The Last Hot Time (27 page)

Unless the reason was something that Doc didn't know, and wasn't supposed to live long enough to find out.

Kitsune had wanted something from Whisper, wanted it so much that she had ended up selling herself out. What could anybody want quite that badly? What, Doc thought, would he do such a thing for?

So the hero has to go into the fire —

Birdsong on love in one paradox.

Of course. Not a what at all.

Doc checked on his patients: still sleeping quietly. He went around the room snuffing the lamps, until there was only the circle of illumination from his headlamp. He reached into his bag, took out the crossbow bolt he had pulled from W 7 hisper's body.

The metal didn't look transformed, but neither had all those bullets. Did it have to be death that brought the power? Surely not.

He had no solid idea how to proceed. Where he had come from, there wasn't any magic, but people believed in it anyway—any of your neighbors might be bribing the Devil to blast your crops, sicken your stock, dry up your women. Nobody ever said exactly what the formula was for calling up Mister Scratch, but the evidence after the fact usually included blood and sharp objects.

Doc looked in on the sleeping women again. This was no place to experiment. He put the arrow back in his bag, called one of the house staff to watch the patients, and carried the bag down to the firing range next to the basement garage.

He had to assume that Kitsune had followed the right clue. He had to guess that there was something to the rule of fairness in magic, that no pain or sacrifice was ever wholly empty. He had to try, dammit.

What could the Word of Words be, anyway? The Word that commanded all others? That told language to flow, or be silent—or be confused? In darkness . . .

He turned out the light.

There was nothing at first. Then he saw a light from the arrowhead: not the cold blues or elemental reds of the magic he had seen, but a warm, peach-colored glow.

Maybe this was it. He felt dizzy, put his hands on the table. What next? Think. His fingers arched, as if he were probing the

throat for a tracheotomy. No, that couldn't be right. It wasn't a structural blockage.

He didn't have any psych training, beyond holding an accident victim's hand while his partner pulled glass and metal out of the wounds. He had to heal a mind, and a mind was never meat—

In Darkness, the Word of Words.

The glow from the arrowhead warmed his hands, and in a slow flare sweeping through his brain he knew the Word that ruled all others, that commanded all tongues to speak or be mute. But it wasn't enough to know it.

He stumbled upstairs, seeing but not sure what light he was seeing by. He entered the dining room, which was lit by one oil lamp on the sideboard. A butler was there at once, asking what she could do to serve Doc.

"I would like not to be disturbed here," he said, and the woman nodded once and disappeared through the kitchen door.

McCain had taken orders from Doc, too, just outside Whisper's lair, just as if Doc had some sort of authority over him.

Doc put the lamp and his bag on the dining table, pulled up a chair to sit near them, facing the hallway entrance. This was the place, and the hour, he had first met her. Things like that were never insignificant, in the Shade.

He took the crossbow bolt from the bag. His fingers were unsteady, and he held it tight, trying not to cut himself with the bloodstained point. It looked ordinary in the lamplight.

He was horribly tired, and afraid he'd fall asleep just a moment too soon. Then he felt her approach—didn't hear, but knew it. She stepped around the corner.

Once again, the force of the glamour's physical aspect struck him like lightning. Again she smiled, and her eyes widened curiously.

A thought spun in Doc's head, of how much Mr. Patriae must need her, tonight especially. Bad timing. But it was too late to reconsider; he barely understood how he'd gotten this far.

He reached for the lamp. The last thing he saw before the light went out was Fay's face, and the expression there froze his belly. Bad timing —

But the Word was already in his mouth. Whisper Who Dares.

wnce long ago in the land of Iowa, someone—probably Robin— had told Doc that the French phrase for hangover translated literally as "My eyes are not opposite the holes."

How literal, Doc thought. His vision seemed to be rolling in the dark, with occasional flashes of brilliance as the pupils lined up with the sockets. Where the heck was he? He'd been in the dining room ... he must have come back to his apartment. Which meant he needed his key, if he was going to get into the room, fall onto the bed, and . . . that was enough advance planning for now.

Where was the key? Here, key, key, key.. .

There it was, in his palm. No wonder he couldn't find it. Couldn't have been there long, though—it was cold, colder than a something's whatsit. He shoved the key forward, and punched air. Then he felt pressure against his back, all the way down to his heels. He'd fallen down.

This was a swell hangover; he hoped the party had been worth it.

Still clutching the key, he put his left hand to his eyes and fingered the lids open. Blazing whiteness poured into his brain. Then something eclipsed the light.

"Doc? Are you there?"

"Ssssurrrrrre."

The shape got closer. Hair fell across Doc's forehead, familiarly. Lips pressed his cheek.

"Ginny . . ."

"Glad to have you back," she said. It was filtered through the sound of tears, and Doc was suddenly a lot more awake. He levered himself up and fell straight back down. His bedroom started to take shape around the two of them. "Oh, wow."

Memory began to click in. "Fox. Jolie ... I gotta see . .."

"They're doing all right," Ginny said. "The staff's taking care of them. And Stagger. And me."

"An' . . . Fay?"

"Fay's just fine."

"Really?" He waved at his mouth.

"Yes. It worked, Doc. Now relax."

"Who . . . called you?"

"Mr. Patrise. Two days ago."

"How'd'e know— ok"

"You know I'm a good babysitter," she said, but the weeping edged back into her voice.

"C'mere," Doc said, with a gluey tongue. "Hug."

She wrapped her arms around him. It brought a much pleas-anter dizziness.

"Ouch," she said, and pried the key ring out of his fingers. "What are you doing with these?"

