Down These Strange Streets

by George R. R. Martin; Gardner Dozois

  “Who are you? Really?” The man’s voice followed him into the darkness.

  Cross looked back. “That goes back to your earlier question, and like that one, it’s complicated. Too complicated in the time we have.” Cross touched fingers to brow in a brief salute. “Take care, Doc.”

  He was walking down the road when a wave of terror and pain washed over him. It was so unexpected that it shattered his control and he gorged on the torrent of raw emotions. He sensed another feeder also sucking at the feast. He regained control, stopped feeding, and lost all sense of the other. He kicked into a run, dust from the road spiraling up around him, came around a final turn in the road, and saw the mission on fire. There were desperate cries from the men trapped inside.

  Heavy storm shutters had been closed across the windows. A large board barred the front door. Cross lifted it out of the brackets and flung it aside. He threw open the door, and a blast of heat scorched his face, singeing his mustache and hair. In the distance, he heard the hectic ringing of the bell on the fire truck. They’ll be too late, he thought. Power pulsed through him. He tried never to use it, so as not to fray and bend this world’s reality. But someone or something was feeding on this conflagration. If he could save the men trapped inside, he would deny his enemy power.

  He stretched out his power, and now he sensed the tear in the world, felt the call and pull of the other multiverse. Cross ignored the siren call and instead summoned the fire. It rushed to him like an obedient dog. It filled the hall, and he formed it into a ball, keeping its heat and destructive power from the wooden walls. He walked into the charred hallway, stepping over a burned body. Not everyone would be saved. The fire followed him, a glowing balloon. Cross pushed open the set of double doors to reveal a makeshift chapel. Rows of chairs, a raised stage that held a podium and an old upright piano, a wooden cross hung high on the wall.

  The rip was on the back wall. It was small; the Old One was no longer holding it fully open. Cross pushed his fingers into the wood of the wall, opened the gap a bit wider, and thrust the fire into the other dimension. Eat that, he thought, with some satisfaction.

  THE BUTCHER’S BILL WASN’T TOO BAD. THERE HAD BEEN THIRTY MEN IN THE mission. Four had died; two more would not survive their burns. The rest would recover. Cross spent a tense six hours at the jail telling and retelling his carefully edited story. His New York PI license was no help, and probably a detriment, but eventually the cops decided that he couldn’t be charged with arson.

  Cross hung around after he was released and managed to talk to a few of the ambulatory survivors. All had been sleeping and only a few had wakened when the fire took hold. Drugged, Cross thought, and was glad his inhuman metabolism didn’t respond to most earthly agents.

  It was clearly arson. The building reeked of gasoline, and the closed storm shutters and the bar on the back door and the one Cross had removed from the front left no doubt. Now the police just needed a suspect. With Cross alibied by the doctor, the bulls cast about, and another suspect came easily to hand—the mongoloid who worked at the mission and was found sleeping in the tool shed, surrounded by empty gas cans. Of Sister Sharon and her strutting factotum, there was no sign.

  Cross tried to point out that this seemed very convenient. What kind of arsonist set a fire and then went to sleep at the site of his crime? But the bulls dismissed his arguments. The suspect was retarded. Of course he’d behave stupidly. Besides, this was easy and clean. The idiot was going to fry.

  Cross tried to just shrug, find a train schedule, and head to Chicago, but the prayers, beliefs, and actions that had split him off from the creature that had become Jaweh and Allah, and the Jesus of the Crusades and the Inquisition, left him unable to walk away. Do-gooding was a damn nuisance, but it was burned into his deepest fibers, and it couldn’t be resisted.

  He went back to the smoking ruins of the mission and searched the shed. The gas cans had been removed, and the dirt floor was scuffed with the prints of the cops’ shoes, and drag marks where they had rousted the mongoloid. Various tools were suspended from hooks set into the gray wood walls. There was a small table with smaller hand tools and jars filled with nails, screws, and nuts.

  On a bench beneath the table, Cross discovered a mug still half-filled with a dark liquid capped with a lighter skein. He sniffed. Cocoa. It looked like the idiot had been saving half for later. He searched further and found another footprint that hadn’t been obliterated by the bulls. Squatting down, he studied the toe print, and the divot left by a high heel.

