I

I hate telephones.

For one thing, they have a habit of waking you up at the
most inconvenient times. It was still dark outside when the
one on my nightstand went off like a bomb. I groaned and
tried to turn off the alarm clock. Since it wasn't ringing, it
laughed at me. The horrible racket from the phone kept
right on.

"What time is it, anyhow?" I mumbled. My mouth tasted
like something you'd spread on nasturtiums.

"It's 5:07," the clock said, still giggling. The horological
demon in there was supposed to be friendly, not sappy. I'd
thought more than once about getting the controlling cantrip
fixed, but twenty-five crowns is twenty-five crowns. On a
government salary, you leam to put up with things.




2                   Harry Turtledove

I picked up the receiver. That was the cue for the noise
elemental in the base of the phone to shut up, which it did—
Ma Bell's magic, unlike that from a cheap dock company,
does exactly what it's supposed to do, no more, no less.

"Fisher here," I said, hoping I didn't sound as far
underwater as I felt

"Hello, David. This is Kelly, back in D.SfcC."
You could have fooled me. After the imp in one phone's
mouthpiece relays words through the ether to the one in an-
other phone's earpiece and the second imp passes them on
to you, they hardly sound as if they came from a real person,
let alone from anyone in particular. That's the other reason I

hate phones.

But the cursed things have sprouted like toadstools the past
ten years, ever since ectoplasmic doning let the phone
company crank out legions of near-identical speaker imps, and
since switching spells got sophisticated enough so you could
reliably select the imp you wanted from among those legions.

They say the/re going to have an answer to the voice
problem real soon. They've been saying that since the day af-
ter phones were invented. I'll believe it when I hear it Some
things are even bigger than Ma Bell.

Nondescript voice aside, I was willing to believe (his was
Charlie Kelly. He'd probably just got to his desk at
Environmental Perfection Agency headquarters back in the
District of St Columba, so of course he'd picked up the
phone. Three-hour time difference? They don't think that
way in D.SfcC. The sun revolves around them, not the other
way round. St Ptolemy of Alexandria has to be the patron of
the place, no matter what the Church says.

All this flashed through my mind in as much of a hurry as
I could muster at 5:07 on a Tuesday morning. I don't think I
missed a beat—or not more than one, anyhow—before I
said, "So what can I do for you this fine day, Charlie?"

The insulating spell on the phone mouthpiece kept me
from having to listen to my imp shouting crosscountry to his
imp. I waited for his answer: "We have reports that there
might a problem in your neck of the woods worth an unoffi-
cial look or two."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       3

"Whereabouts in my neck of the woods?" I asked
patiently. Easterners who live in each other's pockets have no
feel for how spread out Angels City really is.

The pause that followed was longer than conversations
between phone imps would have required; Charlie had to be
checking a map or a report or something. At last he said, "Ifs
in a place called Chatsworth. That's just an Angels City dis-
trict name, isn't it?" He made it sound as if it were just
around the comer from me.

It wasn't. Sighing, I answered, "It's up in St. Ferdinand's
Valley, Charlie. That's about forty, maybe fifty miles from
where I am right now."

"Oh," he said in a small voice. A fifty-mile circle out from
Charlie's office dragged in at least four provinces. Fifty miles
for me won't even get me out of my barony unless I head
straight south, and then I'm only in the one next door. I don't
need to head south very often; the Barony of Orange has its
own EEA investigators.

"So what's going on in Chatsworth?" I asked. "Especially
what's going on that you need to bounce me out of bed?"

"I am sony about that," he said, so calmly that I knew he'd
known what time it was out here before he called. Which
meant it was urgent. Which meant I could start worrying.
Which I did. He went on, "We may have a problem with a
dump in the hills up there."

I riffled through my mental files. 'That'd be the Devon-
shire dump, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, that's the name," he agreed eagerly—too eagerly.
Devonshire's been giving Angels City on-and-off problems
for years. The trouble with magic is, it's not free. All the good
it produces is necessarily balanced by a like amount of evil.
Yeah, I know people have understood that since Newton's
day: for every quality, there is an equal and opposite counter-
quality, and all the math that goes with the law. But mostly
it's a lip-service understanding, along the lines of, as long as I
don't shit in my yard, who cares about next door?

That attitude worked fine—or seemed to—as long as next
door meant the wide open spaces. If byproducts of magic
blighted a forest or poisoned a stream, so what? You just

4                   Harry Turtledove

moved on to the next forest or stream. A hundred years ago,
the Confederated Provinces seemed to stretch west forever.

But they don't I ought to know; Angels City, of course,
sits on the coast of the Peaceful Ocean. We don't have
unlimited unspoiled land and water to exploit any more. And
as industrial magic has shown itself ever more capable of
marvelous things, its byproducts have turned ever more nox-
ious. You wouldn't want them coming downstream at you,
believe me you wouldn't. My job is to make sure they don't.

"What's gone wrong with Devonshire now?" I asked. The
answer I reaBy wanted was nothing. A lot of local industries
dispose of waste at Devonshire, and some of the biggest ones
are defense firms. By the very nature of things, the bypro-
ducts from their spells are more toxic than anybody else's.

Charlie Kelly said, "We're not really sure there's anything
wrong, Dave." That was dose to what I wanted to hear, but
not dose enough. He went on, "Some of the local people"—
he didn't say who—"have been complaining more than
usual, though."

"They have any reason to?" I said. Local people always
complain about toxic spell dumps. They don't like the noise,
they don't like the spells, they don't like the flies (can't blame
them too much for that; would you want byproducts from
dealings with Beelzebub in your back yard?). Most of the
time, as Charlie said, nothing is really wrong. But every once
in awhile...

'That's what we want you to find out," he told me.

"Okay," I answered. Then something he'd said a while
before clicked in my head; I hadn't been awake enough to
pay attention to it tiB now. "What do you mean, you want me
to take a quiet look around? Why shouldn't I go up there
with flags flying and comets blaring?" A formal EPA inspec-
tion is worth seeing: two exorcists, a thaumaturge, shamans
from the Americas, Mongolia, and Africa, the whole nine
yards. Sometimes the incense is a toxic hazard all by itself.

"Because I want you to do it this way." He sounded har-
assed. "I've been asked to handle this unofficially as long as I
can. Why do you think I'm calling you at home? Unless and
until you find something really out of line, it would be best

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       5

for everybody if you kept a low profile. Please, Dave?"

"Okay, Charlie." I owed Charlie a couple, and he's a pretty
good fellow. "It's politics, isn't it?" I made it into a swear
word.

"What's not?" He let it go at that. I didn't blame him; he
had a job he wanted to keep. And telephone imps have ears
just like anything else. They can be tormented, tricked, or
sometimes bribed into blabbing too much. Phone security
systems have come a long way, yeah, but not all the devils are
out of them yet.

I sighed. "Can you at least tell me who doesn't want me
snooping around? Then if anybody tries anything, I'll have
some idea why." Just silence in my ear, save for the light
breathing of my phone imp. I sighed again. It was that land
of morning. "Okay, Charlie, I'll draw my own conclusions."
Those conclusions made for one ugly drawing, let me tell
you. After a last sigh for effect, I said, "I'll head up to the
Valley right away. God willing, I can get going before St
James' Freeway turns impossible."

Thanks, David. I appreciate it," Kelly said, coming back
to life now that I was doing what he wanted,

"Yeah, sure." I resigned myself to a long, miserable day.
"'Bye, Charlie." I hung up the phone. The imp went dor-
mant. I wished I could have done the same.

I grabbed a quick, cold shower—either the salamander
for the block of flats wasn't awake yet or somebody had
turned it into a toad overnight—a muddy cup of coffee, and
a not quite stale sweet roll. Feeling as near human as I was
going to get at half past five, I went out to the garage, got on
my carpet, and headed for the freeway.

My building has access rules like any other's, I suppose:

anybody can use the flyway going out, but to come in you
have to make your entry talisman known to the watch demon
or else have one of the residents propitiate him for you. Oth-
erwise you come down—with quite a bump, too—outside
the waB and the gate.

I rode west along The Second Boulevard (don't ask me
why it's The Second and not just Second; it just is) about
twenty feet off the ground. Traffic was moving pretty well,

6                   Harry Turtledove

actually, even though we all still had our lanterns on so we
could see one another in die predawn darkness.

The Watcher who lets carpets onto St. James' Freeway
from a feeder road is of a different breed from your average
building's watch demon. He holds the harder closed so many
seconds at a time, then opens it just long enough for one
carpet to squeeze past. Nobody's ever figured out how to
propitiate a Watcher, either. Oh, if you're quick—and
stupid—you may be able to squeeze in on somebody else's
tail, but if you try it, he'B note down the weave of your carpet,
and in a few days, just like magic, a traffic ticket shows up in
your mailbox. Not many people are stupid twice.

The freeways need rules like that; otherwise they'd be
impossibly jammed. As things were, I got stuck no matter
how early I'd left. There was a bad accident a little north of
the interdicted zone around the airport, and somebody's car-
pet had flipped. The damned fool—well, of course I don't
actually know the state of his soul, but no denying his foolish-
ness—hadn't been wearing his safety belt, either.

One set of paramedics was down on the ground with the
fellow who'd been thrown out. They had a priest with them,
too, so that didn't look good. The other Red Cross carpet was
parked right in the middle of the flight of way, tending to vic-
tims who hadn't been thrown clear—and making everyone
detour around it. People gawked as they slid by, so they went
even slower. They always do that, and I hate it.

After that, I made pretty good time until I had to slow
down again at the junction with St. Monica's Freeway. Merg-
ing traffic in three dimensions is a scary business when you
think about it. Commuters who do it every day don't think

about it any more.

The rush thinned out once I got north ofWestwood, and-I

pretty much sailed into St. Ferdinand's Valley. I slid off the
freeway and cruised around for a while, getting closer to the
Devonshire dump by easy stages and looking for signs that
might tell me whether Charlie Kelly had a right to be wor-
ried about it.

At first I didn't see any, which gladdened my heart. A cou-
ple of generations ago, the Valley was mostly farms and citrus

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP        7

groves. Then the trees went down and the houses went up.
Now the Valley has industry of its own (if it didn't, I wouldn't
have had to worry about the toxic spell dump, after all), but
in large measure it's still a bedroom community for the rest
of Angels City: lots of houses, lots of kids, lots of schools. You
don't care to think about anything nasty in a part of town like
that.

Before I went out to the dump itself, I headed over to the
monastery to do some homework. The Thomas Brothers
have chapter houses in cities all across the west; more
meticulous record-keeping simply doesn't exist. Even if die
Valley looked normal, I had a good chance of finding trouble
simply by digging dirough die numbers diey enshrined on
parchment

I've heard die Thomas Brodiers have an unwritten rule
diat no abbot ofdieirs can ever be named Brodier Thomas. I
don't know if diat's so. I do know die abbot at die Valley
chapter house was a big-nosed Armenian named Brodier
Vahan. We'd met a few times before, diough I didn't often
work far enough north in Angels City to need his help.

He bowed politely as he let me precede him into his
office. Candlelight gleamed from his skull. He was the bald-
est man I'd ever seen; he didn't need to be tonsured. He
waved me to a comfortable chair, dien sat down in his own
hard one. "What can I do for you today. Inspector Fisher?"
he asked.

I was ready for diat. Td like to do some comparison work
on births, birth defects, healings, and exorcisms in die north-
west Valley ten years ago and in die past year."

"Ah," was all die abbot said. When viewed against his
hairless skull, die big black caterpillars he used for eyebrows
seemed even more alive dian diey might have odierwise.
They twitched now. "How big a radius around die Devon-
shire dump would you like?"

I sighed. I should have expected it. I'm Jewish, but I know
enough to realize fools don't generally make it up to abbot's
grade. I said, 'This is unofficial and confidential, you under-
stand."

He laughed at me. I turned red. Maybe I was die fool,

8                   Harry Turtledove

telling an abbot about confidentiality. He just said, 'There
are places you would need to be more concerned about that
aspect than here, Inspector."

'1 suppose so," I mumbled. "Can your data retrieval sys-
tem handle a five-mile radius?"

The caterpillars drooped; I'd offended him. "I thought
you were going to ask for something difficult. Inspector." He
got up. "If you'd be so kind as to follow me?"

I followed. We walked past a couple of rooms my eyes
refused to see into. I wasn't offended; there are places in the
Temple in Jerusalem and even in your ordinary synagogue
where gentiles' perceptions are excluded the same way. All
faiths have their mysteries. I was just thankful die Thomas
Brothers didn't reckon their records too holy for outsiders to

view.

The scriptorium was underground, a traditional construc-
tion left over from the days when anyone literate was
assumed to be a black wizard and when books of any sort
needed to be protected from the torches of the ignorant and
the fearful. But for its placement, though, the room was
thoroughly modem, with St. Elmo's fire glowing smoothly
over every cubicle and each of those cubicles with its own
ground-glass access screen.

As soon as Brother Vahan and I stepped into a cubicle, the
spirit of the scriptorium appeared in the ground glass. The
spirit wore spectacles. I had to work to keep my face straight.
I'd never imagined folk on the Other Side could look

bookish.

I turned to the abbot. "Suppose I'd come in without you
or someone else who's authorized to be here?"

"You wouldn't get any information out of our friend
there," Brother Vahan said. "You would get caught" He
sounded quietly confident I believed him. The Thomas
Brothers probably knew about as much about keeping docu-
ments secure as anyone not in government and what they
didn't know, Rome did.

Brother Vahan spoke to the ground-glass screen. "Give
this man unlimited access to our files and full aid for... will
four hours be enough?"

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP        9

"Should be plenty," I answered.

Tor four hours, then," the abbot said. Treat him in all
ways as if he were one of our holy brethren." That was as
blanche a carte as he could give me; I bowed my head in pro-
found appreciation. He flipped a hand back and forth, as if to
say. Think nothing of it. He could say that if he wanted to
(humility is, after all, a monkish virtue), but we both knew I
owed him a big one.

"Anything else?" he asked me. I shook my head. "Happy
hunting, then," he said as he started out of the scriptorium.
Til see you later."

The spirit manifesting itself in the access screen turned its
nearsighted gaze on me. "How may I serve you, child of
Adam given four hours of unlimited access to the files of the
Thomas Brothers?"

I told it the same thing I'd told Brother Vahan: "I want to
go through births, birth defects, healings, and exorcisms
within a five-mile radius of the Devonshire dump, first for
the year ending exactly ten years ago and then for the year
ending today." Humans can handle approximate data; with
spirits you have to spell out every word and make sure you've
crossed your t's and dotted your i's (and even your/s).

"I shall gather the data you require. Please waif" the spirit
said. The screen went blank.

In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God,
and the Word was Cod. Yes, I know that's Brother Vahan's
theology, not mine. It's a lot older than Christianity, for that
matter. In Old Kingdom Egypt, the god Ptah was seen as
both the tongue of the primeval god Atum and as the instru-
ment through which Atum created the material world. Of
course thought is the instrument through which we perceive
and influence the Other Side; without it, we'd be as blind to
magic as any dumb animals.

But John 1:1 and its variants in other creeds are also the
basis of modem information theory Because words partake
of the divine, they manifest themselves in the spiritual world
as well as in our own. Properly directed—ensorceled, if you
will—spirits can gather, read, manipulate, and move the
essence of words without ever having to handle the physical

10 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 11

documents on which they appear. If the Greek and Roman
mages had loiown that trick, their world could have been
drowning in information, just as we are now.

I didn't have to wait long; as I'd expected. Brother Vahan
used only the best and most thoroughly trained spirits.
Ghostly images of documents began flashing onto the access
screen, one after another—records from ten years ago.
"Hold on!" I said after a few seconds.

The spirit appeared. "I obey your instructions, child of
Adam," it said, as if daring me to deny it.

"I know, I know," I told it; the last thing I wanted was to
get the heart of the access system mad at me. "I don't need to
look at every individual report, though. Let me have the
numbers in each category for the two periods. When I know
what those are, I'M examine specific documents. That way, I'll
be able to see forest and trees both."

The spirit looked out at me over the tops of its spectral
spectacles. "You should have no difficulty in maintaining
your mental view of both categories," it said reprovingly.
That's easy for someone on the Other Side to say, but I have
the usual limits of flesh and blood. I just stared back at the
spirit. If it kept acting uppity, I'd sic Brother Vahan on it
After a last sniff, it said, "It shall be as you desire."

One by one, the numbers came up on the screen. The
Thomas Brothers certainly did have a well-drilled scripto-
rium spirit; the creature wrote so its figures ran the right way
for me to read them. It hardly needed to have bothered. I'm
so used to mirror-image writing that I read it as well as the
other land. Maybe learning Hebrew helped get my eyes
used to moving from right to left.

When the final figure faded from view, I looked down at
the notes I'd jotted. Births were up in the most recent year
as opposed to ten years ago; St. Ferdinand's Valley keeps fill-
ing up. Blocks of flats have replaced a lot of what used to be
single-family homes. We aren't as crowded as New Jorvik,
and I don't think we ever will be, but Angels City is losing
the small-town atmosphere it kept for a while even after it
became a big city.

The rate of healings hadn't changed significantly over the

past ten years. "Spirit," I said, and waited until it appeared in
the access screen. Then I played a hunch: "Please break out
for me by type the healings for both periods I'm interested

m.

"One moment," it said.

When they came up, the data weren't dramatic. I hadn't
expected them to be, not when the overall frequency had
stayed pretty much constant. But the increased incidence of
elf-shot within the pool of healings was suggestive. Elves
tend to be drawn to areas with high concentrations of sor-
cery. If the Devonshire dump were as dean as it was
supposed to be, there shouldn't have been that many elves
running around loose shooting their little arrows into people.
Elf-arrows aren't like the ones Cupid looses, after all.

Exorcisms were up, too. I asked the access spirit for sam-
ple reports for each period. I wasn't after statistical elegance,
not yet, just a feel for what was going on. I got the impres-
sion that the spirits who'd needed banishing this past year
were a nastier bunch, and did more damage before they
were expelled, than had been true in the earlier sample.

But the numbers that really leaped off the page at me
were the birth defects. Between ten years ago and this past
year, the/d almost tripled. I whistled softly under my breath,
then called for the scriptorium spirit again. When it
reappeared, I said, "May I please have a listing of birth
defects by type for each of my two periods?"

"One moment," the spirit said again. The screen went
blank. Then the spirit started writing on it The first set of
data it gave me was for the earlier period. Things there
looked pretty normal. A few cases of second sight, a
changeling whose condition was diagnosed earlier enough to
give her remediation and a good chance at living a nearly
normal life: nothing at all out of the ordinary.

When the birth defect information for the year just past
came up on the ground glass, I almost fell off my chair. In
that year alone, the area around the Devonshire dump had
seen three vampires, two lycanthropes, and three cases of
apsychia: human babies born without any soul at all. That's a
truly dreadful defect, one neither priests nor physicians can




12 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 13

do a thing about. The poor kids grow up, grow old, die, and
the/re gone. Forever. Makes me shudder just to think about
it

Three cases of apsychia in one year in a circle with a five-
mile radius ... I shuddered again. Apsychia just doesn't
happen except when something unhallowed is leaking into
die environment You might not see three cases of apsychia
in a year even in a place like eastern Franlda, where the toxic
spells both sides flung around in the First Sorcerous War still
poison the ground after three quarters of a century.

I finished writing up my notes, men told the spirit,
Thank you. You've been most helpful. May I ask one more
favor of you?"

That depends on what it is."

"Of course," I said quickly. "Just this: if anyone but
brother Vahan tries to leam what I've been doing here, don't
tell, him, her, or it." Scriptorium spirits, by their nature, have
veiy literal minds; I wanted to make sure I covered both
genders and both Sides.

The spirit considered, then nodded. °I would honor such
a request from a monk of the Thomas Brothers, and am
instructed to treat you as one for the duration Brother Vahan
specified. Let it be as you say, then."

I didn't know how well the spirit would stand up under
serious interrogation, but I wasn't too worried about that.
Shows how much I knew, doesn't it? I guess I'm naive, but I
thought the automatic anathema that falls on anyone who
tampers with Church property would be plenty to keep
snoops at arm's length. I'm no Christian, but I wouldn't have
wanted an organization with a two-thousand-year track
record of potent access to the Other Side down on me.

Of course, the veneration of Mammon goes back a lot far-
ther than two thousand years.

I stopped by Brother Vahan's office on the way out so I
could thank him for his help, too. He looked up from what-
ever he was working on—none of my business—and said
two words: That bad?"

He couldn't possibly have picked that up by magic. Along
with the standard government-issue charms, I wear a set of

my own made for me by a rabbi who's an expert in
kabbalistics and other means of navigating on the Other
Side. So I knew I was shielded. But abbots operate in this
world, too. Even if he couldn't read my mind, he must have
read my face.

"Pretty bad," I said. I hesitated before I went on, but after
all, I'd just pulled the information from his files. All the
same, I lowered my voice: "Three soulless ones bom within
that circle in the past year."

Three?" His face went suddenly haggard as he made the
sign of the cross. Then he nodded, as if reminding himself.
"Yes, there have been that many, haven't there? I talked with
the parents each time. Thatfs so hard, knowing they'll never
meet their loved ones in eternity. But I hadn't realized they
were all so dose to that accursed dump."

An abbot does not use words like accursed casually; when
he says them, he means them. I wasn't surprised he hadn't
noticed the apsychia cluster around the dump. That wasn't
his job. Comforting bereaved families was a lot more impor-
tant for him. But the Thomas Brothers collected the data I
used to draw my own conclusions.

"Elf-shot is up in the area, too," I said quietly.

"It would be." He got up from behind his desk, set heavy
hands on my shoulders. "Go with God, Inspector Fisher. I
think you will be about His business today."

I didn't even twit him about turning One into Three, as I
might have if I'd come out of his scriptorium with better
news. Blessings are blessings, and we're wisely advised to
count them. I said. Thank you. Brother Vahan. I just wish I
thought He was the only Power involved."

He didn't answer, from which I inferred he agreed with
me. Wishing I could have come to some other conclusion, I
went out to my carpet and headed over to the Devonshire
dump. I drove around it a couple of times before I set down.
Scout first, then attack; the army and the EPA both drill that
into you.

Not that I learned much from my circumnavigations. You
think dump, you think eyesore. It wasn't like that. From the
outside, it didn't look like anything in particular, just a couple




14 Harry Turtledove

of square blocks with nothing built on them, nothing, at
least, tall enough to show over the fence. And even that
fence wasn't ugly; ivy climbed trellises and spilled over
inside. If you wanted to, you could probably climb those trel-
lises yourself, jump right on down.

You'd have to be crazy to try it, though. For one thing, I
was certain catchspells would grab you if you did. For
another, the ornaments on the perimeter fence weren't just
there for decoration. Crosses, Magen Davids, crescents,
Oriental ideograms I recognized but couldn't read, a bronze
alpha and omega, a few kufic letters like the ones that lead
off chapters of the Qu'ran... Things were being controlled
in there. Things you wouldn't want to mess with.

They weren't being controlled well enough, though, or
babies around the dump wouldn't come into the world with-
out souls. I dribbled a few drops of Passover wine onto my
spellchecker, murmured the blessing that thanked the Lord
for the fruit of die vine.

The spellchecker duly noted all the apotropaic incanta-
tions on the wall... and yes, there were catchspells behind
them. But it didn't see anything else. I shrugged. I hadn't re-
ally expected it to: its magical vocabulary wasn't that large.
Besides, if the sorcerous leakage from the dump was so obvi-
ous that anybody with a thirty-crown gadget from Spells 'R'
Us could spot it, Charlie Kelly wouldn't have needed to send
me out to look things over. Still, you'd like things to be easy,
just once.

There was a parking lot across the street from the entrance.
I set my carpet down there, chanted the antitheft geas before I
climbed off it I do that automatically; Angels City has had
big-city crime for a long time. Leave a carpet unwarned for
even a few minutes and you're apt to find it's walked with Jesus.

I crossed in the crosswalk. They still call it that here,
though in a melting pot like Angels City it also has symbols
to let Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Parsees and Buddhists,
and several different flavors of pagan (neo and otherwise)
get from one side of the street to the other in safety. I don't
know what you're supposed to do if you're a Samoan who
still worships Tanaroa. Run like hell, I suppose.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       15

The entryway to the Devonshire dump projected out
several feet from the rest of the wall. A guard in a neat blue
denim uniform came out of a glassed-in cage, tipped his cap
to me. "May I help you, sir?" he asked politely, but in a way
that still managed to imply I had no legitimate business
making him get off his duff and step outside.

I flashed my EPA sigil. At a toxic spell dump, that effec-
tively turns me into St. Peter—I'm the fellow with the power
to bind and loose, at least. The guard's eyes widened. "Let
me call Mr. Sudalds for you. Inspector, uh. Fisher, sir," he
said, and ducked back into his cell. He grabbed the phone,
started talking into it, waited for his ear imp to answer, then
replaced the handset in its cradle. "You can go in, sir. I'll help
you."

Help me he did. The gate was the land with the little wheel
on the bottom that retracted in back of the fence. He pushed it
open. Behind it was a single, symbolic strand of barbed wire,
with a placard whose message appeared in several languages
and almost as many alphabets. The English version read, ALL
HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO UNAUTHORIZED ENTER HERE.
Dante always makes people sit up and take notice.

The guard moved the wire out of my way, too. Behind it
was a thin red line painted on the ground which went across
the gap where the two sections of wall came out to form the
entryway. The guard picked up a little arched footbridge
made of wood, set it down so that one end was outside the
red line, the other inside. He was very careful to make sure
neither end touched the strip of paint. That would have
breached the dump's outer security containment, and doubt-
less cost him his job no matter how many backup systems
the place had.

"Go ahead, sir," he said, tipping his cap again. "Mr.
Sudalds is expecting you. Please stay within the confines of
the wires and the amber lines inside." He grinned nervously.
"I don't know why I'm telling you that—you know more
about it than I do."

"You're doing what you're supposed to do," I answered as •
I mounted the little footbridge. Too many people don't
bother any more."

16 Harry Turtledove

As soon as I'd got off the bridge, the guard picked it up
and put it back on his side. The amber lines on the concrete
and the barbed wire strung above them marked the safe path
to the administrative office, a low cinderblock building that
looked like a citadel in both the military and sorcerous senses
of the word.

I looked around as I walked the path. I don't know what
I'd expected—blasted heath, maybe. But no, just a couple of
acres of weeds, mostly brown now because nobody's spells
have been able to bring much rain the past few years. And
yet-

For second or two, the fence around the dump seemed
very far away, with a whole lot of Nothing stretching the dirt
and brush the same way you'd use bread crumbs to make
hamburger go farther. Astrologers babble about the nearly
infinite distances between the stars. I had the bad feeling I
was looking at more infinity than I ever cared to meet,
plopped down there in the middle of Chatsworth. Magic,
especially byproducts of magic, can do things to space and
time that the mathematicians are still trying to figure out.
Then I looked again, and everything seemed normal.

I hoped the wards the amber lines symbolized were as po-
tent as the ones the red line had continued. By the data I'd
taken from the Thomas Brothers' chapter house, even those
weren't as good as they should have been.

A stocky fellow in shirt, tie, and hard hat came out of
the cinderblock building and up the path toward me. He
had his hand out and a professionally friendly smile plas-
tered across his face. "Inspector—Fisher, is it? Pleased to
meet you. I'm Antanas Sudakis; my job title is sorcerous
containment area manager. Call me Tony—I'm the guy
who runs the dump."

We shook hands. His grip showed controlled strength. I
was at least six inches taller than he; I could look down on
the top of his little helmet Just the same, I got the feeling he
could break me in half if he decided to—I'm a beanpole,
while he was built like somebody who'd been a good high
school linebacker and might have played college ball if only
he'd been taller.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       17

He wasn't hostile now, though. "Why don't you come into
my office. Inspector Fisher—"

"Call me Dave," I said, thinking I ought to keep things
friendly as long as I could.

"Okay, Dave, come on with me and then you can let me
know what this is all about. All our inspection parchments
are properly signed, sealed, blessed, fumigated, what have
you. I keep the originals on file in my desk; I know you gov-
ernment folks are never satisfied with copies called up in the
ground glass."

"What sorcery summons, sorcery may shift," I said, mak-
ing it sound as if I was quoting official EPA policy. And I was.
Still, I believed him. If his parchmentwork wasn't in order,
he wouldn't brag about it. Besides, if his parchmentwork
wasn't in order, he'd have more to fret about than a surprise
visit from an EPA inspector. He'd be worrying about the
wrath of God, both from bosses who didn't pay him to screw
up and maybe from On High, too. A lot of things in the
dump were unholy in the worst way.

His office didn't feel like a citadel, even if it had no win-
dows. The diffuse glow of St. Elmo's fire across the ceiling
gave the room the cool, even light of a cloudy day. The air
was cool to breathe, too, though St. Ferdinand's Valley,
which like the rest of Angels City was essentially a desert
before it got built up, still has desertly weather.

Sudakis noticed me visibly not toasting. He grinned.
"We're on a circuit with one of the frozen water elemen-
tals up in Greenland. A section of tile here"—he pointed
to the wall behind his desk—"touched the elemental
once, and now it keeps the place cool thanks to the law of
contagion."

"Once in contact, always in contact," I quoted. "Modem
as next week." A lot of buildings in Angels City cool them-
selves by contagious contact with ice elementals. That wasn't
what I meant by modem; the law of contagion may be the
oldest magical principle known. But regulating the effect so
people feel comfortable, not stuck on an ice floe themselves,
is a new process—and an expensive one. The people who
made a profit off the dump didn't stint their employees; I

18 Harry Turtledove

wondered how the leak had happened if they had money like
this to throw around.

Once his secretary had brought coffee for both of us,
Sudalds settled back in his chair. It creaked. He said, "What
can I do for you, Dave? I gather this is an unofficial visit: you
haven't shown me a warrant, you haven't served a subpoena,
you don't have a priest or an exorcist or even a lawyer with
you. So what's up?"

"You're right—this is unofficial." I sipped my coffee. It
was delicious, nothing like the reconstituted stuff that makes
a liar of the law of similarity. Td like to talk about your con-
tainment scheme here, if you don't mind."

His air of affability turned to stone as abruptly as if he'd
gazed on a cockatrice. By his expression, he'd sooner have
had me ask him about a social disease. "We're tight," he said.
"Absolutely no question we're tight. Maybe we'd both better
have priests and lawyers here. I don't like 'unofficial' visits
that hit me where I live. Inspector Fisher." I wasn't Dave any
more.

"You may not be as tight as you think," I told him. "That's
what I'm here to talk about"

'Talk is cheap." He was hard-nosed as a linebacker, too. "I
don't want talk. I want evidence if you try and come here to
say things like that to me."

"Elf-shot around the dump is up a lot from ten years ago
till now," I said.

"Yes, I've seen those numbers. We've got a lot of new
immigrants in the area, too, and they bring their troubles
with them when they come to this country. We have a case of
jaguaranthropy, if that's a word, a couple of years ago. Try
telling me that would have happened when all the neighbors
sprang from northwest Europe."

He was right about the neighborhood changing. I'd gone
past a couple of houses that had signs saying Curandero
tacked out front. If you ask me, curanderos are frauds who
prey on the ignorant, but nobody asked me. A basic principle
of magic is that if you believe in something, it'll be true—for
you.

I'll tell you something I believed. I believed that if the

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       19

EPA took Devonshire dump to court just on the strength of
an increase in elf-shot around the area, the lawyers Sudalds'
people would throw at us would leave us so much not-too-
lean ground beef. I had no doubt Tony Sudalds believed it,
too.

So I hit him with something bigger and harder. "Are you
going to blame the immigrants for the three cases of apsy-
chia around here in the past year?"

He didn't even blink. "Coincidence," he said flady. One
hand, though, tugged at the silver chain he wore around his
neck. Out popped the ornament on the end of it I'd
expected a crucifix, but instead it was a polished piece of
amber with something embedded inside—a pretty piece,
and one that probably cost a pretty copper.

"Speaking off the record, Mr. Sudalds, you know as well as
I do that three soulless births in one area in one year isn't co-
incidence," I answered. "It's an epidemic."

He let the amber amulet slide back under his shirt. I
deny that, off the record or on it." His voice was so loud and
ringing that I would have bet something was Listening to
every word we said, ready to spit it back in case we did end
up in court Interesting, I thought Sudalds went on.
"Besides, Inspector, think of it like this: if I didn't think this
place was safe, why would I keep coming to work every day?"

I raised what I hoped was a placating hand. "Mr.
Sudalds—Tony, if I may—I'm not repeat not, claiming
you're personally responsible for anything. I want you to un-
derstand that But evidence of what may be a problem here
has come to my attention, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I
ignored it"

"Okay," he said, nodding. "I can deal with that Look,
maybe I can clear this up if I show you the containment
scheme. You find any holes in if Dave"—I was Dave again,
so I guess he'd calmed down—"and I will personally shit in
my hat and wear it backwards. I swear it."

"You're not under oath," I said hastily. If he turned out to
be wrong, I didn't want to leave him the choice of doing
something disgusting or facing the wrath of the Other Side
for not following through.

20 Harry Turtledove

"You heard me." He got up from his desk, went over to a
file cabinet off to one side, started pulling out folders. "Here,
look." He unrolled a parchment in front of me. "Here's the
outer perimeter. You'll have seen some of that; here's what
all really goes into it And here's the protection scheme for
the complex we're sitting in."

I was already pretty much convinced the outer perimeter
of the dump was tight; that's what the speUchecker had
indicated, anyhow. And a cursory glance at the plans to keep
the blockhouse safe told me Sudalds didn't need to be afraid
when he came to his job. Satan himself might have forced his
way through those wards, or possibly Babylonian Tiamat if
her cult were still alive, but the lesser Powers would only get
headaches if they tried.

"Now here's the underground setup." Sudalds stuck
another parchment in front of my face. "You look this over,
Dave. You tell me if it's not as tight as a Vestal's—"

Unlike the other two plans, this one really did demand a
careful onceover. Proper underground containment is the
Balder's mistletoe of almost any toxic spell dump. The ideal
solution, of course, would be to float the dump on top of a
pool of alkahest which would dissolve any evil that
percolated through to it. But alkahest is a quis custodiet ipsos
custodes? phenomenon—being a universal solvent, it
dissolves everything it touches, which would in short order
include the dumping grounds themselves.

Some of the wilder journal articles suggest using either
lodestone levitation or sylphs of the air to raise the dump
above the ground and to keep it separated from the alkahest
below. I think anybody who'd try such a scheme ought to be
made to live in the dump office. Lodelev is a purely physical
process, and, like any physical process, vulnerable to magical
interference. And sylphs of the air really are just as flighty as
their reputation makes them out to be. They'd get bored or
playful or whatever and forget what they were supposed to
be doing.

That wouldn't be good, not where alkahest is involved.
They used it in the First Sorcerous War, but not in the Sec-
ond. It's just too potent, even as a weapon. As it eats its way

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       21

straight toward the center of the earth, it's liable to bring
magma or ancient buried Powers through the channel:

up
iit

cuts. Nobody even stockpiles it—how could you?

So, no alkahest under the Devonshire dump. Instead, the
designers had put in the usual makeshifts: blessings and rel-
ics and holy texts from every faith known to mankind, and
elaborate spells renewed twice a year to use the law of conta-
gion to extend their effect to the places where they weren't
actually buried.

"It looks hke a good arrangement on parchment," I said
grudgingly. "I presume you rigidly adhere to the
resanctification schedule." I made it sound as if I assumed
nothing of the sort.

Tony Sudalds set more parchments in front of me. "Certi-
fication under canon law, the ordnances of the Baron of
Angels, and national secular law."

I examined them. They looked like what they were sup-
posed to be. The dump management outfit might have
forged the secular documents; the worst the Baron of Angels
can do is send you to jail, the worst the secular power can do
is leave you short a head. But you'd have to be pretty bold to
forge a canon lawyer's hand or seal. The punishment for that
land ofoffense could go on forever.

I shoved the pile of parchments back at Sudalds. Now my
tone of voice was different "I have to admit I don't know
what to tell you. This really does look good on parchment
But something's not right hereabouts; I know that too." I
told him about the rest of the birth defects I'd spotted, the
vampirism and lycanthropy.

He frowned. "You're not making that up?"

"Not a word of it. I'll swear by Adonai Elohaynu, if you
like." I am. God knows, an imperfect Jew. But you'd have to
be a lot more imperfect than I am to falsify that oath. People
who would risk their souls by falsely calling on the Lord
won't make it past the EPA spiritual background checks, and
a good thing, too, if you ask me.

Sudalds' beefy face set in the frown as if it were made of
quick-drying cement. "Our attorneys will still maintain that
the effects you cite are just a statistical quirk and have

22 Harry Turtledove

nothing to do with the Devonshire dump, its contents, or its
activities. If we go to court, we'll win."

"Probably." I wanted to hit him. The certain knowledge
that he'd murder me wasn't what stopped me. Getting in a
good shot or two would have made that worthwhile. Far as
I'm concerned, people who hide "it's wrong" behind "ifs
legal" deserve whatever happens to them. The only thing
that held me back was knowing I'd bring discredit to the
EPA.

Then Sudalds pulled out that little amber charm again.
He licked a fingertip, ran it over the smooth surface of the
amulet, and murmured something in a language I not only
didn't know but didn't come close to recognizing. Then he
put the amulet back and said, "Now we can talk privately for
a little while."

"Can we?" I had no reason to trust him, every reason to
think he was trying to trap me in an indiscretion. The lawyers
he'd been throwing at me would have loved that.

But he said, "Yeah, and I think we'd better, too. I don't
like the numbers you laid out for me, I don't like 'em at all.
This place is supposed to be safe, it's been safe ever since I
took over here, and I want it to keep on being safe. That's
what they pay me for, after all."

"Why do you have to turn aside the Listener if that's so?" I
asked. Come to that, I didn't know his outre Httie ritual really
had turned aside anything.

He said, "Because the company basically just wants me to
run this place so it makes them money. I want to run it right."

All I could think was, HeU of a note when a man has to
deafen the Listener before he says he wants to do a proper
job. But he'd convinced me. Too many top corporate manag-
ers hide dorsal fins under expensive imported suits. If one of
those types got wind of what Sudalds had said, let alone what
he'd done, he'd be out on the street with a big dusty foot-
print on his behind.

"How'd you get word there was trouble here, anyhow?"
he asked. "Did you paw through the Thomas Brothers' files
hoping you'd stumble over something you could use to curse
us?"

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       23

His bosses wouldn't have let him manage the dump if he
was stupid. I answered, "No, as a matter of fact, I didn't I
got a call from the District ofSfc Columba this morning, tell-
ing me I ought to check things out So I did, and now you
know what I found."

"Thafs—interesting." He stuck out his chin. "How'd
Charlie Kelly know back there that something was up when
you hadn't heard anything out here?" No, he wasn't stupid at
all, not if he knew the fellow at the EPA who was likeliest to
give me orders.

"His job is to hear things like that," I answered, suspicious
again. Not all the ways Sudalds might have learned about
Kelly were savory ones.

"Yeah, sure, sure. But how?" If he was acting, he could
have given lessons. He looked down at his wrist, said some-
thing scatological. Thafs a safer way to work off your feelings
than swearing or cursing. "My stinking watch says ifs day
before yesterday. Must be eddy currents from the garbage
outside."

"You ought to wear something better than that cheap
mechanical," I said. I touched the tail of the timekeeper that
coiled round my wrist. It's a better-behaved little demon
than the one that sits on my nightstand at home. It yawned,
stretched, piped, "Eleven forty-two," and went back to sleep.

Sudalds scatologized again. The Listener will go back on
duty any minute now. I can't put it out two times running;

the magic doesn't work. I hate doing it even once: too much
magic loose here as is. That's why I don't wear a fancy watch
like yours. Mechanicals are all right. When one gets bollixed,
I just buy another one: no need to wony about rites or any-
thing like that"

I shrugged; it wasn't my business. But I have as little to do
with mechanicals as I can. If the Other Side weren't as real
as this one, they might be all right. But as Atheling the Wise
put it, though, most forces are also Persons, and mechanicals
have no Personalities of their own to withstand the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune—to say nothing of outraged (or
sometimes just mischievous) Forces. That's why you'll never
see lodestone levitation under an alkahest pool.

24                  Harry Turtledove

Sometimes, when I'm in the mood for Utopian flights of
fancy, I think about how smoothly the world would run if all
natural forces were as inanimate as the ones that let
mechanicals operate. We'd never have to screen against
megasalamanders launched on the wings of supersylphs to
incinerate cities anywhere in the world. Neither of the Sor-
cerous Wars that devastated whole countries could have
happened. For that matter, I wouldn't have had to worry
about toxic spell dumps or the ever-growing pollution of the
environment. Things would be simpler all around.

Yeah, I know ifs a dream from the gate of ivory. Without
magic, the world would probably have fanners, maybe
towns, but surely not the great civilization we know. Can you
imagine mass production without the law of similarity, or any
kind of communications network without the law of conta-
gion?

And medicine? I shiver to think of it Without ectoplasmic
beings to see and reach inside the body, how would medi-
cine be possible at all? If you got sick, you'd bloody well die,
just like one of Tony Sudalds' cheap watches when magic
touched its works.

I pulled my mind back to business and asked him, "Can
you give me a list of the firms whose spells you're storing at
this containment facility?" That was a question I could legiti-
mately ask him, regardless of whether the Listener was
conscious.

He said, "Inspector Fisher, in view of the unofficial
nature of your visit, I have to tell you no. If you bring me a
warrant, I will of course cooperate to the degree required by
civil and canon law." He thought he was being heard
again—he tipped me a wink as he spoke.

"Such a list is a matter of public record," I argued, both
because it was something I really wanted to have and
because I still wasn't sure I could trust him.

"And I will surrender it to properly constituted authority,
but only to such authority," he said. "But it could also give
competitors important information on the spells and charms
we use at this facility. Limited access to magical secrets is
one of the oldest principles of both canon and civil law."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       25

He might have been playing it to the hilt for the sake of
the Listener, but he had me and I knew it Sophisticated
magic has to be kept secret or else everyone starts using it
and the originator gains no benefit from hard and often dan-
gerous research work. People who want to socialize sorcery
don't realize there wouldn't be much sorcery to socialize if
they took away the incentive for devising new spells.

"I shall return with that warrant, Mr. Sudalds," I said
formally.

He grinned and gave me a silent thumbs-up the Listener
wouldn't notice, so he was either really on my side or one fine
con man. "Will there be anything else. Inspector?" he asked.

I started to shake my head, then changed my mind. "Is
there a safe spot in this building where I can look out at the
whole dump?"

"Sure is. Why don't you come with me?" Sudalds looked
happy for any excuse to get up from behind his desk. My
guess was that he'd been promoted for outstanding work in
the field—he probably liked the money from his administra-
tive job but not a whole lot of other things about it

Our shoes rang on the spiral stairway that led to the
roof of the cinderblock office. Steps and rail alike were
cold iron, a sensible precaution in a building surrounded
by such nasty magic. The trapdoor through which we
climbed was also of iron, heavily greased against the rains
Angels City wasn't seeing lately. Sudalds effortlessly
pushed it out of the way.

"Here you are," he said waving. "You're about as safe here
as you are indoors; topologically, we're still inside the same
shielding system. But it doesn't feel the same out in the open
air, does it?"

"No," I admitted. I felt exposed to I didn't know what. I
wondered if the air itself was bad somehow. I imagined tiny
demons I couldn't even see crawling down into my lungs and
relieving themselves among my bronchial passages. An
unpleasant thought—I scuttled it as fast as I could.

The dump still looked like a couple of acres of overgrown,
underwatered ground. If it had been paved over, it would
have been a perfect used carpet lot. I don't know what I'd

26

Harry Turtledove

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 27

expected from a panoramic view: maybe that I could spot
boxes or barrels with corporate names on them. I didn't see
anything, though. The most interesting thing I did see was a
little patch of ground about fifty yards from the office build-
ing that seemed to be moving of its own accord. I pointed.
"Whafs over there?"

Tony Sudalds' eyes followed my finger. "Oh, that IfB be a
while before decon does much with that area, I'm afraid.
Byproducts from a defense plant—I can say that much.
Those are flies you see stirring around."

"Oh." I dropped the subject, at once and completely. I'd
thought about the Lord of the Flies on the way over to the
dump. He's such a potent demon prince that even saying his
name can be dangerous. Speak of the devil, as everyone
knows, is not a joke, and the same applies to his great cap-
tain, the prince of the descending hierarchy.

I didn't care for the notion of the Defense Department
dealing with Beelzebub, either. I know the Pentagram has
the best wizards in the world, but they're only human. Leave
out a single line—by God, misplace a single comma—and
you're liable to have hell on earth.

I looked back toward the place where I'd seen a whole lot
of Nothing when I was coming up the protected (I hoped)
walk toward Sudalds' office. From this angle, it didn't look
any different from the rest of the dump. I thought about
mentioning it to Sudalds, but didn't bother; he probably saw
enough weird things in the course of a week to last an ordi-
nary chap with an ordinary job a lifetime or two.

Besides, that thought gave rise to another: "How often do
you run across synergistic reactions among the spells that get
dumped here?"

"It does happen sometimes, and sometimes it's no fun at
all when it does." He rolled his eyes to show how big an
understatement that was. "Persian spells are particularly bad
for that, for some reason, and there's a large Persian commu-
nity here in the Valley—refugees from die latest secularist
takeover, most of them. When their spiritual elements fused
with some from a Baghdad! candy-maker's preservation
charm, of all the unlikely things—"

I drew my own picture. It wasn't pleasant. Shia and Sunni
magic are starkly different but aigue from the same prem-
ises. That makes the minghngs worse when they happen: as
if Papists and Protestants used the same dump in Ireland.
The Confederation is a melting pot, all right, but sometimes
the pot wants to melt down.

I didn't see anything else about which to question
Sudalds, so I went back down the spiral stairs. He followed,
pausing only to shut the trap door over our heads. As we
walked back to his office, I said, 'Til be back with the war-
rant as soon as I can: in the next couple of days, anyhow."

"Whatever you say. Inspector Fisher." He winked again to
show he was really on my side. I wondered if he was. He
sounded very much like a man speaking for the Listener
when he said, Tm happy to cooperate informally with an
informal investigation, but I do need the formal parchment
before I can exceed the scope of my instructions from man-
agement."

He went out to the entrance with me. I craned my neck to
see if the Nothing reappeared as I passed the place where
I'd seen it before. For an instant I thought it did, but when I
blinked it was gone.

"What's there?" Sudalds asked when I turned my head.

"Nothing," I said, but I meant—I guessed I meant—it
with a small n. I laughed a little nervously. "A figleaf of my
imagination."

"You work here a while, you'll get those for sure." He nod-
ded, hard. I wondered what all he'd seen—or maybe not
seen—since he started working here.

When we got out to the front gate, the security guard
again carefully placed the footbridge so it straddled die red
line. I felt like a free man as soon as I was on the outside of
the dump site. Sudalds waved across from his side, then
went back to his citadel.

It wasn't until I'd crossed die crosswalk, chanted die
phrase diat unlocked die antitheft geas on my carpet, and
actually gotten into die air diat I remembered die vampires,
the werewolves, the Idds born widiout souls, all die odier
birth defects around die Devonshire dump. Getting outside




28 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 29

the site didn't necessarily free you from it. Were that so, I
wouldn't have had to make this trip in the first place.

Midday traffic was a lot thinner than the usual morning
madness. I was more than twice as far from my Westwood
office in the Confederal Building as I was when I left from
my flat, but I didn't need any more time to get there than I
do on my normal commute. I slid into my reserved parking
space (penalty for unauthorized use, a hundred crowns or an
extra year for your soul in purgatory, or born—judge's discre-
tion: if he thinks you won't rate purgatory, he'll just fine you),
then walked inside.

The elevator shaft smelt of almond oil. At the bottom was
a virgin parchment inscribed with the words GOMERT and
KAILOETH and the sigil of the demon Khil, who has con-
trol over some of die spirits of the air (he can also cause
earthquakes, and so is a useful spirit to know in Angels City).
The almond oil is part of the paste that summons him, the
other ingredients being olive oil, dust from close by a coffin,
and the brain of a dunghill cock. "Seventh floor," I said, and
was lifted up.

As soon as I got into the office, I called Charlie Kelly He
listened while I told him what I'd found, then said, "Nice
piece of work, Dave. That confirms and amplifies the infor-
mation I'd already received. Go to work on that warrant right
away."

"I will," I promised. "I know just the judge: I'll take the
information over to qadi Ruhollah. He's about the strictest
man in A.C. when it comes to environmental damage." I
chuckled. 'Tor that matter, he's a rigorist on just about every-
thing—Maximum Ruhollah, we call him out here."

"Sounds like the fellow we need, al] right," Kelly said.
"Anything else?"

I started to say no, but had to think better of it. There is
one other thing, as a matter of fact. Sudalds—the dump
manager—wondered how you'd heard something new
might be wrong at his place when no one out here had a
clue. I couldn't give him an answer, but it made me curious,
too."

As it had once or twice when he'd called me at home, the

silence stretched longer than imp relay could account for by
itself. Finally Charlie said, "A bird told me, you might say."

"A little bird, right?" I started to laugh. "Charlie, I stopped
believing in that little bird about the same time I found out
the stork only brings changelings."

"However you want it," he said "That's all I can tell you,
and more than I ought to."

I thought about pushing some more, but decided not to.
People back in D.C. are supposed to have good sources; diey
justify the fancy salaries that come out of your purse and
mine by knowing what's going on all over the country and
how to find out about it even if the people who are doing it
don't want it found out. But I was still moderately graveled
that somebody a continent away had picked up on some-
thing I hadn't heard die first thing about right in my own
backyard

"Get the warrant, Dave," Charlie said "We'll go from
there, depending on what we learn."

"Bight," I said, and hung up. Then I grabbed a sandwich
and a cup of coffee at the litde cafeteria in the building. They
perfectly balanced virtue and vice: they were lousy but
cheap. Lousy or not, my stomach stopped growling. I made
another phone call.

The phone on the other end must have yammered for
quite a while, because I listened to my imp drumming his
fingers on the inside of the handset until at last I got an
answer: "Hand-of-Glory Press, Judith Adier speaking."

"Hi, Judy—it's Dave."

"Oh, hi, Dave." I thought her voice went from business-
like to warm, but with two phone imps between us I had a
hard time being sure. "Sorry I took so long to pick up there. I
was in the middle of a tough passage, and I wanted to get to
the end of a sentence so I could be sure I wouldn't miss even
a single word when I went back to it."

"Don't apologize," I said. "Doing what you do, you have to
be careful."

Hand-of-Glory Press, as you'd guess from the name,
publishes grimoires of all sorts, from simple ones on carpet
maintenance up to the special secret sort with olive-drab




30                  Harry Turtledove

covers. Judy's their number one proofreader and copy editor.
She's the most intensely detail-minded person I know, and
she needs to be. An error in a grimoire on flying carpets
might end you up in Boston, Oregon, instead of Boston,
Mass. An error in a military magic manual might leave you
dead, or worse.

She said, "So what's up?"

"Feel like going out to dinner with me tonight?" I asked.
"I ran into something interesting today, and I wouldn't mind
hearing what you think of it." Knowing someone who can see
not only forest and trees but also count leaves is wonderful.
Being in love with her is even better.

"Sure," she said. "Meet at your place after work? I ought
to be able to get there before six."

"You'll probably beat me there, then, the way traffic on St
James' has been lately," I told her.

"Sounds good."

There's a new Hanese place a few blocks away that I
want to try."

"Sounds good to me, too. You know how much I like

Hanese food."

"See you tonight, then. Now I'll let you get back to what
you were doing. 'Bye."

I went back to work, too, although my mind wasn't really
on the main project that currently infested my desk. A cou-
ple of days before, a big carpet carrying fumigants had
overturned in an accident, spilling finely ground linseed,
psellium seed, violet and wild parsley root, aloes, mace, and
storax. Because they're materials used in conjurations, I had
to draft the environmental impact statement.

I could have just written no impact and let it go at that:

the fumigants were harmless in and of themselves, and
required combustion and ritual to become magically signifi-
cant A two-word report, however, would not have made my
boss happy, and might have given people outside the EPA
the idea that we didn't take seriously the job we were doing.

So, instead, I wasted taxpayers' time and parchment writing
five leaves that ended up saying no impact but did it in a
bureaucratically acceptable way. I do sometimes wonder why

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

31

governmental agencies have to act like that, but it seems as
universal as the law of contagion.

Suffused in virtue, I dropped the draft of my statement
on my boss' desk for her changes, then went down the slide,
out to my carpet, and onto the freeway. Sure enough, traffic
was beastly, especially down by the airport. Not only was
everybody getting on and off there, but the flight lanes for
the big international carrier really cramp air space for local
travelers.

Judy was waiting for me when I got home, as I'd thought
she would be. We'd been seeing each other for about two
and a half years, then; I'd gotten her a spare entry talisman
and given her the unlocking Word for my door pretty early in
that time, and she'd done the same for me.

She greeted me with a pucker on her lips and a cold beer
in her hand. "Wonderful woman," I told her, which might
have helped heat the loss a little. She got a beer for herself,
too. We sat down to drink them before we went out.

Judy's a big tall brunette with hazel eyes and a mass of
wavy brown hair that falls halfway down her back. She
doesn't walk, exactly; when she moves, it's more like flowing.
She looked too feline ever to seem quite at home on my
angular apartment-house furniture. I enjoyed watching her
all the same.

"So what did you come across today?" she asked.

I finished my beer and said, "Let's talk about it at the res-
taurant. If I start explaining it now, we won't get to the
restaurant, and then you'll think I invited you over just to
lure you into bed."

"It is nice to know you occasionally have other things on
your mind," she admitted, upending her own bottle. "Let's
go, then."

We rode on my carpet; the safety belts held us compan-
ionably close. The restaurant parking lot had a sign with a big
Hanese dragon breathing ornately stylized fire and a blunt
warning: TRESPASSERS WILL BE INCINERATED. Judith
smiled when she saw it. I didn't. I live in a moderately tough
part of town, and I figured there was at least one chance in
three the sign was no joke.




32 Harry Turtledove

Wonderful smells greeted us just inside the entrance. The
only trouble with Hanese restaurants is that so much of what
they serve is forbidden to those who observe the Law. Sea
cucumbers I can live without, but I've heard so much about
scallops and lobster that I'm always tempted to try them. But
how can a man who'd break what he sees as God's Law be
trusted to uphold the laws of men? I was good again. So was
Judy, whose job and whose life also took discipline.

Still, you cant really complain about hot and sour soup,
beef with black mushrooms, crispy duck, and crystal-boiled
chicken with spicy sauces. Everything was good, too; this was
a place I'd visit again. While Judy and I ate, I told her about
the Devonshire dump.

"Three cases of apsydua this year?" she said. Her eye-
brows went way up, and stayed way up. "Something's badly
wrong there."

"I think so, too, and so does the dump administrator—fel-
low named Tony Sudalds—even though he won't say so
where a Listener can hear him." I sipped my tea. "You deal
with magic more intimately than I do, maybe even more inti-
mately than Sudakis: intimately in a way different from his,
anyhow. I'm glad you're worded, it tells me I'm right to feel
the same way."

"You certainly are." She nodded so vigorously, her hair
flew out in a cloud around her head. Then her eyes filled
with tears, "just think of those poor babies—"

"I know." I'd thought about them a lot I couldn't help it.
Vampires and lycanthropes have their problems, heaven
knows, but what hope is there for a kid with no soul? None,
zero, zip. I drank more tea, hoping it would cleanse my mind
along with my palate. No such luck. Then I told Judy what
Charlie Kelly had said about a bird telling him something
might be amiss at the dump. "He wouldn't give me any
details—he wanted to be coy. What do you suppose he
meant?"

"A bird? Not a litde bird?" She waited for me to shake my
head, then started ticking off possibilities on her fingers.
"First thing that occurs to me is something to do with
Quetzalcoatf."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       33

"You just made dinner worth putting on the expense
account," I said, beaming. "I hadn't thought of that."

I felt stupid for not thinking of it, too, for no sooner had I
spoken than a busboy stopped at the table to clear away
some dirty dishes. Unlike our waiter, he wasn't Hanese; he
was stockier, a litde darker, and spoke his litde Anglo-Saxon
with a strong Spainish accent. A lot of the scutwork in Angels
City gets done by people from the south. As Sudalds had
said, more of them come here every year, too. Times are so
hard, people so poor, down in the Empire that even scut-
work looks good to a lot of people.

Angels City, much of the Confederation's southwest, used
to belong to the Empire of Azteca. The nobles, some of
them, still plot revenge after a century and a half. For that
matter, though most people in the Empire speak Spainish
these days, some of the old families there, the ones that go
back before the Spaniards came, go right on worshiping then-
own gods in secret, even though they go to Mass, too.
QuetzalcoaU, the Feathered Serpent, is much the nicest of
those gods, believe me.

The old families crave the Empire's old borders, too, even
if their own ancestors never ruled hereabouts. They call our
southwest Azdan, and dream it's theirs. The way immigration
is headed, in a couple of generations that may be true in all
but name. Some people, though, might not want to wait. So,
Quetzalcoati.

Judy asked, "What ideas have you had yourself?" Think-
ing is hard work. She didn't want to do it all herself, for
which I couldn't blame her.

I seized a big, meaty mushroom on my chopsticks, then
said, 'The Peacock Throne crossed my mind."

Judy was chewing, too. She held up a finger, swallowed,
then said, "Yes, I can see that, especially since—didn't you
say?—you know some Persian firms use that dump?"

"That's right. Sudalds told me so." The Peacock Throne is
the one which was wanned by the fundament of the Shahan-
Shah of Persia until the secularists threw him out a few years
ago. St. Ferdinand's Valley has a large Persian refugee com-
munity. And if Persians had been whispering in Charlie

34 Harry Turtledove

Kell/s ear, I wouldn't have any trouble getting a warrant
from old Maximum Ruhollah, either. He was plus royal que
Ie roi, if you know what I mean.

"After the Peacock Throne, the next possibility I thought
of was the Garuda Bird project," I went on. "Aerospace and
defense are Siamese twins, and a lot of defense outfits use
the Devonshire dump."

Judy nodded, slowly. Her eyes caught fire. So did mine
whenever I thought about the Garuda Bird. Up till now, no
one's ever found a sorcerous way to get us off Earth and
physically into space. People have even talked about trying to
do it with pure mechanicals, though anybody who'd fly a
mechanical in a universe full of mystic forces is crazier than
any three people I want to deal with.

But the Garuda Bird project links the ancient Hindu
Bird with the most modern western spell-casting tech-
niques. Before long, if everything goes as planned, we'll
try visiting the moon and the worlds in person, not just by
astral projection.

There's a good-sized Hind community up in the Valley,
too," Judy said.

'That's true." It was, but I didn't know how much it
meant. Angels City and its metropolitan area are so big, they
have good-sized communities from just about every nation
on earth. If God decided to build the Tower of Babel now,
he'd put it right here: the schools, for instance, have to try to
teach lads who speak close to a hundred different languages,
and some towns have laws that signs have to be at least partly
in the Roman alphabet so police, firefighters, and exorcists
can find the places in case of emergency.

I ate another mushroom, then said, "Any more ideas?"

"I didn't have any others until you mentioned the Peacock
Throne," Judy said, "but that made me think of something
else." She didn't go on; she didn't look as if she wanted to.

"Well?" I asked at last

She looked around and lowered her voice before she
spoke; maybe she didn't want anybody but me hearing.
'There's the Peacock Throne, but there's also the Peacock
Angel."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       35

Not everybody, especially in this part of the world, would
have taken her meaning. But while neither one of us is a sor-
cerer, we both deal with the Other Side as much as a lot of
people who make a good living at wizardry. I felt a chill run
up my back. The Peacock Angel is a euphemism the Persians
use for Satan.

"Judy, I hope you're wrong," I told her.

"So do I," she said. "Believe me, so do I."

I remembered the knot of stirring flies I'd seen in the
dump—Beelzebub is very high up (or low down, depending
on how you look at things) in the infernal hierarchy. And that
Nothing—had I really seen it, or was it just jitters at being in
a—literally—spooky place? If it was real, what, or Who,
caused it? Those were interesting thoughts. I didn't like any
of them.

Suddenly a little bit of Nothing seemed to fall like a cloak
over the warm, comfortable restaurant. I didn't want to be
there any more. I waved for the bill, pulled money from my
wallet to cover it, and left in a hurry. Judy didn't argue. Even
euphemisms can bring trouble in their wake.

My flat felt like a fortress against our gloom. As soon as I'd
locked the door and touched the mezuzah that warded it,
Judy came into my arms. We hugged, hard, just holding each
other for a long time. Then she said, "Why don't you bring
me another bottle of beer?"

When I got back from the icebox with it, she'd taken from
her purse two small alabaster cups, thin to the point oftrans-
lucency. Into each she poured a little powder from a vial she
carried. I'd once asked the ingredients of the "cup of roots,"
and she'd told me gum of Alexandria, liquid alum, and gar-
den crocus. Mixed with beer, it was a contraceptive that
dated back to the ancient Egyptians. I was convinced it
worked: not only had it never failed us, how many ancient
Egyptians have you seen lately?

Just to be safe, though, I also followed Plin/s advice and
kept the testicles and blood of a dunghill cock under my bed.
Unlike the old Roman's, mine were sealed in glass so they
wouldn't prove contraceptive merely by stinking prospective
partners out of die bedroom.

36                  Harry Turtledove

If you ask me, making love, especially with someone you
do love, is the most sympathetic magic of aU, Afterwards, I
asked Judy, "Do you want to stay the night?" I admit I had an
ulterior motive; she's different from most of the women I've
known in that she often feels frisky in the morning.

But that night she shook her head. Td better not. I'd
have to take the cup of roots again if you wanted me, and I
don't want to drink beer and then steer a carpet through

rush-hour traffic."

"Okay." I hope I gave in with good grace. If you love

somebody not least for having a good head on her shoulders,




you'd better not get annoyed when she uses it

She went into the bathroom, came back and started to get
dressed, then stopped and looked over at me. "Could we tiy

again tonight?"

" Tr/ is probably the operative word." But I was off the

bed like a shot and heading for the kitchen. "Woman, you'll
run me out of beer and make me go up with the window

shade, but you're nice to have around."

"Good," she said, a smile in her voice. Beer in hand, I hur-
ried back toward the bedroom. Her nice, sensible head was
not the only reason I loved her. No indeed.

II

Judy did end up staying the night, because she didn't feel
like flying after two rounds of the cup of roots. (In case
you're wondering how we did the second time, it's none of
your business.) No hanky-panky in the morning, though. We
were both up early, her to go back to her place and change
before she headed for work, me to to the parchmentwork I'd
need to get a warrant from Judge Ruhollah.

After a fast breakfast, I walked her out to her carpet (as I
said, I don't live in the best neighborhood), then went back
to my own and headed for the Criminal and Magical Courts
building downtown.

The commute downtown wasn't too bad, but parking in
the heart of Angels City is outrageously expensive, even
though they stack carpets up higher than you'd see in a rug

37




38                  Harry Turtledove

merchants' bazaar. I was almost as upset as if I'd had to pay

with my own money, not the EPAs.

You want to see every kind of human being any land of

God ever made, go the the Criminal and Magical Courts
building; secular judges in black robes, canon law judges in
red ones, bailiffs and constabulary and sheriffs looking more
like soldiers than anything else, defendants sometimes look-
ing guilty of everything in the world (regardless of whether
they're only charged with flying a carpet too fast) and others
who from the outside might be candidates for sainthood,
witnesses, doctors, rabbis, wizards ... If you like people-
watching, you won't find better entertainment.

Judge Ruhollah's bailiff was a big Swede named Eric
something-or-other—I never can remember his last name,
though I'd dealt with him before. He said, "I'm sorry,
Inspector Fisher, but the judge won't be able to see you till

about eleven. Something's come up."

I sighed, but what could I do about it? I went over to the

bank of pay phones across the hall from the courtrooms.
When I told the mouthpiece imp what number I wanted, it

Suawked back, "Forty-five coppers, please." I pushed
ange into the outstretched hand of the little pay phone
demon, which must be descended from Mammon by way of
the Gadarene swine. If I'd turned my back on it, I'm sure it

would have tried to pick my pocket.

After I called in at the office to say I'd be late, I bought

some coffee (and a Danish I didn't really need) and cooled
my heels in the cafeteria, looking with one eye at the data I'd
be giving the qadi and with the other at people going past.
Two cups and another Danish later (I promised myself I
wouldn't eat lunch), it was a quarter to eleven. I threw the
parchments back into my briefcase and presented myself to

Eric again.

He picked up a phone, spoke into it, then nodded to me.

"Go on in." I went.

How do I describe Judge Ruhollah? If you're Christian

(which he wasn't), think of God the Father when He's had a
lousy eon. I don't know how old Ruhouah is, not even to the
nearest decade. Long white beard, nose like a promontory,

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       39

eyes that have seen everything and disapproved of most of it
If you're up before him and you're innocent, you're all right
But if you're even a little bit guilty, you'd better run for

cover.

He glowered at me as I approached the bench. Had this
been the first time I'd come before him, I'd've been tempted
to pack it in as a bad job: either fall on my knees and pray for
mercy (not something Maximum Ruhollah handed out in big
doses) or else turn around and run for my life (for who's not
a little bit guilty of something?). But I knew he glowered
most of the time anyhow, so he didn't intimidate me ...
much.

I began as etiquette prescribed—"May it please your
honor"—though I knew it was just a polite phrase in his case.
I set forth the reasons the Environmental Perfection Agency,
and I as its representative, wanted to examine the records of
the Devonshire Land Management Consortium.

"You have supporting documents to show probable
cause?" he asked. He didn't have an old man's voice. He'd
been in the Confederation for close to forty years (he was
expelled from Persia the last time the secularists there seized
power for a while), but he'd never lost his accent

I passed him the documents. He put on reading glasses to
inspect them. Just for a second, he reminded me of die
scriptorium spirit at the Thomas Brothers monastery. Before
I could even think of smiling, though, his hard old face
became so terrible that I wanted to look away. I had a pretty
good idea what he'd come across, and I was right

He stabbed at the parchment with a forefinger shaking
with fury. "It is an abomination before God the Compassion-
ate, the Merciful," he ground out, "the birthing of children
without souls. All should have the chance to be judged, to
delight with God the great in heaven or to eat offal and drink
boiling water forever in hell. This dump is causing the birth
of soulless ones?"

That's what we're trying to leam, your honor," I
answered. "Finding out just who dumps there—which is
what the warrant seeks—will help us determine that."

This cause is worthy and just," Judge Ruhollah declared.




40 Harry Turtledove

"Pursue it wherever it may lead." He inked a quill and wrote
out the warrant in his own hand, signing it at the bottom in
both our own alphabet and the Arabic pothooks and squig-
gles he'd grown up with.

I thanked him and got out of there in a hurry; his wrath
was frightening to behold. As I went back to where my car-
pet was parked, I skimmed through the document he'd
given me. When I was finished, I whistled softly under my
breath. If I'd wanted to, I could have closed down the Dev-
onshire dump with that warrant. Of course, if I'd tried it, the
consortium's lawyers would have descended on me like a
flock of vampires and gotten the whole thing thrown out. I
didn't want that, so I planned on carrying out the strictly lim-
ited search I'd already had in mind.

Bather to my own surprise, I was virtuous enough to slap
lunch. I just headed straight for the Valley; the sooner I
served the warrant, the sooner I could—I hoped—start find-
ing answers.

Thanks to a stupid publicity stunt, I got stuck in traffic in
Hollywood. If you ask me, stunts by the side of the freeway
ought to be illegal; it goes slow enough without diem. But
no. One of the light and magic companies was releasing a
spectacular called St. George and the Dragon, so nothing
would do but to have one of their tame dragons roast a
sword-swinging stunt man right where everybody could stop
and stare and ooh and ahh. People who actually had to go
someplace—me, for instance—got stuck right along with the
rubbernecking fools.

Behind the stunt man in his flame-retardant chain mail
stood a blonde who wasn't wearing enough to retard flames.
The dragon was weB trained; he didn't breathe fire anywhere
near her. Even so, I wondered what she was doing there. She
wasn't the sort of maiden I pictured Sfc George rescuing. If
they'd been making Perseus and Andromeda, maybe—but
St George?

Well, that's Hollywood for you.

I made good time after I finally put dragon, stunt man,
and bimbo behind me. I parked in the lot across from the
Devonshire dump I'd used the day before. This time the

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       41

security guard was on the phone before I got across the
street He came out of his cage, started wheeling back the
gate. "Mr. Sudalds is expecting you, sir," he said.

"Thanks." I crossed the wooden footbridge, went into the
dump site. Sure enough, Tony Sudalds was already on his
way out to greet me. I still wasn't sure whose side he was on,
but he brought a lot of energy to whichever one it was.

"How may I be of assistance to you today. Inspector
Fisher?" he asked in a loud, formal voice that said he knew
what was coming.

I produced die parchment and did my best to speak in
ringing tones myself: "Mr. Sudalds, I have in my possession
and hereby serve you with this warrant of search issued by
Judge Ruhollah authorizing me to examine certain records of
your business."

"Let me see this warrant," he said. I passed it to him. I
thought his scrutiny would be purely pro forma, but he read
every word. When he spoke again, he didn't sound formal at
all: "You do everything this parchment says you can do and
you'll break us to bits. Maybe I'd better call our legal team."

I held up a hasty hand. "I don't intend to do or seek any
more than we talked about yesterday. Is that still agreeable
to you?" Light the candle or cast the spell, Mr. Sudalds.

"Let's go to my office," he said after a pause tike the ones
I'd been hearing from Charlie Kelly. "I'll show you where the
client lists are stored."

By the time I thought to look for the Nothing I might
have seen the day before, I was already past the place on the
walk where I'd noticed it. I had more concrete things on my
mind, anyhow.

Sudalds pulled open a file drawer. "Here are clients who
have used our facility in the past three years. Inspector
Fisher."

I started pulling out folders. "I will copy these parchments
and return the originals to you as soon as possible, Mr.
Sudalds." We were both talking with half a mind for the Lis-
tener in his office. I asked, "Does this list also include the
spells and thaumaturgical byproducts each of die consortia
and individuals stated were assigned for containment here?"

42                 Harry Turtledove

"No, not all of them. Thafs a separate form, you know."
He glanced down at the warrant he was still holding. "We
didn't discuss those lists yesterday. This thing"—he waved
the warrant—"grves you the authority to go fishing... until
and unless our people try to quash it Shall I make the phone

call now?"

I pointed to the amber amulet he wore—it made a small

lump under his shirt. He nodded, pulled it out, went
through his little ritual. I wondered again what language he
was using. As soon as he nodded a second time, I said,
"Look, Tony, you know as well as I do that finding out what's
in here will help us leam whafs leaking."

"Yeah, but we didn't talk about it yesterday." He looked

stubborn.

I talked fast. "I know we didn't If you want to play all con-

sortiate, you can lick me on this one. For a while. But how
wiB you feel when you read the next little story in the Valley
section of the Tines about a kid who's going to vanish out of
the universe forever some time in the next fifty or seventy or

ninety years?"

"You fight dirty," he said with a fierce scowl.
"Only if I have to," I answered. "You're the one who told

me you wanted to keep this site safe. Did you mean it, or was

it so much Fairy gold?"

He looked at his watch. It must have been a new one,
because he didn't ask me what time it was. After about a
minute and a half (my guess; I didn't bother checking), he
said, "Very well, Inspector Fisher, I shall comply with your
demand." Clearly we were out from under the rose.

More folders followed, too many for me to cany. Having
decided to be helpful. Tony was very helpful: he got me a
wheeled cart so I could trundle them down die path and out
to my carpet. I said, "I hope losing these won't inconven-
ience your operation."

"I wouldn't give 'em to you if it did," he said. "I have
copies of everything. The/re magically made, of course, so
they aren't acceptable to you, but they'll keep this place
running until I get the originals back."

I didn't say that might be a while. If we ended up going to

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       43

court again to seek a closure order, the parchments would be
sequestered for months, maybe for years if the dump's legal
staff used all the appeals they were entitled to. Sudalds had
to know that, too. But he seemed satisfied he could go on
doing what he needed to do, so I didnt push him.

He even trundled the cart out to the entrance for me.
When we got there, a slight hitch developed: the cart was too
wide to go over the footbridge. "Can't I just stand on one
side of the line and you on the other?" I asked. "You can pass
the documents out to me."

"Ifs not that simple," Sudakis said. "Go on outside; I'D
show you." I crossed the bridge, stepped a couple of feet to
one side of it. Sudalds made as if to pass me a folder; I made
as if to reach for it. Our hands came closer and closer to one
another, but wouldn't touch. Sudalds chuckled. "Asymptotic
zone, you see? The footbridge is insulated, so it cleaves a
path right on through. We do take containment seriously,
Dave."

"So I notice." Even if Anything was on the rampage in the
dump, that zone would go a long way toward keeping it
inside where it belonged. When I leaned toward Sudalds
above the footbridge, he had no trouble passing me the files.
I turned to the security guard. "Do you have twine? I don't
want these blowing away after I load them onto my carpet"

TLemme look." He went back into his cage and came back
out with not only a ball of twine but also a scissors. I hadn't
expected even that much cooperation, so I was doubly glad
to get it

Sudalds watched me tie parcels for a minute or two, then
said, "I'm going back to work. Now that you've officially
taken these documents, you understand I'm going to have to
notify my superiors about what you've done."

"Yes, of course," I said. Decent of him to remind me,
though. I thought he really might be on my side, or at least
not altogether on the side of his company.

I carted the documents across the street to my carpet; I
needed three trips. Like anybody, I had storage pockets sewn
on, but the great pile of parchments overwhelmed them. I
don't know what I would have done if the guard hadn't had




44 Harry Turtledove

any twine. Sat on some of the folders and hung onto others, I
suppose, until I flew by a sundries store where I could buy
some for myself. You see people doing that every day, but ifs
neither elegant nor what you'd call safe.

Back to my Westwood office, then. When I got there, I
discovered the elevator shaft was out of order. Some idiot
had managed to spill a cup of coffee on die Words and sigil
that controlled Khil. A mage stood in the shaft readying a
new compact with the demon, but readying didn't mean
•ready. I had to haul my parchments up the fire stairs (you.
wouldn't want to be in an elevator shaft when the controlling
parchment bums, would you?), slide back down, and then
climb the stairs again with the other half of my load. I was
not pleased with die world when I finally plopped die last
parcel down by my desk.

I was even less pleased when I saw what lurked on that
desk: my report about die spilled fumigants, all covered over
widi red scribbles. That meant I wasn't going to get to die
documents I'd so laboriously lugged upstairs by quitting
time. I drought diey were a lot more important dian die
report, but my boss didn't see dungs diat way. Sometimes I
wish I were triplets. Then I might keep my desk dean.
Maybe.

The office access spirit appeared in die ground glass when
I called it. I held up die pages one by one so it saw all die
changes, dien said, "Write me out a fresh version on parch-
ment, if you please."

"Very well," the spirit said grumpily. It likes playing widi
words, but has die attitude diat actually dealing widi die
material world and getting diem down in permanent form is
somehow beneadi it. It asked me, "Shall I dien forget die
version you had me memorize yesterday?"

"Don't you dare," I said, and dien, because it was literal-
minded, I added a simple, "No."

My boss had die habit of making changes and dien going
back and deciding she'd radier have diings die first way after
all. Yes, I know ifs a female cliche, but she really was a
woman and she really was like diat. Judy, now, Judy is more
decisive dian I'll ever be. .

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       45

After die spirit promised it would indeed remember bodi
versions of die report, I waited for it to finish setting down
die new one. When diat finally wafted over to my desk, I
read it dirough to make sure all the alterations were accu-
rately transcribed, dien set it in my boss* in-basket for die
next round of changes. And dien, it being about die time it
was, I went out to my carpet and headed home.

I took widi me die list of firms diat used die Devon-
shire dump. I left behind die forms diat showed what
die/d dumped diere; diose would be more secure behind
die office's wards dian the cheap ones my block of flats
uses. But I figured I could do some useful work at die
kitchen table, just grouping die firms by type. That would
also give me at last a start on knowing what sort of toxic
spells were in diere.

After a dinner I'd radier not remember—certainty nodi-
ing to compare to die lush Hanese spread I'd enjoyed widi
Judy die night before—I piled dishes in die sink, gave die
table a couple of haphazard wipes, took out a sheet of parch-
ment and inked a pen, dien buckled down to it

The first dung diat hit me was just how many defense
firms dumped at die Devonshire site. All die big aerospace
consortia that have kept die Angels City economy booming
for decades used die place: Confederated Voodoo (it's Con-
voo diese days, what widi die stupid and paranoid mania for
clipping consortiate names into meaningless syllables: who'd
waste time widi name magic against as diffuse an entity as a
consortium?). North American Aviation and Levitation,
Demondyne, Lold (I wondered if byproducts from Lola's fa-
mous Cobold Works were trying to triclde dirough die wards
around die dumps; some of diem might be very bad news
indeed), all die odier famous names.

