Noriko tilted her head to the side, concentrating. "Rotorkite," she announced. "Doc is here."
The others listened. At first Harris could hear nothing but a constant, dull wash of noise—the faint remnants of street sound from a thousand feet below. Then he caught the sound that had alerted Noriko: a faint thup-thup-thup that began to grow louder. It sounded just like an incoming helicopter.
Noriko and Jean-Pierre were up in an instant, headed out through the nearest door in the wall; Harris and then Alastair followed. The door nearest the sofas opened into a dim, carpeted corridor, and Noriko and Jean-Pierre led the way to a nearby bank of elevators.
One elevator was already open. They piled into it, Jean-Pierre sliding shut first the gratelike outer door and then the matching inner door, pulling up on the handle that sent the elevator upward.
The elevator rose three stories into what had to be a hangar. It was enormous, taking up at least two building stories; the floor was concrete and splashed with oil. There were work-benches and tools, rolling carts, and what looked liked oversized car engines hanging from chains and pulleys. On one side of the big chamber was a strange carlike vehicle, a rounded lozenge forty feet long and ten wide; it rested on a series of struts with wheels at the bottom, and a large, irregular mass of what looked like tan sails lashed to the top.
Noriko headed over to a wall-mounted board of large mechanical switches and pushed one up.
There was an immediate grinding noise from overhead and the lights dimmed briefly. Then, slowly and ponderously, one large section of roof, directly over the flooring, began to open up. It was a huge door powered by mechanical hinges. Above it, Harris could see a widening stripe of nighttime sky, clouds reflecting the city lights below them. It had clouded up in the time since he was brought here. It was sprinkling, and a stray breeze tossed droplets of rain into their faces.
The thup-thup-thup grew louder. It took Harris a moment to spot its source: a vague, dark shape with tiny red and green lights glinting on its belly. It got bigger until light from the hangar bathed the underside.
It descended into the hangar, a diamond shape all in dark blue, with a helicopter-style rotor at either end. It was about as large as a Coast Guard rescue helicopter, but broader in the middle where the diamond shape was at its widest. It touched down on four wheels.
As the rotors spun down, Noriko returned the switch to its original position; the overhead door groaned and began to close again. On a narrow end of the helicopter—rotorkite? that's what Noriko had called it—a gullwing door opened. A man climbed out and dropped to the hangar floor.
He was tall—taller even than Harris, the first man Harris had seen here who didn't make him feel like some sort of Viking invader. He was broad-shouldered but otherwise built lean, and moved as gracefully as a dancer.
He wore loose-fitting dark slacks tucked into high leather boots, and was bundled into a waist-length coat of yellow leather worn over a white shirt with an elaborate frilled collar. As he turned toward Harris and the others, he tugged off a yellow leather helmet fitted with archaic glass goggles; out tumbled shoulder-length hair. Hair that was pure white, the precise white and softness of thick clouds. Hair that didn't quite conceal the most sharply pointed ears Harris had yet seen.
His features were young, of a man perhaps thirty, but there was nothing youthful in his unsettling, pale blue eyes.
He saw Harris and stopped. With a trace of curiosity in his expression, he looked Harris over before turning to the other three.
"A guest," Alastair said, gesturing at Harris. "You remember guests, don't you? We used to have them from time to time. Doc, this is Harris Greene, who wears blue so we don't understand the name. Harris, this is your host, Doc—Doctor Desmond MaqqRee, founder of the Sidhe Foundation." He pronounced it "She Foundation."
Doc looked at Harris again, his lips moving a little; he appeared to be working out a problem. Finally, in a surprisingly deep and rich voice, he said, "Grace upon you, Harris, health and wealth, love and children, and on all your line."
"Hi," Harris said.
"High." Doc wasn't returning the greeting; he was puzzling it out. Alastair snickered at his obvious discomfiture.
It took twenty minutes, as Doc and Jean-Pierre checked the rotorkite from end to end, for Harris to repeat his story. Doc had him back up and go over several points and incidents; he paid special attention to Harris' descriptions of the glorious blond man. They returned to the laboratory before the story was done. Doc was removing his pilot's gear and settling on one of the sofas when Harris described the dwarf who'd thrown the concrete block. Doc looked over at Jean-Pierre.
The other man nodded grimly. "I've already shown him the picture. It was Angus Powrie."
Doc returned his attention to Harris. "You mention a thing called a pannyfack."
"Fanny pack." Harris looked around for it but didn't see it.
Jean-Pierre brought it up from behind his chair and tossed it to Doc. "It's all there. One pocketbook crowded with paper treasury notes and draft-notes I don't recognize, many cards all bearing the name of Gabriela Dono-hooey—"
"That's Donohue."
