When An-Gryferai touched lightly down on the roof, Springer came over and took hold of her arm. ‘Everybody, this is the last member of our team, the Avenging Claw.’
He led her across to the other Night Warriors, and introduced her. Dom Magator said, ‘Very pleased to meet you, little bird-lady. I have to say that I ate a chicken bigger than you once, spit-roasted, at Pluckers Restaurant in Baton Rouge.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment. I’ve been trying to lose weight.’
An-Gryferai was slightly taken aback by Xyrena, with her high golden crown and her billowing golden cloak and her naked-look breastplate. It was more than just her appearance — her shiny golden breasts and her shiny golden genitalia. When she took hold of An-Gryferai’s hands to welcome her, An-Gryferai felt a strange electrifying sensation, as if Xyrena had slyly drawn her fingertips up the inside of her thighs, and intimately touched her.
Springer noticed her quick, involuntary shiver. ‘Xyrena is the Passion Warrior,’ he explained. ‘She has the same effect on everybody, man or woman. It’s her principal weapon.’
‘Same as it is for most women, wouldn’t you say?’ Xyrena put in.
Now Zebenjo’Yyx came forward. His wooden arrow-launchers clattered as he walked. ‘Good to have you here, Avengin’ Claw. Some fancy-dress party, don’t you think? If I hadn’t nearly been killed by this Gordon Veitch guy, I would have thought this was some kind of seriously bad joke.’
‘I still can’t believe any of it,’ said An-Gryferai. ‘I keep thinking that it’s all a dream, but then it is.’
Jekkalon and Jemexxa introduced themselves — Jekkalon in his gleaming black suit and Jemexxa in her dazzling silver suit. They both nodded their helmets and said, ‘Hi, pleased to meet you,’ but An-Gryferai thought that they seemed diffident and edgy and not very happy to be here. She didn’t know that earlier that evening, three-and-a-half thousand disgruntled fans had almost caused a full-scale riot at the State Theater in Cleveland when they realized that the Kaiser Twins were not going to be making their promised appearance.
‘All right,’ said Springer. ‘We don’t know how much longer this gentleman’s dream is going to last, so we have to make this quick. His name is George Roussos and he’s the president of ABR Foods, which is one of the major meat-packers in Chicago. He’s asleep in his apartment on the twenty-seventh floor, along with his wife Margarita.’
‘How do we get in there?’ asked Jekkalon. ‘This has to be a high-security building, right?’
‘You flew here from Cleveland, didn’t you?’ said Springer. ‘You’re insubstantial. You’re a dream, just like the rest of us. You can pass through the walls as easily as you passed through the ceiling of the Griffin House Hotel.’
‘Come on,’ said Dom Magator. ‘Let’s do it, before this meat-packer starts dreaming about something else, like short ribs or navel pastrami pieces.’
Springer arranged the six of them so that they were standing together in a tight circle, almost too close for comfort. ‘OK?’ he said. ‘Now think sink.’
They sank through the floor of the roof garden with the same soft shushing sound that Katie had felt when she had risen through the attic of her house in Nautilus. Then they descended through the master bedroom of the penthouse apartment on the thirtieth floor, which was unoccupied, stuffy and airless, with its blinds drawn; and then through the master bedroom of the apartment below. Here, a middle-aged couple lay dozing in front of a huge flickering TV which took up most of the opposite wall, their eyes closed and their mouths wide open.
‘Murder, She Wrote,’ said Dom Magator. ‘That’s enough to send anybody to the land of Nod.’
But without hesitation, the Night Warriors continued to sink through the thick cream carpet, and the ceiling below, down to the twenty-eighth floor. In this bedroom, the king-sized bed was empty, but the sheets had been dragged halfway on to the floor, and a couple were having a shouting match in the brightly-lit en-suite bathroom.
‘You were making eyes at that whore all evening!’ the woman was screaming. ‘Don’t tell me you weren’t!’
‘That whore as you call her could help us to land a multimillion-dollar contract, you lamebrain!’
But before they could hear any more of their argument, the Night Warriors’ descent continued, down through the patterned carpet to the twenty-eighth floor apartment below. With a faint shush, they alighted as softly and silently as parachutists in George Roussos’ bedroom. Here, they stopped, and looked around.
Xyrena said, ‘Jesus! Whore’s boudoir, or what?’ but Dom Magator held up his finger to indicate that they should stay quiet. All the same, Katie had to agree with her. The bedroom was decorated in a style which she could only have described as Greek Billionaire Bombastic, with a gilded four-poster bed, and purple velvet drapes, and bow-fronted Regency nightstands. On either side of the window stood two life-size statues of Greek muses, Urania the goddess of astronomy and Thalia the goddess of comedy.
Dom Magator beckoned to them, and the Night Warriors gathered around the right-hand side of the bed, where George Roussos was sleeping. He was lying on his back in purple silk pajamas which matched the purple velvet drapes. His comb-over had strayed across the pillow like seaweed, and the bottom two buttons of his pajama jacket were unfastened, revealing a huge furry stomach.
His wife Margarita lay with her back to him, a pink chiffon scarf tied over her head to protect her platinum-blonde pleat.
George Roussos was twitching and muttering in his sleep, and every now and then his left elbow would jerk up, as if he were trying to push somebody away.
‘He’s still having the carnival dream,’ said Springer. ‘Go on, Dom Magator. You know what to do. But let’s do it quick.’
Dom Magator said, ‘OK. Everybody ready for this? Here goes nothing.’
He raised both arms and pointed his fingers upward. There was a few seconds’ pause, and then a sharp crackle. Two narrow streams of sapphire-blue light jumped out of the ends of his fingers and joined together in an apex next to George Roussos’ sleeping body. A strong smell of ozone filled the air, and the two streams of light jerked and twitched like electrocuted snakes.
Slowly and evenly, Dom Magator lowered his arms, using the twin streams of light to describe a shimmering octagonal figure in the air, close to the side of the bed.
‘This is the portal which will take you into this gentleman’s dream,’ said Springer. ‘All you have to do is to step through it, and you will find yourself right inside his mind.’
Zebenjo’Yyx bent down and tried to peer into the center of the octagon, shielding his eyes against its intense sapphire-blue brightness. ‘I can’t see nothing inside of there, only pitchy-black dark.’
‘Our friend here is dreaming about someplace dark, that’s why,’ said Dom Magator. ‘Don’t worry, I have plenty of night-vision goggles and gunsights if we need them. Let’s just hit the bricks, shall we?’
‘We can really step through here?’ asked Zebenjo’Yyx.
‘We really can,’ Dom Magator assured him. ‘And just to prove it to yourself, you can go first.’