Along widi diem were a host of smaller outfits, subcon-
tractors mosdy, diat nobody's ever heard of except dieir
modiers: firms with names like Bakhtiart Precision Burins,
Portentous Potions, and Essence Extractions, Inc. I looked
at diat last one for a while, trying to figure out in which
square it belonged: my transmogrifled list had evolved into a
chart. Finally I stuck it in almost at random: widi a name like

46 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 47

that, it could have done just about anything (another modem
trend I despise).

Along with the defense outfits were several of the Holly-
wood light and magic companies. When I thought about it,
that made sense; Hollywood has always been a magic-inten-
sive business. I wished I remembered which outfit had made
the St. George epic that had snarled traffic this morning—I
might have been tempted to try some name magic on it
myself, more because I knew it would be useless than for any
other reason.

I was a little more surprised to find how many hospitals
were on the list Layfolk see only the benefits medicine
brings; they don't think much about the costs involved
(except the ones that come from their purses). But healing
bodies—and especially working with diseased souls—takes
its toll on the environment like any high-tech enterprise.

There's only one major carpet plant left in Angels City—
the General Movers looms in Van Nuys. They dumped at
Devonshire, too. The GM plant wasn't high on my list of
probable culprits, though. For one thing, I had a solid notion
of the kinds of spells it used. For another, it's likely to close
down in die next year or two: too much competition from
less expensive Oriental rugs.

And what was I supposed to make of outfits called Gall
Divided, Slow Jinn Fizz, and Red Phoenix? Until I got back
to the office to see what they were dumping, I was as much
in the dark about what they actually did as I was with
Essence Extractions, Inc. They sounded more interesting,
though, I must say.

After a moment, my eyes came back to Red Phoenix. I
underline the name, just on the off chance. The phoenix was
a bird neither Judy nor I had thought of the night before. It
would be worth checking out, at any rate.

I started to call Judy to tell her about it, then remembered
Wednesday was her night for theoretical goetics. She's only a
couple of classes away from her master's initiation. One day
before too long I expect her to be writing grimoires instead
of copy-editing them.

Having done as much on the list as I could do, I tossed it

back in my attache case, read for a while, and then got ready
for bed. Through the thin wall of my flat, I heard the fellow
next door howling with laughter at whatever ethemet pro-
gram he was listening to.

One of these days soon, I figured I'd break down and buy
an ethemet set for myself. They're based on a variant of the
cloning technique that's put telephones all over lately. In the
ethemet, though, they clone thousands of imps identical to a
few masters. Whatever one of the masters hears, each done
repeats exactly—provided you've chosen to rouse that par-
ticular imp from dormancy.

You can buy plug-in imp modules that let you choose
from up to eighty or a hundred different ethemet offerings
at any one time. More and more people all over the country
are listening to the same shows, admiring the same perform-
ers, telling the same jokes. Unity isn't bad, especially in a
country as big as the Confederation, and I don't deny the
advantages of being able to pass on news, for instance,
quickly.

So why didn't I have an ethemet set of my own? I guess
the basic reason is that too much of what they spread is, par-
don my Latin, crap. Not to put too fine a point on it, I'd
sooner think for myself than get my entertainment premasti-
cated. Go ahead, call me old-fashioned.

When I got to the office the next morning, the wizard was
still working on the elevator shaft. No, I take it back; more
likely, the wizard was working on the elevator shaft again.
What with everybody's budget being tight these days, the
government isn't enthusiastic about overtime. I walked up to
my office. Yes, I know it's good exercise. It also wasted the
shower I'd taken just before I left home.

And on my desk waiting for me, just as I'd known it would
be, was my second draft of the report on the spilled load of
fumigants. I gave it a quick look-through. Not only had my boss
changed about half of her revisions back to what I originally
wrote, she'd added a whole new set, something she didn't often
do on a second pass. And on the last page, in green ink that
looked as if it would be good for pacts with demons, she'd
written, "Please give me final copy this afternoon."




48                  Harry Turtledove

I felt like pounding my head on the desktop. Tliat cursed
silly report, which could have been and should have been
two words long, was going to keep me from getting any use-
ful work done that morning. Then the phone started yelling
at me, and the report turned into the least of my worries.

"Environmental Perfection Agency, Fisher speaking," I
said, sounding as brisk and businesslike as I could before I'd
had my second cup of coffee.

Just as if I hadn't spoken, my phone asked me, "You are
Inspector David Fisher of the Environmental Perfection
Agency?"—and I knew I was talking to a lawyer. When I
admitted it again, the fellow on the other end said, "I am
Samuel Dill, of the firm of Elworthy, Frazer, and Waite, rep-
resenting the interests of the Devonshire Land Management
Consortium. I am given to understand that yesterday you
absconded with certain proprietary documents of the afore-
said Consortium."

Even through two phone imps, I could hear that capital
"C" thud into place. I could also hear Mr. Dill building him-
self a case. I said, "Counselor, please let me correct you right
at the outset. I did not 'abscond with' any documents. I did
take certain parchments, as I was authorized to do under a
search warrant granted in Confederal court yesterday."

"Inspector Fisher, that warrant was a farce, which you
must realize as well as I. Had you fully implemented all its
provisions—"

"But I didn't," I answered sharply. "And, in case you have
a Listener on this call, I make no such admission about the
warrant. It was duly issued in reaction to a perceived threat
to the environment from the Devonshire dump. And surely
you, sir, must admit examining dump records is not unrea-
sonable in light of evidence showing, among other things,
increased birth defects in the community surrounding the
dump."

"I deny the land management consortium is in any way
responsible for this statistical aberration," Dill replied, as I'd
known he would.

I pressed him: "Do you deny the need to investigate the
matter?" When he didn't answer right away, I pressed

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       49

harder: "Do you deny that the EPA has the authority to
check records to evaluate possible safety hazards?"

By now, I ought to be old enough to know better than
to expect straight answers from lawyers. What I got
instead was about a five-minute speech. No, Dill didn't
deny our right to investigate, but he did deny that the
dump (not that he ever called it a dump, not even once)
could possibly be responsible for anything, even, it
sounded like, the shadow the containment fence cast. He
also kept coming back to the scope of the warrant under
which I'd conducted the search.

Blast Maximum Ruhollah. That warrant was the juristic
equivalent of performing necromancy to get someone to tie
your shoelaces for you. I said, "Counselor, let me ask you
again: do you think my taking the documents I took was in
any way exceptionable?"

I got back another speech, but what it boiled down to was
no. Dill finished, "I want to put you on notice that the Dev-
onshire Land Management Consortium will not under any
circumstances tolerate your use of that outrageous warrant
to conduct fishing expeditions through our records."

"I understand your concern," I said, which shut him up
without conceding anything. He finally got off the phone,
and I put the second-generation changes into that worthless
Hydra-headed report. I was about halfway through letting
the access spirit scan it when the phone yowled again.

I said something I hoped nobody (and Nobody) noticed
before I answered it. Turned out to be Tony Sudalds. He
said, "I just wanted to let you know my people aren't too
happy about my turning records over to you yesterday."

"They've made me aware of that already, as a matter of
fact," I said, and told him about the phone call from the
Consortiums lawyer. "I hope I haven't gotten you into a
pickle over this."

"I'll survive," he said. "However much they want to, they
can't send me to perdition for obeying the law. If you push
that warrant too hard, though, things'!! get more complicated
than anybody really wants."

"Yeah," I said, still puzzled about where he was coming

50 Harry Turtledove

from. The contemptuous way he dismissed higher manage-
ment made me guess he'd worked his little charm with the
amulet again, but the message he delivered wasn't that dif-
ferent from Dill's. I'd got somewhere pushing Dill, so I
decided to push Sudalds a little, too: "You aren't having any
kind of trouble out there, are you?"

But Sudalds didn't push. "Perkunas, no!" he exclaimed, an
oath I didn't recognize. "Everything's fine here... except for
your ugly numbers."

"Believe me, I don't like those any better than you do," I
said, "but they're there, and we need to find out why."

"Yeah, okay" He suddenly turned abrupt. "Listen, I gptta
go. 'Bye." He probably had done his little charm, then, and
run out of time on it.

I pulled out my Handbook qfCoetics and Metapsych/ics to
see what it had to say about Perkunas. I found out he was a
Lithuanian thunder-god. Was Sudalds a Lithuanian name? I
didn't know. The Lithuanians, I read, had been about the last
European people to come to terms with Christianity, and a
lot of them also remained on familiar terms with their old
gods. Tony Sudalds certainly sounded as if he was.

Grunting, I put the handbook back on the shelf. Anybody
who uses it a lot develops shoulders like an Olympiadic
weighdifters—if you hung two copies on opposite ends of a
barbell, you could sure train with 'em.

I'd just started my third stab at revising that blinking
report when the phone went off again. I thought hard about
ordering the imp to answer that I wasn't there, but integrity
won. A moment later, I wished it hadn't "Inspector Fisher?
Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. I am Colleen Pfeif-
fer, of the legal staff of the Demondyne Consortium."

"Yes?" I said, not wanting to give her any more rope than
she had already.

"Inspector Fisher, I have been informed that you are
investigating the sorcerous byproducts Demondyne deposits
in the Devonshire containment area."

"Among others, that's correct. Counselor. May I ask who
told you?" I'd expected calls from some of the consortia that
dumped at Devonshire (I'd also expected nobody's lawyer

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       51

would say anything so bald as that), but I hadn't expected to
get the first one by half past nine of the morning after I
searched.

Like any lawyer worth a prayer, Mistress Pfeiffer was bet-
ter at asking questions than answering them. She went on as
if I hadn't spoken: "I want you to note two areas of concern
of Demondyne's, Inspector Fisher. First, as you must be
aware, byproduct information can be valuable to competi-
tors. Second, much of our work is defense-related. Some of
the information you have in your possession might prove of
great interest to foreign governments. An appropriate secu-
rity regime is indicated by both these considerations."

'Thank you for expressing your concern, Counselor," I
said. "I have never had any reason to believe the EPAs secu-
rity precautions don't do the job. The parchments to which
you refer have not left my office."

"I am relieved to hear that," she said. "May I assume your
policy will remain unchanged, and make note of this for the
rest of the legal staff and other consortium officials?"

Such an innocent-sounding question, to have so many
teeth in it I answered cautiously: "You can assume I'll do my
best to keep your parchments safe and confidential. I'm not
in a position to make promises about where they'll be at any
given moment."

"Your response is not altogether satisfactory," she said.

Too bad, I thought. Out loud, I said, "Counselor, I'm
afraid it's the best I can do, given my own responsibilities and
oaths." Let her make something of that.

My phone imp reproduced a sigh. Maybe I wasn't the
only one who thought I was having a bad day. Colleen Pfeif-
fer said, "I will transmit what you say, Inspector Fisher.
Thank you for your time."

I'd just reached for the fumigants report—I still hadn't
had the chance to let our access spirit finish looking at it—
when the phone yarped again. I took in vain the names of
several Christian saints in whose intercession I don't believe.
Then I lifted the handset It was, after all, part of my job,
even if I was growing ever more convinced I wasn't going to
get around to any other parts today.

52 Harry Turtledove

No, you're wrong—it wasn't another lawyer. It was the
owner of Slow Jinn Fizz, an excitable fellow named Ramzan
Durani. I'd noted that as one of the smaller companies that
used the Devonshire dump; evidently it wasn't big enough to
keep lawyers on staff just to sic them on people. But the
owner had the same concerns the woman from Demondyne
and the fellow from the Devonshire Land Management
Consortium had had. For some reason or other, I began to
suspect a trend.

Then I found myself with another irate proprietor trying
to scream in my ear, this one a certain Jorge Vasquez, who
ran an outfit called Chocolate Weasel. I tried to distract him
by asking—out of genuine curiosity, I assure you—just what
Chocolate Weasel did, but he was in no mood to be dis-
tracted. He seemed sure every secret he had was about to be
published in the dailies and put out over the ethemet.

Calming him down, getting him to believe his secrets
could stay safe for all of me, took another twenty minutes. I
still wanted to know why he called his business Chocolate
Weasel and what sort of magic he did in connection with it,
but I didn't want to know bad enough to listen to him for
twenty minutes more, so I didn't ask. I figured I could make
a fair guess from the dump records anyhow.

When I got around to them. If I ever got around to them.
That all began to look extremely unlikely. Just as I was about
to let the spirit start moving with the report again, someone
came into my office. I felt like screaming, "Go away and let
me work!" But it was my boss, so I couldn't

Despite my grumblings, Beatrice Cartwright isn't a bad
person. She's not even a bad boss, most ways. She's a black
lady about my age, maybe twenty-five pounds heavier than
she ought to be (she says forty pounds, but she dreams of
being built like a light-and-magic celeb, which I'm afraid
ain't gonna happen). She's usually good about keeping
higher-ups off her troops' backs, but she can't do much when
Charlie Kelly calls you (or, more to the point, me) at home at
five in the morning.

"David, I need to talk with you," she said. I must have
looked as harassed as I felt, because she added hastily, "I

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       53

hope it won't take up too much of your time." Even talking
business, her voice had a touch of gospel choir in it She
never hit people over the head with her faith, though. I liked
her for that

I said, "Bea, I'll have that fumigants report for you as soon
as the bloody phone stops squawking at me for three min-
utes at a stretch." I looked at it, expecting it to go off on cue.
But it kept quiet

"Never mind the report" She sat down in the chair by my
desk. "What I want to know is why I've gotten calls from
Lold and Convoo and Portentous Products this morning, all
of them screaming for me to have you pulled away from the
Devonshire dump. I didn't even know you were working on
anything connected with the Devonshire dump." She gave
me her more-in-sonrow-than-in-anger look, the one calcu-
lated to make even an eighth-circle sinner get the guilts.

More-in-sorrow-than-in-anger disappeared 'when I
explained how Charlie had gone around her to call me.
Real anger replaced it. If she'd been white, she'd have
turned red. She said, "I am sick to death of people playing
these stupid games. Mr. Kelly will hear from me, and that
is a promise. Doesn't he have any idea what channels are
for?" She took a deep breath and deliberately calmed
down. "All right, so that's how you got involved with the
Devonshire dump. Why are these people phoning me and
screaming blue murder?"

"Because something really is wrong there." By now, I
could ratde off the numbers from the Thomas Brothers'
scriptorium in my sleep. "And because I'm trying to find out
what, and—I think—because the Devonshire Land Man-
agement Consortium honchos aren't very happy about that."

"It does seem so, doesn't it?" Bea thought for maybe half a
minute. "I still am going to talk to Mr. Charles Kelly, don't
you doubt it for a minute. But I would say that, however you
got this project David, you are going to have to see it
through."

"I thought the same thing the minute I first saw those
birth defect statistics up at the monastery," I answered.

"All right. I'm glad we understand each other about that

54 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 55

then. From now on, though, I expect to be kept fuBy
informed on what you're doing. Do I make myself clear?"

I almost sprained my neck nodding. Even if she weren't
my boss, Bea wouldn't be a good person to argue with. And
she was dead right here. I said, "I was going to tell you as
soon as I got the chance—Monday morning staff meeting at
the latest. It's just that"—I waved at the chaos eating my
desk—"I've been busy."

"I understand that. You're supposed to be busy. That's
what they pay you for." Bea stood up to go, then turned back
for a Parthian shot: "In spite of all this, I do still want the
revisions on that spilled fumigants report finished before you
go home tonight." She swept away, long skirt trailing regally
after her.

I groaned. Before I had the chance to let the access spirit
finish scanning the secondary revisions (and, let us not for-
get, the primary revisions about which Bea had later
changed her mind), the phone yelled for attention again.

After Judy and I went to synagogue Friday night, we flew
back to my place. I've already remarked that my orthodoxy is
imperfect. Really observant Jews won't use carpets or any
other magic on the Sabbath, though some will have a sprite
trained to do things for them that they aren't allowed to do
themselves—a shabbas devil, they call it.

But such fine scruples weren't part of my upbringing, so I
don't feel sinful in behaving as I do. Judy's attitude is close to
mine. Otherwise, she would have called me on the carpet
instead of getting on one with me.

When we were settled with cold drinks in the front room,
she said, "So whafs the latest on the Devonshire dump?"

I took a sip of aqua vitae, let it char its way down to my
belly. Then, my voice huslder than it had been before, I
explained how all the consortia that dumped at Devonshire
were so delighted to have their records examined.

"How do they know their records are being examined?"
Judy, as I've noted, does not miss details. She spotted this
one well before I needed to point it out to her.

"Good question," I said approvingly. "I wish I had a good
answer. The people who've been calling me, though, sound

like they've been rehearsing for a chorus." My voice, to put it
charitably, is less than operatic. I burst into song anyhow: "It
has come to my attention that—" I gave it about enough
vibrato to fly a carpet through.

Judy winced, for which I didn't blame her. She tossed
back the rest of her drink, then got out those two litde porce-
lain cups. I would have been more flattered if I hadn't had
the nagging suspicion she was trying to get me to shut up.

Whatever her reasons, though, I was happy to let her use up
some of my beer. And, not too long afterwards, we were both
pretty happy. Later, she got up to use the toilet and the spare
toothbrush in the nostrums cabinet Then she came back to
bed. Neither of us had to go to work in the morning. Except for
Saturday morning services, we'd have the day to ourselves.

I thought

We were sound asleep, half tangled up with each other as
if we'd been married for years, when die phone started
screaming. We both thrashed in horror. She bumped my
nose and kneed me in a more tender place than that, and I
doubt I was any more gallant to her. I had to scramble over
her to answer the phone; my flat's laid out to suit me when
I'm there by myself, which is most of the time.

I spoke my first coherent thought aloud: Tm going to kill
Charlie Kelly." Who else, I figured, would call me at what-
ever o'clock in the dark this was?

But it wasn't Charlie. When I mumbled "Hullo?" the re-
sponse was a crisp question: "Is this Inspector David Fisher
of the Environmental Perfection Agency?"

"Yeah, that's me," I said. "Who the—who are you?" I
wasn't quite ready to start swearing until I knew who my tar-
get was.

"Inspector Fisher, I am Legate Shiro Kawaguchi, of the
Angels City Constabulary." That made me sit up straighten I
was beginning to be fully conscious. Having Judy pressed all
warm and silky against my left side didn't hurt there, either.
But what Kawaguchi said next made me forget even the
sweet presence of the woman I loved: "Inspector Fisher,
Brother Vahan of the Thomas Brothers monastery requested
that I notify you immediately."




56

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       57

Harry Turtledove

"Notify me of what?" I said, while little ice lizards slith-
ered up my back. Judy made a questioning noise. I flapped
my free hand to show her I couldn't fill her in yet. "Of
what?" I repeated.

"I regret to inform you. Inspector Fisher, that Brother
Vahan's monastery is now in the final stages of burning down.
Brother Vahan has forcefully expressed the opinion that this
may be related to an investigation you are pursuing."

"God, I hope not," I told him. But I was already getting
out of bed. "Does he—do you—want me to come up there
now?"

"If that would not be too inconvenient," Kawaguchi
answered.

"I'm on my way," I said, and put the handset back in its
cradle.

"On your way where?" Judy asked indignantly, mashing
her pretty face into the pillow against the glare of the St.
Elmo's fire I called up so I could find my pants. "What time
is it, anyhow?"

'Two fifty-three," said the horological demon in my alarm
clock.

Tm going up to St. Ferdinand's Valley." I rummaged in
my drawer for a sweater; Angels City nights can be chilly. As
I pulled the sweater over my head, I went on. The Thomas
Brothers monastery up there, the one with all the damning
data about the Devonshire dump, just burned down."

Judy sat bolt upright, the best argument I'd seen for staying
home. "Itwasn't an accident, or they wouldn't have called you."
Her voice was flat She started getting dressed, too.

By then I was buckling my sandals. "Brother Vahan
doesn't seem to think so, from what the cop I talked with
told me. And the timing of the fire is—weD, suggestive is the
word that comes to mind." No, I wasn't looking at her.
Besides, by that time she already had on skirt and blouse and
headscarf. "You don't really need to bother with all that," I
said. "Sleep here, if you like. I'll be back eventually."

"Back?" If she'd sounded indignant before, now she was
furious. "Who care when you'll be back? I'm coming with
you."

ProceduraBy, that was all wrong, and I knew it. But if you
think I argued, think again. It wasn't just that I was in love
with Judy, though I'd be lying if I said that didn't enter into
it. But procedure aside, I was glad to have her eyes along.
She was likely to notice something I'd miss. And as far as in-
vestigating arson went, I'd be pretty useless up there myself.
That's a job for the constabulary, not the EPA.

The freeway flight corridors were almost empty, so I
pushed my carpet harder than I could have during the day.
All the same, some people shot by me as if I was standing
still. And one maniac almost flew right into me, then darted
away like a bat out of hell. I hate drunks. The one advantage
of being a regular commuter is that you don't see a lot of
drunks out flying during regular commuting hours. It's not
much of an advantage, but commuters have to take what they
can get.

One of these days, the wizards keep promising, they'll be
able to train the sylphic spirits in new carpets not to fly for
drunks. This is another one I wouldn't stake my soul on. Syl-
phic spirits are naturally flighty themselves, and they hardly
ever get hurt in accidents. So why should they care about the
state of the people who ride their rugs?

I pulled off the freeway and darted north up almost
deserted flight lanes toward die Thomas Brothers monas-
tery. Toward what had been the Thomas Brothers
monastery, I should say. It was still smoldering when I
stopped at the edge of the zone the constabulary and
firecrews had cordoned off.

Fighting fires in Angels City is anything but easy. Undines
are weak and unreliable here: simply not enough under-
ground water to support them. Firecrews use sand when
they can, and the dust devils which keep it under control.
For big fires, though, only water will do, and it has to come
through the cooperation of the Other Side: the Angeles City
firecrew mages have pacts with Elelogap, Focalor, and
Vepar, the demons whose power is over water. Most of the
time, that just means keeping the infernal spirits from har-
assing the mechanical system of dams and pipes and pumps
that fetch our water from far away.




58 Harry Turtledove

But sometimes, like tonight, the crews need more than
sand can do, more than pipes can give. I was just showing
my sigil to a wom-looldng constable when one of the
monastery towers flared anew. A wizard in firecrew crimson
gestured with his wand to the spirit held inside a hastily
drawn pentacle. I saw the mermaid-shape within writhe:

he'd summoned Vepar, then.

That mage had a job I wouldn't want. Incanting always in
a desperate hurry, drawing a new pentacle in the first open
space you find, never daring to take the time to do a thor-
ough job of checking it for gaps the summoned spirit could
use to destroy you... only military magic takes a tougher toll
on the operator.

But this fellow was cool as an ice elemental. He called on
Vepar in a dear and piercing voice: "I conjure thee, Vepar, by
the living God, by the true God, by the holy and all-ruling
God, Who created from nothingness the heavens, the earth,
the sea, and all things that are therein, Adonai, Jehovah,
Tetragrammeton, to pour your waters upon the blaze there
in such quantity and placement as to be most efficacious in
extinguishing it and least damaging to life and property, in
this place, before this pentacle, without grievance, deformity,
noise, murmuring, or deceit. Obey, obey, obey!"

"It pains me to cease the destruction of the monastics
housed therein." I felt Vepars voice rather than hearing it.
Like the demon's visible form, it was sensuous enough to
make me want to forget from what sort of creature it really
came.

The wizard didn't forget. "Obey, lest I cast thy name and
seal into this brazier and consume them with sulphurous and
stinking substances, and in so doing bind thee in the Bot-
tomless Pit, in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone prepared for
rebellious spirits, remembered no more before the face of
God. Obey obey, obey!" He held his closed hand above the
brazier, as if to drop into the coals whatever he held.

I wouldn't have ignored a threat like that, and I'm a mate-
rial creature. To Vepar, who was all of spirit, it had to be
doubly frightening. Water suddenly saturated the air around
the burning tower; you could see fog turn to mist and then to

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       59

rain. The same thing had to be happening inside, too. The
flames went out.

"Give me leave to get hence," Vepar said sullenly. "Am I
now sufficiently humiliated to satisfy thee?"

The mage from the firecrew was too smart to let the
demon lure him into that kind of debate. Without replying
directly, he granted Vepar permission to go: "0 Spirit Vepar,
because thou hast diligently answered my demands, I do
hereby license thee to depart, without injury to man or beast.
Depart, I say, but be thou willing and ready to come when-
ever duly conjured by the sacred rites of magic. I adjure thee
to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and may the peace of
God continue forever between us. Amen."

He stayed in his own circle until the mermaid-shape van-
ished from the pentade. Then he stepped—staggered,
actually—out. I hoped the fire truly had a stake through its
heart; that mage didn't look as if he could summon up ten
coppers for a cup of tea.

A slim, Asian-looking man in constabulary uniform came
up to me. "Inspector Fisher?" He waited for me to nod
before he stuck out a hand. Tm Legate Kawaguchi-As I
said, Brother Vahan asked for your presence here." He
affected to notice Judy for the first time. His face went from
impassive to cold. "Who is your, ah, companion here?"

What are you doing bringing your girlfriend along on
busmess? he meant. I said, "Legate, allow me to present my
fiancee, Judith Adier." Before he could blow up at me, I
added, coldly myself, "Mistress Adier is on the staff of Hand-
of-Glory Publishing. As I feared magic might well be
involved in this fire, I judged her expertise valuable." I gave
him back an unspoken question of my own: Want to make
something of it?

He didn't. He bowed slightly to Judy, who returned the
courtesy. Kawaguchi turned back to me. "Your fears, it
seems, are well-founded. This indeed appears to be a case of
arson and homicide by sorcery."

I gulped. "Homicide?"

"So it would appear, Inspector. Brother Vahan informs me
that eleven of the monks cannot be accounted for. Firecrew

60 Harry Turtledove

have already discovered three sets of mortal remains; as die
site cools further, more such are to be expected."

"May their souls be judged kindly," I whispered. Beside
me, Judy nodded. Untfl it happens, you don't want to imag-
ine men of God, men who worked for nothing but good,
snuffed out like so many tapers. Murder of a religious of any
creed carries not just a secular death sentence but the
strongest curse the sect can lay on, which strikes me as only
right

Kawaguchi pulled out a note tablet and stylus. "Inspector
Fisher, Td be grateful if you'd explain to me in your own
words why Brother Vahan believes your recent work to be
connected with this unfortunate occurrence."

Before I could answer. Brother Vahan himself came up. I
might have known nothing, not even magical fire, could
make the abbot lose his composure. He bowed gravely to
me, even managed a hint of gallantly when I introduced
Judy to him. But his eyes were black pools of anguish; as he
stepped closer to one of the firecrew's St Elmo's lamps, I
saw he had a nasty bum across half his bald pate.

I explained to Kawaguchi what I'd been investigating, and
why. His stylus raced over the wax. He hardly looked at what
he was writing. Later, back at the constabulary station, he'd
use a depalimpsestation spell to separate different strata of
notes.

When I was through, he nodded slowly. "You are of the
opinion, then, that one of the firms in some way involved
with the Devonshire dump was responsible for this act of
incendiarism?"

"Yes, Legate, I am," I answered.

Brother Vahan nodded heavily. "It is as I told you. Legate
Kawaguchi. So much loss here; enormous profit to someone
must be at stake."

"So I see," Kawaguchi said. "You must understand,
though, sir, that your statement about Inspector Fisher's
investigations is hearsay, while one directly from him may be
used as evidence."

1 do understand that. Legate," the abbot answered.
"Every calling has its own rituals." I didn't really think of the

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       61

secular law, as opposed to that of the Holy Scriptures, as a
ritual system, but Brother Vahan had a point

A firecrewman with the crystal ball of a forensics specialist
on his collar tabs stood waiting for Kawaguchi to notice him.
When Kawaguchi did, the fellow said, "Legate, I have deter-
mined the point of origin of the fire." He waited again, this
time just long enough to let Kawaguchi raise a questioning
eyebrow. The blaze appears to have broken out below
ground, in the scriptorium chamber."

I started. So did Brother Vahan. Even in the half-dark and
in the midst of confusion, Kawaguchi noticed. Judy would
have, too; I wasn't so sure about myself. The legate said,
This has significance, gentlemen?"

The abbot and I looked at each other. He deferred to me
with a graceful gesture that showed me his arm was bumed,
too. I said, "I drew the information alerting me to a problem
around the Devonshire dump from the scriptorium. Now, I
gather, any further evidence that might have been there is
gone."

"The actual parchments from which you made your con-
clusions, and from which you might have gone on to draw
other inferences, are surely perished," Brother Vahan said
heavily. "I confess I have given them little thought, being
more concerned with trying to save such brethren as I could.
Too few, too few." I thought he was going to break down and
weep, but he was made of stem stuff. He not only rallied but
returned to the business at hand: "The data, as opposed to
the physical residuum on which they resided, may yet be
preserved. Much depends on whether Erasmus survived the
conflagration."

"Erasmus?" Legate Kawaguchi and I asked together.

"The scriptorium spirit" Brother Vahan explained. He
hadn't named the spirit for me when I was down there, but
that had been strictly business.

Kawaguchi, Judy, and I turned as one to look at the smok-
ing ruin which was all that remained of the Thomas Brothers
monastery. Gentiy, Judy said, "How likely is that?"

"If the spirit betook itself wholly to the Other Side when
the fire started, there may be some hope," the abbot said.

62 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 63

"The monastery is—was—consecrated ground, after aD, and
thereby to some degree protected from die impact of the
physical world upon the spiritual."

Kawaguchi looked thoughtful. That's so," he admitted.
"Let me talk to the firecrew. If they think it's safe, we'll send a
sorce-and-rescue team down into the scriptorium and see if we
can't save that spirit It may be able to give vital evidence."

"Without the corroborating physical presence of the
parchments, evidence taken from a spirit is not admissible in
court," Judy reminded him.

"Thank you for noting that. Mistress Adier. I was aware of
it," the legate said. He didn't sound annoyed, though; my
guess was, Judy had just proved to him she knew what she
was talking about He went on, "My thought was not so
much for your fiancee's investigation as for the facts relating
to the tragic fire here. For that, the spirit's testimony may
veiy well be allowed."

"You're right, of course," Judy said. One of the many
remarkable things about her is mat when she has to concede
a point (which isn't all that often), she concedes it completely
and graciously. Most people go on fighting battles long after
they're lost

Kawaguchi went off to consult with the firecrew. I turned
to Brother Vahan. Tm sony, sir, more sony than I could say.
I never imagined anyone could be mad enough to attack a
monastery."

"Nor did I," he answered. "Do not blame yourself, my
son. You uncovered a great evil at that dump; that I knew
when you spoke to me of what you'd found. Now it has
proved greater than either of us dreamt But that is no rea-
son to draw back from it Rather, it is more reason to work to
root it out"

I had nothing to say to that I just dipped my head, the
way you do when you hear the truth. Rather to my relief,
Kawaguchi came back just then. A couple of men in red
dashed into the ruins. My eye followed them. Seeing my
head twist, Kawaguchi nodded. They will make the effort,
Inspector Fisher. They have, of course, no guarantee of

success.

"Of course." I noted the understatement. After a
moment, I went on with a question: "Did you call me up
here just to take my information, or can I help you with what
you're doing?"

"The former, I fear, unless you have resources concealed
in your carpet which are not immediately obvious." Did the
legate's eyes twinkle? I wasn't sure. If he had a sense of
humor, it was drier than Angels City in the middle of one of
our droughts.

"Well, then," I said, "do you mind my asking you for as
much as you can give me of what you've found out here?
The more I learn about how this fire started and the magics
that went into it, the better my chance of correlating those
data with one or more of the consortia that use the Devon-
shire dump. That'll help me figure out whose spells are
leaking, which ought to help you figure out who's to blame
for this burning."

I've worked with constabularies before. Constables are
always chary about telling anybody anything, even if the per-
son who wants to know is on the same side they are.
Kawaguchi visibly wrestled with himself; under other cir-
cumstances, it would have been funny.

Finally he said, 'That is a reasonable request" Which
didn't mean he was happy about it. "Come with me, then.
You may accompany us if you like, Mistress Adier."

"How generous of you," Judy said. I knew she'd have
accompanied us whether Kawaguchi liked it or not, and gone
off like a demon out of its pentacle if he tried to stop her. The
irony in her voice was thick enough to slice. If the legate
noticed it, though, he didn't let on. I wondered if the Angels
City constabulary wizards had perfected an anti-sarcasm
amulet. If they had, I wanted to buy one.

Such foolishness vanished as the legate took Judy and
me over to his command post (Brother Vahan tagged
along, without, I noticed, any formal invitation). The
firecrew forensics man was talking with his opposite num-
ber in the constabulary, a skinny blond woman who had a
spellchecker that made my little portable look like a three-
year-old's toy.




64 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 65

I stared at it with honest envy. As soon as Kawaguchi
introduced me to her—she was Chief Thaumatechnician
Bornholm—I asked, "How many megageists in that thing,

anyway?"

She must have heard me salivating, because she smiled,
which made her look a little younger and a lot less tough.
"Four meg active, eighty meg correlative," she answered.

"Wow," I said; beside me, Judy whistled softly. I
wondered when the EPA would get a portable spellchecker
with that land of power. Probably some time in the new
millennium; it would just about take the Millennium for us
to have the tools we need to do the job right The next
century shouldn't be more than two or three decades old
before we're ready to deal with this one.

"So what do we have in there?" Kawaguchi asked.

Bomholm was a good constable; she glanced over to him
and got his nod before she started talking in front of us civil-
ian types. Then she said, "Even with the spellchecker, this
won't be as easy as I'd like; on hallowed ground, soreerous
evidence has a way of evanescing in a hurry." She turned her
head in Brother Vahan's direction. The abbot here has a
most holy establishment good for his monks and a credit to
him, but hard on the constabulary"

"All right, I won't expect you to hand me the case all
sealed up with a papal chiysobull," the legate said, "though I
wouldn't have been sorry if you did. Tell me what you know."

"About what you'd expect in an arson case," Bomholm
said: "strong traces of salamander, rather weaker ones from
the use of a blasting rod."

"Uh-huh," Kawaguchi said. "Any special characteristics of
the salamander that would help us trace it back to a particu-
lar source on the Other Side?" Different rituals summon
different strains of salamander; had this been one of the
unusual ones, it could have told a lot about who called the
creature to the monastery.

But tile thaumatech shook her head. "As generic a spell as
you can find. Ten thousand campers use it out in the woods
every day to get their fires going. Of course, they tack a
dismissal onto it, too, and that didn't happen here. Just the

opposite, in fact; it was encouraged. Same with the blasting
rod: very ordinary magic."

"Hellfire," Kawaguchi said, which wasn't literally true—-
salamanders are morally neutral creatures—but summed
things up well enough.

Bomholm hesitated, then went on, "When I first set up, I
thought something else might be there, too. I wanted to
stake down the certain arson traces before anything else,
though, and by the time I came back to the other, it was
gone. Hallowed ground, like I said. Fll take the rap for it—it
was my choice."

"That's what free will is about," Kawaguchi said. "You did
what you thought was best. I presume you ordered the spirit
to remember, not just analyze. We can do further evaluation
later."

"Certainly," Bomholm answered, with a What do you
think I am, an idiot? look tacked on for good measure. I
didn't blame her, not one bit She added, "The trouble is,
you can't evaluate what just isn't there."

"I understand that." Kawaguchi smacked right fist into left
palm in frustration. I didn't blame him, either. There was the
spellchecker, with access and correlation capability on rela-
tions with the Other Side for everybody from Achaeans to
Zulus and all stops in between, with hordes of microimps
inside to do the thinking faster and more thoroughly than
any mere man could manage—but, as the thaumatech had
said, you can't analyze what isn't there.

"Legate!" The shout rang through the smoky night.
Kawaguchi spun round (so did all of us, as a matter of fact).
One of the guys from the sorce-and-rescue crew had
emerged from the ruined scriptorium. His boots thumped
on the pavement as he walked over to us. He was sooty and
sweaty and looked about half beaten to death, but his eyes
held triumph. "We made contact with that access spirit
Legate."

"Good news!" Kawaguchi exclaimed. "That's the first
piece of good news I've heard tonight. What sort of shape is
the spirit in?"

"I was just getting to that Legate," the sorce-and-rescue




66                 Harry Turtledove

man said, and some of the sudden hopes I'd got up came
crashing down again—he didn't sound what you'd caB
upbeat. The spirit's here—it's manifested enough so we can
move it—but it's not in good shape, not even slightly. Pre-
liminary diagnosis is that whoever set the fire went after the

poor creature on the Other Side, too."

"Poor Erasmus," Brother Vahan said, with as much con-
cern as if he were talking about one of his monks.

"Erasmus? Oh," the sorce-and-rescue man said; then: "I
don't think it'B perish, but it's had a rough time. Hard to
characterize torments on the Other Side, but—did it used to

manifest itself with its spectacles cracked?"

"No," Brother Vahan said, and started to weep as if that
was to him the crowning tragedy of all those which had
befallen the Thomas Brothers monastery tonight. I remem-
bered the fussy, precise spirit and the neat little pair of
glasses it had worn. How could you crack lenses (hat weren't
really there? I suppose there are ways, but I got queasy

thinking about them.

"We can run the spellchecker on this access spirit," Thau-

matech Bornholm said. "Maybe we'll learn just what hit the
monastery by finding out how the spirit was tormented."

'Tor that matter, simple questioning may yield the same
information," said Kawaguchi, who sounded ready to start
asking poor abused Erasmus questions right then and there
if the sorce-and-rescue man would summon the spirit onto a

ground-glass screen.

But the sorce-and-rescue man shook his head. "Nobody's

going to run a spellchecker on that spirit any time soon. Any
sorcerous nudge right now, before it has a chance to regain
some strength, and it'll be gone for good. I'm not kidding—a
sorcerous nudge right now wiH destroy, uh, Erasmus, and I'll
set that down on parchment. The same goes for interroga-
tion. If that spirit were a material being, it would've gotten
last rites. Because it's not material, it has a better chance of
recovering than thee or me, but I warn you: you'll lose it if

you push."

"I shall pray for Erasmus' recovery along with the recov-
ery of my brethren who took hurt in the fire," Brother Vahan

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

67

said, "and for the souls of the brethren who lost their lives."
He spoke slowly and with great dignity, partly because he
was that kind of man and partly to hold the tears back from
his voice.

Judy stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
He twitched a fade; you could see how unused he was to
having a woman touch him. But after a couple of seconds, he
realized she meant only to comfort him. He eased, as much
as you can when everything that matters to you is gone.

I wished I'd thought to make the gesture Judy had. I sus-
pect the trouble is that I think too much. Judy felt what she
ought to do and she did it. I'm not saying she doesn't think—
oh my, no. But it's nice to be in touch with This Side and the
Other Side of yourself, so to speak.

I turned to Legate Kawaguchi. "Do you need us for any-
thing more here, sir?"

He shook his head. "No, you may go, Inspector Fisher.
Thank you for your statement I expect we will be in touch
with each other about aspects of this matter of mutual con-
cern." I expected that, too. Then Kawaguchi unbent a little;

maybe a human being really did lurk behind the constabu-
lary uniform. "A pleasure also to meet your fiancee,
Inspector. A pity to drag you out of doors at such an unholy
hour. Mistress Adier, especially on dark, grim business like
this."

"I asked David to let me come along," Judy said. "And
you're right—this business is dark and grim. If I can do any-
thing to help you catch whoever did it, let me know. I'm no
mage, but I'm an expert on sorcerous applications."

"I shall bear that in mind," Kawaguchi said, and sounded
as if he meant it.

Judy and I ducked under the tape the constabulary had
put around the Thomas Brothers monastery and walked
back toward my carpet. The sun was just starting to paint the
sky above the hills to the east with pink. I asked my watch
what time it was and found out it was heading toward six. By
my body, it could have been anywhere from midmoming to
midnight

We fastened our safety belts and headed back toward the




68 Harry Turtledove

freeway. A couple of minutes before we got there, Judy said,
"I didn't know I was your fiancee."

"Huh?" I answered brilliantly.

The way you introduced me to Legate Kawaguchi," she
said.

"Oh. That." I'd just done it because it seemed the easiest
way to explain what she was doing over at my place at two-
somefhmg of a morning. I thought about it for a few
seconds, then said, "Well, do you want to be?"

"Do I want to be what?" Now Judy was confused.

"My fiancee."

"Sure!" she said, and her smile was brighter than the sun
which just that moment poked itself into the sky. It wasn't
the traditional way to answer a proposal of marriage, but
then I hadn't proposed the way I'd intended to, either. I
really had intended to get around to it, but I didn't know just
when. Now seemed as good a time as any.

We held hands on St. James' Freeway all the way back to
my block of flats. After a black night, morning sun felt very
fine indeed.

m

When I got to work Monday morning, somebody
ambushed me in the parking lot. No, it's not what you think;

this fellow standing outside the entrance to my building
called out, "Are you EPA Inspector David Fisher?" When I
said I was, he came trotting over to me, stuck a glass globe in
front of my face, and said, Tm Joe Forbes, Angels City Eth-
ernet Station One News. I want to ask you some questions
about the tragic Thomas Brothers fire Friday night"

"Go ahead," I said, peering cross-eyed into the globe. The
imp inside had enormous ears, mournful little eyes, and a
mouth that stretched all the way across its face. I'd never
seen an ethemet imp before.

Forbes shifted the globe back toward his own mouth.
"How are you involved with the Thomas Brothers, and why

69

70 Harry Turtledove

were you called to the scene of the fire shortly after it
occurred?" He held the globe out to me again.

"I'd been using some Thomas Brothers records in an
ongoing EPA investigation, and the constabulary were trying
to find out if there was any connection between that investi-
gation and the fire," I answered, truthful enough but not
what you'd call forthcoming.

As I talked, I watched the little imp in the globe. Its ears
twitched with every syllable I spoke. Its mouth moved in a
rather exaggerated parody of human speech. I've never had
any reason to leam to read lips, but I didn't need long to
notice it was echoing what I said, about half a beat behind
me. It was transmitting my words back to Ethernet Station
One, either to one of its own clones that would relay what I
said on to the master broadcasting imp so all the master's
clones in people's sets could hear, or else to a Listener that
would speak them in front of the master imp at a time more
convenient for the station crew.

, Joe Forbes took back the globe. "Do I understand cor-
rectly, Inspector Fisher, that an immaterial witness survived
the fire and may yet provide important information about
the case?"

I'd talked to Kawaguchi the afternoon before. From what
he said, Erasmus was probably going to pull through its
ordeal, though the access spirit wouldn't be in any shape to
answer questions for a while yet. Actually, Erasmus didn't
have any shape at all, but you know what I mean.

I started to tell Forbes as much, but had second thoughts. I
didn't know how many people listened to the ethemet news,
but could I afford to assume none of the people who'd burned
the monastery did? And if those bastards were listening, could
I afford to tell them they'd botched the job on Erasmus? They
might try again, and they might do it right the next time.

All this went through my mind in about the time it took to
finish exhaling, inhale, and begin to talk. If Forbes had
caught me on an inhale, I must have just started talking
before I stopped to think. As it was, I said, "I really think
that's something you ought to take up with the constabulary.
They know more about it than I do."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       71

Forbes looked unhappy; I guess he saw from my answers
that he wasn't going to get any exciting revelations from me.
He asked a couple of innocuous questions, then tried once
more with something substantive: "What sort of Thomas
Brothers records were you using in your own investigation?"

Maybe he'd hoped I'd not notice that one was charmed,
and would blab away. But I didn't; I answered, Td rather
not comment, since the investigation is still underway." The
fellow's laziness irked me as much as anything else. If he'd
known This Side from the Other, he could have gone down
to the Criminal and Magical Courts Building and found the
parchments I'd filed to get my search warrant But no—he
wanted me to do his work for him.

Well, I had enough work of my own. I said as much: Tin
sony, Mr. Forbes, but I really have to get upstairs now."

"Thank you. Inspector David Fisher of the Environ-
mental Perfection Agency," Forbes boomed, just as if I'd told
him something worth knowing. I pitied his poor imp. It
didn't look very bright, but I wouldn't have been very bright
after listening to and transmitting the mind-numbing stream
of chatter Forbes turned out

I'd hoped to start getting some serious work done on the
sorcerous contamination at the Devonshire dump itself, but
I hadn't taken into account its being Monday morning. Mon-
day morning under Beatrice Cartwright is a ritual that, while
not as old as the Mass or synagogue Sabbath rite, is every bit
as sacred: the staff meeting.

Monday morning, everybody in die department sits
around for two, two and a half hours listening to what every-
body eke is doing. About ninety-nine times out of a
hundred, what everybody else is doing is, to put it mildly,
irrelevant to what you're doing yourself, and you could bet-
ter spend the time actually doing whatever it is you can't do
while you're sitting around in staff meeting (thank God we're
an Agency, not a Department the way some people back in
D.StC. want; if we were a Department we'd probably meet
twice a week, not just once).

I mean, in an abstract kind of way I was glad to hear that
Phyllis Kaminsky was working closely with the constabulary




72                  Harry Turtledove

to make several Angels City streets less congenial to succubi;

vice of that sort does need to be combated. But even if her
report did earn Phyllis a pat on the fanny from Bea, I didn't
need to know all the ichor-filled details.

And I didn't need to know about the aerial garlic spraying
Jose Franco was working on with some of the horticulture
people at UCAC to try to slow down the little vegetable vam-
pires that have played such havoc with the local citrus crop
over the past few years, ever since they got here in a cargo of
imperfectly exorcised lemons from Greece. It wasn't that I
had anything against Jose or his project; I don't want to have
to pay three crowns for an orange any more than anyone
else. But just the same, Medvamps aren't my biggest worry

in the world.

For that matter, even though people looked more inter-
ested than usual (which isn't saying much) when I talked
about the Devonshire mess, it didn't have a whole lot to do
with their lives or their jobs. But Bea likes to soak it all in, so
every Monday morning we meet. World without end, amen,
or so it seems in the middle of a staff meeting, anyhow.

At last we were released; I felt as if I were upward bound
from purgatory (no, not a Jewish concept, but useful all the
same). I staggered off to the jakes with the staff graphic artist.
"At least here I know what I'm doing," I said as we stood side
by side. Martin laughed and nodded; he's about as fond of

staff meetings as I am.

Having accomplished at least one worthwhile thing that
morning, I went back to my desk to see if I could make it
two. I wished the thaumatech had been able to catch more
about the incendiary sorcery that had torched the Thomas
Brothers monastery; it might have given me a better notion
of which toxic spell components to be alert for, and from that
which consortia to suspect. But if magic were just wishing,
life would be too simple to stand.

I made myself a new chart, an expanded version of the one
I'd done on my kitchen table the week before. This one broke
things out not just by consortium and type of business, but also
by specific type of contaminant In lieu of turning the chart
three-dimensional, I assembled a neat battle line of quiBs, each

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      73

in an inkstand of a different color (to be sure I had enough, I'd
borrowed some from Martin's immense supply).

Just when I was ready to buckle down to some serious
work, the phone yammered at me. I didn't say what I
thought, but I thought it real loud. That, of course, didn't
make the phone shut up. I spoke to the mouthpiece imp:

"David Fisher, Environmental Perfection Agency."

"Good morning, Dave—Tony Sudakis calling."

"Good morning. Tony. How are you?" Half my annoyance
went away; at least the call had something to do with the case
I was working on. "Whafs up?"

"I heard about the Thomas Brothers fire over die week-
end. Terrible thing. Those are good people there. We need
more like 'em."

That's certainly true. But (here are less like them now—
eleven less, I understand."

"Yeah, I know." A pause. I was getting used to pauses from
people I talked with, which is not to say I liked them any too
well. Once Tony was finally done with his, he went on, "I just
want you to know that the Devonshire Land Management
Consortium didn't have thing one to do with this fire."

I chewed on that, found I didn't care for the taste. As
politely as I could, I pointed out, 'Tony, you can speak for
yourself, but how can you go about declaring your whole
consortium innocent?" Oh, he could declare it, sure, but how
was he supposed to make me believe it?

He surprised me—he found a way that sort of worked:

"The consortium management staff is contributing twenty-
five thousand crowns to the constabulary's reward fond for
the capture and conviction of whoever fired the place."

"Interesting," I said, and it was; interesting enough to
write down, in fact. Figuring out exactly what it meant wasn't
so simple. The most obvious interpretation was that manage-
ment staff was innocent. The other possibility was that
somebody up there was guilty as sin and had found a particu-
larly devious way to cover his—or even her—tracks. In the
absence of further data, I just had to note it and go on.

Sudakis was dealing with my pause now. Into it, he said,
"You don't take anything on trust, do you, Dave?"




74

Harry Turtledove

"I trust in God," I answered. "He has a more reliable
record than most of the people I know."

"life must be easy if you can honestly give all your alle-
giance to one omniscient, omnipotent deity," Sudalds said.
"But I didn't call you up to talk theology with you. I wouldn't
mind doing that over some beer one day, but now now. I've
said what I needed to say, and I've got the usual swamp full
of alligators here."

He meant that more literally than most people who use
the line—and his particular swamp held worse things than
mere alligators. We said our goodbyes and hung up. I looked
at the phone for a few seconds afterwards. Maybe Sudalds
never had reconciled himself to Christianity, or to monothe-
ism generally. That last comment of his made me wonder.
Well, the Confederacy is a free country. He could believe
whatever he wanted, as long as the didn't go burning down

monasteries to make his point.

"Interesting," I said again, to nobody in particular, and
started squeezing the undines out of my own swamp.

I'd decided to note the contaminants from the smaller
companies first, before I taclded the light-and-magic outfits
and the aerospace consortia. If one of the little guys was
dumping something spectacularly illicit, my hopes was that it
would stand out like a mullah in the College of Cardinals.

I was amazed to see just how much nasty stuff some of
the little guys messed around with. Take the outfit called
Slow Jinn Fizz, for instance. Heaven help me, they were
using things there I wouldn't have expected to find coming
out of Lola's Cobold Works. I mean, they were stowing
stove-in Solomon's Seals at Devonshire. You think for awhile
about the thaumaturgical pressure it takes to deform one of
those things, and the likely effect on the surrounding coun-
tryside when you try it, and you'B have some idea why I

noted that in red.

Chocolate Weasel had just as manynastinesses, things EPA
men in most of the Confederation wouldn't see once in a
thousand years—Aztecian stuff, almost exclusively. My
stomach did a slow flipflop when I saw one neatly written item
on their dumping manifesto: flayed human skin substitute.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

75

As I think I've said before, human sacrifice is—officially—
banned within the Aztedan Empire these days. But it used
to be a central part of the Aztedan cult. One whole twenty-
day month of their old calendar, Tiaxipeualiztii (say it three
times fast—I dare you), means "boning of the men," and
almost all of it had parades where priests capered around
wearing the skins of sacrificial victims.

Obviously, death magic is some of the strongest sorcery
there is. But modem technology has eliminated the need
that was formerly perceived for it. Proper application of the
law of similarity lets the Aztecians produce by less blood-
thirsty means the same effect they used to get from ripping
the hearts out of victims. But it's still a daunting item to find
on a form.

There are also rumors that some of the flayed skin substi-
tute isn't created through the law of similarity, but rather
through the law of contagion. Yes, I'm afraid that means
what you think it does: the substitute material gains its effec-
tiveness by touching a real flayed human skin, one hidden
away since the days when such sacrifices were not only legal
but required.

The Aztecians spend a lot of time denying those rumors.
The EPA spends a lot of time checking them—we don't
want that kind of sorcery getting loose in this country. Noth-
ing's ever been proved. But the rumors persist.

I noted that one down in red ink, too. Chocolate Weasel, I
thought, would get a visit from some inspector soon; if not
me, then someone else. Properly manufactured flayed skin
substitute isn't illegal, but it is one of the things we like to
keep an eye on.

None of the other little firms that used the Devonshire
dump put anything quite so ferocious in it, though I did
raise an eyebrow to see how many roosters' eggshells
Essence Extractions was getting rid of. "Cockatrices," I said
out loud. The little creatures are dangerous and always have
been ferociously expensive because they're so rare, but I
wondered if these folks hadn't found a way to turn them out
in quantity.

I looked thoughtfully at that manifest before I went on to

76 Harry Turtledove

the next one. If Essence Extractions had found a way to pro-
duce lots of cockatrices, they were sitting on the goose that
laid the golden egg. Pardon the botched ornithological meta-
phor, but ifs true. And the dumping records gave some good
clues on how they were going about it Tony Sudalds hadn't
worded about confidentiality for nothing.

Seeing the folks who are trying to thwart you as people
just like yourself rather than The Enemy (in Satanic red
sometimes, not just capital letters) isn't easy. You're better off
dealing with them that way, though, because it's surprising
(or revolting, depending on how you look it at) how often
they have a point

I knocked off at five, slid down to the ground. Pickets
were marking on the sidewalk off to one side of the parking
lot Pickets marched outside die Confederal Building about
three days out of five, touting one cause or another (some-
times the people touting one cause run into those touting
another, and then mere can be trouble).

These particular pickets weren't just marching; they were
chanting, too: "Hey, hey, waddaya say, let's throw out the
EPA!"

That flicked my curiosity. I wandered over to see what
they were upset about Their signs spoke for themselves:

SAVE OUR STBAWBERMESI was one. Another said, STOP
AERIAL GARLIC SPRAYING! And a third—BETTER MED-
VAMPS THAN TURNING MY BACK YARD INTO AN ITALIAN
DEU! I liked that, actually, even if I couldn't agree with it

Sometimes protesters will listen to reason. I decided to
give it a try, remarking to a fellow with a blond beard, "You
know, if we let Medvamps establish themselves here, they'll
wipe out a good part of our agriculture. Look what they've
done to the Sandwich Islands."

"I don't care about the Sandwich Islands, pal," Blond
Beard answered. "All I know is that as far as I'm concerned,
garlic stinks. I have to smell it-every hour of the day and
night and I think it's making me sick. And. it's gotten into my
flying carpet and the sylphs don't like it any better than I do.
I may have to trade the stupid thing in, and with the per-
formance shot I won't get near what it's worth. So there!"

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       77

"But—" I started. Blond Beard had stopped paying atten-
tion to me; he was chanting again. I gave up and headed
back to my own carpet. Reminding him that all the people in
the spraying area had been warned to cover up their carpets
or bring them indoors wouldn't have changed his mind, it
would just have made him angrier than he was already. Some
people might as well be zombies, for all the constructive use
they get out of their free will.

As I started to fly toward -the freeway, I noticed a
familiar-looking man holding a glass glove up to the mouth
of one of the picketers. It was Joe Forbes of Ethernet
Station One. 'Thanks a lot, Joe," I muttered. Thousands of
people, I had no doubt, would hear about the imaginary
evils of garBc spraying just as if they were thaumaturgically
established.

I hoped he'd have the integrity to interview an EPA sor-
cerer or somebody from the citrus business, too. But even if
he did, the views of people who didn't know anything except
what they didn't like would in effect get equal weight with
those of folks who'd been studying the problem since it first
bared its teeth. I sighed. What could I do about it? People
out picketing and raising a ruckus were "news," regardless of
whether they had any facts to back them up.

The freeway was jammed, too, which didn't do anything
to improve my mood by the time I finally got home.

Next morning, I started adding to my chart some of the
toxic spell components the aerospace firms dumped at Dev-
onshire. I hadn't been at it for more than a couple of hours
before I saw I'd have to talk with my boss.

Bea was on the phone when I went up to her office.
Sometimes I think she's had that imp permanently
implanted in her ear. As soon as she laid down the handset I
scurried in. Before the phone could go off again, I tossed my
still only half-done chart on the desk in front other.

Her eyes followed it down. When she saw some of the
things I'd written in red, she gave a real live theatrical gasp.
"Good God in heaven, are we actually storing these things
inside a populated area?" she exclaimed, raising a shocked

78                  Harry Turtledove

hand. Her gaze lingered on the flayed human skin substitute.
Even though it's legal, it's appalling to contemplate.

"Looks that way," I said, "and this isn't all of it, by any
means. I wanted to ask you to let me do some afternoon
fieldwork this week, maybe talk to some of the people who
use this stuff and see if there aren't substitutes. Or even
substitutes for the substitutes," I added, wondering if a
second-generation ersatz skin would be magically efficacious.

"Go ahead," she told me without hesitation; she really is a
pretty good boss. "Do one other thing first, though: call Mr.
Charles Kelly and let him know what sort of mess he's landed
this office in. I've already had words with him about that, but
you can emphasize it, too. If we have to holler for help from
the District of St Columba, I don't want him to be able to

say he wasn't warned in advance."

Burning brimstone makes you think of demons.
Bureaucratic finagling has a smell of its own, too, I went
back to my desk and made the call. When I got through to
Charlie, he sounded jovially wary, a combination implausible
only to someone who's never taken his crowns from the
government "What can I do for you this afternoon, David?"
he boomed. I'd expected him not to bother remembering it
was still morning for me, so I wasn't disappointed when he

didn't.

"You've hear about what happened out here over die

weekend?" I asked. It wasn't really a question.

For a second, though, he sounded as if it was. "Only news
out of Angels City I've heard is that monastery fire." He hesi-
tated, just for a second. I could almost see the ball of St
Ehno's fire pop into being above his head. "Wait a minute.
Are you telling me that's connected to the Devonshire case?"

"I sure am, Charlie. Eleven monks dead of arson, in case
all the news didn't make it back East" Without giving him a
chance to rally, I pushed ahead: "My boss Bea says she's
already spoken to you about the way I got this case. Ifs big-
ger than you thought, it's bigger than I imagined when you
dropped it on me. You should be aware that we may have to

have help from D.StC."

"If you do, you'll get it Eleven monks. Jesus, Mary; and

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

79

Joseph." Charlie being of the Erse persuasion, I thought that
would hit him where he lived.

"Something else," I said: "Don't you think it's time to level
with me and stop playing coy about the 'bird' who tipped you
to the trouble at the Devonshire dump?"

This time, Kell/s pause lasted a lot longer than a second.
Even through two phone imps and three thousand miles of
ether, he sounded unhappy as he answered, "Dave, I'd tell
you if I could, but I swear I can't. I'm sony."

I blew exasperated air out my nose, hard enough to stir
the hairs of my mustache against my upper hp. "Okay, Char-
lie. Play a game with me, then. Is your feathered friend from
groups involved with any of these...?"! named the Garuda
Bird, Quetzalcoad, the Peacock Throne, (hesitantly) the Pea-
cock Angel, and, as an afterthought, the phoenix.

More silence from Charlie. Finally he said, "Yeah, the
bird's in there somewhere. Believe me, I'm taking a chance
telling you even that much. So long." And he was gone,
fester than a Medvamp out of a Korean restaurant.

Nice to know one of the ideas Judy and I had come up
with was the right one. It would have been nicer still, of
course, to know which. I thought about what he'd said and,
as well as I could tell over the phone, how he'd said it. Maybe
politics wasn't what sealed his lips. Maybe it was fear. That
was the first time I started getting a little bit fearful myself.

Well, onward—no help for it unless I felt like quitting.
And if I did that, not only would I not want to look at myself
in the mirror but Judy would drop me like something just up
from (he Pit. So off I went to Slow Jinn Fizz, the closest out-
fit I'd yet found that had a red-letter contaminant on my
chart.

The carpet ride up into St. Ferdinand's Valley took about
twenty minutes. Slow Jinn Fizz was on the chief business fly-
way of the Valley, Venture Boulevard. The address itself was
enough to tell me the outfit had money. The building argued
for that, too: an elegant gray stucco structure with SLOW
JINN FIZZ in neat gold letters on the plate glass window by
the entry door. Underneath, in smaller (but just as gold) let-
ters, it added, A JINNETIC ENGINEERING CONSORTIUM.




80                  Harry Turtledove

"Aha!" I said before I walked in. The combination of the
name and the Solomon's Seals discarded at the Devonshire
dump had made me figure jinnetic engineering was what
Slow Jinn Fizz was all about. Nice to be right every so often.

A dazzling blond receptionist, as expensive-looking and
probably as carefully chosen as the rest of the decor, gave me
a dazzling white smile. "How may I help you, sir?" she asked
in the land of voice that suggested she'd do anything I asked.

I reminded myself I was engaged. The smile congealed
on her face when I pulled out my EPA sigil. "I'd like to see
Mr. Durani, please, in connection with some of your firm's

recent dumping activities."

"One moment. Inspector, uh, Fishman," she said, and dis-
appeared into the back of the building.

Ramzan Durani came out a couple of minutes later, in
person. He was a plump, medium-brown fellow in his mid-
forties who wore a white lab robe of Persian cut and an
equally white turban. "Inspector Fisher, yes?" he said as we
shook hands. I gave him a point for getting it right even
though his receptionist hadn't "We spoke on the phone last

week, did we not?"

"That's right, sir. In a way, this is about the same matter."

"I thought it might be." He didn't seem as volatile in per-
son as he had over the phone, for which I was duly grateful.
"Please come with me to my office, and we shall discuss this

further."

The only thing I'll say about his office is that it made Tony

Sudalds' look like a slum, and Tony's beats mine seven ways
from Sunday. He poured mint tea, gave me sweetmeats, sat
me down, and generally fussed over me until I felt as if I'd
gone back to my mom's for Rosh Hashanah dinner, I don't
care for the feeling at my mom's and I didn't care for it here,

either.

I answered it with bluntness: "Devonshire dump is under

investigation for leaking toxic spell components into the sur-
rounding environment. We haven't learned exactly what's
getting out yet, but I can give you an idea of how serious the
problem is by telling you there have been three cases of
apsychia in the area over the past year alone."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

81

"And you think we are to blame? Slow Jinn Fizz?" Durani
bounced—no, flew—out of his chair. His volatility was still
there, all right; I just hadn't conjured it up in polite greet-
ings. "No, no, ten thousand times no!" he cried. I thought he
was going to rend his garment. He didn't; he contented him-
self with grabbing his turban in both hands, as if he feared
his head would fall off. "How can you accuse us of such an
outrage? How dare you, sir!"

"Calm yourself, Mr. Durani, please." I made a little pla-
cating gesture, hoping he'd sit down again. It didn't work. I
went on quickly, before he threw the samovar at me. "No-
body's accusing Slow Jinn Fizz of anything. I'm just trying to
find out what's going on at the dump site."

"You dare accuse Slow Jinn Fizz of causing apsychia!" He
extravagantly wasn't listening.

"I haven't accused you," I said, louder this time. "Have—
not. I'm just investigating. And you must admit that
Solomon's Seals are very potent magic, with a strong poten-
tial for polluting the environment."

Durani cast his eyes up to the ceiling and, presumably,
past it toward Allah. 'They think I am destroying souls," he
said—not to me. He glared my way a moment later. "You
wretched bureaucratic fool. Slow Jinn Fizz does not cause
apsychia, I—we—this consortium—am—are—is on the
edge of curing this dreadful defect."

I started to get angry at him, then stopped when I realized
what he'd just said. "You are?" I exclaimed, "How, in God's
name?"

"In God's name indeed—in the name of the Compassion-
ate, the Merciful." Durani calmed down again, so fast that I
wondered how much of his rage was real temper and how
much for show. But that didn't matter, either, not if he really
was on the edge of beating apsychia. If he could do that, I
didn't mind him chewing me out every day—and twice on
Fridays.

'Tell me what you're doing here," I said. "Please." People
have been trying to cure apsychia since the dawn of civiliza-
tion, and probably long before that. Modem goetic
technology can work plenty of marvels, but that...




82                  Harry Turtledove

"Jinnetic engineering can accomplish things no one would
have imagined possible only a generation ago," Durani said.
"Combining the raw strength of the jinn with the rigor and

precision of Western sorcery—"

That much I know," I said. Jinnetic engineering outfits
have fueled a lot of the big boom on the Bourse the past few
years, and with reason. The only way their profit margins
could be bigger would be for the jinni to fetch bags of gold

from the Other Side.

But Durani had found something else for them to do
Over There: jinn-splicing, he called it. What he had in mind
was for the jinni to take a tiny fraction of me spiritual packet
that made up a disembodied human soul, bring it back to
This Side, and, using recombinant techniques he didn't—
wouldn't—describe, join it with a bunch of other tiny
fragments to produce what was in essence a synthesized
soul, which could then be transplanted into some poor little

apsychic kid.

"So you see," he said, gesturing violently, "it is impossi-
ble—impossible, I tell you!—for Slow Jinn Fizz or any of our
byproducts to cause apsychia. We aim to prevent this trag-
edy, to make it as if it never was, not to cause it."

Whether what he aimed at was what he accomplished, I
couldn't have said. For that matter, neither could he, not
with any confidence. Sorcerous byproducts have a way of

taking on lives of their own.

But that wasn't what was really on my mind. "Have you
actually transplanted one of these, uh, synthesized souls into
an apsychic human being?" I knew there was awe in my
voice, the same sort of awe the Garuda Bird program raises
in me: I felt I was at the very edge of something bigger than
I'd ever imagined, and if I reached out just a little, I could

touch it.

"We have transplanted three so far," he answered with

quiet pride.

"And?" I wanted to reach out, all right, reach out and puB

the answer from him.

'The transplants appear to have taken: that is to say, the
synthesized souls bond to the body, giving the apsychic a true

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       83

spirituality he has never before known." Durani held up a
warning hand. "The true test, the test of Judgment, however,
has not yet arisen—aB three individuals who have undergone
the transplant procedure remain alive. Theory indicates a
risk that the synthesized soul may break up into its constitu-
ent fragments when its connection to the body is severed at
death. We shafl research that when the time arises."

"Yes, I'd think so," I said. A soul, after all, exists in eternity:

it lives here for a while, but it's primarily concerned with the
Other Side. What a tragedy it would be to give a living man a
soul, only to have him lack one when he died and needed it
most. Worse than if he'd never had one, if you ask me—and

till that moment, I'd never imagined anything worse than
apsychia.

Something else struck me: "What happens to the souls
from which you're taking out your little packets? Are they
damaged? Can they still enspirit a human being?"

This is why we take so little from each one," Durani
answered. To the limits of our experimental techniques, no
measurable damage occurs. Nor should it, for is not God not
only compassionate and merciful but also loving and able to
forgive us our imperfections?"

"Maybe so, but do your artificial imperfections leave
these, hmm, sampled souls more vulnerable to evil influence
from the Other Side?" The further I got into the case of the
Devonshire dump, the more hot potatoes it handed me. This
new technique of Durani's was astonishing, but what would
its environmental impact be? The lawsuits I saw coming
would tie up the ecclesiastical courts for the next hundred
years.

You may think I'm exaggerating, but I mean that literally.
For instance, suppose somebody does something really
horrible: oh, suppose he bums down a monastery. And
suppose he's able to convince a court that, on account of the
Durani technique, he's been deprived of 1% or 0.1% or
0.001% of the soul he would have had otherwise. Is he fully
responsible for what he did, or is it partly Durani's fault? A
smart canon lawyer could make a good case for blaming Slow
Jinn Fizz.




84                Harry Turtkdove

Or suppose somebody does something horrible, and then
dams as a defense that he's been deprived of part of his soul
by the Durani technique. How do you go about proving him
wrong, if he is? I'm no prophet, but I foresaw the sons of a
lot of canon lawyers (and the nephews of Catholic canonists)
heading for fine collegia on the profits of that argument

alone.

And here's another one: let's suppose the Durani tech-
nique is as safe as he says it is, and doesn't do irreparable
harm to anybody's soul. Let's suppose again that his synthe-
sized souls have even been passing the test of Judgment, But
nothing manmade can hope to match God's perfection.
What happens if a misassembled soul does break apart on
death, leaving a poor apsychic all dressed up with no place to
go? To what sort of recompense is his family entitled?

All at once, I wished again that magic were impossible,
that we just lived in a mechanical world. Yes, I know life
would be a lot harder, but it would be a lot simpler, too. The
trouble with technology is that, as soon as it solves a prob-
lem, the alleged solution presents two new ones.

But the trouble with no technology, of course, is that
problems don't get solved. I don't suppose apsychics, sud-
denly offered the chance for a better hereafter, would worry

about risks. I wouldn't, in their shoes.

I guess nothing is ever simple. Maybe it's just as well. If
things were simple, we wouldn't need an Environmental
Perfection Agency and I'd be out of a job.

Caught in my own brown study, I'd missed a couple of
sentences. When my ears woke up again, Durani was saying,
"—may develop a sampling technique to bring back compo-
nents only from what you might term mahatnws, great souls,

those who have spirit to spare."

"Very interesting," I answered, and so it was, though not
altogether in the way he'd intended it. Sounded to me as
though he had some concerns over safety himself. I won-
dered who his lawyers were. I hoped he had a good team,
because I had the feeling—the strong feeling—he'd need

e.
"Is there anything further. Inspector Fisher?' he asked.

one.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       85

He'd relaxed now; I guess he only got vehement when he
thought his interests were endangered. A lot of people are
like that

'Thafs about it for now," I told him, whereupon he
relaxed even further. He thought the operative phrase there
was that's about it; I thought it was for now. He'd done
something new and splendid, all right, but I wasn't sure he'd
ever realize any profit from it. He hadn't had a lawyer at his
beck and call the week before. He'd need one soon, or more
likely a whole swarm of them.

Remembering his call reminded me how many I—and
Bea—had fielded all at once. I asked my watch what time it
was, found out it was a few minutes before three. I decided
to go over to the Devonshire Land Management Consor-
tium offices and find out just how so many of their dients
found out about the EPA investigation so fast.

My sigil got me into the office of a markgrafin charge of
consortiate relations, a redheaded chap with hairy ears
whose name was Peabody. He showed a full set of teeth
undoubtedly kept so snowy white by sympathetic magic (I
wondered what would happen if a forest fire spilled soot all
over the snow to which those teeth were attuned).

I give him credit: he didn't try to cast any spells over me.
"Of course we notified our clients," he said when I asked him
my question. "Their interests were impacted by your search
of files at the containment site, so we might have been liable
to civil penalty had we kept silent."

"All right, Mr. Peabody, thanks for your time," I said. Put
that way, he had a point. I might have thought better of him
if he'd talked about loyalty instead of liability, but how much
can you expect from a mercenary in a fancy suit?

After that, I headed for home. I picked up a daily once I
got off the freeway, for the sake of the sport more than any-
thing else. Over in Japan, I saw, the Giants had beaten the
Dragons for their league tide. And closer to home, the
Angels and Blue Devils played to a scoreless tie.

"Might as well be real life," I muttered when I saw that.
Then I shook my head. In real life, the Cardinals would
never have been higher in the standings than the Angels.




86

Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 87

But looking at the score gave me an idea. I called Judy.
"Feel like a Zoroastrian lunch tomorrow?" I asked her.

She giggled. "Sounds good. But to make it perfect, I
ought to fly my carpet After all, ifs an Ahura-Mazda."

"That's right, you did buy an import last year, didn't you?"
I said. "But let me pick you up instead afterwards anyhow." I
explained what I was doing with my red-letter list.

That'll be fine," Judy said. "Nice you get a chance to be
away from the office part of your day Too bad it couldn't be
mornings, though." She knows how much I hate staff
meetings.

I smacked myself in the forehead. "I should have thought of
that But listen to what I came across today—" I told her about
Ramzan Durani and Slow Jinn Fizz.

"That's exciting!" she breathed. To give those poor people
hope . . . Have they worked aO the gremlins out of the
process?"

"I couldn't tell you. Durani talks like he has, but it's his
operation, so you'd expect him to."

"Yes," Judy said. "Of course, even if he has, the moment
anything goes wrong the lawyers will say he hasn't The spiri-
tual implications are—overwhelming is the word that comes

to mind."

"You know one of the reasons I love you?" I said. She
didn't answer, just waited for me to go on, so I did: "You see
implications. So many people don't; they just go 'Oh, how
marvelous!' without stopping to think what their marvels end
up costing them."

Thank you," she said, her voice surprisingly serious.
That doesn't sound anywhere near as romantic as some-
thing like 'You have beautiful eyes,' but I think it gives us a
much better promise of lasting. I feel the same way about
you, just so you know."

"What, that I have beautiful eyes?" I said. She snorted. I
added, "Besides, I told you that was just one of the reasons. I
wish you were here right now, so we could try one of the
others."

"Now what might that be?" She sounded so perfectly
innocent she was perfectly unbelievable. She didn't even

believe herself: "I wish I were over there, too, honey, but Tve
got to finish working out this astrology problem for my class.
Reconciling western and Hanese systems is a bitch and a
half. I'll see you tomorrow for lunch."

Twelve-thirty all right?"

"Sounds good; 'Bye."

Judy works in a part of East A.C. where you hear Spaimsh
spoken in the streets about as often as English. The rage for
Zoroastrian diners has reached even there, though. Next
year, no doubt, the/ll be passe; right now, they're fun.

The one trouble with those places is that Judy and I can't
enjoy them to the fullest, because a lot of their dishes feature
deviled ham. We managed, though. I ate angel-hair pasta
and devfl's-food cake, while she had a devfled-egg-salad
sandwich and angelfood cake. Just names, sure, but names
have power.

"So where are you going this afternoon?" Judy asked
while we waited for the waitress to bring us our lunches.

"Up to Lold, in Burbank," I said. "I have the feeling their
parchmentwork didn't report half of what they're dumping.
They have a real reputation for secrecy; nobody except them
and the military knows what goes on at the Cobold Works up
in the desert, and nobody at all, it looks like, knows—or will
say—what comes out of the Cobold Works."

They're working in the Garuda Bird project, too, aren't
they?" Judy said.

Thafs right—and if you think I'm going up there partly
so I can learn more about that you're right" I admitted.
Space travel has fascinated me ever since the first magic mir-
ror let us see the far side of the moon back when I was a kid.

The girl carried our plates over to us just then. Thanks," I
said as she set them down. Because she looked as if she'd un-
derstand it better, I added, "Grocias."

"De nada, senor," she answered, smiling. She hardly
seemed old enough to be working fall time. Maybe she
wasn't People who come up to Angels City to get away from
Azteca find out soon enough that the sidewalks aren't paved
with gold here, either. They do what they can to get by, same




Harry Turtledove

88

as my great-grandparents did a hundred years ago. Most of
them will.

It was a pleasant lunch. Any time with Judy was pleasant,
but the good food and the chance to be out and about in the
middle of the day (she'd been right about that the night
before) just added to it. I hated to leave, but she had to get
back to work and I needed to be at the Lold plant early
enough-in the afternoon to do some useful work.

I parked my carpet in the loading zone in front of Hand-
of-Glorys office, kissed Judy goodbye before I took off. It
was a pretty thorough kiss, if I say say myself. This ten-year-
old who should have been in school made disgusted noises as
he walked by. I didn't care. Give him a few more years and
he'd find out about the sweet magic between man and

woman.

I waited there till I saw Judy safe indoors, then headed up
the Golden Province Freeway to Burbank. The Lold works
weren't far from the tede airport there. They were big and
sprawled-out enough to have separate buildings and lots for
each of the consortium's many projects; I flew around till I
found a sign that said SPACE DIVISION and had a stylized
Garuda bird under it. I parked my carpet as dose to die sign
as I could, then walked off some of my lunch hiking toward

the entrance.

Inside, where they didn't show from the parking lot, were
guards armed with pistols and holy water sprayers. I pre-
sented my EPA sigil. Even though I'd phoned ahead in the
morning, I could see how litde ice it cut here. The guards
were ready to take on major foes, from This Side or the
Odier. One bureaucrat wasn't worth getting excited about.

Which is not to say diey weren't diorough. They turned a
spellchecker on my sigil, to make sure it wasn't forged and
hadn't been tampered widi. One of diem carefully compared
die image on my flying license to my face. The odier waited
tffl die first was done, dien called my office to confirm I
really did work diere. He didn't ask me for die number; he
looked it up himself.

Only when they were satisfied did diey phone deeper into
die building. "Magister Arnold will come to escort you

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       89

shordy, sir," one of diem said. "Here is your visitors talis-
man." He pinned it on me, then added, "Once you pass
dirough diat door, the demon in die talisman wiB be roused
and will sting you if you get more dian fifteen feet away from
Magister Arnold. Just so you know, sir"

"What happens if I need to use a toilet?" I asked.
"Magister Arnold must accompany you to die facility, sir,"
he answered, unsmiling. The guy outside die Devonshire

dump had billed himself as a security guard. This Lold fellow
reallywas one.

I found another question: "Suppose I ditch the talisman
once I go inside?"

"First, sir, any attempt to do so would rouse die demon.
Second, once inside die door diere, die talisman will weld
itself to your dodiing and remain bonded to it until you
emerge. If you're a good enough sorcerer, sir, you can beat
die talisman, but you'll set off a great many alarms in die
process, and will be apprehended in short order."

1 don't want to beat it and I don't want to be appre-
hended," I said. "I was just curious." The guard nodded,

polite but unconvinced. His job was being unconvinced, and
he was real good at it

Magister Arnold came out a couple of minutes later. He
was a big, rangy fellow in his mid-fifties, in a lab robe almost
as fancy as Ramzan Durani's. "Call me Matt," he said after
we shook hands. "Come along widi me now."