"Thank you, Harris, why don't you and your friends learn to spell more sensibly?—including one of the drover licenses like Harris had, some coins, a small gnarled canister of `pepper spray,' seasonings I suppose, and miscellaneous items. I also put Harris' keys and clasp-knife in there." As Harris groped his pocket, belatedly realizing that his things wouldn't be in these pants anyway, Jean-Pierre smiled mockingly at him. "My apologies, Harris. I didn't know whether or not you would want to come after me with that knife. I couldn't risk it, once I noticed your knife's special trait."
Harris frowned at that. "What trait is that?"
Doc looked at him, then unzipped the main pocket of the fanny pack. He pulled out the lockback hunting knife Harris usually carried. He turned it over, looking at the wooden tang with its brass ends. "Unusual design, but I see nothing else strange about it." Then his thumb brushed the back of the blade.
Doc hissed and involuntarily dropped the knife back into the pack. He put the last joint of his thumb into his mouth and looked curiously at Harris. Then he blew on his injured thumb, on the blister Harris saw rising there, and asked, "You carry a knife with a steel blade, Harris?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Odd question. Because it will make you sick. Noriko at least has the sense to keep her steel fully sheathed when she's not using it. You must touch that blade every time you put your hand in your pocket."
"So what?" Harris moved over to Doc, then reached into the fanny pack and came up with his knife. He held it so that the closed blade touched his skin. Then, slowly and with exaggerated care, he opened it out and placed the blade across his palm.
He lifted the blade to show them there was no problem with his skin. The surprised reactions of the other four were very gratifying. Then, with malicious humor, he slowly drew the back of the blade across his tongue, and was rewarded with a startled hiss from Alastair.
Jean-Pierre stood and took a step away from Harris. "He's obviously insane, Doc. A high degree of immunity, surely. But mad anyway."
Doc also stood, looking troubled. "I don't think so. He shows no pain at all."
"Completely immune," Alastair said. "I've heard of such people, but never thought I'd live long enough to see one."
Harris folded and pocketed the knife. In spite of the fact he didn't know what any of this meant, he felt strangely superior. He rooted around in the pack, retrieved and pocketed his keys, and then took the fanny pack back to the sofa.
He told himself that all he wanted to do was make sure she hadn't lost anything. But after he determined that the pack still held Gaby's keychain and pocketbook, he kept looking.
On the chain was her canister of defensive pepper spray. Harris grinned at the thought of Jean-Pierre trying to hose down a salad with the stuff. Maybe he should let him try; that might be entertaining. But the canister was strangely twisted, as if exposed to great heat, and the plastic spray mechanism on top was melted and fused, obviously not usable. He'd seen it only two days ago, and it was normal then.
He looked in the fanny pack's other compartment; it still held things he didn't care to prowl through, like wadded facial tissues, bottles of nail polish, tampons.
The others murmured among themselves, excluding him from their conversation. That was fine. He used the opportunity to sneak a look through the contents of her pocketbook. Maybe there he'd find some clue explaining why she'd left him. He had a right to know, didn't he? He ignored the little voice that immediately whispered No.
Two credit cards, two gas cards, a New York driver's license that gave her address on Waverly, an employee identification card for the local UHF TV station she served as program manager, her miniature address book, thirty dollars plus change, her checkbook showing less than two hundred dollars in the bank, miscellaneous other effects.
No photograph of some new guy who looked like he belonged on a soap opera. No letter to her friend Elaine explaining the situation. No checklist detailing the characteristics of her ideal man with notes on where Harris fell short. No names in her address book that he didn't recognize. Of course, it could be someone they both already knew. Zeb? Nah.
A shadow fell across Harris; he started guiltily and looked up at Doc, who'd appeared beside his couch without making a sound. "The Changeling," said Doc.
"Huh?"
"The blond man you describe sounds like the Changeling. I do not know his true name. He's a criminal. His men rob treasuries, brew and sell glitter-bright, and try to control rulers and industries. It's very bad to know that an old-time strong-arm man like Angus Powrie is working with him. I want you to take us where you saw them."
"I'm not sure I can find it again. I wasn't looking at a map when I was running away from the little son of a bitch—"
Harris realized that Doc was no longer listening. The white-haired man frowned, staring at the pocketbook in Harris' hands, and reached down to pluck the driver's license away. "This is Gabrielle."
"It's Gabriela. It's Spanish. She goes by Gaby."
Doc gave him a puzzled look. "This cameo is very bad, but it is definitely her. Gabrielle." He turned back to the others and showed them the license. "Have any of you seen her?"
Alastair shook his head. "Just you, Doc. She never talks in when we're around. We decided that she was either imaginary, or sweet on you."
Doc spun to face Harris again, his expression oddly intent. "And this is your lover, the woman you rescued."
"If you can call it a rescue, yeah. How do you know her?" His tone was more hostile than he intended. He reined in his emotions.