  He pulled out the bench, sat down, and contemplated the situation. Sharon had encouraged him to touch the ring. She had gone to the hobo jungle and brought the men back to the mission. Needing bodies for the sacrifice? She had sent Cross away even though she knew full well he hadn’t started that fight. And she had been in the tool shed. To deliver the cocoa? And the men sleeping in the mission had been drugged. Why not the mongoloid too?

  Cross had assumed that Sharon was a victim of her husband’s sorcery. Now a new, darker theory arose—that Sharon had summoned the Old One. To prove that, Cross needed to find the woman, and he had a pretty good idea where she was headed. But first he had to clear the idiot. Only one question remained; had the cocoa also been laced? He knew a doctor who could provide the answer.

  Dr. Grossman came through. The cocoa had been doctored with a sedative. Enough to “put down a horse,” in Grossman’s words. The word of the doctor was enough to get the mongoloid released. Knowing that the mansized child would starve without care, Cross gave the doctor a couple of hundred dollars and asked him to “hire” the man. Then he bought a train ticket in Tulsa and headed for Chicago. He had considered finding an airfield and chartering a plane, but the train took longer, giving him more time to rest and prepare for the coming battle.

  The blasted fields of Kansas rolled past the train’s windows. They should have been high with wheat, but years of drought had reduced once-verdant farmland to a desert. Cross watched windblown dust heading east, as dark as storm clouds. The dust engulfed the train, turning the sun into a red cinder and day into eerie twilight.

  It was a good thing he didn’t believe in omens.

  CHICAGO WAS FILLED WITH POLITICIANS, WHICH MEANT IT WAS FILLED with hookers. Barely disguised speakeasies did a riotous business, and jazz and dance music filled the night. Cross walked down Madison Street toward the Chicago Stadium. It was the largest indoor arena in the world, and the massive redbrick structure reminded Cross of a glowering toad squatting on the landscape. Delegates streamed toward the doors, ready to hear another round of speeches in support of the three leading candidates—Al Smith, John Garner, and Franklin Roosevelt.

  The people glittered from the magic that flowed in their veins, but he had yet to spot the Roman fountain that marked Sharon Hanlin. He had come straight from the station to the stadium, thinking that he might just spot her in the crowd and do . . .

  What?

  Remove the ring, for starters. Figure out what it trapped, because it sure as hell wasn’t her.

  And how are you gonna do that? It knocked you on your ass the one time you tried.

  He decided to abandon the haphazard search and report to Conoscenza. Cross waved down a taxi and told the driver to take him to the Palmer House. He wasn’t sure how Conoscenza had managed it, but he had booked a room in the ritzy hotel. The lobby was cavernous and dominated by a ceiling mural depicting scenes from Greek mythology. Cross glanced up and found himself staring at Zeus. A real son of a bitch, that one. It wasn’t until he had met Conoscenza that Cross discovered what had happened to the Old One. A paladin recruited by Prometheus (yet another of Conoscenza’s identities) had taken down the god.

  A self-effacing Negro porter asked if he had luggage. Cross shook his head. The elevator operator was an elderly Negro with grizzled hair. As Cross stepped off the elevator, a Negro maid pushing a cleaning cart quickly effaced herself against the wall, trying to become invisible.

  Cross
lifted a hand to knock, but the door opened to reveal Conoscenza and the heavy-jowled face and bald pate of Jim Farley, Roosevelt’s campaign manager. Conoscenza grinned, deepening the hint of the epicanthic fold around his dark eyes, and said, “Ah, my man Cross, with impeccable timing as always. Jim, will you see to it he gets onto the floor?”

  “Glad to oblige. And thanks again.” The man patted his breast pocket and headed for the elevators. Conoscenza beckoned Cross into the suite.

  Gold cufflinks flashed at his wrists, and a gold watch chain stretched across his powerful chest. The little maid stared in shock. Conoscenza gave her a wide smile and held out a ten-dollar bill.

  “Thank you for taking such care with my room.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” She gave a bobbing little curtsy. Conoscenza closed the door.

