Deadly Violet - 04 (12 page)

Lauren took in her surroundings. As she’d expected, they were rather pokey and in slight need of repair. But then, so was her apartment on the edge of Boston Chinatown. The place was untidy but essentially clean, which told her Cassie kept her housework to the necessary minimum, the same way she did.

The door closed behind them, shutting off the freezing draft.

“Have you ever …?” Lauren asked her.

“That? With Ross?” Cass shrugged off her jacket, and then went to a panel and switched on the heating. “I’ve thought about it sometimes, sure. But we respect each other too much. And bumping body parts, it would be …” Her nose wrinkled. “Inappropriate. Not to mention weird.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Lauren grinned. “I’m sure he’s attracted to me.”

“Yeah, he is.”

Which took her slightly aback.

“Oh?”

“But mostly because you remind him of his wife. You look exactly like her.”

“Oh,” Lauren repeated, rather more disconsolately. Then she thought the matter through. “She’s been gone for more than two years, hasn’t she? And he’s never … in all that time? Isn’t that a little odd?”

“I’m pretty certain there was one occasion,” Cassie told her. “Some kooky, yellow-haired hippie type. The guy’s only human. It was just a one-night stand.”

“Grounds for hope, though.”

“Depends what you’re hoping for,” was Cassie’s response. “If I were you, I’d avoid making any long-term plans. Ross is a straight arrow, and he wants his family back.”

They chatted for a while more. And then Cassie glanced at her watch, noted the late hour, and yawned and stretched.

“I’m beat. And you must be too. Thanks again for helping out.”

“Stop that.”

“You take my bed. It’s through there,” Cass said, pointing.

“Seriously?” Lauren asked.

“I’ll take Kevin’s. I don’t mind.”

She was referring to her eldest son’s, and went off through into a room filled with model airplanes and posters of jet fighters.

She called out “Night.” And then there was the creaking of springs. Then utter silence.

“Cassie?” Lauren whispered.

She stuck her head around the doorway. Cass had curled up, fully clothed, on a bed far too small for her and gone dead to the world immediately.

How could anybody fall asleep so fast with all this going on? Lauren peered at her, bewildered. And then
– tired but very much awake – went through to the living room. She pushed a light switch, but the dimmer was turned down, the bulb only glowing weakly.

But she saw next second she was not alone. There was someone else here, standing in the room’s far corner.

Lauren jumped. Then jumped a second time when she realized that he was merely a faint silhouette. A tall and handsome man, about her age, with fair, shoulder-length hair.

What was he, some kind of phantom?

The apparition glanced at her surprisedly. Said, “Oh. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Then it disappeared. And thankfully, did not come back.

Lauren slumped against a wall, her heart pounding double-rhythm. Whatever that had been, it appeared to be harmless.

And besides, this was her own stupid fault, wasn’t it?

No one had
forced
her to spend another night in this place.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Still wide awake an hour after that, Woodard Raine paced through the corridors of his enormous mansion. The entire place was pitch-dark, as usual. There were certain things he had come not to trust. Electricity. Cell phones. Firearms. Other people’s magic. And wide open spaces most of all. Oh yes, those especially.

It was called being ‘agoraphobic,’ and was supposed to be a sickness, but Raine didn’t see it entirely that way. He had everything in this house, physically, that he needed. And if he wanted anything more, why then, he could simply conjure it up, or send Hampton to fetch it.

He was unbothered by the lack of light. His huge golden eyes made sure of that. His poor manservant had to make his way around by means of lamps and candles, but Raine wasn’t encumbered in the slightest. And as for sleeping, time meant very little to him. He simply grabbed a few hours shuteye whenever he felt the need. He didn’t even use the house’s numerous bedrooms any longer. Just suspended himself horizontally in mid-air, and picked up forty winks like that.

It was far more comfortable than a mattress. More people should try it.

Antique furniture went by him, huge porcelain vases. There were old oil paintings and antique weapons on the walls. Occasionally, he’d pass by something he’d created. A medium-sized sculpture of a centaur, for instance. It looked like it was made from ice, but was actually static water, held in place by a spell he’d cast. And he was very proud of it.

He came, at last, to a room chock full of statuary. Marble figures stared at him, and motionless gray horses reared. When his parents had been alive, most of this stuff had been dotted around the manor’s extensive gardens. But Raine had decided it looked much better in here.

A huge bay window gave a fine view out across the grounds. Woodard picked his way over to it before stopping, lost in thought. The moon was out. In its light, with snow covering everything, it was practically as bright as day out there. You could see in clear outline the tangled jungle that his gardens had become. He thought he caught a glimpse of something doglike moving through the undergrowth. Heaven only knew what that might be
– there were so many strange creatures roaming around his grounds.