"We've never met in person; she has spoken to me a few times on the talk-box. Always when there is trouble brewing. Now it seems that trouble has found her. Now, it's even more important that we—"
He was interrupted by a loud pop from the large round-screened TV. A white dot appeared in the center of the screen, and expanded outward to resolve itself into a black-and-white picture.
Of Gabriela Donohue.
She didn't wear the clothes she had on at the park. Now she wore an elaborate dress, something with a scooped neckline lined with embroidery and flaring long sleeves that spread out over the tabletop they rested on. Her hair was longer than before, was twined into a single braid and brought over her shoulder to hang in front. It had to be a wig or hair extenders. She stared straight into the screen, her expression concerned. Behind her was a wall of large, irregular stones.
She looked great. Harris felt his heart trying to break out through his breastbone. "Gaby! Are you okay?"
She glanced at him with a curious expression, dismissed him instantly, looked at Doc. "They're coming to kill you, Doc. And some man you have here." Her American-heartland accent was gone; she spoke with the same mid-Atlantic accent he'd heard on Jean-Pierre, Alastair and Doc.
"Who is?" Doc asked.
"I don't know, but they are close. I've only just heard. Don't waste time talking to me. We'll talk later." She raised a hand as if to wave good-bye.
Harris found his voice: "Gaby, wait. Are you okay, honey?"
He would have said more, but she looked at him as though he were some stranger babbling at her on a street corner. She finished her motion, gesturing good-bye to Doc. The screen went blank, the image contracting down to a white dot. The set crackled with static electricity.
Harris found that he had to sit down again.
She couldn't even admit that he existed.
Harris glared up at Doc . . . and was startled to see that a gun had appeared in the man's grip. It was a monstrous automatic pistol, bigger than any he'd ever seen, and seemingly made of copper or bronze. Harris glanced nervously at the others, but they were in motion, moving across the room toward several wall cabinets.
A sudden bang! nearly deafened Harris and he felt a shock in the soles of his feet. Not twenty feet away, just in his peripheral vision, a black spike sprang up out of the floor, throwing splinters of wood up as it emerged.
Harris felt Doc's hand close on the collar of his jacket. Doc yanked him backwards and casually hurled him behind the big TV set. The impact didn't seem to hurt his leg. He scrambled up to kneel behind the set and could see that the spike in the floor was now pouring out black fluid, a steady stream in all directions like a lawn sprinkler.
And then they were there—men, appearing as suddenly as though they'd been there all along and he'd only just noticed them. There were a dozen of them, wearing dull red suits, holding big firearms that looked like tommy guns made of brass. Each man stood half a dozen feet from the spike in the floor, facing outward from that center point.
Doc shouted, "Surrender, or—"
They opened fire, short sprays of flame erupting from the muzzles of their weapons. All around Doc, things shattered and exploded: books blew off the tops of tables, colored glass beakers disintegrated in spectacular sprays of glittering debris, impacts rocked the case of the television Harris crouched behind. The roar of the weapons hammered at Harris' ears, deafening him. Harris crouched lower, hugging the wall, and looked around for a doorway out, a heavier piece of furniture to get behind, even something heavy to throw.
Doc sensed rather than saw the explosive lines of gunfire converging on him. He dived away—hurled his body under an adjacent table and past it, rolled beneath a third. The bullets sought him out, but he lashed out with a boot and toppled the table, making a shield of its top.
He saw the table shudder under the impact of gunfire. This was bad, very bad. His people had handguns, the enemy had autoguns, and the odds were more than two to one against him. He had to divert the invaders until Alastair and Jean-Pierre could get to their heavy artillery.
For speed, rely on simplicity. Was that a memory of his father's voice, or of his own voice when he taught? He didn't know. He set the gun down and found the small box of matches in his pocket. Out of his sight, men were shouting, firing, maybe advancing.
There was no time to figure out links of contagion; therefore, it had to be similarity. He struck the match. He breathed the smoke and felt the life of the fire beneath it; then he tossed the match over the shuddering tabletop, toward his enemies. Go, little fire. Find your kin.
For a brief moment, he was with the match as it flew, the fire atop it precariously alive. Hungry to feed, it sought out the food Doc had promised it. It flew past the startled face of a gunman, sensed the burner on the table beyond, and with the last of its vitality reached the simple scientific device.
The knob on the burner twisted and bright new fire a half-dozen feet high leaped into the air. The red-suited gunman nearest the table edged away from the sudden eruption of heat.
Doc struck another match. Now, big fire, do as your little brother does. He touched the flickering flame to the skin on his arm.
Harris saw the Bunsen burner on the table flare up in spontaneous combustion and saw Doc burn himself with the match. It made no sense.
But the flame from the burner bent as though it were hinged and struck one of the gunmen in the back, igniting his suit coat. The man yelled, spun around to confront his tormenter, and the wash of living fire struck him across his face; he screamed again as his hair and hat ignited.
