4
A Moonlight Ramble
Once upstairs, he retrieved his flute from its stand, then moved quietly down the stairs and out into the garden. There was one place that he loved most in Kory’s garden, a small stand of birch trees that circled a grassy area in a ring.
Eric sat down under the leafy trees, which had been scrawny saplings until two months ago, when Kory had “convinced” them to grow more quickly.
As always, he had the same sense that he had felt that night, years back, in the old oak grove at the destroyed Southern Fairesite, that feeling of magic lying just beneath the surface, woven into everything around him.
Just enough moonlight shone through the night fog to reflect off the flute as he brought it to his lips. It was his favorite kind of San Francisco night, the city finally quiet and sleeping as the fog swirled through it. Little tendrils of fog moved around the trees; he could taste the fog, thick and damp, as he breathed in the night air. And over all of it was the sense of belonging; this place was his, this was his home.
He’d never felt that before, not during his childhood or all the years of traveling. Now, in the perfect stillness, he played for himself and for the sleeping city.
He frowned at the first note he played: flat, and very thin. He adjusted the flute accordingly, and played another note, clear and vibrant, followed by the first few notes of “South Wind.”
The tune unfolded before him, lilting notes fading into each other. He concentrated on the tune, on the coldness of the flute’s metal against his fingers, on the way his lips shaped each note. After a few moments, the world faded from around him, and he was alone with the music, playing out his soul to the birch trees that bent closer to hear him.
All right, he thought, now let’s take a look Elsewhere.
He began weaving that into the tune, the future that he wanted to see, letting the dancing notes build it out of moonlight and fog. Suddenly, it was there, shimmering before him.
Ria Llewellyn?
She stared at him, an image of mist and fog. Behind her, he could see the outline of a motel room, neon signs flickering beyond the window. Her eyes were bright with astonishment, and more than a little fear. He followed her look to the other side of the room, where he saw . . . himself, wearing a pair of silk pajamas and looking more than a little bewildered.
Eric was surprised, too. Too surprised to keep playing, he missed a note, then another. The image of Ria vanished instantly as he lost the thread of the melody, swirling back into the fog.
He sat back, his fingers clenched tightly around the flute. Then, hesitantly, he brought up the flute again and began to play.
This time, he didn’t blindly reach out for whatever image would appear. Note by note, he built the idea, gathering in the moonlight as a canvas. Then he sat back and looked at what he had created.
A hospital room. Seated by the window, an elderly woman in a red silk dressing gown, staring out through the darkened glass. No, not an elderly woman; a blond woman in her thirties, her face drawn and pale, motionless, giving the impression of great age. Her eyes never moving, she gazed intently through the glass—at nothing. An empty courtyard.
The blue eyes never wavered, only blinking occasionally. He could hear someone moving through the room, the sounds of someone walking closer. “Time to be in bed, Miz Llewellyn,” an older man’s voice said, and then the orderly was helping her stand, walking with her back to the bed. He tucked her under the blanket, then moved out of sight. A moment later, the click of a door closing. And the blond woman was now staring at the ceiling, her eyes never moving, the expression on her face never changing.
Eric drew back from the image, horrified. It isn’t fair! She was cruel and manipulative, but she never deserved this!
But if the other image was also a Far-Seeing, then maybe eventually she’ll be okay. Maybe eventually she’ll get past what happened to her at Griffith Park.
But if that was a True Seeing, and she does recover—
—then what in the hell am I doing in a motel room with Ria Llewellyn?
Okay, okay. Better not worry about that right now. Concentrate on what I saw in the bad dream . . . let’s see if you have any basis in reality, little nightmare . . .
The images of Ria faded back into the mists, as Eric began playing the tune again. Slowly, focusing all his concentration on the image, he called out into the night, trying to reach the future he’d seen in his dreams, over and over again. Then, suddenly, he saw it, the images spread out before him.