I came along. The door closed behind us. I gave die talis-
man a surreptitious yank. Sure enough, it was stuck to die

front of my shirt. I'd figured it would be. Lold took security
seriously.

I found out just how seriously when we got to die door of
Arnold's office: it was hermetically sealed. Now I grant you
diat Hermes is a good choice of protector for an aerospace
office—in his wingfoot aspect, he's naturally related to flight
sciences, and who better to propitiate in a security system
dian die patron deity of thieves?

But merdful heavens, die expense! A security system isn't
just a seal; die backup is a lot more important Maintaining a
whole cult at a level sufficient to keep its god active and alert




90                 Harry Turtkdove

will kill you with priests' fees, fanes, sacrifices, what have
you. I wondered how much of the bill Lold was paying itself
and how much it was passing on to the taxpayer. Somehow
cost overruns never turn out to be anybody's fault. The/re
just there, like crabgrass, and about as hard to weed out.

Be that as it may, Magater Arnold rubbed the toggle that
served as the door Herm's erect phallus. The Herm must
have recognized his touch, for it smiled and the door came

open.

It dosed behind us with a definitive-sounding snick. "Cof-
fee?" Arnold asked, waving to a pot that sat on top of a little

asbestos salamander cage.

"No, thanks," I answered; I'd just as soon drink vitriol as
muck that was reheating all day. And besides— "You really
don't feel like following me down the hall if I have to use the

men's room, do you?"

"Oh, yes, of course. Thaft right, you're wearing a visitors
talisman, aren't you? I hope you don't mind if I have a cup?"
At my inviting wave, Arnold poured himself one. It looked as
thick and dark and oily as I'd figured it would. Even the
fumes were enough to make my nostrils twitch. When he set
the cup down, he asked, "So what have we done that's
brought the EPA down on us?" He didn't say this time, but
you could hear it behind his words.

"I don't know that you've done anything," I answered. "I
do know that somebody's spells are leaking out of the Dev-
onshire dump, and I also know that whoever that somebody
is, he's murdered monks to keep his secret."

That got Arnold's instant and complete attention. His eyes
gripped me like the Romanian giants Eastern European sor-
cerers use to handle magical apparatus they wouldn't touch
with a ten-foot Pole. He was quick on the uptake. The
Thomas Brothers fire is connected to this affair, is it?" he
said. "A bad business, very bad."

"Yes." I let it go at that; no need for him to know I was
personally involved with the monastery fire. I pulled out my
chart. "As near as I can tell from this, Magister Arnold, Loki
puts more toxic spells into Devonshire than anybody else—
and the ones I have here are those you admit to publicly."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

91

"For the record," Arnold said loudly, "I deny there are any
others." His tone was just as sincere as Tony Sudalds', and
told me (in case I hadn't been sure already) a Listener was in
there with us.

I liked that tone even less from the magister, because I
knew he wasn't on my side while I hoped Sudalds was. All
Arnold wanted to do was play with his projects, whatever
they happened to be. It wasn't that I doubted their worth. I
didn't; as I've said, I'm demons for the space program my-
self. But nobody has any business fouling the nest and then
pretending his hands are clean.

"For the record," I answered, just as loudly and just as
snotcily, "I don't believe you." Arnold glared; my guess was
that nobod/d talked to him like that for a while. I let him
steam for a few seconds, then said, "Are you seriously telling
me nothing too secret to get into your ERA forms goes on at
the Cobold Works?"

"What Cobold Works?" he said, but he couldn't keep a
twinkle from his eye. That the establishment in the desert
exists is an open secret. But his smile disappeared in a hurry.
"IfitS too secret to go into the forms. Inspector Fisher, it's
also too secret to talk about with you. No offense, but you
need to understand that."

Tm not out to betray our secrets to the Hanese or the
Ukrainians," I said. "You need to understand that, and to
understand that the situation around the Devonshire dump
is serious." I tossed him the report on birth defects around
the site. As he read it, his face screwed up as if he'd bitten
into an unripe medlar. "You see what I mean, magister."

"Yes, I do. You have a problem there, absolutely. But I
don't believe the Lold Space Division, at least, is responsible
for it If you'll give me a chance, I'll tell you why."

"Go ahead," I said. Nobody I'd talked to would even
entertain the idea that he could be responsible for the leaks.
Well, I didn't find the idea entertaining, either.

'Thanks." Arnold steepled his fingers, more a thoughtful
gesture, I judged, than a prayerful one. He went on. "I
gather this toxic spell leak is believed to be through the
dump's containment system rather than airborne."

92

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

Harry Turtledove

93

"Yes, I believe that's true." I said cautiously. "So?"
He nodded as if he'd scored a point "Thought as much.
I'm not breaking security to tell you that Space Division
spells are universally volatile in nature, with byproducts to
match. That's not surprising, is it, considering -what we do?"

"I suppose not," I said. "What exactly is your consortium's
role in getting the Garuda Bird out of the atmosphere?"

That did it He started rolling like the Juggernaut's car,
which, considering the project we were talking about, isn't
the worst of comparisons. Lold was in charge of two project
phases, the second of which (presumably because it dealt
with air elementals) had been split into two elements.

"First, we handle the new spells pertaining to the Garuda
Bird itself." Arnold pointed to a picture tacked onto the watt
behind him: an artisfs conception of the Bird lifting a cargo
into low orbit, with the curve of the Earth and the black of
space behind it Even in a painting, the Bird is something to
see. Think of a roc squared and then square that again—
well, the Bird could turn a roc into a pebble. For a second, I
forgot about being an investigator and felt like a kid with a

new kite.

"The Bird is magic-intensive anyway," Arnold went on.

"Has to be, or else that big bulk would never get off the
ground. But we've had to upgrade all the speB systems and
develop a whole new set for upper-atmospheric and exat-
mospheric work. They do fine in similarity modeling; pretty
soon we'B get to see what the models are worth. You with me

so far?"

"Pretty much so, yeah," I answered. "What's this other

phase you were talking about? Something to do with

sylphs?"

"That's right Turns out our models show that max-Q—"

"What?"
"Maximum dynamic pressure on the Bird," he explained

grudgingly, and then, because I still didn't get if added more
grudgingly still, "Maximum air buffeting."

"Oh."
I'd distracted him. He gave me a dirty look, as if he were a

wizard who'd forgotten the key word of an invocation just as

his demon was about to appear in the pentacle. When I
didn't rip off his head or swallow him whole, he pulled him-
self together. "As I was saying, max-Q on the Garuda Bird
occurs relatively low in the atmosphere, due to sylphic action
on the traveler through the aery realm."

"Sylphs are like that," I agreed. "Always have been. How
do you propose to get them to act any different?"

"As I said before, we have a two-element approach to the
problem—"

He pulled a chart out of his top desk drawer and showed
me what he meant. If he hadn't been an aerospace
thaumaturge, he would have called it the carrot-and-stick
approach. As it was, he talked about sylph-esteem and
sylph-discipline.

Sylph-esteem, I gathered, involved making the sylphs
above the Garuda Bird launch site so happy they wouldn't
think about blowing the Bird around as it flew past them.
Like a lot of half-smart plans, it looked good on parchment.
Trouble is, sylphs by their very nature are happy-go-lucky
already, and also changeable as the weather. How do you go
about not only making them even more cheerful than they
were already but also making them stay that way?

If you ask me (which Magister Arnold didn't), sylph-disci-
pline is a better way to go. Putting the fear of higher Powers
into the sylphs might well make the air elementals behave
themselves long enough to let the Garuda Bird get through.
True, you couldn't keep it up long, sylphs being as they are,
but then, you wouldn't need to.

'Tor sylph-discipline to be effective, timing is of the
essence," Arnold said. "Implement your deterrence activity
too soon and the elementals forget the brief intimidation;

implement it too late and it is useless. We are still in the
process of developing the sorcerous systems that will enable
us to ensure minimal sylphic disturbance as the Garuda Bird
proceeds on its mission."

"If you're still developing them, am I correct in assuming
that no byproducts from that element of your project would
appear on my list of contaminants from Lold?"

"Let me check, if I may," he said. He looked at my chart,




94

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

Harry Turtledove

95

just as I'd looked at his. "No, thafs not correct Some of this
activity with Beelzebub comes from our shop."

I remembered die patch of flies at the Devonshire dump
and shivered a little. Dealing with Beelzebub involves some
of the most potent, most dangerous sorcery there is. I said,
"Sounds like overkill to me. Why pick such a mighty poten-
tate of the Descending Hierarchy to overawe the air

elementals?"

My guess was that asking the question would prove a
waste of time, that Arnold would baffle me with technical
jargon till I gave up and went away. But he fooled me, saying,
It's really quite straightforward, at least in broad outline. We
shall require the Lord of the Flies to inflict a plague of his
creatures on the sylphs to distract them from the passage of

the Garuda Bird."

"You don't think small," I said. 'Then something else
occurred to me: "But what's to keep the flies from torment-
ing the Garuda Bird along with the air elementals?"

Magister Arnold smiled dimly. "As I said, ifs straightfor-
ward in broad outline. Details of the negotiations with the
demon are anything but simple, as you may imagine. He is, if
you will forgive me, hellishly clever."

"Yes." I let it go at that; if it were up to me, I'd have come
up with some other way of distracting the sylphs. After a
couple of seconds, I said, "Don't byproducts from a conjura-
tion involving Beelzebub have a chance of sliding through
the underground containment scheme at the dump? They
aren't all volatile, as you claimed before."

°I suppose that's true." Arnold sounded anything but
happy about supposing that was true, but he did it anyhow. I
give him credit for that He tried to put the best face on ifc
"You haven't alluded to these particular byproducts as being
the ones which are leaking, however, Inspector Fisher. Until
you show me evidence that they are, I hope you will forgive

my doubts."

"Okay, fair enough," I said. Going around the edges of the
dump with a sensitive spellchecker, checking air and earth,
fire and water for sorcerous pollutants would blow Charlie
Kell/s request for discretion further into space than die

Garuda Bird could cany it, but that couldn't be helped, not

now.

I got up and started to leave. I'd just about made it to the
door when I remembered the demon imprisoned in my
visitor's talisman. I turned around and headed right back
toward Magister Arnold. He was coming after me.

Thanks," I said

"Don't mention it." His voice was dry. "My own peace of
mind is involved in keeping you healthy till you get out the
door, you know. Just think of all the parchmentwork I'd have
to fill out if an Environmental Perfection Agency inspector
got stung to death by the Lold security system. I wouldn't get
any real work done for weeks."

Knowing the EPA bureaucratic procedures as I do, I was
sure he was right about that. Then a couple of casually ut-
tered words sank in. "Stung to death, Magister Arnold?" I
said, gulping. The security guard didn't mention that little
detail."

"Well, he should have," Arnold answered testily. He must
have noticed my face chance expression. "Before you ask. In-
spector, we do have a permit to incorporate deadly force into
our security setup because of the sensitive nature of so much
of what we do here. If you like, I will be happy to show you a
copy, complete with chrysobull, of that permit."

"No, never mind." The assurance in his voice said he
wasn't bluffing. And if I wanted to check, I could do it at the
Criminal and Magical Courts building. "But visitors should
be warned before they enter the secure area, sir. They'd have
more of an incentive for following instructions carefully."

"Oh, it seems to work out all right. We haven't lost one
in a couple of weeks." The aerospace man had a perfect
deadpan delivery. At first I accepted what he'd said with-
out thinking about it, then did a double take, and only
then noticed the very comers of his mouth curling up. I
snorted. He'd got me good.

He led me out to the door by which I'd entered. As soon
as I was on the far side of it, I took off the talisman (now I
could) and all but threw it at the security guard. "You didn't
tell me it was lethal," I snarled.




96                 Harry Turtledove

"If your intentions were good, sir, you didn't need to
know," he answered. "And if they were bad, you also didn't

need to know."

He should have been a Jesuit. After I got done gasping for
air, I slunk out toward my carpet, then headed for home. It
was still early, but if I'd gone someplace else and done my
song and dance, I'd have been late. I was late the day before.
Put the two days together, I figured, and they'd come out
even. It was the sort of logic you'd expect after a Zoroastrian
lunch, but it satisfied me for the moment.

Because I was early, I made good time on the way back
down to Hawthorne. Of course, that left me rattling
around my flat for a chunk of the afternoon. I'm usually
good at just being there by myself, but it wasn't working
that day. I didn't feel like going out and going shopping;

besides, with next payday getting close and the last one
only a ghostly memory, the ghouls had been chewing on

my checking account

I decided to do something to put crowns into my pocket,
not take them out I had three or four sacks of aluminum
cans rattling around under the sink and in my closet; I took
'em out (which freed up space to put in more), carried 'em
down to my carpet, and headed for the local recycling center.

SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT AND SAVE ENERGY, said the
sign outside: RECYCLE ALUMINUM. I nodded approvingly
as I lugged the cans over. Some programs sell themselves as
being good for the environment when they're not, but recy-
cling isn't one of them.

The fellow at the center tossed the cans on the scale,
looked back at a little chart on the wall behind him. "Give
you two crowns sixty," he said, and proceeded to do just that

The small change went into my pocket, the two-crown
note into my wallet. 'Thank you, friend," I told him.

"Any time," he answered. "See you again soon, I hope.
You're making some sorcerer's life easier."

I let that go with a nod. Since I work for the EPA, I would
have bet I knew more about it than he did. Recycled alumi-
num lets magicians use the law of similarity to extract more
of the metal directly from the ore; it's a lot cheaper and more

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP       97

energy efficient than the alchemy they have to resort to
when they're working without any aluminum source ... to
say nothing of the preposterous and expensive mechanical
processes you have to use to coax aluminum free of the min-
erals that contain it. Were it not for sorcery, I doubt we'd

ever have learned what a wonderfully useful metal alumi-
num is.

Two crowns sixty wouldn't come close to paying the bill
from the Department of Water and Powers I'd found in my
mailbox. The bill was up from last month, too; the
Department, a little dipped-on notice said, had gained
approval for a three percent increase in salamander
propitiation fees. Everything costs more these days.

The money I'd got for the aluminum cans would just
about cover a hamburger, though not the fries that went with
it. A Golden Steeples was right around the comer from the
recycling center. I went in there, spent my dividend and a bit
more besides. It was a long way from a gourmet treat, but

when you're eating by yourself, a lot of the time you don't
care.

A newspaper rack stood just outside the Golden Steeples:

it used the same kind of greedy little imp that dwells in pay
phones. I stuck in the right change, pulled out a Times. If I'd
tried to take more than one, the imp would have screamed
blue murder. I think it's a'shame the racks have to resort to
measures like that, but they do. Life in the big city.

Back in my flat, I opened a beer and drank it down while I
read the daily. One of the page-nine stories directly con-
cerned me: Brother Vahan was appealing to the Cardinal of
Angels City for a dispensation to allow cosmetic sorcery for
one of the monks badly burned in the Thomas Brothers fire.

I prayed that the Cardinal would grant the dispensation.
Cosmetic sorcery can do maivelous things these days. If the
doctors and wizards have a recent portrait of someone
before he was burned, they can use the law of similarity to
bring his appearance back to what it used to be. Function
doesn't follow superficial form, of course, but a bum victim
gains so much by not becoming a walking horror show.

Trouble is, the Cardinal of Angels City is a stiff-necked




98                  Harry Turtledove

Erseman who takes the mortification of the flesh and God's
will seriously. The story said he was considering Brother
Vahan's appeal, tut the issuance of a dispensation cannot be
guaranteed." He was liable to decide God wanted that monk
disfigured, and who were we to argue with Him?

That sort of attitude never made sense to me. Far as I can
see, if God wanted bum victims to stay ugly forever. He
wouldn't have made cosmetic sorcery possible. But then, I'm
just an EPA man, not a theologian (and especially not a

Catholic theologian). What do I know?

St. George and the Dragon was splashed all over the
entertainment section (and I wondered what the Cardinal
thought about that). I hadn't gotten a good enough look at
the blonde by the Hollywood Freeway to tell if she was the
one falling out other minitunic in the ads. I wasn't about to
go to the light-and-magic show to find out, either. That mis-
erable publicity stunt had cost them at least one cash

customer.

When I got to work the next morning, more pickets were

marching out alongside the Confederal Building to protest
the aerial spraying for Medvamps. I shook my head as I went
up the elevator to work. Some people simply cannot weigh
short-term inconvenience against long-term benefit.

As soon as I got to my desk, I started working like a man
possessed; had a priest wandered by, he probably would have
wanted to perform an exorcism on me. But I banged
through the routine parts of my job as fast as I could so I'd
have time to investigate the Devonshire case properly. I
wanted to get out to Chocolate Weasel that afternoon.

The best-laid plans—
I'd just managed to get the wood on top of my desk out

from under the usual sea of parchments and visible to the
naked eye once more when the phone started yelling at me.
Unlike some people I know, I don't usually have premoni-
tions, but I did this time. What I smelled was trouble. The
phone hadn't given me much else lately.

"David Fisher, Environmental Perfection Agency."
"Mr. Fisher, this is Susan Kuznetsov, of the Barony's

Bureau of Physical and Spiritual Health..."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

99

"Yes?" I'd never heard other.

"Mr. Fisher, I'm calling from Chatsworth Memorial
Hospital. I was going to notify the St Ferdinand's chapter of
the Thomas Brothers, as is usual in such cases, but due to the
recent tragedy there, that was impossible. When I called the
East Angels City Thomas Brothers monastery, I was referred
to you."

"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 cous-
ins 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 cra-
dle, 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

101

102                 Harry Turtledove

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 Con-
federation legally, and wondered even more if they truly
understood what had happened to litde baby Jesus.

In the room with them were Susan Kuznetsov—a middle-
aged woman, no-nonsense variety, built like a crate—and a
priest. He was a tubby litde 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 litde fellow and—well, see for your own self. Inspector."

He took off die crucifix from around his neck, set it
against die bab/s cheek, murmured a few words of Latin.
That's not my ritual, of course, but I knew what was sup-
posed to happen: because babies, being new to die world,
are uncorrupt, die cross should have glowed for a moment,
symbolic of die linkage between goodness on the Odier Side
and die innocence of die baby's soul. Not for nodiing did
Scandinavian converts speak of die White Christ

But nodiing was all we saw here. The crucifix might have
been merely metal and wood, not one of die most potent
mystical symbols on This Side. At its touch, litde Jesus
twisted his head in die hope diat it was a milk-filled breast.

Gendy, his face sad, die priest redonned die crucifix.
Susan Kuznetsov said, "Fadier Flanagan called me first diing
dlis morning. Of course, I came out immediately. He
repeated die test in my presence dien, 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 somediing so dreadful hap-
pen to a poor tiny kid who'd never even had die chance to

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

103

commit a sin struck me as horribly unjust Not even Satan
got anydiing out of it, eidier, because when Jesus Cordero
died, he'd just be gone. What did it mean? Far as I could tell,
it meant only diat we don't understand die way dungs work
as well as we'd like to.

"Sir," I said to die baby's fadier (his name was Ramon; his
wife was Lupe), Td like to ask you some questions, if I may,
to see if I can learn how dlis unfortunate diing 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 dieir address. I wasn't sur-
prised to learn diey lived within a couple of miles of die
Devonshire dump; we were only five or six miles away there
at die 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 widi magic is such a
part of everyone's everyday life diat sometimes we don't even
think about it "Your medical treatments were all of die ordi-
nary 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 diem." I nodded glumly; diat's
the story widi so many poor immigrants diese days. Through
die priest, Lupe went on. The only diing even a litde
different was diat I had morning sickness, so I went to die
ourandero for help."

Speaking for himself, Fadier Flanagan said, "Probably
somediing on die order of camomile tea; few curanderos
traffic widi Anydiing important"

"Probably," I agreed, "but I have to be diorough. Mrs.
Cordero, can you give me die name and address of dlis
person?"

"I don' remember," she answered in English. Her face
closed up. I could guess what diat meant: it was bound to be
somebody from her home village back in Azteda, somebody
she didn't want to see in trouble.

Harry Turtledove

104

I tried again. "Mrs. Cordero, it's possible the medicine
you received had something to do with your giving birth to
an apsychic child. We have to check that out, to make sure
the same misfortune doesn't happen to someone else."

"I don' remember," she repeated. Her face might have
been cast in bronze. I knew I wasn't going to get any answers
out of her. I caught Father Flanagan's eye. He nodded almost
imperceptibly. Maybe he'd tiy to talk some more with her
later, maybe he'd just ask around in the neighborhood. One
way or another, I figured before too long I'd find out what I

needed to know.

Ram6n Cordero bent over the cradle, picked up his son.

By the smooth way he held the baby in the crook of his
elbow, I guessed it wasn't his first. "Nifio Imdo" he said
softly. Even more softly. Father Flanagan translated: "Beau-
tiful boy-
Little Jesus was a nice-looking baby. "Enjoy him aB you

can, Mr. Cordero," I said. "Love him a lot. This is all he has.

He'u have to make the best of it."

That's good advice," Susan Kuznetsov said. She dropped

into Spainish at least as fluent as Father Flanagan's, then
returned to English for me: "I told him that many apsychics
live extraordinary lives on This Side, maybe to help compen-
sate for not going on after they die. Artists, writers,

thaumaturges—"

What she said was true, though she'd just mentioned the

good half. There's pretty fair evidence that the Leader of the
Alemans during die Second Sorcerous War was an apsychic,
and that he promoted the massacres and other horrors of the
war exactly because he wasn't afraid of what would happen
to him on the Other Side: once he was gone, he was gone
permanently. That wasn't the sort of thing you wanted to

mention to an apsychic's parents, though.

The baby wiggled, thrashed, woke up with a squall about

like what you'd expect from a minor demon who doesn't care
to be conjured up. Lupe held out her arms; her husband set
Jesus in them. I glanced down at my toes while she adjusted
her hospital robe so she could nurse him. The squalls sub-
sided, to be replaced by intent slurping noises.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

105

"Tiene mucho hambre," Lupe said— "He's very hungry."
She seemed pleased and proud, as a new mother should. No,
little Jesus' tragic lack hadn't fully registered with her.

I stood there for a couple of more minutes, wondering aB
the while if I ought to say something about Slow Jinn Fizz.
Maybe—God wfflmg—Ramzan Durani and his outfit could
fill the vacuum at the center of little Jesus Cordero. From
what Durani had said, he could fill it. What troubled me was
whether he was creating similar but smaller vacuums in
other souls. He said not, but even he'd admitted his proce-
dure was stffl experimental.

In the end, I kept my mouth shut Part of that was not
wanting to raise the adult Coroeros' hopes too much. The
rest was simple pragmatism: even though baby Jesus had no
hope for eternal life, odds were he wasn't going to shuffle off
this mortal coil tomorrow or next year, either. He had the
time to wait whfle the gremlins were exorcised from Durani's
jinnetic engtaeering scheme.

I wonder what I would have done if Fd been dealing with
a seventy-year-old apsychic in poor health, someone facing
imminent oblivion. Would gaming that person a soul (assum-
ing the procedure worked) outweigh me harm inflicted on
other souls in the process (assuming it didn't work as well as
Durani claimed)?

I decided I was awful glad Jesus was just a baby.

Lupe raised the little fellow to her shoulder, patted him
on the back. After a few seconds, he let out a burp about an
octave deeper than you'd think could come from anything so
small.

"When will you be going home from the hospital?" I
asked her.

"Mariana," she said.

'Td like to come by your home that afternoon, if I
could," I said. "I have a portable spellchecker, so I can
begin investigating for toxic spells in the local environ-
ment, and I'd also like a look at whatever potion you got
from your curanderv." I saw from her face that she didn't
understand everything I'd said. So did Father Flanagan.
He translated for me.




106 Harry Turtledove

Lupe and Ramdn looked at each other. "No questions
about nothing else?" he asked.

They were illegals, then. "None," I promised. That wasn't
my business. "Hying to find out why their son had been born
without a soul was. "1 swear it in God's name."

"You don' make no cross," Bam6n said suspiciously.

Father Flanagan was giving me a questioning look, too.
Tell them I'm Jewish," I said. His face cleared. I was sure he
didn't care much for my beliefs, but that's okay: I wasn't fond
of all of his, either. But we acknowledged each others sincer-
ity. He spoke way too rapidly for me to follow what he said to
the Corderos, but they nodded when he was through.

Lupe said, "You go, you look, you find out. We trus' you,
the padre say we can trus' you. He better be right"

"He is," I said, and let it go at that. If I'd taken another
oath, the Corderos might have thought the first one wasn't to
be trusted. Father Flanagan nodded slowly, understanding
what I'd done.

Susan Kuznetsov said, "Besides, Jesus there is a native-
born citizen of the Confederation, and entitled to all the
protection of our laws." When she turned that into Spain-
ish, the Corderos beamed; they liked the idea. The
woman from the Bureau of Physical and Spiritual Health
quietly added, "I just wish our laws could do more for the
poor little guy." Neither she nor Father Flanagan trans-
lated that.

I said my goodbyes, collected Mistress Kuznetsov's carte
de vistte, and flew back to the office. The elves hadn't magi-
cally cleaned up my desk while I was gone. I didn't care. It
could stay dirty a while longer. I picked up the phone and
called Charlie Kelly.

The yammering at the other end went on for so long that
I wondered if he was back from lunch yet. It was well past
two back m D.StC.; where the demons did those con-
founded Confederal bureaucrats get the nerve to keep
swilling at the public sty like that? All I needed was a minute
of no answer on the phone to swell up and bellow like an en-
raged buB taxpayer, when after all I was a confounded
Confederal bureaucrat my very own self.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      107

"Environmental Perfection Agency, Charles Kelly speak-
ing." Finally!

"Charlie, this is Dave Fisher in Angels City. We just had
another apsychic birth close by the Devonshire dump. That
makes four in a little more than a year. This isn't going to be
a quiet investigation any more, Charlie. I'm going to find out
what's leaking and why, no matter how noisy I have to get."

He kind of grunted. "Do what you think necessaiy."

"Shit, Charlie, you're the one who sicced me onto this."
I'm not usually vulgar on the phone and I'm not usually vul-
gar in the office, but I was steaming. "Now you're making it a
lot harder than it has to be."

"In what way?" he asked, as if he hadn't the slightest idea.

When Charlie Kelly goes all innocent on you, check how
many fingers and toes you're wearing. The odds are real
good they'll add up to a number smaller than twenty. I can't
imagine how I kept from screaming at him. "You know per-
fectly well. Tell me about the bloody bird that keeps singing
in your ear."

Tm sony, David, but I can't," he said. "I never should
have mentioned that to you in the first place."

"Well, you did and now you're stuck with it," I said sav-
agely. 'There's something rotten in the area of that dump.
People are being born without souls. People are dying, too, if
you'll remember the Thomas Brothers fire. You started me
on this and now you won't give with what you know?
Thafs—damnable."

"I have to pray you're wrong," Charlie answered. "But
whether you are or not, I can't give you what you're asking.
This whole matter is bigger than what you seem to grasp—
bigger than I thought, too. If I could, I'd shut down your
whole investigation."

This, from a high-powered EPA man? "Good God, Char-
lie? What are we talking about here, the Third Soreerous
War?"

"If we were, I couldn't tell you so," Kelly said. "Goodbye,
David. I'm afraid you're on your own in this one." My imp
stopped reproducing his imp's breathing; he'd hung up on

108 Harry Turtledove

I don't know how long I stared at my own phone before
I hung up, too. Jose Franco walked past my office door. I
think he was just going to nod at me, the way he usually
does, but he stopped in his tracks when he Saw my face.
"What's the matter, Dave?" he asked, real concern in his
voice. He's a good guy, Jose is. "You look like you just saw
your own ghost"

"Maybe I did," I said, which left him shaking his head.

Why in God's name was Charlie Kelly acting altogether
too serious about a Third Sorcerous War? The first two
were disasters beyond anything imaginable even in night-
mares before this century. A third one? If mankind was
stupid enough to start a Third Sorcerous War, we'd prob-
ably never have to worry about a fourth one, because
nobody'd be left to fight it

And Charlie wouldn't even tell me who the enemy was
liable to be. You ever look back on your life and notice just
how many sins you've committed to get where you are, how
everything that always seemed solid all at once starts to
crumble under your feet until you're peering straight down
into Ae Pit? That was what I felt like after I got off the
phone with KeBy. The hair stood up on the back of my neck,
No wonder I'd alarmed Jose.

Afterwards, I needed to gwe myself a good hard shake
before I went back to work. When you've spent a whfle
contemplating Armageddon, environmental concerns don't
look as big as they did. If the Third Sorcerous War comes
along, there won't be any environment left to protect,
anyhow.

I drowned my sorrows in a cup of coffee, wishing it were
something stronger. Then, more or less by main force, I
made myself call Legate Kawaguchi to find out how Eras-
mus was doing. People are like that: the world may be going
to hell around them (and the Third Sorcerous War would be
a reasonable approximation, believe me), but they try to
keep their own little pieces of it tidy.

"Ah, Inspector Fisher," Kawaguchi said after I'd made it
through the maze of constabulary operators to his phone. "I
was going to phone you in the next few days. We expect that

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      109

access spirit to become accessible to interrogation within
that time frame."

That's good," I said, both because I hoped I'd learn
something that would help my case (and, presumably,
Kawaguchi's) and because I was glad Erasmus would make
it "What other news do you have about the fire?"

"Investigations are continuing," he answered, which
meant he had no news.

Or maybe it meant he just didn't feel like telling me any-
thing. Constables are like that sometimes. I decided to give
him a nudge, see if I could shake something loose: "Have
your forensic sorcerers made any progress in analyzing those
strange traces the thaumatech picked up at the scene, the
ones the consecrated ground erased before she could fully
get them into her speBchecker?"

"You have a retentive memory, Inspector." Kawaguchi
did not make it sound like a compliment: more as if he'd
hoped I'd forgotten. Yet another phone pause, this one, I
suppose, while he figured out whether to try to lie to me.
Interesting choice for him. Sure, I was a civilian, but a
civilian who worked for a Confederal agency. If he did lie
and I found out about it, my bosses could make things
unpleasant for his bosses, who would make things
unpleasant for him.

He finally said, 'The traces remain vanishingly feint, but
enhancement techniques seem to indicate some sorceries of
Persian origin."

"Do they?" I said. Slow Jinn Fizz moved up a few notches
on the suspect list. So did Bakhtiar's Precision Burins, an
outfit I hadn't yet got around to visiting. I asked him, "What
enhancement techniques do the Angels City constabulary
use?" I hoped my own shop could leam something new and
useful.

But he answered, "Nothing out of the oroinaly, I'm
afraid. We had our best results with an albite lens focusing
the rays of the full moon on the speBchecker chamber that
holds the memory microimps."

"Yes, thafs pretty much standard," I agreed. Only a
constable would call it albite; the more usual name is

110 Harry Turtledove

moonstone. Because it's opaque, a moonstone lens removes
moonshine  from  moonbeams,  thereby improving
recollections.

"Is there anything else. Inspector Fisher?" Kawaguchi
asked.

I wondered if I ought to tell him one of my superiors
was afraid the case was connected with the Third Sorcer-
ous War. He'd probably think I was moonstruck—or
lunatic, if you prefer the Latin. I hoped he'd be right Bet-
ter that than Charlie being right. Besides, Kawaguchi had
enough worries of his own; a constable's job is neither easy
nor pleasant

"Anything else?" the legate repeated, more sharply this
time.

"No, not really. Thanks for your time. Please do keep me
informed on how your investigation is going, and let me
know the moment Erasmus becomes available for
questioning."

"I will do that Inspector. Good day to you."

The work I'd meant to do that morning took up the after-
noon instead. I had to keep up with it somehow, which
meant I didn't get out to Chocolate Weasel as I'd planned to
do. I wouldn't manage to do it tomorrow, either, because I
was going to take my litde portable spellchecker over to the
Corderos' house to see what it could find there. And after
that I figured Bakhtiar's Precision Burins had moved ahead
of it on my list if Persian magic was involved in the Thomas
Brothers fire.

People complain that bureaucracies never accomplish
anything. I mean, I complain when a bureaucracy I'm not
part of succumbs to inertia. Half the time, though, the prob-
lem is too few people trying to do too many things in not
enough time. I felt like Sisyphus, except getting over to
Chocolate Weasel was just one of the stones I had to try to
shove to the top of the hill. I kept running back and forth
between them, keeping them all from rolling down to the
bottom again but not moving any up very far. And every so
often, whether I got one of the old stones to the crest of the
hill or not new ones appeared.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      111

All in all, the image was enough to get a man down on
ancient Greek religion.

I shoved stones around till it was time to go home. After
supper, I called Judy. One of the things that makes troubles
smaller is talking about them. Actually, I suppose the trou-
bles stay the same size, but when they're spread between
two people they seem smaller. I told her about poor little
Jesus Cordero, and also about what Charlie Kelly had had to
say.

"Maybe one of these days Ramzan Durani can synthesize
a soul for the little boy," she said. She has a knack for
remembering names and other details that slip through my
fingers like sand. Now she went on, "But this other.. . My
God, David, was he serious?"

"Who, Charlie? He sure sounded that way to me. What
really frosts me is knowing how much he knows that he's not
telling."

"I understand," she said. "But what are we supposed to do
while he's not telling? Just go on with our lives as if we didn't
know anything was wrong? That's not just hard, that's
impossible."

"I know, but what choice do we have?" I answered. "Peo-
ple have been doing it as long as there have been people:

carrying on inside their own little circles and holding their
affairs together as best they could no matter what was going
on around them. If they didn't I've got a feeling the world
would have torn itself to pieces a long time ago."

"Maybe you're right," she said, and then, suddenly,
"Come over, David, would you? I don't want to be alone, not
tonight, not after what you just told me."

"Be there in half an hour," I promised.

I made if too, with a good five minutes to spare. Judy
lives in a flat down in Long Beach, in a neighborhood mar-
ginally better than mine. The Guardian at the outer entrance
to her building knows me by now, so I didn't have any
trouble getting in. Fair enough; I went there about as often
as she came to see me.

I liked her place. It was in an older block of flats than
mine, so it had occasional plumbing problems, no ice

112                Harry Turtledove

elemental connection for hot summer days, and a wheezy
excuse for a salamander that couldn't keep the place warm in
winter, but there were compensations. The main one, I
think, was decently thick walls: you didn't find out everything
your neighbors were up to as if you watched them in a crystal

ball.

She'd lived there for five years, and the flat had the stamp

of her personality on it. It was crammed with books, maybe
even more than mine. The knickknacks (aside from the
menorah and brass candlesticks for the Sabbath) were
museum copies of Greek and Roman sorcerous apparatus,
all mellow clay and greened bronze. The prints on the wall
were by Arcimboldo—you know, the fellow who made por-
traits out of interlocked fish or fruit or imps. They're
endlessly fascinating to look at, and you never can decide just
how far out of his tree old Arcimboldo was.

If you think I'm building up to a tale of lurid lovemakmg,
I'm sorry—it wasn't like that. We hugged each other, she
made some coffee, we talked later than we should have, and
when we slept together, that's all we did: we slept together.
If you're under twenty-five you probably won't believe me,
but sometimes that's better—and more intimate, too—than
twitches and moans. Not, believe me, that I have anything
against twitches and moans, but to every thing its season.

My sleep season ended too soon the next morning; the
horological demon in Judy's alarm clock bounced me out of
her bed with a bloodcurdling ululation. I hurried back to my
place (which luckily wasn't far out of my way), showered,
changed clothes, grabbed a Danish and my portable spell-
checker, and headed for the office.

What I had in mind was racing through business in the
morning and heading up to the Corderos' house in the after-
noon to take some readings with the spellchecker. That's
what I ended up doing, too, but it wasn't as simple as I'd had
in mind. Something large and unpleasant landed on my desk

with a thud.

I don't quite mean that literally, but the report I was
going to have to produce would be fat enough to thud
down somewhere. I've mentioned that Angels City is in

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      113

the middle of a drought. The note Bea passed to me
explained that some sorcerers up in the north end of the
Barony of Angels tried to bring rain with Chumash Indian
charmstones, perhaps in the hope that native spirits would
have more effect on the local weather than imported
white man's magic.

They got nothing. I don't mean they didn't get rain.
Nobody's been able to get much in the way of rain for Angels
City the past few years. I mean they got nothing—no sign
that the Powers linked to those charmstones were still there
to be summoned. What Bea wanted me to do was determine
whether the Chumash Powers were in fact extinct

That's always a melancholy job. Extinction means some-
thing wonderful going out of the world forever, whether
from This Side or the Other. The poor Chumash, though,
have been so thoroughly dispossessed and assimilated over
the last couple of hundred years that no one believes any
more in the Powers they once revered. Not only does no one
believe in them, hardly anybody even knows they exist. And
Powers without believers will die. Even the great Pan is two
thousand years dead now.

Heavens, before I could get started, I had to go to the ref-
erence library to look up Chumash charmstones and how
they fit into the rest of the Indians' cult. I found out they
were used not only for making rain, but also in war (they
could make you invisible to arrows), in medicine, and in gen-
eral sorcery. They tied in with other talismans—'atishwin,
the Chumash called those—and with the Powers who
helped the Chumash shamans. And now, by what Bea had
passed to me, they were just little carved chunks of steatite,
as inert as ifthe/d never had any magical intent at all.

I went up to Bea's office, shot the breeze with her secre-
tary (Rose really runs that place; if she ever quit, we'd fall
apart) until she got off the phone, then ducked in fast before
it made noise again. "What's my priority on this Chumash
thing?" I asked her. 'The Devonshire project is taking up a
lot of my time right now."

"I know," she answered. "It still comes first—it's active,
while if the Chumash Powers really are extinct, there's no




114                 Harry Turtledove

hurry about saying so. You'll want to get a more formal inves-
tigation going to check that out one way or the other, have
the thaumaturges see if the Chumash gods of the Upper
World, the First People, or the Nunashish of the Lower
World are still accessible to invocation."

"You've been reading up on this," I said; up until a couple
of minutes before, I'd never heard of the dark, misshapen

Nunaskish.

She grinned at me. "Of course I have. If I knew about
these spirits off the top of my head, they wouldn't be on the
edge of extinction, would they? If it turns out they haven't
gone over the edge, report back to me right away, because
we'll need to try to arrange a preservation scheme—assum-
ing we can afford one."

Doing a cost-benefit analysis to figure out whether it's
worthwhile to save an endangered deity is so coldblooded
that it's one of my least favorite parts of the job. It is, unfortu-
nately, also all too often necessary. As I noted when I saw
Matt Arnold's door Herm, maintaining a cult for a super-
natural being who would otherwise be gone is expensive: it's
the Other Side's equivalent of a captive breeding program
for an animal that's vanished from the wild,

If the Chumash Powers were still alive, somebody—me,
most likely—would have to figure out their role in the local
thecosystem, and whether that role justified the money to
provide worshipers and whatever else they needed. I'd never
been part of the God Squad before. It's an awesome respon-
sibility, when you think about it.

Bea must have seen the look on my face. "Don't get your-
self in an uproar, David- The odds are that these Powers
have just faded away, like so many others the Indians rever-
enced before white folks—and black—settled here. If that's
so, all you'll have to do is write up the report. It's only if the
Nunashish and the rest are still around that you'll have any

bigger worries."

"I know that," I answered- "Actually, I hope they do sur-
vive. But if they do, and if they're very much
enfeebled—which they will be—"

"Yes, I know. Holding a Power's fate in your hands isn't

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      115

easy. In the old days, they were proud of ridding the world of
gods in whom they didn't believe—some of the early Chris-
tian writings, the ones from the time of the Great
Extinctions in Europe, will sicken you with their gloating.
But our ideas are different now; we know everything has its
place in Creation, to be preserved if possible."

"But to be the one who decides if it's possible, and then to
have to live with myself afterwards... it won't be easy, Bea."

"If you wanted a job that was easy all the time, you
wouldn't be here," she said. "Anything else? No? All right,
thank you, David."

I went back to my office and made a couple of calls, got
the ball rolling on the Chumash channstones. Then I plowed
through as much of the more routine stuff as I could before
lunch. If I'd known how bad lunch was going to be, I'd have
worked straight through it. The cafeteria must have assem-
bled the unappetizing glop on my plate with help from the
law of contagion: some time a long while ago, it might have
been in contact with real food. Two crowns ninety-five shot
to—well, you get the idea.

I slid down to my carpet with my spellchecker in my lap.
My stomach made small unhappy noises. Hoping they
wouldn't turn into large unhappy noises, I flew on up into St.
Ferdinand's Valley. The brown dirt and yellow-brown dry
brush of the pass were getting to look very familiar.

The Corderos lived in a neighborhood that had been
upper middle class maybe thirty years before. A lot of the
houses still looked pretty nice, but it wasn't upper middle
class any more. Gang symbols and tags, mostly in Spain-
ish, were scrawled on too many walls, sometimes on top of
one another. And the houses, even the nice-looking ones,
often held three, four, or more families, because that was
the only way the new immigrants could afford to pay the
rent.

The house the Corderos lived in was like that. Three
women and a herd of kids not old enough for school watched
me while I set up the spellchecker. All the men, including
Ramon Cordero, were out working. Lupe held poor little
Jesus and nursed him while she tried to keep track of a

116 Harry Turtledove

toddler who looked just like her.

One of the women—her name was Magdalena—spoke
good English. She translated for me when I said, "First
things first. Let me check that bottle of tonic you were tell-
ing me about, Mrs. Cordero."

Lupe Cordero rattled off something in Spainish. The
woman who wasn't Magdalena disappeared into the back
part of the house. She came back a minute later with a jar
that had started out life holding tartar sauce. It was half full
of a murky brown liquid. Lupe made a face. "Don' taste
good," she said.

I actuated the spellchecker with Passover wine and a
Hebrew blessing. My rite was close enough to what the
women were used to—a Latin prayer and communion
wine—that they didn't remark on it, not even to say I'd omit-
ted the sign of the cross. I was almost disappointed. "Soy
JwKo" is one of the Spainish phrases I do know.

I unscrewed the lid of the ex-tartar-sauce jar, sniffed the
current contents myself. The brown liquid didn't smell like
anything in particular. I reminded myself that Lupe had
drunk it without ill effect, and that Father Flanagan had told
me few curanderos trafficked in—or with—anything dan-
gerous. That reminded me: I asked Lupe, "Want to tell me
the name of the person you got this from?"

She shook her head. "Don' remember," she said stub-
bornly. I shrugged; I hadn't expected anything different.

I started to stick the spellcheckers probe right into the
liquid, but the microimps inside the unit started screaming
as soon as I got the end of the probe over the rim of the jar.
The women exclaimed bilingually. I decided I'd better not
put the probe in until I saw what the spellchecker was
screaming about.

Words started showing up on the ground glass as the
microimps tried to teH me what was wrong. They'd been
programmed to write in what was mirror image for them,
but they were so agitated that they kept forgetting. It didn't
matter, I could follow either style well enough.

The ingredient listing came first: ocdi (maguey beer to
you), ocelot blood, ferret flesh, dragon blood—I blinked a

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

117

little at that one, but the Aztecans have dragons, too. Then
the spellchecker's imps started writing UNIDENTIFIED—
FORBIDDEN over and over and over. I'd never seen the
spellchecker do that before. I never wanted to see it again,
either.

"Ceuak," I muttered under my breath; sometimes Eng-
lish lacks the words you need. I almost wished Judaism had a
convenient gesture like the sign of the cross. I could have
used one just then. To say I was flummoxed is to put it
mildly.

"Let's try it again," I said, as much to steady myself as
for any other reason. I tried again, from square one,
shutting down the spellchecker and reactivating it. You
have to be careful if you do that more than once in a short
time: the spirits inside can take on too many spirits from
the wine and lose memory. But it did make them stop
screaming.

This time I reversed the normal order and had them ana-
lyze the sorcerous component of the tonic, not the physical
ingredients that went into making the complete magic.
That's what I tried to do, at any rate. The screaming started
again as soon as the probe got anywhere near the jar.

I looked at the ground glass to see what the microimps
had to say. They expressed their opinion in two words:

UNIDENTIFIED—FORBIDDEN. They wrote those two
words until the whole screen was full, then started underlin-
ing them. Whatever had gone into that tonic, in analyzing it
I'd sent a boy to do a man's, or maybe a giant's, job.

Even moving the probe away didn't calm the spellchecker
imps. They stopped underlining only when I closed the jar as
tight as I could. Even then, none of the usual commands or
invocations would clear the ground glass or make them stop
screaming. I had to shut down the spellchecker to get them
to shut up.

"Mrs. Cordero, whatever is in this potion, it's very strong
magic and very dark magic," I said. Magdalena translated for
me. "My spellchecker won't even confront it, you see. I want
two things from you, please." She nodded. I went on, "First,
I want to take this jar to a proper thaumaturgical laboratory

118 Harry Turtledove

for full analysis."

"St, take it," she said.

"The other thing I want is the name of the curandero who
sold it to you," I said. "Mrs. Cordero, this stuff is dangerous.
Do you want another mother to have a baby bom like
Jesus?"

"Madre de Dios, no," she exclaimed.

"Good," I answered, more abstractedly than I should have. I
was wondering if the hellbrew in the tartar-sauce jar had
caused all the apsychic births around the Devonshire dump. If
it had, then the biggest part of the case for leaks against the
dump had just collapsed. But if the dump and everybody using
it were innocent, who'd torched the Thomas Brothers
monastery, and why? All at once, nothing made sense.

I pulled my attention back to the tacky little living room in
which I stood (I'm sony, but an image of the Virgin of
Guadalupe, while undoubtedly effective as an apotropaic, is
not to my mind a work of art if it's painted on black velvet in
luridly phosphorescent colors). Lupe Cordero still hadn't
said who the curandero was. I realized she was waiting to be
coaxed. Okay, I'd coax her. "Please, Mrs. Cordero, this infor-
mation is very important."

w)

"You don' tell him who you hear it from?" she asked
anxiously.

I hedged. Til try not to."

To my relief, that was good enough for her. "Okay," she
said. "He call himself Cuauhtemoc Hemandez, and he have
his house up near Van Nuys Boulevard and O'Melveny." I
noted the irony of a curandero operating by a Dutch and
Erse comer; Angels City is changing. Lupe went on, "His
sign, it say curandero in letters red an' green."

'Thanks very much, Mrs. Cordero," I said, and meant
every word of it. I wrote down what she'd told me so I
wouldn't forget it, then left the house and started flying
around looking for a public pay phone. I finally found one
outside a liquor store whose front window said CERVEZA
PRIA in letters three times the size of the ones that adver-
tised COLD BEER.

I called the office from there, and got Rose. When I asked

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      119

to talk to Bea, she said, Tm sony, Dave, she's already on the
phone with someone."

"Could you ask her to come out to your desk, please?" I
said. 'This is important"

One of Rose's many wonderful attributes is her almost
occult sense of knowing when somebody really means some-
thing like that (and if there's a spell to produce the same
effect, way too many secretaries have never heard of it). Half
a minute later, Bea said, "What is it, David?" It had better be
interesting lurked behind her words.

When I'd told her what the spellchecker had done with
Lupe Cordero's potion, she sighed and said, "Well, you were
right that is important Bring it in to the laboratory right
away, David, and we'll see what really is in it Then we and
the constabulary will drop on Mr.—Hemandez, did you say
his name wasp—like a ton of bricks. Most of the time these
curandems are only guilty of venial sin, but desouling a baby
isn't even slighdy venial."

Tf thafs what did it," I said cautiously. "But yeah, I'm on
my way. I'm just glad the lab survived last year's budget cuts."

"So am I," Bea answered.

Farming things out to private alchemists and wizards
would have eaten up just as much budget as maintaining our
own analysis unit specialists, naturally, charge plenty for
their expertise. You're not just paying for what they know
now, but for what learning it cost them. And besides, this
way we didn't have to stand in a queue in case we needed
results in a huny.

As soon as I got back to the Westwood Confederal build-
ing, I took the jar over to the lab. Ifs on the same floor as the
rest of the EPA offices, but tucked into a comer and hedged
around with protective charms not much different from the
ones on the fence outside the Devonshire dump.

Our principal thaumaturgic analyst (bureaucratese for
wizard, in case you're wondering) is a balding blond fellow
named Michael (not Mike) Manstein. He's very good at what
he does; he brings an Alemanic sense of precision and order
to what's too often a chaotic art That he makes me want to
stand at attention and dick my heels every time I go in to

120

Harry Turtledove

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 121

talk with him is by comparison a detail.

"Hello, David," he said, looking up from the table where
he was inscribing a circle with his black-handled knife.
"What can I do for you this afternoon?"

I gave him the tartar-sauce bottle and explained where I'd
got it and how my spellchecker had reacted to it. His eye-
brows came together as he listened; a little vertical crease
appeared just above his nose. I finished, "So I'd like you to
find out what really is in the jar here and what spells made it
strong enough to set off my spellchecker like that. I may
have to exorcise it before I can use it again."

"Interesting." Michael took the jar from me, wrapped it in
a green silk cloth with several magical symbols inscribed on
it in pigeon's blood. "When must you have results from the
analysis?"

"Yesterday would be good," I said. He laughed the small,
polite laugh of a man who not only doesn't have the best
sense of humor ever hatched but also has been besieged by
importunate clients more times than he cares to remember.
I went on, "Seriously, if I can have this tomorrow some time,
that would be great. The stuff is suspected of being involved
in an apsychia case, and may be linked to several others up in
the Valley."

"Ah, I see. This tells me what I need to set my priorities
for the coming work." Michael Manstein is too compulsively
precise'to get sloppy with the language and say things like
prioritize.

'That's nice," I said. Whatever his priorities were, the
potion wasn't at the top of them. He went back to scribing
his circle. I turned to go; trying to hurry Manstein is like fay-
ing to make the sun rise faster. Then I had an afterthought.
"Whose sorcerers tools do you use, Michael?"

He finished the circle before he answered; one thing at a
time with Michael Manstein. "I order them from Bakhtiar's,"
he said at last. 'They've always given me good results."

Back before the Industrial Revolution, a wizard had to be
his own smith, his own woodworker, his own tanner. If he
didn't make his instruments himself—-sometimes right down
to refining the ore from which a metal would be drawn—

they wouldn't be property attuned to him and would give
weak results or none at all.

Modem technology has changed aH that Correct applica-
tion of the law of contagion allows thaumaturgical tools to
keep the mystic links to their original manufacturer even
when someone else uses them, while the law of similarity
permits their attunement to any wizard because of his like-
ness to the mage who made them. Some firms take one
approach, some the other, some seek to combine the two.

Michael asked, "Why do you want to know that?"

"Because I thought you used Bakhtiar's tools," I answered,
"and because Bakhtiar's may be somehow connected to the
jar of potion I just gave you. What I know is that Bakhtiar's
dumps at Devonshire, and there may be an involvement
between the Devonshire dump case and this stuff. Its a cir-
cumstantial link if its there at all, but I figured you ought to
know about it"

"You're right Thank you," Manstein said. "I have a spare
set my father brought with him when he came here from
Alemania after tile First Sorcerous War. I'U use that to make
sure there's no conflict ofsorcerous interest"

"Makes sense," I said. "And Michael—"

"Yes?"

"Be careful ofwhats in that jar. I have the bad feeling ifs
really vicious."

Tin always careful," Manstein said.

The phone yelled at me. I felt like yelling right back. I'd
spend most of Ae morning trying to put together a panel to
investigate the thecological status of the Chumash Indian
Powers, and I wasn't having much luck. Half the people I'd
talked to seemed convinced in advance that the Powers were
extinct and good riddance to them. If you listened to the
other half, you'd move eight million people out of the Bar-
ony of Angels so the Powers could have free rein as they did
in the days when the Chumash lived here.

"David Fisher, Environmental Perfection Agency."
It wasn't any of the thecologists, for which I
thanked God. It was Michael Manstein. He said,




122 Harry Turtledove

could you come down to the laboratory, please? I'd like to
discuss the specimen you brought me for analysis."

"Okay, if you want me to." As soon as I'd heard his voice,
I'd picked up a leadstick and a pad of foolscap. "But can't you
just tell me what's in it over die phone?"

"I'd really rather not," he said. Judging somebody's tone
on the phone is always risky, and Michael wouldn't be
anything but mild and serious even if Ae world started
coming to an end around him. But I didn't dunk he sounded
cheerful.

Some new safety symbols were up around die lab, but I
didn't pay diem any particular attention. Like any wizard
worth his lab robe, Manstein was always fiddling widi his
protective setup. Technology changes all die time; if you
don't keep up, it's your soul you're risking. Michael Manstein
wasn't a man to take risks he could avoid.

"What do you have for me?" I asked as I came dirough
die door. He'd arranged more amulets inside die lab, too; a
lot of diem featured die feadiered serpent. I made die con-
nection. 'Is it as bad as diat?"

He stared at me. His eyes had a slighdy unfocused look
I'd never seen in them before, as if he'd gone fishing for
minnows and hooked die Midgard Serpent. On his lab table
stood die ex-tartar-sauce jar I'd given him. Around it was
scribed a sevenfold circle. Let me put it like dris: diey only
protect die intercontinental megasalamander launch sites
widi eight. It wasn't "as bad as diat," it was worse.

He said, "David, I have been a practicing thaumaturge for
twenty-seven years now." Utterly characteristic of him to be
exact; had it been me, I'd've said somedring like going on
thirty. He went on, "In diat entire period, I do not believe I
have ever seen an abomination oftilis magnitude."

"Enough to cause apsychia in a fetus?" I asked.

"I'm surprised it didn't desoul the modier," he answered.
From anyone else, diat would have been exaggeration for
conversational effect. Michael doesn't talk that way He
handed me a sheet of parchment. "Here are die preliminary
results of die analysis."          •

My eyes swept down die list. For a few seconds, diey

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      123

didn't believe what diey were seeing, just as at first you
refuse to draw meaning from pictures of camp survivors—
and camp victims—of die Second Sorcerous War. Some
horrors are too big to take in all at once.

I went back for a second look. The words, curse diem, did
not change. I made my moudi utter diem: "Human blood,
Michael? Flayed human skin? Are you sure your techniques
distinguish between die substitute and die real thing?
Maybe it was a substitute made dirough contagion radier
dian similarity?" That would be bad enough, but— I was
grasping at straws and I knew it.

But Manstein shook his head. "Probability zero, I'm
afraid. I hoped die same diing, but I didn't just use sorcerous
tests: I also employed mechanical forensic analysis. There
can be no doubt of die actual human component of dlis
elixir."

I gulped. What he'd just told me meant that Lupe Cor-
dero, a very nice girl, was also an unwitting cannibal. I
wondered how anybody was supposed to break diat to her.
Poor kid—all she'd wanted to do was keep her breakfast
down. As if she didn't have troubles enough.

I looked at die diaumaturgical column on die parchment.
Most of it was innocuous, even beneficial: Manstein had
found invocations of die Virgin, the Son (I remembered die
name of Lupe's son), several saints from Aztecia, a couple of
minor demons related (his neatly printed note said) to child-
birth. But diere in die middle of diem, standing out like a
dragon in a fairy ring: "Huitzilopochdi," I said.

"Yes." Michael's understated agreement held a world of
meaning.

Why, I wondered, couldn't die Aztedan war god have been
teetering on die edge of extinction? No one, not even die sort
of people who march to save Medvamps, would have shed a
tear to see him leave die Other Side for wherever gods go
when they die. His influence on This Side has always been
baleful, his power fueled by hearts ripped from human victims.
What maniac, I wondered, had imagined he should be
summoned to strengdien a potion diat exalted life, not gore?

But I knew die answer to diat: Cuauhtemoc Hemandez. I

124                Harry Turtledove

must have said the name out loud, for one of Michael Man-
stein's butter-colored eyebrows rose an eighth of an inch or
so. "The wrandero who made this stuff," I explained.
"Ah," Michael said. The eyebrow went down.
"Have you caBed the constabulary about this yet?" I

asked.

"No; I thought it appropriate that you be the first to

know."

"Thanks." I added, "Thanks twice, in fact I don't think I'll

eat any lunch today, so my waistline thanks you, too."

"Heh, heh," he said, just like that I'm afraid he reaHy is as

straitiaced as that makes him sound.

"We're going to be involved in nailing this cwandero
along with the constables," I said. "I don't remember the last
time anything so nasty got loose in the environment, and
God only knows how many jars are still sitting on shelves in
the nostrums cabinet or next to the sink. If we're real lucky,
Hemandez will have kept records on the women he's sold it
to so he can try and poison them again with something else.
Odds are, though, we'B have to spread the word through the

dailies and the churches."

"Hemandez may not even be totally responsible," Man-

stein said.

"How's that?" I asked indignantly.

The tests I performed seem to me to indicate that the
mfld beneficial influences in the potion were overiain on top
of the already present summoning of Huitzilopochtii," he
answered. The cwandero may not have been aware that the

latter was present."

"If he didn't know it was there, then he's responsible for

being a damned fool," I snapped, and I meant it literally. "He
certainly shouldn't be allowed to run around loose practicing
thaumaturgy and inflicting this garbage"—I pointed at the
tartar-sauce jar—"on innocent, ignorant immigrant women."

There I cannot disagree with you," Michael said. "Do
you want to call the constabulary, or shall I?"

TB do it," I said after a few seconds' thought. Til want to
fly up there with them and be in on the arrest make sure
however much of this potion Hemandez has is sealed and

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      125

then properly disposed of." I wished Solomon had heard of
Huitzilopochtii; that would have made the problem of
sealing the vicious stuff simple. But however effective the
great king's design is with jinni, baalim, and other Middle
Eastern denizens of the Other Side, it's useless against New
World Powers, except those largely subsumed into a
Christian matrix. And Huitzilopochtii, as Manstein's analysis
had shown all too clearly, still had a great deal of
independent potency.

Then something else occurred to me: Hemandez's horri-
ble nostrum might end up in the Devonshire toxic spell
dump. Tasting the irony of that, I went back to my office and
got on the phone.

The first constable I talked to was a fellow named Joaquin
Garda. "Madre de Dios!" he burst out when I told him what
I'd run into. Being of Aztecan descent, he had a culturally
ingrained understanding of just how nasty a power Huitz-
ilopochtii was. I knew it in my head; he felt it in his gut. He
bumped me up to his superior, a sublegate called Higgins,
and he must have given him an earful, too, because Higgins
was the soul of cooperation.

"We'll get going on a warrant for this right away. Inspector
Fisher," he promised. "Any time we get a chance to put one
like that out of business, we leap on it."

He didn't argue when I said I wanted to go along, either;

sometimes constables get stuffy about things like that. I
added, "Better make sure your people are well warded,
Sublegate: with one potion like that around, who knows what
else Hemandez has in there with him?"

"We'll send out the Special Wizards and Thaumaturges
team," Higgins said. "If they can't handle it, nobody this side
ofD.StC. can. I'll call you back as soon as we have the war-
rant. Thanks for passing on the information."

"My pleasure," I told him. "I want this guy shut down at
least as much as you do."

After I got off the ether with Higgins, I went back through
my files and found the names and addresses of the other
three apsychic lads born near the Devonshire dump in the
past year. Then I checked in the phone grimoire; two of the




126 Harry Turtledove

families were tested. I called both those houses and, by luck,
got an answer each time. What I wanted to know was
whether the mothers had bought any potions from
Cuauhtemoc Hemandez.

Both women I talked to answered no. I thanked them and
added the data to my notes, then spent a while scratching my
head. The curandero's nostrum was certainly vile enough to
have caused Jesus Coidero to be born without a soul, but
just because it could have didn't necessarily mean it had. I
kicked myself for not doing a more thorough job around the
Corderos' house, but I didn't kick too hard. When the
microimps in your spellchecker start going berserk, you'd
better pay attention to that

More nearly routine stuff kept me busy the rest of the day.
When Bea walked by my office door in the middle of the
afternoon and saw me there, she raised an eyebrow and said,
"I expected you'd be in die field now."

I'd hoped to get to Bakhtiar's Precision Burins myself, but
it just wasn't working. I said, "I'll probably be out tomorrow
or the next day," and explained what Manstein had found in
the potion I'd brought back from Lupe Cordero's house.

'That's—revolting," she said. "You're right, we need to
clamp down on that as hard as we can. With the enormous
Aztecian population in Angels City, the last thing we need
here is a large-scale flareup of Huitzilopochdism."

"It would make worries over Medvamps rather smaD
potatoes, wouldn't it?" I said.

"I do admire your talent for understatement, David." Bea
headed on down die hall.

Understatement was an understatement. If Huitzilopo-
chdi got established in Angels City, it wouldn't be fruit trees
drained dry, it would be people. I thought about hearts torn
out on secret altars, necromancy, ritual cannibalism a lot less
refined than the genteel Christian variety.

I also thought about all the other bloodthirsty Powers that
would be drawn to the area. The act of human sacrifice is so
powerful a magical instrument that it reverberates through
the Other Side. All sorts of hungry Things would head this
way, wanting their share: "When the gods smelled the sweet

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      127

savor, they gathered like flies above the sacrifice." What
Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh five thousand years ago remains
true today.

They say that's how the horror happened in Alemania. But
the Leader didn't tiy to throw the Powers out Oh, no. He
welcomed them widi open arms and fed them, I dare say,
beyond their wildest dreams.

The whole world has seen what came of that. Not here, I
thought Never ogam.

Courts in Angels City open at half past nine. At exactly
9:37 the next morning (I asked my watch afterwards), I
got a call from Sublegate Higgins. "We have the warrant,"
he said. It was so fast, I wondered if he'd used Maximum
Ruhollah. Maybe not; he operated out of the St. Ferdi-
nand's Valley substation, and he'd be sure to have a local
judge up there under his spell. He went on, "We're mov-
ing out at ten-thirty. If you're not here by then, you'll be
late."

Til be there," I said, and got off the phone. Miserable
cowboy, I thought: everything had to be his way. But I
headed for my carpet as fast as I could; when you're dealing
with people like that, you don't want to give them any excuse
to mess you up.

Just as well I did, too—I made it to the substation with
only about three minutes to spare. Traffic up through the
pass was just ghastly Don't ask me how, but when a big long-
haul transport carpet broke down and had to land, a unicorn
got out of its cage. People on carpets and others riding
pegasi were trying to herd it back to where it belonged, and
weren't having much luck.

As my carpet crawled through the gawkers' block, I won-
dered if they'd have to go to a nunnery to find someone who
could calm the beautiful beast. Given Angels City's reputa-
tion, they might have had a tough time finding a virgin
outside of one. Catching the unicorn, thank God, was not my
worry.

When I finally did get to the constabulary station, Higgins
gave me a disapproving look so perfectly flinty he must have

128                 Harry Turtledove

practiced it in the nun-or. He introduced me to the SWAT
team, who looked more like combat soldiers than highly
trained mages. I nodded to the thaumatech. "We've met

before."

"So we have." It was Bomholm. "You came up to the

Thomas Brothers fire."

"That's right. I still envy you your spellchecker."

"Enough chitchat," Higgins said. "Let's fly."

I'd never ridden on a black-and-white carpet before. Let
me tell you, those things are hot. As we shot up the flyways
to the curandero's place, I reflected that the sylphs in the
constabulary carpet could have used a little discipline them-
selves. A couple of turns would have tossed me off on my ear
if I hadn't been wearing my belt But we got there in a huny.

Hemandez's house was on O'Melveny, a couple of lots
east of Van Nuys. I hadn't known whether he had a store-
front for his death shop, but no, it was just a little old house
with a hand-lettered sign—in green and red, as Lupe Cor-
dero had told me—that said CURANDERO nailed onto the

front porch.

Watching the SWAT team operate was something else,
too. Police carpets aren't bound by the governing speBs that
restrict ordinary vehicles to their flyways. The mages drew
an aerial ward circle around Hemandez's establishment from
above before anybody landed. Whatever he had in there,
they weren't about to give him a chance to use it. Constables
don't live to enjoy their grandchildren by taking risks they

don't have to.

Sublegate Higgins used an insulated umbrella (same prin-
ciple as the footbridge at the Devonshire dump, but applied
upside down) to penetrate the circle. With him came four of
the SWAT team wizards, Bomholm the thaumatech with her
fancy spellchecker, and, bringing up the rear, yours truly. All
the firepower that preceded me—the constables were
armed for any sort of combat, physical as well as magical—
made me wish I was one of the mild-mannered bureaucrats
the public imagines all government workers to be; I wouldn't
have minded falling asleep at my desk just then.

Bomholm said, "The spellcheckers already sniffing some-

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

129

thing nasty up ahead."

Higgins rapped on the door. Now the boys from the
SWAT team stood on either side of him, ready to kick it
down. But it opened. I don't know what I'd expected
Cuauhtemoc Hemandez to look like, but an Aztecan version
of your well-loved grandfather wasn't it He had white hair,
spectacles, and, until he took in the crowd on his front porch,
a very pleasant expression.

That faded in a hurry, to be replaced by bewilderment.
"What you want?" he asked in accented English.

'You are Cuauhtemoc Hemandez, the curandero?" Hig-
gins said formally.

"S{, but—" The old man smiled. "You need what I got,
senor? Maybe you have trouble keeping your woman
happy?"

From the way the back of Higgins' neck went purple
and then white, maybe he did have trouble keeping his
woman happy. But he was a professional; his voice didn't
change as he went on, "Mr. Hemandez, I have here a war-
rant permitting the Angels City Constabulary to search
these premises for substances contravening various sec-
tions of city, provincial, and Confederal ordinances
dealing with controlled sorcerous materials, and another
warrant for your arrest on a charge of dispensing such ma-
terials. You are under arrest, sir. Anything you say may be
used against you."

Hemandez stared as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"Senor, you must be mistaken," he said with considerable
dignity. "I am just a curandero; I don't hardly do no magic
worth the name."

"Did you sell a potion to a pregnant woman named Lupe
Cordero a few months ago?" I asked: "One that was sup-
posed to fight morning sickness and keep the baby healthy?"

"I sell lots of these potions," he said, shrugging. "It could
be."

"Lupe Cordero's baby was born without a soul," I told
him.

He went pale under his swarthy skin; had he started off
fair, he would have ended up the color of his shining hair. He

130 Harry Turtledove

crossed himself violently. "No!" he cried. "It cannot be!"

"I'm afraid it is, Mr. Hemandez," I said, remembering
Michael Manstein's speculation that the cwandsro might
not even know what all was going into his nostrums. I went
on, "Sorcerous analysis of your potion shows that part of its
power comes from ingredients and spells consecrated to
Huitzilopochdi."

Like any Aztecans, he knew of the gods his people had
worshiped before the Spainish came to the New World. He
got paler still; he reminded me of a cup of coffee into which
you kept pouring more cream. "In the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, sefior, I did not use this, this
poison of blood."

"But it was there," I said.

"It's still there," Bornholm the thaumatech added. "I can
detect it inside the house. Nasty stuff."

"Stand aside, Mr. Hemandez," Higgins said in a voice like
doom. The curandero stood aside, as if caught in a night-
mare from which he couldn't wake up. One of the fellows
from the SWAT team took charge of him. The rest of us
walked past them into the house.

It was none too neat in there; my guess was that he lived
alone. A black-framed picture of a gray-haired woman on the
mantle put more force behind the guess.

If he followed Huitzilopochdi, he sure didn't let it show.
The front room had enough garish Catholic images to stock a
couple of churches, assuming you put quality ahead of quan-
tity. Candles flickered in front of a carved wooden statuette
of the Virgin. I glanced at Bomholm. She nodded; the little
shrine was what it appeared to be.

One of the bedrooms was messy; it got a lot messier after
the boys from the SWAT team finished trashing it The
kitchen was pretty bad, too: Hemandez was not what you'd
call the neat kind of widower. The SWAT team started in
there as soon as they were done with the bedroom.

What had been the den was the curandero's laboratory
these days. A lot of the things in there were about what you'd
expect to find in an Aztecian healer's workroom: peyoti
mushrooms (few more effective aids in reaching the Other

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      131

Side), bark of the olotuhqu plant (which has similar effects
but isn't as potent: it's related to jimsonweed), a potion of
xiuh-amoUi root and dog urine that was supposed to prevent
hair loss. Personally, I'd rather be bald.

Hemandez had had his triumphs, too: a glass bowl held
dozens of what looked like tiny obsidian arrow points. Either
they were a fraud to impress his patients or he'd been pretty
good at curing elf-shot (from which the Aztecans suffer as
badly as the Alemans, although Alemanian elves generally
make their arrowheads out of flint).

We also found an infusion for invoking Tiazol-teteo, the
demon of desire: not, apparently, to provoke lust, but rather
to put it down. The infusion had a label written in Spainish
on it. Bomholm the thaumatech translated it for us: "To be
used together with a hot steam bath.'" She laughed. "I
wouldn't be homy after a steam bath anyhow, I don't think."

If that had been all the curandero was up to, the visit by
the SWAT team would have been a waste of taxpayers' hard-
earned crowns. But it wasn't. Bomholm went over to a table
in one comer of the room. She looked at her spellchecker in
growing concern. "It's here somewhere, in amongst this
gynecological stuff," she muttered.

Again, a lot of the stuff you could find at any curandero's:

leaves for rubbing against a new mother's back to relive
afterpangs, herbs to stimulate milk in women with new
babies, a douche of ayo nelhuati herb and eagle dung for
pregnant women: all more or less harmless. But with them—

"Bingo!" Bornholm said when she opened a jar of clear
liquid. I already knew her spellchecker was more sensitive
and powerful than mine; now she showed that, being a con-
stabulary model, it was also better protected against malign
influences. Her face twisted as she read from the ground
glass: 'The microimps are reporting human blood and flayed
human skin, all right. Disgusting."

"Bring Hernandez in here," Sublegate Higgins ordered.
As soon as a couple of fellows from the SWAT team had
done so, Higgins pointed at the jar and said, "What's in there,
you?"

"In that jar?" Hemandez said. "Is ferret blood and a little

132 Harry Turtledove

bit dragon's blood. Is for mostly the ladies who are going to
have babies. They get the—" He ran out of English and said
something in Spainish.

"Hemorrhoids," Bomholm translated. "Yeah, I've heard of
that one." She gave the curandero a look on whose receiving
end I wouldn't have wanted to be. "Brew this up yourself,
did you?"

"No, no." Hemandez shook his head vehemently.
"Dragon blood is muy caro—very expensive. I buy this mix
from another man—he say he is a curandero, too—at one of
the, how you say, swap meets they have here. He give me
good price, better than I get from anybody else ever."

"I believe that," I told him. 'The reason you got such a
good price is that it's not what he told you it was. Tell us
about this fellow. Is he young? Old? Does he come to the
swap meets often?"

You can find just about anything at a swap meet, and
cheap. Sometimes it's even what the dealer says it is. But a
lot of the time the fairy gold ring you got will turn to brass or
lead in a few days, the horological demon in your watch will
go dormant or escape—or what you think is medicine will
turn out to be poison. The constabulary and the EPA do
their best to keep the meets honest, but it's another case of
not enough men spread way too thin.

Hemandez said, "He calls himself Jose. He's not young,
not old. Just a man. I see him a few times. He is not regular
there."

Sublegate Higgins and I looked at each other. He looked
disgusted. I didn't blame him. An ordinary guy named Jose
who showed up at swap meets when he felt like it... what
were the odds of dropping on him? About the same as the
odds of the High Priest in Jerusalem turning Hindu.

That's what I thought, anyhow. But Bomholm said, "If we
can put a spellchecker at the dealers' gates at a few of these
places, I'll bet they'll pick this stuff up—its that strong. I'D
work weekends without overtime to try, and I'll be shocked if
some other thaumatechs don't say the same thing. Everybody
knows about Huitzilopochdi; no one wants him loose here."

Greater love hath no public servant than volunteering for

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      133

extra work with no extra pay. Folks who carp about the con-
stabulary and about bureaucracy in general have a way of
forgetting people like Bomholm, and they shouldn't,
because there are quite a few of them.

I said, "If you'll lend me one of these fancy spellcheckers,
I'll take a Sunday shift myself. I know a lot of people would
rather worship than work then, but that's not a problem for
me."

"I think I'll take you up on that," Higgins said after a few
seconds' thought I'd figured he would; the constabulary
doesn't draw a whole lot of Jews. I wrote down my home
phone number and gave it to him. "You'll hear from me," he
promised.

"I hope I do." I have to confess: I had an ulterior motive,
or at least part of one. The dealers at a swap meet get in
early, so they can set up. I figured I'd bring Judy along, and
after we were done with the checking (assuming we didn't
find anything), we could spend the rest of the day shopping.
Like I said, you can find just about anything at a swap meet

v

A couple of days after we put Cuauhtemoc Hemandez
out of business, Sublegate Higgins did indeed call me to set
up Sunday surveillance at one of the Valley swap meets. That
evening, I called Judy to see if she could come along with
me. As I'd hoped, she could. After we'd made the date, we
kept on talking about the whole expanding case for a while.

I was saying, "If Hemandez can show he gave Lupe Cor-
dero that vile potion out of ignorance rather than malice,
he'll get a lighter sentence than he would otherwise."

°I don't think ignorance is a proper defense in case like
that," Judy said. "If a cwandero doesn't know what he's
doing, he has no business trying to do it." Dealing with gri-
moires every dav, she takes an exacting view of magic and its
abuses.

135




136                 Harry Turtledove

"I'm not sure I agree with you," I said. 'Intent counts for a
great deal in sorcery. It—" I heard a noise from the front
part of the flat and broke off. "Listen, let me call you back. I
think somebody's at the door."

I went out to see who it was: most likely one of my neigh-
bors wanting to borrow the proverbial cup of sugar, I figured.
But somebody wasn't at the door, he was already inside, sit-
ting on a living room chair. I could still see the chair through
him, too, so it was somedisembody.

"How'd you get in here?" I demanded; as I may have said,
I have more than the usual line of home security cantrips. I
gave fair warning: "I forbid thee, spirit, in the name of
God—Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah—to enter within this house.
Depart now, lest I smite thee with the consecrated blasting
rod of power." You don't (or you'd better not) bluff when you
say you're packing a rod; mine was in the hall closet behind

me.

But the spirit didn't move. Calm as could be, he said, "I
think you'B want to reconsider that." He traced a glowing
symbol in the air.

If you've ever been to a light-and-magic thrillshow, you
probably think you know that symbol. As a matter of fact,
the one you think you know isn't the genuine article: close,
but not quite. Only specially authorized beings may sketch
the true symbol and have it take fire for them. I happen to
know the difference. My eyes got wide. An ordinary Joe like
me never expects to meet a real spook from Central
Intelligence.

"What do you want with me?" I asked hoarsely.

The CI spook looked me over. "We take an interest in
HuitzilopochUi," he said. "Maybe you'll tell me what you
know about the recent manifestation you uncovered."

So I told him. And as I talked, I found myself wondering
just what the devil I was getting into. Every step into the
toxic spell dump case seemed to drag me deeper into a pol-
luted ooze from which I feared I'd be lucky to escape with
my soul intact

After I was through, the spook sat there for quite a while
without saying anything. I watched him, I watched the chair

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

137

through him, and I tried to figure out how the puzzle pieces
fit together. Evidently my visitor from Central Intelligence
was doing the same thing, because he finally said, "In your
opinion, what, if anything, is the relationship between die
various elements you have outlined: the leaking spell dump,
the monastery arson, the possibilities inherent in the Garuda
Bird project, the decline of the local Powers, and this trouble
with the curcmdero and his potions?"

"I didn't think there was any connection between the
Chumash and the rest of the mess," I exclaimed; that hadn't
even occurred to me. "As for the other things, I'm still dig-
ging, and so is the Angels City constabulary. If you want my
gut feeling, I think some of the other things will prove tied
together, but I don't see how right now—and I don't have
any sort of evidence to back me up."

"Never underestimate the value of gut feelings," the
spook said seriously. "You ignore them at your peril. The
finding at Central Intelligence is essentially the same as
yours; otherwise they would not have sent out a spectral
operative"—thafs spook-talk for spook—"to bring an over-
view back to D.StC."

Etheric transport is of course a lot quicker than the fastest
carpet: the spook could just cut directly through the Other
Side from the District of St. Columbaand back, a privilege
denied to all mere mortals save a handful of saints, dervishes,
and boddhisatvas, none of whom, for various good reasons,
was likely to be in the employ of Central Intelligence.

I said, "Since you've come crosscountry to interview
me"—that seemed a politer phrase than interrogate me—
"maybe you'll tell me something, too." When the spook
didn't say no, I went on, "Is this case somehow connected
with worries about the Third Sorcerous War?"

The spook got up from the chair, took a couple of steps
toward me. "How did you make that connection?"

His voice was quiet, and cold as hemlock moving up
toward the heart. He took another step in my direction. I
don't have a big front room; he was already halfway across it.
Three more steps and he could do— I didn't know what, but
I'd read enough spy thrillers to make some guesses: reach

138                Harry Turtledove

inside my head and pinch off an arteiy, maybe. Unless a
good forensic sorcerer helped do my autopsy, I'd go into the
Thomas Brothers' demographic records as just another case

of apoplexy, younger than most.

