The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

by Harry Turtledove

  “It was a fer-de-lance,” Arnold answered. “Nasty thing—the venom makes you bleed internally as if you had a vampire gnawing you from the inside out Lucky it’s a relative of our local rattlesnakes; the antivenin spells for the one were efficacious enough—we hope—against the other. Like I told you, Jerry’s still on the critical list, but they think he’ll pull through.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “But why a fer-de-lance in the first place? Why not use our rattlers?”

  “For one thing, it’s more poisonous, if that’s what the bastards were after. And for another, if the sorcerers were Aztecians, they’d be more familiar with their native serpents than ours.”

  “And if they weren’t, they could throw suspicion on Azteca by planting snakes native to that realm.” I was thinking about the quetzal feather. “HI now, I’d suspected the Persians more than anyone else. I wondered if I’d have to change my mind. I also remembered Persians’ deviousness; if they could hide their schemes by implicating someone else, they’d do it. And I remembered I still hadn’t visited Chocolate Weasel.

  Matt Arnold said, “Forensics ought to let us know before too long.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

  “I’ve already wasted so much on this miserable business, a little more doesn’t matter now.” With that encouraging word, Arnold hung up on me.

  I called Johnson. When he answered, my ear imp yelled into my ear, so I suppose he was yelling at his mouth imp:

  “Did the kidnappers call you? Or your fiancee?”

  “I’m sorry, no.” How sorry I was! I explained what I’d heard from Matt Arnold, then asked, “Has your forensics man been able to identify the sleep spell that was cast in Judy’s flat?”

  “Hold on,” he said. “That’s in my notes—I saw it. Let me look.” The imps reproduced the noise of shuffling parchments. Then I heard Johnson say, “Yeah, here it is,” more as if to himself than to me. After a few more seconds, he must have put the handset up to his mouth again, because his voice came back loud and clear: I’ve got it, Mr. Fisher. Forensics says it’s an Aztecian spell, summoning the Power named the One Called Night, the one from the Nine Beyonds, to cast sleep on the victim. There’s a note here that it’s not generally used with good intent. I’m sorry to have to tell you that, sir.”

  “Not half as sorry as I am to hear it,” I answered. But I wasn’t surprised, or not much. Either Aztecians really were behind this or somebody was putting on one hell of a bluff—and I mean that literally. The higher the evidence mounted, the more I doubted it was a bluff.

  From its own point of view, after all, Aztecia has owed the Confederation a big one for a long time. Angels City used to be Aztecian territory, after all. So did St. Francis, up north.

  So did the Arid Zone and New Aztecia further east, and Snowland, and Denver and all the rest of Ruddy. With them, Azteda would be a great nation. Without them, the Confederation wouldn’t be.

  And that’s just in the sphere of mortal politics. I thought about what Henry Legion had said about the shift in the balance of Powers. It was already plain that Huitzilopochtli wanted his own back. And if that green feather meant what it seemed to, so did Quetzalcoati. The two Powers had been rivals before the Spainish came. If they’d composed their differences… if that was so, then Heaven help the Confederation. Heaven had better help, anyhow.

  I called Legate Kawaguchi back. When I got him, I asked,

  “What kind of sleep spell knocked out the guards at the Loki plant in Burbank?”

  “That’s in my notes,” he answered, just as Johnson had.

  He was quicker to find the answer than the Long Beach constable had been. “Here we are. The report indicates that it was an Aztecian spell, one invoking the Power variously called the Page and the Crackler, sending the spirits of the victims to the Nine Beyonds.”

  “The Nine Beyonds!” I said. “Is this Power also known as the One Called Night?”

  “I don’t see that name here. Let me check with forensics and call you back.” He did, too, inside of five minutes.

  “Inspector Fisher? The answer to your question is yes. Forensics wants to know how you knew; this Power is not commonly invoked in Angels City.”

  “I just got off the phone with Long Beach. The One Called Night is the Power that put Judy to sleep.”

  Kawaguchi was nobody’s fool. “I shall consult immediately with Plainclothesman Johnson,” he declared. “This link must be explored to the fullest extent possible.”