Then Woodard lifted his gaze to the stars.

He had a secret. Only Hampton knew it. For the past few months – since the summer, in fact – there’d been occasions when the inside of this house, to tell the truth, had left him slightly weary on a deep down level. Sure, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t get. But he was quite a spiritual type of man, and there were times when material stuff was not enough.

True, he could reach out with his senses, find out what was happening in the rest of town. But that was living life vicariously, wasn’t it? There needed to be something better.

And a while back, he’d found the solution. People didn’t know this, but he sometimes liked to read. The house had its own massive library, mostly compiled by his father and grandfather. And, perusing a novel by Jack London, he had come across mention of a phenomenon called ‘astral projection.’

It involved separating your conscious spirit from your body and then launching it out through the heavens. And had sounded so intriguing that he’d decided to have a go.

And, good gravy, it had worked! He’d been nervous initially. But freed from the shackles of his bodily form, his agoraphobia had vanished as though by – well – as though by magic. His spirit had been liberated as it soared.

So far, he had made a dozen trips. He’d visited the Moon, and found, to his bemusement, some golf balls and an American flag up there. Good Lord, had Arnold Palmer beaten him to it?

He’d ridden on an asteroid, and skated across the icy rings of Saturn. He had stood on Callisto and stared old man Jupiter in his big red eye. And sometime soon, he might attempt to venture further. To another planetary system maybe, or perhaps another galaxy. The journeys didn’t tire him, and there appeared to be no limits.

He thought of doing it again right now. But there was something plucking at his conscience, stopping him from going that route. He struggled with his memory
– which was always hazy – trying to think what it might be.

Ah yes. The town was still in trouble. Something about reality threatening to collapse. But then, what
was
reality anyway? He wasn’t wholly sure.

So he was worrying about plain nothing, really. It was better to leave such concerns to more prosaic types. He smiled broadly, and then prepared to hurl himself into the firmament again.

Something in the corner of his vision stopped him short. The landscape off in that direction had abruptly changed from white to purple. When he dropped his gaze, he could see that another of those blasted mauve holes had shown up in mid-air, just short of the tangled forest.

It looked to be big enough to drive a truck through, and its edges were wavering and shifting constantly. But nothing came out of it. It simply hung there, no more than a hundred yards away.

Woodard stared at it intently. How precisely to regard it? As an opening to a different dimension, he supposed.

And then the notion struck him, with the force of a hard blow.

A few seconds back, his intention had been to fling himself into the ether and visit some distant planet. But the opportunity that he was now being given was
far
more spectacular.

He could explore a different universe!

Oh my word, how absolutely splendid. He would curse himself forever if he didn’t take this chance. And so he threw his consciousness toward it.

He had never realized purple had so many different shades. They ranged from the most delicate mauve to a hue approaching black. And there was no other kind of color, anywhere that his eyes went.

This universe was nothing in the slightest like his own. There were no solar systems, and no vacuums yawning in between them. Everything was solid, every available space filled up with purple matter. And you traversed it by means of a giant honeycomb of intersecting tunnels, which appeared to go on forever, and possibly did.

And there seemed to be no up or down into the bargain. As Raine progressed – simply drifting along in a disembodied way – the openings to fresh tunnels came into view, not only to either side but above and below him too. A few creatures like bloated spiders scuttled by, and they were walking upside down. How curious. Gravity here looked like it was pulling in every which direction.

Some of the passageways were crooked. Others were perfectly straight, running away from him into infinity. Raine had never dreamed that such a place existed.

But where were the real inhabitants? Those spiders hadn’t looked particularly smart. Some living dots of violet light went humming past, followed by something considerably larger, a creature with a massive head and clattering circles of rotating teeth.

“Hello?” he tried. “Nice doggie?”

But he had no mouth, so not the slightest sound came out. The beast moved away from him obliviously and disappeared around a corner.

Maybe there was nothing else in this place? But then he heard a noise. It was coming from a long, wide tunnel directly above him. And he thought at first that it was hurried footsteps, but it wasn’t that.

It sounded more like liquid, bubbling furiously. Woodard headed up to take a closer look.

He found himself in an enormous rounded chamber. At the center of the floor, there was a pool of viscid liquid, the surface of which
– he’d been right – was churning and frothing angrily. It was surrounded by some three dozen figures who looked only very distantly like men. They had bald, ugly, chunky heads with rounded eyes, and hunched bodies with brittle-looking limbs. The purple color of their skins kept on altering and flowing. Some of them had proper arms, others had tentacles, and a few had swathes of fine violet filaments sprouting from their shoulders.