I slapped backward, yanked open the closet door,
whipped out the blasting rod, and pointed it at the spook's
midsection. "Back off!" I told him. This rod is primed and
ready—all I have to do is say the Word and you're cooked."
Of course, my flat would be cooked, too; a rod operates on
This Side as well as the Other. But I figured I had a better
chance of escaping from a burning flat than from a CI

spook.

He stood very still. He didn't come forward, but he didn't

move back, not even when I thrust the rod out toward him.
As he had before, he said, "I think you'll want to reconsider
that. Unless you're packing something very much out of the
ordinary, you'll hurt your books and furniture much more

than me."

I knew the military had developed some high-level

protection for their own spectral operatives; it seemed
reasonable that a Central Intelligence spook would enjoy the
same shielding. Come to that, some of the goetic technology
has trickled down to the Underworld, which makes

constables unhappy. On the other hand—

'This is a Mage Abramelin Mogen David Special," I said.
"I don't care how well you're warded against Christian or
Muslim magic: this is the fire that dealt with Sodom and

Gomorrah."

Now the spook backed up. Being transparent, his features

were hard to make out, but I thought he looked thoughtful.
"You could be bluffing," he said.

"So could you."

"Impasse." He went back to the chair, sat down again. I
lowered the rod, but I didn't let go of it The spook said,
"Since we are uncertain of each othefs powers, shall we pro-
ceed as if the recent unpleasantness had not taken place?
Let me ask you again, with no threat intended or implied,
why you believe this case my be connected to national secu-
rity issues."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

139

"Well, for one thing, why would you have walked through
my door if it weren't?" I said.

The spook grimaced mistily. "Heisenberg's Thaumaturgic
Principle: the mere act of observation magically affects that
which is being observed. I console myself by remembering
I'm not the first to fall victim to it, nor shall I be the last."

I didn't want any kind of spook, not even a philosophical
one, in my front room. I went on, "If it makes you feel any
better, I was worried about it before I ever set eyes on you.
Too many big Powers involved: Beelzebub, the whole Per-
sian mess I haven't got to the bottom of yet, now
Huitzilopochdi." I didn't mention Charlie Kelly. I wasn't sure
he deserved my loyalty, not any more, but he still had it.

"I must advise you to keep your suspicions to yourself,"
the spook said after a longish pause {he might as weU have
been on the telephone ran through my mind—one of those
maddening bursts of irrelevance that will pop up no matter
what you do). "Reaching the wrong ears, your prophecy
could become self-fulfilling."

"It might help if you'd tell me which ears are the wrong
ones." If I sounded plaintive, can you blame me?

He shook his murky head. "No, for two reasons. First, the
information is classified and therefore not to be casually dis-
seminated under any circumstances. And second, the more
you know, the more apt you are to betray yourself to those
who may have reason to be interested in your knowledge.
Your basic assumption should be that no one may be privy to
your speculations. If anyone with whom you come into con-
tact shows undue interest in this area, summon me at once
from Central Intelligence headquarters in D.SfcC."

"How do I get hold of you in particular?" I asked—I
mean. Central Intelligence has a lot of spooks on the payroll.

"My name is Legion," he said. "Henry Legion." He
turned around, walked out through my chair and wall, and
was gone.

Next day, thank God, was Friday. Traffic was light going
in, as it often is on Friday mornings. I wasn't fooled; I knew
I'd have the usual devilish time getting home. I tried not to




140                 Harry Turtledove

think about that. Maybe, I told myself as I floated up the ele-
vator shaft, I'd have myself a nice easy day, knock off early,
and beat the weekend crunch on St James' Freeway.

I walked into my office, took one look at the IN basket,
and screamed. Sitting there was one of the ugliest Confed-
eral forms ever designed. In big block letters, the cover said,
REQUEST   FOR   ENVIRONMENTAL   IMPACT
REPORT. Slightly smaller letters added, PROPOSED
IMPORTATION OF NEW SPECIES INTO BARONY OF

ANGELS.

Having got the scream out of my system, I merely moaned
as I sank into my chair. Who, I wondered, wanted to bring
what into Angels City, and why? I just wished Huitzilopochdi
had to fill out all the forms he'd need to establish himself
here legally: we'd be free of him till Doomsday, or maybe

twenty minutes longer.

Huitzilopochtii and his minions, unfortunately, didn't
bother with forms. With trembling fingers, I picked up the
report request and opened it. Somebody, it seemed, was
proposing to schlep leprechauns over from the Auld Sod in
hibemiation, revive them once they got here, and establish a
colony in Angels City.

At first glance it looked reasonable. We have a good num-
ber of Erse here, and a lot more who pretend they are when
St. Padraig's Day rolls around. The leprechauns wouldn't
have any trouble feeling at home in Angels City. Tracking the
litde critters to their pots of gold would help a few poor folk
pay off the mortgage. The odds were about like winning the
lottery, but who doesn't plunk down a few crowns on the lot-
tery every now and again?

The way of environmental issues, though, is to get more
complicated the longer you look at them. Figuring out how
leprechauns would affect the local thecology wasn't going to
be easy: tracing the interactions of beings from This Side is
complicated enough, but when you start having Powers

involved—

I moaned again, medium loud. One of the things I'd have

to examine was the impact importing leprechauns would
have on the Chumash Powers (assuming those weren't

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      141

extinct). If the Chumash Powers were still around, hanging
by a metaphorical fingernail, would bringing in leprechauns
rob them of the tiny measure of devotion they needed to
survive?

Bea walked by the open door just in time to hear that
moan. She stuck her head into the office. "Why, David,
whatever is the matter?" she asked, as if she didn't know.

This," I said, pointing to the orange cover of the environ-
mental impact report request. "Do you by any chance have a
spell for making days forty-eight hours long so I can do
everything I'm supposed to?"

"If I did, I'd use it myself," she said, "but I don't think
God's been in the habit of holding back the sun since
Joshua's day."

'This is going to be a bear to handle," I said, "especially on
top of the Devonshire dump case and the Chumash extinc-
tion study—" St. Elmo's fire came on above my head, just
like you see in the cartoons. 'That's why you passed it on to
me: so I could run it parallel to the Chumash project."

That's right, David." She smiled sweetly. Bea isn't what
you'd call pretty, but she can look almost angelic sometimes:

being sure you're on the right path will do that for you, I
guess. She went on, "I figured it would be better to have
both of them in your hands than to make two people run
back and forth checking with each other all the time and
maybe working at cross purposes."

"Okay," I said; put that way, it made sense. Bea didn't get
to be boss of my unit on the strength of an angelic smile; she
has a head on her shoulders.

The easiest way to handle the issue would be to work up
two scenarios," she said: "one for the leprechauns' environ-
mental effects without worrying about the Chumash powers,
the other assuming those Powers do still manifest them-
selves here."

'Yeah, that makes sense." I scribbled a note on a scrap of
foolscap on my desk. "Thanks, Bea."

"Any time," she said, sweetly still, and went off to inflict
impossible amounts of work on someone else. To be fair, I
have to admit she worked like a team ofPercherons herself.

142 Harry Turtledove

And she had put her finger on the most efficient way to
handle the two studies side by side. They still wouldn't be
easy or quick. I'd have to design simulations approximating
the immediate effect of leprechauns on the thecology of
Angels City with and without taking into account the Chu-
mash Powers. Then an EPA wizard would animate the
simulations and follow them under the crystal ball as far into
the future as he could, noting changes every year or two until
the images faded into uncertainty.

I'd have to justify every assumption I used in my initial
simulations, too. The people who wanted to import lepre-
chauns in carpetioad lots and the folk who were convinced
bringing in even one wee fellow would disrupt the local the-
cosystem would both be preparing their own models and
running them under crystal balls. I'd need to demonstrate
that mine were the most accurate representations of what
was likely to happen.

All of which meant that I didn't get out to Bakhtiar's Pre-
cision Burins that afternoon, let alone Chocolate Weasel.
And neither I nor anybody else did any fancy spellchecker
sniffing around the Devonshire dump to try to find out just
what (if anything) was leaking out.

People long for the days (or at least they say they do)
when the king ruled instead of reigning, when the power of
the barons was undiluted, when the prime minister kept
quiet and did what he was told. They say the government's
gotten too big, too complex.

Maybe they're right some of the time. I couldn't teD you for
sure; politics is a brand of theology that never excited me. But I
will tell you this: some important EPA work wasn't getting
done because my department didn't have enough people to
deal with projects as fast as they came up. Am I supposed to
assume we're the only government outfit with that problem?

I know I worked overtime that night; I made it to the
synagogue with bare minutes to spare before the rabbi
started singing L'khah dodi to welcome in the Sabbath. Judy
was sitting so close to the front on the women's side that she
didn't even see me come in. I didn't manage to nod at her—
let alone say hello—until the service was done.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

"I was afraid you weren't coming," she said after we
hugged.

"Work." I made it sound like the four-letter word it was.
"Listen, have you eaten yet?" I grimaced when she nodded.
"All right, you want to come along with me anyhow? I'll get
you pie and coffee or something. I flew straight here from
the office."

"Sure," she said. "Where do you want to go?"

We ended up at a Lenn/s not far from the synagogue: a
step up from the Golden Steeples, a step down from a real
restaurant. I just wanted to feed my face—and they do have
pretty fair pie.

And besides, I thought, remembering Henry Legion, it
wasn't a place that was likely to have a Listener planted in it.

I hadn't called Judy back to tell her about the spook: by
the time he got out of my flat, I was imagining people (and
Things) listening to my phone calls. When I was through, she
stared at me for a few seconds. Then she said, "You're not
making that up," in a tone of voice that meant she'd been
wondering right up to the end.

"Not a bit of it." I was a little hurt she had trouble believ-
ing me, but only a little, because I would have had trouble
believing a story like that from anybody else. I mean, people
don't just start having visits from spooks with threatening
manners . . . except I did. I added, "From what he said,
maybe I shouldn't be telling you any of this."

"David Fisher, if you even thought of keeping me in the
dark, I'd show your picture to a mirror and then break the
mirror," she said indignantly.

"I sort of expected as much," I said. 'Thing is, from what
Henry Legion said, it's liable to get dangerous."

"You didn't worry about that when you took me to the
Thomas Brothers fire—"

I tried to interrupt: "I didn't take you there; you invited
yourself."

She rode over me like the demon horses of the Wild
Hunt. "—and you invited me to the swap meet with you day
after tomorrow."

"I did that before the spook showed up," I muttered.

Harry Turtledove

"Do you want me not to come?" she said. "Do you want
me not to go back to your flat with you tonight? Do you want,
me not to bother going ahead with the arrangements for the;.
wedding? Do you think I'm afraid? Don't you see I want to'
get to the bottom of this as badly as you do?"

I did the only thing I could possible do at that particular
moment: I surrendered. I did it literally—I took a white
handkerchief out of my pocket and waved it in the air
between us. Judy, bless her, went from furious to giggling in
the space of a second and a half. The waitress who'd been
about to refill my coffee cup undoubtedly figured I'd gone
out of my mind, but that was a small price to pay for keeping
my fiancee happy.

Only trouble was, I was land of afraid myself.

After sunset Saturday, I flew up to St. Ferdinand's Valley to
pick up the heavy-duty constabulary spellchecker. An
advantage of dealing with the constabulary is that they never
close (given human nature, they'd better not). A disadvantage
is that their parchmentwork is even more cumbersome than
what the EPA uses (and if you didn't think that was possible,
you're not the only one). By the language of their forms, they
figured I'd abscond with the gadget the second their backs
were turned unless I promised not to in writing ahead of time.

"Why don't you just lay a geas on me?" I asked
sarcastically.

"Oh no, sir," said the clerk who kept shoving parchments
at me. 'That would be a violation of your rights." Apparently
signing away my life wasn't.

Because I spent so long signing forms, I didn't get back to
my place until going on ten. I lugged the spellchecker
upstairs (it was nominally portable, but being part troll didn't
hurt if you wanted to carry it more than a few feet), put it
down so I could open the door, picked it up again with a
grunt, and set it down in the middle of the front room.

"It's about time you got back," Judy said. "I was starting to
worry about you."

"Forms," I said, and tried to make it sound as blasphe-
mous as one of your more usual maledictions. I must have

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      145

managed, because Judy laughed. I stretched. Something in
my back went pop. It felt good. I suspected I'd lost about
half an inch of height manhandling the spellchecker up to
my flat. Maybe the pop meant I was getting it back again. I
glared at the gadget "Miserable thing."

"Twenty years ago, there weren't any portables," Judy
reminded me. "Ten years ago, one with the capacity of the
'checker in your closet would have been bigger and heavier
than this beast. Ten years from now, they'll probably pack
even more microimps into a case you can cany around in
your hip pocket."

'Too bad they haven't done it yet," I grumbled, and
stretched some more.

Judy gave me a sidelong look. "Are you trying to tell me
you want me to get on top tonight?"

"If that's what you'd like," I said. Far as I can see, it's won-
derful either way, or any others your imagination conjures
up.

She asked her watch what time it was. A tiny vertical
frown line appeared between her eyes.

"Whatever we do, let's do it soon. We're going to have to
get up early to make it to the Valley when the swap meet
dealers start coming in."

So we did it soon, and it was fine. Judy is one of the most
thoroughly pragmatic people I've ever met, but that doesn't
keep her from being able to enjoy herself. It just means she
makes sure she blocks out the time in which to enjoy herself.

My alarm clock woke us up much too early on an other-
wise perfectly good Sunday morning, then laughed at us as
we staggered around like a couple of the not-quite-living
dead. I swore I'd have to get a new clock one day soon. I
think I've said that before, but this time I really meant it.

I showered, then shaved while Judy went in after me. I
was dressed by the time she came out, and fixed breakfast
while she got that thick, wavy hair of hers dry. Scrambled
eggs, toast, coffee—very basic. I threw the dishes in the sink
for later, did my he-man weightiifting routine with the con-
stabulary spellchecker, and offwe went

They hold the Sunday morning swap meet at the Mason

146 Harry Turtledove

Fly-In. By night it's the biggest outdoor light-and-magic
house in the Valley. By day it's just an enormous parking lot,
so they get some extra use—and some extra crowns—out of
the space.

Because we were good and early, we got to park dose to
the dealers' entrance, for which my overworked back was
heartily grateful. The only people there were a couple of
guards drinking coffee from a big jug. They looked like (and
turned out to be) sunlighting off-duty constables.

Their names were Luke and Pete; I had trouble
remembering which one was which. They both had the same
short, dark hair, the same watchful eyes, the same big
shoulders. They'd been told we were coming—somebody
was on the ball there. They helped set up the spellchecker at
the side of the gate, then poured more coffee for Judy and
me. It was nice and hot; the jug must have had a tiny
salamander in the base.

Some of the new storage vessels have a salamander on
one side and an ice elemental on the other, so they can keep
hot things hot and cold things cold. The only problem is, you
don't want to drop them. If the partition between the two
elementals breaks, they fight like cats and dogs.

I explained what I was looking for, and why. Both guards
looked grim. Pete—or maybe it was Luke—said, "I hope you
nail the bastard. I got three kids at home; I don't like think-
ing about anything like that happening to one of 'em.°

Luke—or was it Pete?—pointed to the spellchecker and
said, "I wish that thing could spot theft along with sorcery. It
would sure make the department's life a lot easier."

Pete(?)—anyway, the other one—said, "I was at a briefing
about theft detectors a couple of weeks ago. From what I
heard, they operate by spotting guilt in a perpetrator's soul.
Trouble is, most perpetrators don't feel enough guilt to set
'em off."

Judy said, "1 understand they've recently identified the
sorcerous component of intent. That may make some new
lands of anti-theft magic possible, provided the discrimina-
tion spell routines are sensitive enough to tell real larceny
from a merchant's legitimate appetite for profit"

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

147

The guards had given her the usual looks a man gives an
attractive woman. They were polite about it—nothing to
bother her or me. Now they looked at her in a different way.
I'd seen that happen a lot of times before, when people real-
ized how sharp she was. I just smiled; I've known it for years.

"I sure hope they make something like mat work," Pete
said. "An awful lot of stuff you see here is stolen. Everybody
knows it, but how do you prove it? If you could—"

"It'll happen," Judy said. "Not tomorrow, probably not the
day after, either, but ifU happen. The principles are there.
The gremlins are in engineering the actuating sorcery and
the support systems."

"By God, I'd cheer for anything that made my job easier
for once," Pete said.

"I'd cheer louder if I thought the techniques would just
be used for tracking down thieves, but I've got a bad feeling
they won't," Judy said. The more effective magic becomes,
the more the powers that be will use it to poke into ordinary
people's lives. That's the way things seem to work, anyhow."

Pete and Luke represented the powers that be. Now they
looked at each other, but neither of them said anything—I
told you they were polite. For that matter, I'm part of the
powers that be, too, but I stood with Judy on this one. Peo-
ple often don't realize how precious just being left alone is.

Even if the guards had decided to aigue, we'd have been
too busy to cany it very far: dealers started showing up. Pete
and Luke checked their permits and made sure they'd paid
for their stall space. Judy and I monitored the spellchecker
as they came through the gateway. Some of them had their
goods and stall setups on carts that they pushed or pulled,
others piled them onto little carpets. That sort isn't
Byway-legal, but ifs awfully handy for hauling things around.

Quite a few dealers weren't happy about passing in front
of a spellchecker. "What is this, the airport?" one of them
grumbled.

So many dealers asked questions that my spiel got real
smooth real fast By the time the first four or five had gone
by, I'd taken out my EPA sigil and set it on top of the spell-
checker. I'd point to it and say, "We're looking for a very

148 Harry Turtledove

specific contaminant that we have reason to believe is being
sold at swap meets, perhaps unwittingly. Nothing else we
notice will get cited."

That probably wasn't quite true; if somebod/d come by
with something as conspicuously illegal as a crate of black
lotuses (better known as Kali's flowers), for instance, we
wouldn't have let him take them in. But, to my relief, noth-
ing like that happened, and the explanation kept the dealers
from getting antsy.

Heavens, what a lot of stuff there was! Clothes, food, jew-
elry, nostrums (the microimps in the spellchecker seemed
dubious a few times, but not dubious enough to make me
stop anybody), ethemet receiver imp modules (I wondered
how many of those were stolen), toys both mechanical and
sorcerous, guitars, grimoires (Judy looked more than scorn-
ful at the quality)—I could go on for a lot longer.

The dealers were as varied as the stuff they sold: men,
women, blonds, blacks, Aztedans, Persians, Hanese, Samo-
ans, Indians in dhotis and saris, the other flavor Indians in
feathers. I watched one bronze-sldnned fellow slip out of his
work shirt and put on a feather bonnet. He noticed me
watching him, grinned land of sheepishly. "Gotta look
authentic if you want the people to buy your medicine,
man," he said as he pushed his cart past me.

"Why not?" I answered agreeably. I glanced down at the
spellchecker. From what the microimps had to say about
them, the medicines weren't strong enough to be worth buy-
ing. I wondered if the alleged Indian was even as genuine as
the stuff he sold.

The next fellows through were a pair of Aztecans. The
had a rug with their stuff on it, and were chatting with each
other in Spainish.

Judy gave me a hard shot in the ribs with her elbow.
"Huh?" I said. Then I looked at the ground glass in the
spellchecker. If they hadn't been trained to tell what they
were sensing, the litde imps would have run and hid. As it
was— My stomach lurched when I saw what they reported.
"Hold on there, you two," I said sharply

They hadn't noticed me or the spellchecker. "What's the

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      149

matter?" one of them asked at die same time as the other
one said, "Who are you?"

I picked up my sigil. "Environmental Perfection Agency,"
I said. "What do you have in those boxes?"

"Nostrums," one of them answered. "I got a friend, his
brother-in-law hunts dragons down in Aztecia. He gets the
blood, sells some to us, we dilute it, sell some here. Every-
body makes some money."

He didn't sound like a crook, just a fellow doing a job.
That's what he looked like, too, he and his friend both: ordi-
nary guys in work shoes and jeans, cotton tunics and caps.
The first thing you leam is, you can't tell by looking. Pete and
Luke came alert They didn't move toward us, not yet, but
they quivered like lycanthropes just before the full moon
rises.

"Which one of you is Jose?" Judy asked suddenly.

The one in die red cap jerked in surprise. "How'd you
know diat, lady?"

I unreeled die long probe from die spellchecker (actually,
I wished I had one of diose eleven-foot Rumanians). Tm
going to have to ask you to open one of diose jars of dragon
blood for me," I said.

Jose shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" He flipped the lid off
one of die boxes. The jars inside looked like die ones
Cuauhtemoc Hemandez kept in his workroom. Once upon a
time, die/d held mayonnaise. Now... As soon as Jose un-
screwed a top, I knew what diey held: Judy, who was at die
spellchecker, made a small, strangled noise. I'd told her what
kind of stuff was in diere, but hearing about it doesn't pack
the same punch as seeing it in die ground glass.

I waved to Pete and Luke. They came trotting over. The
fellow in die blue cap, who'd kept pretty quiet up till now,
saw diem and said, "What die hell's going on?"

Thafc just what I want to know," I snapped. Considering
what was in die jars, I meant it literally. I turned back to Jose.
"You ever sell any of dlis, ah, 'dragon blood' to a cumndero
named Cuauhtemoc Hemandez?"

"I sell to lots of people, man," he answered. They pay
cash. I don't ask who diey are. You know how diat goes." He

150 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 151

spread his hands and looked at me, one man of the world to
another.

I knew how it went, all right. It meant he didn't pay taxes
on the money he made at the swap meets. Ifs theoretically
possible for the Crown to keep track of all the crowns in the
Confederation. The financial wi2ards in the gray flannel suits
back in D.StC. would love to do it, too. Trouble is, of course,
that the sorcery involved is so complex that it makes getting
the Garuda Bird off the ground look like tossing a roc by
comparison. And so people like Jose will go on cheating on
what they owe, and people like you and me will end up foot-
ing the bill for them.

Except now Jose was facing some time at public expense
of an altogether different sort. I said, "By what the spell-
checker shows me, sir, there isn't any dragon blood in here.
There's human blood, and human sidn, and"—I looked back
at Judy, who nodded—"a godawful strong stink of Huitz-
ilopochdi."

Jose and blue-cap (I found out later his name was Car-
los, so I'll call him that) looked at each other. If they
weren't utterly appalled, they should have been making
their money at the light-and-magic shows, not swap
meets. They wouldn't have gotten it in cash, but they'd
have made enough to keep from complaining.

As soon as he heard HuitzUopochtIi, Pete (or maybe
Luke) said, "You gentlemen are under arrest. Anything you
say may be used against you."

The off-duty constable who hadn't arrested the nostrums
peddlers—whichever one he was—headed for the office.
"I'll call the station, get 'em to send a squad carpet over
here."

As soon as he'd gone maybe twenty feet toward the door,
Jose and Carlos tried to run for it. Being off duty, Pete car-
ried only a club. He yanked it out and pounded after Jose.
That left me with Carlos. "Be careful, Dave!" Judy yelled at
my back. It was good advice. It would have been even better
had I been in a position to take it.

Carlos was a little wiry guy, and shifty as a jackrabbit. But
every one of my strides ate up twice as much ground as his.

He looked over his shoulder, saw I was gaining, and didn't
watch where his feet were going. He fell splat on his face. I
jumped on him.

His hand darted for one of the pockets in his jeans. I
didn't know what he had in there: maybe something as sim-
ple as a knife, maybe a talisman like the ones at Loki, except
with a demon ordered to attack whoever was bothering him.
Whatever he had, I didn't care to find out the hard way,
either. I grabbed his wrist and hung on for dear life.

"Don't be stupid," I panted. "You won't get away, and you
will get yourself in more trouble."

"Chinga tu niadre," he said: no doubt sincere, but less
than germane. Then he tried to knee me in a place which
would have interfered with my carrying out his instructions.

I managed to twist away so I took it in the side of the hip.
It still hurt, but not the way it would have. As if from very far
away, I heard people shouting back and forth, the way they
do when they have no idea what's going on and just get more
confused trying to find out Carlos took another shot at
refaceting my family jewels.

Then, from right above us, somebody yelled, "Freeze,
asshole!" Somewhere in his past, Carlos must have painfully
found out what happened when you disobeyed that particu-
lar command. He went limp.

Very cautiously, I looked back over my shoulder. There
was (I think) Luke with his club upraised to do some serious
facial rearrangement on anybody who felt like arguing with
him. "He's all yours," I croaked, and got to my feet.

I hadn't noticed tiB then that I'd torn my pants, ripped a
chunk of hide off one knee, and scraped an elbow, too—not
quite as bad. Things started to hurt, all at the same time. I
felt shaky, the way you do in the first few seconds after a traf-
fic accident

Pete had hold of Jose. Luke was frisking Carlos: turned
out he'd had a blade in his pocket, maybe two inches long.
Not exactly a terror weapon, but not something I'd have
wanted sliding along—or maybe between—my ribs.

Judy ran up. "Are you all right Dave?"

"Yeah, I think so," I said, taking stock one piece at a time.




152 Harry Turtledove

I hadn't been in a fight since I was in high school; I'd forgot-
ten the way you could taste fear and fury in your mouth, the
way even your sweat suddenly smelled different.

I'd sort of hoped she'd throw her arms around me and
exclaim, "Oh, you wonderful man!" Something like that, any-
how. As I've remarked, however, Judy is a very practical
person. She said, "You're lucky you weren't badly hurt, you
know that?" So much for large dumb masculine hopes.

A little man with a big mustache burst out of the office
Luke had been heading for when the fun and games started.
By then Luke had Carlos handcuffed. He pointed to me and
said, "Here, losef, fix this guy up, would you? Unless I miss
my guess, he's been working harder than he's used to at the
EPA."

losef looked at my elbow, my knee, and my pants. "You're
right," he told Luke. His accent—seems everybody has an
accent in Angels City these days—was one I couldn't place.
He reached up, patted me on the shoulder. "You come with
me, my friend. We fix you up."

I came with him. He fixed me up, all right. He sat me
down in the office (an amazing collection of pictures of girls
and succubi filled one wall; I was glad Judy hadn't come
along, even if she wouldn't have done anything more than
sniff), bustled out, and returned a couple of minutes later
with a fellow who toted a black bag.

The doctor—his name was Mkhinvari—had the same odd
accent as losef. He looked at my elbow, said, "Roll up your
pants," looked at my knee. "Is not too bad," he said, which
was about what I thought.

He cleaned the scrapes (though, being a doctor, he called
them abrasions) with spirits, which hurt worse than getting
them had. Then he touched each one with a bloodstone to
make it stop oozing, slapped on a couple of bandages, and
went his way.

losef said, "Now we fix trousers. You wait here." I dutifully
waited there. This time he came back with a gray-haired
woman. 'This is Carlotta. She's best in the business."

Carlotta nodded to me, but she was more interested in
my pants. She touched the two edges of the hole together,

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      153

murmured under her breath. Yes, I know you'll say any tai-
lor's shop has somebody who specializes in repairing rips. Ifs
easy to apply the law of similarity because the torn material is
in essence like the untom doth around it, and to use the law
of contagion to spread that cloth over the area with which it
was formerly in contact

But on most repairs you'll be able to see, if you look
closely, the seam between the real cloth and the whole dodi
from which the fix was made. Not with Carlotta's work,
though. As far as I could tell, the pants might never have
been torn. I even got die crease back.

That left a fair-sized bloodstain. Carlotta turned to losef
and said, "Shut the door, please." After he did, she reached
into her sewing bag and pulled out a little nightbox, of the
sort that are made so carefully no light can get in. When she
opened it, a small pallid fuzzy creature crawled out
"Vampire hamster," he explained. They are drawn to doth
and—well, you will see."

The vampster didn't like even the tiny bit of day sliding
under the bottom of die door; it made a snuffly noise of
complaint Before Carlotta could tell him to, losef went over
and shoved a dirow rug into die crack. The vampster
relaxed. Carefully—any undead, even a rodent, needs to be
handled widi respect—Carlotta picked it up by die scruff of
die neck and set it on my pants leg.

I sat very still; I didn't want die creature going after blood I
hadn't already spilled. But itwas well trained. It sniffed around
till it found die stain on my trousers, dien stuck out a pale, pale
tongue and began to lap die blood right out of the dodi. When
it was finished, not a trace of die stain was left . . . and die
vampire hamster's tongue had turned noticeably pinker as my
blood began to enter its circulation.

When Carlotta plucked it off me, it wiggled and hissed; it
was feeling frisky now. She plopped it back into die nightbox,
closed die lid, and touched a crucifix to die latch so die
vampster couldn't get out by itself.

My pants didn't even feel damp. I guess vampire hamsters
don't have spit And die stain was all gone. "Thanks very
much," I said to Carlotta. That's beautiful work"

154 Harry Turtledove

'Tor a friend of losefs, it's a pleasure. Of course"—she
waved at the wall of succubi and giris—"losef has lots of
friends."

I'd have shriveled up and died (or at least looked for a
nightbox to hide in) after a crack like that, but losef must
have been shriven against embarrassment. "Oh, if only they
were," he said, rumbling laughter. "I would die young, but I
would die happy." He turned to me. "You are all right?"

"I am all right," I answered. Thanks for taking care of
me."

I went back outside, blinking against the daylight as if I
were undead myself. The black-and-white constabulary car-
pet had just flown in. One of the constables (he looked just
like Pete and Luke, except he was blond) took my statement.
"You'll hear from us, Inspector Fisher," he promised.

"Good enough." I looked over to where his partner was
transferring the vile potion from Jose and Carlos' rug to the
squad carpet "Handle that stuff with extreme respect. You
don't want it spilling."

"So we've been warned." He nodded back toward Luke
and Pete, then touched the brim of his cap. "God give you
good day."

He went back to the carpet to keep an eye on Carlos and
Jose. Judy walked over to me. She inspected the bandage on
my elbow, then the knee of my trousers. She felt the mate-
rial. I winced, anticipating she'd poke the raw meat under
there, but she didn't. 'That's a wonderful patch job," she
said.

"losef has connections," I said. "I just wish people were as
easy to repair as clothes." The elbow and knee were throb-
bing again.

Luke ambled up and said, "Now that we've dropped on the
guys you were looking for, shall we let the rest of the dealers in
without running 'em past the spellchecker?" He pointed
outside the gates. Nobody had gone through since the dustup
with Jose and Carlos started. Now they were lined up like
carpets on St. James' Freeway on Friday night, and not moving
much slower.

"Sure, go ahead," I told him. "Like you said, we caught

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      155

the people we wanted." Glad cries came from the dealers
when Luke started waving them through. I stuck my head
into losefs office and asked if I could store the spellchecker
there so Judy and I could do some shopping. When he said
yes, I cut across the incoming stream of dealers and lugged
the gadget back across. I wondered for a moment if it would
react to the pictures of succubi, but it didn't. losef sure
seemed to, though.

Judy said, "I'm glad we caught them. Now we can enjoy
our own Sunday knowing they won't be spreading their poi-
sons to anyone else."

That pair won't, anyhow," I agreed, but I wondered how
much other contraband would get sold right here at this
swap meet, and at all the others around Angels City. A lot,
unless I missed my guess. I tried not to think about that.

The dealers who'd been delayed were all setting up their
stalls in a tearing hurry. When you try to rush things, a lot of
the time you end up doing them wrong. Some of the dealers
seemed as if they were doing music hall comedy turns: poles
and awnings and signs would go up, then a second later
they'd fall down again. One guy had his sign fall over three
times in a row. After the third time, he gave it a good kick.
Maybe that knocked the gremlins loose, because on the
fourth try it stayed where he put it.

A couple of minutes later—right at ten—I found out why
-the dealers were in such a frantic rush. The customer gates
opened then, right on time, and never mind that the dealers
had been delayed. losef was not about to waste a chance: if
he'd held up the customers, some of them might have gotten
miffed and gone home.

And customers he had aplenty: Jews, Persians, Hanese
and Japanese, and Indians, none of whose Sabbath rituals
were disturbed by getting there on Sunday and spending
money. Along with them were a goodly—but not
godly—number of folks I'd have guessed to be Christian,
both of Aztecan descent and every other variety. Some
people of any faith feel more attachment to money than to
any other god.

It may seem crazy, but every once in a while I wish die

156 Harry Turtledove

Confederation were a little less prosperous, a litde less
secure. In flush times, people think of themselves, and the
devil with anybody and anything else. They sometimes need
reminding that what's happening now isn't Forever.

Which probably sounds like sour grapes, since I was out
there shopping right alongside everybody else. But you
wouldn't—I don't think—have found me there on a
Saturday.

Judy and I wandered up one asphalt aisle and down the
next, pausing at one stall here, another one there. Judy
picked up a green silk scarf that went well with her red-
brown hair. I bought a new alarm clock; I was sick of the
shrieking horror I had at home, and even sicker of it laugh-
ing at me. This one was made in Siam, with a native
horological demon. It cost less than five crowns. If I didn't
like it, I'd toss it, too, and try one more time.

We both got sausages on buns from a Persian fellow's
pushcart. Given his own faith, he wasn't one who'd sell pork.

I think I mentioned that one of the dealers had brought in
a load of grimoires. Getting a scarf or a dock at a place like
that is one thing, but it never ceases to amaze me that people
think you can acquire sorcerous skill and power on the
cheap. As with anything important, you need to learn from
the one who's best, not the one with the best price.

Naturally, Judy paused at the display. She flipped through
a couple of volumes, turned away shaking her head. The fel-
low who was hawking them scowled in disappointment; he
thought he'd found another sucker.

That bad?" I asked.

"Worse," she said. "The fatter book there is one of those
compendia of spells in the public domain, and they're in the
public domain because they weren't very good to begin with.
The other one, the one in the blue binding, is one of those
teach-yourself-to-be-a-mage-m-three-weeks books. I spotted
a couple of typos toward the end. They might be dangerous
under other circumstances."

"Why not now?"

"Because ninety-nine people out of a hundred won't get
far enough in the course to stumble across them and the odd

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      157

one, the one who does stick to it, will have learned enough to
spot them before he does something stupid."

"Okay, I see what you're saying. That makes sense."

But once she got rolling, Judy wasn't one who stopped
easily: 'The folks who buy those things are the same women
who'll plunk down fifty crowns for a 'magic' cream to make
their breasts bigger—or men who'll pay a couple of hundred
for 'magic' to make something else bigger. The only magic
there is the one that the people who sell this land of junk
have for spotting fools."

She didn't bother to keep her voice down; a couple of
middle-aged ladies who'd been about to inspect the grimoires
took off for another stall as if they'd been caught looking at
something blasphemous. "Lady, please," whined the guy who
was peddling the junk. Tm tryingto make aliving."

"So why don't you try to make an honest one?" she said,
but then she threw her hands in the air. "What's the use?"

I'd seen her in those moods before. The only thing to do
is get her interested in something new. I said, "Look over
there at the jewelry that woman is selling. It isn't something
you see every day."

All I'd aimed at was distracting Judy, but by sheer luck I
turned out to be right. Some of the pieces from the jew-
eler—TAMARISK'S GEMS, her sign said—were of the
modem sort, clunky with crystals, but even those were in
finer settings than you usually find at a fancy store, let alone
a swap meet. And the rest—

Judy is enamored of things Greco-Roman. A lot of the
necklaces, bracelets, rings, and other pieces were copies so
skulful that, but for their obvious newness and their profu-
sion, they might have been museum pieces. And Tamarisk, a
sharp-faced brunette who wore her hair tied up in a ker-
chief—knew her business, too.

Her eyes lit up when Judy pointed at what looked to me
like a gold safety pin and called it a fibula, and she practically
glowed when Judy identified a little pendant head dangling
from a necklace as a bulla. They lost me after that; as far as I
knew, they might have been incanting when they started
throwing around terms like repousse and lost wax.

158 Harry Turtledove

I saw how Judy's eye kept coming back to a Roman-style
ring with an eagle in low relief on a wide, flat gold bezel. It
was in profile; a tiny emerald highlighted its visible eye. Nor-
mally I would have said it was a man's ring... but Jud/s last
name is Adier, after all, and AtHer means eagle.

In the most speculative voice I could come up with, I re-
marked, "You know, hon, I haven't found you an engagement
ring yet"

Eveiy once in a while, you say the right thing. Judy, as you
will have garnered, is a steady, serious person—more so than
I am, and I lean in that direction myself. Making her face
light up as if the sun had just risen behind her eyes isn't easy.
Watching it happen made me light up, too.

Then I got hugged, and then I got kissed, and all the while
Tamarisk was just standing there, patient as the Sphinx, and I
figure every smooch I got upped the asking price of that ring
about another fifteen crowns, but so it goes—some things
are more important than money. That's what I told myself,
anyhow.

We haggled for a while; considering that Tamarisk knew
she had me where she wanted me, she was more merciful
than she might have been—but not much. When we finally
agreed on a price, she said, "And how will you pay? Cash?"

"No; I don't like to carry that much on me. Do you take
Masterimp?"

"Certainly, sir. I'd lose half my business if I didn't."

I dug into my hip pocket, pulled out my wallet and from it
the card. Tamarisk took a receiver plate out from under her
display table. When I was a kid, credit was a complicated
business, full of solemn oaths and threats of vengeance from
the Other Side on renegers and much default anyhow because
so many people find gold and God easy words to confuse.

It's not that way any more. A lot of the mystique is gone,
but so is a lot of the risk. Modem technology again: as with
the burgeoning phone system, ectoplasmic cloning has made
all the difference. I put my thumb on the card to show I was
its rightful possessor. Tamarisk did the same with the
receiver plate. Together we declared how many crowns we'd
agreed to transfer from my account to hers.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      159

The conjoined microimps in the card and the plate com-
pleted the circuit by etherically contacting the accounting
spirits at my bank, which confirmed that I did have the
crowns to transfer. As soon as the transaction was complete,
the card started sliding around on the plate as if it were on a
ouija board. I picked it up and stuck it back in my wallet.

Then, with Tamarisk smiling die smile of a
businessperson who's just had a good day, I picked up the
ring and set it on Judy's finger. Because I'd found the style a
little masculine, I was afraid it would be big. Tamarisk said,
"I'll size that for you if you need me to."

But Judy held up her hand and showed both of us that it
fit well. She and I grinned, liking the omen. "It's wonderful,"
she said. 'Thank you, David." I got Idssed again, which
couldn't help but improve things.

Tm always glad to see my customers happy," Tamarisk
said, beaming, "and I hope you won't take it amiss if I tell
you I also do wedding rings."

"I think we may just make a note of that," I said in my
most solemn voice as I pocketed one of her cartes de visite.
Judy nodded. With a last backward look at the other lovelies
on display, we wandered off to have a look at the rest of the
swap meet."

Judy kept murmuring, "It's wonderful," over and over.
She'd hold up her hand so the ring would sparkle in the sun
and the little emerald catch fire as if it were the eye of a liv-
ing bird.

1 said, "First chance you get—maybe tomorrow eve-
ning—you ought to take it to a jeweler you trust. I know it
looks good and I know Tamarisk seems fine, but I want to
make sure you only have the best."

"I'll do that," she said, and then, a moment later, "or
maybe I won't have to. We've got a constabulary-quality
spellchecker sitting in the office waiting for us. If it won't tell
us whether we've just bought faiiy gold, what good is it?"

True enough," I admitted. "And if anything is wrong—
not that I think there will be—Mistress Tamarisk will have a
visit from Pete and Luke when she sets up here next week."

"Which one of them is which?" Judy asked.

160 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 161

"Oh, good!" I exclaimed. "I'm not the only one who
couldn't tell, then." And when somebody like Judy has
trouble telling two people apart, you know there isn't much
to choose between them.

Before long, we went back to the dealers' gate: after
Tamarisk's stall, the rest of the meet was strictly a downhill
slide. I manhandled the spellchecker out of losefs office,
poured out a little wine to enspirit the microimps, and
touched the probe to Judy's ring.

Physically it was gold and copper in a ration of three to
one: it had an 18-karat stamp, and lived up to it. The litde
emerald was a real litde emerald. That was plenty to satisfy
me, but as long as the microimps were looking at the ring, I
let them examine its magical component as well.

I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd drawn a blank:

jewelry is a trade you can, if you so choose, cany on largely
without sorcerous aid. But no—Tamarisk had worked a small
spell of fidelity on it, by analogy with the legionary's faithful-
ness to his Eagle as a symbol of Rome. That just made me
happier: what better enchantment to find on an engagement
ring?

Judy was reading the ground glass upside down. When
she saw that, she squeezed my hand, hard. I shut down die
spellchecker, hauled it to my carpet, and took it back to the
constabulary station. I got a round of applause when I
brought it in. "Sign him up!" somebody shouted, which
made me grin like a fool.

We flew back to my block of flats after that. When we got
back up to my place . . . well, I won't say I got molested,
because I didn't feel in the least that it was a molestation,
but it was something on that order. Judy and I liked pleasing
each other in lots of different ways, which also augured well
for the days that would come after we stood under the
kiwppah together.

After Sunday, worse luck, comes Monday. With Monday,
worse luck, would come the weekly office staff meeting. As if
that weren't enough to start things off on the wrong foot,
congealed was the only word that fit traffic on St. James*

Freeway. What with my weekend peregrinations, I was
starting to think I lived on that miserable freeway It's a curse
of Angels City life.

When at last I got up to my desk, I discovered somebody
had put a toy constabulary badge on top of the papers in my
IN basket. "What's this about?" I said loudly, carrying the
souvenir out into the hall.

Several people heard me squawk and stuck their heads of
out their offices to see what was going on. "We didn't know
till yesterday that we had a real live hero here in the office,"
Phyllis Kaminsky said. She batted her eyes at me in a way
she'd evidently borrowed from the succubi she was trying to
control. From her it came off as more sardonic than
seductive.

'That's right," Jose Franco chimed in. "I wish my garlic-
spraying program would get as much good ethemet publicity
as Dave pulled in last night."

"Oh, God," I said, and meant every word of it. "What have
they been saying about me?" I didn't really want to know.
One more argument against having an ethemet receiver:

that way you don't have to listen to what reporters do to
things you were involved in.

"We heard what a brave fellow you were, breaking up this
contraband ring and capturing the leader singlehanded,"
Martin Sandoval said. The graphic artist paused before he
stuck the gaff in me: "So we all clubbed together to buy you
that symbol of our appreciation."

I looked down at the little tin badge. If it cost half a
crown, whoever bought it got cheated. "I do hope it won't
bankrupt you generous people"

Bea swept into the office just then. "What won't bankrupt
whom?" she asked, which meant everybody had to tell the
story all over again. I resigned myself to getting ribbed worse
than Adam until people got tired of the joke. Bea said, "I
know a better way to commemorate the occasion: David can
lead off at the meeting this morning."

'Thank you, Bea," I intoned. If she'd told me I could
leave after I'd given my report, that would have been
worthwhile. As it was, I figured I'd taken the early lead in




162 Harry Turtledove

the running for the dubious achievement of the week
award.

I went back into my office and did as much as I could till half
past nine, which was meeting time. Just to make sure we
couldn't pretend to forget and so accomplish something worth
doing before lunch, Rose called everyone to remind us all to
come on up to Bea's office. Even Michael Manstein was there,
looking out of place in his white lab robe among all the
business domes and Martin's casual getup (since he doesn't go
out in the field, he can dress as he pleases, (he lucky so and so).

"Good morning, everyone," Bea said when we'd all
assembled, bright and not too eager, before her. "I think
we'll begin with David this morning. By all accounts, he's had
the most exciting week of any of us."

I flashed the little tin badge and growled, "Now listen up,
everybody, or else."

Actually, my report went pretty well. Michael backed me
up on the sorcerous details of the potion I'd found at Lupe
Cordero's, and everyone looked suitably grim on hearing
them. I told about the arrest of the curandero who'd sold
Lupe the stuff, and about being lucky enough to come across
Jose and Carios on Sunday.

"Your diligence does you and the EPA credit, David," Bea
said, which was enough of a brownie point to make me want
to set out a bowl of milk.

The other nice thing about having been so busy with all
that stuff was that I didn't get in trouble for die too numer-
ous tilings I hadn't managed to accomplish during the week.
The toxic spell dump investigation perse was stalled; I hadn't
managed to get out to Bakhtiars Precision Burins, let alone
Chocolate Weasel or the light-and-magic outfits. I still didn't
know whether the Chumash Powers were coming or going.
And as for the leprechauns, well, the environmental impact
survey hadn't started going anywhere, either.

All of which meant, of course, that for the next several
days I'd be running around like acephalous poultry, trying to
catch up on those projects and whatever else landed on me
in the interim. Not a pleasant prospect to contemplate of a
Monday morning.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      163

Bea said, "Jose, you and Martin are going to report
together, am I right?"

They did. Martn produced the mockup for a poster of an
ugly little green fellow sinking his fangs into an orange. The
text said, HE'S NOT YOUR FRIEND—DONT GIVE HIM A
RIDE in English and Spainish.

That's veiy good," Bea said, "very good indeed. It ought
to make a lot of people who have been raising the roof about
gariic spraying see Medvamps in a whole new light You can
start reproducing it right away, as far as I'm concerned.
Comments, anyone? Am I missing something?"

With a lot of bosses, you'd better not dislike something
after they said they loved it. Bea, bless her, isn't like that.
Michael Manstein stuck up his hand and said, "The poster
does not accurately reflect the appearance of the Mediterra-
nean fruit vampire."

He was right, of course. Medvamps (not that Michael
would use such a colloquialism) are as pale as any other un-
dead creatures, and the sap they suck from fruits and
vegetables is commonly clear, too. But Bea said patiently,
"We don't need to be precisely accurate here, Michael. We
want to get across the notion that the Medvamp is a danger-
ous pest, not something that ought to survive and flourish in
Angels City. Does the poster meet that objective?"

Manstein shrugged. "It should be obvious in any case."
And it would be obvious, too, if everyone were as rational as
Michael. The general run of people being what they are,
though, rationality needs all me help it can get

The poster was passed by acclamation and we went on to
PhyBis. By then it was getting close to eleven o'clock, and my
stomach was starting to rumble. But Phyuis had landed a
project even uglier than my intertwined investigations of the
Chumash Powers and the wisdom of naturalizing lepre-
chauns: she'd started doing a study on the pros and cons of
changing the way Angels City handles its sewage.

Not to put too fine a point on it. Angels City produces a
whole lot of shit. For tile last many years—Phyllis, who is a
very thorough person, said how many, but I forget—we've
used the demon Vepar to process all this waste. Vepars

164 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 165

provinces are the sea and putrefaction, so the arrangement
has always seemed logical enough.

The trouble is, members of the Descending Hierarchy
just aren't reliable. Lately, as the population of Angeles City
has grown, so have the number of sewage spills and the
number of days the water in St. Monica's Bay is too foul for
swimming or fishing or anything else.

And so there's been some serious discussion of transfer-
ring the job to Poseidon. If anyone on the Other Side has a
vested interest in keeping the ocean clean, he's the One. Not
only that, he also has power over earthquakes. In Angels
City, that matters. Having one Power in charge of both those
aspects of local life might well save the taxpayer some
crowns.

Or it might not Poseidon's cult, like that of Hermes, is
artificially maintained these days. Angels City would have to
pay into the fund that municipalities and organizations which
use the sea god's services have set up to provide for his wor-
ship. That wouldn't be cheap. Vepar, like any
Judeo-Christian demon, has enough genuine believers to
keep him active without any expense the city would have to
assume.

Bea asked, "What communities are currently using Posei-
don to handle their sewage, and what sort of results have
they gotten?"

"There are several," Phyllis said. "The first one that occurs
to me is Athenai/Piraievs over in Ellas—"

"Not a fair comparison," Michael Manstein put in. "In
Ellas the god comes much closer to having a continuous tra-
dition of worship than he would in Angels City, and is likely
to be significantly more efficacious. I will be happy to pro-
vide documentation to support this assertion."

Phyllis glared at him; no doubt he'd just undercut the
example she was going to use. But when Michael says a com-
parison isn't appropriate, he wSi have evidence to back him
up. Fumbling a litde, Phyllis talked about Carthage instead
(I watched Michael stir in his seat, but he kept quiet).

The real trick, I gathered from what she had to say, was
keeping Poseidon happy about getting his hands dirty, so to

speak. Some Powers with artificially maintained cults are
pathetically eager to do anything at all, as long as they keep
their last handful of worshipers. Others have more pride.
Poseidon seemed to be part of the second group.

"But he does do a satisfactory job when properly incen-
tivized?" Bea persisted. Michael visibly flinched when he
heard that, but again held his tongue. Bea was a bureaucrat,
after all; every so often, she went and talked like one.

That is my impression," Phyllis answered. "Let me
remind you: if Vepar were perfectly reliable, we'd have no
reason for contemplating a change. And there's the added
benefit of increased earthquake protection."

"Or increased earthquake risk, if the deity is angered,"
Michael said. Phyllis glared at him again, but I think he was
right to point out the problem. Environmental issues are the
most complicated ones this side of theology, and reading the
text of the world is often (though not always) more prone to
ambiguity than interpreting a sacred scripture.

Bea said. Thank you for the presentation, Phyllis. Do you
think you'll be able to give a preliminary recommendation on
whether to pursue making this change in, hmm, two weeks'
time?"

"May I have three?" Phyllis asked.

Bea scribbled something on her calendar. "Three weeks it
is." She looked around at the rest of us. "Does anyone have
anything more?" I sat very still, willing silence on everybody
around me. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't
Today, to my vast relief, it did; nobody said anything. Bea
looked around again, just in case she'd missed someone on
her first check. Then she shrugged. Thank you all." That
was the signal for us to get up and head for the door as fast
as we could without being out-and-out rude. "Oh, and
David—" Bea called after me.

Caught! I turned around. "Yes?" I said, as innocently as I
could.

"I do hope you'll have more progress to report on your
other projects at our next meeting," Bea said.

TB do my best," I promised, thinking that if I had fewer
projects I could get more done on each of them. I also made




166 Harry Turtledove

a note to myself, not for the first time, that Bea didn't miss
much. And, I thought but didn't dare say, I could also get
more done if I didn't have to spend dose to half a day every
week in staff meeting.

The papers on my desk were starting to create a rampart
effect, as if I were going in for trench warfare, d. la the First
Sorcerous War. I was just getting ready for a serious assault
on them when the phone delivered a sneak attack from the
flank.

"Environmental Perfection Agency, David Fisher," I said,
hoping the switching imps had misspelled and given me a
wrong number.

But they hadn't. 'Inspector Fisher? This is Legate
Kawaguchi, of the Angels City Constabulary Department."

I sat up straighter. "What can I do for you. Legate?" I
stopped feeling guilty about getting interrupted: after all, the
call involved one of the other projects I was working on. Bea
would be pleased.

"Can you come up to the Valley substation, please,
Inspector?" Kawaguchi said. The scriptorium spirit Eras-
mus now appears capable of communicating."

I wanted to whoop with glee, right in his ear. I don't know
how I stopped myself. "I'm on my way. Legate," I chortled.
The ramparts on my desk would undoubtedly get higher
while I was out of the office. So what? I told myself: this is
more important.

Which was true, but sooner or later I'd have to catch up
with the other stuff anyhow. I tried not to think about that as
I hurried toward the slide.

VI

My stomach was making litde plaintive grumbles by the
time I got up into St. Ferdinand's Valley. Even without too
many addenda, Bea's meeting ran long, and Kawaguchi had
called before I got a chance to think about lunch. I grabbed a
dachshund sausage at the first mom-and-pop joint I came to
once I got off the freeway, and I must confess that I walked
into the constabulary substation smelling of mustard-
Some of the people who'd seen me on Sunday looked sur-
prised to find me back again. "What is this, Fisher? You want
to move in?" Bomholm the thaumatech called to me. Off-
hand, I couldn't think of a notion I liked less.

Legate Kawaguchi's office was a musty little cell, smaller
than a monk would live in and messier than an abbot would
tolerate. I'm not exaggerating; Brother Vahan was in there

167

168 Harry Turtledove

when I walked through the door and, by the look on his face,
he would have given Kawaguchi a really nasty penance if
he'd thought he could get away with it.

"How are you faring?" I asked him after we shook hands.
"Did the cardinal ever grant that dispensation so your
burned monks could get cosmetic sorcery?"

"No," he said. With that one word, his heavy face dosed
down completely, so that he looked like nothing so much as
one of those alarmingly realistic portrait busts from Republi-
can Rome. The St. Elmo's fire from the ceding gleamed off
his bare pate as if it were polished marble.

Kawaguchi said, 'The scriptorium spirit—Erasmus—was
more severely harmed in the fire than we realized. Even
now, a couple of weeks after the arson was perpetrated,
we've needed a team of specialists to establish contact with
it. I was just explaining this to the abbot when you came in,
Inspector Fisher."

"Please go on, then," I answered. "If I find myself lost, I
hope you won't mind me interrupting with a question or
two."

"Certainly," Kawaguchi said. "As I was telling Brother
Vahan, Madame Ruth and Mr. Cholmondeley"—he
pronounced it,  correctly, as if it were speBed
Chumlee—"combine to facilitate communication between
This Side and the Other. She is a medium and he a channeler;

by pooling their talents and infusing new technology into their
work, they've achieved some remarkable results. We have
every reason to hope for another success here today."

"Let us hope you are correct. Legate," Brother Vahan
said, and I nodded, too.

They are waiting for us in Interrogation Room Two,"
Kawaguchi said. "Nominally, since the scriptorium spirit is
on the Other Side, it could be manifested anywhere.
However, evoking it in an interrogation room will hopefully
add to the weight of the questions being asked. And"—the
legate coughed—"the chamber in question has more space
available than this office, which might otherwise have been
suitable."

"Take us to Interrogation Room Two, then," I said.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      169

Brother Vahan got up from his chair. The fire and its after-
math had taken a lot out of him. His stride had been strong
and vigorous, but now he walked like an old man, thinking
about where he'd plant each toot before it came down.

Interrogation Room Two lay halfway down a long, gloomy
haD that seemed especially designed to put the fear of God
into miscreants brought there. Kawaguchi opened the door,
waved Brother Vahan and me through ahead of him. Intro-
ductions took up the next couple of minutes.

Madame Ruth was a tall, swarthy woman with a gold-
capped tooth. She was also enormously fat; her bright print
dress would have been a tent on anyone else, but had to
stretch to cover aD of her. "Pleased t'meetehuz," she said.
When she shook hands with me, she had a grip like a long-
shoreman's.

Her partner Nigel Cholmondeley couldn't have been
more different from her if he'd spent his whole life
deliberately trying. He was as Britannic as his name: elegant
accent; long, thin, red-cheeked face complete with a little
brush of sandy mustache; old school cravat... Let me put it
this way: if he'd been born under a caul, it would have been
a tweed one.

Legate Kawaguchi said, "Before we begin, would you care
to give the hofy abbot and the inspector a notion of the tech-
niques you will utilize?"

The large medium and the English channeler looked at
each other for a moment before Cholmondeley said, "Allow
me." Madame Ruth shrugged massively. I tried not to show
how relieved I was; I'd sooner have listened to him than her
any day.

He said, "While communication with the Other Side is as
old as mankind, techniques have recently taken several steps
forward. As you'll notice, much of the equipment we employ
would have been unfamiliar to the practitioners of only a few
decades ago."

He pointed to the battered table shoved off to one side of
the interrogation chamber. On it were five of the strangest-
looking helmets I'd ever seen. They looked as if they'd been
made to cover the whole top of the head, from the middle of

170 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 171

the nose on up. I didn't see any eyeholes for them, and they
had long, blunt projections out from where your ears would
go. With one on, you'd look something like an insect and
something like a man who'd just had a length of tree trunk
pounded in one ear and out the other.

After giving Brother Vahan and me a few seconds to
examine those curious artifacts, Cholmondeley resumed: "By
your expressions, gentlemen, I should venture to say this is
your first experience with virtuous reality."

He waited again, maybe to let us deny it. If he'd kept on
waiting for that, he'd have had a long wait

He saw as much himself and smiled, exposing a formidable
mouthful of yellowish teeth. "Virtuous reality, my friends, lets
us simulate the best of the world; it creates a plane neither fully
of This Side nor of the Other, whereon, for example, a
wounded spirit may meet and communicate with us while not
having to return fuBy to the locus of its misfortune."

"How do we go about reaching this, uh, virtuous reality?"
I asked.

"Madame Ruth and I shall be your guides." Cholmon-
deley smiled again, even more toothily than before. 'If you
will just come over to the table there, sit around it, and place
a helmet over your head—"

The prospect did not fill me with enthusiasm, but I went
over to the table anyhow. As I sat down on one of the hard
Constabulary Department chairs, Madame Ruth said, "Once
you put on your helmet, take the hands of the people to
either side of you. We'll need an accomplished circle to
access virtuous reality."

I reached for the helmet nearest me. It was heavier than
I'd expected; maybe the weight lay in those ridiculous ear-
pieces. I slipped it on. It seemed to conform to my face. I'd
expected to be blind; I hadn't expected to be deaf as well.
But the helmet seemed to suck away all my senses, leaving
me a void waiting to be filled.

Distantly, I remembered what Madame Ruth had told us
to do. I was sitting between Brother Vahan and Nigel Chol-
mondeley. I made myself reach out to take their hands,
though I could hardly tell if my own were moving.

I found Brother Vahan's hand first His grip was warm and
strong; it helped remind me I still needed to get hold of
Cholmondeley. I fought against the apathy the helmet
imposed on me. At last, after what seemed a very long time,
my fingers brushed his. His bones were thin, delicate, almost
birdhke; I was afraid I'd hurt him if I put any pressure on
them.

Then I waited another long-seeming while. I'd expected
things to start happening as soon as my hands joined my
neighbors', but it didn't work that way. I still lingered, my
senses vitiated by the helmet. After a while, I began to won-
der whether I was still touching the abbot and the channeler.
I thought so, but it was hard to be sure.

All at once, color and sound and touch and all my other
senses came flooding back. I found out later that that was the
instant in which the last two of us finally took each other's
hands, completing the circle, as Madame Ruth had said. At
the time, I was just relieved to return to... well, where had I
returned to?

Wherever it was, it wasn't dingy old Interrogation Room
Two. It was a garden, the most beautiful I'd ever seen. Col-
ors seemed brighter than life, sounds clearer and sweeter,
smells as sharp and informative as if they came through a
cat's nose instead of my own.

"Welcome, friends, to the world of virtuous reality," Nigel
Cholmondeley said. Suddenly I could see him, though he
hadn't been there a moment before. He still looked like him-
self, but somehow he was handsome now instead of
horsefaced.

This will be a new experience for you, so look around,"
Madame Ruth chimed in. She too appeared when she spoke.
The big city had vanished from her accent, as had the cap
from her tooth, and I saw that about sixty percent of the rest
other had disappeared, too. She was still Madame Ruth, as
Cholmondeley was still Cholmondeley, but now she looked
good.

"Amazing," Legate Kawaguchi murmured softly, which
made him spring into view. While remaining himself, he also
looked like a recruiting poster for the Angels City




172

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

Harry Turtledove

173

Constabulary Department no cynicism was left on his face,
and no tiredness, either.

This is—remarkable," I said. I presume that let me
become visible to (he others, but not to myself: as far as I
could tell, I remained a disembodied viewpoint Too bad; I
would have liked finding out what an idealized version of me

looked like.

"Let us proceed," Brother Vahan said. Now I saw him,

too.

"He doesn't look any different!" I exclaimed, which was
true: the abbot remained a careworn man in a dark robe.

Nigel Cholmondeley spoke with enormous respect "In
virtuous reality, only those who are themselves trufy virtuous
before the experience have their seeming unchanged during
it" Suddenly I wondered how much I'd altered to my com-
panions in this strange place. Maybe I didn't want to be
idealized after all.

Then all such petty concerns faded into insignificance.
You see, I saw a serpent in the garden, and—I don't quite
know how to explain this, but it's true—the serpent wasn't
crawling on its beOy. This isn't just a garden," I said, awe in
my voice as the realization crashed over me. This is The

Garden."

That's right—very good." Madame Ruth sounded
pleased I'd caught on so fast "Virtuous reality has translated
you to a simulacrum of the place mankind enjoyed before
the Original Sin, while we were truly virtuous ourselves."

"I am not sure I approve," Brother Vahan said heavily.
The theological implications are—troubling."

"It's only a thaumaturgical simulation, a symbol, if you
will," Cholmondeley assure him. "We don't pretend other-
wise. The test of a symbol is its utility, and we have found this
one to be of enormous value. On that basis, will you bear

with us?"

"On that basis, yes," the abbot said, but if he was happy
about it, he concealed the fact very well.

"Good. Without the willing consent of the participants,
the simulation is all too likely to break down, which would
precipitate us back into the mundane world where, sadly,

virtue is less manifest," Cholmondeley said. "And, as I said,
virtuous reality can be valuable—as you see." He pointed.

Coming through the trees was Erasmus. In the strange
space of virtuous reality, the scriptorium spirit seemed as real
and solid as any of the rest of us—more real and solid than I
seemed to myself. Brother Vahan made a choked noise and
ran toward the spirit. Erasmus ran toward the abbot, too;

they embraced.

"I can feel him!" Brother Vahan exclaimed. Finding his
old friend palpable seemed to wipe away his reservations
about virtuous reality at a stroke.

While Brother Vahan greeted Erasmus, I took a longer
look at the trees from which the scriptorium spirit had
emerged. I recognized some of them; orange and lemon,
pomegranate and date palm. But others were strange to me,
both in appearance and in the scents that wafted from their
fruits and flowers to my nose.

I wondered if the Tree of Knowledge grew in this version
of the Garden, and what would happen if I tasted of it. Haw
to ask that serpent, I thought but when I looked around for
if it was gone. Just as well, I suppose.

"I grieve that you were wounded," Brother Vahan was say-
ing. We all gathered around him and Erasmus. The abbot
went on, "Never in my worst nightmare did I imagine evil
being so bold as to assail our peaceful monastery."

"Nor I," Erasmus answered mournfully. I'd never heard
him speak till that moment on This Side, he'd manifested
himself only with written words on the ground glass. His
apparent voice perfectly fit his studious appearance and the
spectacles he affected: it was dry, serious, on the pedantic
side. If you imagine Michael Manstein as a scriptorium
spirit you're dose.

"Are you in pain now?" Brother Vahan asked anxiously.

"No. Pain, I think, is impermissible in this remarkable
place." Erasmus peered from one of us to the next. "I recog-
nize here Inspector Fisher of the Environmental Perfection
Agency, and this other gentleman's semblance is also some-
how familiar to me, although I do not know his name."

"I am Legate Shiro Kawaguchi of the Angels City




174                Harry Turtledove

Constabulary Department," Kawaguchi said when Erasmus
looked his way. "Perhaps you sensed my aura during the Bre;

officers under my command helped rescue you."

"That must account for it," Erasmus agreed. "I fear I have
not yet made the acquaintance of the other two individuals

here."                                             \

"Madame Ruth and Mr. Cholmondeley have made it pos-
sible for us to use what they term virtuous reality as a
meeting ground with you," Brother Vahan explained.

"Yes, I have encountered the concept in recent journal
issues"—Erasmus' voice suddenly grew sad again—"now
without doubt lost to the flames. Intriguing to observe an

application of it"

"Speaking of the flames," Legate Kawaguchi broke in, "I

would be grateful for your account of what took place during
the evening on which the Thomas Brothers monastery fire

took place."

"Must I recount it?" Even in virtuous reality, Erasmus

looked scared. "So dose came I to being eKtinguished

forever."

"If you want the perpetrators apprehended, we must have

your statement," Kawaguchi answered. "Yours, I think, is the
only reliable testimony as to what occurred on the Other
Side during the commission of the felony."

Brother Vahan added, "You should also know, old friend,
that eleven of the brethren lost their lives in the fire, and
many others were badly burned." His face twisted. I thought
about the stiff-necked Cardinal of Angels City and his doubts

about cosmetic sorcery.

"I did not know," Erasmus whispered. His pale, thin vis-
age twisted, too. Remembered pain? Fear? I couldn't teU.
They warned me it would be folly of the purest ray serene
to speak of what they did to me, evenassuming I was there-
after able to manifest myself, which they found unlikely. But
eleven of the holy brethren— Very well, abbot. Legate: I

shall speak in praise offofly."

Legate Kawaguchi held a stylus and note tablet in his
hands. I don't know where they came from; they hadn't been
there an instant before. Maybe it was just the nature of

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      175

virtuous reality to accommodate itself to the wills and
desires of those who occupied it. Being a constable,
Kawaguchi felt he needed written documentation when he
questioned a witness. Since he needed it, he got it. Or
maybe I'm altogether off base; I don't pretend to be a
thaumaturge.

At any rate, note tablet poised, the legate asked, "What do
you mean by 'they,' Erasmus?"

The individuals who tormented me on the night of the
fire," the scriptorium spirit answered.

Kawaguchi scribbled a note. Then he said, "Let us take
that night in chronological order, if possible. That may be the
clearest method of ascertaining the facts in this matter. Is
that a reasonable request?"

"For many denizens of the Other Side, beings not so
bound up in Time as you humans, the answer would be no,"
Erasmus said. "But as a scriptorium spirit, concerned not
only with order in my records but also with regular access to
those records by the holy brethren and other researchers"—
he looked toward me—"I have a dear sense of duration and
sequence, yes."

"Go ahead, then." Kawaguchi poised his stylus.

Erasmus took him literally. Beginning with the monks'
celebration of vespers, he began to give a minute-by-mmute
account of everything that had happened within range of his
sensorium. At first, everything was both tedious and alto-
gether irrelevant. If he kept up in that vein, I began to fear
we'd stay in virtuous reality forever. It would certainly feel
like forever.

Nigel Cholmondeley held up a hand. "Forgive me, Eras-
mus," he broke in, "but could you perhaps skip to that
portion of the evening when you first noticed something
amiss?"

"Ah." Erasmus gave Kawaguchi a why-didn't-you-say-
what-you-wanted? look, then took up the tale anew: "At
12:04 in the morning, two unauthorized persons entered the
scriptorium. I attempted to give the alarm, but was pre-
vented."

Before Erasmus could answer. Brother Vahan put in, "We




176 Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 177

noted nothing out of the ordinary. Legate, as I told you on
the night of the fire. That evildoers should trespass upon hal-
lowed ground without drawing the notice of anyone within,
and that they should overcome alarm spells lain down with
die authority of the Holy Catholic Church .. . they had no
small power behind them. Till the day, I would not have
thought it possible."

Like any other major faith, the Catholic Church maintains
that its connections with the Other Side are the most potent
around (I'd say the most omnipotent, but purists like
Michael Manstein and Erasmus wouldn't approve). With the
powers the Church has Over There, it's not easy even for a
Jew like me to disagree very loudly. Having his holy protec-
tion fail must have been a dreadful shock for Brother Vahan.

"I cannot answer the question with certainty," Erasmus
said. "I know only that I was silenced, as the holy abbot has
suggested, by a spell of great force."

"What flavor did it have?" I asked. "Was it some strong an-
cient ritual revived specially for this purpose, or did it cany
the precision of modem magic?"

"Again, I cannot say," the scriptorium spirit answered. "If
I may use an analogy from your Side, as well ask a mouse
crushed by a boulder in a landslide whether it was granite or
sandstone."

"Very well, we are to understand you were forcibly
silenced and prevented from alerting the brethren,"
Kawaguchi said, trying to keep Erasmus moving in the right
direction. "What transpired subsequently?"

"I was interrogated," Erasmus answered. "My questioners
sought to learn what Inspector Fisher here had gleaned
from our records. I tried to refuse, I tried to resist; the holy
abbot had ordered me to treat the inspector in all ways as if
he were one of the brethren, and I should never have
betrayed (heir secrets who came into the scriptorium
like—or rather, as—thieves in the night Then they began to
torment me."

So much for virtuous reality. I didn't feel virtue, not after I
heard that—what I felt was guilt. I didn't need to ask that
disappearing serpent where the Tree of Knowledge grew; I'd

already eaten of it at the Thomas Brothers monastery. And
because I had, Erasmus had suffered.

Brother Vahan made a noise that said he was suffering,
too. He embraced the scriptorium spirit. They dung to each
other.

Whatever Legate Kawaguchi was feeling, he didn't let it
interfere with his interrogation. He said, "Could you please
describe for me the torments performed upon you?"

Brother Vahan angrily turned on him. "Why are you try-
ing to force Erasmus to reexperience the torments those
murderers inflicted?"

"Because their nature may provide important information
on the perpetrators," Kawaguchi answered. 'The particular
magics utilized will be clues to the backgrounds of those who
performed them. I assure you, this is standard constabulary
procedure in dealing with cases involving the Other Side,
Brother Vahan."

"I pray your pardon," the abbot said; he was one of the
rare people I've met who didn't find his manhood threat-
ened by backing down. 'You don't tell me how to conduct
my affairs; I owe you the same courtesy."

"Erasmus?" Kawaguchi said.

The scriptorium spirit didn't look happy about recounting
what had happened to him, but after a little while he nod-
ded. "Let it be as you say. Legate, and may the truth bear out
your hopes. First came fire: this would have been at 12:32,
when my questioners decided I was and would remain
obdurate."

"Fire wasn't reported in the monastery until after one,"
Kawaguchi said.

"Not the Fire of This Side, but that of the Other, which
burns the spirit rather than the material," Erasmus replied.
"Not for nothing, I can now tell you, do so many mortals fear
the pangs of hellfire, for to endure such eternally would be
anguish indeed."

Kawaguchi scribbled notes. I wondered how much good
they'd do him. Counting the magics that don't have fire in
them somewhere is a much easier job than reckoning up
those that do. And the way Erasmus talked about what had




178                Harry Turtledove

happened to him suggested the fire sprang from Christian or
Muslim sources; die former, espedaBy, didn't lend itself to
narrowing down the list of suspects.

The scriptorium spirit continued, "At 12:41, the invaders
concluded fire was inadequate to persuade me. They
resorted instead to the venom of sorcerous serpents, which
coursed through my ichor and brought with it suffering dif-
ferent from, but not less intense than, that which the names

had produced."

"Snakes, you say?" Kawaguchi repeated with a now-we're-

getting-somewhere air. "And of what nature were they?"

"With all respect. Legate, I must remind you that I am a
scriptorium spirit at a monastery, not a herpetologistfs
establishment," Erasmus answered in a dignified voice. "I
can state with authority that they were dissimilar to the one
inhabiting the garden here, for which claim I have Scriptural
authority behind me. Past that, fools may rush in but, while I
am no angel, I tear to tread."

I found a question I thought Kawaguchi had missed: "Can
you describe the men who tormented you, Erasmus?"

"Again, I fear not," the spirit answered. 'They were
masked against the sight of Your Side, and so cloaked around
in sorcery that I have no notion of their true spiritual sem-
blance, either, save that were it benign they would not have

used me as they did."

I sighed. Kawaguchi sighed. Even Brother Vahan looked a
little less saintly than he had. Nigel Cholmondeley and
Madame Ruth shifted from foot to foot They'd brought us
all together here in virtuous reality, but for the amount of in-
formation Erasmus had given us, they might as well not have

bothered.

"Very well, then," Kawaguchi said, sighing again. "What

happened next?"

°I still refused to divulge the nature of the research
Inspector Fisher had been conducting," Erasmus said. "At
12:48, the intruders again became discontented with their
means of torment and shifted stratagems. I found myself
tramped under the sharp hooves of an enormous cow."

That made me sit up and take notice: metaphorically, you

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

179

understand. Legate Kawaguchi leaned forward toward
Erasmus till he was fell past the point where I thought he'd
fall on his face. Maybe you can't do that in virtuous reality; I
don't know. "A cow, you say?" he pressed. "Not a bull? Are
you sure about that?"

"I am certain," Erasmus declared.
"Interesting," Kawaguchi said. I saw what he was flying
toward. Bull cults are common. Straight Mithraism has
never quite died, and there are modem revivalist sects trying
to pick up supporters who don't get the spiritual charge they
need from Christianity and Islam. Personally, I don't need to
get drenched by the blood of a slaughtered bull to feel a
union with the Godhead, but some folks evidently do.

But cows, now . . . two of the places where the cow is a
focus of magic are India—home of the Garuda Bird—and
Persia, from which sprang, among others in the case. Slow
Jinn Fizz and Bakhtiar's Precision Burins (a place I hoped I'd
get to before I died of old age).

Erasmus went on. The hooves of the cow seemed sharp
as whetted steel. They flayed me past any anguish I had pre-
viously imagined. And so, to my lasting shame. Inspector
Fisher, at 12:58 I yielded to my inquisitors' torment and
described in detail the records I had copied for you. Judge
me as you will; the deed is done."

When a spirit talks about lasting shame, it means lasting
forever unless ifs a sylph or one of that flighty breed. I said,
"Erasmus, you did the best you could. What you went
through is more than I could have stood; I'm sure of that.
You don't need to feel shame on my account."

"You are gracious," the scriptorium spirit said. Brother
Vahan also inclined his head in my direction. That made me
feel good; winning Brother Vahan's good opinion isn't easy,
but it's worth doing.

"What happened after you finished providing the perpe-
trators with this information, after"—Kawaguchi glanced
down at his notes—"12:58?"

"I finished betraying Inspector Fisher at 1:03," Erasmus
said bleakly. "I hoped that would be the end of it, that the
malefactors would take what they had learned and depart.




180

Harry Turtledove

Instead, as you know, they forthwith kindled the fire which I
gather resulted in the destruction of the Thomas Brothers
monastery. As to that, I could not speak with certainty, for
when the ground glasses in the scriptorium melted or
shattered from the heat of the flames, I lost my interface
with Your Side and, still in agony, awaited my own

dissolution."

"The firecrew and constabulary rescued you," I said.

"Exactly so. At the time and since, I have doubted
whether they did me any great favor, but, as with my betrayal
of you, the deed is done and we now must proceed to act
upon its consequences." The scriptorium spirit turned to
Legate Kawaguchi. "Oh: there is one thing more. For some
time after I was tormented, I lacked much of my normal
awareness of self and surroundings. Were I flesh and blood, I
gather you would say I was semiconscious. Only quite
recently have I regained my full sensorium. When I did so, I
found as part of my immediate surroundings—this."

I hadn't figured Erasmus for a sense of the dramatic. But
from behind his back he pulled out a short green feather.
Kawaguchi held out his had. "May I see it?" Erasmus gave it
to him. He felt it, held it close to his face in a gesture that
said he was nearsighted. He shrugged. "Just seems like a
feather to the eye and the hand." He turned to Madame
Ruth and Nigel Cholmondeley and asked, "Are magical
forensic tests possible in virtuous reality?'

They both shook their heads. Madame Ruth said,
"Remember, that isn't the actual feather you're holding,
Legate, but its analog in this sorcerous space. And, like
everything else in virtuous reality, it is imbued with special
properties springing from this space and thus not a fit
subject for testing."

"I should have thought of that." Kawaguchi clicked his
tongue between his teeth, not so much in disappointment as
in annoyance at himself. He turned to Brother Vahan. "Fur-
ther questions?"

"I have one," I said. "How did the two men react when
you finally yielded to the cow's hooves and told them what
I'd been investigating?"

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

181

"One of them said to the other, 'He'll get his, too, I
expect,'" Erasmus answered. It didn't surprise me, but it
didn't delight me, either. If somebody was willing to bum
down a monastery, die added burden of sin that would ac-
crue from going after an EPA inspector couldn't have been
heavy enough to worry him.

Brother Vahan said, "Old friend, how soon wiB you be
able to manifest yourself normally on Our Side once more?"

"It shouldn't be much longer, holy abbot," Erasmus said.
"The metaphysicians tell me I could do it now if my familiar
haunts were restored. As it is, I'm given to understand it's a
matter of days rather than weeks."

"Good," the abbot said. "I shall pray that the time will be
soon, for purely selfish reasons: I find I miss you very much."

An undead who hadn't fed in a thousand years had infi-
nitely more blood in him than Erasmus ever could, so when
I saw the scriptorium spirit blush I just chalked it up to virtu-
ous reality. And if we were out of questions, we didn't need
to be there any more. I asked, "How do we get back to Inter-
rogation Room Two?"

"You must return to awareness of the body you left
behind there," Nigel Cholmondeley answered. "As soon as
your hands leave contact with those of die persons to either
side of you, die circuit will be broken and you—and all of
us—wiB return to die mundane world."

My hands? I looked down, and of course I couldn't see
diem. From what my eyes reported, I might as well not have
had any hands, or anydiing else—I was just diere. Virtuous
reality is an insidious kind of place: it so completely involves
all die senses and seems so dioroughly real diat leaving
wasn't as easy as Cholmondeley made it sound. I wondered if
early explorers had got stuck in it forever. Ifdiey had, I won-
dered ifdie/d realized it.

An intense look of concentration came over Brodier
Vahan's face. Presumably he couldn't see his own hands,
eidier. But an instant later, I was sitting on a hard chair widi a
stifling helmet over my eyes and ears. I clawed it off. The
(nimy reality of die interrogation room was a long, long way
om die Garden where I'd been a moment before.

