The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Out to the kitchen again, this time for breakfast You stay up all night, you get hungry. I was washing the dishes when a pigeon landed on the tile roof above me with a noise like a flying carpet crashing into the side of a hill in the fog. There have been times when that kind of predawn rackets bounced me out of bed in a fright. If I'd been asleep, it might have happened again. As things were, I welcomed the noise - it showed something besides me was alive and moving.

I finished washing the dishes, dried them (a prodigy), and put them away (a bigger prodigy). Then I took a shower, and after that I went back into the bedroom and got dressed to face the new day.

Facing the day, in fact, was easy: when I opened the bedroom drapes, the eastern sky was brilliant pink, shading toward gold at the horizon. It got brighter by the second as I watched. Finally the sun crawled up into sight. Another day had started. I didn't feel too bad, not physically. Mentally, spiritually… a different story.

The sun rose higher, as the sun has a way of doing. What had been a black mystery out past my window was revealed as - what a surprise!-romantic Hawthorne, a not particularly exotic suburb of Angels City.

I started to turn my back on the too-familiar panorama, then stopped with one foot in the air. Before I fell over, I spun around and ran for the little book by my phone. I was just about sure I had that number, but not quite. I checked. I had it. I called it.

"Hello?" Through two phone imps, I recognized that groggy tone. I'd had it myself, the too early in the morning when Charlie Kelly called me and got me and Judy and maybe the whole world into the mess we were in. I didn't care. I started to talk.

I found a parking spot right at the comer of Thirty-Fourth and Vine, settled my carpet into it, and settled me down to wait I'd got there twenty minutes before I was supposed to meet him. He'd promised he'd come. He'd even sounded eager to help, which to my way of thinking only proved he didn't fully understand the situation.

That comer wasn't one of the swankier ones in Angels City, and it wasn't an angel who sauntered past and gave'me the eye. It was a succubus, swinging her hips fit to make the Pope sweat. But my mind was on other things. She muttered something I was lucky enough not to catch and walked on down the street.

Two spaces in front of me, a carpet pulled out and headed up Vine. Within half a minute, another one slid into the space. Tony!" I exclaimed gladly; promises or no, I'd feared he'd find some reason not to come. Before six in the morning, you're liable to promise anything, just to get a pest off the phone.

But here he was, grinning like a man who's had some sleep, anyhow. "Let's go, Dave," he said. "I've read a lot about virtuous reality; you think I'm gonna throw away a chance to check it out from the inside?"

If he'd had any sense, he would have. He must not have had sense; he gave me a shot in the ribs with his elbow and went into the office building ahead of me. He was singing something in Lithuanian. I caught Perkunas' name, but that was all. Before I'd met Tony, I wouldn't have understood that, either.

My legs are longer than his. By the time we got to Madame Ruth's office, I was a couple of strides in front of him. I opened the door and went in. Tony on my heels. If I told you Madame Ruth looked delighted to see me, I'd be tying.

"Mr. Fisher," she said, as patiently as she could (which wasn't very), "we told you yesterday we couldn't do anything more for you."

"No, that's not quite what you said," I answered. "Nigel Cholmondeley said you couldn't do anything unless I came up with something extraordinary. Well, here he is - Mr.

Antanas Sudakis." I wasn't making all the sense I might have; more than a day without sleep will do that to you.

Tony grinned. "Something extraordinary, hey? I like that."

Madame Ruth did not look amused. "Why is he extraordinary?" she asked. Why is he extraordinary, wise guy? was what her tone said.

So I told her why, in detail and probably repeating myself more than a little. I watched her eyebrows, or rather the painted lines that showed where they used to live. They'd ridden high and skeptical on her forehead when I started, but the longer I talked, the lower they got.

When I finished, she just said, "Wait here, both ofyouse."

She walked out, came back a minute later with Nigel Cholmondeley. "Okay, buster, tell him what you just told me."

So I did. I doubt I was any smoother the second time around than I had been the first. By the time I was through, Cholmondeley was rubbing his long, horsy chin in speculation. When he spoke, it wasn't to me but to Tony Sudakis:

"My principal objection, sir, is doubt that Perkunas is a Power sufficiently powerful (please forgive the play on words) to achieve the effect desired in the Nine Beyonds."