A desolate landscape of San Francisco, the streets dark and deserted, buildings half-collapsed, shattered. He stood at the corner of Market and Castro, near the entrance to the subway station. It was a part of the city that he’d walked through many times, especially with Kory . . . Korendil loved to walk through the Castro District. Kory’s cousin Arvin, the dancer, lived only a few blocks away.
Now, the streets were empty of any sign of life . . . not a human being, or a bird, or stray cats, or even insects. Only broken glass, and wrecked cars, and the occasional shadow flickering in the moonlight.
No, not shadows, he thought. Nightflyers. Quietly, trying not to draw any attention to himself, Eric moved down the street, past the movie theater and the bookstores, wondering what else he could find here. There was nothing, no sign of life, no clue as to why this had happened.
He stepped over the corpse of a young blond child, lying on the sidewalk, and towards a newsstand. He looked around for a newspaper, wanting to see the date printed on it, and then stopped short. He turned, very slowly, and looked back at the corpse.
Tiny shadows were flickering over it, barely visible against the boy’s pale skin. Eric reached down and lifted one of the shadows, the nearly-insubstantial creature feeling like damp tissue paper against his skin. It was tiny, not quite the size of his palm, but already he could see the distinctive billowing-cloak form of a Nightflyer.
Jesus, these things can breed!
He dropped it quickly, brushing off his hand. The shadow bounced against the concrete, then drifted back to the corpse, hovering over the dead boy’s eyes. Shivering, Eric turned away.
A Nightflyer was floating directly in front of him.
Eric brought his flute up to his lips, desperately thinking of anything he could use against the creature. He was about to launch into the first notes of “Banysh Mysfortune,” when the shadow-monster stepped back several paces. In a strange, almost courtly gesture, it bowed to him, then faded from sight. Eric stared at where the creature had stood, and blinked in astonishment.
In the next moment, he was seated in the garden again, the fog coiling around the trees beside him. Eric buried his face in his hands, trying to think.
It’s going to happen. Something is going to destroy the city, and these things are going to take over, and all of us are going to die, and my future self yelled at me for not preventing it, and one of those monsters bowed to me! Dammit, none of this makes any sense!
Kory was waiting at the back door as he trudged back through the garden. “I could not sleep,” the elf said. “Your magic awakened me.”
“Sorry about that,” Eric muttered, heading towards the doorway. Kory caught his hand as he walked past. “Eric, what is wrong? Why won’t you tell us what you have dreamed?”
I can’t tell him that it’s just a dream. Not anymore. “Kory, do you believe that a mage can see the future? Not just imagine it, but really see it?”
Kory nodded. “Of course. It is a very difficult spell, but I have known several elven lords who could look into the future.”
“And if you see it, does that mean it’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Lord Terenil . . . ” Kory’s voice caught slightly on the name of his former lord and mentor, killed two years ago. “Terenil said that he could see the different paths that lie ahead, that there were always several futures before him. That the future was like the wind, but something that could change without warning. He said that it was dangerous to look too often into the future, because that might make one future, the one that you perceived, more likely than the others.”
“That makes sense,” Eric said, sitting down on the porch stairs. “Kory, I—I don’t know what to do. I think I’ve seen the future, and it’s awful. Really bad. I don’t know what I can do about it.”
“Do you wish to tell me about it?”
Beth, lying dead in his arms . . . “No, not really. Let’s just say that it’s really awful, and I sure don’t want to see it turn into reality. What can we do to change it?”
Kory gave him a troubled look. “Perhaps we should talk with someone else, another mage, to find out whether or not this was a True Seeing. We could cross over to the Faerie Court of Mist-Hold, and talk with the Queen. Or talk with some of Beth’s friends, the human witches and healers. Beth said that Elizabet and her apprentice, Kayla, would be in the city this weekend. We could skip the Faire today, call them and ask their advice.”
“That’s a better idea than calling a shrink, that’s for sure. Especially if this is magic-related.” Beth plunked herself down on the steps next to them.
“You too, huh?” Eric grimaced.