182 Harry Turtledove

Everyone else was taldng off the masks, too. Now that we
were back in the constabulary station, Nigel Cholmondeley
was horsefaced again, Madame Ruth fat as any two people you
want to name, and Legate Kawaguchi short and skinny and
tired-looking. I suppose I looked the way I always do, too.

On the table in front of Kawaguchi, along with the ciga-
rette bums and coffee rings, lay a note tablet full of scribbles.
I didn't remember its being there when we sat down. I didn't
think he could have brought it back from virtuous reality...
but then I saw, right in the middle of the table, a bright
green feather. Kawaguchi spotted it at the same time I did.
He grabbed it and stuck it in a little transparent pouch made
of spirit gum to keep it from being magically influenced.

"Remarkable," Nigel Cholmondeley said. "One seldom
sees artifacts returning with participants in a virtuous reality
experience."

"Officially, this is not and cannot be evidence," Kawaguchi
said. "Its trail of provenance is severely tainted; any judge to
whom it was presented would throw it out of court, and very
likely the case with it. Unofficially, I shall convey it to the lab
and find out what our forensics people make of it."

"Let me know, please," I said. If I'd snatched it first, I'd
have taken it straight to Michael Manstein—assuming, of
course, that Kawaguchi and half a dozen big constables with
clubs hadn't started working out on me to make me give it
back. Since they might have done just that, constables being
demons for evidence, maybe it was for the best Kawaguchi
got it instead of me.

Brother Vahan dipped his head to Madame Ruth and
then to Cholmondeley. "Let me apologize to both of you for
my previous doubts as to the nature of virtuous reality," he
said; he was, as usual, nothing if not gracious. "I can see that
it will become a valuable tool in thaumaturgic research."

"Thanks right back atcha for thinkin' fast and breakin' the
circle." Madame Ruth sounded like herself again, too. Too
bad. "That can be the tricky part, gettin' back here where we
belong."

Nigel Cholmondeley put it more piously: "Mankind was
ever reluctant to leave the Garden."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      183

"So I thought," the abbot agreed. "But then I remem-
bered I had no true right there, burdened as I was by the
weight of Original Sin. After that, recalling my body to action
in this actual world was easier."

The channeler and the medium looked at each other.
"Let's talk about that some more. Brother Vahan, if you don't
mind," Cholmondeley said. The extraction technique you
describe might well be incorporated into one of the helmets'
ritual subroutines if we are able to isolate the symbolic
essence of your thought sequence."

"It could make you a nice piece of change, and us, too,"
Madame Ruth said. "Like you said, virtuous reality is the
coming thing, and if you was to get a piece of it—°

"Wealth means nothing to me," Brother Vahan said. I've
heard a lot of people say that; he was one of the handful who
made me believe it

"As may be," Nigel Cholmondeley said, which meant he
had his doubts, too. He also had a hook: "No matter how fru-
gal you personally may be, have you not got a monastery to
rebuild?" Brother Vahan stared at him.

I watched the hook snag the fish. The abbot said, "Let us
discuss it, then, for the greater glory of God."

"Let's eat somethin' while we talk," Madame Ruth said,
which struck me as more honest than let's do lunch and most
of the other ways people try to combine business and food.

Despite my sausage, I was hungry, too, but not as hungry
as I thought I'd be. When I asked my watch what time it was,
I found out to my amazement that I'd been in the world of
virtuous reality for only about five minutes. It had seemed
like a couple of hours while I was there. Oneiromancers say
dreams are like that: a lot of things going on but compressed
very tightly in terms of time. Judy keeps up on the ins and
outs of theoretical thaumaturgy better than I do; I made a
note to ask her how virtuous reality simulated the dream
effect.

I didn't have lunch with Brother Vahan and the medium
and channeler; enough things were going on at the office
that I wanted to put in as much time as I could there, trying
to claw my way through the piles of junk on my desk. I

184                Harry Turtledove

wouldn't starve before dinner. So I went south through the
pass into Westwood a little faster than a constable armed
with a tracking demon would have approved of. Fortunately,
I didn't spot any black-and-white carpets all the way back

down St. James' Freeway.

After a good trip on the freeway, I got stuck in regular fly-
way traffic on the way back to the Confederal Building. I
peered around the carpets ahead of me, trying to figure out

what had gone wrong this time."

The fellow on the rug next to me leaned over and called,

There's a demon stration up there at the comer."

Up there at the comer, of course, was where I was trying
to go. I growled. "So what if there's a demonstration? There's
a demonstration at that comer about three days a week."
Then what he'd said really sank in. "A demon stration?" I

didn't want to believe I'd heard that.

But he nodded. I wondered if I ought to turn my carpet

around and get out of there as fast as the sylphs would take
me. No wonder there was a traffic jam, if demons were out
protesting Confederal policy. I hoped the building would
survive. There'd be SWAT teams and God only knows what
all else up there, trying to keep the irate Powers from turn-
ing the place into an inferno.

My sense of duty got the better of my sense of self-
preservation. I kept going toward the Confederal
Building. It took a while for me to inch close enough to
find out what was going on. I'd been wrong in my first
guess: the Powers at the demon stration weren't apt to
turn violent, and they didn't need constabulary thauma-
turges to hold them at bay. But as soon as I saw them, I
understood why they stopped traffic. You see, they were

all succubi.

Actually, that's not quite true. Some of them were incubi,

and some of them—well, I'm not quite certain whose fancy
some of them catered to, but whosever it was, I'm sure they

met it.

As for me, I barely noticed those others. I was busy

watching the succubi. I couldn't help myself. Some of the
pictures up on losefs wall were pretty spectacular, but

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      185

pictures don't begin to convey the essence of what succubi
are all about. When you see them in the quasi-flesh, you
can't help but think they're the creatures men were really
designed to mate with; they make women look like clumsy
makeshifts.

Phyllis Kaminsky, bless her heart, was down there arguing
with some of them, trying to convince (hem to give up and
go away. Phyllis is a nice-looking gal, several years younger
than I am and in better shape, too. The company she was
keeping made her seem a poorly jointed wooden puppet
turned out on a lathe by somebody who didn't know how to
run a lathe very well.

One litde devil with a blue dress on happened to catch my
eye. The promise on her face, the way she ran an impossibly
moist tongue over unbelievably sweet, unbelievably red lips,
the sinuousness (and you can turn that into a pun or not, just
as you please—it works either way) of her hip action—put
'em all together and ifs a minor miracle I didn't run into the
carpet in front of me.

One of the reasons I didn't was that the gal flying that car-
pet wasn't exactly where she was supposed to be, either:

instead of keeping her eye on the carpet in front of her, she'd
been gaping at an incubus who was taller, darker, and hand-
somer than he had any business being.

When you think about it, you shouldn't be surprised our
sexual demons are so strong. They've been evolving right
along with us for as long as we've been human, proof of
which is how strongly they manifest themselves on This Side.
They're used to coming Across; they've been doing it for mil-
lions of years.

(You have a dirty mind, do you know that? Filtering out all
the double entendres that come naturally [you see, there you
go again] when discussing succubi is more trouble than it's
worth.)

Unlike the Medvamp protesters, the succubi and incubi
didn't cany signs or chant slogans. They just paraded, they
were their own best message.

By then I'd got dose enough to hear Phyllis as weD as see
her. She was saying, "—but the existence you lead degrades




186 Harry Turtledove

both you and mankind. Don't you see that sexual exploitation
is wrong and damaging to the soul?"

"If this were a Muslim country, we'd be honored, not
hunted," a succubus retorted. Though irate herself, she
made PhyUis sound shriD and screechy by comparison: her
voice brought to the ear the taste of Erse Creme liqueur. She
went on, "We have no souls to worry about; we exist for
pleasure. And since you humans endlessly prate about free
will, surely you'll admit you can choose us or avoid us as you
see fit."

PhyUis had been over that ground before. She said, 'Tart
of your attraction comes from the Other Side, so it distorts
free will. Besides, humans of unsavory sorts carry on their
sordid affairs in areas you frequent because they know they'll
find a lot of customers there. You don't just haunt neighbor-
hoods—you blight them."

The succubus' shrug was magnificent. This is your prob-
lem, not ours. We get we want from humans; they get what
they want from us. We find it an equitable arrangement."

As I finally flew into the parking lot, Phyllis lost her tem-
per and started shouting at the succubus. It's always a
mistake to let Powers, even minor ones, get your goat. They
have more patience than people anyhow; what with their far
longer terms of being, they can afford it.

Besides, here I feared PhyUis was fighting a losing game.
The succubus' knowledge of biology was empirical and
extremely specialized, but she had a point: her kind and
mankind were essentiaUy symbiotes, and nobody was likely
to make either turn loose of the other. If that hadn't hap-
pened all through recorded history, it wasn't likely to start in
modem Angels City.

But Phyllis had a point, too. Because the people in our
society who go to succubi and incubi are generaUy out for a
cheap thrill, the/re often the people who go after other
thrills. Find a neighborhood with succubi on the streetoor-
ners and you'H generally find it's not the kind of place where
you'd want to bring up your lads if you had a choice. Keep-
ing sexual demons of any flavor off the streets makes pretty
fair sense to me.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      187

I parked my carpet, got off, and went over to see if Phyllis
wanted a hand from me. As I was walking up to her that suc-
cubus in blue gave me the eye again. My breath went short. I
couldn't help ifc succubi have been perfecting the art of se-
duction probably since the days of the man-apes. Natural
selection works on the Other Side no less than on this one—
Powers that aren't adored perish, and others take their place.
If my reaction meant anything, that particular succubus
would stay around forever.

Phyllis saw me not quite slavering and made an exasper-
ated noise. I suppose I can't blame hen I must have seemed
more like part of the problem than part of the solution. She
said, "What do you plan on doing, Dave? Will you whip out
your little tin badge and run them all in?"

You don't want to get into a war of sarcasm with Phyllis, or
at least I don't. I've been scorched often enough to keep that
in mind at all times. So—please believe me—I was about to
answer with something mild and soothing.

But before I could, the succubus in blue said, "I'm sure
he'd rather whip out something else instead, dear." Just lis-
tening to her was enough to set my heart racing like a couple
of laps around the track. But when she licked her lips again, I
started sweating so hard I did the only thing I could (short of
whipping out something else, I mean)—I fled.

Phyllis lost it. Again, I can't say I blame her—here she was,
watching one of her own people turned into a bowl of
quivering gelatin (I was definitely quivering, but at least part of
me was a lot stiffer than gelatin) by one of the sexy little
demons she was trying to control. She started screaming at the
succubus. The succubus screamed right back, with invective
from just about every language since primeval Indo-European.
She'd had a lot of satisfied customers, all right.

Since I obviously wasn't going to be of any use at the
demon stration, I went upstairs to work on other tilings.
Rose had left a message on my desk: Professor Blank of
UCAC had called while I was out.

Scratching my head, I took the message up to her. "Pro-
fessor Blank?" I said, pointing. "Wouldn't he leave his
name?"

Harry Turtledove

188

Now Rose looked puzzled. "I think he said his first name

was Harvey."

There I was, looking and feeling like an idiot twice in the

space of ten minutes. Harvey Blank was chair of the Goetic
Sciences Department at UCAC; he was one of the first peo-
ple I'd phoned about investigating whether the Chumash
Powers were still around. I slunk back to my desk and

returned his call.

The telephone imps reproduced his voice even more

blurrfly than is their habit; he must have been eating some-
thing when he answered. After a sentence or two, he spoke
more clearly: "Hello, Inspector Fisher. Thanks for returning
my call. I wanted to get back to you about some preliminary

results of the extinction investigation."

"Go ahead," I said, grabbing for a pencil and a scrap of

parchment. "What have you learned?"

"Not as much as I'd like," he answered: yes, he was a pro-
fessor. "The experiments I have conducted, however, do
indicate that the Powers formerly venerated by the Chu-
mash Indians are not currently manifesting themselves in

the Barony of Angels."

"They're extinct, you mean?" I had curiously mixed

feelings. Most of me was sony, as I'm always sony (well,
almost always—I'd make an exception for Huitzflopochtii) to
see the Other Side diminished. But that nasty, lazy piece
everyone has lurking inside, the one Christians identify with
Original Sin, let out a cheer because I wouldn't have to work
as hard on the leprechauns if the Chumash Powers were

gone for good.

"I didn't quite say that," Professor Blank said.

"That's what it sounded like to me," I told him.
"It was the first conclusion I drew from the thaumaturgic
regression analysis," he admitted. "A more thorough evalu-
ation of the data, however, leads to a different interpretation:

it seems more likely that the Powers in question have not so
much vanished as withdrawn from any contact with This

Side. The withdrawal appears volitional."

"Are you sure?" I said. "I've never heard of anything like
that." The general rule is that Powers will keep a toehold on

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      189

This Side if they possibly can: the more active they are, the
more they show themselves in the world, the better chance
they have of attracting and keeping worshipers to give them
the veneration they need,

Professor Blank said, "No, I'm not sure. The void in the
thecological contours of the barony is certainly there. It is,
however, if you will permit me to employ metaphorical lan-
guage, more as if the Powers made the hole and pufled it in
after themselves than as if they simply disappeared from
spiritual starvation."

"They are gone, though?"

"They're gone," he agreed. "That much is indisputable. I
have been unable to contact or detect them in any way,
either by recreating the old Chumash rituals or through
modem scientific sorcery."

"But they might come back?"

"If the situation is as I envision in the highest-probability
scenario, that possibility remains open, yes. If on the other
hand this is merely an unusually sudden extinction, as
remains possible, they are indeed gone for good."

"Can you find out which more precisely?" The lazy part of
me was still hoping to get away with running only one set of
projections for the thecological impact of leprechauns on the
Barony of Angels. If I had to run two, all right But ifl had to
run two and then didn't know which one to we—nightmares
spring from such things. So do blighted careers.

"I'm working on that now," Professor Blank said. By the
way he said it, he hadn't the faintest idea whether what he
was working on would work, if you know what I mean.

"Let me ask you something else," I said: "Suppose the
Chumash Powers have withdrawn voluntarily—in their
terms, suppose the great eagle whose wings support the
Upper World has flown away. Is it goetically even possible
for them to reverse the process?'

"I don't know, just as I don't know why they've with-
drawn," Blank answered. "My research team is still working
on that, too. We're exploring various possibilities there."

"Such as?" I prompted.

"Speculation (and that's all it is at this point) ranges from

190                 Harry Turtledove

withdrawal to maintain some level of survival—the Other
Side's equivalent of fungi forming spores when the environ-
ment grows too hostile for normal growth—to an active
protest against the thecological changes here over the past

two centuries."

When I heard that, I wanted to bang my head on the

desk. Protests about environmental issues are hard
enough to deal with when they come from This Side.
What was going on down on the sidewalk showed how
much more complicated they could get when Powers
started playing what had at first been a human game.
Absurdly, I wondered whether the Chumash First People
and Sky Coyote had gotten the idea from the parading
succubi. After a moment, I realized that was impossible:

the Chumash Powers had disappeared before the sexual

demons went on the march.

"Hunger strike," I murmured, as much to myself as to

Professor Blank.

"I pray your pardon?" he said.
"Maybe the Powers are starving themselves of recognition

to force us to notice them and give them the veneration they

require."

Thank you. Inspector Fisher; that will go onto the list.

And let me thank you again for involving me and my gradu-
ate students"—I presume that was what he'd meant when he
talkedabout his research team before—"in this project I am
confident we shall eventually leam a great deal from it." .

I didn't like the sound of that eventually. "When do you
hope to have some results I can use to help plan policy. Pro-
fessor? I think I ought to remind you that this isn't just a
research project, but one where the answers will be put to

practical use."

"I understand that, of course," he said, a little sulkily. He

might have understood it, but he didn't like it one bit. A pro-
fessor indeed, I thought. He went on, "We shall endeavor to
be as expeditious as possible, provided that we remain con-
sistent with appropriate experimental protocols."

'That's fine, sir, but I think I ought to warn you that if I
don't have harder data than you've given by, hmm, three

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      191

weeks from today, I can't guarantee that your report will
become part of the decision-making process."

Was I playing fair? Of course not, not even slightly. Pro-
fessors always claim they go into the university or take holy
orders or whatever so they can devote their full attention to
whatever the/re interested in; Roman epigraphy or
beekeeping or the thaumaturgical arts of a vanished Indian
tribe. Sometimes they even mean it But a lot more often,
I've found that professors who see a chance to influence
events outside academe will leap at it in spite of their alleged
lack of interest Truth to tell, I don't know if a savant of
Roman epigraphy ever got that kind of chance (at least since
the days when the Empire was a going concern), but my
guess is that he'd grab it, too.

And so now Professor Blank said, "Three weeks, eh?"
Even with two phone imps between his mouth and my ear,
he sounded distinctly unhappy. Another phone pause fol-
lowed. I understood the reason for this one: he was giving
me a chance to say I'd made a mistake and the real deadline
was three months—or three years—away. I didn't say any
such thing. Blank sighed. "Very well, Inspector Fisher, I will
attempt to meet the challenging timeframe you have out-
lined. God give you good day, sir."

The same to you. Professor, and I'm grateful for your
help. I look forward to seeing your detailed report; it will be
most valuable both to me and to the Environmental
Perfection Agency as a whole." As long as he was going to do
what I wanted, I had no problem with letting him down easy.
It worked, too; he seemed a lot happier by the time he got off
the phone.

I spent the next several minutes making notes on the con-
versation, both as an aide-memoire for me and to let me have
something to show Bea so she'd know I really and truly was
working on all the cases that crowded my desk. In an ideal
world, I wouldn't have had to waste my time with worries
like that, but no one has ever claimed Plato would recognize
the Confederal bureaucracy as an ideal world.

I asked my watch what time it was, found out it was
almost half past four. A busy day. I was getting tired of not




192

Harry Turtledove

having the chance to get up to Bakhtiars Precision Burins,
but I had made one trip to St. Ferdinand's Valley. Maybe
tomorrow, I told myself. I wrote a note reminding me to call
Tony Sudalds tomorrow, too; the investigation had gone so
many different ways lately that I hadn't done much with the
Devonshire dump itself in quite a while. Sudalds probably
figured I'd fallen off the edge of the world, not that he'd miss
me if I did.

Instead of finding something constructive to do with the
last half hour of my work day, I looked out the window to see
if the succubi were still marching down below. They were,
and traffic in the building rush hour on Wilshire Boulevard,
always heavy, was becoming downright elephantine. Maybe I
could duck south down side flyways to St Monica's Boule-
vard and get on the freeway there.

It was a good plan. It should have worked, too; Veteran
was crowded heading north because people couldn't turn
onto Wilshire from it, but southbound traffic didn't look too
bad. I felt pretty smug sliding down to the parking lot—this
once, I figured, I had a fighting chance of beating the

system.

Thaumaturgy hasn't found them yet, but there must be
gremlins who sit around listening for thoughts like that. I was
just strapping on my safety belt when a priest happened to
fly down Veteran. In an instant, all the succubi who had been
on Wilshire started running after his carpet, shaking every-
thing they had (and believe me, they had plenty) and calling
out blandishments that made my ears turn red—and they
weren't even directed at me.

Succubi, of course, delight in tormenting priests: that's
been obvious ever since Christianity began. And priests,
being mortal, have been known to yield to temptation. Some
of the temptation here was pretty tempting, too.

A normal rule in Westwood is that you can't find a parking
space to save your soul. The priest, though, must have had
the power of the Lord behind him, because he managed to
slide his carpet into one. The succubi squealed with delight
and jounced after him, sure they'd found another sinner in
clerical collar.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

193

They got a rude surprise. The priest hadn't stopped to
dally with them, he'd stopped to give them a load of fire and
brimstone to take the place of the sweet scents they were
wearing: bitch wolves was the nicest thing he called them,
and went on to things like haughty, vainglorious, lecherous
betrayers, ready for every wickedness, and fickle in love
(which, when applied to a succubus, is about like calling the
ocean damp). He roasted them on both sides. Meanwhile,
though, half the males on Wilshire tried to turn onto Veteran
so they could keep ogling the succubi, which meant the traf-
fic jam spread with them.

At first the succubi didn't believe the priest was serious.
They had a thorough understanding of the way people work,
and knew too many folks like to condemn in public what
they do in private. So they kept on pressing themselves
against the priest, rubbing their hands over him, kissing his
cheek and his ear and the bare circle of his tonsure, paying
no heed to his outraged bellows.

Then he pulled out an ampule of holy water. The suo
cubi's squeals turned to screams. They ran, you'll pardon the
expression, like hell. And the priest, his virtue intact even if
his clothes were mussed, got back onto his carpet and flew
away.

He flew away slowly. By then, that was the only way it was
possible to fly on Veteran. Everyone else flew slowly, too,
including me. I shouldn't have been thinking such uncharita-
ble thoughts abut a man of the cloth, especially one who had
just proved his faith against a challenge to which many would
have succumbed... but I was. If he'd flown by five minutes
later, I'd have had an easy trip to the freeway. Getting
snarled in traffic instead would have tried the patience of a
saint.

I made it home much later than I'd intended, and in a
much fouler mood. These things happen. After a bottle of
ale and a steak, my attitude improved a good deal. I know
what would improve it more, too: I called Judy.

"I'm so jealous, I'm going to hit you the next time I see
you," she said when I told her I'd been involved in using vir-
tuous reality to contact Erasmus. "We were just talking about

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      195

Ak/-x

that at the office today. The consensus in the business is that
it's the biggest advance in sorcerous technology since ecto-

plasmic cloning."

°I didn't think it was that important," I said. Look at the

ways having large numbers of identical microimps has
changed our lives: spellcheckers, telephones, ethemet sets,
all sorts of things our grandparents couldn't have imagined.
Thinking of that much change happening again—and prob-
ably happening faster, because it would be allied to the
developments that are already in place—made my head

spin.

But Judy said, "Oh, it is, David. The world will be a differ-
ent place twenty years from now, because we'B have figured
out all the things we can do in virtuous reality. Think about
it: what's the biggest problem in sorcerous applications

today?"

"Ask me a hard one," I answered. 'To accomplish every-
thing people want to do these days, spells keep getting more
and more complex, and errors creep in." Some of the errors
are pretty ghastly, too, like the one at the Union Kobold
works in India a few years back, where a Rakshawas mistak-
enly ordered to turn out wood alcohol instead of the more
friendly sort. Hundreds died from drinking it, and a couple
of thousand more were permanently blinded—all from one
small goof in translating a spell from Latin into Sanskrit so

, the Hindu demon could understand it

"You're right, of course," Judy said, which took my mind
off the contemplation of disaster. Just as weB, too. She went
on, "But think what wiB happen when any old mage can go
into virtuous reality to develop his sorcerous subroutines.
Because of the nature of that space, the number of errors
should drop way down. Ideally, it should fall to zero, but I
think the fallibility principles will keep that from happening.

Still—"

"I hadn't thought of it in those terms," I admitted. "It just

seemed a handy way to reach a spirit who'd been too badly
damaged to manifest himself in this rough, rugged world." I
thought about some of the things the wizards had done to
poor Erasmus. Judy didn't need to know about those.

She said, "I'm just glad I'll have my master's and be out of
the copy-editing and proofreading end of the business soon.
Mark my words, the accuracy breakthrough that wiB come
with virtuous reality is going to throw a lot of sharp people
onto the streets."

"Change has a way of doing that: the more efficient the
spells get, the more they do and the less anybody needs ac-
tual people," I said. One of the reasons the General Movers
plant in Van Nuys is going under is that the Japanese have
figured out a way to power the looms that make their flying
carpets by kamkazes—divine winds.

"That does look to be the way it's going," she said, "but
what do we do with all the people who lose jobs? Eventually
nobody will need people for anything, and then where will
we be?"

The two answers that occur to me are bored and broke"
I answered. "But those are for people in general. People in
particular—us, I mean—will be married. We may end up
broke, but I don't think we'll be bored."

"No, not bored," she agreed, "especially not with children
in the house."

"Uh-huh," I said. I know children are usually one of the
things marriage is about. I even looked forward, in an
abstract sort of way, to being a father. But it didn't seem real
to me; I had trouble imagining myself giving a baby a bath or
helping a little girl with her subtraction problems.

Then I thought about the Corderos. They were nice lads
who'd had every reason to expect a nice, normal baby.
Instead they got Jesus, bom without a soul. How were they
handling it? How could I handle something like that if it
happened to me? The very idea was nearly enough to put me
off parenthood for good.

"You stiB there?" Judy asked when I didn't say anything
for a while. "Relax—it's not as if you're going to have to start
changing diapers tomorrow." The woman can read me like
one of the grimoires she proofs. I suspect that, like them, I'B
end up better for the editing, too.

Just to show her I had other things on my mind besides
immediately turning into a daddy, I said, "Something else




196 Harry Turtledove

interesting happened today—or at least I thought it was." I
told her about the demon stration outside the Confederal
Building.

"I'D bet you thought it was interesting," she said darldy.
Women take a particular tone when they talk about attractive
competition that bothers them. They take a different—but
not very different—tone when they talk about attractive
competition that amuses them. Over the phone, I had a
tough time telling which one Judy was using. She went on,
"See anything you liked in particular?"

"Well—" The image of the succubus in blue leaped into
my mind, as fully three-dimensional as the little demon had
been herself. "As a matter of fact, yes." I did my best to
sound sheepish, but I didn't know how good my best was.

Judy left me hanging for a couple of seconds before she
started to laugh. "Good," she said between chuckles. "If
you'd told me anything else, I'd have figured you were
lying—succubi are made to be succulent, after all. I wish I'd
been there; I could have leered at some of the incubi.
Watching is fun, though I think men may be more apt to
enjoy it than women."

"Maybe," I said. "It didn't seem to matter much to the
traffic, though. Everybody was staring, men and women
both."

"Oh, God, I hadn't even thought about that It must have
been awful." Commuting every day from Long Beach up
into East A.C., Judy knows all about traffic tangles and loves
them as much as anyone else who has to get on the freeway
to go to work.

"It was worse than that." She laughed again when I told
her how the strong-minded priest had foiled my effort to
escape down Veteran. Thinking back on it, I decided it was
funny, too. It certainly hadn't felt funny why I was sitting on
my carpet twiddling my thumbs for an extra twenty minutes.
"So how was your day?" I asked.

"Certainly not as interesting as yours," she answered.
"Very much the usual: looking at sheets of parchment and
making little marks on them in red. It keeps me out of the
baron's Paupers' Home, but past that it doesn't have a whole

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

197

lot to recommend it. I can't wait to finish my master's so
somebody will hire me to work on the theoretical side of
sorcery."

Then you'll be working in virtuous reality all the time, if
it turns out to be as important as you think it wffl," I said.

"It will, and I will. Then I'll come home and we can be
less than virtuous together." Judy hesitated, just a beat "But
we'll be married, so it'll be virtuous after all. Hmm. I'm not
sure I like that."

"I think it'll be fine any which way," I said. "And speak-
ing—indirectly—of such things, do you want to have dinner
with me tomorrow night?"

"Indirectly indeed," she said. "Sure, I'd love to. Shall we
go to that Hanese place near your flat again?"

"Sounds good to me. You want to meet here after we get
off work?"

"AH right," Judy said. 'It'll be good to see you. I love you."
"Love you too, hon. See you tomorrow. 'Bye."

Thinking of seeing Judy kept me going through a mis-
erable Tuesday at the office. I did get some of the small
stuff done. Lord, the things that show up on an EPA man's
desk sometimes! I got a letter from a woman up in the
high desert asking it the ashes of a coyote's flesh had the
same anti-asthmatic effect as those of a fox's flesh when
drunk in wine and, if so, whether she could set traps for
the ones that kept trying to catch her cats. Just answering
that one took a couple of hours of research and a phone
call to the Chief Huntsman of the Barony of Angels (in
case you're interested, the answers are yes and she had to
buy a twenty-crown license first, respectively).

The environmental study on importing leprechauns,
though, took a large step backwards. I got a very fancy-
looking legal brief from an outfit that called itself Save
Our Basin, which opposed allowing the Little People to
establish themselves here. SOB put forward the fear that,
once we had leprechauns here, all the Sidhe would hence-
forth pack up and move to Angels City. I'm condensing,
but that's what the gist of it was.

198 Harry Turtledove

Now on first glance this stuck me as one of the more
idiotic environmental concerns I'd seen lately. The climate
here, both literal and theological, isn't congenial to Pow-
ers from cool, moist Eire. But the Save Our Basin folks
had so many citations in their brief—from the evocatio of
Juno out of Veil and into Rome to the establishment of
the Virgin at Guadalupe in what had been a purely Azte-
can thecology—that I couldn't dismiss it out of hand. It
would have to be countered, which meant more research,
more projections—and more delay. I wondered how long
leprechauns could stay in hiberniation. I hoped it was a
long time.

I looked at the names on the letterhead of the Save Our
Basin parchment I didn't recognize any of them, but
somebody in that organization was one clever lawyer. As
far as I could see, none of the citations in the brief was
precisely analogous to what would happen if we imported
leprechauns into Angels City, but they were all close
enough to being analogous that I (and, again by analogy,
our legal staff) couldn't afford to ignore them. We'd have
to examine every one of those instances, demonstrate that
it was irrelevant, and withstand challenges from Save Our
Basin trying to establish that the instances weren't irrele-
vant at all.

In a word, a mess. I figured the best way was to taclde
their citations chronologically, so I started researching the
Roman sack of Veil. I found out in a hurry that all the
accounts of the sack are legendary, some more so than oth-
ers. Legends are trickier to deal with than myths. Mythical
material definitely has theological overtones; you know what
the thaumaturgic content is. But in a legend you can't tell
what's from This Side and what from the Other. A lawyers
paradise, in other words.

I'm sure Save Our Basin did it on purpose, too. Not for
the first time lately, I had the feeling I was wading deeper
into quicksand-
When quitting time finally rolled around, I breathed a
heartfelt. Thank God!" My spirits improved considerably as
I left behind the spirits I'd been wrestling with at work and

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      199

K^ ? ^y ^ ^ lookmS folwarct to dinner with
ffAa?6 rert ofthe ^ being e^ more enjoy-
On my way home, someone tried to kill me.

VII

Everything was fine tiB I got off the freeway at The
Second. Traffic, in fact, had been a little lighter than usual,
though on St. James' Freeway at rush hour a little light than
usual isn't the same as light, or even close to it Still, I was
feeling pretty good about the world as I headed east up The
Second toward my flat

I had to wait for cross traffic at the comer of The Second
and Anglewood Boulevard; a small church was being moved
up Anglewood on top of a couple of extra-heavy-duty car-
pets. When at last it cleared the intersection, I tried to start
across fast but couldn't because the little old lady on the car-
pet in front of me didn't. That probably saved my life,
though I sent foul thoughts her way at the time.

A carpet had been idling in the parking lot of the filed

201

202                Harry Turtledove

chicken place on the far side of Anglewood. I'd noticed it,
and wondered what the two guys on it were thinking about
Most likely nothing, was my disparagmg opinion; if they'd
had any brains, they would have taken advantage of the hole
in traffic the traveling church made and headed up The Sec-
ond themselves.

They got moving fast enough after I went by. Too fast, in

fact—if a black-and-white carpet had been anywhere nearby,
they'd have picked up a ticket just like that I saw in my rear-
view mirror that they didn't seem to like the way I was flying,
either: they zoomed up above me to pass. That would have
earned them another ticket from any constable who saw

them.

I thought about signifying my opinion of the way they

flew with an ancient fertility gesture, but I decided not to. As
I've mentioned, Hawthorne is a tough town, and people
have been known to get shot or have other unpleasant things
happen to them on the flyways of Angels City. So I just did
my best to pretend the louts didn't exist as they went up and

over me.

As they did, though, one of them leaned out past the

fringe of his carpet and dropped something down onto mine.
They sped away , . . and my carpet didn't want to fly any

more.

tore.
I had time for one startled squawk and the first two words

of the Shnw before the carpet, suddenly just a rug, hit the
ground with a thump that made me bite my tongue and left
my backside bruised for the next two weeks. If I hadn't been
wearing my safety belt, if the carpet hadn't rolled up around
me when I hit, or if I'd been going faster, I don't care to

think what might have happened.

As things were, I wasn't badly hurt, but I had that weird
sensation you get after an accident: I was pretty shaky, but I
had almost total perception and recall of everything going on
around me. Other carpets kept flying by a few feet overhead,
the people on them intent on their own business and not
caring at all about somebody who'd just had his carpet fail

him.

But why had it failed? I couldn't figure that out Did it

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      203

have something to do with whatever the punk had dropped
on my carpet? I looked around for that, trying to find out
what it was. I didn't see anything on the carpet itself, but
something was stirring out on the weed-covered dirt just
beyond the fringe.

I bent my head closer. The earth itself seemed to be
writhing. For a second or two, I didn't understand what I
was looking at Then I did, and ice ran through me: it was a
tiny earth elemental, busfly digging itself back into its proper
home.

Fire and water are the opposing elements we most com-
monly notice, but earth and air are opposites, too. Matt
Arnold had talked about sylph-esteem and sylph-discipline,
but if those two guys had tossed an earth elemental down
onto my carpet, that was nothing short of sylph-abuse.

The elemental had gone now, though, back to its own
proper home. I tried the starting spell. My carpet lifted off
the ground as smoothly as if nothing had ever been wrong
with it Very carefully, looking every which way as I went and
wishing for eyes in the back of my head, I flew on home.

All the way there, I tried to make some sense out of what
had happened, the way theologians wrestle with God's will.
Was it just a couple of hooligans out to have some sport with
whoever drew the short straw? Thafs the sort of random vio-
lence that gives Angels City flyways a bad name, but this
time I wished I could believe it. I couldn't, though.

Those two guys on that rug had been waiting for me in
particular. I'd noticed them sitting a few feet off the ground
in the parking lot while the church slowly flew by on Angle-
wood Boulevard. If they'd wanted to head up The Second,
they'd had all the time they needed to do it. They'd just
waited.

But why? Again, I didn't have much trouble coming up
with an answer: it had to have something to do with die case
of the toxic spell dump. I did my best to remember what the
(wo punks had looked like. All I could come up with was
swarthy and dark-haired. They might have been Persians or
Aztedans. They might have been hired muscle, too: Israel-
ites, Druzes, Indians from the Confederation or from India,




204 Harry Turtledove

even Hanese or Japanese. I hadn't got a real good look at
then, and an awful lot of people in Angels City match up to
the description swarthy and dark-haired.

I came to that dispirited conclusion about the time I set
my carpet down in its parking space back at my block of flats.
Somebody was going downstairs from his carpet as I was
coming up from mine. He gave me an odd look as we passed
on the stairs, but I didn't think anything of it past wondering
what was haunting him that afternoon.

Then I turned the knob to my own flat. Judy sat curled up
on the couch in the front room, reading a book on the
Gamda Bird I'd picked up a few days before and hadn't got
around to putting on a shelf yet What started out as her
smile of welcome turned into something else when her
mouth sagged open in surprise. "Good God, David, what
happened to you?"

A lot had happened to me, but I asked foolishly, "What do
you mean, what happened?"

She sprang to her feet, grabbed me by the arm, and
dragged me to the bathroom mirror as if I wasn't to be
trusted to do anything that required rational thought on my
own. "Look at yourself!° she commanded

I mentally apologized to the fellow who'd stared at me
while I was coming up to my flat I looked like someone
who'd been French-kissed by a vampire: streaks of blood ran
from the comers of my mouth and had dripped down onto
my shirt. Before I wore it again, I'd have to go visit Carlotta
or somebody else with a vampster. All my clothes were
disheveled, as if I'd been through a carpet crash in them.
Funny how that works, I thought vaguely.

"What happened?" Judy said again.

So I told her, in as much detail as I remembered:

pieces seemed blank, while others that happened only
moments later were there in incredible perfection—I
could have described exactly how every tiny dod of dirt
wiggled and wavered as the earth elemental pushed its
was through them after it rolled off my carpet. I started
to, until Judy's face told me that wasn't something she
needed to hear.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      205

"You could have been killed," she said when I was
through.

"That was the general idea," I said. "If I hadn't been wear-
ing my safety belt, or even if I'd been going faster when they
dropped the elemental on me—" I didn't care to think about
that, much less talk about it I turned on the cold water,
splashed it onto my face. That, and then burying my head in
a towel to dry off, gave me an excuse not to talk for a couple
of minutes.

Then I tried to unbutton my shirt That was when I
discovered how bad my hands were shaking: I had a
dreadful time making my fingers hold onto the smooth little
buttons. After watching me struggle with the first two, Judy
took over. As in everything she did, she was quick and deft
and capable.

The feel of her fingers fluttering against my chest
inflamed me as if she'd turned into a succubus. I've heard
that living through a battle makes you homy. I didn't know
about that, not firsthand; I hadn't been in a fight, let alone a
battle, since I got out of primary school. But by the time
Judy got to the last button, I couldn't wait any more. I
grabbed her and kissed her—not quite as consumingly as Td
had in mind, because my tongue was still sore.

"Well," she said when she came up for air. Before she
could say anything else, I kissed her again. "Well," she
repeated a minute or so later, and (his time she managed to
go on: "Ifs a good thing I drank the cup of roots when I got
here instead of waiting till after dinner."

It turned out to be a very good thing: for the next half
hour or so, I forgot all about what had happened on The
Second. The only problem with making love to put aside
your problems is that they're still there when it's over. Sitting
up on the bed afterwards, I said, "You'd better be careful,
too, honey. You've gotten yourself involved in this case. If
they come after me—whoever they are—they're liable to
come after you, too."

"Thafs non—" But it wasn't nonsense, and Judy must
have known it, because she didn't finish the sentence. She
sat up beside me. Her nod made her jiggle most pleasantly,

206               Harry Turtkdooe

but her voice was serious as she replied, "What have we

gotten ourselves into here?"

I thought about Charlie Kelly and Henry Legion. "I don't
know," I said grimly, "but I'm going to find out."

Dinner at the Hanese place was good. In fact, dinner was
probably wonderful, but we were both too distracted to
enjoy it as much as we should have—and, not meaning to be
crude, my rear end hurt. And when we flew to the restaurant
and then back again, I kept looking over my shoulder, won-
dering who was behind us ... and why. I almost jumped out
of my sidn when a carpet zipped by closer than it should
have, but it was just a couple of teenage lads with more

machismo than brains.

When we got back to my flat—safe, sound, and overfed—
Judy said, "I want you to do something for me." Like some
people you may know, Judy has a Serious Voice. She was

using it now.

"What is it?'I asked.

She said, "Before we went out, you said I should be care-
ful from now on. Well, you should, too. I want you to start
doing what they do in the thrillers: leave for work a few min-
utes early one day, then a few minutes late the next. Don't
get onto the freeway at The Second every morning, or off it
there every night The same for Wilshire at the other end of
your commute. Don't make yourself an easier target, I

mean."

I started to laugh, to tell her that was all silly stuff. But it

didn't seem silly, not after those guys had tried to do me in.
"Okay," I said, and found myself nodding. "You do the same."

"I will," she promised.

I wondered if we ought to stop seeing each other for a
while. If she'd said she wanted to do that, I wouldn't have let
out a peep. But I didn't suggest it myself. Maybe that was
selfish of me. In fact, I'm sure it was, a little. But the main
reason I didn't was that I was pretty sure she was in too deep

to turn invisible so easily.

"Do you want to stay the night, or do you think you'd be

safer going home now?" I asked her.

Td intended to stay," she said. "I stuck a change of

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      207

clothes in your closet" She did some veiy visible thinking. "If
the/re interested in me—whoever they are—they have to
know where I live. They could be waiting for me there as
well as here. I'll stay." She made a face. "Oh, I don't like this!
Having to think about everything before you do it—is it safe?
is it risky? I don't like it at all."

"Me neither," I said. "But I'm glad you're staying. I wasn't
what you'd call keen on being here by myself. I think I'd
probabfy wake up every time a cat screeched or a dog
barked." Was that selfish? Well, yes, probably. It was also
very true.

I did something else then: I went into the hall closet took
out my blasting rod, and put it under the bed where I could
get at it in a huny. Judy watched without saying a word, but
nodded soberly when I was done.

Judy and I woke up once in the middle of the night with a
horrible start when the sylphs in somebody's carpet started
screaming because the anti-theft geas was violated—or
maybe because they thought it was, or maybe for no reason
in particular. You never can tell with spirits of the air. Their
nocturnal screams are a sound you hear fairly often in Angels
City or any other good-sized town, generally when you least
want to. At last whoever owned the carpet went down there
and made them shut up, or maybe the thief flew away on it
Anyway, quiet returned.

"Jesus," Judy said.

"Or Somebody," I agreed. We both settled down and tried
to go back to sleep. It took me a long time, and by the way
Judy was breathing, she had as much trouble as I did. What
had happened to me left both of us jumpy.

The horological demon in the alarm dock I'd bought at
the swap meet caterwauled to get us up a little past six. The
noise it made was so awful, I figured the Siamese exported
its land so they wouldn't have to listen to 'em. But at least it
had the courtesy not to laugh as Judy and I woke up and
untangled—we'd drifted together after we finally drifted
back off, and were sort of sleeping all over each other.

Shower, shave (for me), dress, breakfast, coffee. We'd
spent title night at each other's flats often enough that we had




208                Harry Turtledove

a routine for it. What wasn't routine was the way I walked
Judy out to her carpet, looked around to make sure nobody
was lurking nearby, and watched till she was out of sight
Then I went back to the garage, gave my own carpet a care-
ful once-over before I got onto it, and finally headed for

work.

I got there unscathed, shut the door to my office, and got

on the phone. The first person I caBed was Legate
Kawaguchi. He heard me out, then asked, "This occurred
where? On The Second past Anglewood, you said?"

"That's right."
"This location, unfortunately, is not within the jurisdiction

of the Angels City Constabulary Department, Inspector
Fisher. I suggest you contact the Hawthorne constables and

report it to them."

So I did, feeling foolish. People always say "Angeles City"

or "A.C.," but the metropolitan area has lots of other munici-
palities, some large like Long Beach, others minuscule, but
all of them jealously hanging onto as much autonomy as they
can. The Hawthorne constables took my report and prom-
ised they'd look into it, but I didn't have any great faith in the
promise. Unlike Kawaguchi, they had no feel for the kind of
case in which I'd gotten myself involved. The decurion at the
other end of the line asked if my flying could have angered
the two men who dropped the earth elemental on my carpet
He wanted to keep things inside a simple framework.

When I finally got off the line there, I called Charlie KeDy
in D.St.C. I listened to the imp at the far end squawk. It
sounded very far away. I know you're going to tell me that's
nonsense: thanks to the ether, no two points are more
distant than any other two. I don't care; I'm teDing you what

I heard.

"Charles KeBy, Environmental Perfection Agency." Toofc

him long enough to answer his bloody telephone, I thought

"Good morning, Charlie," I said; it was still morning back
in D.StC., with half an hour to spare. "This is David Fisher,
out in Angels City. A couple of men tried to kill me last night
Charlie. As far as I can tell, the only reason anybody would
want to do that is the toxic spell dump case I'm working

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      209

on—your toxic spell dump case. Don't you think it's about
time you gave me the gospel truth, Charlie?"

"David, I—" There was a long, long silence on the other
end, then a tiny sound, and then more silence. Even though
it was reproduced through two phone imps, I recognized the
sound: it was a handset going gently back into its cradle.
Charlie had hung up on me.

I didn't believe—no, I didn't want to believe—what that
meant. Maybe, I told myself, Charlie'd had somebody
important walk in and he'd get back to me later. Back in
D.St.C., there were lots of important people, and even more
who thought they were. I fooled with the parchment on my
desk for fifteen minutes, then called back.

The phone squawked even longer than it had before.
Finally I got an answer "Environmental Perfection Agency,
Melody Trudeau speaking." It was a woman's voice, all right
not the gravelly tones that made Charlie identifiable in spite
of phone imps.

"Mistress Trudeau, this is David Fisher, from the Angels
City EPA office. I'm looking for Charlie Kelly. I was on the
phone with him a little while ago, and we got cut off." That
was more than giving him the benefit of the doubt but I still
thought I might as well.

Then Melody Trudeau said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Fisher, but
Mr. Kelly left for the day about fifteen minutes ago. Would
you like me to take down a message for him?"

The kind of message I wanted to give him, I couldn't send
over the phone. I said, "No, that's all right; thank you for ask-
ing," and hung up.

After that I just stared at the phone for about five min-
utes. I needed that long for what had happened to soak in.
As far as I could tell, Charlie Kelly had told me he didn't give
a damn whether I lived or died. I know the Confederation
has been only remotely feudal since not long after we broke
away from England, but I still thought supervisors owed sub-
ordinates something in the way of loyalty, especially when
they were the ones who'd got their subordinates into the
mess in the first place. Go ahead, call me naive.

I started to go up front and dump my troubles on Bea, but

210                Harry Turtledove

stopped about two steps away from my door. What was I
supposed to tell her? "I'm sorry, boss, but I may not be in
tomorrow because someone will have murdered me"? That
didn't do the job, and what point complaining to her about
Charlie Kelly? She couldn't do anything she was junior to
Charlie, too. She'd think he was contemptible, sure, but I
already thought he was contemptible.

I stood there, halfway between my desk and the door, get-
ting madder by the second. Then I turned around and
stomped back to my chair. If Charlie wouldn't listen to me,

Henry Legion would.

Seems logical, right?. Getting hold of the CI spook wasn't
as easy as I thought it was going to be. Central Intelligence
wasn't in the D.SfcC. telephone directory, apparently on the
assumption that if you couldn't figure out how to reach
them, you really didn't need to talk to them.

After I'd scratched my head for a minute or two, I called
Saul Klein. He works for the Confederal Bureau of Investi-
gation; his offices are a couple of floors above mine. I'd
gotten to know him on the elevator and in the cafeteria. He's
a good enough fellow. When he answered the phone, I said,
"Saul? How are you? This is Dave Fisher down in the EPA.
Can I pick your brain for a minute?"

"Sure, Dave," he answered. "What's up?"

"You know those little musical sprites they import from

Alemania?"

The mmisingers? Sure. What about 'em?"
"I've heard some people express concern that they don't
just leam new songs while they're here—that they might be
picking up other things which could be useful for Alemanic
intelligence." As far as I knew, there was nothing to that.
Minisingers aren't spooks; you just take 'em to your Heeler
and turn 'em loose. A lot of taverns have them for back-
ground music, things like that. But my madness had method
to it. Ingenuous as all get out, I asked, "Would that be CBI

business, Saul?"

"Intelligence by foreign Powers? No, we don't touch that,
Dave. You need to talk to Central Intelligence back at the
capital," he said.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      211

"Thanks. Do you happen to have their number?"
"Sure. I've got it right here," he said, and gave it to me. I
wrote it down, thanked him again, and made my phone call.
Sometimes the indirect approach is best

Once I was actually talking with a real live human being
(or so I presumed—you never can teB with CI), things went
better. I got connected to Henry Legion faster than I'd ever
been transferred before.

"Good day. Inspector Fisher," the CI spook said. His
phone voice sounded more like his real voice than any natu-
ral person's. I wondered if that was because he, like the
phone imps, was a creature of the Other Side, so they could
pick up the essence of his voice as well as what he said.
While I was wondering, he went on, "I thought I might hear
from you again, but not so soon as this. What is the occasion
of the call?"

"Somebody tried to Idll me last night," I answered bluntly.
"The only reason I can think of for anybody wanting to do
that is the toxic spell dump case. I want to get to the bottom
of that, and you're the only channel I have now."

No denying Henry Legion was sharp; he pounced on that
last word like a lycanthrope leaping onto a roast of beef.
"Now?" he said. "You previously had another source of infor-
mation who has become inaccessible to you?"

"Inaccessible is just the word." I know I sounded bitter;

I'd thought Charlie Kelly was a friend—oh, not a close
friend, but somebody who wouldn't let me down if things got
tough. He'd shown me what that notion was worth, though.
Well, my loyalty to him stopped at the point where it was
liable to get me killed. I told the spook, 'You asked how I got
wind of the danger of a Third Sorcerous War?"

"Yes?" Across three thousand miles, I could visualize his
ectoplasmic ears springing to attention.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Before I teH you, I want your
promise that you'll let me know what's going on. Everybody
keeps saying that the more I know, the more dangerous it'll
be for me. I can't think of anything a lot more dangerous
than getting killed."

"I can," Henry Legion said. Maybe he really could; maybe




212 Harry Turtledove

he was just trying to scare me. But I was past being scared
of—or by—phantoms, and didn't answer. After a couple of
silent seconds, the spook took another tack: "Why should you
believe any promise I make? I am of the Other Side, and
have no soul to stake on an oath."

"Promise on your pride in your own wits and I'll believe
you," I told him.

Another telephone pause. When it was done. Legion said,
"You're not the least clever mortal with whom I have dealt
Let it be as you say. By my pride in my wits, Inspector
Fisher, I shall tell you what I know in exchange for your
information—on condition that the secret go no farther than
you."

"Uh," I said. I couldn't think of a condition better calcu-
lated to make Judy want to wring my neck. "My fiancee is
also involved in this case, and has been just about from the
start. She knows about the threat of the Third Sorcerous
War. I can't promise not to tell her, but she doesn't blab."

Henry Legion let out a long sigh. "Sexuality," he said, as if
he were cursing. "Very well. Inspector Fisher, I agree to your
proposed amendment, provided she agrees to tell no one.
Now speak, and withhold nothing."

So I spoke. I told him about Charlie Kelly, and about the
bird Charlie kept being too coy to name. And I told him
what Charlie had said about the risk of war—and about how
Charlie had hung up on me and bugged out of his office.

"Ah, Mr. Kelly," the spook said. "Matters become less
murky."

"Not to me, they don't," I told him.

"Although of low rank himself" (Charlie was several
notches above me, but I let that go) "your Mr. Kelly is well-
connected politically," Henry Legion said. "He is the close
friend and familiar—I use the word almost in the thauma-
turgical sense—of a Cabinet subminister whose name I
prefer not to divulge but who, I think, is like to be the source
of his, ah, sensitive information. That matter can be—and
shall be—rectified, I assure you."

I didn't care for the way he said rectified. I wondered if
the anonymous Cabinet subminister was about to have the

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      213

fear of an angry God put into him... or if he'd have to suffer
what they call an unfortunate accident. But that; for me, was
a side issue. I said, "I told you what I know. Now you keep
your end of the bargain."

At that point, much too late, I wondered how I was sup-
posed to make him keep the bargain if he didn't feel like it,
But he said, "Perhaps this conversation would be better con-
tinued face to face rather than through the ether. You are on

the seventh floor of the Westwood Confederal Building, is
that not correct?"

"That's right," I agreed.

"Hang up the phone, then. I shall see you shortly."
I dutifully hung up. Sure enough, a couple of seconds
later Henry Legion materialized in my office—or rather, the
top half of him did: the floor cut him off at what would have
been his belly button if spooks had belly buttons. The sound-
proofing in the Confederal Building is pretty good, but I
heard the woman in the office right below me let out a star-
ded squeal, so I presume Henry's legs end popped into
being just below her ceiling.

The spook peered down at himself. He looked mistily
annoyed, then said, "A three-foot error on a crosscountry
journey isn't bad. Ifs not as if I were material." He sounded
like someone trying to convince himself and not having
much luck. He pulled himself up through the floor so his ec-
toplasmic wing-tips rested on the carpet.

It's a good thing he's not material, I thought. Two differ-
ent sets of matter aren't designed to occupy the same space
at the same time. The likeliest result of that would have been
one big bang.

Once he was all in the room with me, his dignity recov-
ered in a hurry. He draped himself over a chair, gave me a
nod, and said, "By my pride in my own wits, David Fisher, I
shall tell you what I can. Ask your questions."

His wits were still working pretty well, I noticed: if I didn't
come up with the right questions, I wouldn't find out what I

needed to know. Well, first things first- "Who's trying to loll
me?"

Henry Legion's indistinct features distinctly frowned.




214               Harry Turdedove

"Without further information, I cannot answer that with any
more assurance than you possess yourself. I realize it is of
the essence to you, but I trust you will understand it is not

my primary concern."

"Yeah," I said grudgingly. Understanding didn't mean I
had to like it I tried something else; "If there is. God forbid,
a Third Sorcerous War, who's going to be in it? And whose

side will we be on?"

"God forbid indeed," the spook said. "As for who would
begin the fighting if war came, again I cannot say with any
certainty. The Confederation's place would depend on the
patterns of other belligerents; as you may know, some of our

alliance systems overlap others."

"As a matter of fact, I do know that" I was getting angry.
"I also know that I gave you straight answers and you're giv-
ing me the runaround. I don't caB that a fair exchange." I
didn't know what I could do about that, unfortunately. If
Henry Legion didn't feel like answering questions, all he had
to do was disappear and ignore my phone caBs from then on

out.

But he didn't disappear. He held up a transparent but pla-
cating hand. Before he could say anything. Rose tapped on
the door, then opened it and stuck her nose into my office.
"I'm sony, Dave," she said quickly. "I didn't realize you had
someone in here." Then she got a good look at Henry
Legion. Her eyes widened as she realized what sort of some-
one he was. But she dosed the door and went away anyhow.
Rose is a wonderful secretary.

"You were saying—" I prompted the spook.

"So I was," Henry Legion agreed. "I do apologize for
appearing evasive, but the matter is more complex than most
mortals, even those in high places, fully grasp. The turmoil
that has marked this century—and that may yet precipitate
the Third Sorcerous War—has roots that go back hundreds
of years. It is an outcome of a fundamental shift in the bal-
ance of Powers that occurred with and as a result of die
European expansion which began half a millennium ago."

°I do follow you," I said. "Remember where you are: this
is the EPA. One of die things I'm working on that has

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

215

nothing to do with the toxic spell dump case is whether the
Chumash Indian Powers have gone extinct in the past few
years."

This is a trivial example of the phenomenon to which I
refer," die spook said. Towers have been reduced and dis-
placed and others magnified on a scale unseen since the
diminution and near-destruction of the Greco-Roman pagan
deities and the rise of Christianity. And that impacted only
Europe, North Africa, and western Asia; this is worldwide in
scope. To give you some notion of what I mean, consider
that Sarganatas and Nebiros, the one brigadier-major, the
other field-marshal and inspector-general of the Judeo-
Christian Descending Hierarchy, have for several centuries
made their residence here in the Americas."

"I grant diat the/re wickeder than Huitzilopochdi, but
are they any nastier?" I asked. The Aztecian war-god wasn't
evil in and of himself the way die demon princes were, but
his proper food was blood. My stomach twisted when I
thought about the flayed human skin in the potion
Cuauhtemoc Hemandez had sold to Lupe Cordero.

But Henry Legion said, "That is not the point. The point
is that Huitzilopochtii has been displaced, and naturally
resents it. The same is true of most of the indigenous Powers
of the Americas, of Polynesia, of Australia. The Muslim
expansion through the Southern Isles has reduced the range
of the Hindu Powers, who still have their enormous Indian
belief base upon which to draw. Ukrainian and Spainish con-
quests, on the other hand, have cut into the sphere where
jinni and ghouls and other Muslim Powers can roam at will.
And the horror that was Alemania two generations ago
shows Christendom isn't immune to theological disaster,
either."

"What you're telling me is that the whole world is going to
hell," I said slowly. I wondered whether I was exaggerating
for conversational effect or being perfectly literal.

"Central Intelligence prognostications put the probability
of that outcome as less than ten percent in the next decade,"
Henry Legion said, his voice inhumanly calm. "A year ago,
however, that same probability was assessed at less than




216                Harry Turtledove

three percent Whether fully Judeo-Christian or not,
Inspector Fisher, trouble is brewing beneath the orderly
surface of our existence."

Since I'd had the door closed all morning, my office was
warm and rather stuffy. I shivered even so. "Okay," I said.
"There's trouble. What does it have to do with the Devon-
shire toxic spell dump?"

"As for a precise answer, I can only speculate," Henry
Legion replied. "But consider this: the spell residues stored
at that site are the worst and most potent yet devised. If they
are lealdng into the wider environment, they draw attention
to the dump. That attention is liable to be extremely unwel-
come if something undocumented but deadly is being
disposed of at the Devonshire dump."

All at once, I remembered the Nothing I'd seen walking
the path from the dump entrance to Tony Sudalds' office. I
never had got around to asking him what that was. I hadn't
called him Tuesday, either—too many other things going on.
"Have you any further questions?" Henry Legion asked.
"Yeah, I do," I said. "Okay, you don't know for sure which
Powers or humans might touch off the Third Sorcerous War.
You must have suspects, though. Isn't that what Central
Intelligence is for—to be suspicious?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," the spook answered. "Suspects,
you say? In order of probability, they are Persia, Azteda, the
Ukraine, and India."

That didn't help me much. Some sort of Persian connec-
tion seemed die most likely cause of trouble at the
Devonshire dump, too, at least judgtog by what had hap-
pened to Erasmus, while I couldn't rule out the Aztecans,
either, not with Huitzilopochdism on the loose and the trail
that had led me to poor soulless Jesus Cordero.

For that matter, I couldn't rule out the Powers of India,
either, which meant Loki and the other aerospace firms were
still suspects. Along with the cow, Erasmus had been tor-
mented by sorcerous serpents, and the Garuda Bird is a

great foe of such.

Complications, complications ... I remembered that
other serpent I'd seen, the one in the Garden of virtuous

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

217

reality who hadn't had to crawl around on his belly. If the
model for that serpent had behaved himself better, the world
would be a more peaceful place today.

I said, "What you're telling me is that you don't know
who's trying to kill me or who wants to start the war, but you
want to use me to help you find out"

"In essence, yes," Henry Legion said. "Keeping you alive
while the investigation proceeds would also be desirable,"

To me even more than to you," I assured him. The situ-
ation reminded me of an old riddle: how do you know when
there are pixies around? The answer is, when you get pix-
ilated. I never had found that riddle very funny. It was a lot
less so now, when it was more like finding out who was trying
to IdB me by what happened when they did it

Someone tapped on the door, then opened it Rose again.
She said quietly, "When I saw you hadan important guest,
David, I arranged for my phone imp to cover yours. Here's a
message for you." Nodding as politely to Henry Legion as if
she couldn't see through him, she went back outside again.

The spook said, "We here at Central Intelligence—and at
other nations' equivalent services, I assure you—are gener-
ally less than delighted when an amateur like yourself gets
stuck between the lines of the cantrip, so to speak: not only
because of the danger to which you are exposed but also on
account of your unpredictability, which may set off other
unpredictable acts at a juncture when unpredictable acts
have the potential to bring on what may for all practical pur-
poses be Armageddon."

If Henry Legion had been a human being, he couldn't
possible have said all that on one breath. As it was, Charlie
Kelly had in essence told me the same thing. But Charlie
had bugged out on me, while the CI spook was still on my
side—I hoped.

"What do you suggest I do next?" I asked him.

"Cany on with your life and work as normally as you can,"
he answered. "If fate is kind—always an interesting ques-
tion—you will eventually be able to work your way out of the
center of interest you now occupy."

"And if fate isn't?" I said.




218                 Harry Turtledove

A human being, even one who worked for Central Intelli-
gence, probably would have given me a soothing answer
back. Henry Legion didn't "If fate is unload. Inspector
Fisher, you will be killed. If fate is very unkind, the world will
go with you. As I said before, the balance of Powers has been
upset for a long time. Megasalamanders may be the least we

have to worry about"

That much pessimism rocked me. "But a megasalaman-
der can slag a whole city—" I felt absurd the second the
words were out of my mouth. Was I bragging of how
destructive our ultimate weapons were or complaining they

weren't destructive enough?

"Yes, Inspector Legion, but although megasalamanders
are of the Other Side, the devastation they create is confined
to the material," Henry Legion said implacably. "Further,
they do not launch themselves, but travel when and were
ordered by the mages who control them. If the Powers seek
to redress the balance on their own—"

He dematerialized then, leaving me an an empty office
and cold dread in my middle. That's the trouble about argu-
ing with a spook: if he wants it, he can have the last word.
This time, though, I think he would have had it even if he'd

stayed around.

I thought about what he'd just said. Suppose all the Pow-
ers that had seen their domains shrink over the past five
hundred years or so got together and struck back at the Ones
that had dispossessed them. A man mad for revenge is liable
to take it no matter what ft costs him and those he loves. If
the Powers acted the same way, then heaven help the people
over a big part of the globe... except it would more likely be

hell on earth.

No wonder Henry Legion couldn't work up much con-
cern about whether I individually lived or died. In a way, it
didn't seem that important to me any more, either. But only

in a way.

I stared down at my desk, trying to get back from

contemplating Armageddon to doing my job. My eye fell on
the note Rose had come in to give me. The message, I saw,
was from Legate Kawaguchi. It said, in its entirety, "The

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      219

feather is from a specimen of PHAROMACHRUS
MOCINNO." It was written just like that; Rose had printed
the formal name in block capitals so I couldn't possible
misread it Undoubtedly she'd had Kawaguchi give it to her
letter by letter so she wouldn't get it wrong, too. Rose is a
queen among secretaries.

Only one trouble: I hadn't the slightest notion what a
Pharomachms mocinno was. I called Kawaguchi back, but I
didn't get him. He'd gone into the field—something horrible
and gruesome had just broken. The centurion who took my
call sounded so harassed that I didn't have the nerve to ask
him whether he knew what land of bird Kawaguchi had
meant

I went and checked our own reference library: not all
environmental issues involve the Other Side. We had books
about birds that dwell in the Barony of Angels.
fharomachrvs mac/bum wasn't one. A little information, but
not much. I made a mental note to ask Kawaguchi about it
the next time I talked with him, then went back to work.

A good rule I've developed and don't follow enough is
when in doubt, make a list. Writing things down forces you
to think about whafs important to you. It works so well, it's
almost magic. The first writing, I suspect, really was magic—
vaasfc against forgetting. It still serves that role if you give it
half a chance.

So I wrote. When I was done, the top of the list looked
like this:

® Checking around the Devonshire toxic spell dump.

@ Bakhtiar's Precision Burins.

@ The Chumash Powers.

® Importing leprechauns.

® Chocolate Weasel.

Everything below ®, I figured, could wait. Most of the
bottom of the list was day-to-day stuff where it didn't really
matter whether the day was today, tomorrow, or next Tues-
day. Some of the other items, like what had caused Jesus
Cordero to be born apsychic, were important in and of
themselves, but were also linked to high-priority items.

I also noticed I didn't really have five items up at the top: I




220                Harry Turtledove

had two. Getting to Bakhtiar's Precision Burins and Choco-
late Weasel sprang from trying to get to the bottom of what
was going on at the Devonshire dump, and of course the
Chumash Powers study and the one on leprechauns were
almost incestuously intertwined.

Armed with my list, I did go up front to see Bea. I wanted
to get her approval on it so I could cany on with a clear con-
science and without having to worry about unexpected
thunderbolts from her. Rose waved me through into her
sanctum; for a wonder, Bea wasn't on the phone and she
didn't have anybody in there with her.

"Good morning, David," she said. One eyebrow went up.
"I hear you've been spending time with some high-powered
company. I'm very impressed."

I wasn't surprised Rose had told her, a secretary is sup-
posed to keep a division head informed about what people
are doing. And besides, even a queen of secretaries is enti-
tled to a little gossip.

But if Bea knew about Henry, I could take advantage of it
even though I wished I'd never met the CI spook. I said,
"The Devonshire dump case seems to be turning into a
national security affair. That's why I've put it at the top of my
to-do list." I shoved the parchmentacross the desk at her.

She looked at it, she looked at me, she shook her head
slowly back and forth a couple of times. In that church-choir
voice of hers, she said, "David, why do I get the feeling the
main reason you're showing me this list is to get my approval
in advance for what you intend to do anyway?"

With some bosses, wide-eyed innocence would have been
the best approach: Me? I can't wtagfne what you're talking
about. Try that with Bea and she'd rap your knuckles with a
ruler, maybe metaphorically, maybe not. I said, "You're right.
But I really think these are the things that need doing. I'D
handle as much of the rest of the stuff as I can, but I'm not
going to worry if I get behind on it while I'm settling the big
things." If I'd had to, I'd have told her about Charlie Kelly
then. That would have shown her I wasn't taking the speH
dump case too seriously.

But she looked at me again, nodded as slowly as she'd

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

221

shaken her head before. "David, part of being a good man-
ager is giving your people their heads and letting them run
with their projects. I'm going to do that with you now. But
another part of being a good manager is letting people know
you're not here to be taken advantage of."

"I understand," I said. And I did: if these cases turned out
to be inconsequential, or if they were important and I
botched them, she'd rack me for it. That was firm, but it was
fair. Bea is a good manager, even if I do hate staff meetings.

"All right, David," she said with a faint sigh. "Thank you."

Rose gave me a curious look as I emerged from Bea's
office. I flashed a thumbs-up, then waggled it a little to show
I wasn't sure everything would fly on angels' wings. She
made silent clapping motions to congratulate me. "Oh,
David, what was mat bird the constabulary legate called you
about?" she asked.

"As a matter of fact,. I still don't know myself," I said. "I
went to the reference center to look it up, but I couldn't fend
it there. That means it's not local, whatever it is. I'll call
Kawaguchi back this afternoon and find out I'll let you know
as soon as I do." One way to keep a secretary happy is not to
hold out on her.

I went back to my office, dug through my notes, found
the phone number for Bakhtiar's Precision Burins, and
called. The way my luck had been running, I figured a thun-
derbolt would probably smite the Confederal Building just
as I made the connection.

And I was close. The phone at the other end had just be-
gun to squawk when a little earthquake rattled the building.
I sat there waiting, wondering the way you always do
whether the littie earthquake would turn into a big one. It
didn't; in a few seconds, die rattling stopped. Along with (I'm
sure) several million other people, I breathed a prayer of
thanksgiving.

The secretary for Bakhtiar's Precision Burins and I spent a
litde while going "Did you feel that?" and "I sure did" back and
forth at each other before I confirmed my appointment and
hung up. Then I got back on the phone—this morning I'd used
it as much as Bea usually does—and called Tony Sudalds.




222                Harry Turtledove

"HeDo, Dave," he said. "I was wondering when I'd hear
from you again. Thought maybe my file fell behind your
desk or something." He laughed to show I wasn't supposed

to take him seriously.

I laughed too, to show I didn't "No such luck," I told him.

"This is just to let you know that we wiB be doing a sorcerous
decontamination check of the area around your site as soon
as we can get the apparatus together."

°I appreciate the courtesy of the caB, Inspector," he
answered slowly—I wasn't Dave any more. °I have to tell
you, though, we still deny any contamination. You'B need a
show-cause order before you can start anything like that, and

we'll fight it."

"I know," I said. "When your legal staff asks you, tell them

the case is under the jurisdiction of Judge Ruhollah"—I
spelled it for him—"since he granted me the original search
warrant." If the EPA couldn't get a show-cause order out of
Maximum Ruhollah, I figured it was time for us to fold our

tents and head off into the desert.

"Judge Ruhollah," Sudakis repeated. TB pass it along.
'Bye." I didn't think he knew about RuhoBah. But the con-
sortium's lawyers would.

I moved parchments from one pile to another on my
desk, called Legate Kawaguchi again and found out he was
still at the crime scene, then ate a rubberized hamburger at
the cafeteria. I washed it down with a cup of hot black mud,
slid down the parking lot, and headed up into St. Ferdinand's

Valley again.

Normally I wouldn't go up there ten times a year. I'd been

doing it so often lately that I was starting to memorize the
freeway exits. I got off at White Oak and flew north toward
Balditiar's Precision Burins. On the way, I passed a church
dedicated to St. Andrew: actually, to San Andreas, because it
was an Aztecan neighborhood. A line of penitents was filing
in. I wondered why; St Andrew's feast day isn't until

November.

Then I remembered the morning's earthquake. No doubt

they were calling on the saint to keep more and worse from
happening. Their chants rang so loud and sincere, they made

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      223

me sure that if another earthquake did strike, it wouldn't be
San Andreas' fault

I flew into die parking lot behind Bakhtiafs Precision
Burins a couple of minutes early. The building that housed
the outfit was four times die size of Slow Jinn Fizz's fancy
establishment on Venture Boulevard, and probably cost
about a fourth as much to rent It had the virtue of absolute
plainness—one more industrial building in an industrial part
of town.

The receptionist who greeted me was about a fourth as
decorative as the one at Slow Jinn Fizz, too. So it goes. But
she was friendly enough, or maybe more than friendly
enough. "Oh, you're Inspector Fisher," she said when I
showed her my EPA sigB. "Did the earth move for you, too?"
She giggled.

I didn't know what to make of that If I'd been unat-
tached, I might have been more interested in finding out As
it was, I figured the best thing to do was let it alone, so I did.
I said, "Is Mr. Bakhtiar free to see me?"

"Just a minute, I'll check." She picked up the handset of
the phone. Bakhtiafs Precision Burins wasn't in the
high-rent district but it used all the latest sorceware. The
silencing spell on the phone was so good that I couldn't hear
a word the receptionist said till she hung up. "He says he can
give you forty-five minutes at the most. Will that be all
right?"

'Thanks. It should be fine, Mistress Mendoza," I
answered, reading the name plate on her desk: CYNTHIA
MENDOZA.

"Call me Cyndi," she said. "Everybody does. Here, come
on with me. I have to let you into the back of the shop
because of the security system."

I followed her back down die hall. Balditiar's doorway
wasn't hermetically sealed; as I've said, only really big firms
and governments can afford diat much security. But he did
have an alarmed door: if anybody who wasn't audiorized
touched die doorknob, it would yell bloody murder.

Cyndi Mendoza took die knob in her hand and chanted
softly from die Book of Proverbs:" 'She criedi at die gates, at

224                Harry Turtledove

the entrance of the city, at the coming of the doors,'" and
then from the Song of Solomon: " 1 rose up to open to my
beloved. I opened to my beloved.'" The knob turned in her
hand. She waved me through ahead other, then murmured
something else to the door to propitiate it for having let me

through.

"Do you know," she said as she led me through the burin

works to Bakhtiar's office, "the same charm that persuades
the alarmed door to open peaceably is also used sometimes

as a seduction spell?"

"Is that a fact?" I said, though it didn't surprise me: noth-
ing in the Judeo-Christian tradition blends sensuality and
mystic power like the Song of Solomon.

She nodded. "It doesn't get tried as often as it used to,
though—it only works on virgins." This brought forth more

giggles.

She couldn't have made it more obvious she was inter-
ested in me if she'd run up a flag. A man always finds that
flattering, but I wasn't interested back. I said, "Is that a fact?"
again. It's one of the few things you can safely say under any
circumstances, because it doesn't mean a thing.

"Well, here we are," Cyndi said, stopping in front of a
door that had ISHAQ BAKHTIAR, MARGRAVE painted on it in
black letters edged with gilt She tapped on the door—which
mustn't have been alarmed, since it didn't scream—then
headed back toward her own desk. I'm afraid she gave me a

dirty look as she went by.

Ishaq Bakhtiar opened his own door, waved for me to
come in. He didn't look like a corporate margrave; he
looked—and dressed—like a working journeyman wizard.
By stereotype, Persians come in two varieties, short and
round or long and angular. Ramzan Durani of Slow Jinn Fizz
had been of the first sort. Bakhtiar exemplified the second.
Everything about him was vertical lines: thin arms and legs,
his big, not quite straight nose and die creases to either side
of it, the beard worn short on the cheeks and long on the
chin that made his face seem even narrower than it was.

Like Ramzan Durani, he wore a white lab robe. Unlike
Durani's, his didn't give the impression of being something

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      225

he put on to impress visitors. It wasn't what you'd call
shabby, but it had been washed a good many times and still
bore faint stains that looked like old blood and herbal juices.

When we clasped hands, his engulfed mine—and I'm not
a small man, nor one with short fingers. But if he hadn't gone
into sorcery, he would have made a master harpsichordist;

those spidery fingers of his seemed to reach halfway up my

arm.

"I am pleased to meet you. Inspector Fisher," he said with
a vanishing trace of Persian accent that did more to lend his
English dignity than to turn it guttural. "Please take a seat"

'Thank you." I sat down in the chair to which he waved
me. It wasn't very comfortable, but it was the same as the
one behind his desk, so I couldn't complain.

"Will you take mint tea?" he asked, pointing at a samovar
that must have come from a junk shop. "Or perhaps, since
the day is warm, you would rather have an iced sherbet?
Please help yourself to sweetmeats, also."

Since he poured tea for himself, I had some, too. It was
excellent; he might not have cared how things looked, but
how they performed mattered to him. The sweetmeats sent
up the ambrosial perfume of almond paste. Their taste didn't
disappoint, either.

He didn't linger over the courtesies, nor had I expected
him to, not when he'd blocked out only forty-five minutes
for me. As soon as we'd both wiped crumbs from our fingers,
he leaned forward, showing he was ready to get down to
business. I took the hint and said, "I'm here, Mr. Bakhtiar,
because you're one of the major dumpers of toxic spell
byproducts at the Devonshire site, and, as I said over the
phone, the dump appears to be leaking."

His dark brows came down like thunderclouds. "And so
you think it is my byproducts that are getting out. You think I
am the polluter. Allah, Muhammad, and Hussein be my wit-
nesses, I deny this. Inspector Fisher."

"I don't know whether you're the polluter," I said. "I do
know from your manifests that enough sorcerous byproducts
come from this business to make me have to look into the
possibility."




226

Harry Turtledove

"Get the burin-maker—he is always the polluter."
Bakhtiar scowled at me, even more blackly than before. 'In
superstitious Persia, I could understand this attitude though
I know how foolish it is. Here in the Confederation, where
reason is supposed to rule, my heart breaks to hear it Taken
over aB, Inspector, Bakhtiar's Precision Burins reduces the
sorcerous pollution in Angels City; we do not increase it.
This I can demonstrate."

"Go on, sir." I thought I knew the argument he was going
to use, but I might have been wrong.

I wasn't He said, "Consider, Inspector, if every wizard
had to manufacture his own sorcerous tools, as was true in
the olden days: not just burins but also swords, staves, rods,
lancets, arctraves, needles, poniards, swords, and knives with
white and black handles. Because the sorcerers of the
barony would be less efficient and more widespread than we
are here, far more magical contamination would result from
their work. But that does not happen, because most
thaumaturges purchase their instruments from me. They
cause no pollution because they are not doing the work. I
am, and because of it, Bakhtiar's Precision Burins draws the
attention of regulators like yourself."

I've heard that single-source argument many times. It
generally has an element of truth to it: doing things in one
place often is more efficient and better for the environment
than scattering them all over the landscape. And Bakhtiar
was right when he said single-source providers do stand out
because they still pollute and the people who use their serv-
ices don't. But all that doesn't mean single-source providers
can't pollute more than they should.

I said as much. Bakhtiar got to his feet. "Come with me,
Inspector. You shall see for yourself."

He took me out onto the production floor. It was as ef-
ficiently busy as most other light industrial outfits I've
seen. A worker wearing asalamandric gloves lifted a rack
of red-glowing pieces of steel out of a fire, turned and
quenched them in a bath from which strong-smelling
steam rose.

That must have been the third heating for the burin

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      227

blanks," Bakhtiar said. "Now they steep in magpie's blood
and the juice of the herbforoile."

"Ergonomically efficient," I said; the factory hand had
been able to transfer them from the flames to the bath with-
out taking a step. As they soaked up the virtues of the blood
and the herb, he prayed over them and spoke words of
power. Among the Names I caught were those of the spirits
Lumech, Gadal, and Mitatron, all of whom are potent
indeed. I asked, "How do you decontaminate the quenching
bath after you've infused the Powers into it?"

"The usual way: with prayer and holy water," Bakhtiar
answered. "Inspector, I do not claim these are one hundred

Ercent efficacious; I am aware there is a residue of power
t behind. This, after all, is why we dispose of our toxic spell
byproducts at the Devonshire facility, as mandated by the
laws of the barony, the province, and the Confederation. If
leaks have occurred, surely that is the responsibility of the
dump, not of Bakhtiar's Precision Burins. We have complied
with the law in every particular."

"If so, you don't have a problem," I answered. "My con-
cern is that someone has been disposing of byproducts that
aren't listed on his manifest, things vicious enough to break
through the protection setup, even if in only minuscule
amounts, and to sorcerously contaminate the surrounding
environment."

'This I understand," he said, nodding. "As manufacturers
of burins and other thaumaturgical tools, however, we oper-
ate with a limited range of magic-engendering materials, as
you must know. Here, come with me. See if you find one
tiny thing in any way out of the ordinary for an establishment
such as ours."

I came. He was right; I didn't find anything out of the
ordinary. The knives with the black handles were steeped in
cat's blood and hemlock and fitted with handles of ram's
horn. Interesting that Bakhtiar, a Muslim, conformed to
common Judeo-Christian usage there; I'm given to under-
stand the affinity goes back to the shqfar, the ram's-hom
trumpet which commemorates the trumpets that toppled
Jericho's walls.

