Gene kicked at the demon's body. It had lost its luminescence and was curiously insubstantial, as if having instantly turned to papier-mâché. He examined Jamin briefly.
“They're both history,” Gene told an ashen-faced Linda.
“My God. What happened?"
“Have no idea. There's nothing we can do here. Back to the lab."
They left and shut the door.
The Voyager had returned.
Incarnadine stood on the platform, watching two Guardsmen carry away what looked like a coffin.
Gene mounted the stairs to the platform, made as if to say something, but held off. Incarnadine's thoughts seemed light-years away. Gene stood by silently.
Finally the King grew aware of his presence.
“My sister,” he said. “She is dead."
“You have our deepest sympathies, Your Majesty,” Gene said, bowing.
“Thank you.” Incarnadine collected himself and looked the lab over. “Hell of a mess. Are you people all right?"
“Fine, sir,” Linda said. “Jamin is dead. His demon friend did him in."
Incarnadine nodded as if such an event were implicit in the scheme of things. “And so it ends.” He frowned. “But you have friends still missing."
“Yes, sir,” Gene said. “Snowclaw, Sheila, and, we think, your brother."
“Trent, yes. I have a feeling, which I will corroborate shortly, that my brother is fine, and that Sheila is with him. We'd best concern ourselves with your friend the Hyperborean."
Gene said, “Beg your pardon? Is that what he is?"
“Hyperborea happens to be the name of the world he comes from."
“Oh. He never told me."
“It's castle nomenclature only. I have no idea what the aboriginals call their world. Actually—” Incarnadine interrupted himself and gave a laugh. “Here I am babbling. Gene, how the hell did you contrive to get yourself inside this contraption at the exact moment when I plucked it out of the great gossamer nothingness of the Never-Never? You must have one hell of a story."
Gene let out a long breath. “It's a novel. You'll all get a copy, hot off the press. But for now, I'd like to see about finding Snowy. Linda tells me he was with Trent and Sheila when they disappeared."
“He might have gone his separate way. I did manage to establish partial contact with Trent, and I got the impression that Sheila was with him, whereas Snowclaw was not."
“Hell, that means he could be anywhere."
Linda said, “He could be on Earth."
Gene smacked his forehead. “He'll be on the evening news!"
“Sheila changed him, Gene. He had a human form."
“Really? Well, that would help, of course. But Snowy? Running loose in Long Island? Ye gods."
“Your Majesty!"
They turned to see Osmirik come running into the lab.
“I have the spell!” he yelled. “I have it! All I need is the young man with the calculating device—"
Jeremy looked up from rooting through the wreckage of the mainframe. “Over here, Ozzie."
But Osmirik had stopped in his tracks at the sight of Gene.
“I see that Sir Gene has returned,” he said, “and I am uselessly tardy once again."
Incarnadine said, “Not necessarily, old fellow. What spell are you talking about?"
The librarian held up a battered grimoire. “The Earth locator spell. I found one that might work, with a bit of updating and the use of that young man's...” He became suddenly cognizant of the general destruction around him. “Oh, dear."
Then he was struck by the sight of the tall, nude woman standing next to Gene. Her beauty took his breath away.
“My word,” he said. “I do have to get away from the library more often."
Westmoreland County, PA.
Dawn was breaking and Snowclaw was tired. He had been hiking all night, and his feet were sore from treading on sharp twigs and hidden stones. Rough country around here, not like the clean, bare tundra he was used to. There was so much vegetation about. Positively tropical. Why, it even got above freezing in the winter!
He was homesick, and not only for the castle. He wanted six or seven layers of good packed snow under him, and a fathom of permafrost below that. Made your feet feel nice and cool.
He strode along the narrow trail he had been following for the last hour. Lots of game about. He had seen white-tailed critters bounding away, and tiny things had chittered at him, hiding among stalks of brown weeds. Nothing he could eat, even if he had taken the trouble to chase them down. Besides, he didn't like land game. Seafood was his first love. Spikefish, fried in rendered blubber. Four-clawed crab, boiled and served with clarified blubber. Plain blubber in tasty, glistening chunks, served up fresh. Now you were talking food.
