The Anubis Gates

“I didn’t see him.” Doyle sat down. Benner was stirring a cup of tea that hadn’t been there when Doyle went out. “How long has he been following you? And where did you first notice him?”

“Well…” Benner sipped the tea noisily. “Damn, they serve fine tea here. Try some.” He held the cup toward Doyle.

The yelling outside was getting louder and more general, and Doyle had to lean forward to be heard. “No, thank you. Will you answer me?”

“Yes, I’ll answer. But first, please try some. It’s really very good. I’m beginning to think you fancy yourself above eating or drinking with me.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Benner.” Doyle took the cup and tilted it impatiently to his lips, and just as he opened his mouth for a sip Benner reached out and lifted the bottom of the cup, so that Doyle got a real solid gulp. He only just managed to keep from choking on it. “Damn you,” he sputtered when he’d swallowed it, “are you crazy?”

“I simply wanted you to get a good draught of it,” Benner said happily. “Isn’t it savory?”

Doyle smacked his puckered lips. The stuff had been bitterly spicy and thick with leaves and, like a red wine with a lot of tannin, so dry that it made his teeth feel raspy. “It’s horrible,” he told Benner, and then a disquieting thought struck him. “You son of a bitch, let me see you drink some.”

Benner cupped a hand to his ear. “I beg your pardon?

There seems to be—”

“Drink some right now!” Doyle was almost shouting to be heard over the racket that was now just outside.

“Do you suppose I want to poison you? Hah! Watch.” To Doyle’s considerable relief Benner drained the cup with no hesitation. “You’re no connoisseur of tea, Doyle, that’s evident.”

“I guess not. What in hell do you suppose is going on outside? But tell me about this bearded—”

There were some panicky yells in the room behind Doyle, by the front door, and before he could turn around there was an explosive crash and roaring metallic splash as the front window burst inward. The street altercation doubled in volume. As Doyle whirled out of his chair and onto his feet he was peripherally aware of Benner coolly leaping up and drawing a small flintlock pistol from under his coat.

“My God,” someone was screaming, “kill it, I think it’s going for the kitchen!”

Doyle could see a frantically churning crowd on the street side of the room, and sticks from shattered chairs were being swung as clubs, but for the first tense several seconds he couldn’t see who or what was at the center of it; then a waiter was flung tumbling through the air to bowl down half a dozen people, and Doyle saw, in the small central clearing of the riot, a squat ape with fur the color of a red setter. Though shorter than most of its opponents, it managed by sheer, gibbering ferocity to burst through the hole left by the catapulted waiter, and in two bounds it had covered half the distance to Doyle and Benner’s table. In the instant before Benner’s gun cracked at his ear Doyle had time to notice that the ape’s fur was matted with blood in a number of places, and that it seemed to be bleeding more profusely through the mouth.

Doyle felt the concussion of the air slap at his cheek and saw blood jump from the ape’s chest as the slug hammered it right back off its feet. Its shoulders struck the floor ten feet behind where it had last been, and for one moment before its limp, rattling collapse the creature was nearly standing on its head.

In the instant of ringing silence that followed, Benner seized Doyle’s arm above the elbow and marched him quickly into the kitchen and through the back door into a very narrow, shadowed alley.

“Go,” Benner said. “This alley connects with Cornhill.”

“Wait a minute!” Doyle nearly tripped over an old broken cartwheel that had somehow eluded all the scrap scavengers. “That was one of Dog-F—I mean, the hairy man’s cast-offs! Why did it come—”

“It doesn’t matter. Now will you—”

“But it means he’s in a new body now! Don’t you understand—”

“I understand it better than you do, Doyle, believe me. Everything’s under control and I’ll explain later.”

“But—oh, okay. Hey, wait! Damn it, when will I meet you again? You said what, Tuesday?”

“Tuesday’s fine,” said Benner impatiently. “Trot!”

“Where on Tuesday?”

“Don’t worry about that—I’ll find you. Oh, what the devil. Tuesday right here at ten in the morning, does that make you feel better?”

“Okay. But could you loan me some more money? I don’t—”

“Oh aye, aye, mustn’t have you starving yourself. Here. I don’t know how much is there, but it’s bountiful. Now go, will you?”

* * *

The gray-haired waiter had swept the dustpan full of glass bits, and with the napkin he’d tied in a turban-like bandage around his head he looked like some sort of Grand Vizier looking about for a sultan to present a heap of randomly cut diamonds to. “I’m sorry, son, but things were too excited just then for me to really take notes, yes?” He dumped the panful of glass into the trash barrel and stooped to sweep up another load.

“But he was heading for two men at a table?”