228                 Harry Turtledove

Another technician was inscribing magical characters onto
hazehvood wands and cane staffs. The scribing instrument
was a burin, presumably one of Bakhtiar's precision burins.
He also inscribed the seals of the demons Klippoth and Fri-
most onto wands and staffs, respectively. I could feel tihe

power in the air around him.

The sorcerous and the mundane mingled in the produc-
tion of the silken cloths in which Bakhtiar's burins and other
instruments were wrapped. The firm did its own weaving
in-house; three Persian women in black chadors and veils
worked clacking looms, turning silk thread into fine, shim-
mering cloth. I wondered how long it would be before the
automated looms of the Japanese made that economically
impractical. They'd taken much of the flying carpet business
from Detroit, and they were sidllful silkworkers. As far as I
could see, the combination made it only a matter of time.

Bakhtiar said. The red silk is for the burins, the black, fit-
tingly, for the knife with the black handle, and the green for
the other magical instruments. For those others, the proper
color is less important, so long as it be neither black nor

brown."

A calligrapher with a goose quill dipped in pigeon's blood

wrote mystic characters on a finished silk cloth. Around him,
a dozen other goose quills, animated by the law of similarity,
wrote identical characters on other cloths. I asked Bakhtiar,
"Why are you using automatic writing for this process and
not that of inscribing the wands and staffs?"

"As we have the opportunity, we shall, inshaUah, do the
latter as well," he answered. "But the silks are merely protec-
tive vessels for the instruments, while the instruments
themselves are filled with a thaumaturgic power which as yet
overcomes the automating spells. But we are working on it,
as I say. In fact, I read recently that a sorceware designer up
in Crystal Valley has had a breakthrough along those very

lines."

"Was he using virtuous reality, by any chance?" I asked.

"As a matter of fact, he was." Bakhtiar sounded surprised.
Up till then, his expression had said I was an unmitigated
nuisance. Now my nuisance value was at least mitigated. He

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      229

said, "You are better informed on matters sorcerous than I
should have expected from a bureaucrat."

"We don't spend all our times shuffling parchments from
one pile to the next," I said. 'Too much of our time, yes, but
not all."

He stared at me out of black, deep-set eyes. "I might even
wish you spent more time at your desk. Inspector, provided
that time was the period you have instead set aside for har-
assing legitimate businesses such as mine."

"Investigation is not harassment," I said, and stared
right back. Persians of the lean variety tend to look like
prophets about to call down divine wrath on a sinful
people, which gave Bakhtiar what I thought of as an unfair
advantage in that land of contest, but I held my own. "And
we can't afford to take a spill from this dump lightly. In aid
of which, may I see the decontamination facility you
mentioned?"

"I shall take you there," he said. "I expected that would be
your next request."

Sensibly, Bakhtiar kept his decontaminators off the main
shop floor and in a chamber of their own. That both
minimized any corruption that might interfere with their
work and made sure their procedures wouldn't weaken the
sorcery that went into the instruments.

"Inspector Fisher, allow me to present Dagoberto Velarde
and Kirk McCuDough, the decontamination team for Bak-
htiar's Precision Burins," Bakhtiar said. "Bert, Kirk, this is
David Fisher of the EPA. They think we're responsible for a
leak at the Devonshire dump."

I didn't bother denying that any more; I'd seen I wasn't
going to convince Bakhtiar and his crew. The decontamina-
tors glared at me. Velarde was short and copper-brown,
McCullough tall, gaunt, and red-haired, with the light of
religious certainty shining in his hard gray eyes. "Just carry
on, gentlemen," I said. "Pretend I'm not here."

By their expressions, they wished I wasn't. They made an
odd team, one you wouldn't find everywhere, but they
worked smoothly together, as if they'd been doing it for
years. They probably had. One of the guys from the shop




Harry Turtledove

230

floor—no, I take it back, it was a woman in hard hat, overalls,
and boots—wheeled in a vat on a doBy. She slid it off, nod-
ded to the decontaminators, and headed back out

Bert Velarde broke open an ampule of holy water, sprin-
kled it over the vat to neutralize as much of the goetic power
in there as it could. Holy water is efficacious if applied by any
believer, and, while you can't always tell by looking, I would

have bet two weeks' pay he was Catholic.

But prayers by Catholic layfolk aren't as potent as those
from priests. Velarde didn't pray. That was Kirk McCul-
lough's job. He had a deep, impressive voice and a thick
Caledonian burr. He hardly bothered looking at the Book of
Common Prayer he held in his big hands; he knew the words
by heart. That didn't mean he was just reciting by rote,
though—he put his heart into every word.

"Kirk is an elder of the Church of the Covenant,"
Bakhtiar told me quietly. The diversity of Angels City has its

advantages."

'Til say," I agreed. Ishaq Bakhtiar was one sharp operator.

The distinction between clergy and laity is much less in Prot-
estant churches than in Catholicism; the prayers of an elder,
who presumably was among the elect, were as likely to' be
heard as a minister's. And Bakhtiar could hire two laymen for
less than he'd have had to pay one who was consecrated.

Like I said, a sharp operator.

He was also sharp enough to say, "And if you have any
doubts whatsoever. Inspector Fisher, as the whether the
decontaminators are fully employed, come back to my office
with me now and I will show you complete records of their
activity since we moved into this building."

I had no doubts, but I went with him nonetheless. He
rummaged through his files, plopped a handful down in
front of me. I looked through them. They showed me what
he'd said they would. This left me unsurprised: how often
will the head of a business voluntarily show documents that
don't paint him in the best possible tight?

But if anything was wrong at Bakhtiars Precision Burins,
you couldn't have proved it by me. AH his procedures were
what they should have been; his decontamination team

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      231

might have been unorthodox (in the nontheological sense of
the word), but it was effective.

"Anything eke. Inspector?" he asked when I'd worked my
way through the last folder. Rather pointedly, he asked his
watch what time it was.

The little horological demon's answer showed I'd already
devoured fifty-five of his precious and irreplaceable minutes,
where I'd promised to make do with a mere forty-five. I
guess I was supposed to wail and abase myself and swear
never to sin in that particular way again. Living in a large city,
though, has a way of coarsening you. When I said, Tm sorry
I took up so much of your time," I put just enough bureau-
cratic indifference into my voice to let him know I wasn't the
least bit sorry.

He glared at me again. This time, I didn't bother glaring
back, which only irked him more. I got up. "I think I can find
my own way out."

"No, you mis—" He caught himself. If he was really rude
to me, who could guess how much trouble I'd cause him?
Persians understand about revenge. He tried again: "No,
Inspector, you forget the door. It is active in both directions."

So, no matter how much he didn't care for me, he had to
escort me out so I wouldn't alarm his door (and in case
you're wondering, I hadn't forgotten). He gave me some
insincere parting pleasantries and let me walk up the hall by
myself.

Cyndi Mendoza hit me with a dazzling smile when I came
out to her desk (I'd forgotten about her—Bakhtiar could
have won the exchange if he'd called her back to his office to
bring me out, but that would have cost him an extra couple
of minutes of my presence, and I suppose he was too effi-
cient to think of it). She said, "Do you remember that
opening spell?"

Which was, no doubt, intended to get around to asking if I
thought it would work on her. I forestalled that, though: I
said, 'Tm sorry, no—I make it a point never to remember
anything." I walked out while she was still staring.

When I got back to the Confederal Building and went up
to my office, I found on my desk a note from Rose in big red

232 Harry Turdedwe

letters: David, come up to Bea's office immediately. Wonder-
ing what sort of trouble I'd managed to get into while I was
gone, I went up to Bea's office.

In the anteroom sat Rose—-the real ruler of the domain—
and a fussy-looking litde fellow with a big nose and a loud
cravat. He was looking through one of Rose's stationery cata-
logues, which meant he was either madly meticulous or
bored stiff: the latter, if a couple of litde faint spots on his
shirt meant anything.

"Hello, Dave," Rose said to me, and then, "Here he is,
Mr. Epstein."

The litde man bounced to his feet. "You are David Fisher,
Inspector, Environmental Perfection Agency?" he asked,
running my name and job title together.

"Yes," I said. "Who are you?"

"Samuel Epstein, subclerk of the courts. Angels City, Bar-
ony of Angels." From under the stationery catalogue he drew
out a piece of parchment so splendid with calligraphy (it's
mostly done by automatic writing these days, as with the
quills inscribing symbols on the silk instrument covers at
Bakhtiar's, but it stffl looks mighty impressive) and gaudy
with seals. "I hereby deliver unto your person this summons
to appear in the court at the day and hour indited hereon in
the matter of The Constabulary of Angels City vs.
Ctiauhtemoc Hemandez." He presented it to me with such a
gorgeous flourish that I half expected to hear a ruffle of
drums.

I read the parchment. It was what Epstein said it was. "I'll
be there," I told him. "Sony to keep you waiting here so
long. Couldn't you just have left this on my desk?"

"Not in cases involving thaumaturgy in the commission of
a first-degree felony," he answered. "In such cases, the chain
of transmission of summonses must be as tightly controlled
as that concerning the transmission of evidence."

"Okay," I said, shrugging; he undoubtedly knew the
arcana of his own field, "But you must spend an awful lot to
time just sitting and waiting. Why don't you bring along
something more interesting to read than that?" I pointed at
the catalogue.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      233

But he recoiled with as much horror as if I'd offered him
a bacon cheeseburger. "Anticipating idleness would consti-
tute moral turpitude on my part. Good day to you, sir." He
edged around me and fled.

Rose and I looked at each other. She said, "If I spent a lot
of working time waiting, I'd bring something interesting,
too." That relieved my mind; if Rose doesn't think something
involves moral turpitude, you can take it to the bank that it
doesn't.

All the way home, I thought about what had gone on at
Bakhtiai's. It was of a piece with everything else connected
with the Devonshire dump case: as far as I could tell on a
quick visit, everything there was on the up and up, and the
boss loudly denied doing anything that could possibly make
toxic spell byproducts get out of the containment area and
into the environment. Somebody was lying, but who? Not
knowing was devilishly frustrated.

I was going to call Judy after I finished dinner, but she
called me first "Want to do something perverse?" she asked.

I know a straight line when I'm handed one. "Sure," I
answered, "Do you want to fly up here, or shall I go down
there?" Besides, the very male part of me panted, there was
always the outside chance that was what she had in mind.

The snort she gave me said it wasn't—and also said she'd
fed me the line on purpose. Maybe she wanted to see what
I'd do with it, or maybe she'd already guessed what I'd do
with it and wanted to see if she was right. She said, "I was
thinking more along the lines of a Monday night date."

Thafs perverse, all right," I agreed. "Why Monday
night?"

"Because I read in the Independent Press-Scryer that a
new Numidian restaurant is opening up Monday night about
six blocks from here. Feel like coming down and trying it
with me?"

"Numidian, eh?" Jews often go to Muslim-style
restaurants, and the other way round, too; no need to worry
about pork on the menu or back in the kitchen. And Aside
from that, I like North African food. Couscous, salata mesh-
wiya—tuna salad with chili pepper, eggs, tomatoes, and

234                Harry Turtledove

peppers, dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt—
chicken with prunes and honey, the lamb soup called harira
souiria, with onions, paprika, and saffron . . . my stomach
rumbled just thinking about it. "Sounds wonderful. Only

thing is, how crowded will it be?

"We can find out. Of course, if you don't want to—"

"1 said it sounded wonderful." I really had, too, so I got
points for that "What time do you want me down there?"

"What time do you want to come?"

"Listen, Mistress Adier, this is your date, so you tell me

what to do."

"Hmm," she said. 'Is that how it's supposed to work?

Okay, I'll play along—is a quarter to eight all right?"

"Sure—by the time we get there, I'll be hungry enough to
do proper damage to the menu. And afterwards—always
assuming I don't fall asleep on your couch because I'm so
full—maybe we can do something perverse."

She snorted again.

VIII

Monday shaped up as a very good day. Not only did I have
a date with Judy, but Maximum Ruhollah had come through
with the show-cause order that would let me—Michael
Manstein and me, actually—go up and examine the area
around the Devonshire dump to see what was leaking and,
God willing, find out why. That happened Thursday. He
spent Friday quashing appeals from the Devonshire Land
Management Consortium.

The order was still good when I got to the Confederal
building Monday morning. Had one of the appeals
succeeded, the words would have faded right off the page.
They tell stories about officials who go out to conduct their
business, open up their briefcases, and pull out a blank sheet
of parchment Nobody dies of embarrassment, but

235




236                 Harry Turtledove

sometimes you wish you could. I reminded myself to check
my document before I handed it to Tony Sudalds. If there
was anybody I didn't want laughing his head off at me, he was

the guy.

I met Michael Manstein up on the seventh floor. He was
packing vials of this, jars of that, silk bags full of other things
and tied with elaborately knotted scarlet cords into his little
black bag. I scratched my head. "Why not just take a good

speflchecker?" I asked.

He glanced up from what he was doing. "I am operating
under the assumption that we will be searching around the
walls for leaks, David," he said, as patiently as if I were a kid-
dygarden pupil. The containment spells would degrade the
performance of the microimps in a spellchecker."

That had certainly happened when I used my own
portable to run an unofficial scan of the dump: it hadn't
picked up anything but the containment cantrips. I'd figured
a more sensitive model would overcome the interference,
but the reason I had Michael along, after all, was that he
knew more of such things than I did. "You're the wizard," I
told him. "Shall we go? Your carpet or mine?"

We ended up taking his; he'd had a special option package
installed to insulate his sylphs from the potent magics he
often flew with. I didn't care to risk having my carpet break
down and strand me in the middle of nowhere (for which, as
detractors of Angels City wiB tell you, St. Ferdinands Valley
is an excellent substitute). As we slid down to the lot, I
grinned—no staff meeting for me today.

Michael Manstein flew exactly as you would expect:

exactly at the speed limit, exactly where he ought to have
been, every change of height or direction signaled at exactly
the right time. Exact fits Michael exactly, as you will have

gathered.

He parked his carpet in the same lot I'd used when I first
came up to the Devonshire dump. We got off and started
across toward the dump. I'd taken maybe three steps when I
said, "Didn't you forget to activate your anti-theft geas? You
ought to go back and do it; this isn't a saintly neighborhood."

His thin, rather pallid face took on an expression I'd never

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      237

seen there before. If you can believe it, Michael Manstein
looked smug. He said, "What's sorce for the geas is sorce for
the gander."

Sometimes magicians are irritating people. All right, so
Michael had better theft protection on his carpet than the
usual geas woven into the fibers while it's still on the loom.
All right, so even if someone succeeded in beating that pro-
tection, he'd still be able to tell where his rug had gone. But
was that excuse enough for making bad puns about it? I
didn't think so, especially not early in the morning.

The security guard sitting in his glass booth was a differ-
ent fellow from the one who'd been there the last time I
went up to the dump, so he didn't recognize me. Two EPA
sigils and a show-cause order prominently displayed (yes, it
still had writing on it) were plenty to get his attention,
though. He picked up his phone, called Tony Sudalds, then
came back out to us and said, "He'll be here in a minute."

Sudalds took longer than that, but not much. The guard
set the insulated footbridge over the barrier so Tony could
come out and talk with us. He gave me a bonecrusher hand-
clasp, made Michael wince with another one, and said,
"Okay, let's see the order."

I gave it to him. He read it carefully, handed it back to me.
This says you're authorized to search 'the surround of the
aforementioned property.'" He made a face. "Lawyer talk.
Anyway, this doesn't say thing one about coming inside."

Thafs right" I nodded. "We're trying to see what's leak-
ing out, after all."

"Okay," Sudalds said again. "I am directed by our legal
staff to provide no more cooperation than what the order
demands. That means that if you need to take a leak, you've
got to do it across the street. You can't come into the contain-
ment area for anything." He gave me an apologetic shrug.
"I'm sony, Dave, but thafs what my orders are."

"Since we'll be sniffing around your wall, maybe I'll just
stand up against it if I need to whizz," I told him. He gave
me a funny look; bureaucrats aren't supposed to talk like
that.

Michael Manstein said, "I'm going to get to work now."

238 Harry Turtledove

He opened up his little black bag and started taking things
out of it

Sudalds watched him setting up. I watched Sudakis. After
a minute or so, I said, "Walk around the comer with me,
Tony."

"Why? You gonna whizz on my shoes?" But he walked
around the comer with me.

As soon as we were out of sight of Michael—and, more to
the point, the security guard—I gestured as if I were pulling
out an amulet. Tony Sudalds might be a bruiser, but don't
ever think he's dumb. He went through his little pagan ritual
with the chunk of amber he wore in place of a crucifix.

When he nodded to me, I said, "Okay, we can't go inside
the dump. I understand your position. But I still want to ask
you about something I saw, or thought I saw, when I was in
there before. I'd have done it sooner, but I keep forgetting."

"What is it?" His voice was absolutely neutral; I couldn't
tell whether he wanted to help, was angry at me, curious, or
anything. He just set the words out in front of him as if
they'd been printed on parchment.

I described as best I could the Nothing I'd seen in the
dump, the way, just for an instant, the containment wall
seemed to recede to an infinite distance from my eyes. "Did
you ever notice anything like that?" I asked him. "It
was—unnerving."

"Sounds that way," he agreed, and now he let life creep
back into his words. He shook his big fair head. "Nope, can't
say I ever did see anything of that sort." He quickly raised a
hand. "Don't get me wrong, Dave—I believe you. You spend
as much time as I have inside that containment area and
you'll see all lands of strange things. Like I said before, you
get all those toxic bits of not-quite-spent sorcery reacting
with each other and you will see funny things. You'd better
believe you will. But that particular one, no. Sony."

"Okay, thanks anyhow." I didn't know whether to believe
him or not; as usual, he was hard to get a spell on. I won-
dered if it was because he worshiped Perkunas. In a mostly
Judeo-Christian country (and the same goes for Muslim
lands, too), followers of other Powers often seem difficult to

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      239

fathom. On the other hand, Tony probably would have been
tricky if he'd been a Catholic, too.

"Anything else—anything else short—you want to talk
about while the charm's still on?" he asked.

I shook my head. We went back around the comer to the
containment area entrance. The security guard looked mod-
erately entranced himself, watching Michael set up. Tony
Sudalds didn't give Manstein even a glance; he positioned
the footbridge, motioned for the guard to pick it up again,
and marched in toward his office.

Maybe working in the toxic spell dump for so long had
dulled Tony's sense of wonder. Lots of strange things
undoubtedly happened in there, most of the sort you
wouldn't want to see outside a stout sorcerous barrier. But
for me—and evidently for the security guard, too—nothing
is more interesting than watching a skilled thaumaturgical
craftsman at work. And Michael Manstein is one of the best

If you're looking merely to detect the presence of most
substances and Powers, you don't need fancy sorcery. Sup-
pose you want to find out if someone's spilled sugar under a
rug, for instance. Get out some sugar of your own and apply
die law of similarity. If you get a reaction in your control
bowl, it was sugar under the rug all along (ants everywhere
are a good due, too).

But if you're trying to see whether the influence of, say,
Beelzebub is leaking out of a toxic spell dump, you don't go
about summoning up Beelzebub to see if the law of similar-
ity applies—not if you're in your right mind, you don't,
anyhow. Byproducts from spells that invoke Beelzebub are
contained within warded dumps for good reason: you don't
want them getting out into the environment And if you
summon the Lord of the Flies outside the containment area,
thafs just whafs going to happen.

And so Michael Manstein attacked the problem indirectly.
I mention Beelzebub because that's Whose influence he was
checking for when Tony Sudalds and I came back from our
sub rosa (or should I say sub sucino?) chat Instead of even
thinking about invoking the demon, he pulled out a jar full of
every thaumaturge's friend, the good old common fruit fly.




240

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      241

Harry Turtledove

Because fruit flies are very simple—and very stupid—
creatures, the/re exceptionally sensitive t6 mage.
Apprentices practice spells with them; if you can't make your
charms work on fruit flies, you're better off in another line of

work.

And when that magic has anything to do with Beelzebub,

of course, their sensitivity increases even more. Just by
watching the way they flew from the jar, Michael could tell
whether the demon's influence had leaked out where it
didn't belong. It was as elegant and low-risk a test as you

could imagine.

Since I'm not a mage myself, to me that just looked like

little brownish flies coming out of a bottle. When Michael
screwed the lid back on, I figured I could safely interrupt
him, so I asked, "Any sign of Beelzebub?"

"None apparent to me," he answered. The Lord of the
Flies is renowned for his trickery, but I do not believe him
capable of evading the fruit-fly test; it draws them even more

strongly than spoiled plums."

"Good to hear," I said, "because I know there are spell
byproducts with his influence on them inside (he dump."

"Yes, that is to a certain degree reassuring," Michael
agreed. "If a Power so corrosive as Beelzebub cannot break
free of die containment area, that augurs weH for its chances
of holding in other, less aggressive, toxic spells."

"Who after Beelzebub?" I asked.

"I had thought Huitzilopochdi," he answered. "He is at
least as dangerous as Beelzebub, and we have seen through
the case of that wretched curandero's nostrum that he is ac-
tive—and seeking to become more active—in the Angels

City area."

Again, he didn't try to invoke the Aztedan war god: after

all, we were doing everything we could to keep Huitzilopo-
chdi from manifesting himself around Angels City. Instead,
he performed another indirect test, this one using flayed
human skin substitute. It looked like parchment, but it made

my flesh creep all the same.

Michael chanted hi a clucking, gobbling language. It
wasn't Poultry; it was Nahuad. Spainish is the dominant

tongue in Aztecia today, but many people still use Nahuad in
their day-to-day lives, and it's as much die language of die
native Powers as Arabic is forjinni. I hadn't known Michael
knew it, but I wouldn't bet against Michael's knowing any
particular tiling.

The chant ended. Michael looked down at die square of
flayed human skin substitute. It seemed just die same as it
had when he took it out of his bag. He grunted softly.
"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I would have expected to observe some reaction diere,"
he answered. "Huitzilopochdic contamination is as likely an
inducer of apsychia as any I can diink of. But diere appears
to be no external seepage, at least not as measured by dlis
test."

"What were you expecting to see?" I asked.

'The influence of Huitzilopochdi was brought into die
Devonshire toxic spell containment area by means of flayed
human skin substitute. Had diat influence spread beyond
the containment area, die sheet of die substitute material I
have here would have demonstrated it by beginning to
bleed."

I gulped; I was sorry I'd asked. "Would it be—real
blood?" I asked.

"In diaumaturgy, 'real' is a word almost witiiout
meaning," Michael said sniffily. "It would look, feel, smell,
and taste real. Whedier it could be successfully removed
from die flayed human skin substitute and impplanted in die
veins of someone who had suffered a loss from injury or
vampirism ... Trutii to tell, I do not know. It might be worth
determining. An interesting question. Yes."

He pulled a pencil out of die pocket of his lab robe,
peered around for somediing on which he could jot a note.
For one dreadful second, I feared he was going to scribble
on die piece of flayed human sidn substitute. I don't diink
my stomach could have stood diat. But at die last minute he
fished out a parchment notebook instead, and did his jotting
on diat.

He spent die rest of die morning and the whole afternoon
on tests of diat sort. To my amazement and distress, he came




242 Harry Turtledove

up empty every time. No, I take that back: he did find one
leak. After four in the afternoon, when both of us were fed
up and frustrated enough to try something silly, he tested for
stardust, and sure enough, the tip of the wand he was using
glowed for a minute.

"Undoubtedly deposited here, along with more unsavory
items, by one of the Hollywood light-and-magic outfits in
search of a hit," Michael said.

"But even if stardust is leaking, it's not toxic," I said. "The
most it could possibly do would be to make somebody popu-
lar who doesn't deserve to be."

Michael Manstein looked at me as if I were a schoolboy
who'd added two and two and come up with three. Not five,
but definitely three—I'd fallen short of what was expected of
me. Like a good schoolmaster, he set me straight: "The prob-
lem is not stardust outside the containment area, David. As
you say, that is trivial in and of itself. The problem is that
stardust could not possibly get out of the dump if it were not
leaking. We have, therefore, established that the leak exists.
What we have not established is which serious contaminants
are emerging from it."

"Oh," I said, feeling dumb. Odds were awfully good that
he was right. Still, though— "You tested for all the danger-
ous Powers whose influences are likely to be in the dump,
and came up with zip. Stardust is pretty elusive stuff; even
the light-and-magic people don't know for sure where it'll
stick. Maybe it did leak out by itself."

"Indeed," Michael said. "And maybe you could find a
mineral able to create blasts to rival those of megasalaman-
ders, yet I would not lose sleep fretting over the probability
of either event. I will take oath upon any scripture you care
to select that something—and something malevolent, at
that—created the breach through which the stardust
emerged. That is my professional judgment."

You work with experts to get their professional judgment.
If, having got it, you then choose to ignore it, you'd better
have a real good reason. I not only didn't have a real good
reason, I thought Michael was right. But if he was, what had
gone wrong?

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      243

I said, "What bothers me most about detecting the star-
dust and nothing more serious is that the dump operators
will be able to claim that the dust didn't really come from
inside, even though we know it was dumped there."

"The neighborhood will make it hard for them to substan-
tiate that." Michael waved to show what he meant I had to
nod. If ever a neighborhood remained conspicuously
untouched by stardust, the one around the Devonshire
dump was it

"Why haven't we found any nastier influences leaking,
then?" I asked.

The most obvious reason is a failure in our testing tech-
nique," Michael answered. "I must confess, however, that at
this moment I cannot tell you where the flaw lies. All my
procedures have in the past shown themselves to be more
than satisfactory."

I asked my watch what time it was. When I found out it
was twenty to five, Isaid, "Let's knock off for the day and see
if we're more brilliant in the morning." I wanted to get back
to my own carpet so I could go down to my place, pack an
overnight case, and then head for Jud/s.

Most days, Michael Manstein's impressive integrity
wouldn't have let him contemplate taking off early, let alone
doing it. When he said, "Why not?" I confess I blinked. He
added, "We certainly aren't accomplishing anything here at
the moment with the possible exception of entertaining the
security guard." Maybe he was trying to justify leaving to
himself, or maybe to me. At that point I didn't need any jus-
tifying; all I wanted to do was head south.

Michael must have talked himself into it, because he
started sticking tools and substances back into his little black
bag. I stood there waiting, hoping he wouldn't get an attack
of conscience. He didn't. As soon as he was through, we
walked across the street to his carpet and headed for
Westwood.

Traffic was its usual ghastly self. So many carpets on so
many flyways meant there was so much lint and dander in
the air that the famous Angels City sunshine turned pale and
washed-out; a lot of people were rubbing their eyes as they

244                Harry Turtledove

flew. That poBution usually seems worse in St. Ferdinand's
Valley than other parts of town, too; they don't get the sea

breeze there to clear it out

What they're going to have to do one of these days is
design a flying carpet that isn't woven from wool. People
have been trying to do that for years; so far, they haven't
managed to come up with one the sylphs like. But if they
don't succeed before too long. Angels City isn't going to be a
place anybody in his right mind would want to live.

I breathed easier—literally and figuratively—when we got
out of the Valley and back into Westwood. Michael pulled up
beside my carpet in the parking lot. "Are you going to go
back up to your office and see what awaits you?" he asked.

"Nope," I said. "What's that New Testament line? 'Suffi-
cient unto the day is the evil thereof? Something like that,
anyhow. Tomorrow will have troubles of its own. I'm not
really interested in finding out about them in advance."

"As you will," Michael said. Since it was nearer six than
five, he didn't have any trouble finding a parking space—
most people who work at the Confederal Building had gone
home. He headed on in anyhow; now that he was here, he'd
do some more work. Maybe he was feeling bad about his fall

from probity.

Me, I didn't feel bad at all. Hungry, yes, but not bad. I

jumped onto my carpet and headed home. I got off at Impe-
rial instead of The Second, just in case more earth
elementak with my name on them were waiting for me.

If they were, I evaded them—I got home unscathed. I
stayed just long enough to use the plumbing and toss tomor-
row's outfit into an overnight case. Then I was out the door,
down the stairs, back on my carpet, and on my way to Judy's.

Going down St James' Freeway into Long Beach in the
evening is a gamble. When it's bad, the carpets might as well
be sitting on your living room floor. I could have got there at
nine as easily as a little before eight But I was lucky, and so I
pulled up in front of Judy's place right on time.

I used the talisman to let her building's Watcher know I
belonged there, then went up the stairs two at a time to
her flat. I knocked on the door. When she didn't come

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      245

right away, I figured she was using the plumbing herself
or something, so I let myself in.

I took one step in the front room and then stopped, star-
ing. For a second, I thought I'd gone into the wrong flat. It
took me a while to realize Judy's spare key wouldn't have let
me into any place but hers.

But Judy, as befits a copy editor, is scrupulously neat The
flat had been trashed. Books were scattered all over the floor,
knickknacks strewn everywhere. Some of them were broken.
Earthquake, I thought, and then, more sensibly, burglars.

I ran into the bedroom, calling Judy's name as I went.
Nobody answered. On me bed, lying exactly parallel to each
other, just the way Judy would have set them there, were a
green sflk blouse and a pair of linen pants: the right land of
outfit to wear to the opening of a nice new restaurant

The bedspread was white. I am, you will have gathered,
familiar with Judy's bed and its bedclothes. The red stain
next to die blouse was new. It wasn't a big stain, but seeing
even a little blood is plenty to make your own blood run cold.

"Judy?" My voice came out as a frightened croak. No
answer again. I hadn't really expected one.

The bathroom door was open. The air in there felt humid,
as if she'd taken a shower not long before. She wasn't in
there now, though, not anywhere—I yanked back the curtain
to be sure.

Burglars faded from my mind. I wished die word would
have stayed; stuff, after all, is only stuff. You can always get
more. But an uglier, more frightening word took its place:

kidnappers.

I didn't want to dunk if let alone believe it. After what
had happened to me on The Second, though, what choice
did I have? I ran back to die bedroom, where die phone was.
I snatched up die handset.

Nodiing happened. The phone was dead. Ichor dripped
from die litde cages diat held die ear and moudi imps. The
front mesh on bodi cages Was pushed in. Whoever had
snatched Judy had taken die time to impplode die phone
before he left widi her.

I hurried out to die walkway, went to die flat next door. I

246 Harry Turtledove

knocked, hard. "I need to use your phone to call the con-
stabulary," I said loudly. Someone was home; St. Elmo's fire
glowed through the curtains and I could hear little noises
inside. But nobody came to the door.

Cursing the faintheart to a warmer climate than Angels
City's, I ran downstairs and pounded on the manager's door.
He answered; opening the door was part of his job. He'd
seen me going in and out often enough to recognize me. As
soon as he got a good look at my face, he said, "Whafs the
matter, son?"

I didn't take ofiense; thafs how he talks. Besides, he's old
enough to have fought in die Second Sorcerous War (and he
has a bad limp, so maybe he did), so he's old enough and
then some to be my father. I said, "May I use your phone,
please? I think Judy's been kidnapped." As with any magic,
saying the word made it real.

'Judy? Judy Adier in 272?' He gaped at me, and men at the
door I'd left open, I suppose to confirm that that was the flat I
was talking about He stood aside. "You'd better come in."

His flat could have been furnished from the St Ferdi-
nand's Valley swap meet; the operative phrase was essence of
bad taste. From the couch, his wife gave me a fishy stare.
That was the least of my worries. But he took me to the
phone and let me use it, so his carp-eyed wife could stare all
she liked.

Even through two phone imps, the Long Beach constabu-
lary decurion sounded bored when he answered my call.
Kidnapping, though, is a word to conjure with when you're
talking to constables.

"Don't go back into the flat," he told me. "Stand out in
front of the building and wait for our units. It won't be long,
Mr., uh. Fisher."

I stood out in front of the building. It wasn't long. Two
black-and-whites pulled up, red and blue lanterns flashing.
Right behind them were a couple ofplainweave carpets that
carded plainclothes constables.

Everybody swept up to Judy's flat and started doing con-
stabulary-type things: physical searches, spells, what have
you. One of the plaindothesmen grunted when he saw the

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      247

imploded phone. "Looks like a professional job," he said.
"We aren't likely to come up with anything much."

They hadn't bothered asking me for a statement yet. I
said, "This isn't just an isolated case. I can guarantee you
that."

"Oh? How?" The plainclothesman sounded—skeptical is
the politest way I can put it.

As with the bored decurion at the phone desk, I had the
words to rock him. I spoke them, one by one: attempted
murder, Thomas Brothers fire. Central Intelligence. "You'd
better get hold of Legate Shiro Kawaguchi, up in St. Ferdi-
nand's Valley," I added. "He can fill you in on the details."

"All right, sir, we'll do that," the plaindothesman said—he
was a tall black fellow named Johnson. "Jesus, what kind of
mess are we walking into the middle of?"

"A bad one," I said. "But you're not in the middle of it;

you're just on the edge. I'm in the middle—and so is my
fiancee."

A fellow wearing forensics crystal baDs on his collar tabs
came up to Johnson and said, "1 ran a similarity check
between the blood on the bedspread and the razor I found
in a bathroom drawer. They match, so that's probably Adiers
blood."

I moaned. That's a word you hear every so often, but you
hardly ever use it, let alone do it This was one of those
times. I felt as if I'd been kicked in the belly. Judy, bleeding?
Judy, maybe dead?

I must have said that out loud (though I don't remember
doing it), because the forensics man put a hand on my shoul-
der and said, "I don't think she's dead, sir. There's evidence
of some funny kind of fast-dissipating sleep spell in the flat.
My best guess is, she put up a fight, they slugged her, she
kept fighting, and they knocked her out so they could get her
away from here."

I liked him, and believed him, too. He didn't try sounding
like somebody who knew everything there was to know; no
pseudo-learned drivel about analyses and reconstructions.
His best guess was what he had, and that's what he gave me.
I thought it seemed likely, too.




248 Harry Turtledove

The constables in uniform had been knocking on doors
through the block of flats. People opened doors for them—
even the louse who lived next to Judy and had pretended I
didn't exist. But there's a difference between getting doors to
open and learning anything once they have. The constables
came back to Judy's flat empty-handed: nobody had seen
anything, nobody had heard anything.

'That's insane," I exploded. "They take an unconscious
woman downstairs and out of a block of flats at a busy time
of the evening and nobody noticed?"

"Must have been magic," Johnson said. "If they used it to
knock Mistress Adier out, they probably used it to aid the
getaway, too."

"I'll check that," the forensics man said, and he bustled
out onto the walkway.

"What do I do now?" I said, as much to myself as to any-
one else. Half of me wanted to make like a light-and-magic
show mercenary and go out slaughtering all the bad guys.
The other half, unfortunately, reminded me that not only did
I not know how to get my hands on the bad guys, but that if I
went after them—whoever they were—alone, they'd dispose
of me instead of the other way round.

Johnson's answer showed that, as suited a constable, he
had a thoroughly practical mind: "What you do now, Mr.
Fisher, is come down to the station with us so we can get a
sworn statement from you."

I didn't know where the Long Beach constabulary station
was; I had to follow one of the plainweave carpets back there.
It turned out to be almost on the ocean, in a fancy new
building. Legate Kawaguchi would have killed for Johnson's
large, bright, efficient office. Come to that, I wouldn't have
minded having it myself.

Like constables anywhere in the Barony of Angels, the
Long Beach crew had a regular library of scriptures on which
the people with whom they dealt could swear truthfulness:

everything from the Analects to the ZendrAvesta. They
pulled out a Torah for me; I rested my hand on the satin
cover while I repeated the oath Johnson gave me.

Then he called up their scriptorium spirit to take down

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      249

my words. I repeated everything I'd said in Jud/s flat, and
added detail to go with it. After a while, I paused and said,
"What time is it, anyhow?"

Johnson asked his watch. It said, "Nine forty-one."
"Could you get me a sandwich or something?" I asked. "I
came down here for a dinner date with Judy, and I haven't
eaten since lunch. We were going to try that new Numidian
place—"

"Oh, Bocchus and Bacchus?" Johnson said. "Yeah, I've
seen it advertised. I wouldn't mind trying it myself. Hang on
a minute, Mr. Fisher; I'll find out what I can round up for
you."

Instead of couscous and Iamb, I had a greasy burger,
greasier fries, and coffee I drank only because it would have
been an environmental hazard if I'd poured it down the
commode. Then I finished giving my statement, and then I
said, "What do I do now?" This time I was asking the plain-
dothesman.

"By to live as normally as you can," he said. I'd heard that
advice before; I was sick of it How are you supposed to live
nonnaDy when people are trying to IdB you and they've
abducted the person who matters most to you in the world?
Johnson must have understood that He raised a light-
palmed hand and went on, "I know it's a taH order. What
we're going to have to do now is wait for contact- wait for
either your fiancee or the people holding her to get in touch
with you. Whatever their demands are, say you'll comply and
then let us know immediately."

"But what if they—?" I couldn't say it—absit omen and aD
that—but he knew what I meant

"Mr. Fisher, the only consolation I can give you is that if
they'd intended to commit homicide, they could have done
it They must have some reason for wanting Mistress Adier
alive."

Thanks," I said from the bottom of my heart. It made
sense. Now all I had to do was pray the kidnappers were sen-
sible people. But if they were sensible people, would they
have been kidnappers?

Johnson came around his desk, set a big hand on my

250                Harry Turtledove

^

shoulder. "You just go on home now, Mr. Fisher. Try and get
some rest Do you want one of our black-and-whites to fly up
with you, make sure you're not walking into a trap yourself?"

After a couple of seconds, I shook my head. He looked
relieved, as if he'd regretted the offer as soon as he made it I
suspected the Long Beach constables were stretched as thin
as any other force. Ifs an ugly world out there. I'd just had

my nose rubbed in how ugly it can be.

He walked out to my carpet with me. "We'll be in touch,
sir. And we'll also get in touch with that Legate Kawaguchi of
yours, and with Central Intelligence, and with the CBI, too,
because ifs a kidnapping... Whafs funny, sir?"

"I can get in touch with die CBI," I said. "I work two
floors under their Angels City office." I wondered if Saul
Klein would get involved in the case. Nice to have one
landsman around, anyhow. He'd certainly be more comfort-
able to work with than the CI spook; Henry Legion was

unnerving.

Johnson patted me on the shoulder again, sent me on my
way. I remember very little about flying back to
Hawthorne—too much else on my mind, too little of it
good. I propitiated the Watcher for my block of flats, glided
into the garage, got off my carpet, and headed for die
stairway. Once I was inside the building, I didn't worry about
how late it was, or how dark. Stupid, I know, especially after
what had happened to Judy. I suppose you've never done

anything stupid, eh?

A vampire stood grinning at the bottom of the stairs.
Modem medicine can do a lot for vampires: periodic
blood impplants to stifle dieir hunting urge, heliotrope badis
to let diem go abroad between dawn and dusk (never on
Sunday; die correspondence between real and symbolic sun
is too strong dien), sun-spectacles to keep diem from being
blinded when diey do fare forth by day. Those who choose
to—and, I admit, diose who can afford to—take advantage
of such techniques can lead largely normal lives.

Not all do. Some would sooner follow dieir instincts and
prowl. I hadn't heard of vampires in Hawdiome, but I wasn't
shocked to encounter one. For one tiling, I dunk I was

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      251

beyond shock; for another, as I've said, dlis is a pretty rough
litde town.

Just for an instant, I wondered if he was connected with
the bastards who'd taken Judy. I had my doubts. Vampires, if
I can mix a metaphor, are usually lone wolves. Odds are, this
one was just trying to keep himself fed. Random street
crime, however, is just as dangerous to its victim as one diat
targets him in particular.

The vampire's eyes glittered. I knew diat if I looked into
diem for very long I'd be fascinated, and dien die blood-
sucker could do whatever it wanted widi me. I reached
under my shirt, pulled out something on a chain round my
neck.

The vampire must have drought it was going to be a
crucifix. Its fanged moudi opened in a scornful laugh. A lot of
vampires, especially die ones diat survive for very long in
Christian countries, are of Balkan Muslim blood, and so
immune to die sign of die cross.

But I didn't pull out a cross. What I wore instead was a
mystic Jewish amulet, a seven-by-seven acrostic prepared by
die same Mage Abramelin Works diat made my blasting rod.
I yanked it off over my head and direw die kaballistic missile
at die vampire.

He had quick reflexes—he caught it before it hit him in
die face. But diat didn't do him any good. His cry of pain
turned to an anguished howl. The Hebrew term for vam-
pires is kepiloth—"empty ones"—and it's a good description.
Because die/ve lost so much humanity, die/re extremely
vulnerable to magical countermeasures. When die acrostic
based on die Hebrew word for "dog" hit dlis one, he had no
choice but to transform.

"Get out of here, you son of a bitch!" I yelled, and drew
back my foot to give him a good lack. He fled, yelping, tail
between his legs.

I picked up die amulet, hung it back around my neck, and
trudged upstairs to my flat. Only later, when I was lying
down and trying to sleep, did it occur to me diat if I hadn't
been emotionally drained from what had happened to Judy,
die vampire might have made me panic and drained me in

252                Harry Turtledove

the literal sense before I thought of the amulet As it was, I
just took him in stride and did the right thing without even

thinking about it

Every so often, lying there, I'd ask my watch what time it

was. The last answer I remember getting was 2:48.

Going to work on three hours' sleep is one of those night-
mares everybody has once or twice. A lot of the time, a new
baby in die house is the reason. Not for me. Thinking about
a baby made me think about Judy. We'd had so many
plans— I didn't want to think about throwing diem all away.

A cup of coffee with breakfast Another cup of cafeteria
mud the minute I got in, and another one right after that
One more half an hour later. I felt myself wind tighter and
tighter. By God, I'd get through the day. If tonight ever
came, I'd probably be too buzzed to sleep then. One things
at a time, though. Get through the day first

That meant more phone calls. I didn't feel the least bit
guflty about using my office; my personal affairs and those of
the toxic spell dump case had become inextricably inter-
twined. First I called Saul Klein upstairs.

"Saul, this is David Fisher down in the EPA again," I
said. "I want—no, I don't want to, but I have to—report a

kidnapping."

This is die report diat we received from die Long Beach
constabulary last night?" he asked. When I said yes, he went
on, "Is dus connected widi die minismgers case you were

telling me about a little while ago?"

I'd forgotten die minisingers. I discovered diat, along widi
tired and worried, I could be embarrassed, too. "No, it
doesn't have anything to do widi dial If you've received diat
Long Beach report, Saul, does diat mean you'u be on die

case?"

Til be involved, yes," he answered. "Is it convenient for

you diat I come down and discuss matters now? You're on
die sevendi floor, is diat right?"

"Yes, and sure, come on down. Can you stop at die cafete-
ria and bring a couple of cups of coffee? I'B pay for diem."

He came; we drank coffee; he asked all die same

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

253

questions Johnson had die night before. Numbly, I gave die
same answers. He scribbled notes. When I was done, he said,
"We'll do eveiydiing we can for you, David, and for Mistress
Adier. I promise you diat" I noticed he didn't promise they'd
get her back alive and unhurt; he must have known belter
dian to make promises he might not be able to keep.

When he left, I called Henry Legion. The spook said, "I
shall be diere direcdy." He was, too, faster crosscountry dian
Saul Klein had been from two floors up. Of course. Henry
Legion hadn't had to stop for coffee.

I told my story for the diird time. Repetition made it feel
almost as if it had happened to someone else—almost but
not quite. The CI spook said, "This is disturbing. Events are
moving faster than crystal-ball projections had indicated. My
opinion is diat your scanning around the toxic spell dump
may well have been die precipitating factor."

"But except for a litde stardust, we didn't find anydiing," I
said, neariy wailing, as if I were I kid who got caught and
walloped for peeking in a bedroom window witiiout even
seeing anydiing interesting.

"You may know diaf" die spook said. "I would doubt die
perpetrators do." Then he disappeared on me. I hate diat. It
always gives him die last word.

Two down. My next call was to Legate Kawaguchi. I
wondered if he'd still be off on his odier case, but no, I got
him. 'This is in relation to die kidnapping of Mistress Adier
whom I met at die Thomas Brodiers fire?" he asked when
he heard it was me, so the Long Beach constables must have
already talked widi him.

That's what dlis is in relation to, all right," I said heavily.
"I can't imagine any odier reason for kidnapping Judy, espe-
cially when whoever did it also tried to kill me a few days
ago."

"I can imagme odier reasons," Kawaguchi said. Before I
could start screaming at him, he went on, "I admit however,
diat your scenario appears to be of die highest probability. As
you will have surmised"—and as I had surmised—"I have
discussed dlis matter widi die Long Beach force. I would,
however, also be grateful for your firsdiand account"

254                Harry Turtledove

I gave it to him. One more repetition, I thought one more
movement out of the realm of reality and into that of
discourse. In a way, it was a sort of anti-magic. Magic uses
words to realize what had only been imagined. I was using
them to turn tragedy and horror into memory, which is ever

so much easier to handle.

When I was through, Kawaguchi said, "Did you learn

from the forensics man what sort of sleep spell he detected

at your fiancee's flat?"

"You know, I didn't," I answered. "Hie plaindothesman—•
Johnson—and I went down to the Long Beach station so I
could make my sworn statement there, and the forensics fel-
low didn't stick his head into Johnson's office while I was

giving it."

"I shaD inquire," Kawaguchi said. His words were spaced

a little too far apart, as if he was writing and talking at the

same time.

I said, "I wanted to check with you, too. Legate, to see if

you have any new answers that would help dear up who did
this to Judy." Whoever it was had also undoubtedly arranged
to have the earth elemental dropped on my flying carpet. At
the moment, that seemed utterly unimportant to me.

"New answers, no," he said. "I have some new questions,
however: there has been vandalism relating to the Garuda
Bird project at the Lold plant in Burbank, vandalism behind

a hermetic seal."

"Thatis supposed to be impossible," I said, now speaking

slowly myself—I was scrawling a note to call Matt Arnold.

"Many things once supposed impossible have come true,"
Kawaguchi said. 'Take virtuous reality, for example."

"Thank you," I exdaimed. "That reminds me of some-
thing else I wanted to ask you: what's the more usual name

for Pharwnachrus mooinno?'

Kawaguchi actually laughed; I hadn't been sure he could.

"My apologies. Inspector; I should not have read the name
to your secretary straight off the laboratory report. The com-
mon name for the bird in question is the quetzal."

"Quetzal?" I slammed into that head on, as if my carpet
had run into a building. "Are you sure?'

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

255

"Confirmed by an ornithologist and an Etruscan orni-
thomancer," Kawaguchi said.

"You're sure," I admitted. "But that's crazy. Michael Man-
stein—he runs the sorcery lab here—and I went around the
Devonshire dump yesterday, and we found no trace of
Aztedan sorcery leaking. He even tested with flayed human
skin substitute for Huitzhopochtiism."

"I have told you what I know," Kawaguchi said. The pos-
sibility remains that the feather was somehow altered in its
translation from virtuous reality into our own merely mun-
dane space and time; as I noted at the time, if would not be
accepted as evidence in a court of law. Another alternative is
that the feather is indeed derived from a quetzal, but was
deliberately placed within range of the scriptorium spirit
Erasmus' sensorium for the purpose of misleading us."

"Yeah," I said. "Or it might be real—whatever that means
in connection with something out of virtuous reality."

"Exactly so," Kawaguchi said. "Ockham's Razor argues for
that interpretation, although the others cannot be ignored."

I shave my data with Ockham's Razor, too; it's the most
practical tool to use in preparing baseline data for projec-
tions and such. But, like any other razor, it will cut you if
you're not careful with it

"Thanks for the information, Legate Kawaguchi," I said.
"Would you do me one more favor, please. Would you call a
spook named Henry Legion at Central Intelligence back in
D.SfcC."—! gave him the number—"and tell him what
you've just told me? Ifs something he needs to know, believe
me. Use my name; it'll help you get through to him."

"I shall do as you suggest," Kawaguchi answered slowly.
"The implications, however, are—troubling."

"I know." When I'd first heard Charlie Kelly reluctantly
admit the possibility of the Third Sorcerous War, it chilled
me for days. Now, as far as I was concerned, it was old news.
Judy bulked ever so much larger in my thoughts. I couldn't
worry about the whole worid going up in smoke; that's too
much for any mere man to take in. But when some
damned—I hope—bastard kidnaps the woman you love, you
understand that real well.




256                Harry Turtledove

Kawaguchi and I said our goodbyes. He promised again
that he would call Henry Legion. Me, I called Lold, and
eventually got connected to Matt Arnold. "I just got off the
phone with Legate Kawaguchi of the ACCD," I told him.
"He said you had a break-in and some vandalism on the

Garuda Bird project."

"That's right," he answered. "One of our people was criti-
cally injured, too."

"Kawaguchi didn't say anything about that," I said. "What

happened?"

"He was bitten by a snake." Even over the phone, I could

hear Arnold's voice turn grim. "Some dever sorcerer found a
way to beat a hermetic seal. Did the constable tell you about

that?"

"He mentioned that it had been done, but not how," I

answered. "You sound like you know."

1 do, yes," Arnold said. "There'll be some sleepless nights
up in Crystal Valley until they can bring their sorceware up

to date."

"You don't need a crystal ball to predict that," I agreed.

"How was it done? Everyone's always claimed hermetic seals
are proof against just about anything." I heard the silence
that meant he didn't want to tell me. Quickly, I added,
"Remember, I have a professional interest in this. Any magic
that can beat such a powerful seal has to have serious

consequences for the environment." ,

"All right," he said grudgingly. "I guess I can see that. But
don't go spreading the word to all and sundry, you under-
stand?"

"I'm not a reporter or a newsman for the ethemet," I

replied with dignity.

"Okay," he said. "What happened was, the bastards used

one of Hermes' own attributes to break the seals he was sup-
posed to oversee. It was a very clever application of the law
of similarity, I'll say; I wish whoever came up with it would
have put as much energy into something legitimate."

"Go on," I said.

"The snakebite has something to do with it"

He paused again. I realized I was supposed to figure out

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      257

why. Some other morning, I might have enjoyed playing
intellectual games. That particular day, I just didn't have it.
"I'm sony; I must be dense," I said—my troubles weren't
any of his business. "Can you explain it for me?"

A sniff conveyed across the ether by two phone imps
carries an impressive weight of scorn. Matt Arnold said,
'Think about the kerykeion Hermes carries."

The what?"

He made another impatient noise. As far as I was
concerned, lucky for him he was at the far end of a phone
connection. The EPA doesn't have the money—or the
secrets—to get hermetic seals, so I had no reason to be familiar
with the minutiae of Hermes' cult Maybe he realized that, or
maybe he just wanted to get me off the phone so he could go
back to whatever he'd been doing before I called. He said,
"The Latin term for the kerykeion—not really proper, you
know, for talking about a Greek Power—is the caducous."

That I did understand. "The staff with the ..." My voice
trailed away. "Snakes," I said in an altogether different tone
of voice. "No wonder you said the bite had something to do
with it."

That's right," he said, as if there might be some hope for
me after all. They used the affinity of all snakes to the ones
of the caduceus to weaken the seal and let them get into our
secure areas."

"Sneaky." I added, "I hope you told Legate Kawaguchi
about that. If one set of bad guys figures out a stunt, every-
body will be using it two weeks later." Then something else
occurred to me. "How did your vandals get to the hermeti-
cally sealed areas, anyhow? You had some tough-looking
guards out front when I was there."

They got lulled to sleep." Arnold sounded as if he didn't
like to admit that "Some land of spell or other—
Kawaguchi's forensics people haven't got back to me with the
data."

Excitement ran through me: it sounded a lot like the way
Judy's kidnappers had operated. I wrote that down so I
wouldn't forget it, and promised myself I'd call Plainclothes-
man Johnson as soon as I was off the phone with Arnold.




258

Harry Turtledove

While I still had him on the ether, though, I asked, "What

land of snake bit your man?"

"It was a fer-de-lance," Arnold answered. "Nasty thing—
the venom makes you bleed internally as if you had a
vampire gnawing you from the inside out Lucky it's a rela-
tive of our local rattlesnakes; the antivenin spells for the one
were efficacious enough—we hope—against the other. Like
I told you, Jerrys still on the critical list, but they think he'll

puU through."

"I'm glad to hear it," I said. "But why a fer-de-lance in the

first place? Why not use our rattlers?"

"For one thing, it's more poisonous, if that's what the bas-
tards were after. And for another, if the sorcerers were
Aztecians, they'd be more familiar with their native serpents

than ours."

"And if they weren't, they could throw suspicion on
Azteca by planting snakes native to that realm." I was think-
ing about the quetzal feather. 'HI now, I'd suspected the
Persians more than anyone else. I wondered if I'd have to
change my mind. I also remembered Persians' deviousness;

if they could hide their schemes by implicating someone
else, they'd do it. And I remembered I still hadn't visited

Chocolate Weasel.

Matt Arnold said, "Forensics ought to let us know before

too long."

"I hope so," I said. "Thanks for your time."

"I've already wasted so much on this miserable business, a
little more doesn't matter now." With that encouraging word,

Arnold hung up on me.

I called Johnson. When he answered, my ear imp yelled
into my ear, so I suppose he was yelling at his mouth imp:

"Did the kidnappers call you? Or your fiancee?"

"I'm sorry, no." How sorry I was! I explained what I'd
heard from Matt Arnold, then asked, "Has your forensics
man been able to identify the sleep spell that was cast in

Judy's flat?"

"Hold on," he said. "That's in my notes—I saw it. Let me
look." The imps reproduced the noise of shuffling parch-
ments. Then I heard Johnson say, "Yeah, here it is," more as

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

259

if to himself than to me. After a few more seconds, he must
have put the handset up to his mouth again, because his
voice came back loud and clear: Tve got it, Mr. Fisher.
Forensics says it's an Aztecian spell, summoning the Power
named the One Called Night, the one from (he Nine
Beyonds, to cast sleep on the victim. There's a note here that
it's not generally used with good intent. I'm sony to have to
tell you that, sir."

"Not half as sony as I am to hear it," I answered. But I
wasn't surprised, or not much. Either Aztecians really were
behind this or somebody was putting on one hell of a bluff—
and I mean that literally. The higher the evidence mounted,
the more I doubted it was a bluff.

From its own point of view, after all, Aztecia has owed the
Confederation a big one for a long time. Angels City used to
be Aztecian territory, after all. So did St. Francis, up north.
So did the Arid Zone and New Aztecia further east, and
Snowland, and Denver and all the rest of Ruddy. With them,
Azteda would be a great nation. Without them, the Confed-
eration wouldn't be.

And that's just in the sphere of mortal politics. I thought
about what Henry Legion had said about the shift in the bal-
ance of Powers. It was already plain that Huitzilopochtii
wanted his own back. And if that green feather meant what it
seemed to, so did Quetzalcoati. The two Powers had been
rivals before the Spainish came. If they'd composed their
differences ... if that was so, then Heaven help the Confed-
eration. Heaven had better help, anyhow.

I called Legate Kawaguchi back. When I got him, I asked,
"What kind of sleep spell knocked out the guards at the Lold
plant in Burbank?"

'That's in my notes," he answered, just as Johnson had.
He was quicker to find the answer than the Long Beach con-
stable had been. "Here we are. The report indicates that it
was an Aztecian spell, one invoking the Power variously
called the Page and the Crackler, sending the spirits of the
victims to the Nine Beyonds."

The Nine Beyonds!" I said. "Is this Power also known as
the One Called Night?"

260                 Harry Turtledove

"I don't see that name here. Let me check with forensics
and call you back." He did, too, inside of five minutes.
'Inspector Fisher? The answer to your question is yes.
Forensics wants to know how you knew; this Power is not

commonly invoked in Angels City."

'1 just got off the phone with Long Beach. The One
Called Night is the Power that put Judy to sleep."

Kawaguchi was nobody's fool. "I shall consult immediately
with Plainclothesman Johnson," he declared. "This link must

be explored to the fullest extent possible."

More goodbyes. After they were through, I sat staring at
the phone, wondering whether to call Henry Legion again or
give Tony Sudalds a piece of my mind. Before I could do
either, Rose stuck her head into my office and said, "Bea
would like to see you and Michael up front, please. You
weren't there for staff meeting yesterday, so she wants to

catch up on what you've been doing."

"No," I said. It came out utterly flat, as if—ridiculous no-
tion—somebody built a mechanical that could talk.

Rose stared. She knows I'm not fond of staff meetings,
but when the boss says come unto this one, he cometh; and
when she says go unto that one, he goeth, at least if he
knoweth what's good for him. "But, David—" Rose began,

trying to bring me to my senses.

"No," I said again. "Can't. Too busy. I was just going out

into the field when you came in." It wasn't true, but I could
make it so. I got up from my desk, started for the door. If
Rose hadn't got out of the way in a hurry, I'd have walked

right through her.

"David, are you all right?" she called after me as I trudged

down the hall.

"No," I answered. Being very tired is kind of like being

drunk; it makes you say die first thing that pops into your
head. You often regret it later. I wondered if I'd still have a
job to come back to even as I was sliding down to the parking

lot

It's a good thing I'd come to know St. Ferdinand's Valley

well over the past few weeks: I could fly up to the Devon-
shire dump without having to think about where I was going.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      261

I wasn't real good at thinking, not then. When I'd told Rose I
was about to go out and do field work, I hadn't had the
slightest idea where I'd go and do it. Grilling Tony Sudalds
face to face instead of over the phone was the closest thing to
a good idea I'd had.

This time, the security guard didn't need to see my EEA
sigd before he got on the phone with Sudalds. A minute
later, he set up the footbridge and I went into the contain-
ment area. As I walked up the warded path toward Sudakis'
fortress of an office, I looked for the patch of Nothing I'd
seen a couple of times before. Rather to my relief, I didn't
notice it, not then.

Sudalds opened die outer door himself. He probably
started to say something pleasant and meaningless, but one
look at my face made him change his mind. "You all right,
Dave?" he asked.

I gave him die same answer I'd given Rose: "No." To him,
though, I amplified it "I was supposed to go out to dinner
with my fiancee last night after I got back from examining
this place. I didn't get to do dial When I went down to her
flat, I found she'd been kidnapped."

"That's terrible," he exclaimed, a comment I could hardly
disagree widi. He started to take me inside, dien stopped in
his tracks. Say what you like about Antanas Sudakis, he's
plenty sharp. He looked back at me. "Wait a minute," he said
slowly. "You dunk diere's some land of connection between
us and that, don't you? Listen, Dave, I'm here to tell you
that—"

I overrode him: "You bet your sweet ass I dunk diere's a
connection. Tony. I've drought diere was a connection ever
since die Thomas Brotiiers monastery burned down. I really
diought there was a connection when a couple of louts tried
to kill me after I got off die freeway one afternoon—"

"When what?" Now he interrupted me.

I realized I hadn't told him about diat, so I did. Then I
went on, "And now, die day after die EPA wizard and I scan
dlis place, Judy gets snatched. What am I supposed to dunk,
Tony? What would you think?"

"I don't know," he said, hardly louder dian a whisper.




262                Harry Turtledove

He was shaken—I could see that. His left hand reached
for the little amber amulet he wore under his shirt. He made
it go down by what looked like a deliberate effort of will. I
decided to shake him up some more; "And just so you know,
Tony, you do have a leak in your containment setup. Michael
Manstein and I found Hollywood stardust all around your

walls."

"Stardust is harmless," he said, rallying as gamely as he

could.

"Yeah, but if stardust is leaking, what else is getting out

with it?" Michael had had to make that obvious point for me;

now I took malicious pleasure in hitting Sudalds over (he

head with it

He was tough. I'd known that already. "You didn't find

anything else, did you?" he demanded.

"No, but we will. Us only a matter of time and thauma-
turgy, and you know it as well as I do." I took a deep breath,
tried to calm down. "Anyway, that isn't what I came up here
for. I wanted to find out who you called when Michael and I
got to work out here. Whoever it is either did the kidnapping
themselves or else called somebody to arrange to have it

done."

The only call I made was to the Devonshire Land Man-
agement Consortium office," he said. "I had to let them
know so—they—could—" He ran down like a mechanical
watch as he realized what he was saying. He kicked at die

cement under his feet "Oh, shit."

Them or somebody connected with them," I said. "It just

about has to be."

I thought he'd give me more arguments, more denials,

but he didn't "Yeah," he said in a voice like ashes.

"So what are you going to do about it?" I said, pushing
hard. "Be a good litde consortium soldier and pretend none
of this has ever happened? You can. It would be legal. You'd
probably even get promoted. But could you look at yourself
in the mirror whenever you went into a men's room?"

"Fuck you, Dave," he said evenly. I did try to hit him then.
He caught my fist before it connected. I'd known he was
stronger than I am, but not how much. If he'd hit me back,

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      263

somebody else would be telling you this story. But he didn't
He just hung onto me for most of a minute, then said, 'You
done being stupid?"

I nodded. He let me go. "Good. You don't want to fay
preaching at me again. It won't push me in the direction you
want me to go. You got that?" He waited until I nodded
again before he went on, "Okay. Now that you've got that
straight I'd do everything I can to help you get your lady
back. For my reasons, mind you, not yours. We're wasting
time here."

"I don't think I understand you at all," I said.

"I don't think you do, either." It wasnt pejorative: more as
if he was stating a law of nature. Maybe he was. As I've said,
I'd never dealt with anybody of European origin who still
clung to his people's old gods, not in an artificial cult like that
of Hermes, but as part of a tradition as old and serious as my
own. Balance of Powers, I thought and then wondered
Whose side Perkunas was on. After enduring umpty hun-
dred years of Christianity, the Lithuanian Power might be as
eager as Huitzilopochtte to get his own back.

But no matter where his god stood, I thought Tony stood
with me. Almost dragging me in his wake, he started down
the walk toward the exit I happened to look back toward his
office at just the right time. "Wait!" I exclaimed, and grabbed
his arm.

It was like taking hold of the Juggernauts car; once he got
moving, he didn't want to stop for anything. "Look back
there," I said in a tone heading toward desperate. That's
what I was talking about before."

Grudgingly, he turned around. "I don't see anything," he
said.

"I don't see anything, either," I answered. "I see Nothing.
Here, stand right where I am now." I moved off the spot he
moved onto it. He shook his head, started to go. Now I was
desperate. "Stand on tiptoe," I suggested; I'm several inches
taller than he is.

He gave me a look that would have wilted me under any
other circumstances. When I stayed crisp, he shrugged and
went up on his toes. A second later, he said something in




264                Harry Turtledove

Lithuanian that I didn't understand. Then he dropped back
into English: "You were right after aB, Dave. I don't know

what that is."

Neither did I. At the moment, I couldn't see die Nothing;

the dump just looked like a weedy vacant lot But when I'd
stood where Tony was now, the wall beyond that point
seemed to recede into infinite space. And yet, at the same
time, it was obviously right where it belonged. I don't know
how to explain it any better than that; I got the feeling I
wasn't sensing it entirely through normal vision.

Tony Sudalds came down off tiptoe. He was, as usual,
briskly derisive. "When you see something you don't under-
stand in a toxic spell dump, you'd better start trying to find
out what it is just as fast as you can," he said. "Why don't you
call your wizard—his name was Manstein, right?—and have
him get up here? The sooner he can find out what's going on
over there, the sooner we can start trying to deal with it"

"Aren't you the same fellow I heard yesterday talking
about how if Michael or I set so much as a toe inside the
confines of the dump, your people would sue us until the

vulture let Prometheus' liver alone?"

"Go ahead, rub it in," he said. "Yeah, I'm that guy. But I'm

also the guy you've finally convinced. So come on back to my

office."

I was never so happy to turn around in my life. As we

headed back toward the squat, ugly fortress, I asked, "Do
you know what got dumped in that area? The more I can teH
Michael, the quicker he'B be able to identify what's going

on.

"Makes sense," Sudalds said. He looked over toward
where we'd seen that Nothing. It wasn't there now, of
course, because we weren't in the right spot. "That'd be
about, hmm. Area 37.1'B check for you."

He pawed through the files, muttering all the time: "No,
can't be that one—that one was exorcised two years ago ...
Maybe this one? No, forget it—I know everything roc's egg-
shell can do... Hahl"

"Hah?" I echoed.
"Gotta be this one, Dave. Three-four months ago, one of

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      265

the Baron's Watchers of the Shore found the remains of what
sure looked like a major conjuration out on Malibu Beach.
They tested the junk for thaumaturgical activity, but it came
back negative—and I mean real negative, like there'd never
been any magic around it since time began. Nobody be-
lieved that, not from the way the stuff was laid out. so they
brought it here and dumped it in spite of the tests."

"I remember that one," I said. There were letters in the
Times complaining about the waste of taxpayers' crowns."

"That's it," Tony agreed. "You ask me, me only thing worse
than die government spending money when it doesn't need
to is not spending it when it does need to."

I started to pick up die phone, then stopped. "You said
'stuff was laid out What kind of staff?"

He looked down at his parchments. "Funny stuff—like
nodiing I've ever seen before. Staffs widi stone disks
mounted on one end, others widi those shells called sand
crowns instead. If I had to guess, I'd say die stones were
carved flat to look like die sand crowns. And diere were
odier staffs, long and short, topped widi feathers. Looked
like some kind of Indian ritual, maybe, but not one I
know."

"Okay." I got on die phone and called Michael. While I
waited for him to answer, I worried some more: balance of
Powers. Indian magic would not be well-inclined toward
what I drought of as peace and order, not now.

"Environmental Perfection Agency—Michael Manstein
speaking."

"Michael? Hi, ifs David Fisher. Listen, I've got a new job
for—"

Michael interrupted, somediing he hardly ever does:

"David, where are you. What on earth are you up to? Bea is
quite vexed"—a word only he would come up widi—"widi
you and Bos® is practically in tears."

That made me feel bad, but it would have made me feel
worse if I didn't feel pretty bad already. In words of one sylla-
ble, I explained where I was and what I was up to. I also told
him about Judy, which explained why I was up to it

"Good heavens, David," he said, about as big an outburst




266                Harry Turtledove

as you'B ever hear from him. "No wonder your behavior was

so anomalous."

"Yeah, no wonder at all," I grunted. Anomalous wasn't the
word for it; shitty was. I could blame it on endless worry, no
sleep, and too much coffee, but in the end it came back to
me. If you're not responsible for what you do in this world,

who is?

"Have you discovered anything of import in your return to
the Devonshire toxic spell containment area?" Michael
asked, graciously not saying anything more about what sort

of beast I'd been.

"As I matter of fact, I have." I told him about the Nothing,
then put Tony Sudakis on (he phone so he could confirm it

Tony gave the handset back to me. Michael was saying,
°—shall fly there forthwith to investigate. Your description
strikes me as extremely urgent." He hung up.

"He's on his way," I said to Sudakis.

"Okay," he answered. Td better stay here, then, to make
sure he can get in and do what he needs to do. What about
you? You gonna wait here with me?"

I thought about it, shook my head. Tve got to get back
and mend my fences. Listen, do you have a telephone at
home?" I waited till he nodded, then said, "Would you give
me your number? I may need to get hold of you any time.
Like it or not—and I'm not saying you're liable; please
understand that—you're in the middle of this, too—and
they've got Judy, whoever they are."

He scrawled it on a scrap of parchment. "Here you go.
Call when you need to."

"Thanks." I went out the door, down the warded path (I
didn't even look back for the Nothing this time), over the
footbridge, and out to my carpet On the way back to St. James'
Freeway, I passed a florist's shop. I stopped and bought Rose
some roses. Sometimes words aren't contrition enough.

Rose's eyes went wide when I set die vase on her desk
She pointed to the closed door to Bea's office. "She's in a
meeting right now, but she'll want to see you when she gets
out And thank you, David. You didn't have to do this.
Michael told me what your trouble was. I'll pray for you."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      267

Rose is one of the good people. If God was in a mood to
listen to anybody. He'd listen to her. "I did have to do this," I
said. "It's die stuff before diat I shouldn't have done."

She waved diat aside and started to say somediing more,
but I was already on die way back to my office. No matter
how much of a big, hairy diing I'd been, I found she'd faidi-
fully taken my messages while I was out One was from
Hemy Legion. I'd have to call him back, I thought

Then I looked at die next one. It was from Judy.




DC

I don't know how long I stood there staring at the little
piece of parchment in my hand. Every feeling you can
imagine ran through my mind—joy that Judy was alive, fear
that she was in their clutches, hope, worry, rage, all of them
jumbled together at once in a way that would have made me
dizzy even if I hadn't been running on no sleep and too
much coffee.

Eventually I started thinking as well as feeling. The mes-
sage, not surprisingly, left no return number. I ran back
j        down the hall (I almost ran into PhyBis Kaminsky, too) to
|        Rose, threw it on her desk. °I meant to tell you about this,
David," she said, "but what with the flowers and all, it went
right out of my mind. I'm sony."

So even Rose could make mistakes. I hadn't been sure it

269




270 Harry Turtledove

was possible. But it didn't matter, not right then. "Never
mind," I said. "How did she sound? What did she say?"

"She just asked for you and hung up when I told her
you were out of the office," Rose said. "I didn't know any-
thing was wrong then." She gave me a reproachful look; if
I'd told her earlier, she might have been able to do more.
"You have to remember, I've only spoken with her the
couple of times she's come up here and occasionally taken
messages for you—and no one ever sounds like herself on
the phone."

Miserable phone imps— But no sooner had that thought
crossed my mind than I ran up the hall (and almost ran down
PhyBis again; she let out an indignant squawk) back to my

office.

I wished Michael were still here instead of up at the Dev-
onshire dump. I'd read that a good wizard could sometimes
trace a phone call even after the etheric connection between
the imps at the opposite ends was broken.

Phone imps are nearly identical, one to another—(hat's
what ectoplasmic cloning is all about Nearly, but not quite.
As Bacon's Troscmtto puts it. There's a divinity that shapes
our ends/Rough-hew them how we will." Tiny imperfections
get into the cloning process—macro identical, but micro dif-
ferent Thafs why the phone switching system works so well:

because the imps are so like one another and spring from the
same source, the laws of similarity and contagion make
establishing contact between any two of them easy. And
because they aren't quite identical, each can be assigned its
own place in the telephone web.

"God, I'm an idiot!" I exclaimed a moment later. God, I
presume, already knew this. Michael Manstein was a good
wizard, sure, but he wasn't the only good wizard involved
in this case—the CBI had plenty of skilled mages, just two
floors up. I called Saul Klein, told him what had hap-
pened.

TB send someone right to you," he said as soon as I was
through. Henry Legion might have got down to my office
faster than the wizard did, but I don't think any mere mortal
could have. She was a Hanese woman who came up just past

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

271

my elbow, but she seemed smart and businesslike as all get-
out She introduced herself as Celia Chang.

"What time would this telephone call have been placed?"
she asked.

I looked down at the parchment. Rose, bless her efficient
soul, had made a note of it. Ten twenty-seven," I answered.

"And ifs now"—she paused to ask her watch—"five min-
utes past twelve. A little more than an hour and a half. The
etheric trail should not be impossibly cold. Let me see what I
can do, Mr. Fisher."

From the efficient way she went about things, I gathered
this wasn't the first time she'd traced phone calls—probably
not the fifty-first either. If anybody had to use that particular
thaumaturgy a lot, it would be the CBI. I felt easier, I'd been
wishing she were Michael, but now I decided I didn't need
to worry about it

She opened her little black bag, took out what looked like
a telephone handset but wasn't (I'd never seen a blue porce-
lain phone, anyhow), and set it on the desk next to my
phone. "Does the telephone consortium know you have gear
like that?" I asked.

"Officially, no," she said. Her smile made her look much
younger and prettier than she had without it. "Unofficially—
ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies." Like anybody
else with an ounce of concern for the world to come, she was
hesitant about being forsworn.

"Never mind," I told her.

She took a copper cable from one pocket other lab robe,
used it to connect her blue box to the real telephone. As she
did so, she made a face. "Properly, this should be silver," she
said. "Ifs a better conductor of sorcerous influences than
copper—but it's also more expensive, and so ifs not in our
thaumaturgical budget. If I were in private practice—" She
shook her head. "If I were in private practice, I'd be less use-
ful. I'm sure you have to manage on fewer resources than
you find ideal, too."

"How right you are," I said.

She was making small talk while she could, just to put me
at my ease. When the need for serious conjuration came, she

272                Harry Turtledove

started ignoring me. That was all right; I hadn't expect any-
thing different. Wizards dealing with the Other Side don't
need their elbows joggled, even metaphorically.

Mistress Chang might have been Hanese by blood, but
she used standard Western sorcerous techniques, ones that
date back to the Species of Origen and some of them even
farther. No reason she shouldn't have; for all I knew, her
ancestors might have come to the Confederation a couple of
generations before mine. After censing the copper cable
(and stinking up my office), she took two metal plaques, each
inscribed with a demon's seal, and affixed them to the cable.

"I don't need a full manifestation from either Eligor or
Botis," she explained, "but I do require the application of
some of their attributes: Eligor discovers hidden things,
while Botis discerns past, present, and future. Now if you

will excuse me—"

The first gesture of her elegantly manicured hand was a
wave to get me to move back a couple of steps. The next was
a pass that accompanied her conjuration. Calling up
demonic attributes without getting raw demon, so to speak,
is a tricky business; I watched quietly and respectfully while

she did what she had to do.

It was more like coaxing than commanding: no impressive

circles or pentagrams, no manifest thyself or eternal torment
shall overwhelm thee. At the climax of the incantation, she
just said, "Help me, please, you two great Powers." I teu you,
modem sorcery lacks the drama it had in the good old days.

But we can do things now that our ancestors never
dreamt of trying. When Celia Chang pointed to the plaques
on the cable, the seals that bound Eligor and Botis, which
had been black squiggles on silver metal, began to glow with
a light that outshone the St Elmo's fire on the ceiling.

The light started to fade, then grew again. They're
searching through time for the etheric connection," Celia
Chang said. Just then, Botis' seal blazed for a moment; I had
to blink and turn my head aside. The CBI wizard softly
clapped her hands together. "We have the fix in time. Now to
see whether Eligofs allegory algorithm can uncover the
missing phone number."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      273

I didn't know what we were waiting for—probably for Eli-
gofs seal to flare up the way Botis' had. That didn't happen;

its squiggles continued to shine as they had before. I don't
know if you're familiar with Eligor's seal: it looks rather like
an open mouth with a rubber arrow threaded through its
upper lip.

Arrow or not, though, that sort of a mouth up and spoke
like the old Roman godlet Aius Locutius: one number after
another, until there were ten. Celia Chang and I both wrote
them down as Eligor gave them to us. By the time we'd
recorded the last one, the lines on both plaques had stopped
glowing.

"Let's compare them," the wizard said. I handed her the
scrap of parchment on which I'd taken down the numbers.
She held out the one on which she'd written them. We'd
both heard the phone number the same way. She asked, "Is
this number familiar to you?"

"No." I shook my head. "It's not Judy's; it's not any phone
number I've seen before."

"I expected as much, but you never know," she said.
"We'll have to go to the telephone consortium, then, and
leam to whom the number belongs—if anyone, of course. It
might be a public phone."

"I hadn't thought of that," I said in a hollow voice. Hard
for me to imagine kidnappers having a victim make a call
from a pay phone in the middle of the morning, but it was
possible, especially if they knew of one that couldn't be easily
seen from the street.

Mistress Chang said, "We'll be in touch with you as soon
as we leam anything, Mr. Fisher." She packed up her sorcer-
ous impedimenta, nodded to me—still businesslike, but
with, I thought, some sympathy, too—and strode out of the
office.

My stomach growled, fortunately a couple of seconds
after that. What with all the coffee I'd poured down there, it
had been growling on and off for a while now, but this was a
different note. It wanted food. No matter what your mind
tries to do to you, your body has has a way of reminding you
of life's basics.




274                Harry Turtledove

I went over to the cafeteria and bought myself a
vulcanized hamburger—as a matter of fact, it was cooked so
hard that Vulcan, had he been of a mind to, could have
carved the battle reliefs that he'd put onto the shields of
Achilles and Aeneas right onto the surface of the meat. I ate
it anyhow; at the moment, I didn't much care what I fed my
fire, as long as it filled me up. And I washed it down with

more coffee.

The stuff was starring to lose its power to conjure up my
demons. I found myself yawning over the last of my fries.
But no rest for the weary; I plodded back to the office to see

what I could accomplish.

In short, the answer was not much. Part of the reason was
that I jumped halfway to the ceiling every time the phone
yarped, hoping it would be Judy again. It never was. None of
the calls I got was of any consequence whatsoever. Every one
of them, though, broke my concentration. In aggregate, they

left me a nervous wreck.

Along with hoping one of the calls would be from Judy, I
also kept hoping one wouldn't be from Bea. I just didn't have
it in me to play staff meeting games right then, and I wasn't
real thrilled about having to bear up under sympathy, either.
Atlas carried the whole world, but right now I had aB the

weight on me I could take.

But Bea, to my relief, didn't call. Except for relief, I didn't
think anything of it at the time. Looking back, though, I
think she didn't call precisely because she knew I couldn't
deal with it. Bea is a pretty fair boss. I may have mentioned

that once or twice.

