his arrival. Anyone else would have thought the sound a part of the river’s hiss.

  “You might have waited,” the specter said. His appearance had altered somewhat. Graves seemed more solid than usual, and beneath his arms hung the twin holsters for the phantom guns that he had managed to fashion from his own ectoplasmic substance over the years. The ghost could also control other elements of his appearance, and at the moment appeared clad in a collarless shirt and dark tweed trousers with suspenders. He often appeared in this fashion when he thought there might be a fight.

  Squire hushed the ghost, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, having been warned to silence himself.

  “No need for stealth now,” Ceridwen said, addressing all four of them. “Come, Arthur. We’re here, now. This is her lair. You’d best call her. Eve and Eden both require our aid.”

  Conan Doyle hesitated a moment. It had been a very long time since he had last seen her. The eyes of his Menagerie were upon him, full of curiosity and expectation. With one final glance at Ceridwen, he took a step closer to the ruined mill and cupped his hands around his mouth.

  “Jelena!” he called. “Jelena Kurjak!”

  His voice echoed off the stones of the mill and from the trees behind them. The river seemed to whisper in reply.

  When Conan Doyle looked over at Ceridwen, he found her gaze averted from him. He ignored the others and turned to face the forest, calling out for Jelena again.

  “Show yourself!” he shouted into the night black woods.

  “It’s Arthur Conan Doyle, come to call!”

  Nothing stirred in the forest. Not a night bird sang, nor rodent scurried. Even the wind seemed to have died. Only the river continued its low commentary.

  Conan Doyle turned again, facing the mill. He cupped his hands and shouted her name.

  “Jelena Kurjak!”

  A low growl sounded from the trees off to the right. As one, the Menagerie turned. Conan Doyle held his breath as the wolf padded silently out of the forest and paused at the riverbank, illuminated by starlight and that sliver moon.

  The ghost of Dr. Graves moved soundlessly forward. The wolf growled deep in its throat and glared at Graves with golden eyes.

  “Arthur?” Clay ventured.

  The mage raised a hand to forestall any intrusion by his companions.

  As they watched, the wolf stretched and rose on its hind legs. It stood. The massive beast reached up and gripped the fur at her throat, pulling it apart . . . ripping it open with a wet, slick sound. The wolf stripped its skin away, slipping out of her fur and stepping away from it as seductively as though it had been an evening gown. Jelena Kurjak stood before them, her body exquisite, olive skin gleaming damply in the starlight, as though a light sheen of sweat covered her.

  Otherwise, she was entirely nude, her slender form powerful and tall, her breasts perfect, her dark hair hanging around her shoulders. With the exception of those golden eyes, the shewolf had vanished.

  Only she had not. The she-wolf stood before them.

  Arthur could not breathe.

  He heard Squire mutter some words of appreciation, so awed that he’d forgotten to be vulgar for a moment.

  “You know,” Jelena said, striding warily toward them, gaze darting between Ceridwen and Conan Doyle, “you don’t have to shout. I am not deaf.”

  Though she spoke English well—he’d taught her himself—her accent seemed thicker than the last time they’d met.

  “Apologies,” Conan Doyle said, remembering to breathe.

  He had been witness to great beauty in his life. Ceridwen managed to steal his breath nearly every day. But there was such majesty in Jelena that he could not pretend it did not affect him.

  “I wouldn’t trouble you at all if it weren’t important,” the mage went on. “You know that.”

  Jelena crossed the space between them, brazen in her nakedness. If she saw how it affected the others, she gave no sign. Even Clay could not tear his gaze from her. The shewolf ignored Conan Doyle a moment and went to Ceridwen.

  “Good evening, princess,” Jelena said, and the words were almost a purr. “We did not part on the best of terms. Do you come to ask my help?”

  A breeze whipped around the Fey sorceress that seemed only to touch her, and no one else. She met Jelena’s gaze with her own bright, violet eyes, staff in her hand, and now Conan Doyle realized the powerful sway of the she-wolf’s presence.

  How could he have thought for a moment that she was more majestic than Ceridwen, who carried herself with all the command of her heritage as a Princess of Faerie.

  “On behalf of a friend who is in grave danger, and of a world that might be similarly imperiled, I do indeed plead your help and indulgence, Wolf’s Daughter.”