  More goodbyes. After they were through, I sat staring at the phone, wondering whether to call Henry Legion again or give Tony Sudakis a piece of my mind. Before I could do either, Rose stuck her head into my office and said, “Bea would like to see you and Michael up front, please. You weren’t there for staff meeting yesterday, so she wants to catch up on what you’ve been doing.”

  “No,” I said. It came out utterly flat, as if—ridiculous notion—somebody built a mechanical that could talk.

  Rose stared. She knows I’m not fond of staff meetings, but when the boss says come unto this one, he cometh; and when she says go unto that one, he goeth, at least if he knoweth what’s good for him. “But, David—” Rose began, trying to bring me to my senses.

  “No,” I said again. “Can’t. Too busy. I was just going out into the field when you came in.” It wasn’t true, but I could make it so. I got up from my desk, started for the door. If Rose hadn’t got out of the way in a hurry, I’d have walked right through her.

  “David, are you all right?” she called after me as I trudged down the hall.

  “No,” I answered. Being very tired is kind of like being drunk; it makes you say the first thing that pops into your head. You often regret it later. I wondered if I’d still have a job to come back to even as I was sliding down to the parking lot It’s a good thing I’d come to know St. Ferdinand’s Valley well over the past few weeks: I could fly up to the Devonshire dump without having to think about where I was going.

  I wasn’t real good at thinking, not then. When I’d told Rose I was about to go out and do field work, I hadn’t had the slightest idea where I’d go and do it. Grilling Tony Sudakis face to face instead of over the phone was the closest thing to a good idea I’d had.

  This time, the security guard didn’t need to see my EEA sign before he got on the phone with Sudakis. A minute later, he set up the footbridge and I went into the containment area. As I walked up the warded path toward Sudakis’ fortress of an office, I looked for the patch of Nothing I’d seen a couple of times before. Rather to my relief, I didn’t notice it, not then.

  Sudakis opened the outer door himself. He probably started to say something pleasant and meaningless, but one look at my face made him change his mind. “You all right, Dave?” he asked.

  I gave him the same answer I’d given Rose: “No.” To him, though, I amplified it “I was supposed to go out to dinner with my fiancee last night after I got back from examining this place. I didn’t get to do dial When I went down to her flat, I found she’d been kidnapped.”

  “That’s terrible,” he exclaimed, a comment I could hardly disagree with. He started to take me inside, then stopped in his tracks. Say what you like about Antanas Sudakis, he’s plenty sharp. He looked back at me. “Wait a minute,” he said slowly. “You dunk there’s some land of connection between us and that, don’t you? Listen, Dave, I’m here to tell you that—”

  I overrode him: “You bet your sweet ass I dunk there’s a connection. Tony. I’ve drought there was a connection ever since the Thomas Brothers monastery burned down. I really thought there was a connection when a couple of louts tried to kill me after I got off the freeway one afternoon—”

  “When what?” Now he interrupted me.

  I realized I hadn’t told him about that, so I did. Then I went on, “And now, the day after the EPA wizard and I scan this place, Judy gets snatched. What am I supposed to dunk, Tony? What would you think?”

  �
��I don’t know,” he said, hardly louder than a whisper. He was shaken—I could see that. His left hand reached for the little amber amulet he wore under his shirt. He made it go down by what looked like a deliberate effort of will. I decided to shake him up some more; “And just so you know, Tony, you do have a leak in your containment setup. Michael Manstein and I found Hollywood stardust all around your walls.”

  “Stardust is harmless,” he said, rallying as gamely as he could.

  “Yeah, but if stardust is leaking, what else is getting out with it?” Michael had had to make that obvious point for me; now I took malicious pleasure in hitting Sudakis over the head with it He was tough. I’d known that already. “You didn’t find anything else, did you?” he demanded.

  “No, but we will. Us only a matter of time and thaumaturgy, and you know it as well as I do.” I took a deep breath, tried to calm down. “Anyway, that isn’t what I came up here for. I wanted to find out who you called when Michael and I got to work out here. Whoever it is either did the kidnapping themselves or else called somebody to arrange to have it done.”

