The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Or else, I read between the lines.

There'd also been some sort of disaster outside D.StC., but I didn't even glance at that story. I just headed over to Westwood to go back to work.

When I got up to my floor, Bea was coming down the corridor as I stepped out of the elevator shaft. She asked about Judy and gave me her best in a way that sounded as if she really meant it. I'm sure she did, too; Bea cares about people. Sounding as if you care, though, isn't so easy. Then she said, "You and Michael have done some very important work lately, and under extremely trying circumstances. I want you to know I know it, and I couldn't be more pleased."

"Thank you," I said. "But you know what? I think I'd rather have spent all that time in a nice, dull staff meeting."

Her head went to one side; I realized I'd stuck my foot in my face. "I'm going to understand that the way I hope you meant it," she said, to my relief more in sorrow - and in amusement - than in anger.

She let me escape then, so escape I did, to the smaller problems left behind after the spectacular collapse of the bigger ones. I plugged away at the leprechaun study, lining up values for my variables so I could get rolling on the crystal-ball prognostications maybe next week. I had to call the Angels City archdiocese for some of the data I needed; the Catholic Church has lived side by side with the Wee Polk on the Emerald Isle for the past fifteen hundred years, and knows more about 'em than anybody these days.

Try as I would, though, I didn't get a whole lot done.

People kept coming in to congratulate me and wish me the best - Phylhs, Rose, Jose. Even if the papers were being coy, the folks I work with knew what I'd done. Maybe Michael had talked with them; I don't know. It's not that I didn't appreciate their dropping by, but they kept distracting me from what I was trying to do. And when I got distracted, I had a hard time pulling my mind back where it was supposed to be.

I also kept trying to crystal-ball it in my head, to work out where in the big picture the events in Angels City really fit.

What did thwarting the Chumash Powers have to do with the liquidation of the Aztecian cabinet, for instance? Something, sure, but what?

As with the leprechaun study, I was missing data. Here, though, the Catholic Church wasn't the place that had 'em. I called Central Intelligence back in D.StC. and asked for Henry Legion.

I listened to a long silence on the other end of the ether.

Then the CI operator asked, "Who's calling, please?"

"David Fisher, from the EPA out in Angels City."

"One moment, sir." If that was one moment, you could live a long lifetime in three or four of them. At last, though, someone came back on the line - a new voice, but not Henry Legion's. "Mr. Fisher? I'm sorry to have to tell you that Henry Legion's essence has undergone dissolution. He gave his country the last full measure of devotion; his name will go up on the memorial tablet commemorating our agency's heroes and martyrs. He shall not be forgotten, I assure you."

"What happened?" I exclaimed. "And to whom am I talking?"

"I'm afraid I can't answer either of those questions, sir: security," the new voice said. "I'm sure you understand.

Good day. Thank you for your concern," The phone imps reproduced the sound of a handset clunking into its cradle.

I hung up, too, and stared at the phone for a while. Whatever Henry Legion had been doing, it cost him everything. I knew I'd never learn all the answers I wanted, not with him gone. I was back to my own guesses, for better or worse - probably worse. After seeing a little ways into his secret, secretive world, I was blind again.

I wondered if his passing had anything to do with the extermination of the sitting Aztecian cabinet, or perhaps with the disaster outside D.StC. the Times had mentioned. Did some sort of war try to start there, too, and get suppressed as it had in Angels City? More things I'd never know, not without Henry Legion to ask.

Since I'd never know, sitting around wondering was just a waste of taxpayers' crowns. I buckled down and tried to do my job, but things came slow, slow. Maybe I suddenly needed a crisis breathing down my neck like a hungry werewolf to make myself perform.

Lord, what a horrid idea!

I flew into tile parking lot of the West Hills Temple of Heating about ten past one the next afternoon, then flew around inside the lot for the next ten minutes looking for a space for my carpet. I wouldn't have been late, not for anything.

When I told the receptionist who I was and for whom I was looking, she said, "Go up to the fifth floor, Mr. Fisher.

Mistress Ather is in 547, right across the hall from the Intensive Prayer Unit. Just follow the IPU signs and you can't go wrong."