Katie said, ‘Seems like he’s nearly succeeded, doesn’t it? You only have to watch daytime TV.’
Springer looked at her steadily and said, ‘Yes. You’re right. That’s where it all comes from. The reality shows, the hideous art, the raucous music, the worship of trashy celebrities. It all comes from Brother Albrecht and his traveling freak show.’
‘But that was — what? — nine hundred years ago. How could the circus have survived all of that time?’
‘That was the mistake of the Pope at the time, Eugene III. He was horrified by the way in which Brother Albrecht was glorifying Satan and mocking great art and music, which, in the High Middle Ages, was almost all religious. But Eugene III was also the first ever Cistercian Pope, and he was gravely concerned that Brother Albrecht’s circus was bringing the Cistercian Order into serious disrepute.
‘Eugene III heard that Brother Albrecht’s circus was settled for the winter in a small town called Kempten-im-Allgaü, in Swabia, and he asked his friend the Duke of Swabia to kill Brother Albrecht and scatter the rest of his freaks and burn down all of their tents.
‘When the duke’s soldiers arrived at the circus encampment, however, they found only nine shivering freaks hiding in a nearby wood. The rest of the circus had vanished. There was no trace of it anywhere. No tents, no wagons, no horses, no caravans, no Brother Albrecht and none of the other VSPs. Not only that, none of the townspeople had seen them leave and there were no tracks in the snow. Only a few hoof prints, and some scattered ashes.’
‘So where had the circus gone?’ asked Katie.
‘The duke’s men tortured three of the VSPs they had found in the wood, and eventually they told him what had happened. The circus had been taken away in the same way that the woman in your hallucination was taken away. Brother Albrecht had been tipped off that the Pope was out to destroy his circus so he had taken a sleeping draft and dreamed about it — all of its tents and all of its trappings, all of its lions and its tigers and its dancing bears and its scores of assorted freaks — except those nine VSPs who hadn’t wanted to go with him. He had dreamed about it so that it disappeared from the real world.’
‘An entire circus? How was that possible?’
‘Because of the strength of Brother Albrecht’s hatred for what the real world had done to him. Because, Katie, the laws of nature are very different in the world of dreams.’
Springer paused, and then he said, ‘There was nothing that Pope Eugene could do but place a holy sanction on the circus, so that Brother Albrecht would never be able to wake up and bring it back to the world of reality. A kind of exile, if you like.
‘As of now, the circus still hasn’t been restored to its full terrible ingloriousness, but somebody is trying to bring it back to life, so that very soon we will all be dreaming about it, every one of us, every night. That hallucination you experienced at the Griffin House Hotel makes me sure of it.’
‘But what can I do about it?’ Katie asked him. ‘You said that you needed me, but how can I possibly help you?’
Springer came across and sat down on the couch next to her. No man had ever looked at her like this before. He seemed to be trying to show her that he was proud of her, but at the same time his expression was one of sympathy, even of pity.
‘Your grandmother, who used to sing that you that bird song, was a Night Warrior.’
‘Awhat?’
‘A Night Warrior. She could rise out of her physical body when she was asleep, and enter other people’s dreams.’
‘Now I know you’re pulling my chain. Come on, you’ve upset me. I think it’s time you left.’
‘But you, too, are a Night Warrior. You can enter other people’s dreams.’
‘Oh, yes? To do what, exactly?’
‘To hunt down Brother Albrecht and his circus, and to destroy it for ever. Also, to hunt down whoever is aiding and abetting him. Why do you think you had that hallucination? Why do you think you went to the Griffin House Hotel at all?’
Katie frowned at him. ‘I went there — I went there because the Renaissance Hotel called me when I was still in Sacramento and told me they had accidentally overbooked. They said I could stay at the Griffin House for the same price. They even arranged for a limo to pick me up at the airport and take me there.’
‘The Renaissance was overbooked?’ asked Springer, in mock surprise. ‘The Renaissance has more than four hundred forty rooms, as well as fifty suites.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Springer said, ‘It was I who called you, Katie, and I who arranged for you to stay at the Griffin House Hotel. Me.’
Katie stared at him in disbelief. ‘You wanted me to have that nightmare? You actually fixed it so that I would stay in that room and see that poor woman?’
‘I’m sorry. I admit it. But how else could I have convinced you that what happens in dreams is just as real as what happens when we’re awake?’
‘You frightened the living crap out of me! I have never been so scared in my entire life! And I called the police! You not only scared me half to death, you made me look like an idiot, too!’
Springer raised his hand. ‘Please, Katie, just hear me out. Do you know why your grandmother used to sing you that bird song?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your grandmother sang you that bird song because her name as a Night Warrior was Gryferai — the Avenging Claw.’
‘What?’
‘As a Night Warrior she could fly like a falcon, so that she could hunt down her enemies from hundreds of feet up, and swoop down on them from high in the air. Let me tell you this: it was your grandmother who found one of the most destructive Dreads ever, the Black Shatterer, who could literally shatter everything that he touched — doors, walls, chairs, animals, even living people. The Black Shatterer could even smash the very air in front of him, which threatened the lives of thousands of people.
‘Gryferai found the Black Shatterer, and caught him in her claws, and she lifted him up to such an altitude that he didn’t dare to shatter her, in case he fell. He begged for his life and Gryferai said that she would consider sparing him if he shattered his evil companion the Screw-Worm. He agreed, but it was then that Gryferai deliberately dropped him over eight thousand feet. He landed on a small rocky island on the west side of Sarasota Bay and the impact caused him to smash into crystalline glass.’
‘My God,’ said Katie. She stared at Springer in astonishment. ‘Grandma actually took me out to see that island, in her little boat. Black Shatter Island, she called it, although she never told me why. We went out there two or three times — always very early in the morning, so that the rising sun used to catch it. It would glitter so bright that it would dazzle you, as if it were sprinkled all over with thousands and thousands of diamonds.’
‘So — do you believe me now?’ asked Springer.
Katie was silent for a long time. Then she said, ‘I don’t know. It all seems so totally far-fetched.’
‘You are Gryferai’s granddaughter. The Night Warrior genes tend to skip a generation, so your mother didn’t have them. But you do. You are An-Gryferai, which means the daughter of Gryferai’s daughter.’
‘And what does that mean? I can fly? I can catch evil villains and drop them into Sarasota Bay?’
‘Yes,’ said Springer. ‘You can.’
‘By the way, why did she drop him? I thought he promised to shatter his evil companion for her. What was his name? The Screw-Worm?’