The phone squawked yet again. When I answered it,
Celia Chang was on the other end. "Mr. Fisher? We have
located that telephone whose number I traced a little while
ago. It is, unfortunately, a public phone up on the comer of
Soto's and Plummer in St. Ferdinand's Valley."

"Oh," I said unhappily.
"I am sorry, Mr. Fisher," she said, "but I did think you

would want to know."

"Yes, thank you," I said, and hung up. I never have figured
out why you thank someone who's given you bad news—

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      275

maybe to deny to the Powers that it's really hurt you, no mat-
ter how obvious that is.

After Celia Chang's call, the phone stopped making noise
for a while. I tried to buckle down and get some work done,
but I still couldn't make my mind focus on the parchments in
front of me. I'd write something, realize it was either colos-
sally stupid or just pointless, scratch it out, by again, and
discover I hadn't done any better the next time. All I could
think about was Judy—Judy and sleep. In spite of all that
coffee, I was yawning.

About half past three, someone tapped on my door. Sev-
eral people had been in already; news of what had happened
was getting around with its usual speed in offices. I knew
they meant well, and it made them feel better, but it just
kept reminding me of what Judy had gone through and
might be going through now. Still, once more couldn't make
me feel much worse than I did already. "Come in," I said
resignedly.

It was somebody I worked with, but somebody who
already knew what was going on. "Hello, David," Michael
Manstein said. "I trust I am not intruding?"

"No, no," I said—someone else would have been, but not
Michael. "Here, sit down, tell me what that thing—that
Nothing—I mean—in the Devonshire dump is."

He folded his angular frame into a chair, steepled his
long pale fingers. "First tell me if you have any word of
your fiancee," he said. So I had to go through that again
after all. He listened attentively—Michael is always atten-
tive—then said, "I am sorry you were out of the office
when Judith called. I wish I could have been here when
the CBI wizard traced the call, as well. I have had occa-
sion to attempt that twice, but succeeded in only one
instance. An opportunity to improve my technique would
have been welcome."

I had the feeling he was more interested in the magic for
its own sake than the reason it had been used, but I couldn't
get angry about that—it was Michael through and through. I
tried again to make the carpet fly my way: "So what was that
Nothing? Did you analyze it?"




276

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      277

Harry Turtledove

"I did," he answered. "As best I could determine, it is—

Nothing."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I know I sounded pee-
vish—nerves, exhaustion, coffee again.

Michael didn't notice. What he'd found intrigued him too
much for him to pay attention to details like bad manners.
He said, "It is, in my experience, unique: an area from which
all the magic has been removed, not externally, as would be
normal, but internally. Whatever Powers are involved are
still contained within the barrier established around them,
but have in effect created that barrier to shield them from
the surrounding world—or vice versa. I have no idea how to
penetrate the barrier from This Side."

"Could whatevers in there burst out from the Other

Side?" I asked.

"It is conceivable," Michael said. "Since I am of necessity

ignorant of what lies inside the barrier—think of it as an
opaque soap bubble, if you like,'although it is almost infi-
nitely stronger—I cannot evaluate the probability of that

possibility."

I worked that through till I thought I understood it. Then
I said, "Why does the, the Nothing make everything behind

it look so far away?"

"Again, I cannot give a precise answer," Michael said, "I
believe I do grasp the basic cause of the phenomenon, how-
ever: the barrier is in effect an area where the Other Side has
been removed from contact with This Side. The eye natu-
rally attempts to pursue it in its withdrawal, thus leading to
the impression of indefinitely great distance behind it."

"Okay," I said. That made some sense—certainly more
than anything I'd thought of (which, given my current state,
wasn't saying much). But it raised as many questions as it
answered, the most important of which was, how do you go
about separating This Side and the Other? They've been
inextricably joined at least since people and Powers became
aware of each other, and possibly since the beginning of time.

Michael said, "If your next question is going to be
whether I have a theoretical model to explain how this phe-
nomenon came to be, the answer, I regret, is no."

"I regret it, too, but that's not what I was going to ask
you," I said. Michael raised a pale eyebrow; to him, finding a
theoretical model ranked right up there with breathing. My
mind was on simpler things: "I was going to ask if you'd
come with me to inspect Chocolate Weasel tomorrow
morning." I explained how more and more of the evidence
was pointing toward an Aztedan connection.

"Beaten a hermetic seal, have they?" Michael murmured;

again, the thaumaturgy interested him more than anything
else. He went on, "We'll be seeing learned articles on that for
some time to come. But yes, I will be happy to accompany
you to Chocolate Weasel. Where is the facility located?"

"In St Ferdinand's Valley, near the comer of Mason and
Nordhoff," I answered. That wasn't a part of the Valley I'd
learned yet; the Devonshire dump was north of it, while the
businesses and factories I'd visited were farther south and
east. I figured Michael or I could find it, though.

He said, "Shall we take my carpet again, and meet here as
we did yesterday?"

"All right," I answered. I was just as glad that he'd fly us
up into the Valley; at the moment, I wondered whether I'd
be able to get myself home tonight

Michael headed for the lab, no doubt intent on catching
up on whatever he'd had to abandon when I called him from
the Devonshire dump. I asked my watch what time it was—a
little before four. Not quite soon enough to go home, but too
late to do anything useful (assuming I could do anything use-
ful) to the parchments on my desk.

I decided to try to call Henry Legion. I realized there was
an advantage in dealing with a spook rather than a person
(the first I'd found, so I treasured it): even though it was just
about seven back in D.C., he was likely to be on the job. At
least, I didn't think spooks had families to go home to.

And sure enough, I got him when I called. "Inspector
Fisher," he said. "I was hoping I would hear from you. What
have you learned since this morning?"

So I told him what I'd learned: the hermetic seals, the
quetzal feather, the fer-de-lance, the One Called Night, the
Nothing. It took a while. Until I told him what all I'd found




278                 Harry Turtledove

out in the course of the day, I hadn't realized how big a
forest it made; one tree at a time had been falling on me.
But, to shift the figure of speech, I had a lot of pieces. I

didn't have a puzzle.

"I shall convey your information to the appropriate
sources," he said when I was through. "Inspector Fisher, the
Confederation may well owe you a large debt of gratitude."

"I'm sony," I said, tut right now that doesn't matter
much to me. AB I want to do is get Judy back, and I don't
think I'm much closer than I was." Maybe fitting some of the
pieces together would help. I asked, "Is it die Aztecians that
we've bumped up against here?"

"Your information makes that appear more likely," he
answered, maddeningly evasive and dispassionate as usual.

I was too tired to get angry at him. I just pushed ahead; "If
it was the Aztedans, why did they attack the Garuda Bird?"

The CI spook hesitated—I must have asked the right
question. "The answer which immediately springs to mind is
that the Garuda Bird is the great enemy of serpents, being
the representative of birth and the heavens, while serpents
are in the camp of death, the underworld, and poison."

"The great enemy of serpents," For a second, it didn't
mean anything—I was beat Then an alarm dock started

yelling inside my head. "Quetzalcoati."

This though had occurred to me, yes," Henry Legion

said.

"What do we do?" I demanded.

"Prayers come to mind," the spook answered, which,
while sensible, was not what I wanted to hear. He added,
"Past that, the best we can. Call if you require my assistance,
Inspector Fisher; I shall do what I can for you."

Thanks," I said. I was talking to a dead line; he'd hung

up.

Someone tapped on the door. I looked up. Now, as the day

wound down, it was Bea. I gulped. She wasn't the person I
wanted to see right then. Or at least I thought she wasn't,
until she said quietiy, "I just want you to know, David, that
my prayers will be with you tonight."

From Henry Legion, the suggestion of prayer had had the

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      279

undertone that even that probably wouldn't help the mess
we were in. Bea, though, sounded calmly confident it would
make everything all right. I liked her attitude better than the
spook's. But then. Henry Legion knew more about what all
was wrong than she did.

Tm sony I didn't come see you," I muttered. I wasn't just
sony; I was ashamed of myself. But thafs not something you
can casually say to your boss.

I guess she was good at reading between (he lines. She
said, "If you like, we can talk about it more tomorrow. Why
don't you go home and try to get some rest now? You'B be
better for it" She made shooing motions, then smiled. "My
mother used to do that to chase chickens off the back porch.
I haven't thought about it in years. Go on home now."

Thank you, Bea," I said humbly, and I went on home.

I don't remember what I cooked for supper that night,
which is probably just as well. I thought about going to bed
right afterward, but if I did that, I knew I'd wake up at three
in the morning and stay up. So I rattled around in my flat
instead, like a pea in a pod that was much too big for it

The quiet in there felt very loud. I wished I had an eth-
emet set to give myself something to occupy my ears and
maybe my mind. Being alone with yourself when you're wor-
ried is hard work. I tried to work, but I couldn't concentrate
on the words.

The phone yelled. I banged my shin on the coffee table in
the front room as I sprang up and dashed off to answer it It
was some mountebank selling microsalamander cigar light-
ers. I'm afraid I told him where to put one before he let the
salamander loose. I limped back out front after I hung up.

I picked up my book again. I should have been reading
something useful, maybe about the Garuda Bird or
Quetzalcoati. But no, it was a thriller about thirteen guys on
a spy mission to Alemania during the Second Sorcerous War.
I was at the exciting part—the Alemans were trying to drive
them into the alkahest pits still bubbling from the First
Sorcerous War. Even so, I kept losing track of what was
going on.

280                Harry Turtledove

The phone again. I almost hoped it was another huckster,
I'd taken savage, mindless pleasure in baiting the first one.
Too much had happened to me, with no chance for me to hit
back at anyone. If a miserable salesman chose that moment
to inflict himself on me, it was his lookout

"Hello?" I snapped.

"David?" The progressive distortion from two phone imps
couldn't mask the voice. All my rage evaporated even before

she went on, "It's Judy."

"Honey," I whispered; just hearing for sure that she was
alive took my breath away, I made myself talk louder: "Are

you all right?"

"I'm—fair," she said, which made me fearful all over
again. She hunted on: "Don't ask questions, Dave. You have
to listen to me. They won't let me talk long. They say you
have to stop messing around with things that aren't your
business, or else—" I waited to hear what the "or else" was,
but she'd stopped. I was afraid I could figure it out for

myself.

Tell them I say rfl do whatever they want," I answered. I
hoped she'd get the distinction: just because I said it didn't

mean I would.

"Be careful, Dave," she said. 'They aren't joking. They—"
Her voice cut off. Faintly, as if the imps were reproducing
the words of someone farther from the phone, I heard,

"Come on, you."

"Honey, I love you," I said. While I was talking, though,
somebody hung up the phone. I don't think Judy heard me.

I spent a while wishing damnation on the wretches who'd
snatched her, then pulled myself together and called the
Long Beach constables. Plaindothesman Johnson had the
night off; I got some other worthy, name of Scott. He heard
me out, then said, "Thanks for passing on the information,

sir. We'll do what we can with it"

Which meant as I knew only too well, they weren't going
to do much. It did tell them, as it had me, that Judy was still
on This Side. That did count for something to them, and it
had counted for a lot more than something to me. I had
fresh hope.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      281

I caDed the CBI. Saul Klein had gone home, but the fel-
low who answered the phone knew what was going on with
the case. I asked him, "Can you send someone down to try to
trace the call? Your Mistress Chang managed to do it earher
today."

"Well, why not?" the CBI man said after he thought it
over "Csa't hurt to tiy." He read me back my home address
to make sure he had it right, then said, "We'll have someone
there in half an hour or so."

It was more like forty-five minutes, but that didn't sur-
prise me. I drive St. James' Freeway every day; I know how
things can be down there. When the rap on the door came, I
opened it with my left hand. My right hand was holding the
blasting rod; after what had happened to Judy, I wasn't tak-
ing any chances.

The weedy little fellow outside gave back a pace when
he saw I was carrying a rod, which meant he almost went
ass over teakettle down the stairs. He rallied fast, though.
"Can't say as I blame you, six," he said, and flashed a CBI
sigil that said he was an intermediate thaumaturgic ana-
lyst—by which I learned the CBI has sffly job tides,
too—named Horace Smidley. I lowered the rod right
away. He might not have looked like the light-and-magic
show version of a CBI man, but he sure did look like a
Horace Smidley.

I led him to the phone. He went through the same tracing
ritual Celia Chang had used earlier in the day back at the
office. He wasn't as smooth as she had been—he was only an
intermediate thaumaturgic analyst after all—but he got the
job done. The quasi-mouth that formed Ehgors seal spoke
its series of digits, then fell sflent once more.

Thafs the same number they used when they called
before," I said.

"Is it? Careless of them." Smidley made a ducking noise
in the back of his throat; I got the idea that he disapproved of
carelessness no matter who perpetrated it, even if it made
catching the bad guys easier. He went on. Til take the infor-
mation back with me."

"What do you think it means?" I asked. "Are they holding

282                Harry Turtledove

Judy somewhere dose to there and using that phone
because ifs convenient to them?"

That is most probable," he said; he and Michael Man-
stein would have got on weH together. The other possibility
is that they are deliberately transporting her a long distance
to mislead us. Possible, as I say, but risky: any accident or fly-
ing violation that a constable happens to observe destroys
what up to now has appeared a well-organized scheme."

Again, you could tell he liked organization, no matter who
was using it or for what purpose. I worry about people like
that; the Leader of Alemania had had a lot of them behind
him. Horace Smidley, though, was on my side, for which I
was duly grateful. I thanked him for taking the trouble to
come down at night

"My pleasure," he said, and then, to my mind, weakened
the answer by adding, "And my duty." He headed down the
stairs—intentionally this time—and then, I presume, on

back to Westwood.

Me? I shut the door after him, brushed my teeth, and
went to bed. I don't remember another thing until the alarm
clock scared me awake the next morning.

It was going to be a hot one. I could tell as soon as I got
out of bed. Even after a long night's sleep, I still felt tired,
but out my bedroom window I saw that the wind stirring tile
eucalyptus tree next door was some from out of the north-
east what they call St. Ann's wind. That always strikes me as
rude, or don't you think naming a wind after the Virgin's
mother implies she talked too much?

The wind swirled hard enough to shake my carpet as I
headed for the freeway. When I flew past a vacant lot, I
watched the dust devils spinning tumbleweeds around and
tossing them up into the sky. There are more dust devils
these days than there used to be; I've always said cutting the
budget for meteorological exorcists was a mistake. One day
the devils will join forces and blow down a building or three,
and fixing things will end up costing a lot more than we're
saving now.

But what politician looks to the future? I wondered why I

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

283

was bothering myself, come to that. If the Third Sorcerous
War broke out, dust devils would be the least of my—and
everyone else's—worries.

Michael was waiting for me in the parking lot. "Have you
received any news?" he asked as I walked up to his carpet

They made Judy call me last night," I said, nodding.
"Whoever they are, they want us to stop investigating any-
thing that has anything to do with the Devonshire dump—or
else."

Michael gave me a curious look. "Yet you are stifl here."
He turned on to Wilshire to get to St. James' Freeway for the
trip up into the Valley.

"Yeah, I'm still here," I said. "I don't believe stopping
would really make them turn Judy loose. And besides... the
deeper we get into this case, the more important it looks."
God. help me, I was starting to think like Henry Legion. Sav-
ing the worid, not just one person, looked bigger all the time.

We got off the Venture Freeway at Winnetka and headed
north, Michael flying, me navigating. It was a mixed kind of
neighborhood, first a business block, then a row of homes,
then some more businesses. Once we flew past what looked
half like a school, half like a farm. I glanced down at my map.
Thafs the Ceres Institute ofSt Ferdinand's Valley." In spite
of everything, I laughed. "Angels City is an ecumenical
place."

"Another artificial cult," Michael said; his business is
keeping up with such things. They say the goddess really
does improve agricultural productivity."

"I wonder how much maintaining her cult adds to the
price of produce, though." Cost-benefit analysis again. You
can't get away from it in our society: it was the same kind of
thing I was doing to see whether the Chumash Powers
would be worth preserving if they did still happen to exist
That reminded me I'd have to call Professor Blank one of
these days and see what more he'd harassed his graduate stu-
dents into finding out

"We should be getting dose," Michael said.

"We are," I answered, after a check of where we were.
The next major cross street is Nordhoff. You'll want to turn




284               Harry Turtledove

left there. Mason is the next fair-sized street that wiB cross it,
about half a mfle west ofWimietka."

"Veiy good." Michael swung into the leftmost flight lane
at Winnetka and Nordhoff. We had to wait for all the south-
bound carpets to go past before we could turn, though.
Strange how rules of the road that were codified for horses
in Europe long before anyone outside the Middle East was
flying carpets still govern the way we handle traffic. Sorcery,
of course, maintains anything old and curious because being
old and curious makes it powerful in and of itself. I'd never
thought of traffic rules falling into that category, though.

The north side of Nordhoff was a light industrial park,
with one big rectangular box of a building following another.
The south side was mostly houses, though the comer with
Mason boasted a liquor store, a Golden Steeples that prob-
ably did a land-office business ftom all the working types
across the street, and also a Spells 'R' Us.

Chocolate Weasel was in the industrial park, a couple of
buildings past Mason. Michael let his carpet down in an
open space near the front door. As I undid my safely belt and
stood up, I noticed that a lot of the carpets in the lot were old
and threadbare. People didn't work here to get rich, that was

obvious.

Michael picked up his little black bag. We walked over to
the entrance side by side. The first thing that hit me when
we went inside was the music. There were minisingers
involved in the case after all—I'd have to teH Saul Klein. But
they weren't playing lieder—oh my, no. The inside of Choco-
late Weasel sounded like an Aztedan bar in East A.C.—or
maybe like one down in Tenochtidan—both in style of music
and in volume. I must confess I winced.

All the chatter inside was in Spainish, too. No, I take that
back: I heard a little clucking Nahuafl, too. No English, not
until people noticed us. I got the idea people who didn't look
Aztedan didn't pop into Chocolate Weasel every day. The
Aztedan community in Angels City is big enough to be a
large city of its own, and doesn't have to deal with outsiders

unless it wants to.

By the looks they gave us, we were outsiders they didn't

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      285

want to deal with. Those looks got darker when we pulled
out our EPA sigils, too. Suddenly everyone in the place
developed a remarkable inability to understand English.
Michael foiled that ploy, though, by asking for the head of
the firm in fluent Spainish.

I wondered if the secretary would fall back into Nahuad;

she was one of the people I'd heard using it If she did,
though, Michael would give her another surprise. I won-
dered how many pale blonds spoke the old Aztedan
language. Not many seemed a fair guess.

But, rather to my disappointment, she didn't. In fact,
hearing Michael use Spainish made her unbend enough to
remember she knew some English after all, which put me
back in the/conversation. She took us down the hall to the
consortium markgrave's office.

Jorge Vasquez looked at us with about as much enthusi-
asm as a devout Hindu confronted with a plate of blood-red
prime rib. He was a handsome fellow in his early forties, and
doing quite well for himself: unless I missed my guess, his
suit would have run me dose to two weeks' pay.

He shoved our sigils back across the desk at us, then
leaned forward to glare. "I am sick and tired of harassment
by the EPA," he said. "You people have the attitude that our
spells must be perverse because they are based on the
authentic rituals of our people. It is not true; our procedures
are no more wicked than the thaumaturgy die Catholic
Church works through transubstantiation." He pointed to
the crucifix on the wall behind him.

"Thafs a matter of opinion," I answered. "Myself, I'm
Jewish." I didn't elaborate; what it meant was that I found
any ritual of human sacrifice, no matter how symbolic, on
the unpleasant side.

Vasquez didn't say anything, but his nostrils flared. So he
wasn't real fond of Jews, eh? Well, that was his problem, not
mine.

I went on, "In any case, this visit has nothing to do with
the merit of your rituals, only with the way you're preparing
your toxic spell byproducts for disposal. The Devonshire
dump is leaking, and leaking something noxious enough to




286                Harry Turtledove

cause an outbreak of apsychic births in die neighborhood.
Considering some of the materials and cantrips you use, I
hope you can understand how we might be concerned"

"I teH you again. Inspector Fisher, this is bigotry in
action," Vasquez said. "We run a dean shop here. What do
you think we are doing, attempting to bring about the
dominion of Huitzuopochtii over Angels City?"

That was one of my major concerns, but telling him so
didn't seem politic. I just said, "Why don't you take us
over to your flayed human skin substitute processing facil-
ity? Thafs the likeliest source of thaumaturgic pollution

here, I think."

"It is a legitimate sorcerous substance, permissible under
the laws of the Confederation," Vasquez said hody. "I repeat,
you are harassing Chocolate Weasel by singling us out—"

"Bullshit," I said, which made him sit up straight in his
chain not the first time lately I'd surprised somebody by not
talking the way an EPA inspector was supposed to. I didn't
care. If he was hot, I was steaming. I went on, "You are not
being singled out, sir. I've been visiting businesses that dump
at Devonshire for weeks now. You're not being discriminated
against because you're Aztecian, either—I've hit Persian
places, aerospace firms, what have you. But even you won't
deny flayed human skin substitute is a dangerous substance,
I hope? Now we can do this politely on an informal level or I
can go out, get a warrant, and turn this place inside out How

do you want to play it?"

He calmed down in a hurry. Somehow I'd thought he

might. He said, "What sort of tests do you have in mind?"

I looked at Michael—he was the expert. He said, "I
intend to use the similarity test with my own piece of skin
substitute to see if uncontrolled Huitzilopochtlic influences
are present." He was going to try the same test he'd used

back at the dump, in other words.

I didn't know what Vasquez would say about that—maybe
start complaining about theological discrimination. But he
didn't; he just got up and said, "Come with me, gentlemen."
I concluded he was a lot like Ramzan Durani of Slow Jinn
Fizz: plenty of bluster when he was excited, but a reasonable

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      287

man underneath. Fine with me; I'd had it up to here with
arguments.

As soon as we left the office, the racket from the mariachi
minisingers came back full force. That kind of music has its
enthusiasts. Unfortunately, I'm not any of them. And the
minisingers, true to their Alemanic Ursprung, gave it a slight
oompah beat that did nothing to improve matters.

The workers on the factory floor glared at Michael and
me as we went by. Not everybody loves the EPA. Too bad.
The Confederation would be contaminated a lot worse than
it is if we weren't around.

Squares of flayed human sidn substitute lay at the bottom
of vats. Even though the stuff was legal, it turned my stom-
ach. Michael said, 'Take one out for me, please." Vasquez
translated his request into Spainish. One of his men reached
in and fished out a dripping sheet

"It's darker than the substitute you have in your lot," I
remarked.

Vasquez said, "This is the residue of the tanning baths.
Proper cleansing will restore the usual shade."

Michael Manstein raised an eyebrow at that but he didn't
say anything, so I let it ride. I said, "I trust you have proper
import certificates for the flayed human sidn substitute?"

"I shall fetch diem immediately," Vasquez said. "Please do
not let my absence delay you in your tests." He headed back
toward his office.

Michael got to work with his sheet of human sidn substi-
tute and the one the worker had pulled out of the vat. I
clutched my kabbalistic amulets. I was ready for anything
from his sheet of substitute starting to bleed to all hell break-
ing loose. I was ready for what might have been worse than
hell breaking loose: I was ready for Huitzilopochdi alive and
in Person and in a bad mood. I wasn't sure I'd get out of
Chocolate Weasel in one piece if that happened, but I had a
chance.

Jorge Vasquez came back while Michael was still
incanting. He handed me the certificates I'd asked for. Sure
enough, they showed he was bringing in flayed human skin
substitute produced by the law of similarity, as certified by

288                Harry Turtledove

some high sorcerer down in Tenochtitlan, the point of origin
of the stuff. The certificate had Aztecian export stamps and
Confederation import stamps right where they belonged. On
parchment. Chocolate Weasel was as legal as could be.
"Thanks very much, Mr. Vasquez," I said. "You maintain

excellent documentation."

"I have to," he answered, his tone bitter, "It is the only
way I can protect myself from harassment because I am an
Aztecian businessman serving my people on Confederation
soil." He was back to that song again. I let it alone; nothing I
could say was going to make him change his mind.

Michael spoke a last couple of magical words, lifted the
wet sheet of flayed human skin substitute from the one he'd
taken out of his little black bag. "No sign of bleeding," he
said, sounding as surprised as he ever did—which is to say,
Vasquez, who didn't known him well, wouldn't have noticed
any change in his voice. "I must conclude that the specimen
from the vat is thaumaturgically inactive with respect to

Huitzflopochtli."

"I could have told you as much," Vasquez said. "In fact, I
did tell you as much, but you chose not to listen. Are you

satisfied?"

I nodded, reluctantly. I'd thought we'd surely find the pot

of gold at Chocolate Weasel (which reminded me I'd have to
do something one of these days about the study on naturaliz-
ing leprechauns). Michael said. The data we have obtained
leave us no reason to be dissatisfied," which struck me as
damning with faint praise. He must have been disappointed,

too.

"I presume you will have the courtesy to mention this in

your written report," Vasquez said with icy, ironic politeness.
"I also trust you will be making that report soon."

I knew a hint to get out of there when I heard one. I'd
have liked to stay and snoop some more, but after Michael
failed to find any trace of Huitzilopochthc influence on the
flayed human skin substitute, I didn't see how I could. I
waited for Michael to finish packing the tools of his trade,
then dejectedly followed Vasquez back to his office.

In front of that office, he sank another barb: "I hope you

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

289

gentlemen can find your own way out. Good day." He went
inside and closed the door after him.

We found our own way out. Once again, nobody up front
took any interest in us except to speed us on our way. I was
ready to go, too. I'd had such high hopes everything would
break open at Chocolate Weasel. But what did we get there?
Nothing, the same as we'd got everywhere else. It wasn't just
a case any more, either. Judy's life lay on the line.

"Damnation," I said as we scuffed our way across the lot
toward Michael's carpet

"No sign of it there, not so far as I could prove," he said,
"although, so far as I know, flayed human skin substitute,
unlike the authentic product, comes in only one color and is
merely toughened, not darkened, by the tanning process."

"Really?" I said. "That's interesting, but if you found no
sign of Huitzilopochtii, it's nothing more than interesting."

"My thought exactly," he said, sitting down and reaching
for his safety belt

A tattered old carpet on its last fringes flew slowly into the
lot, settled into a parking space maybe fifty feet from us. The
two guys on it were talking in Spainish, and paid us no atten-
tion whatever. One of them wore a red cap, the other a blue

one.

That rang a vague bell in my mind, but no more. Then the
fellow in the blue cap turned his head so I got a good look at
his face. You don't soon forget the looks of a guy who's tried
to bounce your balls—it was Carlos, the charming chap from
the swap meet And the man with him was Jose. They got off
their carpet—they didn't bother with safety belts—and went
on into Chocolate Weasel.

I stood there staring after them. "Come on," Michael said,
a little querulously. "Having failed here, we may as well
return to the office and more productive use of our time."

"Huh?" He snapped me back to myself. "We haven't
failed here—your test may have, but we haven't." He looked
at me as if he had no idea what I was talking about. After a
moment, I realized he didn't. I explained rapidly, finishing,
Those are the two who sold Cuauhtemoc Hemandez his
poison, full of real human sidn and the influence of




290        •       Harry Turtledove

Huitzflopochtii. What are they doing at Chocolate Weasel if

it's really as legit as your test showed?"

"A cogent question." But Michael was frowning. "Yet how
could the similarity test I employed on the flayed human
skin substitute be in error? It was conducted under univer-
sally valid thaumaturgic law."

A dreadful suspicion was growing in me. I didn't want to
speak it out loud, for fear of making it more likely to be
true—or maybe it was more the worry that comes out in the
phrase. Speak of the devil. I did say, "I'm not questioning su-
pernatural law, just the assumptions you made the test
under. And I think I know how we can find out if I'm right

Come on."

"What are you doing?" Michael said, but he unbuckled,

got off his carpet, and, little black bag in hand, followed me

across the street.

A salesman came up smiling when we walked into the

SpeBs 'R' Us store, me still a couple of paces in front of
Michael. "Good morning, sir—sirs," he said, amending
things when he realized we were together. "What sort of
home thaumaturgics can I interest you in today?'

I showed him my EPA sigil. A couple of seconds later,
Michael got his out, too. He still didn't know what I was up
to, but he'd back my play. The salesman—he looked like a
college Idd—stopped smiling and looked real Serious.

"As you see, we're from die Environmental Perfection
Agency," I said. "We're in the middle of an investigation and
we urgently need a spellchecker. I'd like to borrow one from

you and activate it for a few minutes."

The kid gulped. "I can't authorize that myself, sir. I'B have
to get the manager." He fled into the EMPLOYEES ONUf

section of the store to do just that.

The manager looked like what his salesman would turn

into in about ten years: he'd added a mustache to the mix,
and lost his zits and some callowness. He listened to my story,
then asked, "Are you investigating us?" I got that one real

quick: if I said yes, he'd say no.

But I could say no with a clear conscience. When I did,

the manager led Michael and me over to the display of

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      291

spellcheckers against one wall and waved to show us we
could help ourselves.

Since money was no object, I chose a fancy Wmesap from
Crystal Valley. Then I asked the fellow, "Does that liquor
store next door carry Passover wine, do you think?"

"You use that ritual, do you?" He looked interested, as if
he wanted to talk shop but knew it wasn't the right time or
place. "Yes, I think they would, sir. This part of the Valley has
a fairly large Jewish population."

'Thank you, sir," I said. "May we use this unwrapped one
here? I don't want to inconvenience you any more than I
have to. Believe me, I appreciate your cooperation." I turned
to Michael. "You can wait here, if you like. I'll bring back the
wine." At his nod, I trotted out of the Spells 'R' Us.

Sure enough, the liquor store had what I was after: big
square bottle with a neck long enough to use as a clubhandle
in a pinch, label with a white-bearded rabbi, a fellow who
looks like the Catholic conception (excuse me) of God the
Father peering out at you. Because it's specially blessed,
Passover wine is thaumaturgically more active than your
average enspirited grape juice, so it's available all year round.
I bought a bottle of sweet Concord—just picking it up
brought back memories of childhood Seders, when it was
the only wine I got to taste all year—and took it back to the
home thaumaturgics emporium.

Michael said, "If you plan to go back inside, David, and if
your conjecture is accurate, there is a significant probability
that the staff will make a sizable effort to disrupt your activ-
ity."

My feeling was that there was a significant probability the
Chocolate Weasel staff would make a sizable effort to disrupt
me if I was right, and never mind my activity. But I said, "If
they're doing what I think the/re doing in there, I don't
think we'll need to go back inside."

While we talked back and forth, the salesman and Spells
'R' Us manager stood off to one side, listening so hard I
thought they'd grow asses' ears the way King Midas did in
the Greek myth. At another time or place, it might have
been funny.




292                 Harry Turtledove

I went outside, Michael following again. The two guys
from Spells 'R' Us watched through their plate-glass window.
I could figure out what they were thinking when they saw
me point a spellchecker probe at Chocolate Weasel—some-
thing on the order of. What's been across the street from us
for God knows how long? It was a good question. With luck,

I'd have a good answer soon.

The rich, fruity smell of the Passover wine came welling
out of the bottle when I broke the seal. I poured a capful
(they make the cap just the right size to hold the usual acti-
vating dose—good ergonomics) into the spellchecker
receptacle and chanted the blessing. No sooner had I fin-
ished the boray pri hagcfen and added omayn than the
screen lit up with a smile. The microimps inside were happy

and ready.

But, even though I aimed the probe at the Chocolate
Weasel building, the spellchecker didn't pick up anything
from it. It identified the magic associated with the flyway,
and also the crosswalk cantrips, not all of which, as I've
noted, are Christian by any means. I said something unfortu-
nate and added disgustedly, "You'd think they didn't work

any magic at all in there."

"Which we know is not the case," Michael said. "This sug-
gests to me that the building is shielded against probes from

outside."

"You have to be right," I said. "But what can we do now?
Go on in? Like you said, if we do that, we're liable not to

come back out again."

"I am of the opinion that we have sufficient information
to seek a warrant and let the constabulary deal with the
matter from here on out," Michael said. 'The staff of
Chocolate Weasel are consorting with criminals, and the
building's being so tightly sealed is suspicious in and of
itself. The blanking of the sorcery within goes far beyond
any that would be required to prevent industrial

espionage."

Just then the front door to Chocolate Weasel opened and
a couple of women came out. No matter how good the
place's shielding was, I'd already found out it wasn't

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      293

topologically complete like the Devonshire dump's: I hadn't
had to cross over an insulated footbridge to get in. That
meant influences could go out through the opening, too.

I looked down at the ground glass on the spellchecker.
The microimps saw something across the street, all right,
something they didn't like one bit. Words started forming:

UNIDENTIFIED—FORBIDDEN. I felt as if someone had
poured a bucket of ice water down my back. The door to
Chocolate Weasel closed quickly and the damning words dis-
appeared from the ground glass, but they remained
imprinted on my mind. I'd hoped never to see their like
again, but here they were.

'That's the same spellchecker reaction I got when I
probed the potion that curandero gave Lupe Cordero," I
said. "Now I know why your similarity ritual failed, Michael."
I was glad I hadn't had lunch yet; I might have thrown up
right on the sidewalk in front of Spells 'R' Us.

Michael shook his head. "I'm afraid your logical leap went
past me there."

"You were testing for similarity to flayed human skin sub-
stitute," I said. "I don't think that's substitute in there—1
think that's real flayed human skin."

"Yes, that might conceivably throw off the accuracy of the
test." Sometimes Michael is almost off in a virtuous reality of
his own. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised he
thought about the testing first, but I was. Still, he does con-
nect to the real world. After a couple of seconds, his eye got
wide behind his spectacles. "Dear God in heaven, there are
thousands of square feet of flayed human skin substitute in
those vats. If it is the genuine material rather than the substi-
tute—"

"Then a lot of people have ended up dead, Huitzal-
opochth is well fed, and the whole stinking world may come
down on our heads." I didn't realize I'd started spouting dog-
gerel till the words were out of my mouth.

Tt is now imperative—no, mandatory—that we notify the
authorities forthwith," Michael said.

Since he was right, I shut down the spellchecker (no
doubt to the microimps' relief) and took it back into Spells




Harry Turtledove

294                                                                  CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

295

'R' Us. "Thanks very much, gentlemen," I said. "We appreci-
ate the help. Now can you tell us where the nearest pay

phone is?"

There's one outside the Golden Steeples," the manager
answered, "if it hasn't been vandalized."

The salesman blurted, "But can't you tell us whafs going

on?"

Tm sony," I said, "but it's against EPA policy to reveal the
results of an ongoing investigation. As I say, you've helped,

though."

Leaving them frustrated, we headed across Mason toward
the Golden Steeples. The closer we got, the less optimistic I
was about finding the phone in working order. The local
street gangs had vandalized the building, scrawling tags like
HUNERIC and TBASAMUND on the wall in big, angular let-
ters. Graffiti are an environmental problem, too, one for
which we don't have a good answer yet.

And sure enough, when we came up to the pay phone, I
saw that somebody—presumably the punk who went by that
monicker—had carved the name GELIMER into the base of
the phone and used either a tweezers or a little levitation
spell to get the coins out through the narrow slits he'd cut
Of course, once he violated the integrity of the containment
system, the coin-collecting demon was also able to escape,
and pay phones are rigged so their imps stay dormant unless
he collects his fee. The phone, then, might as well not have

been there.

Unless— I turned to Michael. "Are you a hot enough wiz-
ard to get around Ma Bell?"

"Possibly—with time and equipment we lack at the
moment," he said. "Finding another pay phone would be

more efficient"

Ergonomics again. Whether it's what size to make the
cap on a bottle of wine or deciding to spell or not to spell,
you can't get away from it. "Let's go back to the carpet,
then," I said. "We're sure to pass one as we fly back to the

freeway."

We crossed over to the Chocolate Weasel parking lot. Me,
I wasn't what you'd caB enthusiastic about setting foot there

again, but I didn't feel too bad because I was doing it only to
leave the place for good.

Though I didn't really need to, I picked up the map to
check the route south. We could either head back to Win-
netka the way we'd come and then down, or else we could fly
westto...

"Michael," I said hoarsely, "I know where we can find a
pay phone."

"Do you?" He glanced over to me. "I did not think you
were overly familiar with this section of St. Ferdinand's
Valley."

Tm not," I said. "But look." I pointed to the map. The
next major flyway, a couple of blocks west of where we were,
was Soto's. And the next decent-sized street north ofNord-
hoff was Plummer. "I know there's a pay phone there
because thafs where Judy called me from."

"Good heavens," Michael said. 'The concatenated
implications—"

'Yeah," I said. "Chocolate Weasel is involved in something
really hideous, they're doing their best to hide if it leaks out
of the Devonshire dump, we find out about it (I find out
about it, I mean), somebody tries to get rid of me, somebody
does kidnap Judy, and then they make her call me from a
phone just around the comer from Chocolate Weasel."

"Since there is a phone at that location, and since it was
undoubtedly working as recently as last night, I suggest we
use it," Michael said. He lifted the carpet off the Chocolate
Weasel parking lot eased onto Nordhoff, and flew west
toward Soto's. Just getting away from Chocolate Weasel felt
good, as if I were escaping cursed ground. Considering what
I thought was going on inside the building, that might have
been literally true.

Michael turned right onto Soto's and flew up to Plummer.
The comer there had a bunch of little shops. I didn't see a
pay phone in front of any of them. I wondered if Celia
Chang and Horace Smidley had screwed up. But what were
the odds of their both screwing up the same way? Astrologi-
cally large, I thought.

"When a solution is not immediately apparent more




296                Harry Turtledove

thorough investigation is required," Michael said, a creed
which for the research thaumaturge ranked right up there
with the one hammered out at Nicaea.

He parked the carpet in front of a place whose sign had
two words in the Roman alphabet—DVIN DELI—and a cou-
ple of lines in the curious pothooks Armenians use to write
their language. I don't read Armenian myself, but I've seen it
often enough to recognize the script.

Sure enough, the fellow behind the counter in there
looked like Brother Vahan's younger cousin, except that he
sported a handlebar mustache and had a full head of wavy

iron-gray hair.

"God bless you, what can I do for you gentlemen today?"

he said when Michael and I walked in. "I have some lovely
lamb just in, and with yogurt and mint leaves—" He kissed

the tips of his fingers.

Even if mixing meat and milk wasn't kosher, it sounded
good to me. I hated to have to say, "I'm sony, we're just look-
ing for a pay phone."

"Across the street, behind the camiceria next to the
Hanese bookstore," he said, pointing. "I don't know why they
didn't put it out front, but they didn't. And when you've
made your call, why don't you come back? I have figs and
dates preserved in honey, all kinds of good things."

He was a salesman and a half, that one. I got out of the
Dvin Deli in a hurry, before I was tempted into spending the
next hour and a half there, buying things I didn't need and

half of which I wasn't permitted to eat.

The Hanese bookstore also had a two-word English
sign—HONG'S BOOKS—and the rest was in ideograms. For
a couple of seconds, I didn't see the pay phone back of the
Aztecian meat market. It was on the far side of a very fra-
grant trash dumpster; nobody flying casually down the street
would have noticed anything going on while whoever had
Judy made her call me. The camiceria's back door didn't
have a window, either, so people in there might not have

spotted anything amiss, either.

I dug in my pocket, found change, and fed it into the
greedy little paw of the pay phone's money demon. I called

CASE OF THE TOMC SPELL DUMP      297

Plainclothesman Johnson, Saul Klein, and Legate
Kawaguchi, in that order. Johnson and Klein weren't alto-
gether convinced that Chocolate Weasel was involved in
Judy's kidnapping, though they both said die evidence was
better than anything else they had. Kawaguchi said I'd
handed him enough so he could give Chocolate Weasel a
good going-over.

"Don't just send constables," I warned him. "That place is
major sorcerous trouble. If you don't call out a hazardous
materta magica team for it, you'll never, ever need one."

"I appreciate your concern. Inspector Fisher,"
Kawaguchi said, "but I assure you that I shall make all
necessary arrangements. Good day." Shut up and let me
do my job, was what he was saying. I just hoped he knew
the kind of trouble his people were liable to walk into at
Chocolate Weasel.

After that, I had to cadge some more change from
Michael. I called Bea to let her know what was going on.
Instead of Bea, I got Rose, who told me die boss was at a
meeting away from die Confederal Building and couldn't be
reached no matter what for die next couple of hours.

"Wonderful," I said. "Listen, Rose, dungs are liable to
start felling on your head any minute now." I explained how
and why.

She just took it in stride. I would have been surprised at
anything less. Whatever needed doing, she'd take care of it
as if Bea were standing behind her giving orders. We're
unbelievably lucky to have her, and we know it

When I was done, she said, 1 have two important phone
messages for you. One is from Professor Blank at UCAC and
die odier is from a Mr. Antanas—is diat right?—Sudakis at
die Devonshire dump."

"Yes, Antanas is right. Thank you, Rose. We'B be back at
die office soon, and I'B attend to the calls dien. 'Bye," I said.
and hung up. rd been meaning to call Blank, and I wasn't all
diat surprised to hear from him first. But I wondered why he
said it was urgent for me to call him back—nothing about his
investigation of the Chumash Powers had been urgent up till
now. And I wondered what had bitten Tony on die backside.




298                Harry Turtledove

Just my luck to be out of the office when two important calls

came in.

Michael said, "Before we leave this site, I suggest that you

examine it most carefully. I would be willing to wager the
CBI has tried already, but if you find anything here which
you can identify as belonging to Mistress Adier, the law of
contagion may enable us—or the constabulary, or the CBI—
to trace her present whereabouts. No guarantees, of course,
sorcerous countermeasures having become so effective these

days, but a chance nonetheless."

So I looked. God, did I look! Leaving something behindwas
just the sort of thing Judy would have done if she got the
chance—anything to give us a better shot at finding her. I went
down on my hands and knees and pawed through weeds and
pebbles like a wino after a lost quarter-crown, hoping, praying,
she'd managed to drop a button or something.

No luck. All I got was the knees of my pants dirty. Finally
I admitted it. even to myself. "Sony, Michael, but Acre's
nothing here. In the adventure stories, people always man-
age to leave a clue while the bad guys aren't watching. I

guess it doesn't work that way in real life."

"It would appear not to," he agreed. "This is my first
encounter with a situation which might reasonably fall into
that category, so my experience is as limited as yours. I sus-
pect, however, that if real criminals made as many errors as
those in adventure stories, virtue would triumph in the real

world more often than it does."

"I suspect you're right," I said glumly, brushing at my
trousers. Some of die dirt looked to be there to stay. I sighed,
feeling useless and also, irrationally, as if I'd let Judy down.
"Let's head back to the office, then—we're wasting time
here. From what Rose said, I've had a couple of calls that

need answering right away."

"I also have other work upon which I could be usefully
engaged," Michael said. That made me feel bad all over
again; I hadn't even asked him what I was disrupting by
dragging him up to the Valley again and again. But he went
on, "Seeking information which will aid in the rescue of your
fiancee necessarily takes priority over other concerns."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      299

"Thank you, Michael," I said as we walked back to his car-
pet His glance over at me was puzzled, as if he wondered
what I was (hanking him for. Maybe he did. He thinks so
well that I sometimes wonder about the rest of his spirit

I noticed that he flew down Soto's to the freeway instead
of going back to Winnetka. With Michael, I think it was gust
for die sake of greater efficiency. I'd have done die same
diing, but not on account ofdiafc I just wouldn't have wanted
to swing back any closer to Chocolate Weasel dian I had to.

When we got back to die Confederal Building, I bought
somediing allegedly edible from die cafeteria; while I fought
it down, I kept diinldng about lamb widi yogurt and mint
leaves—sinful as bacon for me, but it sounded delicious all
die same—and candied dates. Then, widi my fireplace full of
fuel—and widi a heartburn to prove it—I went to my office
and picked up die phone.

Professor Blank sounded blunter dian phone imps could
normally account for when he answered die phone, so I fig-
ured I'd caught him at lunch twice running, and probably a
brown bag one. UCAC boasts better eateries dian we have
here, which meant he was eidier tight widi a crown or else
dedicated to what he was doing.

I'd been willing to give him die benefit of die doubt even
before he said, "I'm so glad you returned my call. Inspector
Fisher. I've been waiting here at my desk, hoping you
would."

"I just now got in," I answered, starting to feel guilty
because I'd eaten lunch before I called him back. "Rose, our
secretary, said it was urgent, so you're die first call I've
made." That, at least, was true. "What's up?"

'1 trust you will recall," he began, which meant he didn't
trust any such diing, "diat when we last spoke I was uncer-
tain whedier die Chumash Powers were extinct or had, so to
speak, encysted diemselves on die Odier Side, abandoning
all contact widi This Side for an indefinite period, perhaps in
die hope of being lured back Here should more worshipers
appear to propitiate diem."

He hadn't said all that when we talked before; some of it
he must have worked out since dien. But he had said enough




300 Harry Turtledove

of it to let me answer, "Yes, I remember that Do you know
which is true now?"

"The latter, I'm afraid,'' he said, "and I mean that in the
most literal sense of the word."

I'd figured it was the latter; having learned that the Chu-
mash Powers were in fact extinct wouldn't have been news
urgent enough for him to haunt his office waiting for me to
call back. But I hadn't though even finding them active
would be frightening. "What's to be afraid of?" I asked.

"The Powers are indeed encysted; new regression analysis
establishes that beyond any statistical or theological doubt,"
he said. "But ifs a topologlcally unusual spherical encyst-
ment Are you aware. Inspector, that the surface of a sphere
can be continuously deformed until it is inside out?"

"Well, no," I said. "What does that have to do with the
Chumash Powers?"

"Ifs a good approximation of what those Powers seem to
have done on the Other Side," he answered. "As I said in our
earlier conversation, they seem to Taawe taken a hole and
pulled tt in afterward, apparently leaving nothing behind."
Something he said there made a bell toll in my mind, but be-
fore I could figure out what It was, he went on, "The
problem, from our point of view, is that the Powers, if my
calculations are correct, can reverse their encystment and
burst out violently at any time they choose."

"Violently?" I echoed. "How violently?"

"Crystal-ball prognostications vary; the scenario is unique
and so many of my parameters are uncertain," he said. "If,
however, they release maximum magical energy, the effects
on the surrounding area will be somewhere between those
of a megasalamander ignition just above it and an earth-
quake, oh, approximately on the order of magnitude of the
one that hit the city of Sfc Francis in the eariy years of this
century. The effects will be different, you understand, be-
cause they'll be primarily thaumaturgic rather than physical,
but the size of the event will be more or less in that range."

"|esus," I said, which shows how acculturated I am. Fool-
ishly, I added, "No wonder they didn't want to bother
making rain."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

301

"No wonder at all. Inspector," Professor Blank said. "Nei-
ther I nor my staff have been able to determine where the
interface between the Chumash powers' encystment and
This Side is presently located. We would have expected it to
be in the extreme northwest of the Barony of Angels, for that
was formerly Chumash territory, but, as I say, we have not
succeeded in detecting it I hope that, with your greater
resources, the Environmental Perfection Agency will do
what we have not accomplished. Good day."

He hung up on me. I wanted to loll him. "Hello. Here
comes a catastrophe. I've found out ifs on the way, but I
can't deal with it All up to you, Dave. Good luck, pal." That's
what was left at the bottom of the alembic. In my nose, it
smelled like old catbox.

Instead of committing murder, I called Tony Sudalds. He
didn't sound as if I'd caught him at lunch, but he had some-
thing in common with Professor Blank anyhow: he sounded
scared. "Dave? It's you? Perkunas and the Nine Suns, I'm
glad to hear from you! You know that thing—I mean, that
Nothing—you spotted in the containment area? It's going
through some changes, and I don't like 'em even a little bit"

"Changes? What land of changes?" I asked, thinking I
didn't need one more thing to worry about on top of every-
thing Professor Blank had just dumped on me.

"Well, for one thing, you can notice the effect from any-
where along the safety walk now, and I can see it from die
roof of my office, too. Eerie, if you ask me. But there's worse.
I can feel something starting to build over there, even
through the wardspells, like die world's gonna turn inside out
any minute now. It's bad. I don't even know if die outer con-
tainment wall will hold dlis one. And if it doesn't—"

He let it hang diere. I gulped. I didn't like die way it
sounded, not even slighdy. "What have you done so far?" I
asked.

"I've called for a SWAT team, but a lot of diose are busy
somewhere else," he answered. I had a hunch I knew where,
too: dneywere taking down Chocolate Weasel. Tony went on,
"I called you for two reasons. You were die guy who spotted
die Nodiing in die first place, and die wizard you had widi

302                Harry Turtledove

you seems pretty sharp. Man, I teB you, I think I need aB the

help I can get on this one."

TD get Michael. We'B be there as fast as we can fly," I
promised. Then something Sudakis had said really hit me. I

echoed it "Inside out."

"Whafs that?' Tony said. "Listen, if you and your buddy
Manstein don't get here in a hurry, there may not be any
here to get to, you know what I mean?"

Inside out," I repeated. 'Tony, didn't you say the stuff in
that zone came from the beach up in Malibu?"

"Yeah," he said. "So?"

"Way up at the northwest edge of the Barony of Angels,

right?"

"Yeah," he said again. "What are you flying at, Dave?"
"Get a hazmat team there right now," I said, fear knotting
my belly: I thought I knew why Professor Blank's grad stu-
dents hadn't found the Chumash Powers' encystment site
where they thought it was supposed to be.

Tve been Hying to," Tony protested. "They won't listen to

me."

TeB 'em the guy who tipped 'em to Chocolate Weasel

says this is liable to be a thousand times worse. TeB 'em that
Use my name. They'll come, aB right"

"You know what's going on." Even through the phone

imps, he sounded accusing.

"I'm afraid I do. I'm coming anyway." I hung up on him
for a change. Then I ran down the hall, yeBing for Michael
like a man possessed. He listened to me for fifteen seconds,
tops, grabbed his black bag, and sprinted for the slide, me
right behind him. We piled onto his carpet and hightailed it
back to St Ferdinand's Valley. Knowing what we were head-
ing for, I wished we were flying the other way.

x




304 Harry Turtledove

When he was good and ready, he delivered his verdict.
I mean it just like that—he really sounded magisterial:

There is, I believe, much truth in the view you express.
The great European theological and economic expansion
of the past five hundred years, coupled with the enormous
growth of thaumaturgic knowledge that spearheaded,
among other things, the Industrial Revolution, has indeed
had a profound impact on both the politics and thecology
of the rest of the world. I can hardly be surprised to leam
that long-established Powers, chafing under the pressure
of European-imposed belief structures imposed by supe-
rior military and magical force, are actively seeking to
overwhelm that force."

"You mean you approve?" I stared at him.

"That is not what I said," he answered, more sharply than
usual. "I said I am not surprised that the Powers and, pre-
sumably, the peoples who reverence them, seek to regain
their former prominence. I did not say I wished them suc-
cess in that effort. Such success would be the greatest
disaster the world has ever known, or so I believe, at any
rate."

"You get no argument from me," I said.

"I had not expected you to disagree," he said. 'You have a
reasonable amount of sense, by all appearances."

I wanted to reach over and pat him on the knee. "Why,
Michael, I didn't know you cared," I said. From his point of
view, he'd just given me the accolade, and I knew it

"Facetiousness aside," he amended. I just grinned. He
ignored that and went on, "Let us take the Americas, for
instance, they being the most dearcut examples of a massive
human and thecological transformation in the past
semimillenium."

"Okay, take the Americas," I said agreeably, gesturing to
show he was welcome to them. Truth was, as long as I was
schmoozing with Michael, I didn't have to think (as much)
about either Judy or the likelihood that Armageddon was
liable to come bubbling out of a toxic spells dump.

Michael gave me a severe look. "Facetiousness aside, I
said."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

305

"Sorry," I told him. "You were saying?"

"Nothing of great complexity; nothing, in fact, that should
not be obvious to any reasonably objective observer: that we
immigrants have done more and better with this land in the
past five hundred years than its native peoples would have
accomplished during the same period."

"Nothing that isn't obvious, eh?" I said, grinning wickedly.
"Plenty of people, natives and immigrants both—I'D use
your phrase; why not?—would say you've just committed
blasphemy, that we've done nothing but slaughter and pol-
lute in what was, for all practical purposes, paradise on
earth."

"I find only one technical term appropriate to use in
response to that viewpoint: bullshit." Michael delivered
his technical term with great relish. "I am not saying that
slaughter did not take place; I am not denying that we pol-
lute—working as I do for the Environmental Perfection
Agency, how could I? I do deny, however, that this was, in
a manner of speaking, government work for the earthly
paradise."

"Careful how you talk, there," I said. "You work for the
government yourself, remember?"

Michael refused to be distracted. "Leaving aside the
habits of the natives of the islands off the coast, whose tribal
name gave English the word 'cannibal,' the two most
prominent cultures in the Americas five hundred years ago
were the Aztecs, also cannibals, who fueled themselves both
theologically and in terms of protein through human
sacrifice, and the Incas, whose theology was benign enough
but who regimented themselves more thoroughly than the
Ukrainians would have tolerated before their latest crisis."

"You're hitting below the belt, talking about peoples who
didn't live in what's now the Confederation," I protested.
"What about the noble warriors and hunters of the Great
Plains?"

"Well, what about them?" he asked. 'The culture they
now revere and think of as ancient did not exist and could
not have existed before the coming of the Europeans
because their own ancestors had hunted the American horse

Harry Turtledove

306

to extinction—hardly good environmental management, in
my opinion. And the firearms they used to defend their terri-
tory—bravely—against encroaching whites were all bought
or stolen from those same whites, because they did not know

how to make them for themselves."

"Whoa, there." I held up a hand. "Blaming people for not

having skills isn't fair. And the whites who took the land away
from the natives weren't what you'd call saints. Conquest by
firewater, deliberately spread smallpox, and mass exorcisms
of the native Powers isn't anything to be proud of."

"You're right," he said. "But if Europeans had not found
the Americas until, for example, the day before yesterday,
they would not have found them much different from the
way they were five hundred years ago. And that is precisely
the point I am trying to make. Thanks to modem thauma-
turgy, our present culture supports far more people at a
higher level of affluence and greater material comfort than

any other in the history of the world."

"Is that all you judge culture by?" I asked. "Seems to me

there should be more to life."

"Oh, no doubt. But make note of this, David: as a general

rule—not universal, I concede, but general—the people
who show the greatest contempt for material comforts are
those lucky enough to have them. The Abyssinian peasant
starving in his drought-stricken field, the Canaanite cobbler
suffering under a plague of gnats because no local sorcerer
knows enough to properly control Beelzebub, the
slum-dweller in D.StC. aching with a rotten tooth because
her parents hadn't had the crowns to go to an odontomagus
to affix the usual invisible shields to her mouth ... they will
not speak slightingly of the virtues of a full beBy and a
healthy body, things we take for granted despite their being

historically rare."

"Wait a minute, Michael. You just cheated there. You

were talking about how wonderful our culture is, and then
one of your suffering examples comes straight out of our

own slums. You can't have it both ways."

He didn't answer for a few seconds; he was getting the
carpet off the freeway. Once he'd done that, though, he said,

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      307

"I fail to see why not. I never claimed we were perfect. Per-
fection is an attribute of the divine, not the human. I said
that, on the whole, we do better for more people than any-
one else has. Our flaws notwithstanding, I hold to that
position."

I thought about it. The only times I'd ever been hungry
were at Yom Kippur fasts, and those I undertook for the sake
of ritual, not because I had no food. I slept in a flat on a bed;

I was protected against diseases and curses that had lain
whole nations waste in ancient times. I said, "You have a
point"

The other thing was, the Chumash Powers and the
Aztedans wanted to restore the unpleasant old days. The
trouble with that was that most of the millions of people in
the Barony of Angels liked the new days better. What would
happen to them? My limited acquaintance with the Chu-
mash Powers didn't make me think they were that ferocious,
but Huitzilopochtii—

The Chumash Powers must have cut a deal with the
Aztedan war god, I realized. I tried to imagine the secret
dealings that must have happened on the Other Side. Huitz-
ilopochtii was a much bigger fish than the Sky Coyote, the
Lizard, or the demons of the Lower World, but they were
extra powerful here because the Barony of Angels was their
native territory. The combination could prove deadly.

I reached that unpleasant conclusion about the time Mi-
chael pulled into the parking lot across the flyway from the
Devonshire dump. To my relief, three or four black-and-
whites were already there, their synchronized salamander
lanterns flashing red and blue.

People were standing on the sidewalk rubbernecking the
way they always do when something goes wrong. Over on
the dump side of the street, a couple of constables were
laying down the ritual yellow tape that keeps rubbemeckers
from getting too close to the action.

Michael and I hurried across. The constables saw our
EPA sigils and demystified a stretch of tape so we could
cross the line. "Did you get a hazmat team here?" I asked
one of them.




308                Harry Turtledove

"Yeah, we did," he said. I thought they had; there were
more black-and-whites in the parking lot than constables
outside the dump. But while his partner put the magic back
into the hne, the fellow went on, "The guy who runs the
dump tried to get an EPA hazmat team, too, but it was

already on an urgent call, worse luck."

Luck had nothing to do with it; I'd told Kawaguchi he was
liable to need that team at Chocolate Weasel. And he was,
God knows. But Tony Sudakis was liable to need it here, too.
No magic yet has made people able to be two places at the
same time. They're working on it, I understand, with thau-
matechnology based on what they've learned with
ectoplasmic cloning, but so far it happens only in light-and-
magic shows and sorcerous fiction stories. Too bad. Boy,

could we have used it

The security guard recognized Michael and me. Without
being asked, he brought out the footbridge so we could cross
into the containment area. As soon as we did, he yanked it
away as fast as he could. In principle, that was smart; you
didn't want to weaken the magical containment scheme in
any way. In practice, I was afraid it would do about as much
good as sunglasses under the megasalamander blast Profes-
sor Blank had mentioned.

About three steps down the warded path that led to

Tony Sudakis' office, I stopped dead in my tracks. Tony
hadn't been kidding—you could see the Nothing from
anywhere on the walkway now. You felt that if you leaned
forward, you might fall straight toward it forever. And he'd
been right about the feeling that pervaded the dump, too;

it was as if the Nothing were an egg quivering on the

verge of hatching.

But that wasn't the only thing that made me stop and

stare. The constables from the hazardous materia magica
team weren't working only from the warded path—they'd
actually gone into the dump itself to come to grips with the

Nothing.

Sure, they knew what they were doing. Sure, they were

draped with so many different kinds of apotropaic amulets
that they looked like perambulating Christmas trees. Sure,

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      309

their shoes had cold-iron soles to insulate them from the
thaumaturgic vileness that littered the place. All the same,
they put their souls on the line, not just their soles. I
wouldn't have gone out there for a million crowns.

For Judy? Yes, without a second thought. If you don't
know what really matters to you, why bother living?

Tony Sudalds was up on the roof of his office. He saw
Michael and me, waved, and disappeared. A minute later, he
came pounding down the path toward us. He had a hard hat
on his head, his cravat was loosened and his collar open. He
was a foreman again, not an administrator, and looked as if
he loved it.

"Glad you got here," he said. "Dave, on the phone you
sounded like you know more about this shit than maybe any-
body. You want to brief Yolanda there?" He pointed up
ahead to one of the hazmat team people.

Up till then, I hadn't noticed the boss of the team was a
woman. She was black, slim, maybe my age—not half bad,
though she looked both too smart and too tough to be model
pretty.

I told her what I knew about the Chumash Powers, and
what I'd heard from Professor Blank not an hour earlier.
When I was through, she crossed herself. "What are we sup-
posed to do, then?" she said. This is worse than we're really
set up to face. Maybe a military team would be a better bet
to resist"

1 doubt that," Michael put in. "Military teams are config-
ured against specific security threats—Persian, Aztecian,
Ukrainian. But the Chumash, till this moment, have never
posed a danger to the Confederation. Warrior priests and the
like wiB not be able to help us."

Yolanda scowled; you could tell she was the kind of person
who wanted to get right in there and do things, then worry
about consequences later. "What do the two of you recom-
mend, then?" she demanded.

Do as weU as you can, was the answer that immediately
sprang to mind. If the Chumash Powers remanifested
themselves with the burst of thaumaturgic energy Professor
Blank had feared, there was nothing else to do, and even that




310                 Harry Turtledove

wouldn't help. But you always have to play the game as if you
think you're going to win—which, when you get down to it, is

also part of dying well.

So I said, "Delay. Every second we keep that Nothing
encysted buys us time to evacuate the neighborhood. It may
not help, but then again, it may. Tony, I presume you have
procedures in place for an emergency evacuation?"

"Sure," he said.
"You'd better implement them, then. EPA orders, if you

like."

"You got it, boss." He went back to his office on the dead

run. If his procedures were like most people's, he'd have a
bunch of spells completed but for the last word or pass or
whatever, so he could but them into effect one after another,

bang,bang, bang.

Sure enough, maybe thirty seconds later we heard a

dreadful cacophony from the cacodemons mounted at each
comer of the containment fence. It reminded me, fittingly
enough, of the air raid warnings that would help mark die

start of the Third Sorcerous War.

After they'd screeched for a while, the cacodemons
started yelling, "Evacuate the area. Evacuate the area. Con-
tamination may escape from the Devonshire containment
site. Evacuate the area." Then they shouted what I think was

the same thing, only in Spainish.

They were loud enough to be heard for miles. That was
why they were there, but they made talk inside the contain-
ment area just about impossible for anybody who wasn't an
accomplished lip-reader. I was sure my ears would ring for
the next couple of days—assuming I was still around in a

couple of days.

Michael stuck his head next to mine, bawled in my ear,
"Delay is all very well, but to the end futile. Sooner or
later—probably sooner—the Chumash Powers will succeed
in breaking free of their encystment and returning to This
Side, with the accompanying energy release you have

described."

He turned his head so I could yell into his ear. It was my

turn, after all. Yell I did: "I know, but we'll get some people

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

311

away, so when the Great Eagle and die Lizard and rest get
out, diey won't do die damage diey want to."

I turned my head. Michael shouted. "Possibly not The
damage diey do inflict, however, will be more dian adequate
to satisfy anyone not—" I'm sure he kept talking after diat,
but I stopped hearing him. I was running for Tony Sudalds'
office as fast as my legs would cany me.

He was coming out as I dashed in. He might as weD have
been Phyuis Kaminsky—I almost bowled him over. "Phone,"
I said, panting. Inside die blockhouse, die noise from die ca-
codemons was just too loud, not deafening.

"Sure, go ahead." He followed me back up die hall. I
made my call, talked for maybe a minute and a half, hung
up. When I was done. Tony stared at me, big-eyed. "You
drink diafll work?" he asked, unwontecDy quiet.

"Let me put it dlis way," I answered. "If it doesn't, do you
think diese concrete blocks are going to save us?" He shook
his head. I went on, "I don't, eidier. The hazmat mages out
diere wiB delay all diey can, but how long is diat. Sooner or
later, probably sooner"—I realized I was echoing Michael—
"die Chumash Powers wttl break out And when they do—"

"Bend over and loss your bum goodbye. Yeah," Sudalds
said. "How much time do you drink diey need to buy?"

"I just don't know," I answered. "Burbank isn't far, but I
don't know how much prep diey have to do first. AB we can
do now is wait and hope."

We walked back out into die unbelievable din togedier. I
bawled into Michael's ear; Tony yelled into Yolanda's (no
question he got die better half of diat deal). Michael shouted
back at me, "Not die best chance, but I see none better."
Then he walked over to scream, presumably, die same dring
at Tony.

"I wish I had your connections," Yolanda shouted at me.

"I wish I didn't have diem," I answered, "because diat
would mean dris miserable case never happened."

She nodded grimly. We all stared toward die east, like die
Kings of Orient widi somebody extra thrown in for luck.
Trouble was, all die luck in this case had been bad.

I tfiought about poor litde Jesus Cordero. Seeing if die

312                Harry Turtledove

Slow Jinn Fizz jinnetic engineering techniques could make
him a soul hadn't seemed urgent. He was just a baby, after
all; years and years would go by before he had to worry about
forever vanishing from the scheme of things. That's what I'd
thought But if the Chumash Powers burst forth, he'd be

gone for good. Not even limbo. Just gone.

Out in the dump, one of the hazmat mages crumpled like
soggy parchment I couldn't tell whether the toxic spell
residues had overcome him or whether he'd just broken
under the burden of delaying the burst. Yolanda leaped off
the warded path and dragged him back toward its very

tenuous safety.

One he was back on the path, he pulled himself into fetal

position and lay there shivering: sorcerous shock of some
kind, sure enough. He was breathing, and he nodded his
head when Yolanda shouted at him, so he wasn't critical.
Since he wasn't, the rest of us kept looking eastward. Either
we'd be saved, in which case we could treat the hazmat mage
later, or we wouldn't, in which case nothing we did for him

now would matter anyway.

I preferred the first choice, but wouldn't have bet any-
thing big on getting it.

Suddenly, Tony Sudakis' finger stabbed out. "Isn't

that—?" He didn't go on, maybe for fear his words would

induce it not to be.

"I don't think it is," I yelled—hard to sound bitter when

you're yelling, but I managed. "More likely to be a big cargo
carpet on me landing approach toward Burbank airport"

We all watched for another couple of seconds. Tony shook
his head. "A carpet heading into Burbank would be getting

smaller. This is getting bigger."

"So it is," Michael said. He forgot to yell, but I read his
lips. When Michael forgets to do something he should, you
know he's under strain. We all were. I didn't want to think he
was right, just because that would have made getting my

hopes dashed all the crueler.

But after another few seconds, there could be no doubt

The speck in the air we were watching swelled out of speck-
dom far faster than any carpet could have, and it didn't have

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      313

a carpefs shape, either. I saw great wings beat majestically.
"The Garuda Bird!" I shouted—with all my heart and with
aD my soul and with all my might, as the Bible says.

The Bird came on unbelievably fast Two or three more
flaps and it was hovering over the dump. Of course, it didn't
need to work its wings the way a merely material creature of
flesh and feathers would have. The Other Side suffused it; it
was, after all, an avatar of Vishnu. As Matt Arnold had said
back at the Loki works, it couldn't have flown—or existed at
all—as a material creature; when it hovered above the dump,
its wings spanned the entire width of the containment area
and more, and cast the ground into shadow almost as deep as
night

It looked much like die poster in Arnold's office—those
incredible wings supporting a huge-chested body that didn't
look birdlike at all to my mind. Nor was its head anything
like that of a natural bird, but for the hooked beak that took
the place of nose and mouth. The rest, especially the eyes,
looked more nearly human, and the feathers on top of its
head, instead of being peacock-brilliant tike those of die
body and wings, were black and soft like hair.

The wings beat again, right over our heads. The blast of
wind from a flap like that should have blown walls down, and
blown dust motes like us into the next barony, but it didn't
After a moment, I realized why: since it flew more by magic
than with its wings, their flapping was just a symbolic act, not
quite a real one. And thank God for that; it wasn't something
Fd worried about when I called Matt Arnold.

The Garuda Bird threw back its anthropomorphic head
and let out a bellow that sounded like a tuba about the size of
a city block played by a mad giant wfao'd quit halfway
through his first tuba lesson. Let me put it like this: by com-
parison, the squalling cacodemons were quiet and
melodious.

One thing, or rather two sets of things, thoroughly orni-
thomorphic (ah, Greek!) about the Garuda Bird were its
talons. In fact, it was the most talented bird I'd ever seen:

those enormous gleaming daws could have punctured the
Midgard Serpent, by the look of them. I would have paid a




314

Harry Turtledove

good many crowns to watch that fight—from a safe distance,
say the surface of the moon.

Now, as the Bird hovered over the Devonshire dump, its
left foot closed on die Nothing. The hazmat mages pelted
back out of the way. I found I was holding my breath. This
was something else I hadn't had figured when I called
Arnold: was the Garuda Bird's magic strong enough to pene-
trate the encystment the Chumash Powers had thrown up
around themselves? If not—well, if not, I told myself, we
weren't any worse off than we would have been without the

Bird.

When the Garuda Bird's talons struck the Nothing, sparks
flew, but the talons didn't go in. I was praying and cursing at
the same time, both as hard as I could. The Garuda Bird bel-
lowed again, this time in fury. I staggered, wondering if the
top of my head would fall off and whether I'd ever hear

again.

The muscles in the Garuda Bird's monster drumsticks
bunched. Thafs what I saw, anyhow, though I knew it was
only a quasi-physical manifestation like the Bird's flapping
wings. What it meant was that, on the Other Side, the
Garuda Bird was gathering all its thaumaturgic force.

Its claws closed on the Nothing once more. More sparks
flew. The Bird cried out yet again, but its talons still would
not penetrate. I thought we were doomed. But then, ever so
slowly, the needle tips of those immense claws began sinking
into the Chumash Powers' shell of withdrawal.

Ton/s mouth was wide open. So were Michael's and
Yolanda's and mine. We were all shouting for all we were
worth, but I couldn't hear any of us, not even me.

The Garuda Bird's feet disappeared into Nothing. You
couldn't see them. They were just—gone. I stopped shout-
ing. My heart went into my mouth. The Garuda Bird wasn't
a power that had had to hide itself away to keep from going
extinct; the belief of hundreds of millions of people fueled it
Never in my most dreadful nightmares had I imagined that it
wouldn't be able to overcome the Chumash Powers that hid
inside the Nothing if once it broke their shell.

The Bird's next roar carried a note of pain. It flapped its

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

315

wings again: almost a real flap this time, for dust rose in a
choking cloud from the dry dirt of the dump. Through the
dust, I saw more of the Garuda Bird's leg than I had before.
"It's coming out!" I cried, coughing.

Another flap, more dust, still another wingbeafc Then,
with a pop! in my head that felt like the psychic equivalent of
the one you'd make by sticking your finger into your mouth
against the inside of your cheek, its feet came all the way out
of the Nothing. In its daws writhed the Lizard.

Yolanda grabbed me and kissed me on the cheek. A good
thing she did, too, because Tony Sudakis slapped my back so
hard, I might have staggered off the warded path and into
the dump if she hadn't been holding on to me.

No matter how joyful he was, Michael Manstein didn't do
things like slapping people on the back. He shouted, "Bril-
liantly reasoned, David! The similarity between lizards and
snakes was enough to touch off the Garuda Bud's instinctive
antipathy."

"Yeah," I said, which I admit wasn't a fitting response to
praise like that. But I was too busy watching the fight above
my head to get out more than the one word.

The Chumash Lizard was an alligator lizard the size of the
biggest anaconda you ever saw. If you live in Angels City, you
know about alligator lizards. The/re the most common kind
of lizard around here. The material ones can get more than a
foot long, with yellowish bellies and dirt-brown backs striped
with black. For critters their size, they have large, sharp
teeth. The ones on the Chumash Lizard looked to be a
couple of inches long, and it had a whole mouthful of them.

Alligator lizards also have little short legs, which makes
them look even more ophidian than most lizards (they're
related to glass snakes, which aren't snakes but lizards with
no legs at all). My guess—my hope—was that that would just
make the Garuda Bird madder.

The Lizard made horrible hissing noises and bit at the
Garuda Bird's legs. However huge and fierce it was, though,
it had no more chance against the Bird than an ordinary alli-
gator lizard would have against an eagle that decided to have
a reptilian lunch.

316                Harry Turtledove

Crunch! With a noise like a monster cleaver biting into a
side of beef, the Garuda Bird bit off the Lizard's head and
about the front third of its body. Ichor spattered down all
over the dump. Luckily, it didn't splash any of us—talk about

your hazardous materia magica.

The Chumash Lizard's body convulsed and thrashed even
more wildly than before. Even material lizards are hard to
kill. Lizards that are also Powers . . . But all the thrashing
didn't stop the Garuda Bird from gulping down the rest of

the lizard.

Michael tapped me on the shoulder. "I believe you may

now definitively declare one Chumash Power extinct," he

yelled.

"You know what?" I yelled back, °I don't miss it a bit.

Dreadful thing for an EPA man to say, isn't it?"

"I find myself less scandalized than I might be under

other circumstances," Michael said.

With another earsplittmg bellow, the Garuda Bird tried to
poke its clawed feet into the Nothing. Again, it was hard
work. But the Bird didn't have to back up and make a second
effort- slowly but surely, talons, toes, and feet sank into the
Chumash Powers' sphere of encyshnent and disappeared.

The Bird let out a pain-filled screech like the one it had
made when (I guess) it seized the lizard. It started flapping
its wings again in that half-material way it had used to force
itself out of the Nothing. Feet, toes, talons reemerged—and
then, with another of those psychic pop/s, the Garuda Bird

was free once more.

It didn't come out of the Nothing empty-footed, either.

Its claws held what the Chumash called the Great Eagle. I
will admit, a golden eagle with a body the size of a Siberian
tiger's is pretty Great—under other circumstances, as Mi-
chael had put it Up against the Garuda Bird, the Chumash

Eagle might as weB have been a sparrow.

The Eagle, unlike the Lizard, didn't try to fight. It wrig-
gled, twisted, broke free, and streaked for the sky. I feared it
would get away: it seemed so much more graceful in the air
than the ponderous Garuda Bird. But the contest wasn't
only, or even mostly, bird body against bird body. It was

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      317

magic against magic, too, and the Garuda Bird had not only
its native Indian potency but also all the souping up the Lold
Kobold Works had given its sorcerous systems. It didn't just
fly—it was destined for space. It shot after the Eagle faster
than the eye could follow.

High in the sky, the Eagle tried to dodge—if it couldn't
flee the Garuda Bird, maybe it could outjink it But no. One
of those immense feet closed on it, and this time there was
no escape. I heard a despairing shriek fade and die. Hover-
ing above the dump, the Garuda Bird devoured its prey. A
couple of big feathers came spiraling down into the contain-
ment area—all that was left of the Chumash Eagle.

"We'll have to decontaminate those," Yolanda said.

"As soon as you do, there's another Chumash Power that
won't show up in the Barony of Angels again," I said. As an
EPA inspector, I felt bad about that. As somebody who was
wondering whether he'd still be alive five minutes from now,
I figured I'd worry about the long-term consequences of the
Great Eagle's demise later, if there was a later.

High overhead, the Garuda Bird let out a roar that made
all its earlier cries seem like whispers. It folded its wings and
stooped like a hawk onto the Nothing. I braced myself—use-
lessly, I knew. When that bulk hit, the earth wouldn't just
shake, it would quake, San Andreas notwithstanding.

A split second before the Bird's talons seized the Nothing,
another psychic pop/ sounded in my head, this one bigger
than the other two put together. The talons closed on empty
air—the Nothing was gone. Somehow—sorcerously, of
course, but don't ask me about the Kobold Works' proximity
spells, because I don't know from nothin'—the Bird stopped
in midair without touching the ground.

I looked out at the far wall of the Devonshire dump, and
it seemed only as far away as it should have. The sense of the
imminent immanence of something eminently dreadful's
becoming dreadfully evident was gone, too. I looked over at
Tony Sudalds. "I think you can tell the cacodemons to shut
up," I yelled at him.

He flipped me a salute—casual but, I thought, not
faked—and trotted back toward his office. As he did so, the




318 Harry Turtledove

Garuda Bird rose into the air (without a single flap) and
headed east, back toward Burbank. That took more weight
off my mind: my guess was that the Bird would have stayed
around had it sensed any remaining trouble.

Just the same, I walked over to the spot on the path from
which I'd first noticed the Nothing, a million years ago: that's
what it felt like, anyhow. I wasn't quite there yet when the
cacodemons closed their mouths. Sudden silence hit me as
hard as the squalls of alarm had before.

I knew just where that spot was now. I looked out across
the weed-strewn dirt toward the Nothing and saw—nothing.
I was never so glad not to capitalize an °n" in my whole life. '

"I think they're gone," I said, words which ranked right up
there with the first dme I told Judy, I love you.

"I believe you are correct," Michael said. "What we
sensed, in my opinion, was the Chumash Powers abandoning
any contact with This Side to keep the Garuda Bird from
reaching into their encystment, dragging them out one by
one, and destroying them. Thaumaturgic analysis will even-
tually confirm or refute this, but it is a tenable working
hypothesis."

"I'm with you," Yolanda said. "If they went away like that,
they won't be back." She wiped her forehead with a sleeve.
I'm not sure she really grasped just how bad a hazmat she'd
helped hold at bay, but none of what her team did for a living
was easy.

"Perkunas and the Nine Suns, I hope not." Tony Sudakis
clutched his amber amulet in one beefy fist.

"Let me use your phone one more time?" I asked him.
"I'll call Professor Blank at UCAC; he's been running a study
for me to find out whether the Chumash Powers really have
become extinct. I think we can safely say two of them have,
but he'd be the best fellow to evaluate what's become of the
others."

"Be my guest." Sudalds waved me toward the blockhouse.
It wouldn't have done a bit of good against what had almost
come forth from the dump, but suddenly it looked strong
and secure again.