  “Don’t you feel strange?” Cross asked.

  The massive shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “It wouldn’t be any different in a hotel on the South Side. The staff would still be Negro. This way I both make a statement and offer the possibility of a different future.”

  “You just like to make trouble,” Cross said. He moved to the sofa and sat down.

  “That too.”

  “Gimme that room service menu.”

  “There wasn’t a dining car on the train?” Conoscenza asked.

  “Yeah, but that was hours ago, and there was grit in my food.” Cross perused the menu and ordered a porterhouse steak with all the trimmings. “So, what have you learned about Hanlin?”

  “Well, he’s no longer an alternate. An Oklahoma delegate became ill, and he’s replaced him,” Conoscenza said.

  “Well, isn’t that convenient.” Cross stood and paced. “The wife arranged for a little auto-da-fé in Oklahoma. Maybe to provide the power to sicken the delegate. I think they’re working as a team.”

  “When he’s not on the floor, he spends his time preaching to everincreasing crowds. I attended once, and he is very charismatic. Now that his wife has joined him, the crowd last night doubled, and today there were murmurs about drafting Mr. Hanlin as a potential vice presidential candidate.”

  “Well, that’s fucking scary, because you know if this guy gets on the ticket in the second slot, he won’t stay there. He’ll end up president.”

  “Then you’ll have to see to it that doesn’t happen,” Conoscenza said.

  There was a knock at the door. Once the bellman was tipped, Cross settled at the coffee table and tucked in. Mouth full, he asked, “How is the convention going?”

  “Roosevelt hasn’t gotten enough ballots. Some of us are working on Garner, trying to get him to drop out.”

  “In exchange for what?” Cross asked.

  “So cynical.” Conoscenza sighed and studied his buffed and manicured fingertips. “You must find a way to neutralize Hanlin.”

  “That doesn’t involve murder?” He tried to make it a joke, but Conoscenza gave him an implacable look. “You never make this easy for me,” Cross mumbled, and finished his dinner.

  THE PROBLEM, CROSS REFLECTED AS HE MADE HIS WAY TOWARD THE BANKRUPT theater that Hanlin had appropriated, was that the kind of people who actually worshiped the loving God didn’t tend to lead crusades against unbelievers, start wars, stone whores, or behead adulterers. Which put Cross at a decided disadvantage, because what fed Old Ones was a frisson of both hate and fear. His brethren fed off the murderer and the victim, the torturer and the tortured, while Cross could only sup on charity and love and there just weren’t that many good people in the world. It wasn’t the humans’ fault. They hadn’t been out of the trees for all that long.

  All of which was an interesting mental exercise, but it didn’t solve Cross’s problem of what to do about Hanlin and Sharon. His vague plan was to show up, see if somebody made a mistake, and hope that somebody wasn’t him. He supposed that he could embrace the full-on Jesus, but that wasn’t a trick he liked to use too often, and it had worked better back in 1300. Edison’s little invention had images moving on a white screen. The Wright Brothers had ensured that humans could fly, not just birds and angels, and scientists were starting to unlock the secrets of matter itself. Humanity had become less credulous, but still filled with enough irrational beliefs and reactions to be dangerous.

  He joined the throng heading into the building. People clutched Bibles and crosses. If I had actually been crucified on one of those things, do they actually think I’d ever want to see one again? He quashed the errant and foolish thought. He was coming up against one of his own kind, and he was in no shape to face it. He needed all his focus and concentration.

  The set up was similar to Oklahoma. Upright piano, the fat factotum playing a hymn. A podium. Sharon wearing a white choir robe and those incongruous red shoes, seated in a chair by the podium. An older man in a black robe pacing the stage in a manner that reminded Cross of big cats in the zoo. The predator physicality was completely at odds with his looks, since he was balding, a bit stoop-shouldered, and starting to grow a paunch. People stood just inside the doors, handing out pamphlets. The flyers appeared to have been hurriedly mimeographed, as the ink was smudged in places. The title declared:

  A CHRISTIAN LEADER FOR AMERICA

  Cross studied this Christian leader, and what Cross read was baffling. The flesh held little trace of magical ability, yet power shimmered all around the man. Cross looked to Sharon. The ring flashed under the lights; Sharon glittered with power, and the shadows circled. Things clicked into place. It was a team effort. As a woman, Sharon couldn’t be the candidate, but she could use her power to propel her husband to high office. There was the oilslick taste of Old One on his tongue, but Cross couldn’t pinpoint its location. He shivered.

