He had got as far as identifying Carados, his kidnapper, for the police. Beyond that point he could not go, because then Nimue would start to become involved, and… and that was not something Hawk could do.
In a little while, he thought, alone in his comfortable little cell again, the cops would slacken their vigilance, give him a chance to depart the slammer without being too spectacular about it. Of course as soon as they realized he was gone they’d be out looking for him on the street again. Well, if he had to move on to some other town, okay, he’d move. Sooner or later they’d catch up with their important murderer, or else move on to some other problem, and then no one would want to bother much about Hawk. But catching Carados for them wasn’t Hawk’s job. That coffee-colored one was crazy, badly and sickly crazy, and he was going to have a short life and a miserable one no matter what. No special powers were needed to see that. Hawk wasn’t going to go out of his way for revenge, just to give that crazy one more trouble.
If he were to go looking for revenge on anyone, it would be that damned insulting vampire. Hawk’s temple was still a little sore. Thinking about the vampire, Hawk started to get angry again. Then he chuckled, imagining the hard time the vampire would have trying to get back to the twentieth century, if he got past Nimue and her bunch back in the sixth.
Nimue.
There was a cop posted about two steps from Hawk’s cell door. Hawk was going to wait a while before he decided how to go about trying to get out. To sit in jail for a little while wasn’t really suffering, not in a cell like this one anyway, not in comparison to the kind of life to which he was trying to return.
He paused in his thoughts to ponder that point. If life on the Street was really so bloody awful, as it undoubtedly was, then why was he… why did he…?
Just because.
Hawk’s thoughts wavered, sought a new tack. The coffee-colored madman’s face came again before his imagination. He returned to the idea that if the cops had Carados, they wouldn’t care any longer about Hawk. He’d be free to fade away.
The cop two paces from his cell door was sitting in a schoolroom chair, one of those things with one broad flat arm, for doing paperwork. He was working away at some kind of record or report, and meanwhile keeping an eye on the few occupied VIP cells. Hawk wasn’t left unobserved for more than a minute at a stretch. It would just be too damn spectacular, it would draw too much attention to him, if he simply vanished now. Sooner or later, though, this close surveillance was going to flag.
Then, if he knew where Carados was…
Hawk cleared his throat, and made himself as comfortable as possible sitting on the edge of the jail cot. These cells were sure a great improvement over the drunk tanks downstairs.
Now…
His vision went farseeing, through the concrete wall that was not much more than an arm’s length in front of him as he sat on the cot. He stared for a little while into the mists that he saw beyond the wall, then shook his head in puzzlement. He was having a hard time locating Carados. Was that because Nimue needed Carados in her plans?
Hawk really didn’t want to think about Nimue. Dark and extremely ugly things were going on round her, as usual. Meanwhile there was a young woman whose welfare somewhat concerned him. He’d find her, and also take another look at the insulting vampire. It was good to be doing something again, at last, after all the centuries.
The centuries of what? Just what had he been doing for the past thousand years? Nothing, it seemed, but rolling in an alcoholic fog from one gutter to another. He didn’t want to think about it.
He started over, by rubbing one horny thumbnail reasonably clean on the sleeve of his new blue jail shirt. Then he oiled the nail as shiny as possible by rubbing it on the side of his nose. Whispering a few words, Hawk settled down to stare into the dull mirror thus provided.
“Oh,” he added a moment later under his breath. “There you are.” He tried to chuckle wickedly at first at the girl’s predicament, when he saw where the backblast of his own broken transportation spell had tossed her up. But instead of chuckling he moaned inwardly, in sympathy. Then he cursed inwardly, at himself, knowing himself, knowing how even an unconscious appeal from an attractive young woman could twist him from his purposes, force him into doing madly dangerous things.
And then Hawk drew breath with a gasp. Of course he ought to know, even without farseeing, where this particular girl was in the sixth century. Because he’d once met her there… oh God.
It was all the vampire’s fault, the goddam bloodsucker, the—but later he’d worry about the vampire.
He gazed into his thumbnail at the young girl’s face. “Thanks for giving me the nice robe, pretty one,” he breathed, wheezing. “Now I have a little something for you in return. Send you something that you’ll find useful, where you are. That’s about all I can do for the moment. Later maybe I can do more. Now here it comes.”
Hawk spoke the words of sending, and watched with satisfaction. Then he turned from the past and looked into the future, just a little. He marveled. And felt a deep and fundamental chill. The laws of magic were inexorable. It wasn’t only the girl’s life that was in jeopardy. It was his own as well.
SEVENTEEN
On her first night in the past, Margie tossed and turned on her straw pallet, and had bad dreams. Simon was calling her, from some vast distance, and she had to go back to him at once, but her arms and legs were paralyzed and it was impossible to move.
“Are you there, Margie? Margie, answer me clearly please.”
She couldn’t see Simon but his voice was coming to her clearly, drifting from beyond massive dream-walls and squat towers of timber and earth and stone. And there were also tall stone castle walls, and wooden screens of maze-like fretwork.
“Simon, I’m here, I’m here.” Now Margie was able to stand, but the ground was very slippery and slid out from under her feet whenever she tried to move, and if she fell it would mean her total and eternal ruin. She had never wanted anything more than she now wanted to get back to Simon, and yet she knew that was impossible.
His voice still drifted to her over parapets, under a starless sky. “Margie, I want to know about the guest that our hostess is expecting here. Can you see him from where you are?”
Margie was about to call back no, when in dream fashion the question arranged its own answer. “Yes, Simon, yes,” Margie called instead. A presence was standing near Margie now, a man. He was dressed somewhat in the manner of the man of the village who had taken her in, only his clothes were richer than any of theirs. He was at least a head taller than the short leader who had questioned Margie. She could not really see the tall man’s eyes. His lightly bearded face was very handsome, but Margie could feel a sickness radiating from it like a glow of ugly light. The man moved past her, starting up the same slippery slope on which she struggled for a foothold. His hands were raised before him, holding things that she knew were magically powerful, though she could not see them clearly. He totally ignored Margie as he passed her.
Simon’s next question came distantly: “Is it a man or a woman?”
Whether it was a man or a devil was the only real question. Sickness and hatred played from it like the beam of a dark searchlight. But Margie had no way to cry a warning. It was as if she and Simon were performing a version of their mentalist act, but one in which the warning codes had been proscribed. She had no power of speech except to answer questions truthfully. “It’s a man,” her voice said carefully.
Simon’s voice drifted to her again, in tones of careless ignorance. “Is the guest going to be able to join us here tonight?”
Margie uttered a silent, agonized prayer that he could not. And the handsome man, as if he were able to read thoughts—or hear prayers—turned his face to her and now she could see his eyes.
They rested on her only for a moment, but inside her skull a silent scream went up. Her voice, independent of her control, called calmly back to Simon: “He will try.”
“When will he be here, do you think?”
The slippery slope was not high. But near the top, opposition waited for the would-be guest. Out of a small mound, made of something Margie could not see clearly, there rose the broad, straight blade of a shining sword, topped by a cross-like ornate hilt. Light pulsed from the sword, and the jewels of its handle winked like small glowing eyes. The radiance of it forced back the man who tried to climb.
