We got into the Beetle. I started it up, and we headed out. I left the lights off—no sense attracting attention.
“You going to be all right?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Take me a few days to get enough back into me to feel normal, but”—he shrugged—“I’ll make it.”
“Thanks for the backup,” I said.
“Kicked their freaky asses,” he said, and held out his fist.
I rapped my knuckles lightly against it.
“Nice signal. The birthday present.”
“I figured you’d get it,” I said. Then I frowned. “Crap,” I said. “Your present.”
“You didn’t remember to bring it?”
“I was a little busy,” I said.
He was quiet for a minute. Then he asked, “What was it?”
“Rock’em Sock’em Robots,” I said.
He blinked at me. “What?”
I repeated myself. “The little plastic robots you make fight.”
“I know what they are, Harry,” he responded. “I’m trying to figure out why you’d give me them.”
I pursed my lips for a minute. Then I said, “Right after my dad died, they put me in an orphanage. It was Christmastime. On television, they had commercials for Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Two kids playing with them, you know? Two brothers.” I shrugged. “That was a year when I really, really wanted to give those stupid plastic robots to my brother.”
“Because it would mean you weren’t alone,” Thomas said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry I forgot them. And happy birthday.”
He glanced back at the burning mall. “Well,” my brother said, “I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”
HEOROT
Takes place between
Once more, Pat invited me to come play at her literary club-house, and once more, I cheerfully agreed.
What can I say? I fear change.
The last anthology’s theme had been weddings, and this one was the logical sequel—honeymoons. Research into the etymology of “honeymoon” led me back to its roots in Scandinavia and in the British Isles, where a newly wed bride and groom would depart their village and remain in solitude for a lunar month, while being well provided with mead (which is made from honey).
I think the idea was to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that any child conceived in that time was the legitimate heir of the groom. Or maybe it was just to get a pretty young bride liquored up and wild for a month— Viking Girls Gone Wild, as it were.
I have no idea if the information I found, mostly on the Internet, was academically accurate. For my purposes, that wasn’t nearly as important as finding a solid inspiration. So, from newlyweds, mead, and Norse- Scandinavian backgrounds, I developed a story using everything from the Dresden Files’ story line that had the flimsiest of connections to those base ideas.
I put them all together, plopped Harry down in the middle of it, and gleefully watched as it caught fire.
I was sitting in my office, sorting through my bills, when Mac called and said, “I need your help.” It was the first time I’d heard him use four whole words all together like that.
“Okay,” I said. “Where?” I’d out-tersed him—another first.
“Loon Island Pub,” Mac said. “Wrigleyville.”
“On the way.” I hung up, stood up, put on my black leather duster, and said to my dog, “We’re on the job.”
My dog, Mouse, who outweighs most European cars, bounced up eagerly from where he had been dozing near my office’s single heating vent. He shook out his thick grey fur, especially the shaggy, almost leonine ruff growing heavy on his neck and shoulders, and we set out to help a friend.
October had brought in more rain and more cold than usual, and that day we had both, plus wind. I found parking for my battered old Volkswagen Bug, hunched my shoulders under my leather duster, and walked north along Clark, into the wind, Mouse keeping pace at my side.
Loon Island Pub was in sight of Wrigley Field, and a popular hang-out before and after games. Bigger than most such businesses, it could host several hundred people throughout its various rooms and levels. Outside, large posters had been plastered to the brick siding of the building. Though the posters were soaked with rain, you could still read CHICAGO BEER ASSOCIATION and NIGHT OF THE LIVING BREWS, followed by an announcement of a home-brewed beer festival and competition, with today’s date on it. There was a lot of foot traffic in and out.
“Aha,” I told Mouse. “Explains why Mac is here, instead of at his own place. He’s finally unleashed the new dark on the unsuspecting public.”
Mouse glanced up at me rather reproachfully from under his shaggy brows; then he lowered his head, sighed, and continued plodding against the rain until we gained the pub. Mac was waiting for us at the front door. He was a sinewy, bald man dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt, somewhere between the age of thirty and fifty. He had a very average, unremarkable face, one that usually wore a steady expression of patience and contemplation.
Today, though, that expression was what I could only describe as grim.
I came in out of the rain, and passed off my six-foot oak staff to Mac to hold for me as I shrugged out of my duster. I shook the garment thoroughly, sending raindrops sheeting from it, and promptly put it back on.
Mac runs the pub where the supernatural community of Chicago does most of its hanging out. His place has seen more than its share of paranormal nasties, and if Mac looked that worried, I wanted the spell-reinforced leather of the duster between my tender skin and the source of his concern. I took the staff back from Mac, who nodded to me and then crouched down to Mouse, who had gravely offered a paw to shake. Mac shook, ruffled Mouse’s ears, and said, “Missing girl.”
I nodded, scarcely noticing the odd looks I was getting from several of the people inside. That was par for the course. “What do we know?”
“Husband,” Mac said. He jerked his head at me, and I followed him deeper into the pub. Mouse stayed pressed against my side, his tail wagging in a friendly fashion. I suspected the gesture was an affectation. Mouse is an awful lot of dog, and people get nervous if he doesn’t act overtly friendly.
Mac led me through a couple of rooms where each table and booth had been claimed by a different brewer. Homemade signs bearing a gratuitous number of exclamation points touted the various concoctions, except for the one Mac stopped at. There, a cardstock table tent was neatly lettered, simply reading MCANALLY’S DARK.
At the booth next to Mac’s, a young man, good-looking in a reedy, librarianesque kind of way, was talking to a police officer while wringing his hands.
“But you don’t get it,” the young man said. “She wouldn’t just leave. Not today. We start our honeymoon tonight.”
The cop, a stocky, balding fellow whose nose was perhaps more red than warranted by the weather outside, shook his head. “Sir, I’m sorry, but she’s been gone for what? An hour or two? We don’t even start to look