“Yeah, it’s tough to sleep when neither of you are in the waterbed. Even tougher than when you snore, Eric.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Well, it’s four a.m., and I certainly won’t be able to go back to sleep. What do you guys want to do for a few hours until sunrise?”
They all smiled at each other.
“Hot tub!”
The three musicians walked into the cafe, musical instruments slung on straps and in hand. One of the waiters gave them a peculiar look, probably wondering why three scruffy street musicians were walking into his restaurant. Elizabet and Kayla were waiting for them, already seated at one of the window tables.
Eric slid into the seat next to Kayla. “A new pair of safety pins, kid?” he asked, looking at the pair she wore instead of earrings. They matched perfectly with her torn t-shirt, black leather jacket, and studded armbands.
The girl gave him with a wicked look. “It’s my way of getting Elizabet to buy me a new pair of earrings.”
The older healer laughed, ruffling Kayla’s short brown punked-out hair. “This girl is a never-ending source of joy to me. I’m very glad you crossed my path that night, child.” She looked at Kory, Beth, and Eric. “Perhaps you would want to order breakfast? Everything at this cafe is quite good. We’ve been eating here every morning during the conference.”
“How’s the conference going?” Beth asked.
“Reasonably well. Any time you gather more than a hundred Wiccans together into one building, there will undoubtedly be chaos. But I believe we are accomplishing something. Just yesterday, we worked on a formal contract of apprenticeship, so that the other witches won’t necessarily have to adopt their students, as I have with Kayla.”
A waiter took their order, then hurried away. Beth waited until he was out of earshot, then leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “Liz, I mentioned this over the phone . . . we’re here because of a problem. Eric has been having a lot of nightmares lately.”
Elizabet stirred her coffee. “Both Kayla and I are experienced at healing traumas and emotional problems, though Kayla’s turning out to be better at that than I am. She’s done very well with Ria Llewellyn in these last few months.”
“How is Ria?” Eric asked neutrally.
“Some days, she’s better than others,” Kayla replied. “Sometimes she’s almost lucid. A few weeks ago, she gave me this.” She lifted a small amulet from where it rested on her t-shirt, tugging the necklace over her head and handing it to Eric.
He looked at it closely, wondering where he had seen something like this before. It was a small circle carved out of some kind of translucent rock, maybe a geode, with the outline of a shadowy mountain drawn out of the colors of the rock.
“I’m not certain what it is, but it’s unusual,” Eric said. “It might be magical, I can’t tell.”
Kory leaned over to look at it, puzzled. “It looks like one of the mountains in the Faerie Realm,” he said thoughtfully. “One of the distant mountains, near the edge of the Lands Underhill.”
Eric handed it back to Kayla. “It’s probably harmless, but I’d be careful with it, anyhow. Why did Ria give it to you?”
“I don’t know. She was nearly catatonic for days afterwards, and then couldn’t remember it when I asked her about it. Sometimes I feel like she’ll never get better . . . ”
“You’re doing fine, child.” Elizabet smiled reassuringly at her protégé. “Some healings just take longer than others.” She glanced at Eric. ‘Tell us more about these nightmares, Eric. Are they all the same dream?”
He nodded. “Mostly the same. They’re mostly about earthquakes.” And Nightflyers, those shadow-demons that I summoned accidentally several years ago. First at that concert, and then at Ria’s, and now in my dreams . . . why do those damn things keep turning up in my life? It’s like I have some weird affinity for them, somehow.
The Nightflyer, bowing to him . . .
“And last night, after we talked about how this could be a precognitive dream, I tried to look into the future. And I saw the same thing as in my dreams, except this time I was awake.” He stared down into his cup of coffee. “I’m afraid that I might be seeing the real future, that this is what’s going to happen to us.”
“What can we do about this?” Kory asked. “If this is a true future that Eric is seeing, we will want to do everything we can to prevent it from becoming reality.”
Elizabet thought about it for a minute. “Kayla’s very sensitive. If Eric looked into the future again, while she was near him, she might be able to determine if this is a fantasy that Eric is creating in his own mind, or something real.”
