He shoved his way in through the front door, heard the clang of the cowbell hanging overhead, and walked in on a gadget-freak’s vision of paradise. The shop interior was like a repeat of the exterior, only more crowded. In one corner was a gadget that looked like a diving suit’s arms and legs sticking out of a water heater. A model aircraft with articulated pterodactyl-like wings hung from the ceiling. A grandfather clock with moving figurines instead of a pendulum behind the glass belled six, hours off from the correct time.
Brian Banwite stood behind the massive black-and-gold cash register at the main counter. “Help you, son?”
“You can take my money.” Harris set a lib in front of him.
“Always glad to oblige. But you have to take something for it.”
“I did that already.” Harris lifted his hat. “Remember, about a week back, I stole a ride in the back of your truck—lorry?”
“That was you!” Banwite scooped up the coin and pocketed it. “Done, then. I knew you were good for it. You seem to have done well for yourself.” He shot Harris a suspicious look. “You haven’t fallen in with bad eamons, have you? No gangs, no glitter-bright?”
“A sort of gang, yes. The Sidhe Foundation.”
Banwite sighed, relieved.
“You have a neat shop. Do you make all this, or just sell it?”
“Half and half. If it’s electrical or mechanical, I can make it for you. Ask Doc.”
“I’ll do that.” For politeness’ sake, Harris took a walk around the shop, marveling at dioramas of moving figures, flashlights that were so small by fair world standards they looked almost normal to him, folding knives with extra tools like half-hearted Swiss Army knives. Then he tipped his hat to Banwite on the way out and went looking for the tailor’s.
It was two blocks further on, much less conspicuous than Banwite’s. The owner, Brannach, was a comfortably overweight pale man with bright eyes and big, blindingly bright teeth. He’d never heard of denim, but showed Harris his selection of materials.
One of them, demasalle— “That’s more properly serge de Masallia, of course”—was the right stuff, but was available only in red and green.
“Can you dye it blue, like that?” Harris pointed to the one blue garment in the shop.
“With ease.” The tailor looked uncomfortable with Harris’ color choice, but said nothing about it.
So, half an hour later, poorer by about a third of his coins, Harris left. Three sets of jeans for Gaby, three for himself, ready within a few days; he’d have to pay the other half then.
It was just two errands, but he’d pulled them off without any of Doc’s associates leading him around by the hand, without screwing up three ways from Sunday. He smiled at the skyscrapers of Neckerdam and turned back toward the Monarch Building.
Gaby accepted Alastair’s proffered hand and stepped up out of the car. She looked dubiously at the mound of a building. “And these guys are supposed to be able to figure me out.”
Doc joined them on the sidewalk. “If anyone can.”
The building was a mountain of brick. This was no accident of design, no passing similarity. The structure was ten stories tall and took up an entire block. It rose in gradual, irregular curves, slopes, and cliff faces. Bushes grew from outcroppings—and from planters set outside the many lit windows. The shutters across the closed windows blended in with the surrounding brick in color and texture.
At street level, the doorway into the building was flanked by bearded men sitting against the brick front. One was gray haired, the other brown haired and much younger. Both wore stained garments in dull brown and green. Their eyes were focused on some distant point invisible to Gaby; they did not react to her or to the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk.
The three of them entered the building’s dark, low-ceilinged lobby. “What’s their problem?” Gaby asked.
“Glitter-bright,” Doc said. “Highly addictive, very destructive. It’s illegal in most kingdoms, but sold everywhere. That’s where crime makes a lot of its coin.”
Several old men and women sat on the lobby’s sofas, many of them reading newspapers, some playing chess. A set of wooden doors in the far wall vibrated with the music playing beyond. It was much like the music Gaby had heard several times in the fair world, but she had the impression that it was wilder, more powerful.
Doc’s hand closed around her arm, bringing her up short. She looked around in surprise. She was halfway across the lobby, halfway to that set of doors, and couldn’t remember getting that far.
“We don’t want to go in there,” Doc said.
Wrong, he was wrong. She could feel something pulling at her from beyond the doors, something very demanding and exciting. “Yes, I do. Why shouldn’t I? What’s in there?”
“A dance. A dance from the Old Country. Very potent.” He drew her toward another doorway; she could see stairs through it.
She hung back, trying to pull free. “What’s wrong with just taking a look?”
He smiled thinly. “Nobody just looks, Gaby. You join in. And if we were to join in . . . well, I would have a very good time. Alastair would probably die. And you would become pregnant.”
“Oh, not likely. Even if I were interested, which I’m not, I’m on the pill. It’s the wrong time of the month anyway.”
He shook his head. “None of that matters.”
“I’ll just take a peek.” She tried to pull away, but his grip was like metal. Protesting, she found herself pulled into the narrow stairwell and up dimly lit wooden stairs.
After a couple of flights, she realized that her breathing was slowing. It startled her; she must have been practically panting before. And the appeal of the dance going on beyond those closed doors was suddenly lost on her.
She gulped. “Doc, I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me—”
“I do. Don’t concern yourself. It’s the usual reaction. One good reason why people with a lot of grimworld blood shouldn’t come into neighborhoods where the old customs are kept.”
“On the other hand,” Alastair said, “when I’m old and I’ve decided to die, this is the place and that’s the way I’ll do it.”
After eight flights, Gaby swore to herself that she was going to start running again. And that she’d never again wear the damned heeled pumps Noriko had found for her. Her toes felt as though mechanics had been at them with pliers and her back was already giving her trouble.
In the narrow hallway up nine, Doc knocked on an unmarked door. It opened to reveal a woman who couldn’t have been more than three and a half feet tall. She was middle-aged and heavily built, with a round, florid, happy face. She wore a bright red shawl and a dark green dress. Gaby decided that she looked like a large rose sprouting from an unusually hefty stem.
She beamed up at them. “Doc.”
“Hedda.” Doc stooped to kiss her. “I bring you Gabriela Donohue and Doctor Alastair Kornbock.”
“Gods’ graces on you.” She stepped back to allow them entry. “You are the young lady with the troublesome Gift?”
“I’m afraid so.” Gaby decided the woman sounded German.
“We will unwrap it for you.”
The flat beyond was dim, its inadequate electric lamps illuminating age-darkened walls, but clean. Chairs, tables and sofas were drawn away from the center of the room, and a rug was rolled up against one wall. A dented platter painted with apples sat in the floor’s center, loaded down with little pots and jars.