I got hold of Blank. He was still in his office, wondering, I

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      319

suppose, whether the building was going to collapse around
him. When I told him what had happened at the dump, he
let out a sigh of relief so heartfelt even phone imps couldn't
spoil it, then promised to send his research team out as fast
as carpets could get from UCAC to Chatsworth. Since it was
heading into late afternoon, that wouldn't be any too fast, but
the urgency level had gone down, too.

Then I called Legate Kawaguchi to see how the consta-
bles were doing at Chocolate Weasel. Him I didn't get;

instead, some other constable bawled in my ear, "You can't
talk to him, bud, whoever you are. He's down at the war, and
I'm headin' that way myself." He hung up with a crash that
that phone imps did an uncanny job of reproducing.

That sent me out of Tony's office on the run. I filled him
in on what Blank had said, then passed on the rest of the
word to Michael. The only thing that can mean is Chocolate

Weasel, I think," I said. "We'd better get over there as fast as
we can."

"I concur," Michael said.

Yolanda—her last name, I finally had the chance to notice
on her badge, was Simmons—said, "Where's this Chocolate

Weasel place? Sounds like we might do some good there,
too."

"Your team is welcome to follow my carpet," Michael said.
"Will the health of the gentleman who collapsed suffice for
the venture?"

"I'm okay," the gentleman said, and sat up to try to prove
it. He still didn't look okay, but he was game, anyhow. "All
the stuff in here just overloaded my protective systems for a
minute there."

"It's liable to be worse at Chocolate Weasel," I said, but he
shook his head—he didn't think it was possible. I envied him
his innocence.

The security guard put down the footbridge for us, and
we trooped out. Then the fellow took off his uniform cap
and bowed, which made me feel great. The guard might not
have know who'd done what, but summoning the Garuda
Bird wasn't something you could ignore.

Thanks to the cacodemons' announcing an emergency




320                Harry Turtledove

evacuation, traffic around the dump was unbelievably
snarled. We passed Chocolate Weasel's address on to the
hazmat team and followed them instead of the other way
round: they had constabulary lanterns on their carpets,
which helped move people out of their way.

About halfway to Chocolate Weasel, we met head-on a
rush away from that area. I gulped, remembering what the
constable who'd answered Kawaguchi's phone had said
about a war. Maybe he hadn't been exaggerating.

A constable in full combat gear, material and thaumatur-
gic, was turning back traffic heading in Chocolate Weasel's
direction. The hazmat team's lanterns got them through;

Yolanda's shouted encouragement and our EPA sigils did the

job for us.

"You know, Michael," I said, "just once today, I'd like to fly

away from the scene of a disaster."

"I have considerable sympathy for this point of view," he

answered. "However—"

"Yeah," I said. When duty caBs, you'd better do it. Doing

it and liking it, though, were not the same critter.

When Yolanda asked another constable exactly where
we were going, he directed her to a command post at the
comer of Nordhotf and Soto's. The reason that was the
command post, I discovered when we followed her there,
was that it was as close to Chocolate Weasel as you could
get without being in immediate danger of getting yourself

messily lolled.

Sure enough. Legate Kawaguchi was there, in uniform
and helmet—not Constabulary Department standard issue,
but samurai-style, with the man of his clan affixed to the
forehead to help protect him against malignant magic.

He didn't act surprised to see me. "Good afternoon,
Inspector Fisher. I must admit, you were not in error con-
cerning the nature of that building ahead." He pointed east

I looked that way myself. A thin column of smoke rose
from the Chocolate Weasel facility. Tell me thafs not what

I'm afraid it is," I said to Kawaguchi.

"I wish I could," he answered. They are tearing the
hearts from victims and kindling fires in their chests. We face

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      321

the apparition not only of Huitzilopochtii but also of Hue-
hueteoti, the fire god."

"In proper Aztedan ritual, that practice occurs only at the
completion of the Five Empty Days between the end of one
year and the start of the next," Michael said, as if objecting
not so much to the slaughter as to its taking place outside
canonical limits. Sometimes he can be quite exasperating.

Kawaguchi said, "My guess is that the/re going outside
the usual pattern to try to bring the Powers to full potency
outside their native land."

Michael said, grudgingly, "Yes, I suppose such a proce-
dure might be efficacious. It remains most irregular,
however." You see what I mean?

"Where are they getting their victims?" I asked; to me,
that was more important than whether they were following
all their own rules for the sacrificial rites. I thought about the
two guys at the Spells 'R' Us place who'd let me borrow the
spellchecker. I thought about them spreadeagled on an altar
with their chests hacked open. I wanted to be sick.

"Resistance backed by thaumaturgy of a high order began
as soon as our first units responded into the parking lot,"
Kawaguchi answered. "My best guess is that several employ-
ees volunteered to become the initial victims to trigger their
Powers' presence here."

"Again, this seems likely," Michael agreed.

I nodded, too. Kawaguchi probably had the right of it,
despite his curiously bloodless way of describing sacrifices of
the bloodiest sort. But constables, who see so much blood in
their work, need to ward themselves from the reality of what
they do with mild-seeming words. After all, words have
power, too.

Then something else occurred to me. "You said those
were the initial victims. Have there been more?"

"Unfortunately yes, an unknowable but large number,"
Kawaguchi said. "Because of the strength of the Powers
evoked within the Chocolate Weasel building, we have been
compelled to draw back our lines several times. The perpe-
trators have taken advantage of this to raid surrounding
businesses and homes. We do not know the precise status of




322                Harry Turtledove

all individuals captured, but some will almost certainly have
been employed to nourish Huitzflopochdi and Hue-
hueteod."

I thought about some poor lunk whose stomach decided

to growl while he was flying up Nordhoff. He'd spot die
Golden Steeples, puB in, grab himself a burger... and end
up with his still-beating heart torn out of his body, just for
being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You'd have to be
a very thoroughgoing Calvinist to find the mark of divine

plan in that.

Then I had a worse thought Much worse. I'd been acting

on the assumption that the people from Chocolate Weasel
had something to do with kidnapping Judy. If she was hidden
away somewhere in the building when the constables flew

into the lot...

"God forbid," I whispered. I tried not to think about it, to

tell myself it was impossible, but I knew too well it wasn't.

Just then, the roof of the building that housed Chocolate
Weasel started burning a lot brighter. It wasn't an ordinary
flame; it wasn't even like the flame from a salamander, which
is powered from the Other Side but manifests itself here.
This flame you didn't just see; you felt it in the place where
prayers come from. I close my eyes, but that didn't help. My

soul still felt scorched.

"Huehueteod," Legate Kawaguchi and Michael said in

the same breath. Quietly, Michael added, "One must con-
clude that the sacrifices within the building have reached a
critical mass, allowing him to manifest himself fully in Angels

City."

"I wonder how long we have to wait for Huitzilopochtii," I

said numbly.

"He being a greater Power, more sacrifice will be neces-
sary to bring him onto This Side," Michael answered.
"Hueheuteod's manifestation, however, will only speed his
translation from the Aztecian gods' realm on the Other Side

to our present location."

'Thanks for the encouragement," I said. Michael gave me

a puzzled look, then recognized irony and nodded.

The flames on the roof leapt higher. After some delay,

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      323

thick smoke began to rise as real flames joined the spectral
ones emanating from Huehueteod. I wondered how the
people inside the Chocolate Weasel building were faring
now that it burned around them. Maybe Huehueteod
protected them from the flames so they could go on
sacrificing. Or maybe they'd just keep doing what they were
doing until they burned to death. Every faiUi has its martyrs
willing, even eager, to die for the greater glory of the Powers
they reverence.

I wished the Aztecians would have shown their piety
another way.

Kawaguchi was shouting into a constabulary-model eth-
emet set. It held two different imps, so he could both send
and receive messages. He looked toward the burning build-
ing, dien to Michael and me. "Are you gentlemen familiar
widi the Hanese ideogram for the term 'crisis'?"

"I am," Michael said; I might have guessed he would be.
He went on, "It combines the ideograms for 'danger' and
'opportunity.'"

Kawaguchi looked surprised and maybe a little disap-
pointed that,a pale blond chap had stepped on his lines. But
he nodded and said, "Exactly so. And developments here
have now reached die crisis stage. If in the next few minutes
Huitdlopochdi succeeds in manifesting himself as dior-
oughlyas Huehueteod has—"

That was die danger, all right. If it happened. Angels City
was in more trouble dian it had ever known. The only prob-
lem was, I didn't see any sign of the opportunity.

"I have been in touch with the archdiocese of Angels
City," Kawaguchi said. They will do what they can for us."

"An acute strategic move. Legate," Michael said, nodding
in approval. The Power based at Rome successfully over-
came diose centered on Tenochtidan almost five hundred
years ago; widi luck, it will do so again."

"Alevai," I said, a most un-Catholic endorsement of his
sentiment. But I didn't stop worrying, or even slow down.
The Spainish who'd brought Christianity to Aztecia were
fanatics, nothing else but; diey had to be, or else they never
would have tried it. But over the years, die Church has




324                Harry Turtledove

turned fat and lazy and rich and comfortable. The fanatics
were in the Chocolate Weasel building now, doing their best
to fuel the revival of the old Aztecian gods.

Balance of Powers, I thought, and shivered.

"What are we waiting for?" I asked Kawaguchi. "Exorcists
to come and try to drive Huitzilopochtii back to the Other
Side before he can fully establish himself here?"

The constable, you will have gathered, was a worn, dour
fellow. Now he surprised me with a wall-to-wall smile. The
response the cardinal offered me was nowhere near so half-
hearted."

I wished he hadn't said halfhearted, not when you thought

about how Huitzilopochtii and Huehueteod were being
summoned into Angels City. But the cardinal, that stiff-
necked Erseman—I'd thought he was on the fanatical side
when he refused to grant the burned Thomas Brothers
monks a dispensation for cosmetic sorcery. Most of the time,
I still thought that kind of fanaticism out of place in our

century.

But right this minute, it might end up saving all our

asses—and maybe our souls, too.

Kawaguchi kept watching the sky. Had Quetzalcoad
shown any sign of manifesting himself along with the other
Aztecian Powers, I would have tried to get hold of Burbank
again to see what the Garuda Bird could do against the
Feathered Serpent As things were, though, I didn't see how

the Bird could help.

I wondered what Kawaguchi was waiting for. Whatever it

was, I hoped it would be good—and powerful. Something
nasty—something else nasty, I mean—was going to happen
inside that building any minute now. I could feel it coming,
in the same part of the inner me that felt the growing pres-
ence of Huehueteod like a bad sunburn.

Suddenly, Kawaguchi pointed. I spotted a flying carpet,
way above the usual flyways and ignoring their traffic grid
as if it didn't exist. Maybe it had a constabulary clearance
that overcame all the anti-flying invocations that gave peo-
ple and business their privacy ... or maybe it was under
the control of a higher Power.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      325

As it got closer, I saw it was a big carpet, a freight
hauler, and heavily loaded. It was gold, with a white
cross—the colors of the Vatican flag. I knew the Vatican
rug would also bear a woven-in legend in white—IN HOC
SIGNO VINCES—but it was too high and too far away for
me to be able to read that.

It was heading straight over the Chocolate Weasel build-
ing. Huehueteod's magical fire flamed up to meet it. I was
afraid the flames would bum down the carpet and everybody
on it

But one thing I give the Catholic Church—it has a saintly
hierarchy in charge of looking out for more different things
than all the bureaucrats in D.SfcC. put together. St. Florian
watches specially over those who must contend with fire. I
have no idea whether his power would have been enough to
overcome Huehueteod down inside die Chocolate Weasel
building, but it sufficed to keep die god from crisping die
caipefc

One of die monks riding die carpet (I could see his bare
pate shining in die late afternoon sun) tipped a big earthen-
ware urn down onto die roof of die Chocolate Weasel
building, dien anodier and another and anodier, mediodical
as if he were on a carpet bombing run over Alemania in die
Second Sorcerous War.

Those ums and whatever they held were heavy—I could
hear diem smashing on and maybe dirough die roof from
several blocks away. And whatever was in diem was spec-
tacularly efficacious. The constant heat on my soul that
radiated from Huehueteod went away, as if my spirit had
suddenly dived into a clear stream. He maketh me to lie
down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He refresheth my said ran dirough my head.

I turned to Kawaguchi and Michael Manstein and asked,
"What are diey dropping on diem?"

They bodi stared at me as if I were an idiot. Then Michael
said, "That's right, you are Jewish," as if reminding himself.
Veiy gendy, he went on, "It's holy water, David."

"Oh." All right, I was an idiot In fact, I was doubly an
idiot not only was die stuff thaumaturgically potent in and of




326                 Harry Turtledove

itself, it was also perfect symbolically—what better to oppose
fire of any sort than its opposite among the elements?

Once Chocolate Weasel took all the punishment it had
umed from the carpet, Kawaguchi blew a long, shrill blast
on a whistle. SWAT teams, Yolanda's hazmat crew, and the
EPA hazmat outfit swarmed toward the Chocolate Weasel
building. Ordinary constables, the guys with mostly passive
sorcerous gear and merely physical weapons—the

grunts—followed in their wake.

"They were thrown back twice before," Kawaguchi said,

more to himself than to me or Michael. This time—"

This time they moved forward. The SWAT team wizards
carried holy water sprinklers like the ones the Loki guards in
Burbank packed. Those hadn't been enough to protect them
against the growing might of the Aztedan Powers before.
Now those Powers had been reduced by bombardment from
On High, so to speak. And now the SWAT teams advanced
cautiously toward the parking lot in front of Chocolate Wea-
sel, then toward the building itself.

I got distracted at that point: the archdiocesan carpet
floated down and landed just a few feet from me. "Good
afternoon. Inspector Fisher," one of the monks on it said. "I
wondered it I might see you here today. Somehow it seems

fitting."

"Brother Vahan!" I exclaimed. "It certainly does." I trotted

over to shake his hand. "Were you the bombardier up

there?"

"I was indeed," he said with a sober nod. "God moves in a

mysterious way. His wonders to perform. Not scriptural, but

in this case accurate."

A curate? No, you're an abbot, my mind gibbered. I

forced myself back to the here-and-now: "What do you

mean?"

"I mean that I was in the cardinal's office, beseeching him

on bended knee to reconsider his prohibition against my
brethren's use of cosmetic sorcery to restore their appear-
ance, when Legate Kawaguchi's communication reached His
Eminence. He thought me an appropriate agent for the task
requested, and I was pleased to obey him in this instance."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      327

Brother Vahan was stubborn to the point of being bull-
headed, if he kept after the cardinal to change his mind once
he'd decided to do something. You don't do that if you're in
monastic orders; you are, after all, sworn to obedience along
with poverty and chastity. My guess was that Brother Vahan
wouldn't have said a word about the cardinal's decision had it
affected him. For his monks, though, he'd argue—a good
man.

And I could see why the cardinal would have wanted him
on that carpet: who would have more strength of purpose
going up against the probable destroyers of the Thomas
Brothers monastery than its abbot?

"As to the other, I gather His Eminence told you no
again?" I said.

His thick eyebrows—virtually the only hair he had on his
head—twitched upwards. "From what do you infer that?"

"You said you were happy to obey him 'in this instance,'"
I answered. "I took it to mean you weren't happy about the
other."

"Most Jesuitically reasoned." His thin smile said he was
teasing me. It went away too soon. Td rather he had refused
me this and granted the other. Many could have done what I
just did, but who except me will speak for my brethren?"

I didn't know what to feel: pleased with myself for under-
standing the way Brother Vahan's mind worked, angry at the
cardinal for sticking to his refusal like a pricldeburr, or
pleased His Eminence had the gumption to commit his best
to a crisis. Those last two were inextricably mixed, which
only complicated things more.

Faint across a couple of hundred yards came shouts from
the constables and then pops of pistol fire. Normally pistols
are nothing to scorn—they're about the most dangerous me-
chanical hand weapons around. After everything I'd been
through that day, those pops and the clouds of gunpowder
smoke I saw rising from the parking lot seemed about as
consequential as the firecrackers whose cousins they were.

Kawaguchi pulled out his own pistol, cocked it, checked
his flint, and then trotted down Nordhoff toward Chocolate
Weasel. Michael and I started after him, but a constable




328                Harry Turtledove

about the size of both of us put together shook his head and
rumbled, 'That wouldn't be smart." He stepped in front of
us and spread his arms wide to make sure we listened to him.
Since he was doing a pretty good impression of the Great
Hanese Wall, I stopped. So did Michael.

That meant we had to wait. Waiting is harder than doing.
When you're doing, you don't have time to worry. When
you're waiting, if you're anything like me, you think about all
the things that could go wrong. I'd waited for the Garuda
Bird. I'd waited for die carpet from the archdiocese. I was
waiting again. I was sick of it. I waited anyhow, peering down
Nordhoffto see what I could see.

Not too much, not for a while. Then I heard more pis-
tol pops, and then people started coming back up the
street. Some of them were constables, some prisoners
with their hands in the air. As they got closer, I saw that
several sets of those upraised hands were red, with drips
running down toward the elbows. I heard someone make
a sick, gulping noise, and reali2ed a moment later it was

me.

One of the SWAT team wizards was carrying an obsidian

knife. Another one walking beside him kept spraying it with
holy water. I gulped again. That knife, I had no doubt,
belonged in the Devonshire dump. If ever spells were
guaranteed harmful to the environment, they're the ones
that go along with human sacrifice.

I recognized one of the prisoners—Jorge Vasquez. He saw
me at about the same time I saw him. I thought about
making some crack about his getting shut down for EPA
violations along with everything else, but I kept my mouth
shut. Even captured, he looked too smart and tough for me

to want to twit him.

Behind him came Legate Kawaguchi, who was busy load-
ing another charge of powder and ball into his pistol as he
walked along. Brother Vahan called to him: "Do any within
that building require my services?"

Kawaguchi finished ramming home the ball before he
looked up. "For last rites and such, you mean. Brother?" He
shook his head. "Just corpses in there."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

329




"Martyrs,'' Brother Vahan said, his voice grim. Their
reward shall surely come in heaven."

I wondered about that was somebody who got caught in
the wrong place at the wrong time a martyr in the same
sense as a person who deliberately invited death for the sake
of his faith? I'm neither Catholic nor theologian, so I can't
tell you what Brother Vahan should have been thinking by
the standards of his church.

That was the least of my worries, anyhow. I lunged for
Kawaguchi in a way that almost made him level his newly
loaded pistol at me. "Did you—" I choked on fear and had to
force myself to go on: "Did you find Judy in there?"

Ib my relief, he slipped the pistol back into its holster.
Then he said, "Inspector Fisher, I neither searched exten-
sively through Ae Chocolate Weasel building nor closely
examined the bodies of the victims around the altar." Some-
thing else to be decontaminated, I thought. Kawaguchi was
continuing, "So long as you understand these limitations, sir,
I can state to you that I did not see a corpse matching the
description of your fiancee in that—that abbatoir."

Kawaguchi talks like an upper-level constable: as if every
word he says is going to show up in a written report or as
courtroom testimony Real Soon Now. For him to pick a
word like abbatoir... all at once I was glad the very large fel-
low in the blue uniform hadn't let me follow the legate.

I was also gladder than I could say that—subject to his
careful limitations—he hadn't found Judy. If I chose to
believe that she wasn't there because he hadn't found her,
can you blame me?

Michael said, "Legate, can we lend any further assis-
tance?" We hadn't lent Kawaguchi much assistance before
that I'd noticed. Michael is usually too precise to make a slip
like that, but after everything that had happened during the
day, can you blame him, either?

Thank you, sir, but I think not," Kawaguchi answered.
He turned to me. "Inspector Fisher, you did your best to
warn me of the magnitude of this threat I must concede that
at the time of our telephone conversation I did not have a
full appreciation of it. My apologies for that error."

330                Harry Turtledove

"Who would have believed this?* I said. My guess was
that Kawaguchi still didn't have a full appreciation of what
he'd been part of today. Put what happened here together
with our desperate struggles back at the Devonshire dump,
let both containment efforts fail, and Angels City goes light
off the map. And who could say what was happening else-
where in die Confederation, or would have followed
Azbedan success here? Maybe we'd put a spike in the wheel

of the Third Sorcerous War.

"David, I shall take you back to Westwood now," Michael

said in a tone that brooked no argument. I wasn't in a mood
to argue, anyhow; now that the terror which had kept me
hopping most of the day was easing, I could feel myself sub-
siding into something with all the crisp dedsiveness of a
bowl of tapioca pudding. More boneless with every step, I
walked over to his carpet We headed down toward the Ven-
ture Freeway. I told myself I never wanted to see St

Ferdinand's Valley again.

When we got to the Confederal Building, Michael got off

the carpet and headed for the entrance instead of going
home. He gave me a bemused look when I fell into step
beside him. "I may as well keep working," I told him. "The
more I have to do, the less time I have to worry."

"Ah," he said, "The anodyne of distraction," Which is what
I'd just said, but I hadn't managed to boil it into four words.

If I didn't have anything urgent on my desk, I figured I'd
write up what I'd been through today. The EPA, like any
government agency, thrives on documentation, and I must
confess that I've been indoctrinated to the point where I
sometimes don't believe something is real until it's commit-
ted to parchment On the other hand, if Moses had had to fill
out all the EPA forms parting the Red Sea would have
required, the Bible would be written in Egyptian.

Only one message waited for me, from a woman named
Susan Kuznetsov. I frowned, trying to remember who she
was. Then name and face matched: the no-nonsense gal
from the Barony's Bureau of Physical and Spiritual Health
who'd reported little Jesus Cordero's apsychia to me.

I asked my watch the time: going on six. Mistress

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      331

Kuznetsov had impressed me as the hard-working type, so I
called her back. Sure enough, I got her. 'Inspector Fisher!"
she said, I thought she sounded pleased. "I'd expected you'd
be gone for the day."

°I just got back in," I told her. "What can I do for you?"

"Inspector, the Cordero family has been contacted by a
consortium styling itself Slow Jinn Fizz," she answered. "This
consortium mentioned the possibility of instilling a soul into
the infant, something they had been given to believe was
impossible. Unlike too many poor and poorly educated fami-
lies, (he Corderos called me for advice instead of allowing
themselves to be taken in by probable charlatans. My pre-
liminary investigation, however, indicates that Slow Jinn Fizz
may perhaps be able to deliver on some of its claims. I called
you to leam whether ifs yet come under EPA scrutiny yet"

"As a matter of fact, I was out there myself, right around
the time Jesus Cordero was being born," I said.

When I didn't go on right away, Susan Kuznetsov said,
"And? Are they flimflam men like so many outfits widi im-
pressive claims?"

"You know, I don't really think so," I answered. "I think
the/re right on the edge of making psychic synthesis possi-
ble, and I think the procedure may well have important
benefits for apsychic patients and give them at least a chance
at life after death."

"Really?" She sounded surprised. "You recommend the
procedure, dien?"

'I didn't say diat," I told her, and then explained: "I don't
knew where or from whom the pieces of soul the jinni are
synthesizing come from, or whether Slow Jinn Fizz is solving
one problem now at the expense of widespread psychic
depletion years, maybe even generations, down die line. Ifs
certainly a tempting technology, but you know who the
Tempter is."

"I certainty do," she said. "So you'd suggest the Corderos
stay away from it?"

If she'd asked me diat the day before, I would have said
yes. Thanks to modem medicine, Jesus Cordero had every
chance of living to a ripe old age, and psychic synthesis

332

Harry Turtledove

would be investigated and refined until people understood
all the gremlins in the process. That would be the right time
for him to have a soul implanted.

But after what had happened at the Devonshire dump
and then at Chocolate Weasel, I felt less easy about that wait-
for-developments approach. Just because the odds said you
were likely to lead a long life didn't mean you would: a big
piece of Angels City had almost gone up in flames. If you
were an apsychic, could you afford to take a chance like that?
Would you want to, knowing extinction awaited?

"Mistress Kuznetsov," I said carefully, "the EPA hasn't
taken a position on Slow Jinn Fizz and what it does. Before
we do, we'D have to weigh short-term benefits against lower-
grade long-term risks. My guess is that the technology won't
be allowed out of the experimental stage and into general
use for many years."

"I know that much already," she answered. "The people
from Slow Jinn Fizz said as much to the Corderos, and I give
them credit for it What I'm realty asking is, what would you
do if that were your kid?"

"If it's my kid, I worry about saving him first and every-
thing else later," I said. "Isn't that what being a parents all
about? But just because that's what I'd do doesn't mean it
makes good public policy."

"That's fair," she said. "Let me put it a different way, then;

would the EPA have kittens if the Slow Jinn Fizz experimen-
tal protocol expanded to include Jesus Cordero?"

"Right now, the answer to that is no," I said. Too much
else—bigger stuff—was going on for us to worry about Slow
Jinn Fizz right now, but I didn't tell that to Susan Kuznetsov.
I hoped that one day (one day soon. God willing) things
would slow down to the point where we'd be able to worry
about the problems synthesized souls present No doubt
they were important but they weren't world-threatening, so
for now they'd just have to wait

And besides, I told myself, how much environmental
damage on the Other Side would manufacturing a soul for
one little boy cause? Not much, surety, and it would do so
much good for Jesus Cordero.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

333

You know, of course, which road is paved with good inten-
tions. So do I. So does the EPA. The real question wasn't
what would happen when one apsychic kid got a soul. The
real question was what would happen when jinnetic engi-
neering and jinn-splicing techniques began stirring up the
psychic material of the Other Side on a large scale,

I didn't have any answers for that. Neither did anybody
else. The EPAs job was to make sure we found those
answers before exploiting those techniques got us into
trouble, not afterwards. But to give Jesus Cordero, a series of
one case, a chance at life after life—why not?

Mistress Kuznetsov said, 'Inspector, I want to thank you
for being flexible; you're going to make the Corderos very
happy, and as for Jesus—he won't understand whafs hap-
pened for a long time yet, but when he does, he'll be
eternally grateful."

"I hope so, anyway," I said. "The technique is experimen-
tal and, from what Ramzan Durani told me, it hasn't yet
undergone the test of mortality. But when you're in that
position, you have to grasp at straws, don't you?"

"Thafs my.view as a public health officer, certainly," Susan
Kuznetsov said. "I wasn't sure how the EPA would view the
matter."

"If you'd said you wanted to add a thousand people to the
experimental list I would have given you a different answer.
But one little boy, and one I've met—"

"Yes, the law of contagion does remind us of how impor-
tant personal contact is, doesn't it? I was just afraid you'd be
working against contagion, as I often have to do, rather than
allowing it full scope."

"Not this time," I answered quietly. Letting Jesus Cordero
have a chance to beat apsychia wasn't as big a thing as
thwarting the Chumash Powers or keeping Huitzilopochtfi
and his fiery fiiend from establishing themselves in Angels
City, but it felt just as good. Maybe better—as Susan
Kuznetsov had said, this was personal.

I only wished the rest of my personal worries were doing
as well. No word of Judy, none at all.

To keep myself from thinking of that and what it might

334                Harry Turtledove

mean, I plunged into the environmental impact report on
what importing leprechauns into Angels City was liable to do
to the local thecology. I made more progress in an hour and a
half than I had in the past two weeks. No wonder; now I
could make my prognostications secure in the knowledge
that the Wee Folk weren't going to have any adverse effect
on the Chumash Powers. I'd taken care of that myself, in

spades.

Eventually, I supposed, I'd get around to feeling bad
about siccmgthe Garuda Bird on them. An EPA man, after
all, is supposed to protect endangered Powers, not extermi-
nate them. From their point of view, I couldn't really blame
the Lizard and the Great (but not Great enough) Eagle and
the rest for wanting to overturn the balance of Powers and
twist things back to the way the/d been before the first
Europeans touched the New World.

But, along with a couple of hundred million other people,
I live in the world that's sprung from the European expan-
sion. And, as Michael Manstein said, we'd done more and
better with this land than its original inhabitants would have
in the same length of time. So while I figured I'd eventually
get round to feeling bad, it wouldn't be any time real soon.

Speaking of Michael, he poked his head into my office
about then. "I'm going home now," he said. Terhaps you
should do the same." He clearly wasn't used to me working   |

longer hours than he did,                                  .1

He was right. I went home. I ate something (don't ask me   | |t
what), then went to bed. Worries or no, I slept almost as   | |j
soundly as if I'd been in Ephesus: the aftermath of nearly   « •
dying a couple of times during the course of a day. If my
alarm dock hadn't screamed me awake, I might be snoring

yet

No sooner had I got to the office than the phone started

yelling. I came this close to knocking over my cup of cafete-
ria coffee grabbing for it. "Environmental Perfection Agency,

David Fisher."

'Inspector Fisher, this is Legate Shtro Kawaguchi, Angels

City Constabulary Department." Kawaguchi spoke as if he
were introducing himself for the first time. "Inspector

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      335

Fisher, interrogation of the suspect Jorge Vasquez has led us
to your fiancee, Mistress Judith Adier."

I let out a whoop that rattled my windows. "Thafs won-
derful, Legate! When can I see her?" He didn't answer right
away. My joy crashed into dread. "Is she—all right?"

"Unfortunately, Inspector Fisher, I must tell you she is
not," Kawaguchi answered. "You will perhaps remember that
an Aztecian Power, variously called the Craclder, the Page,
and the One Called Night, was involved in the abduction of
Mistress Adier."

"Yes, of course," I said.

"From what our forensics man has to say. Inspector, it ap-
pears that the One Called Night, to use the name with which
you appear to be most famijiiar, has carried Mistress Adiefs
spirit into the realm known as the Nine Beyonds. We have
recovered her body. She appears to be physically unharmed;

she will eat or drink if food or water is placed in her mouth.
But as for anything more than that... I'm very sorry. Inspec-
tor Fisher, but at present it is just not there."

"What do we do, then?" I asked hoarsely.

"Our preliminaiy and tentative thaumaturgic efforts to
restore her to herself have failed; she does not seem as
responsive to certain rituals as we had hoped." Kawaguchi
paused. "I believe you are Jewish. Is Mistress Adier, also?"

"Yes."

That may account for part of it, then. Most rituals
designed to counter the Craclder assume a Catholic victim,
and would be less efficacious in rescuing one from a differ-
ent faith. While we continue to do our utmost, I suggest you
also pursue every flyway that occurs to you. Otherwise,
Inspector, I can offer no guarantee that Mistress Adler's body
and spirit will ever be reunited."

XI

II took my troubles down to Madame Ruth—you know,
that medium with the gold-capped tooth. She had an office
':         down on 34th and Vine. I hoped she could help with a prob-
'         lem like mine. When Erasmus had been so dreadfully hurt
|         as the Thomas Brothers monastery was torched, she and
I         Nigel Cholmondeley managed to access him where every-
one else had failed. I was praying she'd be able to do the
same for Judy.

In her green silk dress and the matching scarf she used to
cover her hair, she put me in mind of nothing so much as an
enormous watermelon wearing too much makeup. But her
looks didn't matter, not to me they didn't. She and her Eng-
lish partner were the local experts on virtuous reality, and
from what I'd seen of the technique, I figured it offered the

337

338 Harry Turtledove

best chance of rescuing Judy's spirit and bringing it back to
This Side where it belonged.

Madame Ruth heard me out, then slowly shook her head
back and forth. "I dunno. Inspector Fisher," she said. 'This
ain't gonna be as easy as gettin' hold ofwhat's-his-name, the
scriptorium spirit, was. You don't just wanna access your
fiancee's spirit, you wanna download it, too. That's one fresh
problem."

"If you say that's one, you mean there are more," I said.
"What are they?"

'Two good ones, offhand," she answered. "One's in the
spiritual realm. We were able to build our own kinda place to
meet the spirit—Erasmus, that's what he goes by—in. If
your girlfriend's already stuck in the Nine Beyonds, we're
gonna hafta go in there and haul her out. Like I said, that
ain't gonna be easy."

I wondered what walking through a simulation of the
Nine Beyonds would be like. Could even virtuous reality
pretty up something with a handle like that so anyone except
a Power named the One Called Night would want to go
there? I had my doubts, but I also had no choice, not if I
wanted Judy back. I asked, "What's the other problem?"

Madame Ruth coughed and looked down at her desk, an
elephantine effort at discretion. "It's not spiritual," she said.
"It's more material-like, if you know what I mean." She
stopped there.

After a couple of seconds, I figured out what she was fly-
ing at. Tm sure Judy's medical insurance will cover your
fees," I said. "It's one of the Blue Scutum plans, and it has an
excellent thaumaturgy benefits package."

'Thafs okay, then," she said, nodding briskly. I understood
that she had to show a profit, but what would Judy have done
without insurance? Got stuck in the Nine Beyonds forever
because no one would come after her without crowns on the
barrelhead? Or ended up bankrupting herself to pay the fees
afterwards? Nothing's simple these days.

"Will you try to help her?" I asked.

"Lemme talk with my partner. This is gonna take both of
us," she said, and got up to go next door. I didn't age more

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      339

than eight or ten years in the few minutes she was gone. She
came back with Cholmondeley, (weedy as ever, in her wake.
She must have read my face, because she said, "It's okay, Mr.
Fisher. Well give it a try."

I started gasping out thank-yous, but Nigel Cholmondeley
cut me off. "Time for all that later, old chap, if we succeed.
Meanwhile, where is Mistress, uh, Adier now located?"

Kawaguchi had told me that. "Her body's at the West
Hills Temple of Healing," I said. Where the rest of her
was . . . Well, Cholmondeley and Madame Ruth already
knew about that.

Madame Ruth was looking through her appointments
scroll. "We're on for this afternoon and tomorrow morning,
too," she said. "We can work her in tomorrow afternoon,
though, if that's okay wit' you?" She looked at me. I nodded.
I wanted them to drop everything and rush right out to take
care of Judy, but everybody else they were working for felt
his case was the most important one in the world, too.
Madame Ruth said, "It's okay, Mr. Fisher, maybe even better
than okay. This gives us a chance to square things with the
constables and with the West Hills place, so as we can be all
set up and ready to go."

I nodded again. Cholmondeley unrolled his own scroll,
inked a quill, and scribbled a note. "We shall see you there,
then, at half past one." He stuck out a bony hand. I clasped
it, then walked out of Madame Ruth's office. I wanted to get
back to my own shop as soon as I could: I was using vacation
time for this visit. Crazy how you keep track of the little
things even when the big ones in your world are falling every
which way.

There was a rack of news stands outside Madame Ruth's
building. I stuck a quarter-crown into the waiting palm of
one of the little vending demons, took away a copy of the
A.C. Times. I figured yesterday's goings-on would be page-
one stuff, and so they were: the flight of the Garuda Bird
across St. Ferdinand's Valley isn't something you can easily
ignore. Neither is the emergency evacuation of the neigh-
borhoods surrounding the Devonshire toxic spell dump.

Sure enough, both of those got plenty of ink, though the

340                Harry Turtledove

reporters seemed confused about just what had happened.
That didn't bother me; the whole truth here probably would
have set off a panic we didn't need, especially since (I hoped)

things were back under control.

One of the reporters quoted Matt Arnold out at the Lold
works. He gave the impression he'd turned the Garuda Bird
loose as a preorbital flight test, then went on about the next
step in the space program after the Bird got us into low orbit:

Lold was designing new sorceware to work the Indian Rope
Trick from some spot on the equator 22,300 miles straight
up to geosynchronous orbit, from which mages could project
sorcery over big parts of the globe day and night.

Nobody asked me, but I thought Lold ought to work on a

new rope, too.

The mess at Chocolate Weasel made page one, too, but

only as a big industrial accident Not a word about the sacri-
fices, not a word about any connection to the mess at the

Devonshire dump.

What really got me, though, was the rest of the headlines.

The Aztecian Emperor had ordered his entire cabinet exe-
cuted, It was, the Times said, the first general cabinet
massacre since the time when Azteca almost joined the First
Sorcerous War on the Alemanian side. The new ministers
were supposed to be "more inclined toward improving rela-
tions with the Confederation than their predecessors had

been."

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."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      341

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? Some-
thing, 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




342                Harry Turtledove

Henry Legion's. "Mr. Fisher? I'm sony 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 talk-
ing?"

"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 re-
produced the sound of a handset clunking into its cradle.

I hung up, too, and stared at the phone for a while. What-
ever Henry Legion had been doing, it cost him everything. I
knew I'd never leam 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.SfcC. 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 Hemy 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 were-
wolfto 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 Adier is in 547, right across the hall from the

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      343

Intensive Prayer Unit. Just follow the IPU signs and you
can't go wrong."

Famous last words, I knew. Well, this time the gal was
right; the signs took me straight to 547.1 didn't know what to
think about Judy's being where she was. Should I have been
glad she was so close to intensive prayer in case she needed
it, or worried she was there because they were afraid she
would need it? Being me, I worried-
When I opened the door to 547,1 discovered a constable
sitting in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs in there.
He carefully checked my EPA sigil and said, "You're fine,
Mr. Fisher, but we have to be sure," before he went back to
his book.

By then I'd forgotten all about him. Seeing Judy again
took everything else out of my mind. She didn't look bad,
but then she always looks good to me, so I wasn't in any real
position to judge. Her color was good, her eyes were open,
she was breathing normally: to that much I can objectively
attest.

But I soon noticed that, even if her eyes were open,
they didn't track. I walked across her field of vision a cou-
ple of times, but she took no notice of me. She didn't say
anything. When she moved on the bed, she didn't adjust
the covers afterwards. Her body lay there, but not the rest
other. That was off in the Nine Beyonds, the realm of the
One Called Night.

Madame Ruth and Nigel Cholmondeley came in just
then, accompanied by a fellow in a white lab robe who intro-
duced himself to me as Healer Ah Murad. "I look forward to
learning to apply virtuous reality to healing situations," he
said. This will be an excellent opportunity for me to
enhance my knowledge."

Wonderful. Somebody who saw Judy as a guinea pig,
nothing more. I wondered how he'd like enhancing his
knowledge of what getting flung out a fifth-floor window felt
like. He looked pretty sharp—maybe he could leam to fly
before he hit the ground.

I made myself relax. By his lights, Hr. Murad was only
doing his job. What he learned from Judy might help him

344                Harry Turtledove

treat somebody else. But that didn't mean I had to like him,

and I didn't

Nigel Cholmondeley was carrying a case large enough

that he had to be stronger than he looked. He set it on the
empty bed next to Judy's, flipped open the brass catches, and
took out four of the big-eared virtuous reality helmets I'd last

seen in the constabulary station.

He looked at the setup in the room, fretfully clucked his
tongue between his teeth. "Forming a circle under these cir-
cumstances wfll be rather difficult," he said, making the a m
rather so broad I thought he'd never finish pronouncing it.

Madame Ruth was bluntly practical. "We'll just turn her
around," she said. "If 11 be easy if her head end's at the foot of
<he bed." Hr. Murad took care of that, moving Judy with a
practiced gentleness that said he might have a bedside man-
ner after all. Madame Ruth rounded on the constable. "Hey,
you, be useful—move some chairs around for us." She ges-
tured to show what she wanted.

The constable gave her a dirty look but did as she asked
him: he put one chair at the foot of the bed, close by where
Judy's head now rested, and one more to either side at that
end of the bed. While he was taking care of that, Nigel Chol-
mondeley set a virtuous reality helmet on Judy. She didn't

react at all as it covered her eyes and ears.

When he was done, Cholmondeley turned to me and said,

"You sit here." Here was the seat right across the footboard
from Judy. Cholmondeley and Madame Ruth took the other
two seats. Grunting, Madame Ruth got up from hers and
arranged Judy's arms so her wrists and hands dangled off the
sides of the bed. "Oh, capital," Cholmondeley said as she sat
back down. "Now we shall be able to maintain die personal

contact so essential in this exercise."

He handed me a virtuous reality helmet. I put it on. The

world went black and silent. From my earlier experience, I
knew I was supposed to take the hands of die people to
either side of me. I groped for them. At first, I didn't find
them. I wondered what was wrong until I realized Madame
Ruth and Cholmondeley needed to put on their helmets,

too.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      345

I wished I were holding one of Judy's hands, but that
wasn't how the medium and the channeler had set things up,
and I had to assume they knew what they were doing. No
sooner had that thought crossed my mind than Nigel Chol-
mondeley's left hand caught my right. A moment later,
Madame Ruth's right hand took my left in a warm, damp,
fleshy grasp.

And a moment after that, the psychic circle complete, we
were on the Odier Side. Madame Rudi had warned me we
wouldn't be going back to die garden where we'd questioned
Erasmus, so I'd been braced for worse. I wasn't braced for
what we encountered.

"We're here, sure enough," Nigel Cholmondeley said; as
soon as he spoke, I could see his virtuous image.

"But where is Aere?" I asked to help him see me.

"A bad place," Madame Ruth said, springmg into appar-
ent being. "Very bad."

As in my earlier venture into virtuous reality, diey bodi
appeared idealized to my second sight; Cholmondeley hand-
some, widi more meat on his scrawny bones; Madame Rudi
minus about half of her corpulent self and her screechy
tough-guy accent. As before, I couldn't see myself at all.

I couldn't see any sign of Judy, eidier.

Not as before, I couldn't see anydiing but my spirit
guides. The Nine Beyonds were dark as an underground
cave at midnight My sight had been totally obscured when I
slipped die virtuous reality helmet over my eyes. What I was
sensing now felt darker dian totally obscured. I don't know
how, but it did.

It was just dark like a cave; it didn't feel as if we were
inside one. If we'd been in a garden before, my guess was
diat we were in jungle now, jungle on a moonless, starless
night a million miles—or maybe farther—from anydiing of
man's. Though I knew my body was back in a cool room at
die West Hills Temple of Healing, die air that seemed to be
around me felt hot and wet and smelled as if dungs I didn't
want to know about were just beginning to rot somewhere
not far enough away.

Things were moving diere, too, and I didn't know what




346

Harry Turtledove CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 347

they were because I couldn't see them. Whatever they were,
I didn't think they meant us well. This was not a place where
we were meant to be. A sudden sharp noise made the self I
didn't have start in alarm: it sounded as if something had
stepped on a dry twig, although where you could have found
a dry twig in that stifling humidity, I couldn't tell you.

I remembered the One Called Night was also known as
the Crackler. Having remembered, I wished I could forget

again.

I turned to Madame Ruth. "How are we supposed to find

Judy in all this?" We were somewhere in one Beyond; even if
we somehow went over every inch of it (and I was afraid it
had a lot of inches), that left eight more to search. We were
liable to be there forever, or maybe twenty minutes longer.

The Emperor Hadrian's death poem ran through my
mind; Animula vagida blandula . . . Little soul, wandering,
gentle guest and companion of my body, into what places
will you go now, pale, stiff, and naked, no longer sporting as
you did? If I'd perceived myself as embodied in that dread-
ful place, I would have burst into tears. The image fit only
too well what I feared was happening to Judy's spirit.

"We'll do the best we can, Mr. Fisher," Madame Ruth
answered. "Beyond that, I don't know what to tell you. This
domain is not shaped by us alone; the Power who dwells
here influences our perceptions. We must attempt to move,
and hope we find ourselves guided toward Mistress Adier."

She'd warned before we set out that this wouldn't be as
easy as contacting Erasmus had been. She hadn't warned
how bad it would be. Maybe she didn't know till we tried it;

virtuous reality is a technology that's just opening up, which
means one of the things its practitioners are still discovering

is what can go wrong.

I got the feeling that if anything went seriously wrong in

the Nine Beyonds, Hr. Alt Murad would learn some things
he hadn't expected—and some new intrepid explorers of vir-
tuous reality would have to try to rescue three more spirits

lost in this suffocating place.

Would they have any better fortune than we did?
Madame Ruth had said we had to try to move, to explore

the Nine Beyonds and hope we found Judy. Move we did,
but it wasn't easy. The Nine Beyonds resisted every meta-
physical motion we made. We cried out, but everywhere in
vain. It was as if we were drunk, as if the Nine Beyonds
themselves were having sport with us, mocking our search.
We might as well have been wading through mud, through
quicksand, through hot dinging slime.

And it felt as if the area in which we stood and moved was
growing smaller all the time. With everything perfectly black
all around us, with Madame Ruth and Nigel Cholmondeley
the only things my second sight could perceive, I don't know
how I got that impression, but I did. That led me to another
interesting question (if interesting and horrible are syno-
nyms): what would happen if it closed real tight around us?

Someexperiments you'd rather not see performed, espe-
cially on you.

No sooner had I thought that than I discovered I wasn't
the only one feeling the invisible closing in. Voice tight with
concern, Nigel Cholmondeley said, "I think we had best
withdraw, lest we be overwhelmed by that which lurks in
darkness here."

"How do we get away?" I asked.

"Break me circle; free your hands," Madame Ruth said.
"Quicldy!"

That hadn't been easy even when we were leaving the vir-
tuous reality garden. Remembering you had an actual
physical body that could do things was tough; making it do
those things tougher.

And not for me alone—I watched the virtuous images of
Cholmondeley and Madame Ruth twist in concentration as
they struggled to make their bodies respond to their wills.
No doubt my own virtuous image bore a similar grimace in
their second sight

Madame Ruth had been right; we needed to hurry. Some-
thing was breathing down the neck I hadn't brought along to
the Nine Beyonds. I didn't know what the One Called Night
could do to me, but I was very conscious of operating on the
Power's turf—or rather, muck. If it took hold of me...

Just then, one of us (to this day, I don't know who)




348                Harry Turtledove

managed to get a hand loose and break the circle. Coming
back wasn't like returning from the garden; I seemed to be
falling and falling in a forever compressed into maybe a sec-
ond and a half. Worse still, I thought the One Called Night
was falling after me, falling faster than I was, reaching out
with black, black hands in which never a star would shine.

Under the virtuous reality helmet, my eyes flew open. I
saw only darkness there, too, but it was a darkness I knew,
the familiar darkness of This Side. Unlike the blacker than
black of die Nine Beyonds, I knew what to do about this. I
yanked the helmet off my head and sat blinking in the

mellow afternoon sun.

I got my helmet off just ahead of Nigel Cholmondeley

and Madame Ruth. Their faces—their real, everyday faces,
not the idealized images they bore in the realms of virtuous
reality—were pale and haggard, as yours would be, as mine
surely was, after such a narrow escape.

Cholmondeley leaned forward, pulled off Judy's virtuous
reality helmet Her face showed nothing, just as it had before
the helmet went on. Her spirit hadn't been in there to expe-
rience what we'd gone through.

Madame Ruth wiped sweat from her forehead with one
sleeve. I didn't think the sweat had anything to do with wear-
ing the helmet. "Jesus," she muttered. "It tried to follow us

back."

Too bloody right it did." Cholmondeley also sounded

shaken to the core. "I think it used Mistress Adier as its con-
duit: it controls her spirit, after all."

"I never heard of that," I said.

"Nor had I," Cholmondeley answered. ""Nor, so far as I
know, has any practitioner of virtuous reality. Of course,
there is the caveat that anyone encountering the phenome-
non at full strength, so to speak, is unlikely to remain a
practitioner of virtuous reality, or, indeed, of any trade there-
after." He essayed a laugh; it came out as a series of nervous

little barks.

The procedure was unsuccessful?" Hr. Murad asked. He

hadn't been there with us. Lucky him.

"Buddy, you're lucky—we're lucky—ifs us sittin' here

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      349

talking to you, and not the One Called Night," Madame
Ruth said. Nigel Cholmondele/s nod in support of that was
as herky-jerky as his laugh had been.

I stood up. I felt as if I'd been away from my body for a
long time, slogging through the steaming, lighdess swamps
of the Nine Beyonds. The physical part of me, though, the
part that hadn't left the chair, rose now so smoothly that I
knew virtuous reality had fooled me again,

Before Hr. Murad could turn Judy the right way around
on her bed, I leaned over the footboard and looked down
into her face. Her eyes were open, and looking back at me.
Nothing showed in them, any more than it had before: no
recognition of me, no awareness of where she was.

I kept looking, down into the blackness other pupils. Was
the One Called Night hiding in that blackness, peering back
at me through those portholes into This Side while it held
her spirit trapped in the Nine Beyonds? I had no way to tell.

When I stepped back, the healer did put Judy back where
she belonged. Nigel Cholmondeley was glumly packing the
virtuous reality helmets back into their travel case. He set a
hand on my arm. Terribly sorry, old man, I truly am. I'd
hoped for better results."

"So did I." I looked at Judy again. If we couldn't get her
spirit back from the Nine Beyonds, she was going to stay in
that bed for the rest of her life, eating when they fed her,
drinking when they gave her water, wiggling every now and
then for no reason at all. And what would happen when she
died? Could her spirit break free of the One Called Night
even then?

I shivered all over, and the room wasn't that cool. In a
way, she was even worse off than Jesus Cordero. With no
natural soul of his own, he at least had hopes of getting an
artificial one from Slow Jinn Fizz. But what could Ramzan
Durani do for Judy, whose spirit was stolen rather than
absent?

What could anyone do?

Hr. Murad stepped in front of Madame Ruth as she was
about to go out the door. "Wait, please," he said in the tone
of somebody trying—not too hard—to be polite about giving




350                Harry Turtledove

an order. "We have not yet fuBy examined the etiology of

your treatment's failure."

Madame Ruth looked down her nose at him. She was

taller than he was, as well as wider. "If you don't get out of
that doorway, sonny, I'm gonna squash you flat You ask nice,
maybe we'B talk about it later. Right now I need a drink or
two a whole lot more than I need you." She advanced. Hr.
Murad retreated. Nigel Cholmondeley followed in her mas-
sive wake.

I followed, too. Leaving Judy was a knife stuck in my

heart, but staying there, with her like that, hurt even worse. I
felt another sleepless night coming up. I'd had too many of

those lately, and earned every one of diem.

"Excuse me," I called to Cholmondeley and Madame
Ruth as they were about to step on the slide back down to

the lobby.

They both paused. "Sorry like anything we couldn't help

ya, Mr. Fisher," Madame Ruth said. Tm just glad we got
ourselves back to This Side in one piece. Too bad we

couldn't bring your girl friend with us."

"Most unfortunate," Nigel Cholmondeley agreed.
"For Judy especially," I said, at which the two of them had
the grace to nod. That gave me the nerve I needed to go on:

"If I can come up with anything that would give us a better
chance, would you be willing to take another try at rescuing

her from the Nine Beyonds?"

They looked at each other. I didn't like the look; it said,

Not on your life, bud. Madame Ruth opened her mouth to
answer, and I'd bet a big pile she was about to say that out
loud. Cholmondeley raised a finger to stop her; he was the
smooth man of the pair. What he said was, "It would have to
be something quite extraordinary, Mr. Fisher." Which was
also no, but sugar-coated so it went down sweeter. Besides,
he wouldn't want to drive away business by coming right out
and saying virtuous reality just couldn't do some tricks.

So he let me hope—a needle-eye's worth, maybe, but
hope. The last thing at the bottom of Pandora's box, and gen-
erally running too many lengths behind trouble ever since.
But it was all I had, so I clasped it to my bosom.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      351

What I didn't have was any idea of what I might come up
with that would give us a better chance in the Nine Beyonds.
The One Called Night seemed to rule the roost there. Why
not? It was his roost

If we could make him confront us on neutral ground, so
to speak, we'd have a better chance of making him release
Judy's spirit. But how? The Nine Beyonds were his home on
the Other Side. I didn't see any way to force him out. Beat
him on his home ground, then? We'd tried that already, with
no luck.

That left—nothing I could see.

Madame Ruth and Nigel Cholmondeley had already slid
away. I stood by the slide, doing my best to come up with the
brilliant idea to save the day. It's always easy in the adventure
stories. I'd even done it myself, when I summoned the
Garuda Bird to the Devonshire dump.

Not this tone.

Another sleepless night. This time I mean it literally.
When it got to be about one in the morning, I just gave up
and made myself a cup of coffee. If I was going to be awake,
I might as well be awake, I figured. Somehow I'd stagger
through the next day and somehow, after that I'd sleep.
Meanwhile...

Meanwhile, I prowled around my flat For want of any-
thing better to do, I cleaned it cleaner than it had been since
just before the High Holy Days the year before. When I
moved the couch and chair to clean under them, I found
close to a crown and a half in loose change, so I even turned
a profit on the deal.

I read an adventure story, paid some bills, wrote some let-
ters, all the things you do in slack time. I wrote to people
who hadn't heard from me in so long, I hoped the shock
wouldn't send 'em on to the Other Side.

Every so often, I'd get up from the kitchen table—which
doubled as desk—and go back in the bedroom. Not to try to
go to sleep: I'd given up on that I'd push back the curtain
and look out at the night. It was very dark out there, no
moon, just a couple of stars I could see. I might have thought




352                Harry Turtledove

it looked really black if I hadn't almost been trapped in the
Nine Beyonds that afternoon. Next to that place, Angels City

night was high noon in the desert.

Back out to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. As I had
once or twice before, I wished for an ethemet set to give me
some noise to be lonely with. With quiet all around me, I
couldn't keep from thinking, and none of my thoughts were

ones I wanted.

I went back to the bedroom again. StiB night outside^

What a surprise. My alarm clock told me it was half past four.
Maybe I was imagining things, but I thought the horological
demon sounded slightly worried at having me awake and
prowling around at that hour. Maybe I alarmed it for a

change.

I sat down on the bed. The state I was in, that proved an-
other mistake. It made me remember all the times Judy and
I had lain there together, and how unlikefy we were to do it
again. My eyes filled with the easy tears that can come when
you're half underwater with exhaustion. An effect of the law

of contagion? I don't know.

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 (he bed-
room 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

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      353

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 (he 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 morn-
ing, 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




354                Harry Turtledove

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 Sudalds." 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 extraordi-
nary?" 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 Chol-
mondeley. "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 specula-
tion. When he spoke, it wasn't to me but to Tony Sudalds:

"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."

The Thunderer not powerful enough?" Tony was a man
of direct action. I was afraid he'd take some now: pitching
Cholmondeley through a wall, for instance. But he didn't; he
just said, "Listen, once upon a time not so long ago a fanner

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      355

invited the Devil to his daughter's wedding. He didn't really
want him there, so he said the Christian God, the Virgin, and
a bunch of saints were coming, too. The Devil didn't care.
Then the fanner told him he'd invited Perkunas, and the
Devil stayed away—he remembered how the Thunderer
had beaten the tar out of him the last time they met. If he
can do that, you think he can't handle something like the
One Called Night?"

Madame Ruth and Cholmondeley looked at each other.
I'm no psychic, but I could read their minds anyhow: Perku-
nas had to be one tough, smart Power to have survived so
long in the predominantly Christian thecosystem of Europe.
I wouldn't have wanted to run him up against Huitzilopochtii
or Huehueteoti, but the One Called Night wasn't a Power on
their order of magnitude himself.

The other variable in the equation was that Perkunas
hadn't gone down to hell to beat the tar out of the Devil.
Could he do it in the Nine Beyonds, even with the advantage
I'd outlined to the virtuous reality practitioners?

I had no idea. I did know I wasn't going to bring it up if
the medium and the channeler didn't. I was willing to take
any chance at all to go after Judy again; I wanted to persuade
them to try again, too, because I couldn't reach the Nine
Beyonds without 'em.

"Gentlemen, do please excuse us," Nigel Cholmondeley
said. "We shall have to consult with each other on the proper
course of action to take."

They went over into the next office, which was Cholmon-
deleys. Last time they'd done that, I hadn't heard a thing.
Now, Madame Ruth's screeches came right through the wall.
A moment later, so did Cholmondeley's shouts. I was glad
they'd identified what they were doing as a consultation. If
they hadn't, I'd have called it a brawl.

But everything was sweetness and light when they came
back into Madame Ruth's office. Madame Ruth glared at
me, scowled at Sudalds, glared at me again. Then she said,
"Let's go."

I gaped. "Just like that?"

'Just like that," she said. "We've got nothing calendared




356                Harry Turtledove

till late this afternoon, and either we'll be able to bring this
off by then or eke we'll end up stuck in the Nine Beyonds
and we won't gotta worry about it. So come on."

On we came. Tony and I flew to the West Hills Temple of
Healing each on his own carpet. That sort of thing adds to
Angels City's traffic nightmares, but it was more convenient
for both of us because we'd be going home in opposite direc-
tions. Besides, I didn't want to endanger anybody but me if I

fell asleep at the fringe.

We got into the West Hills parking lot within a couple of

minutes of each other, then stood around waiting for Chol-
mondeley and Madame Ruth. I figured they'd be a little
while; they had to pack up their gear before they flew over.
Tony smoked a cigarillo while we waited. He'd just ground it
out under his heel when their carpet settled itself a couple of

spaces over from mine.

"We can go straight up," Cholmondeley said as he hauled

the case toward the doorway. "I called ahead to make sure
Mistress Adier isn't undergoing any other spiritual therapy at
the moment." He -was more efficient than I'd given him

credit for.

"Good," I said, from the bottom of my heart, for it also

meant they hadn't had to transfer Judy to the IPU or any-
thing like that. They were supposed to call and let you know
when they did that, but I'd been away from home all mom-
ing. She hadn't got worse, then. Where she was struck me as

bad enough.

We went up to the fifth floor together. Waiting for us in

Judy's room, along with the constable, was Hr. Murad. He
and Madame Ruth exchanged unfriendly looks. I felt like
reminding them they were on the same side, but they
remembered by themselves. Murad arranged the chairs for
the virtuous reality circle before anyone asked him to, and
he remembered that circle would have an extra member

today.

This time I shifted Judy to the foot of the bed. However

much I'd hoped it would, it didn't feel as if I were touching
the woman I loved. Her flesh might have been there on the
bed, but her essence wasn't.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      357

Nigel Cholmondeley slid the virtuous reality helmet onto
her head; As before, he and Madame Ruth took the seats to
either side of her. I sat on the other side of Madame Ruth,
with Tony between me and Cholmondeley.

From his case, Cholmondeley passed us virtuous reality
helmets. The room went black as I slipped mine on. Again as
before, a few seconds' undignified fumbling followed, with
aB of us trying to find our neighbors' hands.

And then we were back in the Nine Beyonds: blacker
than black, hot, wet, fetid. Somehow I got the idea the One
Called Night knew we were there faster than he had before.
I couldn't see anything, but the space around me already felt
tight and strained, as if my spirit was trying to fit into a pair
of pants a couple of inches too small for it.

"Boy, this may be the Other Side, but it's sure not the
high-rent district," Tony Sudalds said. When he spoke, he
became visible to me in the midst of the darkness. When I
met him, I thought he looked like somebody who'd been a
good football player till the competition got too big for him
to handle. Well, his virtuous reality image was about seven
feet tell and maybe four feet wide through the shoulders: big
enough to make a good football team, not just a player.
Other than size, though, it looked like Tony.

This is what I warned you about," I said, mostly to make
myself known to him. Madame Ruth and Nigel Cholmon-
deley spoke up, too, and appeared in my second sight as they
did so. No trace of Judy. I hadn't expected one, but you
never give up hope.

Cholmondeley turned to Tony Sudalds. "If this is to work,
it had best work soon: the advantage of surprise, don't you
know?" he said. 'The longer the One Called Night has to
gather his resources against us, the worse our likely plight."

"Okay." Tony's virtuous voice was nearly an octave deeper
than the one he really had. He reached inside the shirt that
had grown with his torso, pulled out the little amber amulet
I'd seen him use the first time I walked into his office.

Here, though, it didn't seem like just amber. It shone like
a tiny piece of the sun, and shed real light through the gloom
of the Nine Beyonds. Looking at trees and mud and stagnant




358                 Harry Turtledove

water wasn't much, but it beat looking at hostile, smothering

black nine ways from Sunday.

In that rumbling, thunderous voice. Tony Sudalds called,
"Perkunas, Thunderer, hear your loyal subject Do for us,
trapped here in the Nine Beyonds, as you did for the Morn-
ing Star at her wedding: give us, I pray you, the Nine Suns in

the sky!"

He'd sworn by Perkunas and the Nine Suns a couple of

times, enough to make me think his god might have some
power in the Nine Beyonds that the One Called Night
wouldn't expect. If ever a Power seemed ideally suited to in-
fluence another's home environment, this was the time.

I waited for what felt like forever, though I knew time
was, to say the least, arbitrary in the realm of virtuous reality.
Then that glowing bit of what had been amber flew off the
chain around Tony's neck and streaked for the black sky.
Surely you've wished on a falling star. There in the Nine
Beyonds, I wished on a rising one.

Up and up the shining spark flew. No matter how high it
rose, it didn't get any dimmer. Its progress halted directly
over what would have been my head if I could have sensed

myself in virtuous reality.

Another pause, and then a great explosion of light,
enough and more to dazzle the eyes I didn't have here. The
sky stayed black, but suddenly nine suns blazed there, in the

most beautiful ring I'd ever seen.

"By Jove," Nigel Cholmondeley murmured.

"No," Tony said smugly. "By Perkunas."

Light spread over the Nine Beyonds for the first time
since the One Called Night shaped his realm from the raw
stuff of the Other Side. I could see what was around me and,
in a different way, I could perceive the whole domain at

once.

I could be wrong, but I thought each of the Nine Suns

illuminated a different Beyond. I sensed all Nine Beyonds.
All I'll say about them is that, even illuminated, each was less
attractive than the next. If the One Called Night had
designed this place for his personal comfort, well, if you ask
me, he should have hired a decorator.

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      359

And there, off in the distance and yet at the same time
close enough to reach out and touch, I saw something that
didn't belong in this dark jungle. "Judy!" I cried. The One
Called Night might have tried to hide her, but he couldn't,
not with Perkunas' Nine Suns blazing down from the black
sky.

No sooner had I called her name than she stood there
beside me. As I've said, virtuous reality images have a way of
improving on mundane reality. Not, you understand, that I
ever thought Judy needed improving on, but seeing her
there made me understand all at once how Beatrice must
have looked to Dante.

Dante hadn't needed virtuous reality to see that way, but
Dante was an artist and a genius. Me, I'm just an EPA man.
However it had come to me, I knew I'd cherish Judy's
virtuous image the rest of my days.

You know what else? By her expression, I didn't look half
bad to her, either.

She said, 'Thank you, David. I was beginning to be afraid
I'd never get out of this dreadful place. I never lost hope, but
I was worried. When the One Called Night hid me from you
the last time you came here, whenever that was, I wondered
if anyone could sense me. But you found a way."

"I never lost hope, either," I said. "I—" The light that
fiBed the Nine Beyonds got dimmer. I looked up into the
sky. The Nine Suns were still there, but they seemed to fade
more with every apparent second I watched.

"We have to escape at once," Madame Ruth said urgently.
"This is the domain of the One Called Night. Perkunas and
the Nine Suns may have taken him by surprise, but Perkunas
is not the ruling Power here." •

"My colleague is correct," Nigel Cholmondeley said. "We
must break the virtuous reality circle. Remember your
fleshly forms; will them to separate one from the other, to
loose the hands you are now holding. Quickly!"

I concentrated on the body I'd left behind at the West
Hills Temple of Healing. Remembering I had hands, let
alone moving them, took more effort than I thought I had in
me. And all the while, the Nine Beyonds got darker and




360                Harry Turtledove

darker and darker. I felt the power of the One CaBed Night

closing in around us.

And then I was back in room 547 again. I was still holding

hands with Tony Sudakis and Madame Ruth, so I hadn't
been the one to let go. That was the first thing I noticed as I
did turn loose of my companions and snatch the virtuous
reality helmet off my head. Only then, as I blinked against
light that seemed much too bright, did I realize the One
CaBed Night hadn't tried to chase us as we left his domain

this time.

You have to understand—all that passed through my

mind in a fraction of a second, and a small fraction to boot-
Then I stopped caring about it, because Judy had taken off
her helmet, too. She was sitting up in her bed, looking over
her shoulder at me, and smiling bright as all Nine Suns put

together.

I smiled back. So did Tony, Nigel Cholmondeley, Hr.

Murad, and the constable who'd been keeping watch on her.
she wasn't wearing her own clothes, just a pure white
healing gown of virgin linen, and all it had in back was a
couple of ties that didn't do much to hold it together.

When Judy figured that out, she squeaked and wiggled
around so the part of the gown that actually covered her was
frontways to us. Then she said to me, "David, I think you'd
better introduce me to these people. You got to me through

virtuous reality, didn't you?"

"That's right," I said, and did as she'd asked. After the hel-
los and thank-yous, I went on, "You told me you wanted to
get involved in the new technology. I don't suppose you
wanted to see it from the inside out, though."

"No." She shook her head so her hair flew every which
way, a Judy gesture I'd seen since the day I met her. It made
any tiny doubts I'd had disappear: she was back on This Side,
fully and completely. "It was still interesting," she added. Td
recognize all of you from the way I saw you in the Nine
Beyonds, but you, David, you looked just the same to me."

Cholmondeley and Madame Ruth gave me an odd look I
didn't understand for a second, and then I did: you need to
be a person of unusual virtue—Brother Vahan, say—to keep

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      361

your normal appearance in virtuous reality. My ears got hot.
"Must be love," I muttered.

"Very likely," Nigel Cholmondeley said. "After all, were it
not for the love you bear for Mistress Adier, she would still
be trapped on the Other Side."

That only made my ears hotter. Back in the Nine
Beyonds, I'd idealized Judy into an image I'd cherish all my
life, while she'd seen me just as I am. Which was the greater
compliment? I couldn't begin to tell you.

The constable pulled out a sheet of parchment and a pen.
Where the rest of us were exalted, he stayed businesslike.
"Can you describe the motivations of the alleged perpetra-
tors who caused your spirit to be projected into the realm on
the Other Side termed the Nine Beyonds, Mistress Adier?"
he asked formally.

"You mean, why they sent me there?" Judy said—sure
enough, a copy editor to the core. She shook her head again.
"They didn't tell me much, which was probably sensible
from their point of view. I think they just didn't want to have
to worry about my escaping for a while. They had some sort
of big plans afoot, though; I know that much. They kept say-
ing they'd deal with me properly once this other thing,
whatever it was, happened."

That reminded me she didn't know what had gone on at
the Devonshire dump or Chocolate Weasel. It also explained
why she hadn't been at the Chocolate Weasel building, but I
didn't want to think about what those people had intended to
do to her once they got the power they'd sought

As fast as I could, I filled her in on what had been hap-
pening on This Side while she was Elsewhere. She nodded
soberly, saying, "That fits in well with what we were talking
about before they kidnapped me. I'm just glad we managed
to foil it."

"Not "we,' Mistress Adier," Tony Sudalds said. "Him." He
pointed right at me. "If he hadn't thought to summon the
Garuda Bird, we'd all have been in the soup."

"Somebody had to do something," I said. Seeing the
admiring look Judy was giving me, I added, "What I think I'll
do is hire Tony to do my advertising for me. The other thing




Harry Turtledove

362

<->\/A4

you have to remember is that if it hadn't been for his Perku-
nas and the Nine Suns, we couldn't have rescued you."

"Yeah, but you were the one who thought of that, too, and
made Madame Ruth and Cholmondeley here go along with
it even when they weren't what you'd call enthusiastic," Tony

said. The virtuous reality duo nodded vigorously.

"Well, if you insist on giving me the credit, you know
what?" I said. Tm gonna take it." Everybody laughed and

clapped hands.

Judy said, "Do I have any clothes here besides this peep-
show of a gown? Now that I'm living in my body again, all I
want to do is check myself out of here ... where exactly am

I, anyhow?"

'This is the West Hills Temple of Healing, Mistress

Adier," Hr. Murad said. He opened the closet, pointed to a
tunic and trousers. These are the garments in which you
were discovered. They have been laundered subsequent to
their detailed examination by the constabulary."

I dare say they'd needed laundering, too; I wondered how
long Judy's body had worn them and soiled them while her
spirit was trapped in the Nine Beyonds. She must have been
thinking the same thing, for she said, "They'll do to get me

out. Then I think I'll bum them."

"As you wish. Mistress Adier," Hr. Murad said. "One

formality yet remains before you can be released." Judy gave
him a classic make-it-snappy look. It took effect. Hastily, he
went on, "I must certify you as sound before sending you

down to the business office."

"Go ahead, then," Judy said, visibly composing herself. As

one who worked with magic, she knew the importance of

adhering strictly to rules and procedures.

To give Hr. Murad his due, he made the examination the
formality he'd told Judy it would be. He took her pulse and
blood pressure, then said, "Please recite the creed of your

faith."

"Sh'ma yisroayl, adonai dohaynu, adonca ekhod" Judy

said, and then for good measure repeated it in English:

"Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."

Hr. Murad made cryptic notes on her chart. When he was

363

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP

through scribbling, he said, "I have the pleasure of
pronouncing you physically and spiritually sound."

Then please leave, all of you, and let me get dressed,"
she said, adding, "David, when I'm done with their business
people, will you take me home?"

"Sure," I said. "We'll have to let the Long Beach and
Angels City constables know you're well; they'll both want to
talk with you. But," I went on—quickly, to keep her from
throwing the bud vase on the night table at me, "we don't
have to do it right now"

"I'll take care of that," the A.C. constable on guard duty
said. He grinned. Til give you a fade while, though."

Thanks," Judy said. We all trooped outside. Hr. Murad
went off to see another patient Nigel Cholmondeley and
Madame Ruth headed for the slide. So did die constable.
I turned to Tony Sudakis. Thanks more than I can say."
"No problem." He brushed it aside. Tm just glad every-
thing worked out Listen, I gotta get back to work. I hope I
see you around—long as you're not investigating my dump."

They'll send somebody else out there from now on," I
told him. Tve got a conflict of interest"

He grinned, slapped me on the back, and took off. I
waited in the corridor. Right across from me was a sign with
big red letters: INTENSIVE PRAYER UNIT. ALL VISITORS
MUST BE BLESSED BEFORE ENTERING. I just looked at it,
gladder than I can say that Judy hadn't had to pass through

those portals.

She came out of her room. I had to show her where the
business office was down on the ground floor; she knew
nothing of how she'd come here but what I'd told her. The
business people were inclined to be huffy with her until she
said the magic words: Blue Scutum. Then suddenly
everything was easy, though she did have to spend a while

filling out the BS forms.

At last we went out to the parking lot and buckled our-
selves onto my carpet Before we took off, I leaned over and
gave her a kiss. She grabbed me. We hugged for a while.
Before I puddled up, I started flying her home. I took every-
thing slow and easy, keeping in mind how tired I was.




364                Harry Turtledove

It was the middle of the day, so traffic was easy. Practically
everybody at her block of flats had gone to work. We had to
use my entry talisman; she didn't have hers.

"Oh, God, it's good to be here," she said when we went in.
The curtains were open; she shut them. Then she went into
the kitchen and opened the icebox. I heard her duck in
distress: "Have to throw most of this stuff out. But oh,
good—there's still some beer in here."

"Beer?" I echoed.

She clucked again, this time at my foolishness. "For the
cup of roots," she explained, as if I weren't very bright (and
at the moment, I wasn't). She came back into die front room,
where I was standing like a lost soul. She did her best to
remedy that; this loss she gave me ... well, if my eyelids
were window shades, they'd have been flapping on their
spindles from being yanked up too hard.

"Here's what I'm going to do," she said, ticking off points
on her fingers, neat and organized as usual: Tm going to
drink the cup of roots. I'm going to get out of these clothes,
never ever put them on again, and take a shower to help me
forget I was wearing them. Then I'm going to put on some-
thing I hope you'll think is more interesting and try and
thank you property for getting me back from the Nine
Beyonds. How does all that sound?"

"Wonderful," I said hoarsely.

"Good. It sounds wonderful to me, too." She gulped
down the cup of roots, then took off her clothes right
there in the middle of the living room. When I tried to
grab her, she skipped back away from me. "Go sit down,"
she said. "I do want to get clean. I won't be long, I prom-
ise. All right?"

"All right," I said, and went over and sat down to prove it
She nodded in approval and headed off toward the bath-
room. The water in there started to run.

I fell asleep on the couch.

Judy eventually forgave me, though she hasn't let me for-
get about it. All I ever wanted, from the minute I landed in
the Devonshire dump case, was to get tilings back to normal




CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      365

again. Brushing the edge of Armageddon is for saints and
heroes, not a working stiff like me.

I have to say I'm making progress. Judy and I set our date,
and I solemnly promised to stay awake for the wedding and
the night after, too. "You'd better, or I'll have it with some-
body else," she told me. But we were both joking and we
both knew it, so that was all right.

I still haven't caught up on all my work. I'm gaining, but
I've spent so much time in court lately that I haven't been at
my desk as much as I'd need to dig out from under the back-
log. But helping give the people who kidnapped Judy and
almost wrecked Angels City (plus God knows how much of
the rest of the Confederation) just what they deserve has its
own satisfaction.

And, for that matter, I won't be out of court even after
those trials are done. One thing I did manage to accomplish
was the report on the environmental impact of introducing
leprechauns into Angels City. I didn't see any problems with
it, especially after the Chumash Powers became irrelevant to
the prognostication. After Bea read the report, she said nice
things about me in Monday staff meeting (or so I'm told; I
wasn't there at the time—somehow I bear up under the dis-
appointment).

But Save Our Basin decided to contest my findings, so
that case should drag on more or less into eternity. My guess
is that any possible damage the Wee Folk might cause would
cost less to fix than all the litigation about them, but I'm just
a dumb inspector; they don't pay me to make policy.

And I've been working on one other thing. Not long after
all the commotion I've been talking about here, I happened
to notice a tiny item in the Times to the effect that one Char-
les Kelly, an assistant administrator with the Environmental
Perfection Agency back in D.SfcC., had resigned and been
replaced by a chap named Gupta Singh.

Did Charlie jump or was he pushed? I didn't know then
and I don't know now. I looked at the little story and thought
about how much trouble had come about—and how much
more could have come about—from the way he'd handled
the Devonshire dump case. Not only had he given it to me




366                 Harry Turtledove

informally, he'd been coy about feeding me information I
needed like anything, and then he'd fled like an exorcised
demon when I counted on him most

People had died in part because Charlie didn't handle
his job the way he was supposed to. Even more to the
point as far as I was concerned, I'd almost lost the most
important person in my life. I know that on a cosmic scale
my priorities there are skewed, but I don't weigh myself

on a cosmic scale.

And what had happened to Charlie because he'd screwed
up and chickened out? He'd left his job, and he might not
even have been forced out of it. That was all. It didn't seem

enough, somehow.

I know what you're thinking: you're thinking I took out a
compact on him. Sony, no—bloody vengeance isn't my style.
Besides, I don't know any mages who know that kind of
demon, and I didn't care to go looking for one. Charlie
wasn't worth jeopardizing my soul for, either. But still—

I left it in the back of my mind, the place where things
stew while you take care of more immediate concerns.
Finally, just before I got called to the witness box one day, I

had an idea I liked.

Unfortunately, doing something about it didn't prove as
easy as I'd hoped. The first time I called back to D.StC., I
couldn't get the information I needed. Frustrated but not, I
resolved, beaten, I put the idea back into the stewpot and let
it simmer while I went on with the rest of my life.

A couple of days later, while I was gulping down a burger
at the courthouse cafeteria (better than the one at the Con-
federal Building, but not much), I knew where I could get
my answer. Once you've made connections, you're a fool if

you don't use them.

So I called Central Intelligence, identified myself, and
asked to speak to the fellow who'd let me know Henry
Legion had shuffled off this mortafcoil. I didn't have a name
with which to identify him, but I hoped CI would be able to
get around that. Sure enough, inside a minute he was saying,
"Good day, Mr. Fisher. I'm glad everything worked out well
for you and your lady."

CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP      367

Well, I shouldn't have been surprised that Central
Intelligence knew about such things. Thanks," I managed.

"What can I do for you today?" he asked.

I told him what I wanted and why I wanted it Til only
use it the once," I promised. "If you like, I'll take a formal
oath on that."

"No need, Mr. Fisher," he said. The phone imp in my ear
reproduced a curious scratchy noise I identified as a chuclde.
"Just between you, me, and the wall, I'd say you've earned
the right to use it any way you like. Don't stay on the ether
now; I'll call you back in a couple of minutes with what you
need."

I hung up. Pretty soon, just as promised, the phone
yarped. I answered it, wrote down what the chap from Cen-
tral Intelligence gave me, thanked him again, and hung up.

Then all I had to do was wait Since I was doing this for
my convenience, not Charlie's, I waited till Saturday night
my Sabbath was over, so I could use die phone without the
slightest sin, and I didn't have to get up early and go to work
the next morning. That counted, too, for what I had in mind.

I was yawning when I picked up the phone at my flat, but
I didn't care. I called the number I'd gotten from Central
Intelligence: Charlie Kell/s home phone. I listened to the
racket it made.

"Hello?" Even with phone imps between us, Charlie
sounded drowned in sleep.

"Hello, Charlie," I answered brightly. "This is Dave
Fisher, out in Angels City. How are you this morning?"

"Jesus," he said, his voice a littie clearer. "Do you have any
idea what time it is?"

Since I'd asked my alarm clock, I knew down to the min-
ute. "Your time, it's 5:07," I said: "Just the same time when
you called me here to get me into the Devonshire toxic spell
dump case. It turned out all right, no thanks to you."

He started to splutter. I hung up.

You know what? Phones aren't so bad after all.