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"Not this time," I answered quietly. Letting Jesus Cordero have a chance to
beat apsychia wasn't as big a thing as thwarting the Chumash Powers or keeping
Huitzilopochtli and his fiery friend from establishing themselves in Angels
City, but it felt just as good. Maybe better as Susan Kuznetsov had said, this
was personal.
I only wished the rest of my personal worries were doing as well. No word of
Judy, none at all.
To keep myself from thinking of that and what it might mean, I plunged into
the environmental impact report on what importing leprechauns into Angels City
was liable to do to the local thecology. I made more progress in an hour and a
half than I had in the past two weeks. No wonder now I could make my
prognostications secure in the knowledge that the Wee Folk weren't going to
have any adverse effect on the Chumash Powers. I'd taken care of that myself,
in spades.
Eventually, I supposed, I'd get around to feeling bad about siccing the Garuda
Bird on them. An EPA
man, after all, is supposed to protect endangered Powers, not exterminate
them. From their point of view, I couldn't really blame the Lizard and the
Great (but not Great enough) Eagle and the rest for wanting to overturn the
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balance of Powers and twist things back to the way they'd been before the
first
Europeans touched the New World.
But, along with a couple of hundred million other people, I live in the world
that's sprung from the
European expansion. And, as Michael Manstein said, we'd done more and better
with this land than its original inhabitants would have in the same length of
time. So while I figured I'd eventually get round to feeling bad, it wouldn't
be any time real soon.
Speaking of Michael, he poked his head into my office about then. I'm going
home now," he said
"Perhaps you should do the same." He clearly wasn't used to me working longer
hours than he did.
He was right I went home. I ate something (don't ask me what), then went to
bed Worries or no, I slept almost as soundly as if I'd been in Ephesus: the
aftermath of nearly dying a couple of times during the course of a day. If my
alarm clock hadn't screamed me awake, I might be snoring yet.
No sooner had I got to the office than the phone started yelling. I came this
close to knocking over my cup of cafeteria coffee grabbing for it
"Environmental Perfection Agency, David Fisher."
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"Inspector Fisher, this is Legate Shiro Kawaguchi, Angels City Constabulary
Department." Kawaguchi spoke as if he were introducing himself for the first
time. "Inspector Fisher, interrogation of the suspect
Jorge Vasquez has led us to your fiancée, Mistress Judith Adler."
I let out a whoop that rattled my windows. That s wonderful, Legate! When can
I see her?" He didn't answer right away. My joy crashed into dread. "Is
she all right?"
"Unfortunately, Inspector Fisher, I must tell you she is not," Kawaguchi
answered "You will perhaps remember that an Aztecian Power, variously called
the Crackler, the Page, and the One Called Night, was involved in the
abduction of Mistress Adler."
"Yes, of course," I said.
"From what our forensics man has to say, Inspector, it appears that the One
Called Night, to use the name with which you appear to be most familiar, has
carried Mistress Adler s spirit into the realm known as the Nine Beyonds. We
have recovered her body. She appears to be physically unharmed; she will eat
or drink if food or water is placed in her mouth. But as for anything more
than that& I'm very sorry, Inspector Fisher, but at present it is just not
there."
"What do we do, then?" I asked hoarsely.
"Our preliminary and tentative thaumaturgic efforts to restore her to herself
have failed; she does not seem as responsive to certain rituals as we had
hoped." Kawaguchi paused. "I believe you are Jewish. Is
Mistress Adler, also?"
"Yes."
That may account for part of it, then. Most rituals designed to counter the
Crackler assume a Catholic victim, and would be less efficacious in rescuing
one from a different faith. While we continue to do our utmost, I suggest you
also pursue every flyway that occurs to you. Otherwise, Inspector, I can offer
no guarantee that Mistress Adler's body and spirit will ever be reunited."
Chapter Eleven
I took my troubles down to Madame Ruth you know, that medium with the
gold-capped tooth. She had an office down on 34th and Vine. I hoped she could
help with a problem like mine. When Erasmus had been so dreadfully hurt as the
Thomas Brothers monastery was torched, she and Nigel
Cholmondeley managed to access him where everyone else had failed. I was
praying she'd be able to do the same for Judy.
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In her green silk dress and the matching scarf she used to cover her hair, she
put me in mind of nothing so much as an enormous watermelon wearing too much
makeup. But her looks didn't matter, not to me they didn't She and her English
partner were the local experts on virtuous reality, and from what I'd seen of
the technique, I figured it offered the best chance of rescuing Judy's spirit
and bringing it back to This
Side where it belonged.
Madame Ruth heard me out, then slowly shook her head back and forth. dunno,
Inspector Fisher," she
I
said This ain't gonna be as easy as gettin' hold of what's-his-name, the
scriptorium spirit, was. You don't just wanna access your fiancée s spirit,
you wanna download it, too. That's one fresh problem."
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"If you say that's one, you mean there are more," I said. "What are they?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]