Great White Stuff, was he hungry! He had to stop thinking about it or he would go crazy.
He tried not thinking about it.
Nah. Didn't work. He was hungry, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. He was outdoors, that's what the problem was. The air was sweet, fresh, if a little strange. But during his stay on Earth he had grown used to the native environment. The smell of the forest set his juices to flowing, and all he could think about was stuffing his maw with endless quantities of...
Food. He licked his chops. He was really losing it now. If he didn't get food soon ... well, there was no telling what he'd do.
He swiped at a tree and came away with his claws full of bark. He sampled that, spat it out. Too dry. He tried some weeds. Not bad, but like eating air.
There was nothing around to eat! But what did he expect? It was winter. He tore off a fresh branch and gnawed at it, spitting out the bark and biting into the fresh green wood underneath.
No taste. No taste at all. Nothing in this world had any taste.
He howled once, then came to a halt, astonished at himself.
“I'm going crazy,” he muttered.
He stalked on, increasing his pace. The trail bore downhill, then leveled off. A narrow brook crossed his path, which he took in one hop. The trail went up again, crested, then twined down the side of a steep hill.
There was a structure sitting on the gentle slope of the field below. A human dwelling.
He approached, hiding behind an outbuilding. Peering around a corner, he checked the place out. It was quiet. The house was dark. Fine. He went to the back door and tried it. It was a sturdy door, locked good and tight, but the carpenters had never figured on a seven-foot-tall quasi-ursine alien with the strength of ten gorillas.
Snowy pushed hard, and the dead bolt tore out of its slot, ripping the doorjamb.
“Oops,” Snowy said. He felt guilty about this. He respected private property. After all, he wouldn't take to someone breaking into his own shack out on the ice, humble as it was. But Snowy really didn't have a choice.
He found himself in a dark basement. He knew there was a light somewhere, but couldn't find it. His eyes adjusted to the dark quickly, though, and the first thing he saw was a possible food substance.
Whatever it was, it was packed into glass jars lined up on wooden shelves. He looked at the stuff. It was red. He unscrewed the top off one jar and stuck his finger in, licked it. Tangy, not bad. He upended the jar into his mouth.
Not bad at all. It was what they called tomatoes. He had eaten them in salads and other things. Salads! Now, talk about eating air. How could humans live off a bunch of leaves? Nothing to it.
He unscrewed another jar, then tossed it disdainfully over his shoulder. Nothing to this stuff, either.
There were other foodstuffs available. Metal cans of junk. Forget that. Other things, hanging from the overhead beams. Meat! Spiced meat, too. Sausage, it looked like. And a big hank of raw rump, cured with salt and having a smoky flavor. Hey, this was more like it. Idly munching a haunch of ham, he went up the creaking wooden stairs.
His appetite was getting stronger, despite an overpowering human smell to the place that ordinarily woul
d have put him off his food. Enticing smells turned him to the right, toward the kitchen.
He rifled the cabinets, finding dry and dusty cereals, more cans, spices, packages of unidentifiable whatever, still more cans, more boxes of dry and dusty stuff....
The refrigerator held leftovers that hadn't been good ideas in the first place, along with ice cubes, three trays of which he crunched up with relish. There were various liquids to drink. He glugged those. There was fruit and some greens. Ptui.
He searched the rest of the house, but came up empty. Going back to the kitchen, he looked under the kitchen sink. Here was some hooch—drain cleaner, liquid soap, furniture polish, and suchlike. He popped the lid off a bottle of Lysol and guzzled it down.
Mmm, pine-flavored. But he needed FOOD.