  There was a gentle touch at Cross’s elbow. “Sir, you need to sit down. The service is about to begin.”

  Cross turned and looked down at a boy on the cusp of manhood. The boy’s eyes were rimmed with white, and tension hunched his shoulders. Cross also saw the physical similarity with the man on the stage.

  “You must be Sean,” Cross said, and was taken aback when the boy gasped, fell back a step, and dropped to his knees.

  “God be praised! You’ve come! My prayers—”

  Cross grabbed him roughly under the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Jesus, kid, cut it the hell out,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. The boy looked confused.

  “But . . . Aren’t—”

  “No . . .”

  “But you knew my name . . .”

  “Yeah . . . because . . . never mind. Ankle it.” He pulled the teenager toward the doors. The music stopped.

  Cross glanced back at the stage and saw Sharon frowning out over the congregation. She spotted him and stiffened. Hanlin froze, looked directly at Cross, and then Cross realized that the human skin didn’t contain a human. An Old One had crawled inside. Terror choked him. He hustled the boy out of the theater.

  Outside, he spotted his reflection in the glass doors and quickly made adjustments. He hated going into churches. With the beard removed and the hair shortened, he turned back to Sean. “Okay, kid, what were you praying about?”

  “Shouldn’t you know—”

  “Pretend I don’t.” Dropping an arm over the teen’s shoulder, Cross hustled him down the street. Behind him the door banged open and the fat man came rushing out.

  Cross hurriedly flagged down a cab and thrust the kid inside. “Step on it,” he ordered the driver. Cross glanced out the back window at the receding figure of the factotum.

  “Where to?” the cabbie asked.

  Cross looked over at the kid. “You hungry? Of course you’re hungry. Kids your age are always hungry.”

  SILVERWARE CLATTERED AGAINST PLATES; THE WAITRESS AND THE COOK sang out a call-and-response Blue plate, Order up. Cross indulged in a piece of cherry pie à la mode, a slice of devil’s-food cake, and a cup of coffee while the kid wolfed down the pot roast, slurped a Coca-Cola, and poured out his story.

  “Ma died
two years ago. Pa was really sad. Then Sharon came to the mission, and they started walking out together. They got married seven months ago.”

  Cross’s attention drifted. He was focused on that damn thing wearing the people suit. Wondering how to fight it. Wondering if he could win. Wondering if it would end with him splintered and weakened yet again.

  “. . . make me brush her hair.” Cross’s focus snapped back to the boy, who was red-faced and looking embarrassed, which made the smattering of pimples on his cheeks stand out all the brighter. “In their bedroom, when Pa would be downstairs reading.”

  “Were you really brushing her hair, or is that a euphemism?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Another way to say fuck,” Cross said.

  The boy went white, then red again, and took a large gulp of pop. “N . . . no,” he stammered. “I only touched her hair.”

  “Tell me about that ring.”

  “She had the stone in that silver setting when she showed up . . .”

  My husband gave it to me. Cross flashed back to the conversation on the footbridge. No, not a twofer. Hanlin’s a dupe. It was Sharon and the Old One just finding a convenient meat puppet, he thought.

  “And she made the band out of her and Pa’s hair.” The boy’s words seemed etched in the air.

  Another memory surfaced—Sharon carefully removing her hair from his shoulder. “What did she do with the hair in the brush?”

  Sean looked startled by both the question and the intensity with which it was asked. “She’d take it all out, and roll it up and keep it in this little box. She even made me pick up any hairs that fell on the floor.”

  “Has she got the box with her?” Sean nodded. Cross leaned back and lit a cigarette. It was classic hair-and-skin magic. Cross was pretty sure he knew what was trapped in that ring. He tossed a few bills down on the table.