The Night Sheriff, page 27
When he speaks, there is defeat in his voice, but also a determination to go out with dignity. “I Am Xochemilchic. I Wished To Extend My Miserable Life, But I Have Failed. I Will Not Crawl, Nor Beg For Mercy. I Will Give Neither Excuses, Nor Spin Fanciful Might-Have-Beens. I Have Betrayed My Benefactor, And Thus Deserve No Mercy.” And then he dips his great head down and waits.
I reach out and find ancient fears so cold that I pull back and am surprised that a part of me does not snap off and remain behind. I glance at Vandy, and she is staring at him in wonder. She then looks at me, and nods, agreeing with the decision I had made before we came here. I take a breath, and we both go to one knee and bow our heads. I reach behind me and haul the body of the medical technician forward, tossing it before us. “I give thanks to the Great Serpent, whose actions have saved us, as well as so many others.”
Xochemilchic’s head snaps up in astonishment. I can feel him tentatively reach out and he feels the truth behind my words. “Are You People Loco? I Tried To Kill You.”
I shrug. “Because you interfered when and how you did, I did not die and the land was not claimed by the witch. If you had not done this, then the world would be a different and more terrible place.”
“But … I Did Not Intend …”
I smile. “We are all but tools in the hands of greater powers.”
Xochemilchic regards me for a moment, and then swings his head toward Vandy. “He Thinks He Is A Lot More Clever Than He Really Is.”
“And probably more merciful than he should be,” she replied tartly.
Xochemilchic recoils as if she had smacked him on the snout. “I Can See That I’m Going To Have To Be Careful Around You,” he mutters. “Let Us Start Again.”
He straightens up and his voice fills the temple. “In Recognition Of You Saving My Servant …” Servant? Wait. Does he mean me? That wretched reptile! “I Will Grant You … A Boon.”
A boon? Now I am doubly annoyed. I’d had to appear to truckle to him for over a decade before I’d earned a boon of his choosing—and that had simply been the ability to appreciate American jazz music.
Xochemilchic rises to his full height, and suddenly his eyes glow so brightly that Vandy is caught in the beams. “YOU WILL ALWAYS BE HAPPY WITH YOUR HAIR,” he roars. When he finishes, there is a final crash of thunder, and when the smoke clears, Xochemilchic, and the body of the technician, have vanished.
I turn to find Vandy staring at herself in a polished stone. Her hair looks fabulous. “Sorry about that,” I said. “I don’t think he really understands what people want any more.”
Vandy gingerly touches her hair and smiles. “That’s what you think, eh?” She shakes her head, and her hair flows gracefully from side to side. “I’m not surprised.”
We bring the remains of Polina to Cormangwöld. She often complains that people today tend to run to fat, which gives her indigestion. The witch’s remains, on the other hand, are rather gaunt, and should be a rare treat indeed. Vandy is scandalized at my affixing a cheap, gift shop princess hat onto the old witch’s corpse, but I was determined to keep the dragon in as good a mood as possible. When we enter, it was obvious that this would be an uphill battle.
Cormangwöld is still sitting upon her nest, but every few minutes, she levers herself to her feet and paces back and forth across the room, smoke billowing from her nose and mouth, before she realizes what she was doing and settles back down atop her eggs. The heap of books is still there, but large patches of them are shredded, and I cannot help but notice that the titles I see now consist mostly of militaristic space fantasy and police procedurals. Not a good sign.
When she becomes aware of us, her agitation seems to fade slightly, and she swings her long neck down to examine the two of us. Vandy is obviously awestruck, which seems to please her. “There are two of you now,” she says. “How interesting.” She then blows out a stream of flame. “The music has not yet returned.”
“I hope to have that rectified very soon. In fact, it’s my next stop.” I hold up Polina. “But in the meantime, I hope this will tide you over. This is the witch responsible for all the trouble.” I toss her at Cormangwöld’s feet. “I’ll let you examine her and figure out what she was planning.”
The dragon stares at the late witch and I can sense her calling forth her ability to examine mystical connections. Her breath hisses as she begins to see the scope of the late Polina’s plans.