They were chattering quietly amongst themselves, although in no language Woodard recognized. And were engaged in the most peculiar activity he’d ever come across.

The ones nearest the pool were lifting out bubbles, turning them over, and then repositioning them. That made no sense in the least. The bubbles were returning to the general froth, vanishing the second that they were set down. So why bother moving them in the first place?

These creatures were being extremely serious about it, though. Every time they moved some shining globes around, they’d pause intently
– waiting for something to happen – converse, and then try again.

But then they stopped abruptly, all of them at the same time. Had something gone wrong? Raine wondered.

The heads of the entire gathering swung in his direction, their button-like eyes glimmering with alarm. They couldn’t possibly see him – he was invisible. But these beings had sensed his presence.

They didn’t give off any kind of hostile air. And even if they were that thing, he doubted they could harm him in this formless state.

Woodard faltered, and then hailed them with the loud thought, “Greetings, my new chums!”

Several heads twitched.

And then they began answering him, their voices ringing through his mind.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Devries?”

I thought that somebody was talking to me in my dream. And couldn’t understand why my missing family should refer to me by my surname. It didn’t sound like any of their voices. So I responded by burying my head as deeply as I could under my pillow.

“Devries? I need to speak with you.”

The pillow obviously wasn’t thick enough, and so I folded both my arms across it.

“For heaven’s sake, wake up, sport!”

Woody?

I came smartly back to alertness, sitting bolt upright. Woodard Raine’s outline was stood at the foot of my bed, with its eyes glowing. Night still had everything in its dimly moonlit grip. And when I looked across at my alarm clock, it was barely gone four. Which meant I’d had precisely two hours’ sleep.

I dragged a wrist across my eyes.

“Jesus, how did you get in here?” I asked him. And then something else occurred to me. “What are you doing out of your mansion?”

“I’m not,” he replied. “But I’ve acquired the ability to project an image of myself.”

He what?
My sleep-deprived brain fought to take in what he’d said. Previously, Raine had only been able to project his voice. And so this was a big step up. He had gone – in terms of sorcery – from radio to television.

And sure enough, when I studied him more closely, it turned out that his shape was partially translucent. I could make out the outline of my bedroom window through his body. The real Woodard Raine was most probably standing in the darkened ballroom of his mansion. Which didn’t change the fact this was the first time he had ever visited my home.

“Okay,” I groaned, giving in to the reality – if you could call it that – of the situation. “What brings you here?”

“I’ve something very urgent to convey.”

In real, practical terms, or only his? But since he’d gone to all this trouble. I couldn’t see the harm in letting him tell me what he thought was up.

“You’ve got my full attention. Go ahead.”

“Ah, no. This is not only for your benefit, Devries. I need to inform everyone concerned.”

I thought I saw him flash a smile, and then his forearms started rising.

“Tell you what,” he suggested. “I’ll bring them here.”

The same way he had last time, when he’d conjured everyone into Raine Manor in one massive flash? I lurched at him urgently.

“No, Woody! Don’t do that! Everyone’s asleep. You’ll scare them half to death.”

Besides which, I had no particular desire to find out what my friends wore when they went to bed. And I explained that to him too.

He muttered, “Ah,” again.

Half a minute later I was getting on the phone and waking everybody up. There are times when magic simply isn’t the best course to take.

They were gathered in my living room in less than an hour. And had come here by whatever means they could, the adepts simply blurring in, the others using vehicles. And there weren’t enough chairs, so several of them perched and hovered, making do.

Cass and Lauren. Willets and Martha. Saul Hobart, who Lauren greeted with a long, deep hug. And Judge Levin too.

The latter couldn’t be much use under the circumstances, but the major adepts of Sycamore Hill would be mightily offended if we left them out of this. They don’t take overly kindly to being ignored.

Washed-out faces peered back at me. Marbled eyeballs, red-rimmed and gummy. None of us are dairy farmers, and we don’t appreciate being roused at four o’ clock on a December morning. Cass looked like she wanted to just crawl into a hole, and the judge was rubbing at the silvery stubble on his chin.

Woody
– or at least his image – waited until we were settled down. Revealed in the harsh flush of electric lighting, he had the leaf-shaped ears that were the hallmark of his family, but otherwise looked unremarkable. He was thin, and a little on the short side too. His shoulders were stooped, his hair untidy. If you’d walked into the room and didn’t know him, you would take him for an office clerk. The only things that made him look impressive were those massive golden eyes of his. Which didn’t mean he had no ego.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “I’ve something to convey to you. This very night, I visited the far side,”

I nearly groaned again. He’d brought everybody here to announce that he had gotten into spiritualism? But the man continued at the same insistent rate.

