"We'll have plenty of muscle with us," he said.
"You ain't got no one yet," she pointed out. "I won't let you go without me. Maybe I might have to pull the trigger for you again." She smiled happily. It was her trump card and she intended to get maximum use out of it.
"And don't forget," she went on, grinning hugely, "I got two men in my life to take care of. There's you, and there's my husband." Serrin couldn't help but laugh; she'd won the argument.
"All right. But, promise me you'll stay way back. You cover whoever's going in, but you stay out."
"Promise," she said with a taunting grin, one that said, well, she'd do her best, but amp;
The troll lay on his bed, huge feet hanging over the end of it, looking quietly through the window at the early New York sun. With hands cupped over his belly, he dug the fingers of his left hand into the smartgun link he could feel below the skin of the other.
Damn it, if I hadn't ruined my body with metal, he thought, I'd be a much better shaman. But it's too late to go back and undo it all now.
Reflections seemed to rise up in his mind unbidden. What's going to happen to me? I'm twenty-five years old. I got chosen by Bear. Everybody knows that doesn't usually happen to street people. The street shamans I know, most of 'em go with Rat, a few with Dog the better sorts and I've run into a few Cat folk. But Bear doesn't often show up in the city. Yet I don't feel out of place there amp; here. Strange amp;
His mind flashed back to New Hlobane. Without the slightest chance of finding Serrin, he'd done so. And he'd accomplished it by trying to do absolutely nothing, just being empty and still. He couldn't make sense of that. Tom had spent his whole life trying to do things: running the shadows, killing, stealing, drinking in the bad old days, working in downtown Seattle in the better ones. Anything he'd got from life, anything that had any meaning for him, he'd gone out and actively sought to get, or at least tried to.
But he felt there was something real bad at the end of all this. Sure, he listened to the Englishman's arguments and facts and took it all in. But Tom didn't feel facts. He could only feel what he could tangle with.
I ain't tangled with this nosferatu thing, but I can feel its badness from thousands of miles away, he thought. Tom couldn't image what he would do when they got there. Just have to wait and see, he supposed.
His daydreaming was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Troll Roll is here. You need a workover?"
The red-haired elf trembled as he waited at the airport. He'd survived by a miracle, though he couldn't be sure whether there really was such a thing.
If she finds out amp; Maybe he believed me. Maybe he's seen the light, he's a brother, he can't betray us, he just can't. That would be blasphemy.
If I go back to Jenna, she'll have me killed. Worse. She'll rip my mind apart to find out what really took place and then amp; his mind flashed to the nightmare portrait of Jenna back in Tir Tairngire. Her beautiful face, but on her body the thorns and the endless blood. She could do that to me.
I've got to get to Luther, he realized. I have to warn him direct. Phoning is no use. Not from here.
Magellan raced to the ticket counter to change his destination.
25
Michael was delighted to find that, by chance, George from immigration was lurking around the departure checkpoint at JFK.
"You again, huh," the man growled. "You really seem to get around."
"Honeymoon, chummer," Michael beamed happily.
"Sure. With those two coming along as bridesmaids, I suppose," he sniffed, looking Serrin and Tom over.
Michael laughed at the man's feeble joke. The good humor got them through with little more than a cursory check.
"Let's hope he's still here when we get back," Michael said. "I don't want to go through all that drek again."
"We could always go to Cape Town afterward and get Kristen a real ID," Serrin said.
Michael whirled round, a beatific smile on his face, and threw his arms around the elf, hugging him tight. Serrin winced. His body still felt like it had been hammered with a meat tenderizer after the troll masseuse had done her work.
"I love you, you're a genius," the Englishman babbled.
Serrin looked at him, uncomprehendingly.
"From Cape Town, we can hit Bop. Sun City. It's a stinking drekhole, but there's something there I'd totally forgotten about until this moment."
"Which is what?" Serrin asked, trying to figure out what this crazy Englishman was bleating on about.
"Quickie divorces. Valid for any marriages within the Confederated Azanian Nations. I read about it somewhere," Michael said delightedly. "If both parties are present and in agreement, just pay the fee, and prestochange, no more mister and missus. Automatic." He raced off into one of the shops, returning in minutes with an indecently large bouquet of roses. They looked as if they might be real, but silk wasn't a bad substitute. He half-forced them on to Kristen and got down on one knee before her.
"Darling, will you do me the honor of divorcing me?"
The girl almost fell backward laughing, but Serrin thought her beautiful wide smile had never been so lovely.
"Well, I don't know, Michael. That's a big decision for a girl. But, yes," she laughed, "I do."
Michael smiled as he got to his feet, dusting off his hands to show a job well done. "Now, let's go and blow that bloodsucker into the next universe."
As they made their way to the departure gates, the troll turned to Serrin.
"You got some crazy friends, chummer," he said happily.
"Yeah, he is kind of strange."
"And she's beautiful," the troll said quietly.
Serrin felt his heart skip a beat. It hurt to think that they were about to plunge into something that was as powerful as it was infernal. They didn't know if they'd still be alive tomorrow and yet he was dragging Kristen straight in it. For one moment, he wanted desperately to turn around, to walk away, to say this isn't our struggle, let someone else do it. But he knew he couldn't. There wasn't anyone else.
Niall bought a wristwatch in Paris. He looked at the gold Fuchis and the rest of the gleaming trays filled with absurdly overpriced ostentation for people who wanted to advertise their wealth, then settled on an economical Korean model. He hardly needed it to know what the time of day was, however. He always knew that from the sun and moon, from the feeling inside his own body. But, for some reason, maybe superstition, he thought he needed one.
He felt alone. Mathanas was gone from him, away in his astral form, investigating their route, assensing for
any pursuers, drawing on his own energies for what lay ahead. Niall sat in a sidewalk cafe along the Champs Elysee, skewering a garlic-coated snail from its shell and sipping what the French laughably referred to as beer. It tasted like a mix of bad British lager and something extracted from the bladder of a devil rat, but at least it was cold. He set the fake stein down on the table before him and wiped the foam from his lips.
I am truly an idiot, he thought. Who comes to France and orders beer! Serves me right.
The wristwatch told him he still had thirty minutes before the train to Charles de Gaulle airport and the flight to Munich. He ordered a Cointreau chaser and drained the glass in one gulp.
Here's to the next life, he thought philosophically, and then went to find a cab to the airport. He'd abandoned any surveillance of the Americans well before this; it was too late for them now.
They made Berlin by four, feeling better for the naps they'd taken in flight. Serrin, in particular, was happily surprised to find that Michael was right about the massage. Some of his muscles even felt like they might be on the verge of relaxation.