"Uh? Oh. I got the Touch now, I guess. I wanted 'em, and they came."

She put the keys on the nightstand, gingerly.

Doc said, "I ought to get up. See some people. What time is it?"

"About four."

"What four?"

She laughed. "In the afternoon. Don't get in a hurry. Stagger Lee says you could have died."

"Now he tells me. I want to see Fay"

Ginny was quiet for a breath. "Fay's not here. She's—staying at my place for a few days, and I'm staying down the hall here."

"Why? I mean . . . why isn't she . . ."

"Things are changing, Doc. Fay wanted to be by herself, just now. And Mr. Patrise said he thinks I should move in here. It doesn't have to be with you, if you don't want that. Do you want that?"

"I don't know . . . you might not want me. All the time, I mean."

"I think I want all the time you've got. Doc. But... I have to ask you something."

He tumbled the possibilities over in his head. "Go ahead."

"Something's not there between us. 1 love what von do with me—I love you, Doc—but it\ like there's something you're dodg-

ing, or afraid of, or—I've been wanting to ask for so long, but I was scared you'd just run away." She leaned over him. "You can't run now," she said. "I've got you prisoner."

He started to laugh. Then his ribs ached, and it finished in a long cough.

"What's wrong, Doc?" she said, alarmed.

"Not wrong. I think. It's . . ."

And he told her.

For at least half a minute she was perfectly still, looking down at him with her mouth open and her eyes wide. "That's it? I mean, that's really it?"

"Yeah."

"But. . . why didn't you just ask me?"

"I didn't want to . . ."

"Do it? That doesn't sound right."

"I thought maybe I could just not... be that way."

She said gently, "Your friend Robin, who can't get away from home, and doesn't even have you to talk to anymore—do you think that means he's not gay now?"

"It doesn't matter what I am, if you run away. You are not. . . a prisoner."

"No," she said, and her smile melted into the Gioconda's. "Unless we both agree that, for a little while, I am."

"There are things I won't do. I've seen ... a lot of stuff. I saw Whisper Who Dares. And whatever I am, I'm not that."

"Do you think I didn't— Whisper? Do you think I could have believed that}"

He felt suddenly very small.

"And I know there are things you won't do," she said. "You won't ever do anything that makes me feel bad about myself, or about you. I trust you on that. Because trust me on this: you won't get the chance to say 'That'll never happen again'."

He nodded slowly.

"We got some kind of a deal, lover?"

"Deal," he said, and pulled her against himself for, oh, who cared how long.

Finally she said, "So do you want to get up and start the day? Your scraggly red beard is, I gotta say, pretty scratchy."

He rubbed his chin. "Yuck." He let her help him stand up. "I'll get cleaned up. And all of a sudden I'm really hungry." "I'm not surprised. What would you like?" "Uh . . . some eggs over very, very easy. And coffee." When Doc got out of the bathroom Ginny was standing beside the service tray. Her face was taut. Without a word, she held out a copy of the Centurion, folded to Lucius's column.

THE CONTRARIAN FLOW

by Lucius Birdsong

It has been a while now that I have been writing this here colyum (as some of you choose to call it) and there is a question that many of you have asked, one way and another, and one way and another I have not ever answered it.

The question is not what you would call a stumper. It is Why do you call that column of yours what you call it? And since this may well be the last time I write it and you read it, things being what they are and all, your correspondent would like to finally let the thing out of whatever the thing is in.

You see, there are all these other questions. The ones you didn't ask.

You never asked why I have not taken you sculling down the old blood stream in a little paper boat, and pointed out the heaps of skulls that shoal its banks, nor the vacant eyes of those who troll it, nor the pale viscid nature of the so-called life it supports.

And you never wanted to know why children come here as if drawn by that cheeky chequy chappie with the woodwind wail; you don't know that story, because in the commercial version the children arc a warrior and a wizard and a bard and a thief and a fledgling dragon, and they not only defeat the entrepreneur but get a bag of gold to boot; you never asked win the onl\ ones to

leave this place can never, age regardless, again be called children.

And corollary to that, no letter has ever arrived from the World beyond inquiring of your correspondent why the only children left out there are the damaged, the crippled, the already too lost to find their way, who are now confronted with the unspeakable possibility that they may be the children of fortune after all.

Indeed you never demanded why I have told you of this and that but never the other thing, of the rainbow but not the pot of gold, the dance but not the steps, the singer but not the song.

In this great city, we are supposed to have made a river run against itself. Now, while the water does indeed counter the tendency of the Continental Divide, no such thing happened, nor has it ever happened. What we did, at great trouble and expense, was adjust the river's circumstances: to lay down a red carpet strewn with rose petals and good intentions, and hope the stream would choose to go our way. We didn't command the river, because one cannot tell water where to go, and if the attempt is made the torrent will take a revenge that is even more awful for being without passion.

Your faithful reporter has tried to coax a trickle in a thirsty land, but he knows better than to strike the rock.

I am leaving you now, for an uncertain while, and hope to get just a peek at the place I shall not be going.

Doc dressed, kissed Ginny, and drove to the club. Pavel took his coat. Stagger Lee was in the lobby as well.

"Sorry I'm so late."

"Almost the late," Stagger said. "Next time—" He shook his head. "Excuse me. I've got to get the show going."

Patrise was at his table with the regulars; everything seemed normal, except that Shaker was on the bar and Ginny was nowhere in sight. Neither was Lucius.

"Glad to see you, Doc," Shaker said, setting a dark beer down in front of him. "I'm sure they'll be glad to have you over at the