Eric glanced at the young healer, wondering if he really wanted the punkette kid in his mind.
The girl grinned, showing teeth. “Don’t worry, Bard. I’ll be gentle.”
“Thanks a lot,” he muttered.
“We should try this as soon as possible,” Elizabet continued. “Maybe tonight.”
“There’s something else wrong, isn’t there?” Beth asked.
Elizabet grimaced, just a little. “Yes, unfortunately. Eric isn’t the only one who’s had problems with nightmares lately. Several of the Wiccans at the conference have had the same problem. Not dreams about earthquakes, but other things. Kat and Lisa had a similar nightmare, about being hunted by some kind of shadow-creature.”
Eric’s fingers tightened around his coffee mug.
Beth was quiet for a long moment. “Eric, how soon do you want to do this? We really need to get some rest so we can hit the Embarcadero, or we’ll miss the business lunch crowd.”
“Okay.” He sat back in his chair. “Tomorrow night.”
* * *
Monday, they were standing in the Embarcadero plaza across from the Italian fast-food place where two dozen gray-wool “suits” were busily chowing down on pizza slices.
Beth scanned the crowd, and pointed to a corner with some benches next to it. “How ’bout that one, guys?”
Kory began unpacking the instruments. Eric just stood there for a moment, looking very tired, before he opened his flute case and began to fit the pieces together. Beth couldn’t blame him for being tired, considering what had been happening lately. She just hoped that Kayla and Elizabet could do something for him. Maybe some caffeine would help. “Guys, I’m in desperate need of coffee. You too, Eric?”
He nodded blearily.
“Sparkling water for me,” Kory said, looking up from where he was seated on the bench, rubbing the bodhran to tighten the drumhead. “The French brand, please.”
Elves, she thought. If we’re not careful, Kory’ll be the first yuppie elf in history.
She headed over to the closest food stand, glancing around at the crowd as she stood in line. A shiny new Mercedes, pale blue and with dark-tinted windows, was parked on the street nearby. A blond man in a blue business suit—the expensive kind, Beth thought—stood with another man, staring down at a map spread out over the hood of the car. He looked up and saw her watching him. A moment later, he walked up to her, smiling shyly.
“Excuse me, miss?” the man asked. “Could you show me the best way to get to the Japan Center from here? I have a map in my car, but the one-way streets are so confusing. . . . ”
“Sure, not a problem.” She walked to the curb, where the man’s friend was puzzling over a map spread out on the hood of their Mercedes. “Probably the best way is to go straight up to Van Ness, then over to Geary—”
Something hit her hard, in the small of her back, and she fell into the open car door, landing on the back seat. A split-second later she heard the door slam shut, and the sound of the car’s engine starting. The interior of the car was very dark, and smelled of new leather and strange chemicals. Something cold and metallic pressed against the back of her neck, and she froze, not daring to breathe. Very slowly, she turned to stare down the barrel of a small pistol, only inches from her face.
The blond man shook the pistol at her like a teacher admonishing a naughty child. “Please, don’t bother screaming. No one will hear you outside the car. Now, if you’ll just sit back and relax, everything will be fine.”
They’re right, the barrel of a gun looks awfully huge when you’re staring down into it. “If you guys think you’re kidnapping me to get a ransom,” Beth whispered, “you are in for a big surprise. Why are you doing this?”
“We’re not interested in money,” the blond man said, and Beth felt the car lurch out into traffic. “Please, don’t ask any more questions.” He sat back, the pistol resting in his hands.
Beth edged away from him, until her back was pressed against the car door. She glanced down at her watch, noting the time. Think like a hostage, Kentraine. Be smart. Figure out everything you can about these bastards. Knowledge is power.
Power . . .
She tried to calm herself, to concentrate, imagining that long-haired too-handsome face, imagining him seated on the plaza bench, probably already wondering why it was taking her so long to get two cups of coffee and Perrier . . .