“Someone,” she says slowly, as she lifts Polina up, “someone has been a very naughty little princess indeed.” Her tongue flickers around her jaws. “Oh, you want to be punished, you say?” Suddenly she freezes, and glances towards Vandy and myself. “If you’ll excuse us?”
Without another word, I snag Vandy’s arm and drag her out. We can hear the dragon purring, “Don’t act so surprised, Your Highness, you weren’t on any mercy mission this time …” The doors close behind us with a gentle boom.
Vandy stares at the door, then looks at me, an appalled expression upon her face. I raise my hands. “Even the fantastic occasionally need fantasies.”
She massages her brow. “So … this memory erase thing. Can I do that to myself?”
The subsequent discussion almost has the feel of old times and lasts until we come to the Happiness Machine. I knock but receive no reply. I knock harder and harder, until I am pounding upon the door. Eventually we simply break it down. Gremlins are lying about everywhere amongst shattered glassware and broken machinery. Initially I fear for the worst, but after examining a few of them, I realize that they are simply drunk out of their minds.
Eventually we find Punch-Press, almost completely submerged in a large tankard filled with a purple slurry that smells like beer that had been brewed from cat litter. I fish him out and spend several minutes slapping him against a table like a particularly inert lump of bread dough, until he finally cracks open an eye and looks up at us. “Hello, Old Tool. The hell are you still doin’ here? Come to celebrate?”
Bone Cat peers down at him. “Celebrate what?”
“The asshat in charge is dead. The Prognosticator sez that everything is going to be great!” He hiccupped. “Mostly.”
“Then I suppose that I have brought the perfect treat to the party.” I dump Zoiden on the floor. “May I present the aforementioned asshat, the ex-CEO of the Zenon Corporation.”
Punch-Press examines the body and gives a huge belch of approval. “Nice.” He yells to the other gremlins lying about, “Time to brew up another batch of Number Three Sweet!” A ragged chorus of cheers fills the room, but none of the little figures stir.
“So, what are you doing? When will the Happiness Machine be repaired?”
The Chief rolls his eyes. “There ain’t no rush. We been working on the deep down stuff first. I figure we’ll be back up in …” He shrugs. “A week. No more than two. Depends if we can get the parts.”
I think of Orsynn, expanding the scope of his taste for human flesh, of my own irritability, and of the dragon, sliding closer towards a murderous rage by the minute, and of the gremlins’ own unnatural inertia.
I lean in and give Punch-Press a look. “If you don’t have enough duplicate parts already squirreled away to rebuild this thing from scratch, then you’re no better than a gaggle of tinker fairies.” The entire room gasps in outrage. I poke him in the chest. “You have twenty-four hours.” I close my teeth with a snap less than an inch from his nose. “Or else.”
Every gremlin present screams in anguish. It sounds like a calliope being pushed down a set of stairs, and then every one of them leaps up and runs off yelling orders at one another. Even before we leave the room, the floor begins to vibrate, and we can hear the boom and roar of buried machines starting back up.
“Marvelous creatures,” I explain to Vandy as we head towards the exit. “But they work best under a deadline. The more impossible the deadline, the better they do. You will see. Tomorrow, we will return and—”
“You won’t.” We turn and there is an ancient gremlin.
“This is Lynch-Pin,” I explain. “The Matriarch here. She has chosen the onerous task of being this colony’s spiritual leader, denying herself the usual gremlin retirement.” When they get to a certain age and status, gremlins are sealed into a mechanism where they are allowed to do nothing else but perform simple, repetitive actions until they die. It’s their idea of paradise on earth. I try not to judge.
Lynch-Pin ignores Vandy, and stares at me intensely. “You will not be here, Old Tool.”
Her tone makes me shiver. A very unusual feeling. “Surely things have changed. The witch is dead, as is her son.”
She shrugs. “True. But we ran the Prognosticator this morning. Within twenty-four hours, you will be gone. Settle your affairs, Old Tool.”
Bone Cat steps up. “What’ll happen to me?”
Lynch-Pin stares at him and gently shrugs. “Like we care.”
We go outside while trying to ignore Lynch-Pin’s shrieking and Bone Cat’s roars. I ponder the immediate future and turn towards Vandy. “I think I’m going to be … gone soon.”
