after all, is supposed to protect endangered Powers, not exterminate them. From their point of view, I couldn’t really blame the Lizard and the Great (but not Great enough) Eagle and the rest for wanting to overturn the balance of Powers and twist things back to the way they’d been before the first Europeans touched the New World.
But, along with a couple of hundred million other people, I live in the world that’s sprung from the European expansion. And, as Michael Manstein said, we’d done more and better with this land than its original inhabitants would have in the same length of time. So while I figured I’d eventually get round to feeling bad, it wouldn’t be any time real soon.
Speaking of Michael, he poked his head into my office about then. “I’m going home now,” he said. “Perhaps you should do the same.” He clearly wasn’t used to me working | longer hours than he did. He was right. I went home. I ate something (don’t ask me what), then went to bed. Worries or no, I slept almost as soundly as if I’d been in Ephesus: the aftermath of nearly dying a couple of times during the course of a day. If my alarm dock hadn’t screamed me awake, I might be snoring yet No sooner had I got to the office than the phone started yelling. I came this close to knocking over my cup of cafeteria coffee grabbing for it. “Environmental Perfection Agency, David Fisher.”
“Inspector Fisher, this is Legate Shtro Kawaguchi, Angels City Constabulary Department.” Kawaguchi spoke as if he were introducing himself for the first time. “Inspector Fisher, interrogation of the suspect Jorge Vasquez has led us to your fiancee, Mistress Judith Ather.”
I let out a whoop that rattled my windows. “That’s wonderful, Legate! When can I see her?” He didn’t answer right away. My joy crashed into dread. “Is she—all right?”
“Unfortunately, Inspector Fisher, I must tell you she is not,” Kawaguchi answered. “You will perhaps remember that an Aztecian Power, variously called the Cracker, the Page, and the One Called Night, was involved in the abduction of Mistress Ather.”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
“From what our forensics man has to say. Inspector, it appears that the One Called Night, to use the name with which you appear to be most familiar, has carried Mistress Adier’s spirit into the realm known as the Nine Beyonds. We have recovered her body. She appears to be physically unharmed; she will eat or drink if food or water is placed in her mouth.
But as for anything more than that… I’m very sorry, Inspector Fisher, but at present it is just not there.”
“What do we do, then?” I asked hoarsely.
“Our preliminaiy and tentative thaumaturgic efforts to restore her to herself have failed; she does not seem as responsive to certain rituals as we had hoped.” Kawaguchi paused. “I believe you are Jewish. Is Mistress Ather, also?”
“Yes.”
That may account for part of it, then. Most rituals designed to counter the Craclder assume a Catholic victim, and would be less efficacious in rescuing one from a different faith. While we continue to do our utmost, I suggest you also pursue every flyway that occurs to you. Otherwise, Inspector, I can offer no guarantee that Mistress Adler’s body and spirit will ever be reunited.”
XI
II took my troubles down to Madame Ruth—you know, that medium with the gold—capped tooth. She had an office down on 34th and Vine. I hoped she could help with a problem like mine. When Erasmus had been so dreadfully hurt as the Thomas Brothers monastery was torched, she and I Nigel Cholmondeley managed to access him where everyone else had failed. I was praying she’d be able to do the same for Judy.
In her green silk dress and the matching scarf she used to cover her hair, she put me in mind of nothing so much as an enormous watermelon wearing too much makeup. But her looks didn’t matter, not to me they didn’t. She and her English partner were the local experts on virtuous reality, and from what I’d seen of the technique, I figured it offered the best chance of rescuing Judy’s spirit and bringing it back to This Side where it belonged.
Madame Ruth heard me out, then slowly shook her head back and forth. “I dunno, Inspector Fisher,” she said. “This ain’t gonna be as easy as gettin’ hold of what’s-his-name, the scriptorium spirit, was. You don’t just wanna access your fiancee’s spirit, you wanna download it, too. That’s one fresh problem.”
“If you say that’s one, you mean there are more,” I said.
“What are they?”
“Two good ones, offhand,” she answered. “One’s in the spiritual realm. We were able to build our own kinda place to meet the spirit—Erasmus, that’s what he goes by—in. If your girlfriend’s already stuck in the Nine Beyonds, we’re gonna hatta go in there and haul her out. Like I said, that ain’t gonna be easy.”
I wondered what walking through a simulation of the Nine Beyonds would be like. Could even virtuous reality pretty up something with a handle like that so anyone except a Power named the One Called Night would want to go there? I had my doubts, but I also had no choice, not if I wanted Judy back. I asked, “What’s the other problem?”
Madame Ruth coughed and looked down at her desk, an elephantine effort at discretion. “It’s not spiritual,” she said.
“It’s more material-like, if you know what I mean.” She stopped there.
After a couple of seconds, I figured out what she was flying at. Tm sure Judy’s medical insurance will cover your fees,” I said. “It’s one of the Blue Scutum plans, and it has an excellent thaumaturgy benefits package.”
“That’s okay, then,” she said, nodding briskly. I understood that she had to show a profit, but what would Judy have done without insurance? Got stuck in the Nine Beyonds forever because no one would come after her without crowns on the barrelhead? Or ended up bankrupting herself to pay the fees afterwards? Nothing’s simple these days.
“Will you try to help her?” I asked.
“Lemme talk with my partner. This is gonna take both of us,” she said, and got up to go next door. I didn’t age more than eight or ten years in the few minutes she was gone. She came back with Cholmondeley, (weedy as ever, in her wake.
She must have read my face, because she said, “It’s okay, Mr.
Fisher. Well give it a try.”
I started gasping out thank—yous, but Nigel Cholmondeley cut me off. “Time for all that later, old chap, if we succeed.
Meanwhile, where is Mistress, uh, Ather now located?”
Kawaguchi had told me that. “Her body’s at the West Hills Temple of Healing,” I said. Where the rest of her was… Well, Cholmondeley and Madame Ruth already knew about that.
Madame Ruth was looking through her appointments scroll. “We’re on for this afternoon and tomorrow morning, too,” she said. “We can work her in tomorrow afternoon, though, if that’s okay wit’ you?” She looked at me. I nodded.
I wanted them to drop everything and rush right out to take care of Judy, but everybody else they were working for felt his case was the most important one in the world, too.
Madame Ruth said, “It’s okay, Mr. Fisher, maybe even better than okay. This gives us a chance to square things with the constables and with the West Hills place, so as we can be all set up and ready to go.”
I nodded again. Cholmondeley unrolled his own scroll, inked a quill, and scribbled a note. “We shall see you there, then, at half past one.” He stuck out a bony hand. I clasped it, then walked out of Madame Ruth’s office. I wanted to get back to my own shop as soon as I could: I was using vacation time for this visit. Crazy how you keep track of the little things even when the big ones in your world are falling every which way.
There was a rack of news stands outside Madame Ruth’s building. I stuck a quarter-crown into the waiting palm of one of the little vending demons, took away a copy of the A.C. Times. I figured yesterday’s goings-on would be pageone stuff, and so they were: the flight of the Garuda Bird across St. Ferdinand’s Valley isn’t something you can easily ignore. Neither is the emergency evacuation of the neighborhoods surrounding the Devonshire toxic spell dump.
Sure enough, both of those got plenty of ink, though the reporters seemed confused about just what had
