It was beginning to snow when they left the Shadow. Suddenly the air was on fire, turning the snowflakes blood-red; Ginny gasped, and Doc stopped the Triumph for several minutes while they watched the silent, heatless firestorm.
Ginny took his hand. Under her winter coat she was wearing a ruffled white blouse with a small string of pearls, a long black skirt. 'I'd forgotten the fire,' she said, sounding astonished.
The plaque NEW ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO was on a gray stone building that must have been a department store before the world shifted. The entrance was flanked by huge bronze lions, one old and green, one looking nearly new. A guard tipped his hat as they came through the door; Ginny scanned a brochure on what to see first, and dragged Doc up a flight of stairs, directly to a huge painting of strolling people: Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Doc had seen pictures of it in books, but…
'Look at it close,' Ginny said.
He did. It was made up of thousands upon thousands of dots of color. Close up, they exploded into an atomic-structure diagram; a step back, and they coalesced again into the calm people in the sunny park.
In one of the modern halls, there was a painting of a theater usher, a girl in cap and vest standing in a golden slant of light. She looked weary; she looked terrifyingly alone. When he could look away from the girl, he saw that the pattern of the walls was a precise reproduction of a corner of the Biograph's lobby. Or was it the other way around?
He turned, a little dizzy, and there was another image he had seen any number of times before, but never like this: a long horizontal frame, a night scene somewhere in a big city, a streetcorner diner lit against the gloom. A sign on the brick wall sold nickel cigars to a disbelieving world. Inside, small at the big L-shaped counter, were a handful of people huddled over their coffee and pie, a counterman in white. No reproduction Doc had ever seen captured the electric green of the fluorescent light-it was like spellbox neon, though the artist had died long before things changed.
He looked at that picture for a long time, too, until its loneliness was too much to stand.
Near the museum exit was a room bannered The Third Fire.
Third? Doc thought. Just inside the door were two enormous engraved illustrations: the Great Fire of 1871, facing the 'White City,' the Columbian Exposition of 1892, burning at the turn of the century.
Beyond was an architectural model of the original Art Institute building, and an array of photographs. They showed the old building in flames, and a small army of people moving paintings and sculpture and art objects across littered, flame-lit streets. A glass case held a chunk of verdigris bronze: the distorted face of a lion, like those at the doorway looked out.
'The building burned when Elfland came back, you see?' Ginny said wonderingly, pointing at a map. 'They moved it all- in one night, this says.'
'Under cover of firehose and spell,' a voice said. A uniformed museum guard was standing a little behind them, a plump woman with a small, secret smile. 'We lost a few paintings, and a fair amount of sculpture, sad to tell. And one of the lions, of course. But look here.' She led them to a side alcove: it was filled with a painting, a surreal, darkly vivid nightscape laced with flame and streaking energy. Across the center, figures-some human, some Ellyll-formed a chain, carrying paintings that, in contrast with the rest of the picture, were rendered with photographic realism.
'Picasso Crossing Adams' the woman said. 'The elves knew something, even that first awful night. We hardly ever see one here now, but that night-' She shrugged, and smiled again. 'Pleasant evening to you.'
The woman left. Ginny said suddenly, directly into Doc's ear, 'Shall I ask you now? I want to ask now.'
'Ask what?'
'If you're coming home with me tonight. You don't have to. you know that. But there's enough suspense in mv life. And if we're going to have a really special dinner, I don't want to be knotted up all through it. So just tell me now, and it'll be OVCI with.'
He stared at the painting, the tire and art and sorccrv and said. 'Yes.'
She let out a breath and hugged his shoulders.
Berghoff's restaurant was a crowded, bustling, jolly place, with fancy wood and stained glass. The maitre d' looked coldly at the young couple with no reservation until he saw Mr. Patrise's note, and at once they were given a table, and brought soup and steak and amazing platters of sausage, with dark beer to wash them down, until Doc wasn't sure the TR3 would carry their weight. There did not seem to be any question of presenting a bill.
Doc parked the car in front of Ginny's building. As they went up the front steps, Ginny slipped in the fresh snow, and Doc caught her. He had a brief, wild thought of carrying her inside, but he didn't; just kept his arm around her shoulders all the way in. Ginny locked the door behind them. 'You remember when I said there was too much suspense in my life?'
'Yeah?'
'Maybe I was wrong.'
He found himself unbuttoning her blouse before she had quite pulled him into the bedroom. He had heard it wasn't difficult, after the first time. It was easier. He still seemed to weigh too much- the dinner was only part of that.
It wasn't that there was any difficulty. She seemed pleased, and that alone was enough to make him feel good. But something wasn't quite there: the Wild Hunt didn't ride, and he knew that she knew it. Still she sighed happily, and laughed, and held him all night.
Still, he knew what was locked up in his thoughts, and hoped desperately that she did not.
Monday night the usual poker crowd met at the Rush Street Grill. They sat over Flats Montoya's wonderful burgers with an uneasy quiet; Doc kept thinking of the Hopper painting, the diner at midnight. It was a relief to go back to the poker room, where quiet and blank looks were part of the game.
The Fox's game was way off form, and it threw everyone else's play off as well. After an hour, Kitsune tossed in her cards-an ace flipped upright-and said, 'That's all. Good night, everybody.'
Carmen said, 'I'll get the box.'
'Just say I'm tapped.' She hurried out.
Stagger Lee counted Kitsune's chips. 'Everyone agree we'll hold her share out?'
They did. 'Who'll see her first? Lucius?'
'I'll take it to the Mirada. Shaker can hold the stake.'
After another hour the raid alarm went off, and everyone went through the ritual of tossing in and covering up.
It wasn't the usual Copperbutton squad. It was Rico and Linn, with two very worried-looking Coppers trailing behind.
'Hello, Officers,' Flats said. 'Can I offer you something hot on a cold night?'
'Don't you love it?' Rico said. 'Everybody here's the Welcome Wagon. Linn.'
The elf went to the table where Doc and company were sitting. He looked at the people, then took a lens- shaped blue crystal from his belt. He gave it a snap of the wrist and it hung, spinning, in the air above the table, casting an electric-blue light. The tabletop turned transparent, showing the bucket of cards and chips beneath, the sitters' legs, a glimpse of their leg bones. Linn snatched the stone from the air with an easy movement and a tight little smile. He tucked it away.
Rico said, 'The stuff that passes for cop work around here.'
Carmen said, 'We've got a seat open, Lieutenant. Maybe you'd like to sit in? There's room for two.'
'Maybe some other time, honey.'
'You mean that?'
'Yeah. I mean that.'
'Look forward to it.'
The police went out. The patrons dug into their pie and brandy.
A burst of gunfire came from the front of the restaurant, and a long crash of glass. Someone screamed. Stagger Lee, with a completely artificial calm, said, 'Somebody's wa off script.'
Doc was on his feet by instinct, grabbing his bag. 'Keep do**, dammit,' Lucius yelled, and Doc dropped into a booth-high crouch.
Just as he got to the front room, there was a brilliant white Hare from outside, and the front of the restaurant