  Jelena gazed at her with golden eyes and smiled. She bowed her head almost as though submitting to Ceridwen’s royal status, and turned to Conan Doyle. Clay, Squire, and Dr. Graves had gathered around him, now, and the she-wolf seemed to take them in for the first time.

  “You are a handsome lot, aren’t you?” she asked.

  Then all trace of amusement left her, and she focused on Conan Doyle. “Arthur, it is I who should apologize. You summoned me to your gathering in Dubrovnik, and I did not come. I could not. I do not like to go into the cities anymore, or to travel beyond the forest. The world has changed. The Blight has become uglier. More and more, I find myself reluctant even to cross over into your world. I prefer the Wildwood.”

  Grimly, Conan Doyle nodded. Jelena stood only an arm’s length away, and he had to resist the urge to reach out to lay a comforting hand upon her. This was her power, not only over him, but over all men, and many women as well.

  “While I’m glad to find you here, you might well wish to return to the Wildwood after tonight,” the mage said. “I had called for that conclave to discuss an immense danger that even now approaches the world of men. Honestly, Jelena, I cannot say for certain if you’ll be safe from the Demogorgon’s power, even in your own dimension. But it must be safer than being here in man’s world.”

  Unconsciously, the she-wolf crossed her arms across her breasts, not out of shame, but the instinct to protect herself.

  “The Demogorgon. I have heard the legend. I thought it was only a story.”

  Clay transformed into his primal form, the towering, earthen man. “There’s no such thing as ‘only a story.’”

  Jelena appraised him openly, whispering some appreciation in Croatian. The ghost of Dr. Graves floated nearer, and now the she-wolf studied him. She knew well what ghosts were, Conan Doyle recalled. What she might make of Squire, he had no idea. The hobgoblin had not yet ceased to leer at her.

  “Before you retreat to safer ground,” Ceridwen said, the blue fire in her staff’s ice sphere blooming brighter, casting the entire riverside in its light, “we would ask your indulgence.”

  The she-wolf turned to look at her. “What is it you wish, princess?”

  “Safe passage into, and through, the Wildwood.”

  “And where will you go from there?”

  “To a place that many believe is the beginning of man’s world, to save the life of the mother of all humanity.”

  Jelena cocked her head a moment, confused, golden eyes alight. Then she gave a deep bow, with a flourish of her hands. Watching the way her body moved mesmerized them all for a moment—all save Ceridwen.

  “By all means, princess. You’ve brought me warning that may have saved my life, and th
at of my kin. I will help in whatever way you wish. I am your servant.”

  Ceridwen narrowed her violet eyes. The she-wolf had agreed to help, but Conan Doyle thought that his lover did not look at all impressed, or pleased.

  THE forest seemed impossibly quiet.

  Squire liked the weight of the Gemini dagger he carried on his hip, and wished he had the time to return to Boston and bring the whole damned armory back here. With the serpent lurking along the Shadowpaths—and no doubt keeping an eye on the forge—it would be difficult for him to retrieve weapons from his workshop. But there were plenty of killing instruments back at Conan Doyle’s house.

  Time wouldn’t allow it. Not for the moment, at least. The train was leaving the station. The she-wolf, Jelena, picked up the wolf skin she’d shed and strode toward the ruined face of the old mill and went to the door, which sat at odd angles in a crooked frame. Squire paused a moment to admire the way her muscles moved under her skin, which shone in the moonlight. Mostly, he was just staring at her ass. The view from the back was breathtaking; nearly as delicious as the front.

  “We’ve got work to do,” Clay said as he strode past, following Jelena, Ceridwen, and Mr. Doyle up to the door of the mill.

  Squire watched the she-wolf as she pressed her hands against that awkward door—a door that couldn’t possibly open—and muttered words in an unfamiliar tongue. The hobgoblin didn’t think it was Croatian, particularly as it involved a lot of guttural snarling. He couldn’t have missed the interplay between Ceridwen and Conan Doyle as this bit of spellcasting went on. The mage tried not to look at Jelena—a nearly impossible task, giving the way her breasts rose and fell as she moved her hands over the door—and Ceridwen stared at him the entire time, ignoring her.

  It made him wonder if his boss had ever had a thing with the she-wolf. Some guys had all the luck. Though Squire wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with Conan Doyle now—not with the harsh looks Ceridwen kept shooting in his direction.