  The only call I made was to the Devonshire Land Management Consortium office,” he said. “I had to let them know so-they-could—” He ran down like a mechanical watch as he realized what he was saying. He kicked at the cement under his feet “Oh, shit.”

  Them or somebody connected with them,” I said. “It just about has to be.”

  I thought he’d give me more arguments, more denials, but he didn’t “Yeah,” he said in a voice like ashes.

  “So what are you going to do about it?” I said, pushing hard. “Be a good little consortium soldier and pretend none of this has ever happened? You can. It would be legal. You’d probably even get promoted. But could you look at yourself in the mirror whenever you went into a men’s room?”

  “Fuck you, Dave,” he said evenly. I did try to hit him then.

  He caught my fist before it connected. I’d known he was stronger than I am, but not how much. If he’d hit me back, somebody else would be telling you this story. But he didn’t He just hung onto me for most of a minute, then said, “You done being stupid?”

  I nodded. He let me go. “Good. You don’t want to fay preaching at me again. It won’t push me in the direction you want me to go. You got that?” He waited until I nodded again before he went on, “Okay. Now that you’ve got that straight I’d do everything I can to help you get your lady back. For my reasons, mind you, not yours. We’re wasting time here.”

  “I don’t think I understand you at all,” I said.

  “I don’t think you do, either.” It wasn’t pejorative: more as if he was stating a law of nature. Maybe he was. As I’ve said, I’d never dealt with anybody of European origin who still clung to his people’s old gods, not in an artificial cult like that of Hermes, but as part of a tradition as old and serious as my own. Balance of Powers, I thought and then wondered whose side Perkunas was on. After enduring umpty hundred years of Christianity, the Lithuanian Power might be as eager as Huitzilopochtli to get his own back.

  But no matter where his god stood, I thought Tony stood with me. Almost dragging me in his wake, he started down the walk toward the exit. I happened to look back toward his office at just the right time. “Wait!” I exclaimed, and grabbed his arm.

  It was like taking hold of the Juggernauts car; once he got moving, he didn’t want to stop for anything. “Look back there,” I said in a tone heading toward desperate. That’s what I was talking about before.”

  Grudgingly, he turned around. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

  “I don’t see anything, either,” I answered. “I see Nothing.

  Here, stand right where I am now.” I moved off the spot he moved onto it. He shook his head, started to go. Now I was desperate. “Stand on tiptoe,” I suggested; I’m several inches taller than he is.

  He gave me a look that would have wilted me under any other circumstances. When I stayed crisp, he shrugged and went up on his toes. A second later, he said something in Lithuanian that I didn’t understand. Then he dropped back into English: “You were right after all, Dave. I don’t know what that is.”

  Neither did I. At the moment, I couldn’t see the Nothing; the dump just looked like a weedy vacant lot. But when I’d stood where Tony was now, the wall beyond that point seemed to recede into infinite space. And yet, at the same time, it was obviously right where it belonged. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that; I got the feeling I wasn’t sensing it entirely through normal vision.

  Tony Sudakis came down off tiptoe. He was, as usual, briskly derisive. “When you see something you don’t understand in a toxic spell dump, you’d better start trying to find out what it is just as fast as you can,” he said. “Why don’t you call your wizard—his name was Manstein, right?—and have him get up here? The sooner he can find out what’s going on over there, the sooner we can start trying to deal with it”

  “Aren’t you the same fellow I heard yesterday talking about how if Michael or I set so much as a toe inside the confines of the dump, your people would sue us until the vulture let Prometheus’ liver alone?”

  “Go ahead, rub it in,” he said. “Yeah, I’m that guy. But I’m also the guy you’ve finally convinced. So come on back to my office.”

  I was never so happy to turn around in my life. As we headed back toward the squat, ugly fortress, I asked, “Do you know what got dumped in that area? The more I can tell Michael, the quicker he’ll be able to identify what’s going on.