“I mean, I’ve been into the other universe
– the one that keeps on trying to swallow up our own.”

Every single head came up.

“How did you get there?” I asked him. “Walk?”

“No. Don’t be ridiculous. But the important thing is this. I’ve communicated with its people. They’re an interesting bunch, and call themselves the Oon. Now, what does such a curious name convey to you?”

An echoing silence fell across the room. Then guess who broke it?

“They rhyme with moon, spoon, and June?” Cassie suggested.

Raine threw her a puzzled glance, not getting the fact that she was being sarcastic.

“No, that’s not it. Can anyone do better?”

He was behaving like a breezy supply teacher on his first day at a grade school. So I lost my patience round about then, and told him to get to the point. It’s a tactic that sometimes works with Woody, and it did on this occasion.

“They’re vaguely humanoid, but not too much like us. They think entirely differently. They can convey whole concepts and emotions with a single word, and use telepathy when it is needed.”

He paused.

“They are, in their own way, a highly scientific race, and mean us no slightest harm. Those few people they’ve taken
– Vallencourt’s wife and the rest – they took them to examine them. All of them are perfectly safe, and will be returned to us in due course. As for the predicament that we currently find ourselves in … well, the Oon might turn out to be our salvation.”

The people in my living room had certainly woken up a good deal in the last thirty odd seconds.

“How’s that?” Willets asked.

“They have in their possession an extremely advanced technology which is based upon, of all things, bubbles.”

Based on what now? I hoped to God he hadn’t wigged out and was fantasizing this.

“And they are currently putting the final touches to a machine that ought to mend the wall between our worlds,” he continued.

Everyone went quiet again. This was something no one had foreseen. And something pleasant, for a change. A couple of us cleared our throats.

And then Judge Levin asked, “How close are they to achieving this?”

“Merely a few hours off, if you can believe them, which I do,” Woody beamed back at him.

I wasn’t sure how anyone else felt, but every muscle in my body slumped. We had parted from each other’s company believing there was very little we could do to stop this happening. And now, a light was shining fairly brightly at the far end of the tunnel.

“How can you be sure of that?” was my next question.

“They appear to be incapable of lying. It’s not in their nature. So I’d say that, from our point of view, the matter’s almost solved.”

Which was very good to hear. But left us with the problem, what should we do now?

I stared round at the others. Every single one of us was wide-awake. And the chances of us going back to sleep were in the low percentiles. So we might as well keep ourselves busy, while this whole business was being fixed.

I suggested we split into groups and make a final patrol of the town, keeping a close eye on things until the Oons’ machine could do its stuff.

Saul and Levin nodded. And Martha added, “I don’t see why not.”

Woody’s image disappeared. The rest of us started to filter outside and pair up. At which point, I managed to catch Hobart by the elbow and draw him carefully to one side, where the others could not hear us.

“What’s up, Ross?” he asked me, puzzled.

I stared hard into his eyes.

“I noticed what happened when you first saw Lauren.”

His cheeks flushed slightly and he looked defensive.

“Nothing happened. What are you talking about?”

“It looked to me, the first time you set eyes on her, as if you didn’t recognize her.”

Which was when an awkward grin sprang up on his big face.

“That’s nonsense,” he insisted.

“No, it’s not. You
figured out
who she was after a short while had passed. You didn’t know her automatically.”

His fixed grin stayed in place, but he was fighting to maintain it. So I studied his eyes for a few seconds more, then threw in the real question I was working at.

“How much of your memory
did
you get back after the coma?”

His features slumped to an embarrassed frown.

“Practically none of it,” he finally admitted. “I’ve been picking stuff up as I go along. Amelia’s been tutoring me nearly every single day, which is how I knew who Lauren was.”

I hadn’t been expecting any answer quite like that, and I felt flabbergasted.

“You’ve had to relearn your entire life?”

“But there’s an upside to that,” he told me. “I’ve got to know my wife and kids again, and find out why I loved them in the first place.” His smile returned, and it wasn’t nearly so uncomfortable this time. “Not many guys get to do that twice. I’d say that that makes me a very lucky man.”

I was frozen for a moment, then smiled back at the lieutenant. Boy, the top cop in our town was chock full of surprises these days, wasn’t he?

When I glanced over at the others, Cassie had teamed up with Lauren, and Willets with Martha.

“Stick with the judge,” I advised Saul. “He’s not so used to being on the front line.”

“You’re gonna be patrolling on your own?” Saul asked.

“You heard Woods. The problem’s nearly solved.”

At least, I hoped it was.