The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

"Why?" I asked. My mind wasn't on the Devonshire dump, not that minute. But then, before she could answer, I put together whom she worked for, where she was calling from, her likeliest reason for wanting to get hold of the Thomas Brothers, and their likeliest reason for passing her on to me. "Don't tell me. Mistress Kuznetsov-"

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Fisher. We've just had an apsychic baby bom here."

IV

I don't know much about babies: call it lack of practical experience. Give Judy and me a few years and I expect we'll do something about that, but not now. Oh, my brother up in Portland has a two-year-old girl and I have some little cousins up there, too, but I can count on the smelly fingers of both hands the number of diapers I've changed.

So poor little Jesus Cordero (the irony of the name struck me as soon as I heard it) didn't look much different from any other new-minted kid to me. He lay on his tummy in the cradle, wriggling in a sort of random way, as if he didn't really understand he had arms and legs and could do things with them. The only thing in the least remarkable about him to the eye was an astonishingly thick head of black, black hair.

His mother sat on the side of the bed by the cradle. She was nineteen, twenty, something like that; she might have been pretty if she hadn't looked so wrung out from giving birth. Her husband had a hand on her shoulder. He was about her age, dressed like a day laborer. They talked back and forth in Spainish. I wondered if they'd entered the Confederation legally, and wondered even more if they truly understood what had happened to little baby Jesus.

In the room with them were Susan Kuznetsov - a middleaged woman, no-nonsense variety, built like a crate - and a priest. He was a tubby little redheaded fellow named Father Flanagan, but he proved to speak fluent Spainish himself. In Angels City, that's a practical necessity for a priest these days.

"Any question about the diagnosis, Father?" I asked him.

"Not a'bit of it, worse luck for the poor boy," he answered.

Listening to him, I wondered if you could speak Spainish with a brogue. But all such frivolous thoughts vanished as he went on: "I was going through the nursery last night the way I always do, blessing the newboms of my creed. I came to this little fellow and - well, see for your own self. Inspector."

He took off the crucifix from around his neck, set it against the baby's cheek, murmured a few words of Latin.

That's not my ritual, of course, but I knew what was supposed to happen: because babies, being new to the world, are uncorrupt, the cross should have glowed for a moment, symbolic of the linkage between goodness on the Other Side and the innocence of the baby's soul. Not for nothing did Scandinavian converts speak of the White Christ But nothing was all we saw here. The crucifix might have been merely metal and wood, not one of the most potent mystical symbols on This Side. At its touch, little Jesus twisted his head in the hope that it was a milk-filled breast.

Gendy, his face sad, the priest redonned the crucifix.

Susan Kuznetsov said, "Fadier Flanagan called me first thing this morning. Of course, I came out immediately. He repeated the test in my presence then, and I made odiers so as to be absolutely certain. This baby, diough odierwise healdly and normal, possesses no soul."

Tears stung my eyes. Having something so dreadful happen to a poor tiny kid who'd never even had the chance to commit a sin struck me as horribly unjust Not even Satan got anything out of it, either, because when Jesus Cordero died, he'd just be gone. What did it mean? Far as I could tell, it meant only that we don't understand the way dungs work as well as we'd like to.

"Sir," I said to the baby's fadier (his name was Ramon; his wife was Lupe), "I'd like to ask you some questions, if I may, to see if I can learn how this unfortunate thing happened to your son."

"Sf, ask," he said. He understood English, even if he didn't speak it too well. His wife nodded to show she also followed what I'd said.

The first thing I asked was their address. I wasn't surprised to learn they lived within a couple of miles of the Devonshire dump; we were only five or six miles away there at the hospital. Then I tried to find out if Lupe Coidero had used any potent sorcerous products during her pregnancy.

She shook her head. "Nada," she said.

"Nodungat all?" I persisted, contact with magic is such a part of everyone's everyday life that sometimes we don't even think about it "Your medical treatments were all of the ordinary sort?"

She answered in rapid-fire Spainish. Fadier Flanagan did the honors for me: "She says she had no medical treatments till birth; she could not afford them." I nodded glumly; diat's the story with so many poor immigrants these days. Through the priest, Lupe went on. The only thing even a little different was that I had morning sickness, so I went to the ourandero for help."