The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

"I just now got in," I answered, starting to feel guilty because I'd eaten lunch before I called him back. "Rose, our secretary, said it was urgent, so you're the first call I've made." That, at least, was true. "What's up?" "I trust you will recall," he began, which meant he didn't trust any such thing, "that when we last spoke I was uncertain whether the Chumash Powers were extinct or had, so to speak, encysted themselves on the Other Side, abandoning all contact with This Side for an indefinite period, perhaps in the hope of being lured back Here should more worshipers appear to propitiate them."

He hadn't said all that when we talked before; some of it he must have worked out since then. But he had said enough of it to let me answer, "Yes, I remember that. Do you know which is true now?"

"The latter, I'm afraid,'' he said, "and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word."

I'd figured it was the latter; having learned that the Chumash Powers were in fact extinct wouldn't have been news urgent enough for him to haunt his office waiting for me to call back. But I hadn't though even finding them active would be frightening. "What's to be afraid of?" I asked.

"The Powers are indeed encysted; new regression analysis establishes that beyond any statistical or theological doubt," he said. "But it's a topologlcally unusual spherical encystment Are you aware. Inspector, that the surface of a sphere can be continuously deformed until it is inside out?"

"Well, no," I said. "What does that have to do with the Chumash Powers?"

"It's a good approximation of what those Powers seem to have done on the Other Side," he answered. "As I said in our earlier conversation, they seem to Taawe taken a hole and pulled it in afterward, apparently leaving nothing behind."

Something he said there made a bell toll in my mind, but before I could figure out what It was, he went on, "The problem, from our point of view, is that the Powers, if my calculations are correct, can reverse their encystment and burst out violently at any time they choose."

"Violently?" I echoed. "How violently?"

"Crystal-ball prognostications vary; the scenario is unique and so many of my parameters are uncertain," he said. "If, however, they release maximum magical energy, the effects on the surrounding area will be somewhere between those of a megasalamander ignition just above it and an earthquake, oh, approximately on the order of magnitude of the one that hit the city of St. Francis in the early years of this century. The effects will be different, you understand, because they'll be primarily thaumaturgic rather than physical, but the size of the event will be more or less in that range."

"Jesus," I said, which shows how acculturated I am. Foolishly, I added, "No wonder they didn't want to bother making rain."

"No wonder at all. Inspector," Professor Blank said. "Neither I nor my staff have been able to determine where the interface between the Chumash powers' encystment and This Side is presently located. We would have expected it to be in the extreme northwest of the Barony of Angels, for that was formerly Chumash territory, but, as I say, we have not succeeded in detecting it I hope that, with your greater resources, the Environmental Perfection Agency will do what we have not accomplished. Good day."

He hung up on me. I wanted to loll him. "Hello. Here comes a catastrophe. I've found out it's on the way, but I can't deal with it All up to you, Dave. Good luck, pal." That's what was left at the bottom of the alembic. In my nose, it smelled like old catbox.

Instead of committing murder, I called Tony Sudakis. He didn't sound as if I'd caught him at lunch, but he had something in common with Professor Blank anyhow: he sounded scared. "Dave? It's you? Perkunas and the Nine Suns, I'm glad to hear from you! You know that thing - I mean, that Nothing - you spotted in the containment area? It's going through some changes, and I don't like 'em even a little bit"

"Changes? What land of changes?" I asked, thinking I didn't need one more thing to worry about on top of everything Professor Blank had just dumped on me.

"Well, for one thing, you can notice the effect from anywhere along the safety walk now, and I can see it from the roof of my office, too. Eerie, if you ask me. But there's worse.

I can feel something starting to build over there, even through the wardspells, like the world's gonna turn inside out any minute now. It's bad. I don't even know if the outer containment wall will hold this one. And if it doesn't-"

He let it hang there. I gulped. I didn't like the way it sounded, not even slightly. "What have you done so far?" I asked.

"I've called for a SWAT team, but a lot of those are busy somewhere else," he answered. I had a hunch I knew where, too: theywere taking down Chocolate Weasel. Tony went on,