Power rose, through her, crested over her—and hit the thing. And the thing—stopped. It whimpered, and struggled a little against invisible bonds, but seemed unable to move.
Harrison dropped to the carpet, right on top of a spill of guacamole and ground-in tortilla chips, whimpering a little himself.
I have to get rid of this thing, quick, before it breaks the compulsion— She closed her eyes and trusted to instinct, and shouted the first thing that came into her mind. The Parking Ritual, with one change. . . .
“Great Squat, send him to a spot, and I’ll send you three nuns—”
Mage-energies raged through the room, whirling about her, invisible, intangible to eyes and ears, but she felt them. She was the heart of the whirlwind, she and the other—
There was a pop of displaced air; she opened her eyes to see that the creature was gone—but the mage-energies continued to whirl—faster—
“Je-sus,” said Harrison, “How did you—”
She waved him frantically to silence as the energies sensed his presence and began to circle in on him.
“Great Squat, thanks for the spot!” she yelled desperately, trying to complete the incantation before Harrison could be pulled in. “Your nuns are in the mail!”
The energies swirled up and away, satisfied. Andre groaned, stirred, and began extracting himself from the powdered sheetrock wall. Harrison stumbled over to give him a hand.
Just as someone pounded on the outer door of the suite.
“Police!” came a muffled voice. “Open the door!”
“It’s open!” Di yelled back, unzipping her belt-pouch and pulling out her wallet.
Three people, two uniformed NYPD and one fellow in a suit with an impressive .357 Magnum in his hand, peered cautiously around the doorframe.
“Jee-zus Christ,” one said in awe.
“Who?” the dazed Valentine murmured, hand hanging limply over her forehead. “Wha’ hap . . .”
Andre appeared beside Di, bowler in hand, umbrella spotless and innocent-looking again.
Di fished her Hartford PD Special OPs ID out of her wallet and handed it to the man in the suit. “This lady,” she said angrily, pointing to Valentine, “played a little Halloween joke that got out of hand. Her accomplices went out the back door, then down the fire escape. If you hurry you might be able to catch them.”
The two NYCPD officers looked around at the destruction, and didn’t seem any too inclined to chase after whoever was responsible. Di checked out of the corner of her eye; Harrison’s own .44 had vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.
“Are you certain this woman is responsible?” asked the hard-faced, suited individual with a frown, as he holstered his .357. He wasn’t paying much attention to the plastic handgrip in the holster at Di’s hip, for which she was grateful.
House detective, I bet. With any luck, he’s never seen a Glock.
Di nodded. “These two gentlemen will back me up as witnesses,” she said. “I suspect some of the ladies from the party will be able to do so as well, once you explain that Ms. Vervain was playing a not-very-nice joke on them. Personally, I think she ought to be held accountable for the damages.”
And keep my RWW dues from going through the roof.
“Well, I think so too, miss.” The detective hauled Valentine ungently to her feet. The writer was still confused, and it wasn’t an act this time. “Ma’am,” he said sternly to the dazed redhead, “I think you’d better come with me. I think we have a few questions to ask you.”
Di projected outraged innocence and harmlessness at them as hard as she could. The camouflage trick worked, which after this evening, was more than she expected. The two uniformed officers didn’t even look at her weapon; they just followed the detective out without a single backwards glance.
Harrison cleared his throat, audibly. She turned and raised an eyebrow at him.
“You—I thought you were just a writer—”
“And I thought you were just a writer,” she countered. “So we’re even.”
“But—” He took a good look at her face, and evidently thought better of prying. “What did you do with that—thing? That was the strangest incantation I’ve ever heard!”
She shrugged, and began picking her way through the mess of smashed furniture, spilled drinks, and crushed and ground-in refreshments. “I have no idea. Valentine brought it in with something screwy, I got rid of it the same way. And that critter has no idea how lucky he was.”
“Why?” asked Harrison, as she and Andre reached the door.
“Why?” She turned and smiled sweetly. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a parking place in Manhattan at this time of night?”
Nightside
This is the very first attempted professional appearance of Diana Tregarde, my occult detective. I’ve always enjoyed occult detectives, but there is a major problem with them—what are they supposed to do for a living? Ghosts don’t pay very well! So Di writes romances for a living and saves the world on the side. This story was originally rejected by the anthology I submitted it to; it became the basis for Children of the Night by Another Company, and was then published in this form by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine.
It was early spring, but the wind held no hint of verdancy, not even the promise of it—it was chill and odorless, and there were ghosts of dead leaves skittering before it. A few of them jittered into the pool of weak yellow light cast by the aging streetlamp—a converted gaslight that was a relic of the previous century. It was old and tired, its pea-green paint flaking away; as weary as this neighborhood, which was older still. Across the street loomed an ancient church, its congregation dwindled over the years to a handful of little old women and men who appeared like scrawny blackbirds every Sunday, and then scattered back to the shabby houses that stood to either side of it until Sunday should come again. On the side of the street that the lamp tried (and failed) to illuminate, was the cemetery.
Like the neighborhood, it was very old—in this case, fifty years shy of being classified as “Colonial.” There were few empty gravesites now, and most of those belonged to the same little old ladies and men that had lived and would die here. It was protected from vandals by a thorny hedge as well as a ten-foot wrought-iron fence. Within its confines, as seen through the leafless branches of the hedge, granite cenotaphs and enormous Victorian monuments bulked shapelessly against the bare sliver of a waning moon.
The church across the street was dark and silent; the houses up and down the block showed few lights, if any. There was no reason for anyone of this neighborhood to be out in the night.
So the young woman waiting beneath the lamp-post seemed that much more out-of-place.
Nor could she be considered a typical resident of this neighborhood by any stretch of the imagination—for one thing, she was young; perhaps in her mid-twenties, but no more. Her clothing was neat but casual, too casual for someone visiting an elderly relative. She wore dark, knee-high boots, old, soft jeans tucked into their tops, and a thin windbreaker open at the front to show a leotard beneath. Her attire was far too light to be any real protection against the bite of the wind, yet she seemed unaware of the cold. Her hair was long, down to her waist, and straight—in the uncertain light of the lamp it was an indeterminate shadow, and it fell down her back like a waterfall. Her eyes were large and oddly slanted, but not Oriental; catlike, rather. Even the way she held herself was feline; poised, expectant—a graceful tension like a dancer’s or a hunting predator’s. She was not watching for something—no, her eyes were unfocused with concentration. She was listening.