All right, he was desperate. If quality wasn't available, quantity would have to do. He stumped back down to the cellar, rummaged, and fetched up a huge plastic tub. This he filled with everything at hand. In went Jell-O Pudding, corn oil, Nestle's Quik, Spic ‘n’ Span, Hungry Jack pancake and waffle mix, California seedless raisins, cornstarch, sugar, flour, Rice Krispies, Quaker Puffed Wheat, Corn Chex, ammonia, vinegar, salad dressing, Crisco, bread crumbs, Log Cabin syrup, Karo syrup, molasses, baking powder, milk, Pepsi-Cola, Kool-Aid, mustard, ketchup, floor wax, a half gallon of milk, lemonade, orange juice....
And on and on and on, everything going into one ghastly, heterogeneous concoction. For savor he threw in everything in the spice cabinet, from turmeric to fennel, from paprika to cream of tartar, along with two canisters of salt and a big box of ground pepper.
He thought of cooking down this horror, but who was he kidding? He couldn't wait. He dipped the gnawed ham bone into the stuff and sampled it.
Not bad. He searched for an eating implement, found a big soup ladle.
He ate it all.
Snowclaw was exceedingly ill. He had wanted to get up on the roof and scout the countryside, get his bearings, but he had not made it farther than this small bed, on which he had fallen asleep. Now he was awake, and it was night again, and he was sick. Very sick.
He wanted to die right then and there. He was going to die, he was sure of it.
Voices. Humans. Snowy thought of getting up and running, but maybe if the humans saw him they would kill him and put him out of his misery.
A female screamed, then moaned.
“Oh, look. Look at all this. Fred, someone broke in. Look at my kitchen."
“Cheezus. Honey, call the cops."
“Oh, my God, what the hell were they doing?"
“Some kinda goddamn weirdo."
“Mommy, who did this?"
“Shh! Jennifer, go back to the car."
“Why, Daddy?"
Snowclaw really wished they would make less noise. He groaned and turned over. Maybe if he got a little more sleep...
“Fred, do you think they could still be here?"
“I'll check upstairs. Where the hell's my shotgun? Shit. It's upstairs. The pellet gun, it's down in the cellar."
“Jennifer, don't touch that!"
“What is it. Mommy?"
“I don't know. It's disgusting."
“It's yucky."
“Jennifer, don't."
“Can I play with it?"
“No, it's horrible. Leave it alone. I said leave it alone! Do you want to get smacked? Why do I have to—? What did you say, Fred?"
Great White Stuff, Snowclaw thought. What does a guy have to do to get a little sleep? Why did humans have to make so much noise all the time? He rolled over onto his stomach, his lower legs sticking out a yard over the end of the bed.
“How should I know where Brandon's pellet gun is? I haven't seen it in years. Fred, forget it. They're long gone. It must've been kids. Jennifer! Go to your room right now."
And how the heck could they sleep in these damned beds? They made his back hurt.
He really should be getting the heck out. These humans weren't going to be pleased to find him.
“Of course they must have been kids. Nothing's missing! The TV, the VCR, the stereo ... everything's here! Fred? Fred? Forget the damn pellet gun, will you?"
“Well, it's just the thought of somebody breakin’ in here. Did you call the police?"
“Not yet."
“What? Cheezus, do I have to do everything myself?"
Snowclaw was getting tired of listening to the commotion downstairs. He wasn't that sick, and he really should be getting along.
Snowy turned over. A small human female was standing at the foot of the bed, regarding him with baleful blue eyes.
“Hi,” he said. “Don't tell your folks I'm here, okay? They wouldn't understand. Sorry for messing up your bed, but ... Where're you going?"
The little girl went to the head of the stairs.
“Mommy!"
There was no answer. Snowy sat up, and regretted it.
“Mommy!"
“Jennifer, what in blazes do you want? Can't you see Mommy's busy?"
“There's a big bear in my bed."
“Jennifer, don't start with me."
“There is. There's a big white bear and he's got big teeth and white claws. He talked to me."
“Fred, go up and see what the hell that kid is talking about."
“She's got a big bear in her bed, that's what she's talking about. How come these goddamn cops don't answer their goddamn phone? They'll pull you over for goin’ two miles above the limit, but when it comes to—"
“Mommy!"
“Jennifer, I am going to strangle you in a minute. Fred, do something? She's driving me nuts. Look at this mess I have to clean up. Look at all this crap all over!"