She looks wary. “I thought you couldn’t leave the park.”
“It is true that le monstre cannot leave Zenon property.” We both jump in surprise, and there is Celeste. She does not like to travel much at her age, but she has done so, and has not even taken the time to properly rest before coming to the park. She is in a wheelchair, which is a new development.
It is being pushed by her oldest granddaughter, Lunette, whom, I see, is visibly pregnant. Bone Cat skips out of the Happiness Machine, gives a whoop of greeting, and leaps into Celeste’s lap, where she strokes his earbones.
I bow. “Madame, may I present my …” I consider my words carefully. “My apprentice, Vandy. Vandy, this is Madame Celeste L’Enfant de Lune. She is the Moon Queen of New Orleans, and this is her granddaughter, Madame Lunette L’Enfant.”
Vandy stepped back. “I am not your apprentice.” She points to Celeste. “You’re the one who phoned me. How did you get my number?”
Celeste waves this question away as the triviality it is. She regards me through slitted eyes. “So, my friend. Do you know what you have done by killing this particular Grumbly Witch?”
I blink. Celeste is not being facetious. “What do you mean? Madam Urakhov was not the real Grumbly Witch. … Was she?”
Celeste shook her head. “There is always a Grumbly Witch loose in the world, though different people call it different things; a creature determined to precipitate an unnatural disaster for purely selfish ends. This time, it was simply your Madame Urakhov’s role, and she came terribly close to fulfilling it, and so, for a brief time, the Grumbly Witch was very real indeed.” Celeste sat back and gave a satisfied smile as she regarded me. “And you had no clue what you were a part of. Unbelievable.”
“He can’t even see Death,” Bone Cat said sleepily.
Celeste froze and regarded the thing in her lap with a touch more respect. “Unlike you? Do tell.” She looks back at me. “As far as her reality in the broader sense, well, let us just say that she is no longer as real as she was yesterday, and thus you have altered the future in a very positive way.”
Lunette looked at her askance. “Uh, yeah, that’s one way you could put it.” She looks like she is going to say more, but Celeste raised a boney finger and she stops.
“Well done.” Celeste continued, “And as a result, you are no longer required to be here. Your job is done.”
I feel a chill in the California night air. “What job? And are you saying you could have released me?”
She laughs. “Do you remember, mon ami, your first night here? I told you that I could see that you would be needed here?” She took a deep breath. “It has taken longer than I’d thought, but for the first time, I no longer feel that this is the case. You have done everything that you were required to do.”
I frown. “I don’t see how that changes my situation.”
She shrugs. “I was not lying when I said I could not undo your geas, and I was sincerely working towards that end. It was a very perplexing mystery, and I considered it a challenge.” She waved a hand. “If I had managed to free you, it would have been simple enough to beguile you into staying.”
“Oh, would it now?” I bristle—and suddenly realize that I am looming threateningly over an empty trashcan. I spin about and see Celeste blithely examining the tips of her fingers. She looks up at me and the corners of her mouth twitch upwards.
“Yes, I think so. Now as for your geas, I still cannot remove it, but it is finally time that I allow you to acknowledge that things have changed since you were first imprisoned here.”
“Changed? Like what?”
“A moment, if I may.” Celeste reaches into her sleeve and pulls out a small fetish, that has a thick bandage wound about its head. She begins to unwind it.
“You have to understand,” Lunette spoke up. She is clearly worried about something. “Everything we saw said that you had to be here in the park at the correct time, or else there would be a catastrophe.”
“But you’ve said that I couldn’t leave the park. What’s changed?”
Celeste removed the last of the wrapping, and I feel a new clarity of thought beginning to blossom inside my head.
“Simply the size and shape of the prison itself.” She turns to Vandy. “When he was captured here, sixty-some-odd years ago, this property was pretty much all there was to the Zenon empire, aside from an animation studio building. Today …?”