It was a moment's distraction for the battery of men firing against Doc's associates; they glanced at their burning comrade, their faces angry, confused.
Doc popped up from behind his table and fired twice with that big pistol. One of the red-suited men jerked and fell, spraying more gunfire into the floor as he collapsed. Another staggered back, the deeper red of blood staining the arm of his coat. And all the while, the living fire reached out, hungrily straining to touch another of the red-suited men.
Harris spotted Alastair crouching beside one of the wall cabinets. The doctor had gotten it open; inside hung pistols, a sword that looked like an ornate fencing weapon, and a submachine gun much like the ones the red-suited men carried. Alastair, daring, reached up to grab the big gun. Bullets plowed into the case around him but he snatched the weapon down.
Jean-Pierre and Noriko were nowhere to be seen.
Then he saw the woman; on the far side of the attacking men, she popped up from behind a table like a lightning-fast jack-in-the-box. She held a sword in a two-handed grip, the blade back over her shoulder, and lunged at the nearest man, whose back was to her. She swung the blade at him, blindingly fast, but missed; she immediately ducked out of sight again.
No—she didn't miss. Harris saw a thin red line appear on the man's neck. The red-suited man fell over. Impossibly, horribly, his head separated from his body and the two parts seemed to fall in slow motion. Arterial spray from the neck hit the ceiling as if fired from a water-sprinkler, then tracked down the wall as the body hit the floor. The head hit, rolled a few yards, and fetched up against a stool.
Most of the men were fanning out and away from the aggressive burner flame but concentrating their fire on Doc, keeping him pinned down. Two were hosing down another, distant, toppled table, perhaps where Jean-Pierre was. But one, armed with a revolver instead of a submachine gun, seemed to be intent on an object he held in one hand; it looked like an old-fashioned volt-meter with a black plastic case. He waved it around, then pointed it more or less in Harris' direction . . . and looked straight at Harris. He smiled.
The man trotted toward him, ignoring the gunfire as though it were a light rain. Another gunman, this one carrying a submachine gun, followed.
Harris sank down and retreated, scooting on his stomach to slide back under the sofa he'd lain on a few minutes before.
Just in time. The two men skidded as they reached the television set. They opened fire on the space behind it before they even saw it. Harris saw bullets explode into the floor where he had crouched just a moment ago; he felt splinters tear at his face.
Harris bellowed his fear and anger. He heaved up on the sofa, shoved it at the two men, rising and uncoiling behind it. The heavy piece of furniture slammed into them, knocking the second man down and sending his submachine gun skidding away, driving the first man backwards an off-balance step. The sofa crashed down on the man who'd fallen.
Follow through. Throw combinations. Harris drove forward at the man who still stood. The impact with the sofa had driven the man's gun hand up; the brassy-colored revolver was pointed at the ceiling but starting to come down again.
Harris grabbed the gunman's wrist with his left hand and struck him with his right, a palm strike that smashed his nose. Harris followed through, continuing to crowd the gunman, slipping his right arm over his enemy's gun arm and folding his elbow across the man's joint, pinning the limb; then he rotated the man's wrist down and back, bending the arm in a direction it wasn't meant to go.
The cracking noise surprised him; adrenaline must have given him strength he hadn't counted on. He watched the man's elbow break and felt the forearm freewheel, no longer supported by bone. The man's pistol fell to the floorboards. The gunman followed it down, unconscious from the pain.
Harris spun and went after the submachine gunner. The man was still down but already scrambling toward his weapon. Harris' kick took him in the solar plexus and folded him double. Harris dropped, following him down, and used his momentum and an open-palm blow to drive the man's head into the floorboards. There was a sharp crack and this gunman went limp, too.
Leaving Harris out in the open. He stayed down and scuttled sideways to get under another table.
But no one was paying him any attention. In fact, fewer men were firing. One was Alastair, opening up with short, carefully measured bursts of gunfire. The attackers who weren't already down had taken cover. Harris saw one of them pop up from behind a table to spray the room—then he stiffened as the point of Noriko's sword emerged from his chest. He looked stupidly at the blade as it retracted. Then he collapsed out of sight.
A dozen yards away, Jean-Pierre rose so that he was partially exposed; he held a long-barrelled revolver in his right hand and what looked like a carved crystal paperweight in his left hand. He heaved the paperweight behind another toppled table. As it hit, he shouted, "Stickbomb!"
The red-suited man behind the table didn't wait to see. He dove away from his cover. Jean-Pierre's shot took him in the side and he lay still. The crystal paperweight did not explode.
There was a brief lull in the gunfire. Doc, his tone dry, finished his statement: "— or my associates and I will be forced to defend ourselves."
No answer. Then one of the gunmen dropped his weapon over the side of his table and raised his hands in the air. A moment later two others did the same.
It was too late for the rest.