Snowy put his head down and dozed off for what he thought was just a second or two. When he snapped awake and sat up again, the big male human was staring at him goggle-eyed from the doorway.
Snowy burped, then said, “I can explain...."
The man disappeared. Snowy got up unsteadily and made for the window. It wouldn't budge, so he broke through it and went out onto the icy roof of the kitchen wing, doing a high-wire act along the apex. When he was halfway across, he looked back. The guy was aiming a gun at him.
Snowy's foot slipped a split second before the shotgun let loose with a bang and a flash.
The next thing Snowy knew, he was on the ground, entangled in a copse of rhododendrons. Thrashing frantically, he extricated himself and struggled to his feet. He took off across the lawn.
Another blast shattered the night, and a bee-swarm of shot buzzed past Snowy's head.
Then, suddenly, there was something in front of him, a strange aircraft. It made no sound, hovering about ten feet off the ground. A hatch opened up at the side of the thing.
Someone poked his head out. “Snowy, come on!"
It was Gene! Without breaking stride, Snowclaw took one mighty leap and hooked an arm inside the hatch. With Gene's unnecessary help, he scrambled up the bell-shaped hull and dove in.
It was a tight squeeze inside the compartment. Linda was there, along with the new kid, Jeremy.
“Okay, we got him!"
“Roger,” Jeremy said, confident at the controls. The laptop computer was taped to the instrument panel in front of him. He punched a few keys.
“Uh, fellas?” Linda said. “There's a guy with a gun out there."
Jeremy said, “Hold on a minute. I'm going to jump directly back to the castle."
“But he's going to—"
The shotgun roared again, and buckshot spanged off the Voyager's hull, to no perceivable effect.
Snowclaw said, “How did you find me?"
“Magic,” Gene said.
Snowy sighed. “What else.” Then a sudden gust of nausea rose in him. “Gene buddy?"
“What?"
“Could you move over a little?"
“There's no room. Why, what's wrong?"
“I'm going to be sick."
Sheila's World
It was the best of times, it
was the worst of times.... But that is another story.
This particular tale is almost done, but for the wrapping up. It's been a long concerto, and the soloist has one more cadenza in him, if the audience will allow, in which the them is restated for the benefit of those who've drowsed, wonder-weary, through the third movement —
“Life-styles of the infamous plutocrats!"
Gene raised his glass and toasted the palms, the cabanas, the tennis courts, the swimming pools, and the terraces. He threw in the sky, the surf, and the cute barmaid who had just served him a banana daiquiri.
“To decadence and high living. The only way to go."
He drank.
“When is Incarnadine coming?” Linda asked, rolling over to let the tropical sun start toasting her back.
“He should be here any moment,” Trent said, lifting his shades to glance at his watch.
Sheila said, “Trent, do you think he'll come?"
“I don't see why not. He needs a vacation."
“But so soon after ... you know."
“It's been a couple of weeks since the funeral. I'm over my grief.” Trent sipped his Singapore sling. “Such as it was."
“The funeral was so beautiful,” Sheila said. “The pageantry, the music alone. What was that beautiful piece they played as they took the casket away?"
“'Pavane pour une Infante défunte.’ One of Inky's favorite pieces."
“Lovely."
“It is that."
Thaxton and Cleve Dalton came stumping in from the golf course. Thaxton threw down his bag and snapped his fingers at a waitress. “Anyone for tennis? After I've had one or two or three drinks, of course."
“I'm pooped,” Dalton said, easing himself into a deck chair. “Getting old."
“Mr. Dalton,” Sheila said, “you look younger every time I see you."
“It's the curative balm of your enchanting aura, Sheila my dear. You radiate magic."
“Oh, really."
“Look at this place! It's Palm Beach, Club Med, and the Riviera all rolled into one. And it's a conjuration entire!"
Gene asked, “Sheila, what about all these other people in the hotel? I mean the guests, not the staff. They're not castle Guests. At least I've never seen them before."
Castle Kidnapped Page 20
