floor. Another had a real coffee cup raised to its lips.
Yannis frowned, shaking his head, confused by this oddity. What sort of attraction did the owners of this place think this would have for their guests.
It was a matter of a second or two, only, while these thoughts capered in his brain. Then he frowned, deeply.
Where’s the body? Where is the murder that brought me here?
Next to the sideboard was another statue, this one of a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven. It had broken into half a dozen pieces, but mentally he rebuilt it, picturing what it would have looked like before it had broken, standing up.
It would have appeared to be reaching for something with its right hand. In its left it clutched an orange.
A fresh orange.
Understanding dawned on him. These were his bodies. The murders. Niko Keramikous must have seen it in his eyes, for the younger detective nodded in confirmation, unable to speak the words, his revulsion plain on his face.
Yannis’s stomach churned. He thought he’d seen everything.
'Niko. Go and get the owner. I want to speak with him.'
Keramikous sped from the room and closed the door behind him. Yannis cursed under his breath, the filthiest words he could dredge from his mind. He turned his back on the murdered family, on their stone faces, and reached into his pocket. The sweat on his back and under his arms was worse now, in spite of the breeze from the courtyard.
He withdrew his cellular phone and glanced around the room. There was too much sunlight in here. In a corner there was another door, and he opened it to find a closet used to store extra chairs. There were shelves of plates and glasses and silverware, but there was just enough room for him to step inside. He closed the door behind him, cloaking himself in near total darkness… in shadows. And he dialed a number.
Yannis Papathansiou had been on the job a long time and had seen much of what lay within and beyond the surface of this ancient city. The Athens police wouldn’t have the first clue how to deal with something like this. But he knew someone who would.
Every shadow was a doorway. Not just anyone could walk through one, of course. To most people — humans in particular — shadows were simple things, patches of darkness created when an obstacle came between the available light and any surface upon which it might shine. A woman walking her dog in the park on a sunny day would cast a shadow upon the ground. So would her dog. A jacket hung on the end of a child’s bed might block enough of the illumination from her nightlight to throw a strange shadow upon the wall or ceiling. Yes, there were shadows everywhere. Beneath every bed and in every closet. On the far side of every tree. Under benches and buses and just around the corner of every building.
And every one… every single one… a doorway.
Beyond those doorways there existed an entire world, a gray-black warren of pathways and tunnels, an interconnected maze that seemed infinite and yet turned in upon itself again and again. There were vast empty spaces in the midst of that shadow world, dark and barren places. The footing was uncertain, and the darkness seemed to breathe and to be very aware of those who walked within it. No one stayed in the shadows for very long.
Humans gazed at the shadows and shivered. They perceived the splashes of darkness with trepidation, their unconsciousness, the ancient, shared memory of their species reminding them that anything might emerge from the darkness, which was a place of the unknown, a dangerous place from which, once upon a time, many things might have escaped. Most of them were extinct, now. There might be a Norse svartalf or two still roaming the darkness, and if any of the tengu awoke, it was possible they would seek refuge there. But for the most part, the shadows were the domain of hobgoblins now.
And there weren’t that many of them left, either.
All of which suited Squire just fine. He liked a party as much as the next ‘goblin, but when he was working, he liked it quiet. Plenty of space to move around in, nothing to disturb him, and time to think.
Hobgoblins had an innate ability to navigate the darkness. He could dive into a pool of shadows in England as though it were water, and emerge from beneath a baby carriage in Los Angeles moments later. Many of the ancient races of the world had died out or were in danger of doing so. His own kind was not thriving, but they survived. To Squire’s mind, this was because they were simply better at running away from trouble than any other creatures in existence.
Squire didn’t like to run away. Not normally, in any case. He was more a lover than a fighter, but that didn’t make him a coward. Fortunately, he spent most of his time around beings who were fighters. So aside from the occasional, unavoidable scrap, he could concentrate on the lovin’.
Well, that and the weapons.
One of the things about hanging around with fighters, and being employed by one, was that they needed weapons. Mr. Doyle had an unparalleled collection of weapons from every culture in the world, not to mention many from realms beyond it, and from every era in history. Some were museum quality and beautiful, others were ugly and efficient. When the muses called to him, Squire would forge new weapons of his own design. All of them needed caring for, and that was one of Squire’s many duties in the household of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Driver. Valet. Weaponsmith. Armorer. His name was his occupation. He was Doyle’s squire. And he loved his work.
Now, in his workshop in a lost corner of the shadow world, with the darkness pulsing around him, shifting and breathing, the gnarled little hobgoblin worked at the grindstone, pumping it with a foot pedal. The blade shrieked against the stone, and fiery sparks sprayed from the metal. The sound unnerved most people, like nails on a chalkboard, but Squire loved it. It was music to him.
He bared rows of tiny shark teeth in a satisfied smile as he held the weapon up, examining it in the illumination cast from the flames of his forge. The shadows did their best to swallow all light in this place, but the furnace of his forge was enchanted, and would have burned at the bottom of the ocean. The weapon was double- bladed… little more than a double blade, really. He had combined the concept of the ancient punching blade, katar, with the more Medieval double-headed battle-axe. The warrior grasped a handle in the middle of the two razor- sharp, rounded blades and thus could swing a cutting edge in any direction. The blades themselves were an iron- and-silver alloy that would have been impossible, save that his employer was an accomplished alchemist.
Iron was poison and pain to witches and the Fey. Silver was death to many of the creatures of the night. A good weapon. Squire was proud of it.
In the light of the forge’s blaze he could see his reflection in the blade. His tiny eyes flickered in the firelight. There was a blemish in the metal, and the leathery brown flesh of his forehead wrinkled in consternation. He reached out a yellowed, cracked nail to scrape at it, to investigate, and then he chuckled softly with a rattle in his throat from too many cigars. It was merely a cut on his face, reflected in the pure mirror of the blade.
Squire drew his thumb along the edge, barely touching, but it cut him like a whisper, drawing a thin line of blood from his flesh.
He nodded to himself in satisfaction. A job well done. Now he only needed to fashion the leather sheath such a weapon would require. It was not complete without it, for the dual blade was too dangerous to carry unsheathed.
But the leather would wait.
Squire set the weapon on the wooden worktable where he kept most of his tools, and stretched. He had been crouched over the forge, and then the anvil, and at last the grindstone. His back hurt like a son of a bitch, but it was worth it just looking at the beauty he had made. He sucked his injured thumb, but there was pleasure in it. To him it was only right that the first blood the weapon should draw would be his own.
'What am I going to call you?' he said aloud, brows knitting as he studied the weapon. The perfect symmetry of the twin blades impressed him. It was a nasty piece of work.
Twins, he thought.
'Gemini.' That was the perfect name. It was a Gemini blade.
The hobgoblin patted the pockets of his coat and felt the reassuring bulk of his cigar case. He fished it out,