Eric, hear me. Eric, I’m in trouble, I don’t know what’s going on, but I need your help, you and Kory. Come on, Eric, listen to m—”
“Son of a bitch!” The pistol cracked against the side of her face. Everything went white for a moment, and she tasted blood. “You’re going to sit there and do nothing and think nothing, girl,” the man warned her. “Or I’ll kill you.”
“Bastard,” she muttered, covering her face with her hands, trying not to tremble too much. The tears were harder to fight, but somehow she managed to keep from crying or shaking too much by staring down at her clenched fists in her lap, only occasionally reaching up to wipe away the blood from her mouth.
* * *
It was a small room, bare concrete walls painted white, at the end of a series of concrete corridors that led out from the silent underground parking garage. The dark-haired man in front of her was also white, wearing some kind of white Laboratory coat. He frowned at her when he saw the blood on her face, and gestured for her to sit down in one of the two wooden chairs in the room. He took the other chair, sitting in front of the plain table with the laptop computer set up upon it. The blond man and his driver took up positions next to the door.
Her jaw still ached, but the pain was nothing as hot as the fury in her brain. I don’t know what in the hell is going on here, but I’m going to kill someone, she thought. “So, schmuck, why did you bring me here?”
He smiled. “Call this a recruitment drive. We have a form here that you can sign, which’ll allow us to treat you as one of the team, defining your legal rights in this situation.”
She hardly believed she had heard him say that. “Team of what? Psychopaths? No thanks, slimeball.”
“Or we can work out some other arrangement,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “But it would be much easier for us if you volunteered. Much easier for you, too.”
“Or there’s a third option: you can let me go, and maybe I won’t send the cops and the mother of all lawsuits against you, mister,” Beth said angrily.
“You won’t file a lawsuit against us.” The man gave her a cold, patronizing smile. “You don’t even know where you are, or who I am. If we toss you back out on the street, all you’ll be able to do is spin some ridiculous story about being kidnapped by government officials. And no one will believe you, of course.”
“So you’re a government agency?” Christ, none of this is making any sense!
“What is your name?” he asked, glancing down at the laptop computer on the table in front of him.
“Up yours,” she replied tightly.
He shook his head. “Not a very original answer. So, tell me about yourself. What are you afraid of?”
Bastards like you. What kind of place is this, anyhow? She didn’t bother to answer his question, studying the blank white concrete walls. It looked too solid to be an office building. She remembered the thin plaster walls of the television studio, and how you could hear people yelling through them at every hour of the day and night. This was more like a bunker than an office building . . . who built in concrete slabs, anyhow?
“What are you afraid of?” he repeated.
Police, handcuffs, the blood staining the walls of Phil’s house like a surrealist painting . . . run away, before the Feds catch you and lock you up forever in a dark, airless cell.. . . “You know,” she said in a conversational voice, “I bet I could break your nose before your goons could stop me. That would be an interesting experiment, wouldn’t it?”
The man made a note on his computer, then looked up at the blond man. “Bill, please turn off that fan by the door. Yes, thank you.”
She glanced at the fan, then at him. “Why did you do that?”
“It felt a little chilly in here, don’t you agree? Don’t worry, there’s plenty of air circulation in the building.” He glanced back down at his computer screen, wrote several more words.
“So, is there anything you’re afraid of?” he asked again.
“Damn, it’s getting stuffy in here,” she muttered, glancing at the fan again. The room seemed smaller, the air already heavier, harder to breathe . . . “Nothing. Nothing scares me. Especially not an asshole like you. Do you really think you’re going to get anything out of me?”
He smiled.
“I think we’re finished here, boys. We’ll need to go to level 4-A next . . . call ahead to clear the hallways, I’d rather not run into another misguided Berkeley intern who doesn’t understand the situation.”
“But that’s the Aerodynamics level, sir.” One of the young thugs had a puzzled expression on his face.