Vandy considered for a moment. “Well, as far as property goes—there’s Zenonland parks in Orlando, Osaka, Chartres, Istanbul, Xian, Wellington, and Brasilia, as well as the holiday resorts on Hawaii, Fiji, the Galapagos, Costa Rica, and McMurdo Sound. I’m not sure how many hotels, office buildings, and shopping complexes they currently own, but—” She paused and a surprised look crossed her face. “If your geas acts like a legal contract, I would’ve guessed he should be able to go to any of them.”
I am stunned. Vandy sees the look upon my face. She taps her head. “Prelaw, remember?”
“But how? If I cannot leave …”
Vandy looks at me in exasperation. “Did you ever try to leave aboard one of those Zenon buses that takes people to the airport? Or the hotels? I mean. The company owns those, right?”
They most certainly do. As well as airplanes, cruise ships, and fleets of auto-mobiles. I feel a rising tide of fury as I turn towards Celeste. She stares up at me, convinced that she is as secure as she was when she was ten. “Yes, I placed an enchantment upon your mind. Restricted your ability to see, and as a result, Zenonland was not sold and the people inside it are still their own masters. Judge me as you will.”
I stare at her for a timeless moment, and then abruptly sit down. “I don’t know where to go first.”
Celeste gives a faint sigh of relief, and then ostentatiously clears her throat. Wearing a relieved smile, Lunette pulls a small slip of paper from inside her jacket. “Through mysterious methods, that are not to be revealed to lesser mortals, I have come into possession of the name of a so-called sorceress in China, who titles herself the Empress of Blue Jade.
“She has often boasted that she could break any geas brought before her.” Both Celeste and Lunette sniff derisively in unison. “Wisely, she has not dared to come here to America in order to prove it, but if you went to her, I’m sure she would feel safe enough to try it.”
She raises a finger. “She will charge you a stiff price. Not an unfair price,” she admitted grudgingly, “but a stiff price nonetheless.” She then hands over the paper and I see a name, address, phone number, and email address, written in Celeste’s elegant handwriting.
“Please thank these mysterious methods on my behalf. I know that a pitiful creature such as myself dare not approach them, lest I be driven mad.”
“Damn straight,” Lunette said approvingly.
I face Vandy. “I know you don’t want to be near me, and I accept that. But you should listen to me. Stay here. Zenonland will still need a protector, especially when it gets out that I am gone. Plus, there are people here who can help you. Teach you. I know I can’t force you …”
Vandy raises a hand. Her eyes are shining with excitement. “Do you really think they’d let me become the new Sheriff of Zenonland?”
I mentally switch gears. “The job comes with its own office.”
Later, while Lunette and Vandy are off talking, about hair from what little snippets I overhear, I sit with Celeste, who is leaning back in her chair, eyes closed, slowly stroking Bone Cat, the picture of comfort. I have finished recounting everything that happened over the last few days.
Celeste listened quietly for the most part, though she did ask many questions about some of the things Polina did and said, insisting that I repeat them word for word. After I am done, the silence grows. It was a companionable silence, but there are things that have to be cleared up.
“I don’t understand why the Gremlin’s Prognosticator didn’t warn us that this was about to happen.”
“Their machine did what it was supposed to do. There was death, there was change, you will be leaving the park. They do not care about the greater scope. Your Madam Urakhov was a remarkable creature,” Celeste replied. “Even the threat of a Dire Contract of this magnitude, it should have caused any magic user in North America with a touch of clairvoyance to wake up screaming. But she had constructed a sort of false future memory. I don’t want to think about where she harvested the power to do that. It would have soothed the human seers, but a machine wouldn’t have been fooled.”
At least I could reassure the Gremlins that their devices were still functioning. I examined Celeste, and a realization came over me. “You’ll be leaving soon.”
It says much about our relationship that Celeste knows what I’m talking about. She nods. “Oh, yes. This body has had to endure for far longer than I had thought it would.” She looks over at Lunette, who is examining Vandy’s palm. “Children are waiting longer before they have children themselves,” she said approvingly. “But I already feel some of my memories beginning to drift into their new home.” She grins in satisfaction. “My next incarnation will be very powerful indeed.” She taps the top of Bone Cat’s head. “Prenatal vitamins. That’s the secret.” She looks at me. “Now let us talk about your problems, my friend.”