  “Makes sense,” Sudakis said. He looked over toward where we’d seen that. Nothing. It wasn’t there now, of course, because we weren’t in the right spot. “That’d be about, hmm. Area 37. I’ll check for you.”

  He pawed through the files, muttering all the time: “No, can’t be that one—that one was exorcised two years ago…

  “Maybe this one? No, forget it—I know everything roc’s eggshell can do… Hah!”

  “Hah?” I echoed.

  “Gotta be this one, Dave. Three-four months ago, one of the Baron’s Watchers of the Shore found the remains of what sure looked like a major conjuration out on Malibu Beach.

  They tested the junk for thaumaturgical activity, but it came back negative—and I mean real negative, like there’d never been any magic around it since time began. Nobody believed that, not from the way the stuff was laid out. so they brought it here and dumped it in spite of the tests.”

  “I remember that one,” I said. There were letters in the Times complaining about the waste of taxpayers’ crowns.”

  “That’s it,” Tony agreed. “You ask me, me only thing worse than the government spending money when it doesn’t need to is not spending it when it does need to.”

  I started to pick up the phone, then stopped. “You said ’stuff was laid out. What kind of staff?”

  He looked down at his parchments. “Funny stuff—like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Staffs with stone disks mounted on one end, others with those shells called sand crowns instead. If I had to guess, I’d say the stones were carved flat to look like the sand crowns. And there were other staffs, long and short, topped with feathers. Looked like some kind of Indian ritual, maybe, but not one I know.”

  “Okay.” I got on the phone and called Michael. While I waited for him to answer, I worried some more: balance of Powers. Indian magic would not be well—inclined toward what I drought of as peace and order, not now.

  “Environmental Perfection Agency—Michael Manstein speaking.”

  “Michael? Hi, it’s David Fisher. Listen, I’ve got a new job for—”

  Michael interrupted, something he hardly ever does:

  “David, where are you. What on earth are you up to? Bea is quite vexed”—a word only he would come up with—“with you and Boss is practically in tears.”

  That made me feel bad, but it would have made me feel worse if I didn’t feel pretty bad already. In words of one syllable, I explained where I was and what I was
up to. I also told him about Judy, which explained why I was up to it “Good heavens, David,” he said, about as big an outburst as you’ll ever hear from him. “No wonder your behavior was so anomalous.”

  “Yeah, no wonder at all,” I grunted. Anomalous wasn’t the word for it; shitty was. I could blame it on endless worry, no sleep, and too much coffee, but in the end it came back to me. If you’re not responsible for what you do in this world, who is?

  “Have you discovered anything of import in your return to the Devonshire toxic spell containment area?” Michael asked, graciously not saying anything more about what sort of beast I’d been.

  “As I matter of fact, I have.” I told him about the Nothing, then put Tony Sudakis on the phone so he could confirm it Tony gave the handset back to me. Michael was saying, shall fly there forthwith to investigate. Your description strikes me as extremely urgent.” He hung up.

  “He’s on his way,” I said to Sudakis.

  “Okay,” he answered. “I’d better stay here, then, to make sure he can get in and do what he needs to do. What about you? You gonna wait here with me?”

  I thought about it, shook my head. “I’ve got to get back and mend my fences. Listen, do you have a telephone at home?” I waited till he nodded, then said, “Would you give me your number? I may need to get hold of you any time.

  Like it or not—and I’m not saying you’re liable; please understand that—you’re in the middle of this, too—and they’ve got Judy, whoever they are.”

  He scrawled it on a scrap of parchment. “Here you go. Call when you need to.”

  “Thanks.” I went out the door, down the warded path (I didn’t even look back for the Nothing this time), over the footbridge, and out to my carpet. On the way back to St. James’

  Freeway, I passed a florist’s shop. I stopped and bought Rose some roses. Sometimes words aren’t contrition enough.

  Rose’s eyes went wide when I set the vase on her desk She pointed to the closed door to Bea’s office. “She’s in a meeting right now, but she’ll want to see you when she gets out And thank you, David. You didn’t have to do this.