So did Beth, she was sure. Government . . . Berkeley intern . . . aerodynamics . . . it felt like we were driving for no more than an hour and a half . . . am I in the Dublin Laboratories? She shuddered involuntarily at the thought of hundreds or thousands of nuclear weapons, possibly only hundreds of feet away from her. Armageddon at my fingertips. But that’s not all they do at the Dublin Labs. Other kinds of research, too. So why am I here? And why in the hell did these idiots kidnap me?
She stood up slowly, wondering whether she should try to make a run for it, maybe risking getting a bullet in the back. Or maybe she should just wait and see what happened next . . . they need me for something, hell if I know what. That’s what this whole song and dance is about. So maybe I wait and see what they want, and then use that against them?
It seemed like a good idea, as they walked through the empty corridors and down several flights of stairs. Until she saw their destination, the huge metal sphere crouched in a corner of a Lab, covered with dials and pressure gauges.
“You’re not—” she said whitely, and turned to run. Blondie caught her and she screamed, kicking him hard. He cursed and dropped her, staggering back into a table covered with glass beakers and notebooks. The other thug grabbed her before she could bolt for the door, and shoved her through the narrow metal opening. The tiny chamber reverberated as he slammed the door, spinning the bolts shut tightly. Beth screamed and pounded on the glass window until her hands ached.
All light vanished suddenly as the room outside went dark. Beth slid down the cold metal wall, huddling on the floor of the chamber.
This is insane, they can’t do this to me, they can’t—A low rumble and hiss of machinery began, and she could feel the air pressure increasing. She swallowed, feeling her ears pop suddenly, and closed her eyes, trying to calm herself.
This can’t be happening to me. What kind of lunatic locks someone in a decompression chamber? Especially someone who’s . . . claustrophobic . . . like me . . .
Stay calm, stay calm. Don’t let this get to you. They’re doing this deliberately, you can’t let them win . . .
She pressed her fists against her face to stop her hands from shaking. She could feel the screams building against her tightly-closed lips. The darkness seemed to close in around her, thickening, too heavy to breathe. An invisible hand tightened around her throat, cutting off her air—
Hyperventilating. I’m hyperventilating. Have to slow down my breathing. Think, Kentraine, there’s plenty of air in here, you’re not going to suffocate, that’s all just in your mind . . .
Breathe. In, out. In, out. Slowly, calmly, you can do it, just concentrate on your breathing . . .
Her breath was very loud in the tiny room, gasping for air. She was too hot, it was too hot in here; she ripped open the front of her blouse, just as the room’s temperature seemed to plunge by fifty degrees. She wrapped her arms around her knees, and shivered. Nausea hit her like a wave, and she choked, losing the rhythm of her breathing.
God, please, please . . . She gulped for air, and the panic hit her, overwhelmed her . . . she heard screaming, and recognized it as her own voice. Her stomach emptied itself suddenly, and left her choking on the taste of coffee and bile. She couldn’t breathe; the darkness brightened to a checkerboard of glittering black and white, as she shook and trembled and wanted to die.
A creak of metal an eternity later, as the door opened slowly. She tried to get up, but she couldn’t stand. The blond man lifted her to her feet, but her legs were trembling too much, and as he let go of her she crumpled back to the metal floor. She couldn’t stop crying; she couldn’t speak or scream, only cry, deep wrenching sobs that hurt her aching chest.
The dark-haired man shoved a piece of paper and a pen in front of her; she tried to pick up the pen, and dropped it, her fingers too numb to hold anything. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she managed between sobs, as they hauled her back to her feet and toward the door.
She couldn’t remember how long she walked, gasping and sobbing and unable to feel the floor beneath her feet. They let her fall down onto a plastic mat, in a small concrete room without a window, but it was cooler, she could feel the chilled air against her skin, not the insane darkness that had clenched her throat and ripped the air from her lungs. She lay there and cried, feeling like something was broken inside, something wrong with her heart and her head. She couldn’t think, everything was too blurry and bright and terrifying. She cried and cried, huddled on the plastic, until someone turned off the light overhead, and then she began to scream again.